One Life (In theaters)
I have not cried this hard in a movie for a very long time. If Anthony Hopkins doesn’t win another Oscar for this performance, there should be an investigation. Hopkins plays Nicolas Winton, a British stockbroker who happened to take a trip to Prague around the time that the Nazis were beginning to separate children from their families. Winton visited several of the refugee camps where these children were living in squalid conditions, and he decided to do something about it, even after other people involved in humanitarian aid in the area told him there was no hope of doing anything to help these kids.
Johnny Flynn, who I will be talking about later for his role in Ripley, plays the younger Nicky Winton, and he does a marvelous job of emulating a man who is so driven to save as many of these children as he can that he inspires the people around him to help make it happen. By the time Hitler invaded Poland, and the borders into Czechoslovakia were closed, Winton had provided transportation and foster care for almost 700 children. But as we learn from Hopkins’ performance as the older Winton, even providing a new life for this many children wasn’t enough to give Winton any peace from something that happened toward the end of his efforts. Lena Olin, who I didn’t recognize at all, plays Winton’s wife, and she’s also terrific in a sort of thankless role. This film is beautifully shot as well, with the recreation of 1930s Prague after it has been gutted by the Nazis providing a heartbreaking backdrop for the events that take place here.
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Ripley (Netflix)
Some of you will surely remember The Talented Mr. Ripley, the wonderful 1999 film directed by Anthony Minghella, based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. In that version, Matt Damon plays the title character, and although he did a serviceable job, I couldn’t help but think that one of the other lead actors in that film, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, probably would have been a better choice for Tom Ripley.
In this eight-part series, the role is played by Andrew Scott, who was fabulous in a film I reviewed last time called All of Us Strangers. Scott plays a much darker, much more inscrutable version of Tom Ripley. Ripley is hired by the father of a young trust fund baby named Dickie Greenleaf to go to Europe and track Dickie down and report back to Mr. Greenleaf about Dickie’s state of mind. In the last version, Jude Law was a great choice for Dickie, and in this version, Johnny Flynn, mentioned in the last review, plays Dickie with the appropriate amount of casual entitlement.
Tom manages to wiggle his way into Dickie’s world, even accepting Dickie’s invitation to stay with him in an appropriately luscious Italian seaside villa. Dickie allows Tom to hang around, showing some appreciation for the fact that Tom is not just another rich kid, and despite the fact that his girlfriend Marge, played by Dakota Fanning, takes an immediate dislike toward Tom, even suspecting that the two are attracted to each other.
When Dickie’s father stops sending Tom money, he realizes that Dickie is his only hope to retain the lifestyle he’s becoming accustomed to, so he bends over backwards to please him, but Scott plays this kind of desperation with such a calm indifference that it’s easy to see why Dickie doesn’t see right through him. Whenever Dickie shows any indication that he might be losing patience, Tom offers to leave, which is enough to convince Dickie that he doesn’t have ulterior motives.
We soon find out different, and one of the most fascinating aspects of this series is watching Scott inhabit this character while he tries to cover up the growing number of crimes he commits. You’re not exactly rooting for Ripley, because it becomes more and more obvious that he’s a truly awful person, but over time you start to admire the fact that he handles every twist in the plot with a cold and calculated precision.
This series is shot in black and white, which really adds to the atmosphere of the story, and of course it doesn’t hurt that it’s set in Italy. Some of the settings are just beautiful. I was also really struck by how the use of sound in this series contributes to the growing tension. There is a lot of silence, and a lot of loud footsteps, rather than relying too much on music.
I can’t say the ending is satisfying, but it’s one of those stories where you become convinced that winning doesn’t necessarily mean what people expect it to mean.
Five fortune cookies.
Hunderby (Hulu)
If you’re looking for something completely ridiculous, it’s hard to go wrong with this series. Alexandra Roach plays a young woman named Helene, who mysteriously washes up on the shore of an unidentified island community after surviving a shipwreck. Helene is so grateful to have been saved that she becomes beholden to anyone who shows her any sense of kindness, and a widowed pastor named Edmund, played with a perfect blend of creepiness and self-satisfaction by Alex MacQueen, takes Helene in and offers to marry her.
But it soon becomes evident to the viewer that the house of Edmund is not a happy place, run with an iron hand by his servant Dorothy. This wonderful character is played by Julia Davis, who created and wrote most of the episodes, and the way she manipulates Helene into believing that she’s always failing in her efforts to satisfy her new husband are really quite hilarious, even though we are screaming at Helene to fight back.
The story takes an interesting turn when Edmund’s doctor, Dr. Foggerty, played with the most delightful bit of romantic flourish by Ruffus Jones, develops a special affinity for Helene. One of the other great characters in this series is Dr. Foggerty’s wife Hester, who is wheelchair bound but relentlessly optimistic that she’s going to someday recapture the love of her husband, who has clearly lost interest in her, not because she’s in a wheelchair, but because she’s annoyingly clingy.
There are many twists and turns as these characters fall in and out of love and also fall victim to Dorothy’s machinations as she becomes more and more determined to earn the love of her beloved master Edmund. The double entendres in this series are often laugh out loud hilarious.
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Vienna Blood (Masterpiece, Amazon Prime)
Nothing like a good Masterpiece series, and this one is a lot of fun. Matthew Beard and Juergen Maurer play Max Lieberman, a young Freudian psychologist, and Oskar Rheinhardt, a grumpy but effective detective who always seems to be overlooked as one of the better performers in his office. Despite the fact that Max often gets on Oskar’s nerves with his persistently personal questions, he also quickly recognizes that he can be helpful in the service of solving certain crimes, so he finds himself going back to Max time and again for help.
This series features a lot of cases that sometimes have a personal connection, as when Max’s nephew becomes embroiled in a hazing incident at the military school he attends. As usual with Masterpiece series, the acting and writing in this series are top-notch, and there is also a lot of humor. Matthew Beard’s boyish charm provides a wonderful contrast to Maurer, who plays Oskar with a perpetual frown.
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No Offence (Britbox, Acorn, Amazon Prime)
Another entertaining British series, and what make this one unique is that the majority of the leading characters are women. There are three main characters—Detective Inspector Vivienne Deering, who plays the lead detective in their office with a no-nonsense compassion for her people; Detective Constable Dinah Kowalska, an smart but absent-minded single mother, and Detective Sergeant Joy Freers, played by Alexandra Roach, the lead character from Hunderby. Like Vienna Blood, there is a lot of humor in this series…a great chemistry between the fellow officers.
There are a lot of terrific supporting players here too, especially Kate O’Flynn as Peep, a nerdy forensics expert who makes you laugh pretty much every time she opens her mouth. This is a good one of you’re looking for some mindless detective stories.
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I also cried in .One Life..especially in the end😢
All look great! Thanks so much!