Wolfman review

My review of The Wolfman is online at WestEnder.com

THE WOLFMAN
Starring Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt

Directed by Joe Johnston
With pop culture still saturated by the ridiculous proliferation of Twilight's glittery abstinence vampires versus juiced-up, muscled teens-cum-werewolves, the idea of an old fashioned, grown-up, Gothic horror flick tackling lycanthropy mythology seemed promising. Instead, we're offered Wolfman, a limp retread of every tired werewolf cliché, relying on only a spindle-thin father-son conflict as its central source of tension.

After a lengthy absence, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro, struggling with an American accent) is summoned home by his brother's fiancée, Gwen (Emily Blunt), who confesses that his brother, Ben, has been missing for weeks. When Ben’s body is found, Lawrence promises the grieving Gwen he'll stay until he discovers what happened. To do so, he must confront his father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), an eccentric who speaks in vague threats and pseudo-loving warnings, and with whom he shares a mysterious past. As the townsfolk's whispers grow louder about "a curse" and "the gypsies" and "stocking up on silver bullets," the film unfolds as one would expect: Lawrence ends up bearing the mark of the beast and repeatedly, viciously morphs into a snarling, hairy monster under the glow of the full moon. The mystery (scarcely a mystery at all) is who cursed Lawrence and how can it be stopped?

During production, the film was hampered by numerous difficulties (two directors, studio rewrites, different endings) and multiple, disconnected visions abound. Straight-up horror? Cheesy gore with taut, self-aware humour? A bodice-busting, romantic mystery with a hint of terror? A psychological thriller about redemption? Any one of these directions could have worked, but Wolfman instead offers a disorienting and diluted blend of all four — with some truly terrible acting from established Oscar winners thrown in for good measure.

All that aside, the film's biggest disappointment comes in flatly refusing to build up the all-important suspense. Unforgivably, the film reveals what the werewolf looks like before the opening credits, making Wolfman the cinematic equivalent of premature ejaculation. ★—Andrea Warner

Sunshine Cleaning review

My review of Sunshine Cleaning appears in WE this week.

Two stars

By Andrea Warner

An affable but empty comedy, Sunshine Cleaning stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, both of whom are seemingly straining for indie cred after their respective big-budget smash hits, Enchanted and The Devil Wears Prada. The duo portray the screwed-up Lorkowski sisters, Rose and Norah, who start an independent crime-scene cleanup business in order to pay for Rose’s son’s private-school tuition.

It’s quickly established — mostly through heavy-handed dialogue and a slow-motion montage — that Rose (Adams) is the older, “responsible” sibling, a single mom who works as a cleaning lady and longs to get her real-estate license. Norah (Blunt), meanwhile, is the unemployable, heavily eye-lined younger sister who still lives at home with their dad, Joe (Alan Arkin), a big dreamer who invariably fails to deliver on his promises.

Adams is thoroughly winning, and nails perfectly the sad-but-still-hopeful traits of a former cheerleader/prom queen who’s resorted to an affair with her married high-school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zhan). Blunt, who is British, struggles with her American accent periodically, but brings a lovely depth to Norah, who still mourns her mother’s death, and flirts with her unexpected feelings for new female friend Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub).

Writer Meghan Holley seems to subscribe firmly to the ‘tell, don’t show’ school of screenwriting, but the actors rise well above the source material despite being forced to bluntly verbalize their relationships or feelings. Sunshine Cleaning is all over the map, desperately wanting to be a heartfelt, quirky comedy in the vein of indie smash Little Miss Sunshine (from the same producers) but coming off as a lacklustre imitation. Unfortunately, the only real similarities they share are confusingly parallel titles, a reliably charming performance by Arkin, and clunky endings.