Quiz Show (1994)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Quiz Show (1994) – R. Redford

Have I over-rated this film? I think not.  As a morality play, set in the early days of television as a growing mass-medium, it interrogates the psychology of its characters, the contestants’ motivations (and rationalisations) for accepting the offer to cheat (on the game show Twenty-One), as well as the producers’ greed and anti-Semitism.  The tension created by director Robert Redford (rest in peace) is real, as federal investigator Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) starts honing in on the deception, aided by a developing relationship with Charlie Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) supported by their shared Ivy League backgrounds (Harvard for Goodwin – with Morrow sporting a terrible Boston accent; Columbia for Van Doren, son of noted poet Mark Van Doren).  Van Doren famously beat Jewish Herbie Stempel (John Turturro), purportedly because the producers (and sponsor Geritol, headed by Martin Scorsese) wanted a more attractive WASPish winner.  Did Redford take notes while acting in All the President’s Men? This film does not reach the dynamic heights of that thriller but the structure feels similar. Reflecting back on this time in the early ‘90s, it is hard to remember that Fiennes was just fresh from his triumph in Schindler’s List, Morrow was a TV star (Northern Exposure) seeking to make the leap to the big screen (unsuccessfully), and Turturro was already an established character actor (for Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers). It seems like a lifetime ago – and the quiz show scandal seems like ancient history, though I recall watching The Joker’s Wild as a child, not realising it was host Jack Barry’s comeback after a decade in the wilderness following the scandal of Twenty-One.  Engrossing.  

 

Aftersun (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Aftersun (2022) – C. Wells

After all its great reviews (which I didn’t read), I’m not sure why I shied away from Aftersun for so long.  I guess it seemed like a heartwarming father-daughter bonding story -- and I didn’t think I needed that (but see Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, 2025, where I got that and I liked it!).  In fact, this is a Scottish father-daughter bonding story and perhaps that makes a difference. It feels more authentic than what I expected an American or Hollywood version would be like.  But more importantly, this is a mood-piece (and/or a moody piece) where we’re somewhere in the future looking back on the events, years later, viewing young dad Callum (Paul Mescal) partly through the eyes of 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and partly through adult Sophie’s eyes (but we spend only a blip of time in this present tense). Young Sophie is always watching – her dad, but also the teenagers around them at the Turkish resort town where they are holidaying. We see her observing adult things, but it isn’t quite clear how much she understands or whether she fully grasps what we as viewers can plainly see – Callum is struggling, perhaps from his divorce, perhaps for other reasons. Writer-Director Charlotte Wells (whose debut feature film this is) shows us Callum on his own, in other scenes to which Sophie is not privy, that fill in some gaps, emotional gaps, if not factual ones.  Knowing that the film is somewhat autobiographical privileges Sophie’s viewpoint and lets us understand that the director is reconstructing what she could have or should have seen, in hindsight years later.  We never know what happened next for Callum but what we do get to see, in these casual, naturalistic, real-feeling moments between father and daughter, is deeply affecting, precipitating a gentle flow of thoughts and reflections about childhood, parenthood, and how to cope in this world.  Very moving.

One Battle After Another (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

One Battle After Another (2025) – P. T. Anderson

Time may not exist very clearly in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest (and greatest?) film, which begins in an era where Weather Underground-styled activists are attacking the authoritarian and anti-immigration actions of the current US government and then fast-forwards 16 years to another timepoint where, uh, not much has changed, except the revolutionaries have aged and the authoritarians have tightened their grip.  Sounds serious (and topical) but this is a comedy … and an action film, complete with car chases.  In fact, the film script (also by P. T. Anderson but indebted to Pynchon) had been gestating for 20 years, starting with Anderson’s desire to extend his range with those car chases.  That he does.  However, the comic-book broadness of the characters here (specifically Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven J Lockjaw and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson) doesn’t feel too far afield from Anderson’s other Pynchon adaptation, Inherent Vice (2014), with a similar goofy vibe. But One Battle After Another is Anderson at the top of his powers and fearless in his willingness to “go there”. Surprisingly, this may also be Leo’s greatest performance ever – and certainly his funniest – as he bumbles his way through the action as a past-his-prime substance-addled/depleted former rebel, now paranoid stay-at-home single dad to Chase Infiniti’s mixed-race teenager, who both get dumped into a neo-Nazi operation to cleanse America.  Benicio del Toro plays a welcome role as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, a karate instructor who helps Bob out. Indeed, there are a variety of excellent character turns here from faces familiar and not (Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, Eric Schweig, more) that heighten the kaleidoscopic experience which still, in the end, stacks up as an action movie/thriller with a not-so-disguised political theme (and call to action). Highly recommended!