Total Film - March 2024

Dan Aykroyd returns as Ray, while Patton Oswalt joins the party While the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon is a formidable foe in the film, Garraka is the name of the main villain in the movie. ‘He’s the character with the horns in the latest trailer,’ explains Kenan. ‘Then there’s the Death Chill, which is the power that Garraka employs to stop whatever comes in his way. It begins with something we can all relate to. It’s that feeling of cold that we experience when we’re afraid of something. It’s that chill that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Garraka can employ that same thermodynamic property to destroy us, so it starts with something grounded and relatable – and it grows into something expansive and world-threatening.’ In the eyes of Ernie Hudson, the treacherous new villain is a welcome addition to the movie franchise. ‘When I first read the script, I was relieved because this is a step in a bold new direction,’ the original Ghostbusters actor explains to TF. ‘We’ve all seen Gozer and the ghosts from the original movie before, but it’s great to see Gil and Jason come up with a whole new chapter for Frozen Empire. I was very happy to see there’s a way forward without having to try and redo something from the past.’ To counteract the terror of Garraka, it’s no coincidence that three actors with a heavy background in comedy were added to the cast. Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt and British comedian James Acaster all have significant roles in Frozen Empire – and all three characters were written with the actors in mind. ‘Ghostbusters is, was and always will be a comedy brand,’ Kenan tells us. ‘The first film was one of the funniest films of its time. That’s due in no small part to the brilliance of the comic actors who were cast in the movie. In expanding this world, Jason and I knew from the initial germination of the writing phase that there was room for new comic voices.’ PAUL RUDD The Marvel star on proton packs and KitKats What excites you the most about Frozen Empire? I’m excited to see the OGs in their ghostbusting suits. Honestly, it’s the biggest thrill to be in the room when they’re doing their thing. How heavy is a proton pack? Heavier than you think. It’s not the most comfortable thing. They started to set up these stands so that we could rest the packs easily while we were standing around with them on between takes. What do you make of the movie’s newcomers? Kumail, Patton and James are hilarious. They’re all smart and funny comedians – and big Ghostbusters fans. They are also really great guys, which is nice because it’s fun to hang out with nice, funny people. What’s James Acaster like? James is a great comedian and a real foodie, as we all know from his podcast. I went to a couple of restaurants with James while we were shooting. The places he took me to were delicious. How was the on-set catering? It was really good. Every day, they set out a table filled with all kinds of delicious chocolates and biscuits. They were always a temptation. What’s your favourite British chocolate bar? I’ve always loved a Crunchie and I’m a fan of the original KitKat. We have them here in the States, but they taste better there. It’s the chocolate. AT ‘By adding these three actors, there’s a real return to the original tone of Ghostbusters,’ explains Carrie Coon. ‘People forget the fact that the original movie was released before anyone was blending genres in the way that Ghostbusters blended genres. Annie Potts talks about reading the original script and thinking, “I’ve never read anything like this before.” It was a comedy. It was sci-fi. It was an adventure story, but it was also irreverent and a little bit raunchy. Making sure there are comedians involved in the story reminds us of the tone we’re trying to capture in this franchise. I think it’s a real return to that root. Plus, it’s also about passing the torch to these new people in the story.’ With talk of passing the torch forward, the future of the fiendish franchise becomes the next topic of conversation. Kenan and Reitman are executive producers of the upcoming Ghostbusters animated series on Netflix, but Sony has yet to reveal if any additional movies have been greenlit. Kenan is certainly open to more. ‘Jason and I really love Ghostbusters,’ he enthuses. ‘We love these characters and we would be really happy if audiences were down to keep going on adventures with them. If audiences feel this way, then we know what the next stories are going to be.’ Are the actors on board for more movies? ‘Absolutely,’ states Coon without a pause. ‘There’s something so thrilling about working on these movies, especially as a woman. We’re not often asked to participate in the adventure or the physical elements of movies like this. We’re often just on the sidelines, so to be thrown into the action has been a real thrill. On top of that… Well, it’s already going to be in my obituary, so I might as well lean in.’ Mckenna Grace is equally enthusiastic. ‘As heavy as those frickin’ proton packs are, I would gladly put one on again. The proton packs weigh around 40 pounds, but I’m fine with that because it’s been a dream come true to be part of this franchise. I love these films. I love getting to be a Ghostbuster. I mean, who are you gonna call? This guy! Me.’ GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 22 MARCH. Director Gil Kenan on set with Mckenna Grace and Logan Kim Well, it wouldn’t be a Ghostbusters movie without Slimer… ‘To be in a Ghostbusters flight suit and driving the Ecto-1 was a real kick’ PAUL RUDD TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 51 GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

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AFTER DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS ENDED GAME OF THRONES, THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY TO GO: UP. AS THEY UNVEIL THE GENRE-SPLICING, CHINESEPENNED SCI-FI 3 BODY PROBLEM, TOTAL FILM MEETS THE SHOWRUNNERS AND CAST TO TALK ABOUT THE MOST BONKERS, BRAZEN SERIES OF THE YEAR. WORDS JAMES MOTTRAM hen HBO’s wildly popular Game of Thrones concluded in 2019, it left a fantasy-shaped hole in many people’s lives. But most of all, for the show’s creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. ‘We spent 13 wonderful years in the world of that show and wouldn’t trade them for anything,’ says Weiss, 52, speaking over Zoom from a rock-star looking room bedecked with electric guitars. ‘But we really wanted NETFLIX to do something that felt different in many, many ways.’ TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 53 3 BODY PROBLEM

Among other projects, they considered entering the Star Wars universe with The First Jedi, a story about how the Jedi Order came to be – until Lucasfilm nixed it. Yet sci-fi was to remain central to the show they settled on: 3 Body Problem, a hugely ambitious, nearunclassifiable genre-hopping hybrid based on the Chinese trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past by author Liu Cixin. It came via the suggestions of Netflix exec Peter Friedlander, who met with Weiss and Benioff over the summer of 2019 as the pair were inking a reported $200 million multi-year deal with the streamer. By their own admission, neither was that familiar with Liu’s work. ‘I think we were both dimly aware that Barack Obama had blurbed the first book, which seemed unusual that he would blurb a Chinese science-fiction novel,’ says a hoodie-sporting Benioff, 53. But the moment they read it, they were hooked, ‘which’, adds the showrunner, ‘is a big part of the reason we ended up at Netflix.’ Spreading out from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to the present day and beyond, it’s an invasion story like no other. An alien race, facing its own annihilation, has set its sights on Earth. The twist? They won’t arrive for 400 years. ‘If it takes them 400 years to get here, that means that for a long time the story isn’t nearly as much about them as it is about us and our reaction to them,’ says Weiss. ‘That I’d never really seen before. I don’t think any of us had. I love a lot of those stories, they’re really fun, but War of the Worlds… you’re walking down a street in Boston and a UFO pops out… and then it’s on. In Signs, they come from out of the sky, and then they’re here. It’s all about what do we do when they’re here. This is more about us than it is about them. At least initially.’ Joining Weiss and Benioff in this creative hive was Alexander Woo, a former writer-producer on True Blood. Adapting Liu’s physics-heavy trilogy – which begins with book one, The Three-Body Problem – was always going to be tough, he acknowledges. ‘One of the things that makes it so challenging is that the timelines of the trilogy are pretty crazy. All three do start in the rough present day. And [the] second, third books certainly go far, far, far into the future. So for our show, it made a lot of sense to have characters who are contemporaneous with each other all be there in Season 1, because they all exist in the same time period.’ RESEARCHERS, ASSEMBLE Central to the eight-episode first season is a group of physicists who come together under the command of a British intelligence chief named Wade (Liam Cunningham, who played Thrones’ Ser Davos Seaworth), as they brainstorm ways of defending Earth. Among them are Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), Will Downing (Alex Sharp) and Jack Rooney (John Bradley), who has just sold his crisps-and-snack company for millions. Benedict Wong stars as Da Shi Producer/writer Alexander Woo on set Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand Zine Tseng as the younger Ye Wenjie Jess Hong plays Jin Cheng 54 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 MAKING OF SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

‘Even though the majority of the cast are scientists, we are all not built in this cookie-cutter form of what a scientist is like, you know what I mean?’ says Adepo, who previously featured in another doomedhumanity tale, HBO drama The Leftovers. ‘We are all individuals, and we have our own backgrounds, our own personalities. And I think that you’re dealing with people having to come out of themselves as individuals in their day-to-day lives, having to come together to face this massive threat that we could never imagine facing.’ While Adepo calls his character ‘a regular guy [who] just happens to have a really, really extraordinary brain’, he’s not the only one. Talking up Jack Rooney, ‘He’s a working-class northern boy… like myself,’ explains Bradley, 35, who previously played fan favourite Samwell Tarly in Thrones. ‘He’s come from a council estate. And now he’s a physics graduate from Oxford University, super-intelligent, in an instinctive, streetwise way.’ Now, unlike his academic friends, he’s found entrepreneurial success. ‘So he’s living high on the hog. He’s loving his life… as a super-rich man-about-town.’ Although Benioff and Weiss did take inspiration from a character found in the books, they also based Rooney around Bradley. Not least the fact the character is named after former Manchester United footballer Wayne Rooney – with Bradley an ardent fan of the club. ‘John Bradley is one of the smartest people we’ve ever met,’ says Weiss. ‘Wherever his intelligence comes from, it’s not books. I think the book that John has read the most by far would be Wayne Rooney’s My Decade in the Premier League, which I think he’s read 10 times. He would sometimes subject other actors on Game of Thrones to readings.’ Rather than make the Rooney character a Man U fan, however, the showrunners cheekily decided to make him a devotee of rival club, Manchester City. ‘I really had to do a lot of research into what it’s like to be that kind of scumbag!’ chuckles Bradley. ‘It doesn’t come naturally to me, that kind of attitude.’ Cruelly, Bradley was even made to drive around in a Rolls-Royce SUV, which was painted in Man City blue. Sadly, the scene got cut. ‘I’m glad that a lot of my Man United-supporting pals won’t get the chance to see it!’ he adds, clearly relieved. Bradley aside, 3 Body Problem gave Benioff and Weiss the chance to reunite with several key Thrones alumni. Not just Liam Cunningham and Jonathan Pryce, who played the High Sparrow in Thrones and here is a cult leader trying to commune with the aliens. Behind the camera, Thrones’ casting director Nina Gold, production designer Deborah Riley, cinematographer Jonathan Freeman and director Jeremy Podeswa, who helms the final two episodes here, all return. Newcomers, meanwhile, include Hong Kong director Derek Tsang (Better Days), who set the tone by calling the shots on the first two eps. KEEPING IT UNREAL With the first season largely set in the UK (with some scenes in China, Panama and the US), the show was primarily filmed in Britain – with Shepperton Studios acting as the base for all the green-screen work for its spectacular VR moments. As Rooney soon discovers, he has been left a headset by this advanced alien civilisation, which allows him and Jin into a fully immersive world set in Tudor England – as a way of communicating with the invading forces. Eiza González as Auggie Salazar John Bradley as Jack Rooney, receiving his VR headset ‘WE’RE ALL INDIVIDUALS HAVING TO COME T O G E T H E R T O FAC E T H I S MA S S I V E T H R E AT THAT WE COULD NEVER IMAGINE FACING’ JOVAN ADEPO A group of young scientists are recruited to combat the existential threat TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 55 3 BODY PROBLEM

Anyone else who tries it on is met with a swift blow to the neck with a sword and the phrase ‘You have not been invited’ bumping them out of this all-too-real landscape. It’s in the spectacular third episode where huge swathes of VR appear, all brilliantly marshalled by Andrew Stanton (the former Pixar stalwart who directed Finding Nemo and WALL·E). ‘He was the rare director who was not daunted by that,” says Woo, who was instrumental in securing the sought-after Stanton. ‘I was surprised [that we got him]. I mean, Finding Nemo was a movie that is going to be watched long after all of us are dead, as is WALL·E,’ says Weiss. ‘When he said he wanted to do the show, I was like, “Are you sure?” I just felt like he was just dropping a lottery ticket in our laps.’ Without spoiling, this episode also taps into Benioff’s irrational Thrones-inspired fear of horses. ‘By the time we got through the final season, I had grown terrified of horses. It was never a phobia I had in my childhood, but every time one of our actors was on one of those things, I was nervous,’ he says. ‘Honestly, by the end, I was just like, “I can’t get near these things.”’ Which might explain one remarkable, gravity-defying VFX sequence, when things go haywire in VR land. ‘The floating horse, which is shitting itself…’ laughs Benioff. ‘Hard to see. But if you frame through [the sequence] you’ll see...’ The episode also includes inspired cameos from ex-League of Gentlemen stars Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith. ‘One of the great opportunities of shooting in the UK… it was a chance to get all our favourite British comedic actors in the show,’ says Woo, who also geeked out by casting Taskmaster favourite Phil Wang. And then there’s the mighty Adrian Edmondson, famed for playing the punk Vyvyan in student comedy The Young Ones, who features here in one of the most menacing – and dramatic – roles of his career as a scheming tech boss. ‘In college, we wore out our video tape of The Young Ones,’ recalls Weiss, ‘because we watched every episode until we couldn’t really watch them any more, because they were too grainy. So to meet Ade and to see what Ade brought in terms of straightforward, subtle, menacing, ‘ S H O O T I N G I N T H E U K . . . I T W A S A C H A N C E T O G E T A L L O U R F AV O U R I T E B R I T I S H C O M E D I C ACTORS ON THE SHOW’ ALEXANDER WOO Liam Cunningham as British intelligence chief, Wade The scientists employ VR to travel through time and space Weiss and Benioff on location The series starts at the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution 56 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 MAKING OF SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

dramatic acting… it was so hard to square with. I’ve logged many hours of Ade Edmondson viewing in my brain. And they had nothing to do with the excellent work that I was seeing on our set. They were of Vyvyan smashing his head through a wall!’ HIGHER LEARNING While Woo, Benioff and Weiss were getting their kicks from comedy, there was also serious work to be done. Keen to understand the physics behind the show, Adepo spoke to on-set consultants and even went to Oxford University to meet students of the discipline. ‘The brainpower just in a small classroom is incredible,’ he notes, admiringly. So did his understanding of this very taxing science improve at all? ‘Absolutely not!’ he laughs. ‘I could probably guess in a multiple-choice quiz certain aspects of high-level physics. But I dare not disrespect the students who put countless hours in studying to get their doctorates.’ The big fear was always whether you’d need a degree to unpick 3 Body Problem. ‘It’s not just sci-fi,’ Adepo says. ‘It’s not just drama. There is comedy in the show. It’s just complex storytelling.’ Bradley remembers when the teaser dropped last summer. ‘Mates were like, “I’ve never seen a trailer before where I know less about it now than I did before I saw the trailer.” Because there are parts in space [and] parts that seemed to be in the contemporary world. There’s 1960s China, there’s Tudor England, there’s Genghis Khan’s Mongolian dynasty. And a large part of that is the virtual-reality element of it. It just kicks the doors of possibility wide open.’ As Woo notes: ‘A lot of people did say, “Oh, I don’t know what this is about, but I really want to see it,” which was exactly the effect [we wanted].’ Indeed, one of the real pleasures of the show is just how unlike anything else around it is. ‘It was not immediately obvious how [the books] could be turned into a TV show,’ admits Benioff. ‘But we knew that it was different from anything else we’d encountered. Part of the attraction was like, “How the hell do we do this?” It was similar when we read [Thrones author] George R.R. Martin’s books for the first time, just thinking, “These books are incredible. But is it possible to do this as a TV series? Is it too big, too sprawling, too expensive?”’ Ask for references and Benioff admits they watched Stanley Kubrick’s landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey ‘repeatedly’. But there were other influential sci-fi texts, too. ‘Danny Boyle did that movie Sunshine, which had moments of that awe-and-wonder feeling,’ adds Weiss. ‘It’s not just about a monster chasing you and you need to get away. It’s the feeling of wonder that comes with great science fiction.’ He also cites Tarkovsky’s Solaris. ‘That’s, in many ways, very different from this, but in terms of the feeling it gives you internally… for me that was something I would sometimes be thinking about with this.’ So are Benioff and Weiss expecting another Throneslike phenomenon? ‘I mean, the odds are it was a oncein-a-lifetime thing. It’d be insane to expect that again. And we didn’t expect it the first time, to be honest,’ shrugs Weiss. ‘I think the hope for us, more than specific numbers or anything else, is that we’re able to get to the end of the show. That we’re able to tell the whole story… that means doing well enough that Netflix decides it’s worth their time to keep paying for the show.’ Adepo concurs. ‘I think that there’s more story to be told,’ he says. ‘I’m curious to see how we continue to deal with this threat.’ Unlike Thrones, which remains an ongoing literary series as Martin continues to chip away at sixth book The Winds of Winter, Liu’s story has a definite endgame. ‘The ending did influence [us] a lot,’ says Woo. ‘It was so effective.’ As you can imagine – that alien threat will eventually materialise. Or to use a Thrones analogy: winter is coming. Weiss grins. ‘They’re faster than winter.’ 3 BODY PROBLEM STREAMS ON NETFLIX FROM 21 MARCH. TRON 1982 The granddaddy of all VR movies, Tron sees Jeff Bridges’ software engineer Kevin Flynn sucked into a mainframe computer, where programs are living entities and the so-called Master Control Program is in charge. You can even jump on a Light Cycle for the deadliest racing game you’ll ever play. THE MATRIX 1999 Mankind has been enslaved by machine-like sentinels, as Keanu Reeves’ Neo and millions of others are left to slumber inside the Matrix, a shared simulated reality modelled on the world as it was in 1999. It’s not all bad, though: you can get a pretty good VR steak there. EXISTENZ 1999 Jennifer Jason Leigh’s game designer enters her own VR masterpiece in David Cronenberg’s prophetic look at simulation gaming. Set in a world where the game is accessed by UmbiCords that attach to bio-ports in players’ spines, it plays out like a deadly game of cat and mouse. READY PLAYER ONE 2018 Real life is drab and draining. So in Spielberg’s sci-fi everyone plugs into OASIS, a VR world where people adopt avatars, break the speed limit and look cool in bars. No wonder they stick around. ‘They stay because of all the things they can be,’ says Tye Sheridan’s DeLorean-driving Wade Watts. ALTERED CARBON 2018-2020 Another Netflix show, set in a world where consciousness can be transferred to different bodies. Those who are that way inclined can head to a VR café where they can play out any scenario they want – usually violent or sexually depraved acts. Torture is also on the menu. JM VIRTUAL INSANITY The best on-screen VR A fearful Jin and Jack Saul and Auggie await the existential threat NETFLIX TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 57 3 BODY PROBLEM

here is a moment near the beginning of Fallout 3 – the landmark 2008 action roleplaying game from Bethesda Games Studios – that is imprinted on anyone who experienced it at the time. In it, the player-created main character opens the exit to the subterranean vault they’ve called home for 19 years, and steps into the blinding light of the Wasteland for the first time, a literal world of potential stretching as far as the eye can see. ‘I was, right out of the gate, blown away,’ says Jonathan Nolan, the co-creator of HBO’s Westworld and co-writer of The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige and Interstellar, alongside big brother Chris. During a conversation with Total Film in early February, Nolan is reminiscing about ‘looking for a new distraction’ in late 2008, months after Ma^y=ZkdDgb`am hit cinemas, and being drawn to a copy of hot new thing Fallout 3. ‘I was obsessed with the game, and obsessed with the world of it,’ a visibly animated Nolan says over Zoom. ‘The ambition of it, and the mythology of it, and the sophistication of the world, and the gravitas of it. What really got to me, though [was] the weirdness of it, and the gonzo, satirical, impossible-to-place tone of this thing. You very seldom see anything like this.’ Contradiction is at the heart of Fallout. Take that first in-game glimpse of the open world. The paradox of this moment is that, for all the freedom it promises, everything in front of you is extremely dead. The toxic landscape is dotted with the decrepit relics of a once-thriving civilisation, some two centuries after a nuclear judgement day has driven the haves underground and left the have-nots to fend for themselves on the surface with irradiated cockroaches the size of house cats and even more monstrous mutants. Life is as grim as it gets in the Wasteland, yet the tone of Fallout is anything but. Nolan describes the series as ‘closer to comedy’ than anything he and Lisa Joy have made to date. Leaning into Fallout’s contradictions, Nolan and Joy, who were still working on Westworld while initially developing Fallout in 2019, made the unusual decision to hire a pair of showrunners with wildly divergent backgrounds: Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel, Tomb Raider) and Graham Wagner (Silicon Valley, The Office). ‘Geneva comes from the comic-book world like me, whereas Graham comes from comedy,’ Nolan points out. ‘That was kind of the approach – a little bit of IN VIDEO-GAME ADAPTATION FALLOUT, THE END OF THE WORLD IS ONLY THE START OF THE FUN. AS THE GONZO POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIES MAKES THE LEAP TO LIVE ACTION, TOTAL FILM STRAPS ON A PIP-BOY AND VENTURES INTO THE WASTELAND WITH THE CAST AND CREATORS OF THE NEXT IRRADIATED-WATER-COOLER SHOW. WORDS JORDAN FARLEY 58 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MAKING OF

TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 59 FALLOUT

Aaron Moten and Ella Purnell play young residents of the nuclear Wasteland David Lean, and a little bit of straight comedy,’ he nods. Much of Fallout’s humour comes from its deeply embedded critique of consumer corporatism. The Wasteland is littered with the retro-futuristic detritus of mega-corporations like Vault-Tec, and its grinning mascot Vault Boy, who is often glimpsed giving a big, incongruous thumbs-up. ‘There’s all this branded stuff,’ Robertson-Dworet says. ‘And it seems to imply that whatever brought the world to the end was the hyper-corporatisation of that pre-war society.’ ‘It’s given us a fair bit of joy to be able to do that on Amazon Prime Video,’ adds Wagner, with a chuckle. ‘That is the paradox of America.’ GAME CHANGER Fallout has arrived at a fascinating moment for video-game adaptations. Once the subject of a decadeslong ‘curse’, preconceptions that game-based movies and TV shows are likely to fail were well and truly upended by HBO’s acclaimed adaptation of The Last of Us a year ago. ‘Now there’s an expectation of: “No, they can actually be great. I watched some good ones,”’ says Wagner with a smile. ‘In a perverse way, I wish there was more snobbery so that we could have been the first!’ Both may be violent stories set in a post-apocalyptic America, featuring zombie-adjacent creatures, but the comparisons between TLOU and Fallout end there. Most significantly, while the former faithfully (some might say slavishly) replicates the game’s narrative on screen, Fallout is telling an original story in a new location for the series – Los Angeles – but all set in the same canonical American Wasteland as the games. ‘From the first conversation with Todd [Howard, game director of Fallout 3 & 4, and an executive producer on the show] we were most excited about an original story,’ says Nolan. ‘Fallout, in my career, is closest to the work we did in adapting Batman, where there’s so much storytelling in the Batman universe that there is no canonical version of it, so you’re free to invent your own. Each of the [Fallout] games is a discrete story – different city, distinct protagonist – within the same mythology. Our series Ella Purnell’s Lucy quickly learns that life on the surface isn’t everything she had believed sits in relation to the games as the games sit in relation to each other. It’s almost like we’re Fallout 5. I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but it’s just a noninteractive version of it, right?’ With a typical playthrough of Fallout 3 or its 2015 sequel, Fallout 4, taking upwards of 100 hours, and players afforded the freedom to engage with as little or as much of the world and its wacky inhabitants as they want, the challenge was ‘how do we evoke all the great parts of Fallout efficiently, and in a way that is meaningful to us?’ according to Wagner. ‘By telling an original story, we felt like we could welcome people who weren’t familiar with the games to the key tenets of a Fallout storyline,’ adds Robertson-Dworet. ‘Which are: a Vault-dweller going to the surface for the first time, and having their morality challenged; exploring the Power Armour through the Brotherhood of Steel; and The Ghouls, who are the most Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, a centuriesold mercenary ‘ T H E A P P R O A C H [ W A S ] A L I T T L E B I T O F D AV I D L E A N , A N D A L I T T L E B I T O F S T R A I G H T COMEDY’ JONATHAN NOLAN JOJO WHILDEN/PRIME VIDEO ©AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MAKING OF

Jonathan Nolan directed the first three episodes of the series Michael Emerson (centre) is scientist Wilzig, being tracked by The Ghoul benighted of all the people on the surface. So we wanted to look out for them, and, in fact, put our favourite actor of all time, Walton Goggins, into that role.’ GHOUL & THE GANG Goggins doesn’t have just a role; in fact, he has two. We first meet him as Cooper Howard – a down-on-his-luck former western star, who is the entertainment at a kids’ party on the day the nukes detonate and change the world of Fallout forever. Howard features throughout the show in flashbacks that will expand on how, 219 years later, he has become The Ghoul – a necrotic, gunslinging mercenary whose life has been indefinitely prolonged by exposure to radiation and a cocktail of chemicals that keep him from turning feral. A standout supporting player in The Shield, Justified and two Tarantino westerns, but with criminally few leading roles to his name, Goggins admits to having no idea TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 61

what Fallout was initially. ‘All I needed to know was that Jonathan and Lisa were behind it,’ he nods. ‘Then they started describing the character. And I was like, “Really? So I don’t have any hair? I’ve been walking in a Wasteland for 200 years? OK!”’ In order to portray The Ghoul, Goggins spent an hour and 45 minutes having a deceptively thin prosthetic headpiece applied every morning, undergoing a radical transformation into a character he describes as ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ rolled into one. ‘What we kept coming back to was that we wanted the audience to not be repulsed by the visual of The Ghoul; but, rather, to lean into it, and to look at his face, and to become obsessed with it,’ Goggins says. ‘And to make him sexy, on some level. To make him irresistible.’ Certainly, The Ghoul has a swagger and a confidence in his capabilities that make him cool, calm and collected, even when drastically outnumbered in a gunfight. Goggins turned to numerous iconic western stars for inspiration: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, James Coburn, Alan Ladd, James Arness, Paul Newman, but in particular, ‘I really, really watched, over and over again, Henry Fonda in Once upon a Time in the West, and the way in which his energy comes into the room before he does. The way he moves with very little effort, and he never really speaks above a whisper.’ The Ghoul is hired to track down Wilzig (Michael Emerson), a scientist with a valuable secret in his head, causing him to cross paths with Ella Purnell’s former Vault-dweller Lucy and Aaron Moten’s Brotherhood of Steel squire Maximus, who make up the cast’s interconnected core trio. When we meet Lucy, a life-long resident of Vault 33, her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) has arranged for her to be married to a suitor from Vault 32. Her destiny as a wife and mother is about to unfold exactly as she’s always been told it will. ‘Lucy is highly trained and smart, and is this A1 put-together type,’ Purnell says. ‘She truly is a good person, and believes in the Golden Rule, and that her children’s children will go to the surface one day, and rebuild America. She believes in doing her duty, and procreating, and creating the future. And then through a series of unfortunate events, she ends up going to the surface and leaving the Vault, and finding that may not be entirely true.’ On the surface, Lucy quickly learns that morality is a privilege. ‘Lucy is able to be this noble person back in her Vault, because she’s never wanted for anything,’ Robertson-Dworet says, ‘And as soon as she’s on the surface, every decision becomes a lot harder.’ That’s certainly true for Maximus, a member of the The Ghoul started out as a western actor, before radiation deformed his body and prolonged his life The Brotherhood of Steel seeks out pre-war technology ‘ W E ’ V E B A R E LY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE O F T H E F A L L O U T UNIVERSE’ GRAHAM WAGNER 62 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

quasi-religious Brotherhood of Steel – a technocratic paramilitary order whose primary aim is to locate, preserve and regulate pre-war technology. This is achieved through the use of Power Armour (see boxout, right), metal suits that turn Brotherhood Knights into walking tanks. ‘They usually use violent means in order to achieve their goals,’ says soft-spoken Moten. ‘Maximus enters as a young initiate, and is hoping to rise in the ranks of the Brotherhood.’ Max is a squire, tasked with carrying his Knight’s oversized bag into battle and, er, polishing his codpiece. But it’s all in aid of something greater than himself, Max dedicating his life to the order after being saved by the Brotherhood as a child. ‘He wants to be a hero,’ Wagner says. ‘He wants to be chivalrous. But he finds out that the Brotherhood is not quite what it seems. And so the question is: how can he actually live up to his ideals if the institution that he’s part of is so problematic?’ ARMOUR WARS Incredibly, the Brotherhood’s Power Armour was a practical costume, worn by stunt performer Adam Shippey. ‘I’ve learned this with my brother, and with all the projects that we’ve worked on over the years – it’s always better if you can make it real,’ notes Nolan, who currently has a suit of Power Armour sitting in his garage. ‘We stole a trick from the original Alien. The Xenomorph [costume] was built around one terrifically talented performer, who had a very unique build, which allowed them to sculpt the suit in such a way that it doesn’t feel like there’s a person there. Even then, I still imagined that we would have to use a bit of trickery and replace the suit with CG in a lot of places, but 99% of what you’re seeing is Adam walking around in that suit.’ For the cast, the suit was a special effect whose impact never waned. ‘It’s one of those things where you needed someone to tell you to close your mouth,’ says Moten. ‘You’re just gaping at this thing. And the way that you see people behave – whether it’s background actors or our crew – everyone needs to move out of the way.’ ‘I remember there was one point where he took a couple of fast steps towards me,’ adds Purnell. ‘I backed up off my mark and was completely out of focus, because that’s your gut reaction to this robot transformerlooking dude who’s humungous.’ Nolan himself directed the first three episodes, shooting primarily on location on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia and the Western Salt Lakes of Utah to capture a sense of the games’ ‘beauty and scope’, while staying uncompromisingly true to the series’ outrageously OTT violence (‘It’s definitely a hallmark of the game that we knew we had to translate into the series’). He also thought deeply about how to replicate the experience of playing the game in a passive medium. ‘The way in which you interact with these games, there’s as much cultural anthropology as there is violence,’ he explains. ‘You’re sifting through the leavings of a world that has been destroyed. To take that freedom and eliminate it as a filmmaker is intimidating. You’re taking away interactivity, and you’re replacing it with intentionality, which is exciting. I think that’s why there’s a place for adapting video games.’ Certainly, everyone involved is excited enough by what they’ve made that no one is ruling out a return to the Wasteland. ‘It’s an uncertain time in television. So the art form of season finales has become: provide enough closure, but leave the door open for more,’ Wagner admits. ‘But we feel we’ve barely scratched the surface of the Fallout universe. We literally have documents and documents of stuff that we’re, in success, eager to dig into. Our fingers are crossed that we’re going to get the opportunity to do all that stuff.’ FALLOUT STREAMS ON PRIME VIDEO FROM 12 APRIL. Knights of the Brotherhood of Steel wear heavy-duty suits of Power Armour Jonathan Nolan with Ella Purnell on location SUIT CASE How Fallout’s practical Power Armour was made. ‘The first meeting was so exciting,’ says costume designer Amy Westcott. ‘I was like, “This is great! This is great!” And then I started thinking, “Oh my God, this is petrifying!” The Power Armour was a collaboration with props, the art department, and then they made them out in LA. These phenomenal makers – Legacy – made all the pieces. We made sure that the performer wasn’t going to die underneath them ?in the heatA. It was a lot of collaboration in getting them on, also just so that the actors and the stunt players would actually be able to work in them. And there were under-layers that you had to see, and that had to make sense for the characters. Thec&rotherhood was so massiZe and epic that it was a lot of crossoZer with us and the art department and props to make that whole group. That whole army, I should say. And, for me, the chance to get to build a world like this is so rare. EZerything was not only made, but completely altered and touched and aged and distressed. God, the scale of it was just huge. It was a great experience that is super rare.’ JF MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 63 FALLOUT

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After a scorching debut with Saint Maud, filmmaker Rose Glass returns with a horny, brawny, magicalrealist tale of romance, regret and ’roids with Love Lies Bleeding. She and her cast tell Total Film about making a ‘strong woman’ story with a twist… WORDS JANE CROWTHER TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 65 LOVE LIES BLEEDING

LIONSGATE/A24 risten Stewart is telling Total Film about the appeal of her new movie, Love Lies Bleeding, and her description doesn’t pull any punches. ‘There was something so nice about the nightmare fantasy of, you know, throat-fucking your evil dad with your girlfriend, and running off into the clouds,’ chuckles Stewart over Zoom from her LA home as her dog, Cole, barks up a storm. It’s days after the first of two films starring the actor has bowed at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and Stewart, back in LA to shoot the cover of Rolling Stone, is trying to describe the allure of Rose Glass’ heightened-reality crime thriller; a film that promises to make audiences blanch as much as Maud’s thumb tacks in shoes. It’s a tale that includes bug eating, fingering, poo fishing, monstrous evolution and a luridly violent scene that is literally jaw-dropping. ‘She creates a vibe, doesn’t she?’ Stewart asks with admiration. ‘She really does know how to build something – an entire world to immerse yourself in.’ Certainly, Glass made windswept Scarborough a creepy, foreboding location for a cautionary narrative of frenzy, infatuation and the fearsome power of driven women in Saint Maud. Stewart saw the 2020 lockdown hit and knew she wanted to work with its creator. ‘We’ve really just started to allow women to make films in the scheme of things, if you really zoom out. We’re not encouraged to make icky things. It’s like, everyone needs to fill their marginal-content quota with affirmations or something. Rose definitely didn’t feel inclined to be affected by that pressure. It was almost like it pushed her in a different and new direction. I was like, “Fuck, this person has got it.”’ British director Glass is too humble to name-drop the numerous stars, directors and producers who reached out to her in the wake of her fiery calling card (‘I had some very surreal Zooms – “Oh, this very famous person is on my laptop”’) but she was keen to try a new process with her second film. ‘I took the decision to take [the success of Saint Maud] as a liberating thing and a springboard to leap wholeheartedly and confidently into something and not think too much about it, because otherwise probably that’s when the terror sinks in,’ Glass says, now sporting cropped hair that makes her look (perhaps fittingly) like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. ‘Writing Saint Maud by myself was a quite an isolating, stressful experience. As much as I’m happy with how it turned out, I think going into this next one, I was maybe nervous about getting back into that again. So I knew I wanted to co-write, and wanted to have fun doing it.’ Teaming up with writer-director Weronika Tofilska, whom she went to a film school with, Glass began to explore the story of an 80s female bodybuilder who might spin out of control as she prepped for competition. ‘I went to [Tofilska] with a really embryonic version of what then became Love Lies Bleeding, and we just spent several months locked up in a room together, brainstorming, mapping out the story, and just seeing where it went – trying to make each other laugh and surprise each other. I knew what I wanted the tone to be, and the world, which was something quite pulpy, darkly comic and violent. People behaving badly and making terrible life decisions. A romance that sort of goes spectacularly wrong – or right, depending on how you look at it.’ FLEX AND VIOLENCE That romance, then, is the instant attraction that ignites between quiet gym manager Lou (Stewart) and musclebulging drifter Jackie (Katy O’Brian) in a dusty 80s Albuquerque crossroads town. Lou, tamped down by family trauma (dad played by Ed Harris, sis by Jena Malone, rat-tailed brother-in-law by Dave Franco) and fishing turds out of the abused gym loos, experiences love at first sight when confident, sexy Jackie prowls into the weights area. Jackie is on her way to hoped-for bodybuilding stardom in Vegas and will do anything to transform, even if that means losing her head. And though the women get hot and heavy immediately, their burgeoning love is threatened by the local mob and a crime of passion. There are guns, steroids, rock canyons and a lot of cleaning bleach involved… ‘I liked exploring the qualities that somebody who does bodybuilding would have to possess, and the different ways they had the potential to be misguided or manipulated or abused by other people in their life – Jackie’s got all this strength, energy and drive,’ says Glass. ‘There are parallels between Jackie’s character and Maud. They’re both trying to transform themselves, and arguably not in the most responsible ways.’ ‘ I K N E W I W A N T E D T H E T O N E T O B E Q U I T E P U L P Y, D A R K LY C O M I C A N D VIOLENT’ ROSE GLASS Katy O’Brian as Jackie and Kristen Stewart as Lou Anna Baryshnikov stars as Daisy 66 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 MAKING OF SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

No spoilers here, but let’s just say that Jackie hulks out in prep for her spotlight in Las Vegas… And throughout the writing process, Glass had one actor in mind to embody skittish Lou. ‘Kristen was the dream casting for that role, while the script was still being written, and before we had financiers on board. Obviously, you’re going through the exercise of imagining, “If she says no, who would we go for?” I was very nervous and I was very glad that she said yes, because I’m not sure what we would have done otherwise.’ The concept intrigued Stewart. ‘When [Glass] told me the idea for her follow-up film, I was really scared to touch it,’ the actor admits. ‘I didn’t want to let her down. ‘She told me that she had been feeling the effects of all the many conversations that happened in the wake of such an incredible first film. She was like, “Yeah, everyone’s like, ‘Make a movie about a strong woman, a strong lady. Blah blah blah blah.’ So I wrote a movie about a really strong lady.” I just thought it was kind of petulant and hilarious and exactly what I wanted to do even before I read the script. And when I read it, I was so impressed. It’s just so many different things that don’t normally go together. I mean, technically, on paper, it’s a crime thriller. She posits life and violence, but small violences – the little things that make Lou hardened. I loved the movie because I loved Lou so much, and I really vouched for her, and I really wanted her to be a good guy – but things just aren’t that simple.’ With Lou taken care of, Glass had to find her Jackie, a task she initially thought would be a ‘discovery’ role for an untested athlete. ‘That’s quite difficult, it turns out,’ the writer-director laughs. ‘We saw a lot of tapes. There’s obviously a little bit of pressure at times to go for a more famous actor, and get them to transform and get into shape. It would take months and months, which we didn’t have, and then you start having really weird conversations about: “Maybe body doubles and CGI?” Then quite close to the beginning of production we got one of Katy’s tapes. And it was just like, “Thank God. I think we’ve found her.”’ O’Brian had an athletic and martial-arts background but had been acting in projects such as The Mandalorian and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. She recognised Jackie immediately: ‘I just knew that it was about a queer bodybuilder. I was like, “Well, I’ve done bodybuilding competitions. I know that. She’s from the Midwest. I’m from the Midwest. And we’re both queer. So, cool.” I fell in love with it right away, and I was like, “I have to get this part.” I thought I have to do it even more, because I have to A) show people that I’m a serious actor, but B) this is the kind of art that I’ve wanted to make for so long and have not had the opportunities to do.’ She aced numerous auditions and a key chemistry read with Stewart, booking the role only weeks before production. Though it shouldn’t be noteworthy, it meant that a queer story would be told by queer actors. ‘The authenticity is going to be there when you’ve both had those experiences,’ O’Brian nods over Zoom, her wife moving around their house in the background. ‘I’ve worked with a girl who was straight and we were supposed to do a kissing scene. She was so thoroughly uncomfortable with the concept, or the idea, of touching me that it made me feel gross. So getting to work with someone who’s also queer, who doesn’t find the idea of being with a woman disgusting, it was a relief. And you have an unspoken understanding of what this is like. But I love that this isn’t a story about us coming out. It’s not a story where she’s with a man, and I take her away. It’s a story about two women who fall in love, and that’s it.’ Casting Stewart and O’Brian also allowed the actors to subvert their own on-screen personas, according to O’Brian. ‘Kristen’s gotten to play these really typically feminine characters. And with Lou, she’s more macho. She’s playing it tough, but is also really awkward and quirky. And I – who always has to play these military characters – get to play this nomad who comes out of nowhere. She’s sexy and she knows it – I never get to do that. So that was a lot of fun, because we were actually seeing parts of ourselves that people don’t generally cast us for.’ With only two weeks to get in shape before principle photography, O’Brian hit the gym with a trainer (‘My strength training was very film-focused, concentrating on where the camera catches light – so a lot of upperpectoral muscle, a lot of abs’), threw herself into ‘GETTING TO WORK WITH SOMEONE WHO IS ALSO Q U E E R , W H O D O E S N ’ T F I N D T H E I D E A O F B E I N G WITH A WOMAN DISGUSTING, WAS A RELIEF’ KATY O’BRIAN Ed Harris stars as Lou’s father, Lou Sr Dave Franco plays Lou’s brother-in-law, J.J. Director Rose Glass on set TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 67 LOVE LIES BLEEDING

The pair become entangled in Lou Sr’s criminal dealings embodying a warrior in 80s short shorts and shell suits (‘I’m literally wearing one of Jackie’s bras right now, my wife has a jacket – I think I took half the wardrobe’) and watched Glass’ list of reference films, which included Crash, Saturday Night Fever, Showgirls, The Night Porter and A Snake of June. Stewart collaborated with Glass and costume designer Olga Mill to create a skeevy-sexy look for Lou – all oversized T-shirts, mullet hair and sneakers. ‘We started off thinking that Lou would be in boots and maybe a leather belt,’ Stewart says. ‘I was like, “Lou’s a teenie guy. Lou’s a soft-shoe guy.” You can tell [Mill] the tiniest little things that maybe don’t even have detail, and she’s able to interpret it. And something about her colour choices… It’s so “come in for milk and cookies, but then get face-fucked…”’ she laughs. Together, the trifecta of Glass, Stewart and O’Brian created a realistic romance with one foot firmly in heightened reality. ‘[Glass is] willing to use her script as a diving board. She was sculpting a feeling, a sort of energy and momentum,’ recalls Stewart. ‘Some directors are like surgeons and some are a little more ephemeral. Rose is definitely able to modulate in real time. You’re not always aware of how that’s going to end up. I just felt like such a partner – anything she needed, I just wanted to hand it to her. I didn’t need to always know what was going on, because I genuinely trusted her implicitly.’ ‘ I T ’ S N O T T H AT G R A P H I C . . . I T ’ S J U S T T H AT W H E N Y O U TA L K A B O U T A W O M A N ’ S B O D Y, P E O P L E S TA R T T O SQUIRM’ KRISTEN STEWART Lou and Jackie’s emotional connection comes under threat 68 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 MAKING OF SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS Five deliciously ‘monstrous’ girlfriends That trust was implicit in scenes of sex and violence. In one moment, a character is brutalised in a horribly funny way, gore (and teeth) flying – which left Sundance audiences gasping. The same could be said of hot, horny scenes of oral sex, where Lou asks Jackie to show her how she masturbates. ‘I wanted the film to be really pulpy, melodramatic, visceral and there would probably be a lot of sex and violence in it,’ says Glass. ‘But, at the same time, I basically wanted to make the most fun film that I could. It’s all done with a pretty light touch. And the world that the film takes place in, it’s got a foot in reality but it’s definitely got a foot up in the clouds somewhere else. It sort of means that you’re able to lean into the more operatic qualities of gruesome, juicy violence, which in filmmaking is just a lot of fun. Subtlety is not the quality at the forefront of many things in the film.’ WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU, MA’AMS Though Stewart had been quoted during Sundance saying that the sauce in the movie might shock some, she’s keen to point out that she doesn’t think it’s actually shocking. ‘In print, that looks so different, because I was laughing when I said that. It will shock the pearlclutchers. It’s not that graphic. It’s just that when you talk about a woman’s body, when you start talking about the orifice, people start squirming. [The sex scenes are done] in a really good, tasty way. You don’t see anything. I think you see [O’Brian’s] tits once. You see mine for a split-second. But I think it’s the verbiage. We talk about each other. We actually acknowledge what’s happening, versus burying a head under a bustle.’ The whole experience impressed Stewart, not least working with O’Brian, a relative newbie compared with her own two-decade career. ‘Something Katy brought that wasn’t necessarily in the script was a deep sweetness, and it makes it fucking weird. I was impressed MONSTERS VS ALIENS Susan is a sweet girl until a meteor hits her on her wedding day, then turns her the size of a skyscraper. You’re literally something on the bottom of her shoe. MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND G-Girl has superpowers that make her a great mate, until she’s dumped by her feckless boyfriend – a powerful, vengeful former flame. Don’t piss off a supe. WANDAVISION Wanda is a model wife to Vision, until she recalls the real reason for her creating their world. Then all hell breaks loose. Well, what is grief if not love persevering? ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN Wealthy socialite grows gargantuan and goes after her philandering, murderous ex-hubby for revenge. You do you, Nancy. And in a makeshift bikini bedsheet. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Pre-teen first love is cute, right? Holding hands, chatting by the swings. Ripping off hands, sucking blood, swinging from the rafters… JC with her gall. Because when I first started, I was a kid. I was malleable. She’s fully formed. She’s a fucking grown-up and that can be so much scarier, to trust it all at that age, when you aren’t used to it. I think she killed it.’ Glass agrees, thrilled with the way the two women crafted a cinematic relationship that wrong-foots audiences and each other. But amid the many takeaways on offer (guilt, trauma, ambition, steroid abuse, daddy issues, breaking bad habits), she’s reluctant to tag what the overriding theme of the piece truly is. ‘I don’t want to put anything into people’s heads. If nothing else, it’s about how difficult it is to quit smoking,’ she smiles. For O’Brian, the movie explores the beauty of life glinting in the filth. ‘The film is surrounding us with disgusting situations, and the only thing that really comes in as beautiful is our [characters’] love, or how we’re looking at each other. We’re in this shithole and we’re looking at each other. That’s what’s good about it.’ Stewart sighs as she tries to parse her thoughts. ‘I think it’s about the stories we tell ourselves to get us through. None of them are true and all of them are true – and everyone is having a different experience. The thing that drives it usually is a beating heart. That can lead you to very dangerous and very beautiful and stunning places…’ LOVE LIES BLEEDING OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 3 MAY. ‘ T H E W O R L D I T TA K E S P L A C E I N . . . I T ’ S G O T A F O O T I N R E A L I T Y, B U T I T ’ S D E F I N I T E LY G O T A FOOT UP IN THE CLOUDS SOMEWHERE ELSE’ ROSE GLASS TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 69 LOVE LIES BLEEDING

Since finding fame as one of Skins’ breakout graduates, Jack O’Connell has been renowned for bringing a raw intensity to his roles. Next up, he’s channelling that charisma in Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, playing the legendary singer’s troubled partner Blake Fielder-Civil. ‘I don’t think you stop learning,’ he tells Total Film. ‘New challenges are always welcome.’ ‘I THINK I STILL DO FEEL LIKE AN OUTSIDER, TO BE HONEST’ INTERVIEW MATT MAYTUM CAMERA PRESS/RACHELL SMITH PORTRAITS RACHELL SMITH 70 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

hen Total Film catches up with Jack O’Connell in February, he’s on an uncharacteristically chilled break. ‘I’m just in Italy, in the mountains,’ he explains. ‘Just frolicking around in the snow.’ Not exactly what you expect if you’re familiar with his on-screen work, which frequently has a ferocious edge. After doing classic Brit TV staples (The Bill, Holby City), O’Connell showed early promise in the likes of This Is England and Eden Lake. Born in Derbyshire in 1990 to an Irish father and English mother, O’Connell almost pursued a career in football before he found drama, his working-class roots making him something of a rarity in the British acting scene. His big break came with Skins, E4’s talent hotbed that had already launched the careers of Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya and Nicholas Hoult when he joined Season 3 as bad boy James Cook. Klv#Ľop#fduhhu#zdv#vxshufkdujhg#e|#d# searing turn in prison drama Starred Up in 2013, followed closely by Troubles-set thriller ’71 and a Hollywood breakout in Angelina Jolie’s prestige picture, Unbroken, in which he starred as former Olympian Louis Zamperini, who becomes a prisoner of war in a true survival story. More US work followed, but he has found his best roles in recent years on the small screen, zlwk#Qhwľl{ġv#zlogo|#xqghuudwhg#zhvwhuq# Godless (2017), and the BBC’s Ma^yGhkma Water (2021) and SAS: Rogue Heroes (2022; Season 2 incoming). Next up, O’Connell has another project that’s sure to attract a lot of attention. ;Z\dymh;eZ\d - the Amy Winehouse biopic being made with the permission of the late singer’s estate - brings to the screen an indelible moment in recent British cultural history. Marisa Abela (Industry) stars as Winehouse, and O’Connell is Eodnh Ilhoghu0Flylo>#wkh#Ľop#h{dplqhv# Winehouse’s life through the prism of that all-consuming relationship. O’Connell was gluhfwru#Vdp#Wd|oru0Mrkqvrqġv#Ľuvw#fkrlfh# iru#wkh#uroh#dqg#zdv#fdvw#Ľuvw/#phdqlqj#kh# was involved when they were testing actors to play Winehouse. ‘A good thing about those tests is, I like to approach my work openly,’ he says. ‘I like to try things, and I like to get it wrong. Getting it wrong sometimes, and Ľjxulqj#lw#rxw/#dqg#hpeduudvvlqj#|rxuvhoi# once or twice along the way, perhaps. Thankfully Marisa is that type of actor where she’s open, and she wants to experiment, and she wants to try things. I was really blown away by her.’ The role is a reminder of O’Connell’s potent charisma, and showcases that raw, unvarnished energy that hasn’t diminished over the near two decades he’s appeared on screen. And he’s got no plans to slow down now. ‘I’m 33,’ he says. ‘A lot of my favourite actors were turning in their best work at my age. If that applies to me, that’s something to be excited about. At the moment, that is my main ambition, to Ľjxuh#rxw#zkdwġv#qh{w/#dqg#nhhs#fkxuqlqj# out my best work. And hopefully I never stop, you know?’ Amy Winehouse and Blake FielderCivil’s lives played out across the tabloids, who were reporting on their every move. What are your memories of that time? I just remember it feeling very ruthless, and that there was almost an acceptance in the public that that level of intrusion was OK. I think we’ve learned by now that it’s not. I like to think that by now we have a olwwoh#elw#ri#d#glļhuhqw#dwwlwxgh#lq#krz#zh# respect people’s privacy, albeit if they’re in the public eye or not. I don’t think Amy signed up to that level of harassment. I don’t think Blake did either. It’s something I do have quite an opinion on. I guess it is a real negative by-product of the success that she had. How did Sam Taylor-Johnson pitch her take on this to you? The fact that it was written by Matthew Greenhalgh [Ghpa^k^;hr, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool] was a massive draw. I love Matthew’s scripts. I think he’s one of the best writers in the country. He’s a friend. It was that, basically. [Sam] just told me that it was me she had in mind for Blake, and she hadn’t really considered anyone else for it. I had to go away and think about it, naturally. And then I jumped on as part of wkh#surfhvv/#dqg#L#jrw#lqyroyhg#lq#Ľqglqj# Amy. So I was around for chemistry reads and auditions, if you will. And that’s when we stumbled across Marisa [Abela]. I just think she does something phenomenal with this role. It’s been a real joy from vwduw wr#Ľqlvk1 Zdv#lw#d#orqj#surfhvv#wr#Ľqg#wkh# right person for Amy? Not as far as I’m aware. I just kind of turned up to this meeting. Marisa was one of the actors we were looking at, and she just smacked it out of the park. It was so obviously going to be her. How did it feel playing opposite someone who is portraying an iconic Ľjxuh#zlwk#d#glvwlqfwlyh#orrn#dqg#yrlfhB# Did you double take at all? AL AMY, STUDIOCANAL As Louis Zamperini in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken 72 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 INTERVIEW SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

Yeah, daily. Even as [recently] as watching the trailers that [just came out]. I’ve seen wkh#Ľop/#dqg#vr#L#zdv#h{shulhqflqj#wkdw#d# lot, watching Marisa’s performance. It’s been one of the biggest thrills of my career, to watch her go about her work, and adopt this role, and put the amount of graft that needed to take place on her part in order to get this right. I just feel like she’s come from such a place of understanding that it’s really allowed her to do something really phenomenal. It was a wild, wild thrill to watch her go about her work. Did you have any hesitation about playing someone from such a recent moment in history? I guess so. I mean, we’re talking 20 years on. It’s still historical in that sense. It’s surprising because obviously I have lived experience of that time. That’s quite unique. I suppose the added pressure of Blake… obviously, Blake’s still around. So, naturally, there was that. It was important to me to get on a level with him. But, I feel a lot of nostalgia for this period, and it was great to bring that to the work. I’m younger than Blake, but I remember this time. I remember Camden then. I remember the music then. I remember the fashion. It was cool to be from around there. The music that was coming out of that scene was amazing. It’s still amazing today. It was amazing to apply some lived experience to the role. What was it like meeting Blake? The meeting initially for me was not to go in and study him, because I think I was just going to be guided by the writing, and guided by what’s available of him out there. In terms of how he sounds tonally, and dialect, etc – that’s all out there. I think one thing that was eye-opening to me was how much I got on with him, and how much I felt I could relate to him. Obviously, I didn’t have any preconceived notion that that would be the case, but I came away from the meeting just feeling like he was the type of geezer that I’d already met, or the type of fella that I already knew anyway. I guess I put that down to the environment that he came up in, and being able to relate to that. You know, he likes his football. He’s a very devoted father. L ghĽqlwho|/#ghĽqlwho|#jrw#wkh#vhqvh#wkdw# his love for Amy was very genuine. These were all bonuses. These were all things I didn’t even hope to acquire, but, having done so, [they were] invaluable to me in informing how I was going to portray him. Have you spoken to him since? Has he kdg#wkh#fkdqfh#wr#vhh#wkh#ĽopB We talk about football. He’s a Millwall fan, I’m a Derby County fan. All our interactions consist of football chat [laughs]. You came to fame at a pretty young age. Were there any aspects of their story that you related to? I don’t think I ever attracted the kind of attention that Amy or Blake did. I ghĽqlwho|#uhphpehu#wkhp#ehlqj#txlwh# frequently in the news cycle at that time. There might be similarities, but they’re ghĽqlwho|#glvwlqfw1#L#wklqn#wkhuh#duh# certainly levels to it. I didn’t have hordes of paparazzi loitering outside where I was living, trying to take pictures of me either looking good or looking bad deliberately, or just trying to spin stories, be it true or false. I’ve never had that, and, touch wood, I never will, because it appears to be fucking dreadful. ‘I FEEL A LOT OF NOSTALGIA FOR THIS PERIOD’ Jack O’Connell plays Blake Fielder-Civil with Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in the upcoming Back to Black TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 73

You’ve played real people a few times across your career. Does that change your approach at all, compared zlwk#d#Ľfwlrqdo#fkdudfwhuB I’d like to think it was still the same. You’re still diligent. There is still that want and hunger to get it right, and the want to study, or what have you. I suppose it all depends on how much you feel the public already know about the original, and whether that sort of limits what licence you have, and how much detail you can invent, or how much detail you have to just recreate. What is it you tend to look for in a role these days, and has your approach to what you’re looking for changed much since you started out? L#wklqn#vr/#ghĽqlwho|1#Wkh#pruh#|rx#gr#lw/# the more you learn. In my case, there’s been a lot of learning on the job, and I don’t think you stop learning. New challenges are always welcome. They’re always exciting. But I think what remains the same is that I was told from a young age to be considerate as to what I’ve just done, and hope that what you do next brings a glļhuhqw#lqľhfwlrq/#dqg#eulqjv#d#glļhuhqw# set of challenges and requirements. Wkdwġv#zk|/#zkhwkhu#lwġv#WY/#Ľop#ru# wkhdwuh/#lw#fdq#eh#hqmr|deoh#wr#erxqfh#rļ# rqh/#dqg#wkhq#vwudljkw#rļ#lqwr#dqrwkhu1# Li wkh|#duh#glļhuhqw/#wkhq#wkdwġv#wkuloolqj1 Gr#|rx#uhphpehu#zkhq#lw#Ľuvw# struck you that you could make a living this way? It still is the dream to be doing this for a living. Not many people get to do this, where I’m from. I count myself incredibly fortunate. I think when I initially started to believe it was possible was when I got into the [Televison Workshop] in Nottingham, because careers had been developed from there previously, and so it was proven that it could be done. I got into that workshop when I was 13. Whereas any experiences with drama before that might have just been fucking about at school, and just an hour where you weren’t sat at a desk. It was great that drama was compulsory at my school, and so we had to do it. I enjoyed it, and got referred to the workshop in Nottingham. I guess that’s when I started thinking, ‘Hold on, there’s a chance I could have a pop at this, and make it happen.’ When you started out in acting, did you feel like an outsider because of coming from a working-class background? I think I still do, to be honest. To be fair, I think there’s always that. It’s not typically SKINS 2009-2013 E4’s teen drama was already a cult phenomenon by the time O’Connell joined the cast as part of its second generation. Yet his hard-drinking hedonist Cook added more fuel to the fire with his boundary-pushing antics (‘Let’s go fucking mental!’). STARRED UP 2013 David Mackenzie’s prison drama gave O’Connell another powder-keg role in volatile inmate Eric, a young offender transferred to the lock-up where his estranged dad (Ben Mendelsohn) is incarcerated. ‘I wanted to give a mature depth to him,’ says the actor. ’71 2014 Having once considered a life in the army, O’Connell finally got to play soldier in Yann Demange’s drama about a British squaddie abandoned in 70s Belfast. According to the director, Jack’s ‘soulfulness and complexity’ made him perfect for the part. GODLESS 2017 O’Connell spent weeks training with genuine cowboys for his role in Netflix’s western series, an injured outlaw on the lam who finds refuge in a town run by women. ‘By the end I was one of the boys,’ he remembers. LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER 2022 To prepare for his part as gamekeeper Mellors, rugged lover of Emma Corrin’s titular aristo, O’Connell sought counsel from an old drama teacher at Nottingham’s Television Workshop. ‘He worships D.H. Lawrence and helped me know the character,’ the actor recalls. NS E4, ALAMY FIVE STAR TURNS 74 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 INTERVIEW SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

a working-class vocation. So that is omnipresent. I think any other workingclass actor would agree. That’s just the way it is, you know? It’s something to be proud of, I think. Have things improved since? L#wklqn#glyhuvlĽfdwlrq#lv#dssduhqw/#dqg/#|rx# nqrz/#L#zdqw#wr#eholhyh#wkdw#glyhuvlĽfdwlrq# is happening. But I don’t think that things are any easier for people from a workingclass background now – not compared to when I started out. If anything, I think there were more roles and more opportunities when I was starting out than there are at this current moment in time. For example, where I trained, the school wkdw#pdgh#gudpd#frpsxovru|/#fdqġw#dļrug# wr#gr#wkdw#dq|#pruh1#Wkh|#wrrn#gudpd#rļ# the curriculum about 10 years ago. It starts there, really, doesn’t it? Opportunities, and getting into the industry. All I’ve seen is those channels cease to exist. And you would have thought it would have gone the other way. Working with fellow Midlander Shane Meadows on This Is England must have been a formative experience? Oh my God, yeah, totally. Wkdw#zdv#p|#Ľuvw#Ľop/#dqg# Shane’s way of working was very improvised, and very spontaneous. I don’t think any of us really knew the narrative. I don’t think Shane did until he got into the edit. It was d juhdw#zd|#wr#zrun1#Lw#zdv#txlwh#glĿfxow/# then, to understand what a script was after working with Shane… I look back on that experience very, very fondly. What else felt like big turning points in your career? Lwġv#kdug#wr#wklqn#ri#rqh/#ghĽqlwho|1#Ri# course, meeting Angelina [Jolie, director ofUnbroken`#zdv#yhu|#lqľxhqwldo#Ğ#wkdw# kind of opened things up in the States for me in a way that probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t met her. But, you know, I think focusing on the here and now – I think every job you do is ghĽqlqj#lq#vrph#zd|1#Lwġv#orrnlqj#rxw# for the next one. I think you’re only as good as your next one. Skins was established by the time you joined, but it has proven to be such a crucible for young talent, with so many cast members who have gone on to do great things. What do you attribute that success to? I think that a lot of it was how it was cast. And now we’ve seen the Skins cohort go out and achieve brilliant things in the industry since then. It appears, coming out of it, that it’s been available to a whole new generation now. People will still approach me and want to talk about Skins, which I love, because I’m immensely proud of that show. It lives on, and I think that’s a testament to the great writing that we had. Skins employed a lot of young writers. I think it made things more authentic on the page. I jumped onto Skins when it was already two seasons in, so it was already this thing. Another great time. Another thing that I look back on and feel immense pride for. Starred Up was another big moment. Did you sense that when you were looking at that job? It felt good while we were making it, for sure. Again, it was quite a relaxed approach with the script and with the dialogue. It was very loosely structured, so we could bring our own interpretation, and no two takes, really, were the same. What was amazing about that was, because we had the one location – Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, and obviously it’s set in London – we just had freedom to shoot what we wanted, when we wanted. So we kept it chronological. We shot that story pretty much start to Ľqlvk/#zklfk#lv#xqkhdug# of. It’s a great luxury if you fdq#dļrug#wr#kdyh#lw1#Zh# reylrxvo|#ehqhĽwwhg#e|#mxvw#kdylqj#rqh# location to arrange for the whole shoot, which is, in itself, a rarity. It felt really good while we were making that, and I’m not surprised that it did as well as it’s done. You’ve gravitated towards a lot of lqwhqvh#urohv1#Gr#|rx#Ľqg#wkdw#vwxļ# hard to shake, or can you leave it behind at the end of each day? Not at the end of each day. I think when you’re in it, you kind of stay in it, to a degree, especially if you’re on location, and you’re not going home – you have the opportunity to stay in it. And that’s great, because you can then just bounce into the next day. You’re kind of already there. That’s an amazing sensation. But whether they’re intense or not, it’s nice to stay in that. I think at the end of a job, you put it away, and you say ‘ta-ra’, and you go and do whatever you need to do. Ehlqj#rq#d#uroo#lv#juhdw1#Erxqflqj#rļ# one job straight into another - that’s also great. It’s just staying at it, because it is a muscle. It’s important to keep it up, whichever way you can. ‘EVERY JOB YOU DO IS DEFINING IN SOME WAY’ JACK O’CONNELL IN NUMBERS Age at which O’Connell started learning at the Television Workshop in Nottingham Pounds lost for his role in Unbroken Episodes of Skins in which he appeared $338M The box-office take of O’Connell’s highestgrossing film, 300: Rise of an Empire BAFTA – 2014’s Rising Star Award TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 75 JACK O’CONNELL

Did you ever get intimidated when you started working with big US names like Angelina Jolie, Jodie Foster, George Clooney, and Michael Mann more recently? L#gr/#|hdk1#L#jhw#qhuyrxv1#L#wklqn#wkh#Ľuvw# day on set – the biggest ones especially – there’s always nerves. And I think that does apply when you’re working with big names, big titans, big heavy-hitters. That just comes from a place of earnestness, and wanting to deliver. Wkh#qhuyrxvqhvv#lv#ghĽqlwho|#wkhuh/#dqg# it’s something you feel. But you have to use it to your advantage, and you have to use it as another source of energy. And then eventually that subsides. Eventually, you get comfortable, and that subsides. And then you’re in a place where you’re out of your comfort zone. One of the things I like best about this job is to throw yourself into an environment that you don’t necessarily know or feel comfortable in, and then wr Ľqg#|rxu#ihhw1#\rx#vlqn#ru#vzlp1 Do you try to balance projects based in the UK with those in the US? I guess so. It’s what’s speaking to me at the time. Currently I’m looking at plays because I haven’t done theatre for quite a while. That’s where my focus is at the moment. I love working out there, and I love working over here. What’s great about this job is that it’s all over the place. You can Ľqg#|rxuvhoi#lq#wkhvh#uhdoo|#dpd}lqj# locations that you’d have never got to see. You make decisions in real time based on, ‘What is speaking to me?’ Talking of locations, The North Water took you to extremes. Did you relish Ľoplqj#lq#wkrvh#iuhh}lqj#frqglwlrqvB I look back on it today and it blows my mind where we were. It was challenging, for sure, but I was feeling hugely fortunate. Not many people get to go up to the Arctic, and get to shoot, and make a series there. It was great, yes, and the people that we had on board as well on that – it just added to the enormity of that experience. Colin [Farrell], Stephen [Graham], all the lads involved. Andrew Haigh directing. ‘THE FIRST DAYS ON SET THERE’S ALWAYS NERVES’ SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

AL AMY, R ACHELL SMITH It’s another thing I look back on in sort of disbelief. We were living in cabins on this icebreaker ship. There were some hyhqlqjv#zkhuh#zhġg#Ľqlvk#vkrrwlqj/#dqg# we were getting some shut-eye, and the vkls#zdv#rq#d#yr|djh/#rļ#wr#rxu#qh{w# location somewhere with more ice. We were constantly chasing ice. It was not something I ever pictured myself doing. The reality of it was mind-blowing. You’ve not done much blockbuster franchise material. Has that been a conscious choice? Just the way things have shaken out. There’s never been a conversation where I’ve turned around and said, ‘Look, I don’t want to do that.’ There’s no exclusivity involved there. It’s just literally the way it’s shaken out. The jobs I’ve ended up doing are ones that we’ve taken on board at the time, decisions we made at the time. Again, there’s never been any real want to pursue that either. Have you ever had any auditions for vxshukhur#vwxļ#wkdw#kdvqġw#zrunhg# out for whatever reason? [Laughs] No comment. Your name’s often on lists of potential James Bond actors. Is that something that would appeal? I mean, listen, if something like that comes my way, sure. I’d just treat it the same way: I’d read it, see who’s directing. Do they want me? Cool. Let’s chat. Is the script belting? Then cool. OK, let’s ghĽqlwho|#fkdw1 It’s not something I’m going to turn my nose up at. I’m sure there’s a long, long list. I’m sure that list is highly competitive, and I’m sure that there are some phenomenal actors being considered for it. If I’m somewhere along that list – brilliant. That, in itself, is an achievement. Exw/#djdlq/#d#orw#ri#wkdw#vwxļ#Ğ#dv#|rx#Ľqg# with quite a lot in this industry – is out of my hands. You just roll with the punches. Would you be nervous of any project on that kind of scale, with the level of global fame that would come with it? I suppose, yes, it is something to consider. But I guess by now it’s just part and parcel of what you do. If something you’re in is really that successful, then that’s great. If loads of people have taken to it, and have enjoyed it… I’m an actor. That’s the point. I don’t know. To answer your question properly, I think you’ve got to have something other than that. I think this is important for any artist. There has to be something that takes you out of that, that you can escape from and be without that. I don’t think that’s why we make things. We make things to tell stories, and to move people along the way. Any of the rwkhu#vwxļ#wkdw#|rxġuh#uhihuulqj#wr/#L#wklqn# is secondary. But, yeah, of course it would make you nervous. Of course it would. Gr#|rx#vwd|#rļ#vrfldo#phgld#wr#khos# maintain a degree of privacy? I’ll be candid, man – I’m not on social media because I just can’t be arsed. I just can’t be arsed with having something that lures me like that, to scroll at it, and to gawk at it. It’s not for me, man. That’s all I can say. Looking ahead, you’ve got Series 2 of the BBC’s SAS: Rogue Heroes coming up. What can we expect? I think the same again. I think it’s belting. I think it’s a good, honest telling of these lads. Stephen Woolfenden is directing it this time. I’ve seen it. I love it. I can’t wait for people to see it. I had a lot of fun on that job. A lot of fun. It’s tough, but it has to be. Playing Paddy Mayne is good fucking fun. I was over the moon with how [Series 1] got received, and obviously it’s a Steven Knight script, isn’t it? We’ve got everything going for us when that’s the case. He’s delivered again. I hope that we have. Duh#wkhuh#dq|#Ľopv#ru#vkrzv#ri#|rxuv# that you’re really proud of but didn’t get seen as widely as you might have hoped? Oof. I don’t know. I’d probably feel like a dickhead saying it, you know? There’s not a job on my resume that I’m not proud of, and that’s a great position to be in. I’d point to every one of them, and feel a level ri#irqgqhvv#derxw#lw/#dqg#ihho#yhu|#mxvwlĽhg# as to why we made that. That is right up until this present day. I think the easy answer to that is all of them. Dqg#Ľqdoo|/#dq|#urohv#ru#jhquhv#|rx# haven’t tackled yet that you’d love to? Wkhuh#duh#ghĽqlwho|#gluhfwruv#rxw#wkhuh/# dqg#wkhuhġv#ghĽqlwho|#dfwruv#rxw#wkhuh#wkdw# I’m eager to work with, more so than any particular genre. I wouldn’t want to jinx it [by naming names], but the list is long. Lġp#yhu|#nhhq#wr#wlfn#wkhp#rļ1 BACK TO BLACK OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 12 APRIL. Playing ship’s doctor Patrick Sumner in TV series The North Water TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 77 JACK O’CONNELL JACK O’CONNELL LINE READING ‘You just burn, kid. You just burn, just keep it all on the inside’ JAMES COOK SKINS ‘YOU WANT COARSER TREATMENT WITH ME’ OLIVER MELLORS LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER (2022) ‘FOLLOW THE BLOOD!’ BRETT EDEN LAKE

EDITED BY MATTHEW LEYLAND @TOTALFILM_MATTL ★★★★★ LEAVES YOU SPEECHLESS ★★★★★ QUIETLY BRILLIANT ★★★★★ COUPLE OF TALKING POINTS ★★★★★ MUTE IT ★★★★★ UNSPEAKABLE THE WORLD’S MOST TRUSTED MOVIE

OUT NOW American Star ★★★★ p87 Argylle ★★ p90 Bob Marley: One Love ★★ p87 The Bricklayer ★★ p90 Eureka ★★★★ p88 Head Count ★★★ p88 Madame Web ★ p87 Monolith ★★★★ p90 Orion and the Dark ★★★★ p90 Showing Up ★★★★ p86 Spaceman ★★★★ p82 1 MARCH Driving Mum ★★★★ p83 Four Daughters ★★★★ p83 Lisa Frankenstein ★★★ p82 Red Island ★★★★ p85 8 MARCH Copa 71 ★★★★ p89 Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World ★★★★ p83 High & Low: John Galliano ★★★★ p88 The Inventor ★★★ p83 Origin ★★★ p87 Shayda ★★★ p85 Vindication Swim ★★ p85 11 MARCH Dogman ★★★ p89 15 MARCH Banel & Adama ★★★★ p85 Drive-Away Dolls ★★★ p84 Monster ★★★★ p88 The New Boy ★★★ p83 22 MARCH Baltimore ★★★ p90 The Delinquents ★★★★ p87 Late Night with the Devil ★★★★ p86 The Persian Version ★★★ p88 Robot Dreams ★★★★ p80 25 MARCH Lovely, Dark, and Deep ★★ p85 ALSO RELEASED We couldn’t see them in time for this issue, so head to gamesradar.com/totalfilm for reviews of the following: TITLE RELEASE DATE Damsel 8 March Dune: Part Two 1 March Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 22 March Immaculate 22 March For more reviews visit gamesradar.com/totalfilm EXTRAS Archive/Blu-ray reviews p91-93 TV, Extras, Soundtracks, Games, Books p94-98 82 84 86 REVIEWS ROBOT DREAMS Silent but lovely… 80 90 89 MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 79

★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 20 40 60 80 100 FINISH Pong for one Beach buddies Rusty rift Sledging savagery Watch the birdie Boombox rebirth Do you remember..? Are friends electric? Snowman’s spooky strike Do androids really dream of electric sheep? Robot reveries turn out to be far more rich and soulful than Philip K. Dick suggested in Pablo Berger’s heartwarming (and sometimes heartbreaking) Oscar-nominated animation about a lonely New York City dog and his robot buddy. Surprisingly, this vibrant, moving story about the very human need for friendship and connection has zero humans in it, because Dog is pining for a pal in a bustling, Zootropolis-style animal-packed 1980s Big Apple. His solitary life of Pong-for-one and ready meals is transformed when he literally makes a friend, laboriously constructing Robot from a TV-advertised kit. The second sizeable surprise is that this cleverly compassionate film also has no dialogue. Director Pablo Berger’s lush silent-cinema take on Snow White, 2012’s Blancanieves, proved he was a whiz at visual storytelling. But here he uses Chaplinesque physical comedy to show Dog and Robot’s growing happiness, as they roller-disco dizzyingly in Central Park to Earth, Wind & Fire’s September, which becomes ‘their’ song, commemorating the month they met. Sweet, authentic facial expressions (strictly no stretchy cartoon shtick) signal Robot’s gleeful wonder at discovering the joy of skyscrapers, fat squelchy hotdogs and a groovy octopus bucket-drummer on the subway. Rather than Ron’s Gone Wrong AI-robot chaos, Dog and Robot’s happy hangForking cleverly here, the film becomes more melancholic but also pleasingly ambitious, exploring Dog’s guilty attempts at rescue and time-filling hobbies, while diving headlong into Robot’s inner yearnings. As snow-covered Robot sinks into surreal worried-or-wacky dreams about a Dog reunion, the film’s world opens wide and gets experimental. Soon he (and we) are reeling at encounters with rabbit rotters in a rowboat, twisty fantasy escapes, and a fourth-wall turnaround ROBOT DREAMS PG There are no words… DIRECTOR Pablo Berger SCREENPLAY Pablo Berger DISTRIBUTOR Curzon RUNNING TIME 102 mins THE IRON GIANT 1999 Brad Bird’s touching tale of a boy-and-bot friendship that sparks Cold War pandemonium. THE RED TURTLE 2017 Stunning (and silent) Oscarnominated animated fantasy about a family’s battle for desert-island survival. BRIAN AND CHARLES 2022 A lonely inventor bonds with his ramshackle robot in this toasty British buddy comedy. For more reviews visit gamesradar. com/totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED outs have a charming Brian and Charles vibe, as Robot’s childlike delight in NYC cements his bond with grateful Dog. Berger’s first animated outing (a passion-project adaptation of Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel) is also a deliciously detailed love letter to New York City, painting a note-perfect recreation of noisy, scuzzy 80s streetlife for his funky, retro animal characters. It’s all rendered in glowing colours and 2D ‘clean line’ Tintin-like animation. But when an idyllic day of Rockaway Beach swimming rusts Robot’s joints and battery into immovability, New York bites back: the NYPD and City Hall force frantic Dog to leave him stranded on the firmly fenced-off beach till next summer. CURZON Just out of shot is a robot in a very revealing bikini 80 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

As is the film’s sweet, un-snarky tone, free from sly Futurama satire or BoJack Horseman raunch. Despite some nifty plot twists (including big bird love for Robot), the film does get too overlong and dawdling for its slender story. Still, paring back Dog and Robot’s wild or wistful quests would have denied us the wealth of fun sight gags and sly detail (posturing punks, turnstile-jumpers, the sad pop-pop bubbles of microwaving a single portion of mac and cheese) that Berger loves to linger on. But his biggest whisking us into a wild Wizard of Oz tap-dancing extravaganza. If Robot’s reveries deepen the film’s emotional themes, Dog’s try-hard quests allow Berger to bring on delightful Jacques Tati-style comedy: take the soaring winter-sports slapstick with aggro anteaters for example, or Dog’s trippy bowling date with a scary snowman. Using the same clean 2D style throughout all these episodes keeps everything unified, as do different, poignant soundtrack versions of September, the musical thread connecting distant Dog and Robot throughout. The drifty, dream-punctuated second half might puzzle younger kids, though its universal themes and visual gags are perfectly all-ages appropriate. coup is not getting too hung up on the notion of ‘soulmates’; instead, he has created a dream-filled movie that identifies emotional realities about change and personal growth. For both Dog and Robot, it’s not who you love, but how you love that matters. KATE STABLES THE VERDICT Berger’s beautiful, heartfelt dog-and-bot bromance is a charming, wordless wonder that puts you in a New York state of mind. ‘A deliciously detailed love letter to New York City, painting a note-perfect recreation of noisy, scuzzy 80s streetlife for [its] funky, retro characters’ TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 81

★★★★★ OUT 1 MARCH CINEMAS ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS 1 MARCH NETFLIX LISA FRANKENSTEIN 15 SPACEMAN 15 Bo(d)y meets girl… Into the talking-spider-verse… J ohn Hughes’ Brat Pack movies meet Mary Shelley’s Gothic classic in this comedy scripted by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body). Set in 1989, it centres on Lisa (Kathryn Newton), a highschooler who lives with her father (Joe Chrest), stepmother (Carla Gugino) and stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano), yet prefers to hang out at the local cemetery, among the tombstones. Though she has a crush on the editor of the school lit magazine (Henry Eikenberry), Lisa soon finds her real love – at the graveyard – when a corpse (Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse) comes back to life. He doesn’t speak and cries tears that smell like vomit. Nevertheless, hiding him at home in her closet, Lisa is smitten – and becomes more so as things get increasingly macabre. J ohan Renck’s (Chernobyl) film casts Adam Sandler as ‘the loneliest man who has ever lived’. That’s no wild claim: Sandler plays astronaut Jakub who, nine months into a mission to investigate a mysterious cloud by Jupiter, is the furthest from human contact that anyone has ever been. Jakub’s eager to patch things up with his pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) back on Earth; but this gorgeous existential sci-fi has more than space travel and despair on its mind. Before long, our hero forges a connection with a giant extraterrestrial spider with an abundance of emotional intelligence and a tiny human mouth, from which springs the voice of Paul Dano. Yes, it sounds like the premise for a broad comedy – and Spaceman does deliver the Directed by Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin), Lisa Frankenstein contains its share of LOLs. Another big plus is the musical interlude featuring a version of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling, adeptly sung by a game Newton. Sprouse gives an expressive, Edward Scissorhandsesque performance as ‘The Creature’ – but sadly, the more violent the film gets, the less engaging it becomes. The final act also drifts when it should arrow towards a darkly comic denouement. Still, filled with Cody’s trademark wit and some nifty 80s design schemes, it’s a slick, sick ride with strong teen appeal. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT A neat mash-up of high-school comedy and horror tropes. Pity it falters in the final third. occasional laugh. But this is an impactful and at times profound film, with a hauntingly lovely turn from Sandler. From the alien spider’s teeth to a host of glowing celestial bodies and even Sandler’s ship’s zero-gravity toilet, Spaceman is flush with careful detail. It’s also a film filled with the unexpected – one that doesn’t follow a familiar narrative structure, provide neat answers or make the viewer feel any less alone in this vast, cold universe. But for those who are open to the wonderfully weird, it offers up some deep truths, terrific performances and an alien gob that truly transfixes the attention. LEILA LATIF THE VERDICT A soulsearching Adam Sandler excels in a sci-fi drama that’s both way-out and weighty. NETFLIX, UNIVERSAL, SOVEREIGN, TULL STORIES, MODERN FILMS, SIGNATURE The nit nurse now offered a nighttime service Adam Sandler tries to remember where the zero-G loo is 82 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

THE INVENTOR PG ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS Stephen Fry plays Leonardo da Vinci in this modestly engaging whistlestop(-motion) tour of the Renaissance man’s life and work. Also featuring the voices of Daisy Ridley (sidekick Marguerite de Navarre), Marion Cotillard (patron Louise de Savoy) and Matt Berry (the Pope), its somewhat meagre story documents da Vinci’s quest to uncover the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Written/ directed by Ratatouille scripter Jim Capobianco (and co-helmed by Pierre-Luc Granjon), it’s nothing groundbreaking, but its visuals (using puppetry and traditional 2D animation) and gentle humour frequently charm. JOEL HARLEY DRIVING MUM 12A ★★★★★ OUT 1 MARCH CINEMAS Iceland’s Hilmar Oddsson puts the dead into deadpan with this marvellously mordant B&W comedy. When Jon’s (Pröstur Leó Gunnarsson) mum passes away, she isn’t any less truculent in death than life. Duly, he honours her demand to drive her body – glassy-eyed in the backseat – to her childhood village for burial. And slowly, surely, Jon learns to reconnect with the world. Against beautifully framed landscapes, an elegantly droll coming-of-middleage road movie emerges, shot through with flashes of dawning life: the Yes Sir, I Can Boogie karaoke scene is a particular treat. KEVIN HARLEY FOUR DAUGHTERS 12A ★★★★★ OUT 1 MARCH CINEMAS Writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania’s fascinating Oscarnominated documentary relates the story of Tunisian woman Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, two of whom fled to Libya in 2015 to join Islamic State. Shooting in a disused Tunis hotel, Hania experiments boldly with form, using first-person testimony from Olfa and her two younger children, rehearsals with actors playing the mother and the absent older siblings, and filmed reenactments of family memories. What’s revealed is a cycle of suffering in which traumatic experiences are tragically passed from generation to generation. TOM DAWSON THE NEW BOY TBC ★★★★★ OUT 15 MARCH CINEMAS Heavy on symbolic imagery, light on plot, writer/director Warwick Thornton’s (Sweet Country) drama follows a nameless Aboriginal boy (newcomer Aswan Reid) as he’s brought to an outback mission run by Cate Blanchett’s troubled nun. Wilful and near-silent, he’s treated with curiosity, before suspicion and fear creep in as he’s revealed to possess strange – possibly divine – powers. More a loose collection of scenes than a cohesive narrative, it’s still an enveloping audiovisual experience, with Thornton’s gorgeous lensing almost matched by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ expressive score. CHRIS SCHILLING ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD 18 Safety-video games… Anear-three-hour dark comedy about a frazzled production assistant interviewing candidates for a workplace safety video might not sound like many cinemagoers’ idea of a good time. Throw in a cameo from controversial filmmaker Uwe Boll, nods to the repellent Andrew Tate and inserts of 1981 social-realist drama Angela Goes On, and Radu Jude’s latest might seem an avant-garde provocation too far. But this restlessly inventive and scabrously funny film taps into universal and relatable truths. When she’s not delivering tirades at fellow road users or making X-rated clips as Tatesatirising TikTok alter-ego Bobita, Ilinca Manolache’s Angela proves that she’s as smart as she is cynical – notably when she’s running rings around Nina Hoss’ entertainingly aloof exec. Jude boldly flips from gritty black-and-white to colour for the tragicomic third act: a static long shot depicting the filming of the video that grows ever more hilarious and exasperating. With Manolache relegated to the sidelines, some of the film’s spark is lost. But its critique of corporate culture comes through as loudly as Angela’s potty-mouthed rants. CHRIS SCHILLING THE VERDICT Expect plenty from this surprising and twistedly funny film – and to hear more from its spellbinding star. Ilinca Manolache: let’s be careful out there TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 83

John Waters and early Almodóvar, and such noted ‘sexploitation’ purveyors as Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman. In this they are mostly successful – but it comes at the cost of their collaboration having a distinctive timbre of its own. Throw in a luggage-sized McGuffin straight out of Pulp Fiction, and we’re left with a comedy steeped in déjà vu. There is no denying, though, that Qualley and Viswanathan make a highly likeable duo in a film that also boasts entertaining cameos from the likes of Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal and pop star Miley Cyrus. NEIL SMITH THE VERDICT Ethan Coen strikes out on his own with a frivolous frolic that wears its slightness like a badge of honour. ★★★★★ OUT 15 MARCH CINEMAS DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS 15 It’s all Coen south… DIRECTOR Ethan Coen STARRING Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal SCREENPLAY Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 84 mins suitable title for this knockabout caper, in which loquacious Texan Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and her prim friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) take an impromptu road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, in a rental car that just happens to have a sought-after suitcase secreted in its trunk. Said valise and its contents are prized enough for a sharp-suited mandarin dubbed ‘The Chief’ (Colman Domingo) to send two bumbling goons to retrieve it. Jamie, meanwhile, has her own mission improbable: to get Marian laid. When Tricia Cooke – Ethan’s spouse, the Coens’ sometime-editor and a person who identifies as queer – conceived the film’s scenario, it carried the more provocative moniker Drive-Away Dykes. Curiously, though, Dolls is more quaint than outrageous. Its 1999 setting and saucy details (a wall-mounted dildo here, a Sapphic slumber party there) lend it the air of a bawdy period piece from the Porky’s and Meatballs era. Coen and Cooke’s stated aim was to homage both the trashy aesthetics of I t perhaps says something about the Coen brothers’ respective sensibilities that, when older sibling Joel went off to make 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth in black and white with wife Frances McDormand, younger brother Ethan chose to dust off a raunchy crime romp he had written with his wife 20 years ago, and shoot it in eye-popping colour. A freewheeling road movie about two queer chums being pursued by hoods from Pennsylvania to Florida, Drive-Away Dolls is definitely not Shakespeare. But it is unmistakably a Coen(s) film, albeit one that feels more like a pastiche of their previous pictures than an innovative next chapter. There are times when ‘Throw-Away Dolls’ might arguably have been a more KISS ME DEADLY 1955 The briefcase at the heart of Drive-Away Dolls harks back to this noir classic’s mystery box. FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! 1965 Female-led road-trip riotousness from sexploitation maven Russ Meyer. BURN AFTER READING 2008 There’s a precedent for dildos in Coen films… check out George Clooney’s sex chair in this spy farce. For more reviews visit gamesradar. com/totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED UNIVERSAL, CURZON, BLUE FINCH, PICNIK ENTERTAINMENT, WE ARE PAR ABLE, VERTIGO PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 20 40 60 80 FINISH Cork screwed Sleazy sex Head case Steamy sex Going to the dogs ‘I can explain!’ Having no car made driving away that much harder Soccer succour Bitter Beanie 84 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

RED ISLAND 12A ★★★★★ OUT 1 MARCH CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA Following on from 2017’s 120 BPM, director/co-writer Robin Campillo again draws on personal memories for this languid coming-of-age drama set on a French military base in Madagascar during the early 1970s, when the nation had its own growing pains. Sensitive eight-year-old Thomas (Charlie Vauselle) quietly observes the often-mysterious adult world around him and takes refuge in the exploits of masked superhero Fantômette. Sensually shot and making evocative use of period songs, Red Island imaginatively blends the personal and the political. TOM DAWSON LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP 15 ★★★★★ OUT 25 MARCH DIGITAL Barbarian star Georgina Campbell finds herself in another nightmare scenario in writer/director Teresa Sutherland’s debut, a tricksy horror largely set in the desolate wilds of a national park. Campbell plays Lennon, a ranger whose time monitoring the park gets increasingly fractious and dreamlike. The actor is a solid presence, shouldering the bulk of the narrative peril, but she’s hampered by a workmanlike script. And while the atmosphere is amped up with an unnerving score and some eerie wide shots, actual scares are few and far between. JAMES MOTTRAM VINDICATION SWIM PG ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS First-time director Elliott Hasler offers a warm-hearted but sentimental take on penniless Mercedes Gleitze’s (Kirsten Callaghan) 1927 battles to be the first British woman to swim the Channel. It’s a plucky attempt, but pretty period locations and jaunty fake newsreels can’t compensate for the film’s clunky scripting, halting pace and stilted performances (only John Locke’s drunken, crabby swim coach registers). There’s a fascinating Chariots of Fire-style story to be made about Gleitze’s tenacity against the cruel sea, posh-rival cheats and sexist court cases. But sadly, this isn’t it. KATE STABLES BANEL & ADAMA 12A ★★★★★ OUT 15 MARCH CINEMAS As a drought devastates their small village in northern Senegal, a young married couple (Khady Mane and Mamadou Diallo, their chemistry sizzling) navigate their star-crossed romance in the face of local obligation and tradition. The feature debut of FrenchSenegalese director RamataToulaye Sy, this haunting modern fable moves with poetic grace, juggling lingering views of the idyllic yet sun-ravaged desert with intimate close-ups of the townsfolk. The beauty belies the growing horror at the heart of the story, as a once-passionate love is engulfed by superstition and circumstance. JOEL HARLEY ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS SHAYDA 15 Taking shelter… I nspired by the director’s own experiences, Noora Niasari’s film is a powerful look at both Iranian culture and domestic violence. Zar Amir Ebrahimi (who won Cannes’ Best Actress for Holy Spider in 2022) delivers a nuanced turn in the title role, an Iranian mother-ofone who, after leaving abusive husband Hossein (Osamah Sami), finds refuge in a shelter for women in the Australian suburbs. Aided by the kindly Joyce (Leah Purcell), Shayda tries to get her life back on track alongside her young daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia). Knife-edge tension takes hold when Hossein reappears, raising the possibility that he may yet snatch Mona and smuggle her back to Iran. Like Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011) before it, Niasari’s script touches on Iran’s byzantine divorce laws, pressing home the jeopardy Shayda faces. She also manages to juggle microaggressions in the shelter with slivers of joy; an exuberant, unfettered dance sequence offers uplift. Meanwhile, the setting of 90s Australia conveys a sure sense of how abuse against women in the home is a universal issue. Throughout, Ebrahimi and impressive newcomer Zahednia present a credible parent/child bond. The final third doesn’t quite deliver on the set-up’s promise, with the drama fizzling out somewhat. But this perceptive film - which won the Audience Award at last year’s Sundance - still hits a nerve. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT Though it lacks impact in places, this mother/daughter drama comes from the heart. Shayda: a tale of domestic jeopardy and renewal TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 85

★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL ★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS SHOWING UP 12 LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL TBC Seize the clay… Fright entertainment… Lizzy (Michelle Williams) wears a perma-frown. A sculptor in Portland, she has a show in a week’s time, but life won’t let her focus on the twisted figures her fingers painstakingly craft. For starters, she has no hot water - and her landlady Jo (Hong Chau), who happens to be a more successful artist with a happier disposition, keeps putting off fixing it. And then Lizzy’s cat brings in a wounded pigeon that needs to be cared for… Will healing the bird prove a salve for Lizzy’s sourness? Can we expect a frenzy of inspiration to ensure the show’s a success? And will Lizzy’s dysfunctional family – Judd Hirsch and Maryann Plunkett as her divorced parents, John Magaro as a brother with mental-health issues – support Lizzy’s big day? On Halloween 1977, as an anxious America looks on, TV host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) puts on a special edition of his chat show, Night Owls. After losing his wife to cancer and slipping down the ratings, it’s his chance to claw back some viewers. But his choice of guests – from an on-the-make medium (Fayssal Bazzi) to a cynical conjurer (Ian Bliss), a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and her possessed young patient (Ingrid Torelli) – proves unwise when things start happening on camera… Written, directed and edited by Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes (2012’s 100 Bloody Acres), shot in Melbourne and featuring an excellent, largely homegrown acting cast, it’s an impeccable recreation of 1970s TV. Don’t expect any big, showy answers. Director Kelly Reichardt, who previously collaborated with Williams on Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff and Certain Women, is a sculptor of intimate stories shorn of crude theatrics. Showing Up is typically subdued and subtle, chiselling delicately away to discover what it is that shapes people. There are tiny triumphs, minor setbacks; and although Reichardt naturally satirises the art world, she does so softly, while also recognising the hard graft that’s required of most artists. No quirky geniuses here; just a focus on the quotidian that is, in its own way, extraordinary. JAMIE GRAHAM THE VERDICT Indie auteur Kelly Reichardt and her muse Michelle Williams fashion a quiet drama that’s worth showing up for. As we cut from the live feed to black-and-white behind-thescenes moments, we learn more about what we’re seeing... Dastmalchian shines as Delroy, mugging to the studio audience as things spiral out of control, while secretly rubbing his hands that he’s created the TV event of the decade, and there are some nasty surprises along the way. But there’s subtext as well as scares. Throwing elements of Watergate, the Manson family and The Exorcist into the mix, the Cairnes suggest an America so used to being manipulated that it has no idea who to trust any more. MATT GLASBY THE VERDICT Blending satire and shocks, this is like Ghostwatch for the post-truth generation. VERTIGO, MEDIUMR ARE, SONY, BL ACK BEAR, MUBI, PAR AMOUNT Lizzy (Michelle Williams) works on her next piece ‘You look like you could do with some exorcise’ 86 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

MADAME WEB 12A ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Sony Pictures’ quest to extend their live-action Spider-verse beyond the MCU continues with this spin-off starring Dakota Johnson as clairvoyant ambulance driver Cassandra Webb, who becomes entangled with three teens (Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor and Sydney Sweeney) and their would-be killer (Tahar Rahim). Rather than kicking off a new universe of heroes, Madame Web feels more like a failed TV pilot, complete with sluggish action and cheap-looking costumes. Further bogged down by egregious product placement, it’s a big disappointment – but we all saw it coming… JOEL HARLEY ORIGIN 12A ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS Ava DuVernay’s (Selma) biographical drama delves into the creation of Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 non-fiction bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. During her voyage of discovery, Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) experiences a series of devastating personal losses that give her mission greater meaning. The result is a film that works as both a broad educational tool and a tender portrait of grief. It may ultimately feel too simplistic for those who’ve read the book - and too scholastic in places for those who haven’t - but it remains a powerful conversation-starter. JANE CROWTHER AMERICAN STAR 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS, DIGITAL Ageing hitman Wilson (Ian McShane) lands in the Canary Islands for one last job that starts to feel more like a retirement holiday. But then trouble arrives in the form of Adam Nagaitis’ younger assassin, and the nature of Wilson’s brief is belatedly revealed. Until the inevitable violent climax, Gonzalo LópezGallego’s film is a beguilingly languid mood piece, distinguishing itself via the twin landscapes of McShane’s rugged features and the similarly handsome Fuerteventura scenery. There’s fine support, too, from Nora Arnezeder as impetuous expat Gloria. CHRIS SCHILLING THE DELINQUENTS 12A ★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS Unfolding in Buenos Aires and the bucolic Cordoban countryside, this leisurely existential fable from Argentinian writer/director Rodrigo Moreno begins in heist-movie territory. Middleaged bank clerk Moran (Daniel Elias) plans to steal $600,000 from his employers, relying on his colleague Roman (Esteban Bigliardi) to stash the money, all while he serves a three-year jail sentence. Awash with playful doublings and contrasts, Moreno’s movie refuses to be boxed in by genre conventions, heading off instead on all manner of unexpected and entertaining digressions. TOM DAWSON ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE 12A There’s a lot to jam in… Britain’s Kingsley Ben-Adir was highly praised for playing Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, and made a decent Barack Obama in Showtime’s The fiMKAV¼.SJA. Mimicry alone, alas, does not ignite the ganja in a reverential homage to the Jamaican reggae icon that is lacking his blazing charisma. Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film begins in 1976 with Bob and wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) almost being slain by gunmen at their Kingston home: a nerve-jangling brush with death that marks the film’s most dramatic and emotional episode. Green and his three co-writers frame this as a misfortune Bob shrugged off triumphantly by recording his landmark album Exodus. The film, in contrast, never quite manages to move on, remaining in a muted funk for much of its running time. King Richard director Green tries to vary the mood by whisking Bob to London and then across Europe on a whirlwind tour. For all the terrific music we are treated to en route, however, it’s all a bit glum. Ben-Adir diligently duplicates Marley’s distinctive patois and jerky on-stage movements. But there’s no alchemical amalgam between artiste and thespian like there was in Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. Fans have been waiting a while for an authorised Marley biopic; now it’s arrived, every little thing is not all right. NEIL SMITH THE VERDICT Capturing Marley’s essence proves an impossible task in a biopic that nears hagiography. Not to be confused with Marley & Me TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 87

P I C T U R E H O U S E , B L U E F I N C H , M U B I , S O V E R E I G N , S O N Y, D O G W O O F, A LT I T U D E ★★★★★ OUT 15 MARCH CINEMAS MONSTER 12A Points of view… Sharing its name with Charlize Theron’s 2003 Oscar-winner arguably doesn’t do Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest many favours, prompting as it does misleading expectations that he has ventured into serial killer or even rampaging beast territory. The reality, mercifully, is rather more benign, even if it does stay teasingly elusive for much of what constitutes the Japanese director’s first film on native soil since 2018’s Shoplifters (after forays to France and South Korea to make 2019’s The Truth and 2022’s Broker, respectively). A fretful single mother (Sakura Ando) is concerned by her young son’s strange behaviour, and decides to consult his school’s seasoned principal (Yûko Tanaka). Satisfactory answers are less than forthcoming, though, leading her to suspect that young Minato (Soya Kurokawa) is being abused by one of his teachers (Eita Nagayama). Things are not always as they appear, though – a truism pushed home by having the action played out, Rashomon-style, from three distinctly different perspectives. Only when all the pieces are in place do we see the whole picture, with seemingly unimportant details from the opening third paying off down the line in ways that are surprising, revealing and gratifying. The result is an emotional coming-of-age story reminiscent at times of 2022 gut-puncher Close, sensitively scored by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and elegantly lensed by Shoplifters DoP Ryûto Kondô. NEIL SMITH THE VERDICT This is a poignant and mysterious addition to the Hirokazu Kore-eda canon, finely acted and impeccably crafted throughout. HEAD COUNT 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DIGITAL There’s a dash of Tarantino and a pinch of the Coens in this lively debut from the Burghart brothers (Ben and Jacob). A Kansas-set slice of pulp fiction, it stars Aaron Jakubenko (Tidelands) as Kat, an escaped con who, at the outset, is seen with his own revolver being held to his head by an unknown aggressor. How many bullets has the gun fired? That’s part of the mystery, as Kat recalls prior events across several interlinked chapters. It’s nothing new per se, but it’s still a brisk 80-minute ride that boasts some ace supporting characters, intricate plotting and dialogue that occasionally fizzes. JAMES MOTTRAM EUREKA 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Three apparently disparate narratives are connected by themes of colonial oppression in this singular drama by Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso. A gunslinger (Viggo Mortensen, star of Alonso’s 2014 film Jauja) searches for his kidnapped daughter in a brutalist black-and-white western; a Native American police officer (real-life law enforcer Alaina Clifford) navigates a rough night on the job; and an indigenous community encounters a strange bird in 1970s Brazil. True edification is AWOL in a voyage through time, space and multiple genres, but the journey’s an exhilarating one. JOEL HARLEY THE PERSIAN VERSION 15 ★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS Maryam Kershavarz’s buoyant comedy follows the trials of Leila (Layla Mohammadi), a New Yorkbased Iranian-American would-be screenwriter enduring strained relations with her immigrant family, especially mum Shireen (Niousha Noor). Kershavarz is good on cultural differences – not least the impact Leila’s sexuality makes – and has a fine sense of comic timing, with Tom Byrne’s British drag queen a real hoot. Mohammadi is also a compelling lead. But a long-winded third act, as family secrets come to light, hampers the film’s otherwise breezy nature. JAMES MOTTRAM HIGH & LOW: JOHN GALLIANO 15 ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS Kevin Macdonald’s (Touching the Void) nuanced documentary charts the rise, fall and comeback of British fashion designer John Galliano, who was sacked as creative director of Dior in 2011; a French court later found him guilty of antisemitic and racist rants in a public setting. Alongside illustrative film clips (The Red Shoes, Abel Gance’s Napoleon) and footage of his workaholic subject’s headline-grabbing shows, Macdonald interviews friends and high-profile colleagues of Galliano, as well as the man himself. Just how repentant he is remains ambiguous. TOM DAWSON Eri (Hinata Hiiragi) and Minato (Soya Kurokawa) 88 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

★★★★★ OUT 11 MARCH BD, DIGITAL DOGMAN 15 Arf-decent… The latest from writer/ director Luc Besson is a curious tale of one man and his dogs. The man is Douglas (Caleb Landry Jones), who’s been arrested for an initially unspecified crime. Wounded and bloody, he’s dressed in a blonde wig and a pink evening dress. In the back of his van are his ‘babies’, a pack of dogs that obey his every command. In his cell, Douglas meets Evelyn (Jojo T. Gibbs), a kindly psychiatrist to whom he feels compelled to reveal his backstory. Given its depiction of a lonely soul in the city, some may compare this New Jersey fable with Besson’s 1994 classic Léon. Here, Douglas only truly finds companionship with his furry friends. Their only flaw? Trusting humans, he says. Jones relishes the flamboyance of the character, an avenging angel in a satin gown, although the best scenes come when he’s shorn of make-up, talking one-on-one with Gibbs in the cell. The film’s urge to inject bouts of ultra-violence proves its biggest misstep. When Besson unleashes the dogs of war, it all becomes rather tedious - a shame, because the idea of a pup-loving Pied Piper has merit. Just for good measure, DogMan throws in a Robin Hood-like procedural (involving stolen jewellery) and an overly zealous cop (Christopher Denham). It’s a big old mess of a movie, in other words: flawed but fun. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT Besson’s return to moviemaking has its moments, but it’s hardly the dog’s bollocks. ★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS COPA 71 PG Goal power… Long before football’s first Women’s World Cup made headlines in 1991, there was an unofficial version held in Mexico in 1971, which time – or perhaps FIFA – has forgotten. Co-directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine, and produced by Serena (who also narrates) and Venus Williams, this entertaining documentary aims to right that wrong, introducing players from the tournament and the hardships they endured to be recognised in a male-dominated industry. In the UK, the FA officially banned women’s football from 1921 to 1971. It was a similarly depressing story elsewhere. Mexican star Silvia Zaragoza describes being beaten and screamed at by her father for trying to join in games; Italian ace Elena Schiavo recalls, ‘The boys wouldn’t let me play.’ But in the aftermath of the men’s World Cup, held in Mexico in 1970, local entrepreneurs decided to organise a women’s competition to keep the money flowing in. As vividly coloured vintage footage shows, it was a thrilling tournament that caught the imagination of the country and, briefly, turned the players into national heroes. ‘It felt like we’d been given wings,’ says France’s Nicole Mangas. It wasn’t long, however, before they saw the beautiful game’s uglier side. Packed with gleefully candid interviews and buoyed by a joyous soundtrack, Copa 71 restores these pioneers to their rightful place in history. MATT GLASBY THE VERDICT A timely documentary with a spring in its step and fire in its belly. The story of a man who’s been collared A victory for sporting docos TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 89

BLUE FINCH, ICON, NETFLIX, SK Y, UNIVERSAL ARGYLLE 12A ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Wobbling unevenly between self-awareness and selfsatisfaction, Matthew Vaughn’s espionage satire is never as fast or funny as it thinks it is. It centres on Elly (the likeable Bryce Dallas Howard), writer of a novel series about super-spy Argylle. The action cuts between the fictional Argylle (Henry Cavill) and Elly’s creative pains, then blurs the line until she’s swept away on a real mission by spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell). Some predictable mid-film twists add self-conscious fun, but this overwrought romp fires off half-baked ideas without the focus needed to make them stick. KEVIN HARLEY ORION AND THE DARK PG ★★★★★ OUT NOW NETFLIX You wouldn’t call Emma Yarlett’s cosy kids’ book and arthouse fave Charlie Kaufman natural bedfellows. But DreamWorks’ charming animation finds the sweet spot, as Kaufman’s script nimbly spins anxiety-ridden Orion’s (Jacob Tremblay) bedtime fears into a wild, globetrotting ride with Paul Walter Hauser’s wisecracking Dark. Despite its CGI good looks, the film has an indie, handmade feel. Small kids might struggle with the sudden changes of storyteller, but the smart explorations of fear and feelings are clear-cut, wrapped snugly in a rollicking adventure. KATE STABLES THE BRICKLAYER 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW SKY CINEMA, NOW Renny Harlin’s (Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight) latest casts Aaron Eckhart as the titular action man, an ex-black ops agent turned merry builder who’s forced out of retirement by friend-turned-foe Clifton Collins Jr. Along for the ride is newbie agent Nina Dobrev, who has little to do but serve as a woman in peril. The action sequences are choppy and confusing, the script is laboured and the acting verges on caricature. Still, Eckhart is a top-class gravelly hero, bruised and battered but fighting to the end, while Tim Blake Nelson adds class as his CIA boss. NIGEL PIZEY BALTIMORE 15 ★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS Husband-and-wife filmmakers Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (aka Desperate Optimists) bring their customary blend of austerity and eeriness to this portrait of Rose Dugdale, a real-life English heiress and IRA member who took part in a failed bombing attempt using a helicopter and a historic art heist, both in 1974. Flicking between her colourful past and the theft itself, the directorial duo presents a compelling if fractured look at a toff turned radical who was in it for the kicks as well as politics. Imogen Poots, rarely off-screen, compels as the self-deluding, Patty Hearstlike protagonist. NEIL SMITH ★★★★★ OUT NOW DIGITAL MONOLITH 15 A tale to make you brick it… Ahit on the festival circuit, Matt Vesely’s absorbing debut will likely appeal to anyone who enjoyed such low-budget, high-concept sci-fi thrillers as Cube, The Man from Earth and Coherence. Shot almost entirely inside a remote modernist house, it’s dominated by close-ups of an unnamed protagonist, the film’s only on-screen character, played by Evil Dead Rise’s Lily Sullivan. A disgraced journalist who failed to corroborate a big story, she’s now reduced to hosting a clickbait podcast called Beyond Believable – which aptly describes the tale she’s now chasing, about a handful of people receiving black bricks that induce unnerving visions. Then a package arrives on her own doorstep… A film about the power of storytelling, this hi-tech equivalent of a creepy campfire tale spreads its dread without recourse to volatile camera moves, hostile cutting or blaring sound design. Instead, the strange tale simply unfolds steadily, with our hero starting to twitch and tweak as her guilt, deceit and privilege seep to the surface. Is the black brick an alien artefact? A blank object upon which to project fears? Or is the horror in the telling? Like Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool, Vesely’s film posits the idea of a virus spread through talking. One thing’s for sure: despite a slight third-act stumble, this whispered tale will enter your ear and crawl deep into your brain. JAMIE GRAHAM THE VERDICT There’s a hint of Michael Haneke’s Hidden to this riveting mystery. Give it a click. On-screen queen: Lily Sullivan 90 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

THE ROARING TWENTIES PG 1939 ★★★★★ OUT 11 MARCH BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurettes, Essay The Great War, the Great Depression, a love quadrangle, four musical numbers… Centred on James Cagney’s rising/falling bootlegger, Raoul Walsh’s decade-spanning gangster epic is stuffed to the gritty gills, but retains the lean punch the genre was famed for in the 30s. Director and star reteamed for the more-revered White Heat (1949), but at its best - Cagney trading quips with Gladys George, or barbs with Bogie - this burns just as bright. MATTHEW LEYLAND DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS PG 1954 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurette, Stills, Art cards Shot in three weeks in order to use up some pre-paid studio time, this Brit sci-fi quickie has acquired a degree of enduring cult appeal, thanks mostly to MVP Patricia Laffan’s imperious turn. The Quo Vadis actor plays Nyah, a Martian bound for London who crash lands next to a Highland inn instead. As our devil girl goes in search of male breeding stock, cheap thrills come via Nyah’s powers and the half-dozen soapy subplots that bubble up among the pub-goers. MATTHEW LEYLAND A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS PG 1955 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Short, Gallery A small boy adopts a singlehorned goat believing it’s a unicorn in this whimsical fable, set in east London’s bustling Petticoat Lane market. Carol Reed’s (The Third Man) first colour film doesn’t have much of a story and is guilty of the same broad ethnic stereotyping we’d see in Oliver! But there are incidental pleasures to be had, a glam Diana Dors and a pre-Carry On Sid James among them. Alongside the 4K restoration is an earlier short from screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. NEIL SMITH CIRCLE OF DANGER U 1951 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★★ Intro, Featurettes, Gallery Out of the Past, Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie… French director Jacques Tourneur made more famous films, but this thriller is an overlooked gem. Blending Hitchcockian mystery and humour with the eccentricity of a windswept Powell and Pressburger romance, Circle of Danger sees Ray Milland travel from Florida to England, Wales and Scotland to investigate the death of his younger brother. Colourful and compelling, it gleams in this 4K restoration. JAMIE GRAHAM 1993 ★★★★★ OUT 25 MARCH 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Booklet DAZED AND CONFUSED 15 Sweeeeet emotion picture… As pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman notes in one of the essays accompanying this 4K UHD reissue of Richard Linklater’s evergreen third feature, ‘Dazed and Confused is not a film about how things were; Dazed and Confused is a film about how things are remembered.’ It’s a movie that somehow manages to avoid the comfy trappings of self-conscious nostalgia-bait, while simultaneously making audiences nostalgic for a time and place that 99.9% of us never actually experienced. A snapshot of the last day of school in Austin, Texas, during the summer of 1976, Dazed and Confused is less a story than a series of interwoven vignettes. If the lack of both narrative drama and the obvious jokes you’d expect from a traditional ‘teen’ movie are the things that make it feel so real, they’re the very same things that worried Universal, leading the studio to interfere with the shoot and scale back its cinema release. Unsurprisingly, Universal’s (mis-)handling of the film looms large in the vast array of extras adorning this double-discer. However, there’s plenty of joy to be found here too, with interviews and behind-the-scenes clips showing the fun the young cast of then-unknowns (McConaughey, Affleck, Jovovich…) had together when not on set. ANTON VAN BEEK THE VERDICT Hanging out with Richard Linklater’s classic coming-of-ager has SPIRIT ENTERTAINMENT, CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL never been so rewarding. ‘Hi, Dazed, pleased to meet you. I’m Confused.’ TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 91

A R R O W , E U R E K A , F E S T I VA L A G E N C Y, M G M , N E T F L I X , P A R K C I R C U S , S P I R I T/ C R I T E R I O N , P A R A M O U N T, P O W E R H O U S E , S T U D I O C A N A L , W A R N E R B R O S . 1984-94 ★★★★★ OUT NOW 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes BEVERLY HILLS COP TRILOGY 15 Foley order… Ahead of this summer’s long-gestating, Netflix-backed fourquel Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, here’s a chance to refresh your memory (in 4K, no less) of the past adventures of Eddie Murphy’s renegade law enforcer. Directed by Martin Brest (Midnight Run), it’s the 1984 original (★★★★) that’s most worth your time. Murphy’s potty-mouthed Detroit ’tec arrives in LA on the hunt for a killer, locking horns with the by-the-book Beverly Hills PD and crooked art dealer Victor Maitland (a sublime Steven Berkoff). A cool, buoyant mix of bullets and zingers, all set to Harold Faltermeyer’s era-defining synth score, it’s peak Murphy. A film every bit as infectious as its star’s braying laugh, BHC remains a mid-80s Hollywood high point - which probably explains why it bags all of this box set’s extras (such as they are). Tony Scott’s 1987 sequel (★★★) – another box-office hit – has its moments, as Murphy reunites with West Coast cops Judge Reinhold and John Ashton to battle robbers-slash-arms-traffickers, including gun-for-hire Brigitte Nielsen. BHCII may lack the punch of its predecessor, but is still vastly superior to 1994’s belated Beverly Hills Cop III (★). Plonking an uninspired Murphy in the middle of an amusementpark caper, the film truly shoots itself in the Converse. Despite its pedigree – director John Landis, Die Hard scribe Steven E. de Souza – it’s a banana in the tailpipe of action-comedy cinema. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT The original is still one of Murphy’s finest hours, but the others – particularly Beverly Hills Cop III – are inessential viewing. IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT 15 1973 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Alternative cut, Commentary, Featurette, Video essay, Galleries, Booklet Adapted from a novel by Nicholas Mosley, this atypically arty drama from John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) stars Alan Bates as an English writer who, while living with his family in France, embarks on an affair with a younger married woman (Dominique Sanda). Little seen in the UK or US - and then usually in a re-edited international cut (also included here) - Impossible Object is no lost masterpiece, but delivers an intriguingly surreal take on the intersection of creativity and obsession. ANTON VAN BEEK MUDBOUND 15 2017 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Documentaries, Featurettes, Essay A well-deserved Criterion release for director/co-writer Dee Rees’ powerful historical race drama. Nominated for multiple Oscars, this adap expertly weaves together several narrative threads as it follows two farming families - white landowners and Black tenants - during World War Two. Prejudice, vulnerability and bitter human truths come to light in a movie distinguished by Rees’ grounded, intimate direction. Unsurprisingly, the array of extras highlight the dedication and resourcefulness that went into the production. MATT LOOKER THELMA & LOUISE 15 1991 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Documentary, Featurettes, Deleted/extended scenes, Shorts, Storyboards, Music video, Booklet ‘If you have a problem with the men in the movie, I think you’re probably identifying with the wrong character,’ says Geena Davis of the response from some viewers to Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking road movie. While Criterion’s 4K restoration will do nothing to change their minds, for the rest of us there’s plenty to savour, not least the disc’s handling of the film’s stunning widescreen vistas. Expanded extras include Scott discussing his formative years in the industry. ANTON VAN BEEK CITY OF GOD 18 2002 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS With its chapter headings (‘The Story of the Tender Trio’, ‘Benny’s Farewell’), decades-spanning narrative and colourfully named characters (Knockout Ned, Steak and Fries), there’s something almost Dickensian about Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s saga of lives lived, lost and squandered in Rio’s crime-ridden favelas. It even has a David Copperfield in observant hero Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a budding photographer whose personal history gets entwined with that of hoodlum Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora). Two decades on, this Brazilian GoodFellas still packs an adrenalised punch. NEIL SMITH ‘A third film? Nope, definitely haven’t heard of any third film…’ 92 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

1957 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurettes, Booklet PATHS OF GLORY PG Kubrick goes forth… From the title down, Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war masterpiece has a bitter sting to it. ‘The paths of glory lead but to the grave’ is the quote from the Thomas Gray poem behind Humphrey Cobb’s fact-based novel, eviscerating any triumphalist hints. A controlled howl at war’s futility, Kubrick’s adaptation rings down the years like sniper shots across no man’s land. Kirk Douglas gives a seething turn as the WW1 colonel tasked with sending soldiers on an impossible mission: to take the impregnable ‘Ant Hill’. And he remains beleaguered when, afterwards, he tries to defend three troops court-martialled on bogus charges of cowardice. The soldiers are scapegoats for their superiors’ failures. Class rage broils in the tangible contrasts between the officers’ chateau and the trenches, where Kubrick’s dolly shots convey despair and horror. The battlefield is worse still, a nightmare of mud and mangled corpses; Kubrick used 600 extras and experimental explosive techniques to max authenticity. Against this backdrop, George Macready projects callous indifference as the brigadier, perhaps pre-empting the satire of Blackadder Goes Forth’s Melchett. You can see Dr. Strangelove’s appalled absurdism stewing here, too. Kubrick would make bigger films, of course, after Douglas helped bank him the Spartacus gig. But this sure, sharp classic ranks among his finest. KEVIN HARLEY THE VERDICT Brutal, bravura, beautiful: Kubrick’s critique of military hypocrisy is one of the great anti-war movies. ‘No, I’m Colonel Dax!’ INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS 15 1978 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Art cards, Poster, Booklet The late 70s/early 80s treated cinemagoers to a run of provocative do-overs of 50s sci-fi flicks. The first, Philip Kaufman’s rich and resonant Body Snatchers remake, relocates the ‘pod people’ to San Francisco, switching out the original’s Cold War allegory for the isolation and paranoia of big-city living. The new 4K upgrade turns out to be a bit of a body snatcher itself, exactly replicating the 2013 Blu-ray in every way, but with improved image fidelity. ANTON VAN BEEK CONTAGION 12 2011 ★★★★★ OUT NOW 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes An apocalyptic scenario is treated with intelligence and restraint in Steven Soderbergh’s disaster movie, whose depiction of a lethal virus unleashing a global pandemic proved eerily prescient. Celebrity status is no guarantee of survival here, as an all-star cast (Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow) races to contain the deadly pathogen. As gripping as it is, however, scenes of the afflicted coughing up blood before being disposed of in mass graves may feel a bit too raw for some to revisit. No new extras on this 4K UHD release. NEIL SMITH AFTER HOURS 15 1985 ★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS It may be one of Martin Scorsese’s less-celebrated films, but this darkly comic trawl through New York’s underbelly is still a beguiling work, especially in this big-screen 4K restoration. Griffin Dunne is Manhattan office drone Paul Hackett, who escapes his drudgery by pursuing Rosanna Arquette’s stranger into an increasingly fraught world of subway journeys, sculptures and sleazy nightspots. An early entry in the yuppies-inperil subgenre, its rogues’ gallery (everyone from Cheech Marin to Linda Fiorentino) and off-kilter plotting make for a compellingly wild ride. JAMES MOTTRAM HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM 12 1959 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurette, Introduction, Gallery, Art cards Shocking in its day, schlocky today, the first entry in AngloAmalgamated’s ‘Sadian’ trilogy is an odd hybrid of Anglo-American conceits. Michael Gough’s crime journo gets overexcited helping the police hunt ‘a brilliant maniac’ murdering women. Shocker: it’s actually him, and he’s got a brainwashed teen doing his killing. The result resembles a US youth-in-crisis movie made lurid in London, featuring proto-Saw death devices in the basement and an amusingly OTT Gough. KEVIN HARLEY TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 93

1997-2003 AVAILABLE ON DVD, PARAMOUNT+ Blood and porridge… The revolving door of incarcerations, murders and paroles made room for a diverse cast, including Ernie Hudson as warden Leo Glynn and Edie Falco in a pre-Sopranos role as prison officer Diane Whittlesey. Meanwhile, Harold Perrineau’s Augustus Hill led a Greek chorus of fourth-wall breaking narrators in sharing the inmates’ stories, offering a commentary on American prison life between rounds of rioting and shanking. In the cases of Poet (Craig ‘muMs’ Grant) and Kenny Wangler (J.D. Williams), Oz documented those who never stood a chance within society, calling its prison system home instead. As The Wire later did for American policing, Oz shone a spotlight on the penal industry and those trapped within it, from low-income gang-bangers to the guards and staff. It tackled topics such as rape, addiction and prison politicking with unflinching grit and a surprising vein of theatricality. It may have been rightfully derided for its sillier turns (including that ageing-pill subplot), but was never afraid to take chances - killing off its primary narrator, for example, or following Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s lead with its own musical episode. Twenty years later, Oz still captivates. Much has changed since, but just as much remains the same – both in the unforgiving, all-consuming penal system and the era of prestige television drama that Oz helped usher in. JOEL HARLEY Welcome to Emerald City: an experimental cell block within Indiana’s maximumsecurity Oswald State Correctional Facility (aka Oz). Overseen by idealistic architect Tim McManus (Terry Kinney), the City’s ambitious overhaul of inmate management is unique in that it gives prisoners nowhere to hide; while reform is prioritised over punishment, denizens are locked away in a series of transparent ‘pods’... In creating Oz for HBO, showrunner Tom Fontana tore up the television drama rulebook. Airing two years prior to The Sopranos, it was revolutionary in humanising its monsters, trusting audiences to understand their actions without recourse to glorification. ‘I wasn’t interested in writing heroes per se,’ Fontana told Yahoo TV. ‘I was planning to make interesting characters.’ Viewers enter this world via lawyer Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), imprisoned after killing a child while drunk driving. ‘Beecher’s our Dante coming into the Inferno,’ said Fontana of the character’s descent. His rivalry with white supremacist Vernon Schillinger (a terrifying J.K. Simmons) forms a throughline across six seasons, as both men go to increasingly horrific lengths in their shared vendetta – somehow, the vengeful shit that Beecher takes on Schillinger’s face isn’t even the worst atrocity either man has in store. OZ CLASSIC TV HBO, CBS ADEWALE AKINNUOYEAGBAJE AS SIMON ADEBISI Emerald’s City most fearsome resident, Nigerian drug lord Simon Adebisi, is also its most recognisable. Known for his love of knitted beanie hats and heroin, Adebisi takes leadership of the ‘Homeboys’ gang, taking no prisoners in his rise to power. Future Lost star AkinnuoyeAgbaje brought charisma and a cheeky sense of glee to the big man’s sociopathic antics. The show’s decline is often traced to S4 and Adebisi’s exit, in which he was killed off to accommodate the actor’s role in The Mummy Returns. Oz was never the same again… MVP Wizard of Oz: inmate Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) gets the party started 94 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 95 A24, ART & HUE, FUNKO, LEGO PRINTS EALING COMEDIES POSTERS OUT NOW The Ealing comedy wasn’t born in 1949 - but that’s the year it properly arrived, with the quadruple whammy of IZllihkmmhyIbfeb\h, Pabldr@Zehk^, Dbg]A^ZkmlZg]<hkhg^ml and :Kng_hkRhnkyFhg^r. Marking the 75th anniversary of that banner year, pop-art specialist Art & Hue has created a dozen prints celebrating the aforementioned classics and several more. Produced in collaboration with Studiocanal, the reimagined poster designs are available in three sizes and myriad colour options. Make like a Titfield Thunderbolt for artandhue.com. VARIOUS LOUNGEFLY PET ACCESSORIES OUT NOW Fandom’s literally gone to the dogs with this swanky new range of branded accessories. Loungefly has homed in on the pet lover/ collector crossover market with harnesses, leashes, collars and more inspired by Disney, Marvel and Star Wars (that’s no moon, it’s a Death Star-styled treat bag). The level of detail is as loving as you’d expect; we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Ehdb cosplay items heading up their own Disney+ series. It’s all under one woof at funkoeurope.com. COLLECTIBLE THE IRON CLAW FOAM HAND OUT NOW Pay homage to Sean Durkin’s stunning account of the Von Erich wrestling family with this <eZp-some item, which is a lot safer than practising the move it’s named for (though we wouldn’t advise waving the giant foam creation around in the cinema). If you want to get your mitts on it, though, you’ll need to put your hand in your pocket and sign up to the AAA24 program, which offers access to exclusive content and merch. Get in the ring at shop.a24films.com. TOY/COLLECTIBLE LEGO STITCH OUT 1 MARCH If you’ve always wanted to adopt a naughty alien in a Hawaiian shirt but were worried about the chaos they might bring, here’s the solution: a playand-display building set that won’t eat you out of house and home. After all, this Disney critter comes with its own (buildable) ice-cream cone (plus decorative flower). Aimed at older Lego fans and kids aged nine-plus, the 730-piece model has moveable ears and a turning head, so it can look for trouble everywhere. Don’t lie low, step up to lego.com. MATTHEW LEYLAND

96 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS indelible lead cue, an ‘off to work we go’ theme with the paranormal jitters. He brought romance and beauty, too, to the melodic and dancing Dana’s Theme. And with nifty detail, he dotted high piano tinkles throughout the score – presumably because, as Venkman notes, they bug the ghosts. The spooks receive their due with cues ranging from eerily atmospheric (Fridge and Sign, the John Williams-ish Library) to jabbing (Attack). Elsewhere, there’s bombast in Who Brought the Dog and an almost awestruck sense of pseudoreligiosity in Gozer, where Bernstein indulges his 72-piece orchestra. Mr. Stay Puft is like music for marshmallow dinosaurs, leavened with a sure sense of the absurd. And for the stand-offs between the ’Busters and the spooks, Bernstein seemed to revisit his western form, only with proton packs instead of rifles. With an aptitude for lurching moods, the result rolls along like a ghost train, full of twists and turns, silliness and suspense. Bernstein’s sense of melody and space ensures the music wears its density lightly, never labouring a point or losing the plot. Even if Parker Jr. banked the awards nominations, Bernstein pulled his weight with a classy score: a fine example of a genius composer at work and play. KEVIN HARLEY Elmer Bernstein composed beautiful music for literary classics, scored for biblical epics and issued rousing fanfares for westerns. But for some fans, he will always be the man who made music for marshmallow monsters and slimy spooks. And as he knew, there’s no shame in that: in his comedy phase, Bernstein invested Ghostbusters with a sure balance of invention and energy, irreverence and respect. Not that he was alone. As was the 80s way, much of the space on the initially released Ghostbusters soundtrack went to the songs. Bernstein had his doubts about including certain songs on film, but the veteran composer couldn’t question the value of Ray Parker Jr.’s irrepressible title track. Echoes of Huey Lewis and the News’ I Want a New Drug aside, here was a song destined to haunt the airwaves eternally: resistance is useless. On its own turf, Bernstein’s score is equally sure-footed. After previous comedies with Ivan Reitman, he wanted to make a score that honoured the film’s ‘fine line’ of comedy and serious spectral business. Neither overstating the LOLs or scares, he used the vintage ondes Martenot (an early electronic instrument), strings, piano and more to jaunty, spooky and mischievous effect on the Ones from the heart and art… THE HOLDOVERS ★★★★★ Undervalued Seattle song-man Damien Jurado provides a pitch-perfect opener for Alexander Payne’s latest with the soft-spun melancholy of Silver Joy. Elsewhere, era-specific pop/rock/folk cuts sit beautifully with Mark Orton’s wistful, wintery score, where rootsy stylings mix with warm woodwinds, bluesy piano and sleepy strings. Sweetly resolute closer Into the Unknown is a keeper, while the Christmas songs add succour to sorrows: Orton’s It’s Christmas! has just the right bittersweet seasonal spirit. AMERICAN FICTION ★★★★★ Like Jeffrey Wright’s Monk, Laura Karpman (The Marvels) lost her father before scoring Cord Jefferson’s literary satire. Begun on her dad’s piano, the jazzy results – nodding to Thelonious Monk – ripple with understanding and intuition, woven into character with dexterity and feeling. Pensive and deliberately fractured themes slowly give way to warmer, catchier cues (Hi Lorraine), before cohering in Brothers and Romantic Ending: moments of grace and tenderness in a richly nuanced score. ELMER BERNSTEIN AND VARIOUS SONY MUSIC CLASSICAL GHOSTBUSTERS CLASSIC SOUNDTRACK AL AMY, BACK LOT MUSIC, MASTERWORKS, SONY You’re gonna need a bigger bottle of Persil non-bio...

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN ★★★★★ OUT NOW PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/ SERIES X/S Ubisoft’s smart, sidescrolling reinvention of this venerable series combines exhilarating acrobatics with intense, satisfying combat. Protagonist Sargon gets to command not just time but space, though the best of his powers lets him tag screenshots to the in-game map so you need never get lost in this labyrinthine world. IMMORTALITY ★★★★★ OUT NOW PS5 Half Mermaid’s mesmerising cinematic triptych – in which you match-cut between three fictional films to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of actress Marissa Marcel – belatedly arrives on Sony’s console. With newly added controller audio and haptic feedback, it’s more tactile and unsettling still, making this the definitive version of a modern masterpiece. Recent thumb-twiddlers… MORE 2 homage is paid to its publisher’s arcade heritage with playable cabinets of Sega Bass Fishing, SpikeOut and Virtua Fighter 3. The two most comprehensive (and time-consuming) diversions, however, owe a debt to Nintendo: Sujimon is essentially Pokémon with recruitable human fighters, while Dondoko Island tasks you with steadily transforming a local dumping ground into an attractive resort, à la Animal Crossing. But this wouldn’t be Like a Dragon without a selection of leather-faced gangsters to intrude on our heroes’ tropical getaway. The turn-based combat feels more dynamic than its 2020 predecessor, with character positioning and environmental features factoring into a wider selection of available attacks. You can assign outlandish new roles to your team, lassoing enemies as a Desperado before your Housekeeper (literally) mops up the mess, or paralysing them with an Aquanaut’s jellyfish so your Samurai can take aim with their bow. Kiryu, meanwhile, belies his ailing health with the ability to wade into the fray without waiting his turn. The tone may pinball between silly and sentimental, but in committing so fully to provoking both tears and laughter, Sega has served up 2024’s first must-play game. CHRIS SCHILLING I n 2021, Sega outlined plans for a ‘super game’, to be released within five years – implying that this mooted blockbuster would deliver an interactive experience of a standard beyond its big-budget peers. That project is still to be officially unveiled – yet two years before deadline, the latest entry in the series formerly known as Yakuza effectively satisfies that brief. After the comparatively svelte The Man Who Erased His Name, this is a beast of an adventure: a January release that many players will still be chipping away at come December. The expansive story takes Like a Dragon overseas for the first time: as well as enjoying the nightlife of Yokohama, affable lead Ichiban Kasuga gets to soak up the sun in Hawaii. He’s joined by elder statesman Kazuma Kiryu, whose own journey appears to be coming to an end after being diagnosed with cancer – and as such, his side missions involve ticking off items on his bucket list. But there are plenty more upbeat activities besides. Infinite Wealth has some of the series’ most refined asides to date, not least an entertaining riff on Crazy Taxi, in which pulling off tricks and stunts on your fast-food delivery bike is just as important as fulfilling orders in good time. Further ★★★★★ OUT NOW PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES X/S So money… LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH GAMES Mop till you drop: ‘Housekeeper’ is one of the roles available to players TOTALFILM.COM MARCH 2024 | TOTAL FILM | 97

BLACK CAESARS AND FOXY CLEOPATRAS ★★★★★ ODIE HENDERSON ABRAMS The 70s rise of Blaxploitation saw Black culture reclaim the stereotypes that had previously been weaponised against it. Film critic Henderson’s account celebrates the highs of the genre without sugar-coating the lows. The book assumes a base level of Blaxploitation knowledge, making it a niche concern, but if you know your Blacula (1972) from your Youngblood (1978), it’s a fascinating deep dive into a much-misunderstood period of film history. LEILA LATIF KUBRICK: AN ODYSSEY ★★★★★ ROBERT P. KOLKER, NATHAN ABRAMS FABER & FABER Stanley Kubrick was still living when his last fulllength biog was published. High time for another then, a task Kolker and Abrams shoulder well in a 650-page doorstopper that paints its subject as a sometimes volatile self-concealer ‘who hid behind the grandeur of his work and the privacy of his life’. All the masterpieces are covered, though it’s the unrealised projects – collabs with Brando, John le Carré and Ian Fleming, for example – that inform this tome’s most tantalising passages. NEIL SMITH 50 OSCAR NIGHTS ★★★★★ DAVE KARGER RUNNING PRESS Golden glory or mixed blessing? Journo Karger elicits broad responses to ‘Hollywood’s biggest night’ in his lively interviews with 50 winners. A strong range of talents share complex feelings: Barry Jenkins recalls that Moonlight mishap ruefully; Elton John thinks he won for the wrong song; Marlee Matlin has terse words for co-star Bill Hurt’s criticisms. Others are more gleeful: Olivia Colman and Halle Berry’s responses deftly disarm our often justified cynicism about the whole circus. KEVIN HARLEY Despite Regina George’s doubts, ‘fetch’ is still happening 20 years on from the original Mean Girls. From high school to outer space, pop-culture expert Jennifer Keishin Armstrong shows why with her terrifically readable and rigorous study, a celebration with a sharp eye. Proving the success was no accident, Tina Fey took at least 10 drafts and 18 months to perfect the script, drawing on her life, Heathers and Rosalind Wiseman’s source book. Armstrong assiduously details how director Mark Waters proved crucial, watching every audition during the critical casting process. Insights abound, like how Lindsay Lohan had to be restrained from curling her hair (Plasticsstyle) too early and how Rachel McAdams used censored f-bombs in rehearsals to get into character. Alongside breakdowns of everything from props to raps, Armstrong is terrific on the virtues of the friendly on-set vibe and fast-take direction. The MPAA ratings battle is wryly detailed, too; bizarrely, a frozen hot dog caused problems… But it’s in the aftermath that So Fetch excels. Eviscerating tabloid ‘prurience’ over Lohan, Armstrong shows how Mean Girls rewrote the landscape for women in comedy and flourished in meme culture, from Trump/Clinton spats to NASA launches. The musical and new film prove its resilience. And while certain ideas about race/ sexuality may date the 2004 movie – and Wiseman’s profits battles leave a sour taste – the themes of peer pressure and fitting in endure. Truly, the limit does not exist. KEVIN HARLEY QUENTIN BY TARANTINO ★★★★★ This graphic-novel biography from comics creator Amazing Améziane is brimming with lurid style. Imaginary interviews with Tarantino power the book from his childhood to Video Archives, Roger Avary and beyond. Anecdotes mount like bodies as his career begins, propelled by vital collaborators – Harvey Keitel, Sally Menke… The artwork gets the heavy-ketchup flavour of the material, expressing Tarantino’s self-mythologising in ways prose can’t. KEVIN HARLEY Life-story time… MORE 2 CHRIS ANTON; HARPERCOLLINS; RUNNING PRESS; ABRAMS; FABER & FABER; TITAN ★★★★★ JENNIFER KEISHIN ARMSTRONG HARPERCOLLINS SO FETCH: THE MAKING OF MEAN GIRLS BOOKS LENA HORNE: GODDESS RECLAIMED ★★★★★ Black-cinema expert Donald Bogle delivers an excellent biog of the groundbreaking singer/ actor/superstar. Recounting Horne’s life and career via interviews, rare photos and meticulous research, Bogle focuses on the many battles she faced working within a studio system rife with prejudice. He also shines a spotlight on her civil-rights activism. An engrossing study of both Horne’s importance to Hollywood history and the shameful politics of the time. MATT LOOKER ‘Mean Girls rewrote the landscape for women in comedy’ (Chris Anton and Lindsay Lohan pictured on set) 98 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

CINEMA CELEBRATED AND DEBATED. BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO SUPERHERO LEVELS…

AL AMY, DREAMWORKS, WARNER BROS. IS IT BOLLOCKS? Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots. 01 THE JUNGLE BOOK 2016 ....................................................................... $967.7M 02 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN 2002 .............................................................. $352.1M 03 WEDDING CRASHERS 2005 .............................................................. $288.5M 04 BATMAN RETURNS 1992 ...................................................................... $266.9M 05 CLICK 2006 .................................................................................................... $240.7M 06 PULP FICTION 1994 ................................................................................... $213.9M 07 SLEEPY HOLLOW 1999 ........................................................................... $206.1M 08 HAIRSPRAY 2007 ...................................................................................... $203.6M 09 ANTZ 1998 ......................................................................................................... $171.8M 10 A VIEW TO A KILL 1985 ........................................................................... $152.6M Trimethylaminuria (or TMAU) is a real, though uncommon, condition that’s also known as ‘fish-odour syndrome’ due to the unfortunate smell it’s associated with. The odour can be present in breath, urine and sweat and is caused by a faulty gene that is genetic – but sufferers only get the condition if both parents are carriers. The odour can be triggered by sweating, stress and certain foods – all things that Mr. H. is experiencing during his fraught Christmas break at Barton Academy. The smell comes from an inability of a gut to break down smells from certain foods, creating trimethylamine, which is expelled from the body through sweat, breath or pee. There is no known cure for TMAU but some foods can exacerbate the smell – cow’s milk, seafood, eggs, beans and peanuts among them. So Mr. Hunham should be cutting down on his eggnog, bar snacks and shrimp platters. Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks or snapped yourself at a film location? Contact us at [email protected] VERDICT NOT BOLLOCKS ALTERNATIVE BOX OFFICE The biggest movies… STARRING CHRISTOPHER WALKEN THIS MONTH THE HOLDOVERS Q Is crotchety prep school teacher Paul Hunham’s fish-odour affliction in The Holdovers real? ON LOCATION REEL SPOTS BEHIND THE CAMERA WHAT? In The Dark Knight, the Joker and Batman joust on a dark Gotham street and a truck flips in spectacular fashion… WHERE? LaSalle Avenue, Chicago, USA. GO? One of the Windy City’s most cinematic streets, LaSalle was used for The Untouchables and Public Enemies, with the Chicago Board of Trade and its clock a distinct backdrop. Respond to the Bat signal and visit. 100 | TOTAL FILM | MARCH 2024 SUBSCRIBE AT TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS