Magpie (Sam Yates, 2024)

When their daughter gets cast in a movie opposite a major star Alicia (Matilda Lutz), couple Ben (Shazad Latif) and Anette (Daisy Ridley) find themselves drifting apart.

As Ben spends more time on set, and with Alicia, Anette is stuck at home, left to her own thoughts...

I love movies which let the audience fill in the blanks.

I left Magpie feeling like I had seen half a movie.

The final twist is great but I was wanting a little more runway.

It almost feels like the movie shows its hand too early: 

Ben is a selfish a-hole, while Anette is prone to fits of rage, while the tension between these people ratchets up quickly.

I was wanting a little more, or a little less.

The story is so small, I started wondering if the movie would work better as a short.

They are a toxic pair, bound together by kids they can barely pretend in front of. 

Their open plan home, seemingly presenting bliss to the outside world, feels more like a glass cage. Rather than offering a sense of space and connection with nature, it leaves the characters exposed and vulnerable.

It recreates their sense of paranoia.

The acting is terrific.

It became clearer on the second viewing, but Shazad Latif is pretty effective at underplaying Ben’s complete self-absorption. It would be easy to go bigger, and make him more of an overt prick, but Latif’s characterisation is more subtle and cutting.

 

Ridley - who came up with the idea - is also great.

Both terrifying and vulnerable, she seems to be both humiliated and excited by her husband’s deceit.

The most enduring image of the film is Ridley at the dining table, stone-faced with glistening eyes, as her husband finally unleashes all the venom he has been hiding.

A slight film, but occasionally unnerving.

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OUT NOW: Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

When his earth-side problems put his life in danger, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) finds an escape by enlisting as an 'expendable' on an off-world colony.

This job entails him being cloned over and over again - every time Mickey fails in his job, or takes part in a fatal experiment, or makes a mistake, he finds himself resurrected.

When Mickey's 17th version is left for dead among the native inhabitants of the alien planet, the loop of his existence is interrupted - and our hero has chance to rediscover his own sense of self-worth.

If he can live long enough...

Mickey 17 is an enjoyable movie.

It has problems. 

It is easily the sloppiest Bong Joon Ho movie I have seen.

The third act features some ham-fisted flashbacks to justify a character revelation that is not much of a revelation. And some of the performances veer into the wrong side of caricature.

But there is a lot to like here.

For one thing, it is nice to see a mainstream, big-budget movie featuring sex.

Movies have become perversely disinterested in any kind of heat. There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about what we see in the movie, but it is a testament to how barren the Hollywood landscape is that the pedestrian coupling we see here is surprising.

There is one scene where it feels like the film is going to push boundaries in its portrayal of the central relationship - but it veers away. 

The film constantly feels like it is about to build on its ideas, but it feels a tad muted in places.

The strongest element of the film is the the portrayal of the natives, derisively labeled 'creepers'.

Resembling hairy pill bugs, they are designed to appear both cute and un-humanlike. 

The reveal that the native inhabitants have more empathy than the human colonists is given more weight by the fact that the film does not attempt to anthropomorphise or 'humanise' this species.

They are not given any familiar features - they are alien.

The film's point is not subtle, but in the current climate, it is positively radical: just because these creatures may offend our aesthetics for feeling empathy, they are deserving of it.

 

Some of the other satire feels too broad: the conman politician/religious leader, the importance of optics.

What does not help is that the locus of this satire, Mark Ruffalo, feels miscast, at sea as the clueless cult leader.

These points are hit with a hammer and lack a sense of specificity.

The use of different Mickeys to reflect the different versions of the self feels like an untested catalyst - more potential than actualised in the film.

The rest of the cast are solid.

Pattinson is having a good time as the diametrically opposed Mickey's.

The eternally underrated Steven Yuen is hilariously self-involved as Mickey’s best friend/antagonist.

As all the Mickey's love interest, Naomi Ackie is good but her role feels a little underwritten.

The attempt at romance feels short-changed.

The flashbacks showing Nasha caring for Mikey’s previous selves feel unnecessary. I got their relationship form the scenes we had - the flashbacks feel like they are filling in inferences the movie already made. Mikey’s revelation does not carry the weight the film intends. 

A intermittently fun movie, but one hopes Bong Joon Ho uses it as a springboard to come back with a more unique and personal project.

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