Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
Director Joe Wright has only made nine film since his first in 2005, Pride & Prejudice. This weekend, his ninth film goes wide after an Oscar-qualifying run last year that netted it a single Oscar nomination. In celebration of the release of Cyrano, I want to look at my five favorite Wright films, which includes this week’s new release.
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
The film that ostensibly put Joe Wright muse Keira Knightley on the map, this adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel is about a woman falling in love with a man above her class. Matthew Macfadyen plays Mr. Darcy. The film follows Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet as she tries to reconcile her love for a man she barely knows and whose attention at once she longs for and detests in equal measure. Mr. Darcy must decide if he can stomach the social hit he would take for marrying beneath his station.
The film set the standard for Wright’s appreciable skill at period romantic dramas. While he would refine and improve upon them with subsequent films, this version is one of the best yet made of the original novel, which set new standards for the genre in the Victorian era and later, avoiding the trappings of other authors in her time. Interestingly, Austen’s novels have been adapted by a lot of men over the years, but oftentimes they boost or launch the careers of some prominent directors, Wright being no exception.
No original review available.
Atonement (2007)
While Pride & Prejudice set Wright’s tone for period films, Atonement firmly established his appreciation for and mastery of war-set dramas. This film is more than the World War in which much of its action takes place, but his future efforts would call back to this particular picture in terms of how he approaches the connections between interpersonal and military conflicts. Starring Knightley again, this time opposite James McAvoy, the film adapts Ian McEwan’s novel about the turmoil created when Knightley’s 13-year-old sister (Saoirse Ronan) misinterprets a confrontation between Knightley and the housekeeper’s son (McAvoy) and later accuses him of Knightley’s rape.
It’s a complex, twisting narrative ably adapted by Christopher Hampton with a sensational set of actors all performing exceptionally well. Knightley, McAvoy, Ronan, Ramola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave, and Brenda Blethyn all deliver terrific work, but Ronan’s break out success helped guide her into a career of quiet power. From here, she became one of the best working actresses of her generation. The film itself is brilliantly composed and features some stunning design work, most notably it’s impressive typewriter-inspired orchestral score from Dario Marianelli.
Hanna (2011)
One of the few films Wright directed that wasn’t a period romantic drama, Hanna is indeed a step in a different direction for the director as it follows a teenage Hanna (Ronan) trained by her ex-CIA father (Eric Bana) as an assassin. Her mission one day will be to kill Cate Blanchett’s Marissa Wiegler who is attempting to locate Bana and kill him over the secret he possesses and that will one day impact Hanna’s self-identity.
This riveting thriller features top notch performances form Ronan and Blanchett as they perform the dangerous dance of assassin and victim, each believing that they have the upper hand. Bana’s performance is solid, but it’s Ronan who carries the film on her young shoulders. Wright’s mastery of form makes the film exciting, tense, and fascinating in equal measure, keeping the secrets timed perfectly to pull the audience in deeper as the film progresses.
Anna Karenina (2012)
Wright’s 2012 return to period drama brings Knightley back into the fold to play the title character of Lev Tolstoy’s literary masterpiece Anna Karenina. Tom Stoppard adapts this go around as Knightley’s Anna whose relationship with politician Jude Law is complicated when she carries out a torrid affair with a cavalry officer (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Set in the Russian Empire of 1874. The romantic drama gives audiences a glimpse of a passionate young woman desperate to live her life as she sees fit rather than how society demands it.
Knightley and Law are of course wonderful, but the discovery here is Aaron Taylor-Johnson who delivers one of his best performances as the love-struck military officer. It’s also the most sumptuous film Wright has directed, easily topping Atonement. His use of theatrical staging and set design adds a fascinating twist to the classic Russian novel’s conceits and the end result is a film that may seem to some to be a bit over the top in its excesses, but which depends on those elements to sell its dramatis personae and their tragic, larger-than-life love affair.
Cyrano (2021)
Receiving an Oscar-qualifying run in 2021, Wright’s latest film was poorly handled by MGM’s awards office, resulting in it earning a meager costume design nomination when it should have been in competition in several other categories. The film stars Peter Dinklage in a role that should be familiar to anyone who’s heard of the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It tells the story of a societally-diminished man who falls in love with a young woman (Haley Bennett) whom he cannot have. He ultimately helps a fellow soldier (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) as he attempts to woo and win Bennett’s Roxanne who has been forced, due to financial concerns, to align herself with the pugnacious nobelman de Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn).
While the tale is based on Rostand’s work, the film is adapted from one of several musical versions of the tale, this one by Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Matt Berninger, and Carin Besser. While the music isn’t something you would think could make major waves on Broadway, it’s a pleasant-sounding set of songs. Even if that wasn’t the most appealing element of the film, there’s more to make up for that with strong performances from Bennett, Harrison Jr., Mendelsohn, and especially Dinklage. Dinklage was better than most of the nominees in the Best Actor category and should have been nominated along with the film’s cinematography, production design, and costume design. Wright shows a maturity in his filmmaking techniques by creating elegant dance numbers in unexpected places and by employing a realistic, washed out color palette for the events to unfold in.
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