Out To Own Today: Jonathan/Duplicate, Skate Kitchen, and The Children Act

​Out to own today:

Jonathan a.k.a. Duplicate

“I’m not sure what’s going on. I’ve been feeling a little tired lately. Have you?” Jonathan (Ansel Elgort)
 
JONATHAN, also known as DUPLICATE, are two bland titles reflecting a lacklustre experience. This is not particularly a compliment, but JONATHAN feels like a Drake Doremus movie (e.g. ZOE (2018), EQUALS (2015)): High-concept sci-fi tied to drab character navel-gazing and banal romantic melodrama. The notion here: Twin brothers existing in one body.
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​Skate Kitchen

“Boys are just uneducated,” Kurt (Nina Moran)
 
I learnt a new phrase watching SKATE KITCHEN: To be “credit-carded”. Whatever your gender, you will be wincing within the first few minutes as lead Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) gets credit-carded while skate boarding. There is a lot of blood. Everyone in the screening surely felt her pain. Like all sports people with iron wills, the injury does not put Camille off from continuing her passion. SKATE KITCHEN is a mixture of genres: Sports flick, coming of age movie, and gender parity celebration. One bum note: The typical bromance/rom-com staple of falling out with pals, learning a life lesson, and then making up. Seriously filmmakers, this needs to be dropped A.S.A.P. It is so tired as to reduce the impact of whatever story you are conveying.
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​The Children Act

“This is a court of law, not of morals,” Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson)
 
Director Richard Eyre is not a good filmmaker at the best of times, but this is tripe. Is the movie meant to be about an ethical conundrum? If so, the plot hardly taxes the mind. Is the story instead meant to be moving? Nope, on that count. THE CHILDREN ACT is 105 minutes of syrupy nonsense. The film tries to explore a personal and professional crisis, but does not engage and does not make us care. The three protagonists are irksome, and not in an interesting way. (Of course you do not have to like a lead to be enthralled; see INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS for an a-hole it is a cinematic pleasure to follow around.)
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