"The Wonders" (above) "Legend" top
Two Wildly Different Thanksgiving Imports
By Skip Sheffield
In this busy Thanksgiving Weekend for new movies we have two
wildly different imports.
“The Wonders” is a lovely, wistful Italian film set in
beautiful Tuscany. Winner of the 2014 Cannes Festival Grand Prix, “The Wonders”
tells the story, written and directed by Alice Rohrwacher, of a family of
beekeepers trying to make a living on a small remote farm, living in a
crumbling old house with a husband and wife, four daughters, a babysitter and
later a houseguest; a sullen young teenage German boy the family is being paid
to care for.
Caring for bees and collecting honey is not easy work, and
the whole enterprise is being threatened by neighboring farmers who put toxic
weedkiller on their fields, which poisons bees when they collect pollen. Father
Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) is not a native Italian, but he clings to the idea of a
pure, simple life in once remote Tuscany. The world is rapidly intruding. Some
of the neighbors are selling out by creating bed-and-breakfasts and catering to
tourists. A further intrusion comes with the cast and crew of a reality TV show
called “Countryside Wonders,” hosted by a star named Milly Catena (real-life
Italian movie star Monica Bellucci). The producers have created a contest to motivate
residents with a large cash prize and starring role in the show. Though dad is
dead set against the idea, eldest daughter Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra) contacts
the producer anyway, with the tacit permission of her discontented mother
Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher).
Martin (Luis Huilca), the 15-year-old German boy the family
has agreed to take in, is there on a trial basis. He has been in trouble with
the law and if he doesn’t straighten out he will go to reform school.
Everything comes to a head with the live taping of the
“Countryside Wonders” show. It is not a happily-ever-after fairy tale but a
reflection of the reality of changing life in rural Italy.
A Violent, Nasty “Legend”
“Legend” is a violent, nasty, at times repellent movie about
the real-life 1960s London gangsters, the Kray twins.
In a bit of trick casting, British actor Tom Hardy plays
both identical yet distinctively different twins under the direction of
American writer-director Brian Helgeland. Helgeland, who directed the
rough-and-tumble “L.A. Confidential” and “Mystic River,” adapted his script
from Jon Pearson’s book “The Profession of Violence.”
Ronald and Reggie Kray were born in 1933 and bred in the
mean streets of cockney East London. They rose to fame first as boxers, and
their fisticuffs came in handy when they entered a life of crime. There are two
fundamental differences in the brothers that help us tell them apart. Ronald
wears glasses, and more important is a “poof,” or homosexual. Reggie does not
wear glasses and prefers women. In fact he falls in love and eventually marries
a lovely lass named Frances (Australian actress Emily Browning).
Though we see alarming examples of the brothers’
hair-trigger tempers and extreme violence, they insist they are not gangsters
but club owners. In fact the Krays did own a London club called Esmeralda Barn,
which became a hangout for celebrities and slumming aristocrats. “Legend”
reveals the hypocrisy beneath the “swinging 60s” tailored fashions and polite
manners, noting that aristocrats and politicians had a lot in common with
gangsters.
As the Krays fame and wealth grew, so did their arrogance
and recklessness. We see key murders in gruesome detail, and the increasingly
deranged behavior of the brothers, particularly Ronald. It became inevitable
that they would be taken down, and they are by dogged Superintendent “Nipper”
Read (Christopher Eccleston).
As much as I admire the bravura and virtuosity of actor Tom
Hardy, “Legend” is a repellent, hard-to-take movie. If violence is you cup of
tea, this is your hemlock.
Two and a half stars
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