Movie Review – Viceroy’s House

Gurinder Chadha serves us a slice of British/Indian history in a clumsy mix of waffling politics, tumultuous outbreaks, lush sets and romantic fluff.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Corey Hogan

After three hundred years under British rule, India is finally transitioning to an independent nation in 1947. The Viceroy’s House, a decadent palace in Delhi, was home to these rulers for centuries. Now it is to host one final Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson), tasked with overseeing the handover back to the Indian people. But this is no simple manoeuvre; the nation is divided in opinion from the great change and soon mass conflict erupts, severely complicating things for the Viceroy, his family and his servants.

Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice) occasionally gives life to the rich history and subject matter of Viceroy’s House, though it’s a tad too often that she squanders it with the melodrama and directional flair of a made-for-television movie. Luckily, such superficial shortcomings are routinely rescued thanks to history itself stepping in to give some vibrancy to an otherwise flat and conventional royalty period piece.

Pomp and circumstance is dialled up to eleven as the Mountbattens enter the Viceroy’s House. Thankfully, the charade is dropped when the Lord is forced to deal with real issues, and suddenly we’re permitted a more authentic look at everyday life in the House, and the actors are given the opportunity to flex more than just their accents.

The film is at its best when famous real-life figures drop in, especially Gandhi (portrayed cheerfully by Neeraj Kabi), who gets some of the most amusing and interesting scenes. It’s unfortunate that much of the lead up to this is a long slog of dry political negotiations and debates. These may be authentic, but they’re deadly dull, save for the occasional bit of conflict or wry humour from General Ismay (Michael Gambon).

Even worse is the extremely strained and hokey love story between Jeet (Manish Dayal), a manservant of the Viceroy, and Aalia (Huma Qureshi), a newly appointed assistant. It checks off every romantic cliché in the book, even throwing in a love triangle with an arranged marriage and a separation that leads to tragedy. This does a great disservice to the plot, feeling clumsily placed and distracting from anything potentially interesting.

The full tale of India’s Partition is perhaps too much to be crammed into less than two hours, especially when much of that time is spent focused on melodramatic nonsense over the great transition at hand. Viceroy’s House will no doubt be adored by the elderly, to whom this by-the-books royal biopic is clearly geared towards. It’s lively and watchable enough, and does boast another exotic score from A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire).

Viceroy’s House is available in Australian cinemas from May 18

Image courtesy of Transmission Films

Movie Review – Snowden

Oliver Stone’s portrait of a 21^st Century whistle-blower is an overlong affair with brief flashes of brilliance throughout.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rhys Graeme-Drury

Hero, patriot, traitor, terrorist… wherever you fall on the spectrum of opinions regarding Edward Snowden, it’s hard to argue that his actions haven’t irreversibly changed contemporary discourse on politics, counterterrorism, warfare and surveillance.

 Curiously, Oliver Stone’s heavily dramatised film is both a biopic of Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a ‘making-of’ for 2014’s Best Documentary Feature winner, Citizenfour. The film follows Snowden’s entire career from 2003 to present, jumping forward on multiple occasions to a stuffy Hong Kong hotel room in June 2013 where the former NSA contractor is feverishly working with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and a duo of journalists (Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson) to leak key top security documents to the press. Flashbacks fill in the blanks as Stone follows the disillusioned former soldier through a string of events that will lead him to make a world-changing decision that could cost him his life and the love of his long-term partner Lindsay (Shailene Woodley).

Stone frames his subject as a remarkable man, but surrounds him with a rather unremarkable film. It’s not the subject matter that fails to enthrall, but rather its execution. You’ll still drive home with your head swirling at the significance of Snowden’s actions, but on reflection it feels like the director doesn’t deliver that final powerhouse blow that this story so clearly needs (and deserves).

You see, Snowden builds toward a shattering finale that we know is coming. It’s never a question of if he succeeds, but which pivotal moments inspire him to make the decision to blow the whistle on his own government. In that regard, the film doesn’t wholly succeed. By following Snowden’s entire career, Stone loses himself in the detail, meandering through assignment after assignment as his titular character ambles from Geneva to Japan and onto Maryland and Hawaii. The pace is achingly slow as the years wind on and JGL becomes visibly more beleaguered by the crushing secrets he uncovers.

That’s not a slight on Gordon-Levitt though; he totally disappears into the role of Snowden, lowering his voice an octave or two and absolutely nailing the mannerisms of the man he’s embodying. Similarly, Woodley has never been better as the dedicated, perplexed girlfriend Lindsay who finds herself caught in the crossfire. The relationship between Edward and Lindsay is thrust to the forefront for most of the elongated second act, and it’s the convincing chemistry between the two leads that keeps this film above water.

Snowden isn’t a towering tour de force that hits you over the head, but rather an understated character study that examines what it would take for an everyman like Edward Snowden to snap and ‘betray’ his country. It’s an infrequently intense piece padded with meandering sections of mediocrity in between.

Snowden is available in Australian cinemas from September 22

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures