Blog post #4
Carey Mulligan was in the news this week, criticising a critic. This happens every so often and it’s normally a foolish exchange. The formula goes: critic writes bad review of movie, actors/filmmakers involved scrutinise the critic (and sometimes the whole practice of criticism), then everyone else picks a side and cheers on the fight.
But Mulligan’s scrutiny of Variety’s Promising Young Woman review – in which critic Dennis Harvey imagines Margot Robbie in the lead role – spilled in vast amounts through the news and across Twitter. Although that friction’s been around since the last week of December, it’s really kicked off this week as news outlets on both sides expressed their outrage.
I decided to save reading about it properly for the weekend, like catching up on a box-set. My opinion is rather centrist and muddled and undecided, but another male viewpoint isn’t needed for this discussion. Instead, here’s a timeline of the events:
Sunday 26 January 2020: Variety publishes Dennis Harvey’s review of Promising Young Woman, in which Harvey writes:
‘Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale — Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie [the protagonist] wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.’
He also calls her performance ‘skillful, entertaining and challenging’.
Wednesday 23 December 2020: The New York Times publishes an interview with Mulligan, in which she openly criticises Harvey’s review:
‘“I read the Variety review, because I’m a weak person,” Mulligan said. “And I took issue with it.” She paused, debating whether she really wanted to go there. “It felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse,” she said, finally.’
[…]
‘Mulligan can still recite some of the lines from that review. But she said, “It wasn’t some sort of ego-wounding thing — like, I fully can see that Margot Robbie is a goddess.” What bothered Mulligan most was that people might read a high-profile critique of any actress’s physical appearance and blithely accept it: “It drove me so crazy. I was like, ‘Really? For this film, you’re going to write something that is so transparent? Now? In 2020?’ I just couldn’t believe it.”’
Sometime that week: Variety attaches an Editor’s Note to Harvey’s review, stating:
‘Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of “Promising Young Woman” that minimized her daring performance.’
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Variety posts the latest in their Actors on Actors video series, in which Mulligan and Euphoria actor Zendaya interview each other. Mulligan discusses Harvey’s review again:
‘I feel it’s important that criticism is constructive. I think it’s important that we are looking at the right things when it comes to work, and that we’re looking at the art, and we’re looking at the performance, and the way that the film is made. And I don’t think that that goes to the appearance of an actor, or your personal preference for what an actor does or doesn’t look like.’
[…]
‘It’s important to call put these things because they seem small and they seem insignificant … But it stuck with me because I think it’s these kind of everyday moments that add up, that mean we start to edit the way women appear on screen, and we want them to look a certain way, we want to airbrush them, we want to make them look perfect, we want to edit the way they work, and the way that they think and behave.’
Wedensday 27 January
News outlets including The Telegraph and The Guardian begin to cover the story, usually empathising with either Mulligan or Harvey.
Thursday 28 January
Catherine Shoard publishes a piece in The Guardian, interviewing many female writers and critics calling for more diversity in film criticism in response to the review.
Later that night, Harvey speaks out in The Guardian to defend his review:
‘“I’m a 60-year-old gay man. I don’t actually go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.”’
[…]
‘Harvey added that he had been “appalled to be tarred as misogynist, which is something very alien to my personal beliefs or politics. This whole thing could not be more horrifying to me than if someone had claimed I was a gung-ho Trump supporter.”’
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
The Dig, Netflix
The Dig
At first, I was ambivalent about this starry period drama – following the excavation of Sutton Hoo in 1938. It’s quite an arsey, film-graduate thing to say, but many of the visuals felt derivative of Terrence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki: those fluid, steadicam visuals showing all the beauty that nature has to offer. But Malick knows when to stay still, even if the camera’s not on a tripod. The beige atmosphere and magic-hour colours also reminded me of Days of Heaven, in which Malick collaborated with both Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler.
But I eventually relaxed into the story. It’s pleasant and quiet and very, very English. The repression is palpable and absorbing. Some have criticised the romance of Johnny Flynn and Lily James in the second half, but I think that boosts the curiosity. Not only because of silent seductions between them, but the creeping tragedy that approaches as World War Two looms like a slaughterous shadow. Read my review on Culture Whisper.
Other highlights:
I had a chat with Eleonore Dresch, over InstaLive, about Call My Agent! and the growing popularity of French TV. I was nervous initially, even saying that my hometown Sevenoaks is on the Kent coast (it’s not, in case you’re wondering). But other than those jitters at the start, it was an enjoyable discussion. You can watch it here.
After watching Call My Agent!, Lupin, and The Bureau, I realised my knowledge of foreign-language TV is ashamedly slight. To rectify this, I started the Spanish Netflix series Valeria. It follows a writer facing writer’s block while trying to find a new job and hanging out with her mates. Enjoyed the first episode: it’s funny, friendly and steamy.
Valeria
I reckon Ted Lasso is worth the AppleTV+ subscription. I wanted to buy a box-set for my dad, but it’s only available to stream. It’s a comedy about a fictional football team, which is facing financial ruin. The American Football coach Ted Lasso, known for his bright and shining optimism, is brought in to manage the team. I’m loving it so far: it captures the hilarious clash between British and American personalities, while also having a lot of heart. It can also be sad in some places. The premise is a bit contrived and romantic, but it’s another dose of escapism for these Covid Times.
I’ve been catching up with Stalking Time for the Moon Boys, a David Bowie podcast hosted by David Baddiel and Tim Hincks. Ever since being wounded by the vacuous biopic Stardust, I’ve felt obligated to listen to A LOT of Bowie with Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) becoming a recent obsession. Baddiel and Hincks just spend hours discussing Bowie, which is such a pleasure to listen to. It’s not available on Spotify, but you can find it on Apple Podcasts and Acast.
It took me a month, but I finally memorised a poem: Edward Lear’s How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear! I’ve always been jealous of mainstream intellectuals who can just speak a poem from the heart. I thought it’d also be useful for my writing, looking precisely at how words and sounds work together.
I’ve also been replaying Horizon: Zero Dawn, the post-post-apocalypse open-world PS4 game. It’s freeing to play video-games with such vast and detailed worlds to escape into. I never finished the main story, so I’m going to try to complete it to prepare for the upcoming sequel.
Horizon: Zero Dawn
What I’ve written this week:
My review for The Dig (see above).
My reasons for why you should watch Call My Agent! Thank me later.
My preview for everything coming to Netflix in February. I’m looking forward to the Tom Hanks-Paul Greengrass Western News of the World. My review for Firefly Lane will be published on Tuesday.
Tom Hanks in News of the World
Sketches by Khärms
Rosewood – Family trees – Chaos – Death
Above every mantelpiece in every home in Rosewood hangs a family tree. They’re not crafted in the modern fashion, by which I mean a large print-out using some special software. Nor are they drawn by hand. They’re sewn into a rolled up fabric that opens like a scroll. The children of Rosewood continue their family lines within the same house, and so whenever a couple decides to copulate and make another resident, the hung scroll is taken down and laid atop an appropriate surface (usually the dining table). The female parent – obliged, by local laws, to be dutiful – unrolls the scroll about an inch and sets to work, but only once the baby is born and not while they’re awake. She can have no distraction. If the baby were to wake, the male parent has to settle them down. Even the slightest error in the stitching would ruin the parchment, which operates like silk. The scroll returns to the space above the mantelpiece: the two rolls placed carefully on iron rods protruding from the long wall.
These are vain efforts to keep everything the same. Walking through the town, the same faces bob along your vision. Every day. They all have those awkward, introductory confrontations, but our ancestors possessed identical personality traits – generations of Rosewood citizens acting and reacting in exactly the same fashion for hundreds of years.
But chaotic occurrences pervade this little and apparently unchanging town, it’s just that they’re never discussed. The residents don’t want to risk embarrassing themselves or, worse, disturb the familiar. The reality, of course, is that these disruptions happen every day. Every moment. And it’s exceedingly hard to predict when the next one will be and where.
Like every Rosewood resident, I was born in a house: 54 Church Street. Our road is wedged between St. John’s Road and Silverton Avenue, each accessible via illogical shortcuts. I was raised here and grew to my full height here and I was taught, without ambiguity, that I would die here. The bodies of my parents and grandparents and their ancestors are buried six feet below the ground floor, a common design feature for the area. Neighbours say that in the allegedly glorious and glittery city of London, you’re always in dangerous proximity to a fat and vicious rat; here in Rosewood, each step ripples the floorboards and creaks down to shake a random corpse. Or a few at once, depending on how heavy the walker wears their feet.
And yet, despite death watching from above, I’m the only one (I gather) willing to write down the oddities that plague this terrible town. They defy reason and science and even religion, doubtless disconcerting to even the most brilliant and deluded minds. I feel mad. I’ve often felt mad. What else can you think when nobody appears to think the same? I hope that, in noting them here, I will gain some relief – that my troubled brain will be released from the surface of my skull. I will invent some exit out of this place. It’s too much to pretend to be like everybody else every single day; it’s too much pressure. I don’t understand how I’ve done it for so long. No more. Enough. I’ll detail as much as I can.
