Mr. Branagh can be a fine film actor, but at this point in his screen career it’s safe to say he has no feel or facility for cinema when he’s calling the shots behind the camera. Almost every setup looks wrong: poorly considered, awkwardly realized, ugly. (The cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos has done fine work elsewhere.) Mr. Branagh fiddles with the lights, tilts the camera and hustles his hard-working actors upstairs and down and back again and into an elevator as small as a coffin built for one. He embellishes the screenplay’s every obvious conceit and word, hammering the point until you feel as if you’re trapped inside the elevator with Milo and Andrew, going up and down and up and down, though nowhere in particular.
Anyone get a chance to see this? I'm on the fence now. I really want to like it.
1 comment:
Well.. given that Darghis' observation about Branaugh as a director doesn't really apply to many of his other films (Except for his heavy handedness, which is a complain I share, but nota fatal problem for me) I have to say that i'll probably disagree with her.
What she's essentially saying is that he's no good as a film director, to which I would hold up Henry V, Much Ado, Hamlet, The Midwinter's Tale and Dead Again and say... really?
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