LFF Review: Never Let Me Go

UK/USA

directed by Mark Romanek; written by Alex Garland; starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling

screened as the Opening Night Gala on October 13th; also screened on October 15th and 17th

C+

Never Let Me Go. The words float from the cassette recording, an unknowing request through a romantic gift. That the cassette has shifted from being a melancholy emblem in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel to something fleetingly included here seems at odds with the change of project the film seems to pursue. But this short shrift isn’t exactly representative of a film that could be simply described as diluting its source. It seems instead to refocus it, keeping Kathy H’s voiceover merely as a bare framework as opposed to its overwhelming first person presence in the novel, and explaining the secret of these characters’ existence almost immediately, to channel the involvement into the love triangle instead. Perhaps a slight trivialisation of an intriguing topic, but Ishiguro’s novel hardly delved deeply into the wider repercussions of this alternate past either, blocked by the particulars of Kathy H’s ‘human’ experience.

So maybe Alex Garland’s script makes for a more honest approach to Ishiguro’s obtuse disguise by shifting focus, but new weaknesses crack through; Ruth (Keira Knightley), always the least explored and probably least interesting point of the triangle, is almost demonized, hovering menacingly behind doorframes and giving cruel looks to Kathy (Carey Mulligan), a girl who is supposed – and the paucity of conviction in this is the film’s weakest aspect of all – to be her best friend. None of the characters are helped by the child actors who play out the difficult dynamics in the first section – not exactly aided by a script that seems too keen to truncate the school experience (seen most baldly in the terribly expositional role Sally Hawkins is given), but too studied and brash to work against the harsh angles of these early scenes. Ironically, it ends up being Knightley’s late scenes as Ruth that are the most striking, with a heavy weight to her words and physicality that seem entirely unfamiliar from the lithe actress, but by then Ruth has been and has herself let go.

Yet somehow, despite the strength of Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, the stronger leaning towards character over moral dilemma does not change the approach the story takes in trying to move us. Without really exploring how these ‘clones’ function in this universe – two frissons with strangers they watch during a trip to a seaside town hint at this wider idea – we can only accept them as closed off from the world, and so Garland’s favouring of characters makes sense. But at these same moments, the imagery (a ball, lost over a fence; a panorama of the broken toys the students joyfully ‘buy’) and the ending try to open the film up to the moral dilemmas. It’s something the film can’t let go of, because it singularises it, but it can’t find a way to properly modulate between the two different angles.

It has to, by design, mark out our focus within the segregation – so while they’re all “students of Hailsham”, Tommy wears blue to the white of the others, or Kathy sits outside, disinterested in the excitement of the sale. Naturally, while our characters might be clones, they’re less clones than those around them, and this niggles as an excuse to merely scratch the idea of this society and not investigate it. If I keep repeating this point, it’s only because it seems to be an impossible situation – perhaps it’s the necessary truncation into a manageable length that was never going to be able to finely contain the details of the novel, no matter how much the cinematic treatment might help the story by packing pages of Kathy’s observation into single images. The specificity both gains and loses something. Like the clones, perhaps, the film isn’t inferior; it’s just troublesome in a rather different way.

The Poetry of War

Contains spoilers.

Should a film try to approximate other arts? Watching The Edge of Love sent me momentarily back to 2005 and the poetry-on-film double-whammy of Sally Potter's Yes- which was literally told via poetry- and Terrence Malick's marvellous The New World, which I said at the time was the closest thing to visual poetry film had ever come. The question of poetry comes up in relation to The Edge of Love because it ostensibly centres around a poet, Dylan Thomas (here played by Matthew Rhys). Director John Maybury doesn't seem to be- unlike Malick and Potter- making this story into any kind of poem, and indeed, the use of Thomas' words is surprisingly sparing and generally aptly-placed. But in the way that poetry- at least in the vein of Thomas' work- uses words and imagery to mean something other, so does Maybury approach the story of Thomas' entwinement with two women: his wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and his childhood sweetheart Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley).

What I mean is that this is a story about images and the falsity they create and present. The Edge of Love has four central characters- our additional one being Vera's eventual husband William Killick (Cillian Murphy)- and it ultimately proves not to have a romanticized view of any of them. But their descent into disarray and unhappiness occurs because, in the midst of the panicked, suspended existence that WWII brought, these are four people that don't really know each other at all. The film's first half is full of laughter between bombings, suggestive trios on a bed and cigarettes passed between the women wearing gauzy bohemian clothing. But all this jollity is emblematic of people who are, by necessity of the situation surrounding them (the war), ignoring interpersonal problems. Thomas kind of gets sidelined here because the picture's true 'love story' is actually between the two women- the two characters who, perhaps naturally, understand each other the best, and indeed, it is the breakdown in their trust that spins the two couples away from each other in the end.

The question of who is centralized in this story is both fascinating and perhaps completely irrelevant. Miller and Knightley dominate both press coverage and the posters; but in terms of the thematizing of imagery and poetry, it is perhaps Dylan and Vera's picture. His poetry, when it appears, dominates the soundtrack by blocking out diegetic sound; but this is similar to the repeated occurrences of Vera's underground singing performances, where Maybury focuses his camera close up and square on her, the cinematography misty and gauzy like nowhere else, making her (rather vocally pedestrian) performance central to our understanding of Vera, where otherwise it would have been a momentary distraction. Vera is, if you want, our heroine, and her singing is the way she has forged an identity, which is then squashed by William's insistence on their rushed marriage, and the ultimate requirement of motherhood. The rather damp conclusion is staunchly melancholic- Vera says goodbye to Caitlin across the bonnet of a car, implicitly including Dylan in her goodbye because the Thomas's were her only way to retain her freedom.

All this is to say nothing of how well The Edge of Love achieves these impactful themes. At one point, the thought flashed through my mind that this was kind of like a poem, because the story seemed so loose and the images so translucent that it was not so much a linear narrative as a circulating, elliptical mystery. This is, perhaps, a fitting description for most of the first half, but the move to Wales loses both the visual beauty and the elusivity of the narrative, and becomes more drab and wearing as the characters slip into unhappiness. Knightley, too, gets lost in the second half, her mixture of Vera as pointed yet vulnerable falling into a glut of glum facial expressions and a ripe Welsh accent that basically shouts 'fake' at the top of its voice. Rhys, though, retains the charming arrogance that makes Thomas so hatefully fascinating, and best of all, Miller continues to justify my championing of her by making Caitlin's wilful, acidic personality become slowly eroded by confused, hypocritical misunderstanding. To say little of Maybury- whose direction becomes gradually more unfocused- is perhaps apt, because this is an actor's film that gives its performers the task of unlocking characters trapped behind romanticized or otherwise false images of each other, kept at the edge of love by lack of communication. B-

Waiter, my pie has too much Keira Knightley in it...

[This is a review disguised as a mathematical dissection. It may also contain some spoilers.]

I was lying in bed last night wondering: if Keira Knightley's new film The Duchess were a pie, what would it's main ingredients be? So I decided to figure it out.

(click to enbiggen)

40%... Keira Knightley. Despite what the (hilarious) title of this entry may suggest, Miss Knightley is actually very good in this film. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's her best performance yet. It has more weight than her (still lovely) turn in Pride and Prejudice, and there's none of that stilted British accent shit from Atonement. This is- since she is the titular character- "her" film, so to speak, especially since director Saul Dibb seems remarkably insistent on sticking the camera square-on to her face. She handles it very well. She makes a believable transition from naive new bride to increasingly disillusioned woman, as the Duchess (of Devonshire) hides her private turmoils behind her fashions and her sprightly public persona. She's charming, but not aggressively so, putting as much emphasis on her character's foibles as her strengths and letting the situations we see her in speak for themselves.

15%... Children. Alright. So the children themselves aren't physically in this film a great deal. But in the end the film shows itself to be all about them. The Duchess' mother has clearly put all her efforts into getting her daughter into the best position possible, but the Duchess' own generation is also all about sacrificing themselves for their children. The movie even overplays this a bit, as Lady "Bess" Elizabeth (Hayley Atwell) spells this out for both us and the Duchess as she tries to explain her dalliance with the Duchess' husband. And the Duchess, ultimately, does the same (again, the script overplays this, and sacrifices another aspect of the film for it, sadly, but we'll get to that). What the film, thankfully, doesn't spell out is how this is, obviously, destined to be a never-ending chain- children sacrifice themselves for their children, who sacrifice themselves for their children, creating a never-ending legacy of unhappiness. It makes me never want to have children, because I'd probably be a horrible parent.

12%... The ambiguous morality of Ralph Fiennes. I hope y'all pronounced his name correctly. One of the cleverest aspects of the script is how it lets Fiennes' character unfold in the same way for us as he does for the Duchess- character identification, you see? He's initially a cold, unreachable figure, who becomes a dangerous, volatile, selfish one, and it's only in the latter part that he gets the chance to speak his part, and you feel he only does so because, at least as far as he's concerned, the Duchess has finally become adult enough to understand what he's trying to tell her. What he does is inexcusable, but the film leaves you unsettled about how hateable the man can really be.

10%... Extra-marital sex. What would an eighteenth-century historical biopic be without some juicy affairs? Nothing, that's what. And here, you almost get three for the price of one! The openly accepted one (naturally, since he's a rich man) between the Duke and Bess is all played out between them and the Duchess at the dinner table, their sexual dalliances left to the Duchess' POV as she stumbles on servants listening to their first encounter. But this menage-a-trois isn't just between the two- I was surprised when their was a brief female moment, which I didn't think would happen even as it did- simply because I'd heard nothing about it! Which is a good thing, really, because it shouldn't be anything to get excited about (and it is quite brief).

But what's best here is the affair between the Duchess and eventual Prime Minister Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper, hooray). This may be me at my most basic level, but the lengthy lead-up to them even kissing really did it for me. It probably helps that they're both so attractive. And unlike the other affairs, there is considerable action that goes on here. Can I say yum?

Okay. I'm done being shallow now.

8%... Politics. A film consisting of even this much politics may scare some people off, but it just wasn't enough. I knew that the Duchess of Devonshire was a big political campaigner, and we just didn't get enough of it. I suppose I could credit the film with treating its audience with intelligence by not explaining the political positions of the Whig Party, but I fear it's more a case of that being construed as "boring". I wanted to understand what the Duchess was standing for, what she was (briefly) standing up in support of, but the film only seems to go there to further the relationship between her and Grey. And this is what I referred to earlier- in the Duchess' decision between Grey and the Duke, it's only and always her children, never the threat of what it would do to Grey's political career- which could, I assume, have been greatly important in furthering the country's development.

7%... Feet. I think Saul Dibb is a foot fetishist. He certainly goes for the classic 'stepping out of a carriage' shot. I think the only part of the body we saw as much of as people's feet was the back of Keira's head (identification, you see?). Indeed, Dibb does show his limits as a director here- the other classic period shot you may find yourself rolling your eyes at is the wide angle of the dinner table, as the Duke and Duchess sit about a mile away from each other. Wonder what that signifies?

5%... Big hats. The Duchess- as she herself spells out early on- expresses herself through her fashion. And she certainly does have some extraordinary headgear in this film. Sadly, I can't find a picture of my favourite one (it's the one with the enormous feather), so you'll have to settle for this one instead.
2%... Charlotte Rampling. I did really like The Duchess, but doesn't every movie's awesomeness factor go up by about 40% every time Charlotte Rampling turns up? Here, she's scarce but very brilliant as the Duchess' concerned but critical mother.

1%... Burning hair. Yes. The most hilarious moment of the film comes in a tritely-filmed sequence where a drunk Duchess stumbles backwards into a candelabra and ends up having her wig put out by a servant pouring wine on it. Sadly- or perhaps even more brilliantly- it has actually been removed from her head at this point. Revealing how little hair she really has. (Still, it's better than the greasy hair that Ralph keeps under his wig.)

And that, good people, is what ingredients go into making a competent, enjoyable if flawed historical biopic. I give it a B, and I wouldn't mind eating it again.

Showdown: British Young Thing Period Piece

The Young Victoria and The Duchess are currently scheduled to be released on the same day- the 29th of August 2008- here in the UK. Surely this will lead to some kind of horrific implosion? Two young British actresses starring in period biopics of upper class people. So what else is there to do but examine which is most likely to succeed? Yes, it's the British Young Thing Period Piece Showdown, 2008. Let's have a look at our contenders.

THE YOUNG VICTORIA
Who's it about?
Queen Victoria, the Queen of England from 1837 to 1901 (yes, I knew that without looking). As the title intimates, this covers the "turbulent first years" of her rule, according to IMDb.
Who's the British Young Thing starring in it?
Emily Blunt, who was generally considered the also-ran in 2006's Best Supporting Actress race at the Oscars for her comic turn as Meryl Streep's assistant in bitch-com The Devil Wears Prada. Her breakthrough came a couple of years earlier with her joint-lead turn alongside Nathalie Press in My Summer of Love.
Who's playing that classic older, controlling woman role?
Miranda Richardson plays Victoria's domineering mother, The Duchess of Kent, who was relegated to separate accomodations on Victoria's becoming Queen but later welcomed back, upon the Queen's first child being born.
And the love interest?
Rupert Friend plays Victoria's eventual husband Prince Albert. The film focuses on their relationship.
Who's directing?
Jean-Marc Vallee, the Quebecois director thus far most famous for his 2005 Quebec feature C.R.A.Z.Y., which was slightly off-the-wall but showed great promise, especially with regards to handling performers. [See my review, and read my praise of C.R.A.Z.Y.'s lead actor Marc-Andre Grondin.]
Who wrote the screenplay?
Julian Fellowes, actor and writer who won the Oscar for his screenplay for Robert Altman's Gosford Park back in 2001. He was also part of the team who scribed Mira Nair's adaptation of Vanity Fair, and wrote and directed his own feature, Separate Lies, in 2005.
Any other big names involved?
Martin Scorsese and Sarah Ferguson (that's Fergie, Duchess of York, to you and me) are both producing. Paul Bettany is playing Lord Melbourne, who was a close friend and father-figure to the Queen. Jim Broadbent is playing Victoria's uncle, King William IV, and Thomas Krestchmann (of The Pianist) is another uncle King Leopald of Belgium. And Sandy Powell (The Aviator, Far From Heaven, Shakespeare in Love, Velvet Goldmine) is costume designer.
Where has it been filmed?
Lincoln Cathedral has stood in for Westminster Abbey, although scenes have also been filmed at the Abbey itself; while Blenheim Palace, Arundel Castle and Belvoir Castle have also been used. Wilton House, used in recent period pieces Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Brown, is also featured. [full IMDb list here.]
Yes, but when does it open in America?
It's currently scheduled for release just a week later than the UK, on September 3rd. However, the film is currently without a distributor in both countries, so changes are highly likely.
And is there a trailer?
Not as yet, probably because of the lack of distributor. So judgments are purely speculative.

THE DUCHESS
Who's it about?
18th Century aristocrat Georgiana Cavenish, Duchess of Devonshire, a scandalous socialite and political campaigner who lived from 1757 to 1806.
Who's the British Young Thing starring in it?
Keira Knightley, everyone's favourite pirate, more noted in cinematic circles for her two period collaborations with Joe Wright, Pride and Prejudice (which got her an Oscar nom) and Atonement (which didn't). Her breakthrough was also in a low-key British film, the football comedy Bend It Like Beckham.
Who's playing that classic, controlling older woman role?
Well, who knows if she's controlling, but The Duchess has Charlotte Rampling playing a Lady Spencer, who I believe is the Duchess's mother. She does have a little moment in the trailer (see below), but whether she's domineering or simply concerned remains to be seen.
And the love interest?
Ralph Fiennes plays her husband, William Cavenish, although the sex-factor will likely be provided by Dominic Cooper (The History Boys), as Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey (and it is this Earl Grey whom the tea was named after), with whom her affair almost caused the Duchess' husband to divorce her. And Hayley Atwell, who starred in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream and is also appearing in Brideshead Revisited this year, is playing the Duchess's confidante Bess Foster, who was the Duke's mistress for many years and became his second wife.
Who's directing?
Saul Dibb, who wrote and directed British gangster film Bullet Boy (which recieved mediocre notices) in 2004, and directed the mini-series adaptation of Alan Hollingsworth look at 1980s gay London The Line of Beauty for television in 2006 (which, from the bits I saw, was quite good).
Who wrote the screenplay?
Jeffrey Hatcher (who co-wrote Lasse Hallestrom's reviled Casanova, and adapted his own play for the dull Stage Beauty) and the Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, who won an Oscar for his short film Valgaften, and worked with Susanne Bier on Open Hearts, Brothers and After the Wedding, have adapted Amanda Foreman's biography.
Any other big names involved?
Nope.
Where has it been filmed?
Locations include Chatsworth House, Kedleston Hall, and Somerset House.
Yes, but when does it open in America?
IMDb has the American release date as September 12th.
And is there a trailer?
Since Pathe (UK and France) and Paramount Vantage (US and Australia) are on board for distribution, we have been given a trailer, which you can watch at youtube.

So...?
Well, it's hard to really make any firm judgments at this point, especially since The Young Victoria is without a trailer and it's impossible to get any feel for what it will be like. But it does seem to have more pedigree- (ex-)royals on board (Princess Beatrice also has a cameo), reliable British stalwarts like Broadbent and Richardson in the background- than The Duchess, and besides, the latter's trailer is decidedly discomfiting. Keira does NOT look comfortable wearing that tall wig, and, if the trailer is representative of the film as a whole (which is isn't necessarily, granted), it seems to be going majorly for the sex factor. I get the feeling that The Duchess is playing the raunchy card, while The Young Victoria will go more for the cerebral, intelligent, low-key route. And isn't it just more exciting to think of Emily Blunt finally getting her due rather than Keira Knightley stealing the limelight yet again?

Feel free to correct me on any incorrect details. I'm not an historical expert, so I may well have got some details wrong.

Atonement Revisited

When I first saw Atonement, all the way back in September (Britain got it a few months earlier than America and most other countries), I was fresh off having read (and loved) the book- as usual with books that aren't prescribed parts of my course these days, it was only because they were making a film out of it that I read it. Naturally, the issue with watching a film of a book you've read is that you're naturally going to make comparisons- but reading the book so close to watching the film is possibly unadvisable, because it makes you even more prone to paper over the film's omissions (which are often necessary or effective ones) with pages that are still living vivid life in your memory. Characters seem more than they are because the versions the book and film offer up to you are different things- not a problem, perhaps, when watching at a studied distance, but the character of Cecilia, say, who was granted a greater deal of interiority than the film affords her, seemed less rounded and human on a second, more removed viewing than she did initially, because in my head first go round was still the Cecilia from the book.

Trying to make a truly faithful version of a book is always a mistake, really, because, as with plays, the whole thing generally comes off as too stilted, too formal and constrained, because you get the sense that the filmmakers are ignoring any possible artistry in an attempt to portray exactly what the book gives you. Atonement does not have this problem, because Joe Wright, its director, does not let it. This isn't to say, though, that it's not seeking to be faithful to the book in a disadvantageous way- it just goes an entirely different route towards achieving it. We learnt from Pride and Prejudice's famous circuitous long-take around the rural family home that Wright is a director often prone to flashiness- but here, with Atonement, he seems too often to go slightly overboard. He may not be keen to tell us the story, so to speak, but he is intent on showing it to us, and all too often his visual attempts to do so seem overbearing and unsubtle. Grone-inducing visual metaphors like Cecilia (Keira Knightley) diving into the swimming pool cutting sharply to Robbie (James McAvoy) sliding up from under his bath water, or the insistent close-ups of that infamous word that wasn't meant to be seen being typed across our screen, sit uncomfortably alongside the classical style Wright favours for most of the film- most egregious, possibly, is his reversing flashback of Robbie and Cecilia's separation, to not mention his infamous five and a half minute tracking shot around Dunkirk, which seems to serve no other purpose that proving it can be done. Dario Marianelli's score is for the most part delicate and effectively melancholic, but the typewriter sounds that spark up on young Briony's (Saoirse Ronan) appearances- which undoubtably are what won him the Oscar- are jarring and altogether too poundingly insistent. And Christopher Hampton's script is too often as unsubtle as Wright himself- particularly, it has to be said, in the coda, for which I previously placed too much blame on Vanessa Redgrave, but it's really the fault of having what was in the book revealed by a first person narration but is here forced to be revealed in one long, overt speech.

Atonement's productional credentials are generally faultless- impeccably-created sets, good costume work, ecetera- but ultimately the whole thing does feel a bit empty because there is barely an actual character to identify with. Robbie and Cecilia, even moreso than they were in the novel, are less humans than idealized romantic fiction, and, while that is the point that McEwan ultimately makes, he also invested time and energy into the pairing, using their perspectives to eschew the possibility of making them into ciphers for Briony's atonement. It's harder to pull off different perspectives on film without being overly explicit, and, even while spending most time with Briony, Wright refrains from actually entering any of the characters heads, and this means that the film loses any chance to understand either Robbie or Cecilia, leaving both McAvoy and Knightley asea amid clipped British accents and creaseless formal clothing. Obviously Briony is more of a rounded character, but here it's more a case of the actors letting the side down- Romola Garai is easily the best here, redemptive and haunted as her eighteen year-old Briony struggles with nurse training and contacting her estranged sister, but Saoirse Ronan, much-praised as the younger incarnation of Briony, works too hard to try pull off the adult-acting aspect of her character, which, in one of the novel's clearest ironies, is all a fallacy anyway. Ronan is good at portraying Briony's slightly lofty attitudes, but she's a tad too vacant, lacking any edge in her clearly-meant-to-be-meaningful stares out of the window, and not nearly as good at underlining the empathic moments of Briony as Garai is. And Redgrave, stuck as she is with that expositionary coda, works like a trooper to inject some emotion into her face as Wright holds steady on her close-up, but, not only is she undermined by an understandable but still foolish choice to have her basically look like an overgrown Ronan (same hair cut, swamping dress), there's just little she can do to make the words seem less deadeningly unrealistic than they are.

Atonement works, maybe, as the sweeping period romance that you feel the Academy probably took it for, but as the more subtle depiction of the devastating effect of falsehoods and misunderstandings the book proves itself to be, the film fails. There's no real sense of tragedy in Robbie and Cecilia's separation because they're never relatable, sympathetic characters. Indeed, the film's best moments belong entirely to Garai, as she depicts the tragedy she unknowingly did to herself- rather lamely sitting by a French soldier's bedside, unsure whether to go along with his delirious 'remembrances' of her; but especially in the film's coup-d'etat, Briony's confrontation with Robbie and Cecilia. Nathaniel highlighted this line reading in his recent awards, but it bears repeating for just how perfectly Garai captures Briony's wretched regret, her pathetic apology coming out as if she knows how redundant it will seem. It's a superb performance in a film that doesn't seem to want one, more concerned with the tragic romance and directorial flashiness than telling the story that McEwan told. C+

Atonement: The Film

It's been almost an entire month since I last made an entry here... but I finally saw Atonement and I felt it necessary to add my two cents. Look for more frequent entries once I get back yo uni and get the internet connected there (about three weeks, I'm guessing).

As I said before, the novel Atonement (which, let's be honest, I only read because they were making a film out of it) was so beautiful and heartbreaking I wasn't even sure if I could sit through seeing it on-screen. But what the film left on me was a rather dull feeling of indifference: sure, it was moving, well-made, superbly acted- but it didn't make me feel as much as it should have. When it got to the portion of the film where Robbie (James McAvoy) is trudging his way across a war-strewn France, I kept thinking 'I hope they've cut it down, I hope they've cut it down'- which they had, and that didn't fit with me- it's not that I hated that part, it's that it was SO difficult to read and deal with that I didn't want to have to deal with it again. But, the problem is, Atonement NEEDS that, and it NEEDS the difficulty of Briony's (Romola Garai at this point) work as a nurse dealing with horrifically injured soldiers, because that's what makes the shattering ending work all the more. But Atonement, at this point, feels truncated, and I just felt my emotions drifting away, wishing this was the book instead, and wishing I could cry again when the ending came.

I can't be harsh on the film- all the acting (besides, surprisingly, Vanessa Redgrave- her coda doesn't work at all) is superb, particularly McAvoy and Garai. The costume and make-up work is exemplary (I loved how Redgrave looked almost exactly like Saoirse Ronan and Garai, with the same hair-cut and a dress that looked too big- as if she'd never moved past her childhood crime, which, of course, she hadn't), the direction is strong and the music beautiful. But it's not the masterpiece I so desperately wanted it to be, and that's why my words are more negative that my grade of B+ implies.

Things I Learned Watching Enduring Pirates 3

There are spoilers in this, I suppose.

- It's not okay to start a family film with a prolonged public hanging just because you suddenly turn it into a musical number.

- Stay away from Naomie Harris, she gives people crabs. Like, big time.

- Tom Hollander likes to drink tea. Lots of tea. (Two sugars.)

- Keira Knightley doesn't have the army-leading shouting skills of Mel Gibson. But she is thankfully much nicer to look at, so that's okay.

- Davy Jones' locker is in fact an extremely clean, white and rather lovely expanse of a large sound stage next to a beach.

- I totally want a bandana.

- A simple truth: the more Johnny Depps on-screen, the more annoying he becomes.

- Geoffrey Rush really should entrust special false eyes to someone who won't frequently lose them to a monkey.

- Tom Hollander will forever be typecast as an absolute bastard, because all you can think when watching him as that someone needs to punch him in the face.

- Pirates are not to be trusted. Ever. Even if they're not really pirates.

- If you are small / female / goofy-looking / foreign / animal, Gore Verbinski will exploit this as much as he can.

- When it's cold, no one sees fit to go inside. Are they all idiots? Wait, don't answer that.

- The pirate fortress looks uncannily like a Christmas tree.

- Monkeys are better actors than Orlando Bloom.

- Tom Hollander has devilishly good skills at dramatic demises.

- Orlando Bloom was so pissed at Keira for getting a bigger part than him that he evilly leaves her on a desert island with his heart in a box. The bastard.

- It would so have worked between Elizabeth and Jack.

- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is extremely boring and I give it a D+. This was in fact learned just after I watched it, but it still counts.