Category Archives: drama

“Aniara” Swedish Sci-Fi Thriller

drama, fantasy, foreign films, review
The movie is based on an epic science-fiction poem.

Written and directed by Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja, Aniara is their first feature film. Based on an epic 1956 science fiction poem by Harry Martinson, Kagerman shared the poem with his grandmother while she was in a hospital recovering from a stroke. “Growing up, I was very close to my grandmother. She was extremely playful and interested in literature. We often role-played books we had read, even when I got older,” explains Kagerman. “Together we went to see a theater play of Aniara. The following night she got a stroke. I started to read the book aloud to her at the hospital. As she was getting better, we started to role-play it and pretend that the big hospital was the space ship Aniara. Every doctor and patient its passengers. That’s when the story truly hit me and us, on a very deep level.”

Aniara is the space ship forced off the flight path from Earth to Mars.

Kagerman and Lilja worked with each other for over ten years now. “And since the beginning of our collaboration, we’ve been highly influenced by each other and stolen each other’s interests,” jests Lilja.  

The movie is beautiful but heart-wrenching and not a story for the faint of heart because it is sensitively intense. The imagery and story haunt you after the end of the movie because it is intelligent. The movie is not uplifting but more of sociological look at, according to Martinson, where the Earth populace is headed.

The movie introduces one of the many spaceships used for transporting Earth’s fleeing population to their new home-planet Mars. The destruction of Earth occurs, and before the crew and passengers become accustomed to being in space, she collides with space junk and thrown off course. The passengers slowly realize that they’ll never be able to return.

Mimaroben played by Emelie Jonsson.

Mimaroben, played by Emelie Jonsson in her first feature film leading role, runs a room where a sentient computer allows humans to experience near-spiritual memories of the Earth.

As the ship drifts further into the endless void more and more passengers require Mimaroben’s services and stress of the job builds on her as she is the only one who can keep the growing insanity and lethal depression at bay.

In Aniara’s inexorable journey towards destruction, there is a warning that cannot be emphasized enough. There’s only one Earth. It’s time to take responsibility for our actions.

The movie is in Swedish with English subtitles, so finding Aniara in English is not offered. The directors felt the necessity to bring the story to the silver screen. “The apocalypse has already started, hasn’t it? There’s a risk that Aniara might become our future, and the questions the film deals with are extremely relevant today,” adds Kagerman.

Mimaroben has a relationship with another woman.

Though Martinson’s poem is ambiguous on whether the main character is a man or a woman, Kagerman and Lilja felt it essential to focus on a woman while the overall movie centers on females. “It’s not 100% clear what gender the main character has in the book, although it’s probably a man,” explains Lilja. “But we love our female lead and always had her in mind. In the film, she has a relationship with another woman and her best friend, the astronomer, is a woman.”

The movie’s special effects are low-key without extensive CGI or expensive science-fiction sets. Filming occurred on location in shopping malls and Scandinavian Ferries with set design by Linnea Petterson and Maja-Stina Asberg. The directors wanted to create a here and now feeling. “We wanted the ship to feel familiar. If we were to emigrate in large scale to Mars today, we’re pretty sure that the ships will contain both shopping malls, bowling, and spas. But especially shopping malls,” explains Kagerman.  

It took the two directors four years to complete the movie with most the time spent in post-production with reshoots to add to the storyline. They shot inserts in their living room and at the farm where Sophie Winqvist Loggins, cinematographer, lives in the south of Sweden.

Aniara won several awards on the film festival circuit including Les Arcs European Film Festival Best Actress for Emelie Jonsson and honorable mention for Kagerman and Lilja. T

Aniara is streaming on Amazon and the usual on-demand platforms available in your region.

Martinson message in his poem is serious as a warning to the people of Earth. The directors want the audience to reflect on the spacecraft they’re already onboard, called Earth and the extremely short period we have on it. “It might sound depressing, but it’s actually the opposite. We are here today. There is still some time,” adds Kagerman and Lilja.

“Dogman” the Weak Struggling with the Strong

drama, foreign films, , , , , ,

Dogman is an Italian movie in English subtitles. Co-written and directed by Matteo Garrone, the story takes place at a seaside village on the outskirts of an Italian city, where the only law seems to be survival of the fittest.

The story focuses on Marcello, played by Marcello Fonte, who won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his role of playing a slight, mild-mannered man. He divides his days between working at his modest dog grooming salon, caring for his daughter Alida, played by Alida Baldari Calabria, and being coerced into the petty criminal schemes of the local bully Simoncino, played by Edoardo Pesce. He is an ex-boxer who terrorizes the neighborhood. Simoncino’ s abuse eventually brings Marcello to a breaking point. He decides to stand up for his dignity through an act of vengeance. The vengeance comes with unintentional consequences.

Marcello Fonte is Marcello a professional dog groomer by day.

The movie opens with an image of dogs in cages and looking out at humanity. Even though the movie is about vengeance, it also about bullying – struggle between the strong and the weak.  Watching the trailer, the viewer might get the idea that Dogman is an extreme story with violence.

Garrone puts forward an idea that concerns all of us, and that is the consequence of the daily choices we make to survive. One yes leads to more yeses eventually, like Marcello, he can no longer say no. While watching the movie, I kept thinking that Marcello is a pushover or “too nice” for his own good.  He gradually, under duress, loses his innocence.

Nicolaj Bruel effectively shoots the movie with dark undertones, bright reds, and blues. The locations fit the storyline of a small town.  

Marcello Fonte is Marcello.

It is Fonte’s sweetness and his antique face, that brings the story to fruition. How he approaches the dark material while still maintaining his naivete is a unique quality of acting. His interplay with Calabria as his daughter, Alida, are precious moments with Simoncino lurking in the undertones even when he is not in the scenes.  

Garrone wrote the story with Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso. In the production notes, he defines his movie as, “a man who, while seeking redemption after a life of humiliation, fools himself into believing that he has liberated not only himself, but his whole neighborhood, and maybe even the world. Which instead remains always the same, and almost indifferent.”

“Woman of War” Humorous Fight Against Climate Change

action, drama, movies, review, suspense, thriller

Written and directed by Benedikt Erlingsson, Woman of War follows Halla, played by Halldóra Geirharðsdótti, who seems mild-mannered and friendly to her neighbors. On the contrary, she is a vigilante against the aluminum industry. At night, she crusades to destroy the polluters and causes of climate change.

The newspapers report the vandalism calling her plight as “The Woman of the Mountain.” Halla is scathing mad using a vicious, yet effective, tirade against the Iceland aluminum industry. Her campaign keeps her functioning “normal” but jeopardizes her dream.

A dream of becoming a mother to an orphaned girl from Ukraine, Halla ups the ante, becoming more daring with her antics to stop the aluminum company. She finds herself fighting against time as she questions whether her second life as a notorious eco-terrorist is worth the sacrifice of her impending motherhood.

Filmed with the vivid backdrop of hills in Reykjavik, Iceland, the movie marks another collaboration with Erlingsson and Geirharðsdótti’s long working relationship. I admire Erlingsson’s ability to infuse drama and comedy while Geirharðsdótti’s knack for subtle points of humor drew me into the story. Her vicious tenacity and heart could have gone overboard but pulled back just in time with the introduction of fabled motherhood and discovering what it signifies to be a hero.

Geirharðsdótti carries the story of Halla, a 50-year-old independent woman with a quiet routine, though she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. The humor is subtle but effective as the drama builds, and she becomes bolder and bolder from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage. She triumphs pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter in her region.

The story shifts when Halla receives an unexpected letter confirming the adoption of a child. A little girl who waits for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deliver the aluminum industry a crippling blow.

The final attack is suspenseful because “What if she gets caught?” Her goal to be a mother is no longer achievable. All her efforts are in vain, yet her crusade is for the children like her adopted daughter—securing a livable planet for the generations to come.

Watching the movie until the end is worth it, though there are subtitles. DVDs are available in the States with streaming available on the usual outlets.

“Tyrel” Defines Black Man With White Men

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Written and Directed by Sebastián Silva, Tyrel follows the solitary black man on a weekend birthday party of only men and heavy drinking. His name is Tyler, played by Jason Mitchell. He joins his friend, played by Christopher Abbott, on a trip to the Catskills with several people he doesn’t know, and they are all white men.

The handheld camera and sharp cuts by Alexis Zabé along with the editing by Sofía Subercaseaux and Jennifer Lame sustain the perilous tone.

Although Tyler welcomed, he can’t help but feel uneasy around a close-knit group of white guys. The combination of alpha male posturing include large quantities of alcohol starts to get out of hand, and Tyler’s precarious situation starts to feel like a nightmare.

The movie shot with a handheld style probing subtext and body language conjures an undeniable underlying tension of the American climate. The story evolved from Silva’s observation of racial tensions in a strictly male setting.

On a crisp snowy winter’s day, Tyler and his friend John, two young restaurateurs from New York City, push a car along a back road high in the Catskills Mountains. They’re on the way to a weekend getaway to celebrate the birthday of Pete, played by Caleb Landry Jones, one of John’s old friends, at a cabin in the woods.

Tyler needs the excursion, even though he will be among mostly strangers, because the home he shares with his Puerto Rican girlfriend, played by Ann Dowd, is packed with her visiting family, along with her ailing, elderly mother to whom she is devoted.

Having an empty gas tank is only the first in a series of discomforting moments Tyler encounters and causes over the next 48 hours. Right off the bat, one of his new acquaintances mishears his name as “Tyrel,” a subtle but significant alteration that both gives Sebastián Silva’s latest film its title and sets up a theme of racially-tinged, innuendos that leads the good-natured Tyler towards a shaky mental edge.

The Chilean Silva, who has lived in New York for the past 17 years, approaches the subject of race as an outsider to American culture, but an insightful writer of alienation. The story unfolds by capturing natural moments with the talented ensemble cast.

The cast, which includes Michael Cera, represents a range of electric and sometimes eccentric personalities, expands on a situation Silva initially observed while vacationing in Cuba with a friend of his. They came across a group of American tourists, drunk and in their mid-20s, and all but one of them white.

“It was probably my imagination, but the black guy seemed alienated. Alienation is a topic that interests me, and I saw it right there. And at that moment, this guy’s alienation was linked to the color of his skin. Racism feels like it’s always timely in America. It never ceases to be an issue, and that was part of it this moment. Something profound was happening there,” explains Silva.

Later, Silva’s friend went to his cabin in the Catskills to celebrate another friend’s birthday. “And they were all white, and one of them was black, but there was nothing awkward about their dynamic.  At the very end of their weekend, they took a selfie and the black dude was the one who took it. That selfie also inspired this film. The mixture of that moment with what we had witnessed and talked about in Cuba made a case for something compelling, so I explored it,” recalls Silva.

“I wanted Tyrel to be the movie that speaks for the middle-class black guy,” he says, “the black guy that wasn’t a thug. The black guy that’s like most of the black guys out there these days. There are a lot of black guys that are trying to be successful and do things in their lives, but they get in the situations that are awkward for them that they don’t know how to handle.”

Although the film deals with tension arising from racial difference, nothing about the story, or the characters, is purely black or white. Instead, the movie shows a lot of layers, so the story is not directly in the racial issue. “I’m not completely sure these guys mean to be cruel or to look down on Tyler. Black people have been put in such a generic box. So, Tyler’s not going to be a saint and he’s not going to be a victim. I don’t want to have clear victims or clear victimizers. I don’t want to have the bad guy and the good guy. I don’t want a conversation about taking sides. I want to make people think about what they witness. This movie will live in every American’s own set of prejudices and opinions. I want people to be somehow troubled by the conclusions they come to on their own,” reckons Silva.

The Quake Grabs On and Never Let’s Go

drama, foreign films, suspense, thriller, , , ,

Directed by John Andres Anderson, The Quake begins in 1904 when an earthquake with a 5.4 magnitude on the Richter scale shook Oslo. Its epicenter located in the Oslo Rift runs directly through the Norwegian capital. Quakes from the rift happen daily. Geologists cannot be sure, but arguments indicate that we can expect major future earthquakes in this area. When the major earthquake happens, nobody can say for certain. The density of people and infrastructure in Oslo is significantly more vulnerable today than in 1904.

The impressive cast includes Kristoffer Joner,Ane Dahl Torp,Kathrine Thorborg Johansen,Jonas Hoff Oftebro, and Edith Haagenrud-Sande.

According to Anderson he realized the facts about the earthquake were true, “The notion of a Norwegian earthquake movie was immediately somewhat absurd. Norway is actually the most seismic active area in northern Europe. In 1904 there was a major earthquake hitting the Oslo-region. This type of incident will happen again. And no one can say when.”

In 2015, The Wave was proof of a Scandinavia film, even on a limited budget, gives Hollywood competition in that genre. “They’ve had a monopoly and been supreme on the so-called ‘High Concept’ movie,” explains Anderson. “And at the same time also add a bit of Scandinavian flair to it. Even in the most faithful genre film, one should never sacrifice character drama. And neither did we want to with The Quake.”

The Wave and The Quake are produced by the same production company lead by Martin Sundland.

Anderson talked more about the important of never sacrificing character for drama. He sees them as instrumental to whether we as audience observe the disaster – or actually experience it. “Because if you’re not experiencing it, it doesn’t matter how spectacular scenes we manage to create. While delivering edge-of-the-seat-thrills, the development of the characters and the ties between the members of our family is always at the core of The Quake.”

The movie follows Kristian, played by Kristoffer Joner, a struggling father, trying to come to grips with what he has been through before this film. His daughter Julia, played by Edith Haagenrud-Sande, is desperately seeking her father’s care and attention. The love of Kristian’s life is Idun, played by Ane Dahl Torp. And all of them their lives completely changed by what Anderson calls “this merciless, brute and blind force of Norwegian nature.”

The movie is as physical, character-driven spectacle just as Anderson intended. He puts the audience the heart of an Oslo being torn apart, feeling the impact of these forces on the family who are trying to keep it together. The movie takes you on a riveting ride – emotionally, visually and finally full-on thrilling action. .

The movie never lets up, and it is constant action, harrowing situations with all odds against them, yet they overcome the obstacles to, yet, face another dire circumstance. Keeping me on the edge of my seat through the movie is a fantastic and remarkable way to see a movie.

Joner looks familiar because he’s starred in The Revenant and Mission Impossible: Fall out.

Anderson’s first time as a director, he started as a camera assistant for cinematography legend Sven Nykvist. He worked as a Director of Photography for many years on notable Scandinavian films such as Department Q: Conspiracy of Faith and Buddy.

The movie is in Scandinavian with English subtitles.  

Shoplifters – Cannes Palme d’Or Winner & Oscar-Nominee

drama, foreign films, movies, , , ,

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japanese movie Shoplifters is the 2018 Cannes Palme d’Or Winner and 2019 Academy Award nominee for Foreign Language Film.  The movie follows an oddball band of outsiders on the margins of Tokyo. They demonstrate a fierce loyalty with a penchant for petty theft and playful ways of making money dishonestly.

The fun and games end with the young son getting arrested. Secrets come to the surface and expose what little stability they did hold below-the-radar existence. They feel strong belief is not the blood that defines a family, but love defines the family. The premise is questioned and discussed throughout the movie

Kore-eda’s credits include Like Father, Like Son and Nobody Knows. Shoplifters movie is similar to these movies as an emotional exploration of the perseverance and tenacity of society’s outcasts and the love that sustains them. It is obvious why the movie won the Palme. The simplicity of the tender storytelling of inviting me to be a part of the imperfect people, showing what an oddball meaning to the family. Perhaps, redefining what a family is by showing a group of misfits similar sharing and behaving similarly to a family connected by blood.

“Shoplifters might be similar to Nobody Knows in the sense that this film also explores closely the sort of ‘punished’ families we regularly see in news reports. It wasn’t my intention simply to describe a poor family or the lower levels of the social strata. I rather think that the family in the film ended up gathering in that house not to collapse there. I wanted to shine a light on such a family from a different angle,” adds Kore-eda.

Like a voyeur, Shoplifters draws me into their daily lives through various circumstances developed and bonded together as a way to survive. Centered in the family’s cohesiveness is achieving their livelihood through petty theft and grifting. The children of the group are played beautifully and endearing by Jyo Kairi and Miyu Sasaki. I ponder the director’s uncanny ability to facilitate the actors as a cohesive metaphor to the brilliance of life itself.

“I started to think about which elements were unfolded and would be examined deeply after the casting was settled. As a result, this film is packed with the various elements I have been thinking about and exploring these last 10 years. It is the story of what family means, a story about a man trying to be a father, and furthermore, a coming-of-age story of a boy,” explains Kore-eda

The movie is worth watching, but it is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Spiral: Anti-Semitism in France

documentary, drama, foreign films, ,

Directed by Laura Fairrie, Spiral is a documentary exposing the fact that over the last two decades, a rise in physical attacks and verbal assaults on Jews documented in many countries across Europe. Particularly, Jews in France are forced into a ghetto living condition, while some, are driven to leave France and immigrate to Israel.

At the same time an increasingly fractured world has exposed deep political, social, and racial division, especially in France. The documentary is about how a cycle of fear, hatred, and violence has taken hold.

I am not a fan of documentaries because they easily create an image or vision that twists or skews the facts or truth of a situation. Spiral seems to be a movie about bigotry with an anti-religious (anti-Semitism) happening in France. Apparently, the government is doing nothing about it.

According to a conversation with Fairrie, she was approach by John Battsek, produced One Day In September, with the idea of investigating widespread reports of rising attacks and abuse against Jewish people in Europe.

“After an intensive research period I wrote a detailed document outlining my creative vision and the ournalism at the heart of the film. Once Cohen Media committed to financing the film,” says Fairrie.

The documentary is about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in France. The feel throughout the movie is fear with undercurrents of dread and distrust.  Yet, the scenes with the teacher, François, changed the rhythm of the documentary. He understood the tensions on all sides. Like he was an insider and knew the cause and effect of anti-Semitism.

Fairrie, somehow, obtained access to Dieudonné, who is a French anti-Semitist comedian. He is well-known entertainer of African descent, disreputable for mockery of the Holocaust while jabbing with anti-Semitism in general. Fairrie got him to talk about his point of view in the matter.  I was happy to hear in the movie that a legal team is prosecuting him.

Some of the stories of hatred are hard to believe, and it’s hard to confront such a situation in beautiful France. If one religion is being attacked, then all religions are being attacked. Religious freedom!

The documentary is primarily in French with English subtitles. The cinematography by Jean-Louis Schuller is beautiful at times and works with the story of Jewish people in terrible situations. The movie is not entertaining. The information is disheartening and without a sound resolution.

Support the Girls – Waitresses Bare All

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Written & Directed by Andrew Bujalski, Support the Girls follows Lisa, played by Regina Hall. The story is about her life as a general manager at a highway-side sports bar that resembles called Hooters Double Whammies. Just look at the promotional photos and get the idea – tits and ass.

Yet, Lisa is the last person anyone expected to find this type of establishment. She comes to love the place and its customers. As an intuitive mother, she nurtures and sternly protects her ‘girls’ on the staff.

The straw finally broke her back one day, and her genuine buoyancy was pummeled from every direction.

Lisa learns that fantasy sometimes becomes a reality, and nothing is far from the truth.

In 20014, Bujalski won the “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award for Funny Ha Ha, which is nothing like Support the Girls. He offers his thoughts on establishments like Hooters. “It seems like just about the simplest business concept you could imagine – ‘What if all the waitresses in this restaurant wore tight, cleavage-y halter tops?’– but I couldn’t get over how bizarre it ultimately was. No culture besides present-day America would ever produce mass-scale demand for such a place, a business that seems about 10% strip club and 90% TGI Friday’s/Applebee’s/Chili’s/Cracker Barrel. Strippers are supposed to make men feel like badass transgressors. But these women are just supposed to make you feel normal — the proverbial “red-blooded American male.”

I totally agree with what he says because…Really? How can a woman act normal when she is practically bare-assed?

Hall liked Bujalski’s script and wanted to be in the movie. “From the moment I read it, I just resonated with Lisa. I had seen Andrew’s work and thought he wrote such a beautifully complex yet simplistic script. He was able to find the humanity in this space that we take for granted or don’t necessarily even think about. I just loved the chord that he touched on with this group of people, these women, and girls. I thought Lisa was great: her need to help, her need to fix, her need to save, and her need to be needed. It just resonated on so many levels.”

The movie is receiving accolades from critics. Regina Hall is the first Black woman to win Best Actress in the New York Film Critics Circle’s 83-year history this year for her portrayal of  Lisa.

Hall also starred in another strong cultural movie called The Hate U Give. The film is based on a book of the same name, but the power of the situation is nothing compared to Support the Girls. Though,  Lisa does nurture the girls in a motherly way. This situation is not racist like The Hate U Give.

The cast is rounded out quite nicely with Haley Lu Richardson, Shayna McHayle, James LeGros, Dylan Gelula, AJ Michalka, Brooklyn Decker, Jana Kramer, John Elvis, and Lea DeLaria.

All-Girl Skateboard Movie – Skate Kitchen

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Co-written and directed by Crystal Moselle as her first narrative feature, Skate Kitchen, follows an introverted teenage skateboarder named Camille, played by Rachelle Vinberg. She is from Long Island and meets and befriends an all-girl skateboarding group. The group is New York City-based called Skate Kitchen.

Moselle mentions in an interview, “I was originally going to do a feature documentary film, but after doing the short, and hanging out with Kim Yutani, who is one of the programmers at Sundance, she was just like, ‘Why don’t you do a feature version of this?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re so right.’ I figured out a writer to work with. That January, we didn’t have a script or anything. We kind of just had a summary of what we wanted it to be. We went to Sundance and just started having meetings and financiers, and got the budget.”

In the movie, Camille becomes part of the in-crowd, and estranges from her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy named Devon, played by Jaden Smith. Yet, their relationship proves to be trickier to navigate than mastering her skateboarding tricks.

Smith knew Vinberg before they worked on the movie together. They met on social media because Smith saw that Vinberg was a skateboarder and reached out to her. Moselle explains, “One day he hit Rachelle Vinberg up on Instagram! He just thought she was cool because she skateboards and he skateboards and we were like, ‘Oh, he should be in the movie.’ I randomly know his agent, so I was just like, ‘I have this film idea that Jaden might be into,’ so his agent got me a meeting completely separate from Rachelle. And it was months after that. And then I showed him the short film and he was like, ‘Oh I know that girl.’ We wanted his character to really authentically lead into the subculture of New York City skateboarding.

According to production notes, Moselle immersed herself in the lives of the skater girls and worked closely with them giving authenticity to the movie. “I was on the train and I was listening to them just chat, and they were super interesting and they had skateboards, and I asked them, “Would you guys want to do like a video project, something?” We exchanged numbers and when we met up, we just started hanging out and chatting. I just was super inspired by them. I didn’t really know much about being a female skater and how much intimidation they go through. I gave them the opportunity to do this short film with Miu Miu (That One Day) and I pitched them to do the short film. That went to the Venice Film Festival. From there it started to get a lot of attention and gain a lot of traction.”

The movie is gripping and combines poetic, atmospheric cinematography with spellbinding skating sequences. The movie captured my interest because, though I am not a skateboarder, I follow skateboarding movies. The experience of women in male-dominated sport tells the story of a girl who learns the importance of true friendship, loyalty, and self-discovery.

The rest of the cast members are Dede Lovelace, Nina Moran, Kabrina Adams, Ajani Russell, Jules Lorenzo, Brenn Lorenzo, Hisham Tawfiq, and Elizabeth Rodriguez.

The other screenwriters are Aslihan Unaldi and Jennifer Silverman. Moselle offered some insight on working with Unaldi. “There was a certain point in time where we had to shift the story and simplify it a lot more and Aslihan Unaldi came in and worked on it every day for like three months. We completely re-shifted the whole thing. She was really my collaborator on this, but it was all my ideas, and I wrote a lot of the script. I’ve never written a script before and we had to make this happen so quickly, because we had to shoot this film before these girls grew up, because right now they’re already too old for the film.”

 

Outlaw King a Scottish Tale From the History Books

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Co-written and directed by David Mackenzie, Outlaw King follows Robert the Bruce, played by Chris Pine. His life is transformed from defeated noble to a king to an outlaw as he struggles to reclaim medieval Scotland from occupation. Ambushed and reduced to a handful of supporters, Robert resolves himself to strike back against King Edward of England’s mighty army.

Robert is among the Scottish nobles who submitted to the occupying English King, Edward, played by Stephen Dillane.  A marriage is arranged between Robert and Elizabeth de Burgh, played by Florence Pugh, a daughter of Edward’s ally.

An unnerving peace seems the only way forward which Robert and his family reluctantly accept. His relationship with his wife is feisty as they get to know each other. But crippling taxes, relentless force, men and boys being coerced under obligations of the feudal system to fight for King Edward only strengthen the rising rebellious emotions amongst the Scots.

Major events trigger a change in the overall climate of Scotland. The death of the family patriarch Bruce Senior, played by James Cosmo, news of the brutal demise of former rebel leader William Wallace, and finally the murder of Robert’s rival John Comyn, played by Callan Mulvey.

With the help of the Scottish Church – including Bishop Lamberton, played by Paul Blair, Robert resolves to become king and try to unify a divided country – many of whom do not want more war and are opposed to him because of their own blood ties.

If you know your Scottish history, you know the outcome of the story. I can give you a hint, though, it is one of the greatest comeback stories in history. “…I couldn’t shake the feeling that the period between 1304 and 1307 was where the most extreme things were happening – and this is what we have focused on. We conflated some characters and events in the interests of drama and time, but we have broadly been very faithful to the recorded history or this timeframe,” explained Mackenzie.

The Netflix produced movie will hopefully turn out to be a movie worth watching. So much of Scotland’s yesteryear events are page turners in historical books.

Scottish director Mackenzie whose body of work includes Hell or High Water and Young Adam is an excellent choice for this epic movie. Here are a couple of clips from Outlaw King. Nothing like the trailer but poignant in terms of key points in the movie’s storyline.