50 new things in 2023, part 7/50
Feb. 15th, 2023 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitMy first DNF! I gritted my teeth through the first hour of Sam Mandes's 2022 film Empire of Light in a constant state of intolerable secondhand embarrassment for Olivia Coleman's character Hillary. But at the point where, in the midst of a mental health crisis, Hillary is about to devastatingly humiliate herself in public, I could do no more.
The premise of the film, set in 1980, is: Hillary is a lonely middle-aged woman with a history of mental health problems. She works in a cinema, where she's sexually exploited by her boss and isolated from her co-workers. Then along comes Stephen, a young Black man who gets a job at the cinema while trying to decide what to do with his life. He wants to study architecture but didn't get a university place. Hillary and Stephen bond and begin a love affair which they try to keep secret. Complications ensue.
I read the full plot summary on Wikipedia after noping out, and it doesn't seem to me that Empire of Light is doing much of anything that My Beautiful Laundrette didn't do in a funnier, sharper, more explicitly political, and of course queerer, way back in 1983. Apart from the cinephile stuff, which feels detached from the rest of the movie anyway. Plus, My Beautiful Laundrette centered the experience of characters of color when talking about racism, which Empire of Light emphatically doesn't. Apart from Stephen, I don't recall seeing a single other Black character in the film during the hour that I watched. And even Stephen doesn't get to have much personality or nuance. He's half manic pixie dream boy for Hillary and half object lesson in why racism is bad.
I would also subtract a point from this film for making uncritical, unabashed use of the trope "character feels flat and emotionless due to psychiatric meds, goes off them, feels great and then catastrophe ensues." And another point for "gaining weight means person is miserable and their life is empty."
I'd still like to see the film I thought this was going to be from the description: a story of a group of people building friendship and community together through a shared workplace and a love of film. There are even glimpses of that film, when either Hillary or Stephen interacts with characters besides each other. And in those moments the story has life and breath. But the rest of Empire of Light feels like it was put together from a Make An Important Film model kit, and not very well, either.
The premise of the film, set in 1980, is: Hillary is a lonely middle-aged woman with a history of mental health problems. She works in a cinema, where she's sexually exploited by her boss and isolated from her co-workers. Then along comes Stephen, a young Black man who gets a job at the cinema while trying to decide what to do with his life. He wants to study architecture but didn't get a university place. Hillary and Stephen bond and begin a love affair which they try to keep secret. Complications ensue.
I read the full plot summary on Wikipedia after noping out, and it doesn't seem to me that Empire of Light is doing much of anything that My Beautiful Laundrette didn't do in a funnier, sharper, more explicitly political, and of course queerer, way back in 1983. Apart from the cinephile stuff, which feels detached from the rest of the movie anyway. Plus, My Beautiful Laundrette centered the experience of characters of color when talking about racism, which Empire of Light emphatically doesn't. Apart from Stephen, I don't recall seeing a single other Black character in the film during the hour that I watched. And even Stephen doesn't get to have much personality or nuance. He's half manic pixie dream boy for Hillary and half object lesson in why racism is bad.
I would also subtract a point from this film for making uncritical, unabashed use of the trope "character feels flat and emotionless due to psychiatric meds, goes off them, feels great and then catastrophe ensues." And another point for "gaining weight means person is miserable and their life is empty."
I'd still like to see the film I thought this was going to be from the description: a story of a group of people building friendship and community together through a shared workplace and a love of film. There are even glimpses of that film, when either Hillary or Stephen interacts with characters besides each other. And in those moments the story has life and breath. But the rest of Empire of Light feels like it was put together from a Make An Important Film model kit, and not very well, either.
