Out to own today: Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Daughter and Equals

Out to own today:

​Alice Through the Looking Glass

“Must you always be so headstrong?” Helen Kingsleigh (Lindsay Duncan)
 
Female self-determination and eye-catching visuals (including that rarest of treats: dextrous use of 3D) are the sole standouts in a too slight blockbuster. Narrative pace is ratcheted up seemingly to mask the flimsiness of the story and characterisation. Everyone is given one trait, and that’s about it – far from enough to care about the protagonists’ plights. Bar Alice, the entire cast are either bonkers or daft. There is though warmth to the denouement, a sense of rapprochement so often sidestepped in mainstream cinema in favour of punishment and returning the world to the status quo.
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​The Daughter

“Put that thing out of its misery, would you Peterson?” Henry (Geoffrey Rush)
 
The first line of dialogue will be wretchedly prescient. Similar to television show ‘Breaking Bad’, THE DAUGHTER’s myriad of tragedies is a complicated array of cause and effect. Where does blame begin? The emotional hollowing out of the cast and audience is all the more remarkable considering this is the cinematic feature debut for writer-director Simon Stone. Not one, but seven leads circle each other, without of course sensing the dread washing over the audience. Days away from a wedding in an Australian idyll would probably have been a (romantic-) comedy in less talented hands. This is RACHEL GETTING MARRIED dialled up, if you thought that was possible.
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​Equals

“According to the laws of aerodynamics they shouldn’t fly, but they don’t know it, so they fly anyway,” Nia (Kristen Stewart)
 
When indie cinema tackles genre, one hopes for a fresh perspective (e.g. BRICK). Science fiction dystopia, which can be used as a mirror for the now, is currently dominating the box office with teen angst: THE HUNGER GAMES, DIVERGENT and THE MAZE RUNNER series. Hope then for Drake Doremus, who wowed with LIKE CRAZY, to look at the world with his almost misanthropic eye. His fascination with the minutiae of human romantic entanglement, last seen to dour effect in BREATHE IN, is applied to the future.
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