Film Talk: Time-bending fun with My Old Ass and the return of Hellboy
Excitement over the Joker’s return next week is palpable - but first, another comic-book legend is gracing us with his devilish presence.
Joaquin Phoenix’s reprisal of the role of the Clown Prince of Crime in Joker: Folie à Deux will mark the arrival of possibly the most hotly-anticipated flick of the year, yet before those trademark winklepickers are once again filled, it’s time for a certain big red ruffian to steal the cinematic spotlight.
The fourth instalment in a franchise dating back to 2004, Hellboy: The Crooked Man will see Jack Kesy step into the shoes of the titular demonic do-gooder, following in the mighty footprints of David Harbour and Ron Perlman before him.
Ok, we know that Hellboy has never been one to cause as much of a silver-screen stir as Batman’s arch-nemesis, but with summer blockbuster season out of the way, it is actually nice to be getting a double comic-book fix over a single fortnight. Roll on the autumn supes, true believers...
For those many film fans however who prefer not to wear their pants on the outside and keep their capes ‘Canaveral’, this week is delivering on the deeper drama. Starring the ever-fantastic Saoirse Ronan, Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun puts the American-Irish girl wonder in the shoes of an alcoholic looking to recover from her addiction through a journey home to Scotland. Based on the lauded memoir by Amy Liptrot, this one is certainly making a play for hard-hitter of the week, and is sure to incite the curiosity of many a movie-goer.
Yet, in our top spot this week, we’re revelling in a bit of time-travel tenderness with Canadian starlet Maisy Stella’s feature film debut.
Directed by Megan Park, My Old Ass put’s Stella’s 18-year-old protagonist opposite her 39-year-old self, and repercussions soon ensue.
Ready? Time to dive in...
MY OLD ASS (UK 15/ROI 15A TBC, 89 mins)
Released: September 27 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)
Nothing bad ever happens on shrooms. So says the 18-year-old protagonist of writer-director Megan Park’s terrific time-bending comedy drama shortly before she sips a heady infusion, the fungi’s psilocybin compound kicks in and she hallucinates a touching fireside encounter with her future self.
What earth-shattering, destiny-shifting questions might tumble from gob-smacked lips in such a situation?
Park’s generously warm-hearted script opts for a couple of obvious concerns then deviates from expectations, eliciting moving and utterly believable performances from Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza as present and future iterations of the same multi-faceted and flawed soul.
My Old Ass doesn’t tie itself, or us, in narrative knots by seeking an ingenious and vaguely plausible explanation for a temporal anomaly that allows an unremarkable person to cosily cohabit with themself and share information that could cause sizable ripples.
About Time and 30 Going On 30 traversed similar territory and Parks casually presents her fanciful conceit then focuses intently on getting to know the characters and their connective emotional tissue rather than bamboozling us with science.
She enthusiastically preaches well-thumbed life lessons about cherishing the time we have with those we love, and fully embraces the film’s unabashedly crowd-pleasing flourishes such as a hallucinogenic ode to Justin Bieber that is truly joyful.
Eighteen-year-old Elliott (Stella) has just three weeks left of the summer before she leaves her Canadian lakeside town for university and bids farewell to her family and best friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler).
She is excited to escape the annual harvest of cranberries on the family farm run by her parents Tom (Alain Goulem) and Kathy (Maria Dizzia), and fleeting rivalries with younger brothers Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo).
During an overnight camping expedition with her gal pals, Elliott drinks tea made from magic mushrooms.
Ro dances wildly and howls at the moon, Ruthie snuggles floppy-eared local wildlife and Elliott is stunned by a stranger (Plaza) sitting next to her on a log by the fire.
“I’m 39-year-old you… what’s up?!” smiles older Elliott.
Once identities are confirmed, young Elliott winkles titbits out of her future self, including advice about summer worker Chad (Percy Hynes White) that could impact the 18-year-old’s relationship with girlfriend Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera).
Taking its title from older Elliott’s affectionate nickname, My Old Ass surfs a wave of nostalgia for precious moments before the fear of failure or loss stifles the reckless abandon of youth.
Plaza makes an indelible impact with surprisingly little screen time – one silent hug is particularly gut-wrenching – but Stella carries the picture and she is fearless during a challenging final stretch of abrupt shifts of tone. Composer Jaco Caraco’s score, with additional music by Tyler Hilton, echoes the dramatic swells.
Winning in life isn’t about having all the answers.
THE OUTRUN (UK 15/ROI 15A, 118 mins)
Released: September 27 (UK & Ireland)
In the unflinching 2015 memoir The Outrun, about her recovery from addiction on her childhood home of the Orkney Islands, off the north-eastern coast of Scotland, Amy Liptrot draws parallels between the rugged and unforgiving Orcadian landscape and her rehabilitation.
In one section, she likens herself to a jellyfish stranded on rocks at the mercy of the unrelenting elements.
“I was washed up: no longer buoyant, battered and storm-tossed,” she poetically relates.
Director Nora Fingscheidt’s austere dramatisation of Liptrot’s work, co-written by the German filmmaker and the Scottish author, was filmed on location in Orkney and treats the islands as a silent yet powerful supporting cast member.
Cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer captures dramatic topography where sheep outnumber people to completely immerse us in 5,000 years of history dating back to the Neolithic period, cloaked in folklore and superstition.
You can almost feel salt spray spatter off the screen as waves crash angrily against sentry-like cliffs and whipcracks of freezing air send shivers through expanses of wild grass.
This vibrant backdrop frames a formidable central performance from Saoirse Ronan as Liptrot’s fictionalised alter ego. “I can’t be happy sober,” she laments after she hits rock bottom and rediscovers tattered shreds of herself on the 12-step programme.
Free-spirit Rona (Ronan) is clinging on to her late 20s with grim determination.
She continues her biology studies in London where the siren song of late-night drinks and revelry with concerned boyfriend Daynin (Paapa Essiedu) invariably end in alcohol-fuelled rage, embarrassment and aching regret.
Rona’s self-destructive behaviour sounds a death knell for the relationship and she wearily enters rehab to face her demons.
She celebrates 117 days sober by returning home to Orkney to take a solitary job monitoring the local population of endangered corncrakes on behalf of an ornithological preservation society.
Rona wages daily battles with addiction, attends a local support group and risks opening old wounds by reconnecting with her deeply religious mother Annie (Saskia Reeves) and bipolar father Andrew (Stephen Dillane).
Far from the temptations of London, Rona sombrely accepts that she may not leave the wind-battered archipelago the same way that she arrived, by boat: “If you go mad in Orkney, they just fly you out…”
The Outrun is dominated by Ronan’s no-holds-barred portrayal of a young woman choking and spluttering in the vice-like grip of alcohol dependency.
Her screams of anguish compete with the roars of untameable Mother Nature on Orkney and we root for small victories in a lifelong battle.
Joy is fleeting in Fingscheidt’s grimly compelling picture and the two-hour running time does not pass by quickly as cycles of misery and intoxicated oblivion repeat.
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN (UK 15/ROI 16, 99 mins)
Released: September 27 (UK & Ireland)
Twenty years after Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro gave birth to the first big screen incarnation of the Dark Horse comic book character, a laboured fourth film (and second reboot) pits the red-skinned and cloven-hoofed miscreant against witchcraft and wickedness in the Appalachian Mountains.
Co-written by director Brian Taylor, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, The Crooked Man realises a storyline first published in 2008, which delves a little deeper into the eponymous antihero’s tortured past.
The tone and cinematography of Taylor’s uneven picture are bleaker than earlier iterations with sporadic flashes of macabre humour punctuating the heebie-jeebies.
Make-up, prosthetics and practical effects are impressively icky but the film’s budgetary limitations are distractingly evident with the hit-or-miss application of digital trickery in action set pieces.
A monstrous spider that chases after Hellboy to set the plot in motion doesn’t gel convincingly with the surrounding forest environment and the creature is unintentionally humorous leaping from tree to tree in hot pursuit of the eponymous guardian.
A climactic showdown at a church also has too much spit and not enough polish.
