Film picks: Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical, The Whale, As Though Nothing Happened
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Matilda The Musical stars Alisha Weir.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
Follow topic:
Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical (PG)
117 minutes, Netflix, 3 stars
This film adaptation of a musical based on the novel by Roald Dahl follows Matilda (Alisha Weir), a girl who uses her intelligence and psychokinesis to stand up for justice against the bullies in her life, including her abusive parents and tyrannical headmistress.
Going toe-to-toe with these sadists is Irish tween Weir, who is a perfection of defiance and vulnerability starring as the exuberant romp’s wee heroine.
This Netflix production is based on the 2010 Royal Shakespeare Company hit production of his 1988 novel. It remains musical theatre, restaged for the camera by the same Olivier Award record-breaking team of director Matthew Warchus, lyricist Tim Minchin and screenwriter Dennis Kelly.
The stomping showpiece Revolting Children is their anthem as Matilda rouses her schoolmates to topple headmistress Miss Trunchbull, every one of these moppets a fireball.
The Whale (M18)
117 minutes, now showing, 4 stars
The Whale follows the story of Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a recluse with an eating disorder who is on the verge of becoming immobile.
PHOTO: MM2 ENTERTAINMENT
American director Darren Aronofsky is known for his dramatic films that focus on characters striving for impossible ideals and suffering physically as a result.
The Whale follows the story of Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a recluse with an eating disorder who is on the verge of becoming immobile. His friend Liz (Hong Chau), a nurse, and his estranged teenage daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) try to help him, but are unable to afford the life-saving treatment he needs.
The film, which began as a stage production, has been accused of exploitation and fat-phobia for its portrayal of Charlie as a self-loathing individual bent on slow suicide.
Still, Fraser’s powerful performance as Charlie gives the film its strong sense of pathos.
As Though Nothing Happened (PG13)
58 minutes, Netflix, 4 stars
Em Haneen, a resident of Damascus, interviewed in As Though Nothing Happened, a documentary about the Syrian conflict.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
Civil war has raged in Syria since 2011, one that has drawn in foreign states such as Iran, Turkey, Russia and the United States.
Documentary-maker Taim Karesly, who splits her life between Beirut and Damascus, interviews seven people living in the pockmarked capital of Damascus. Among them is 55-year-old Em Haneen. In spite of everything she has been through – including suffering a bullet wound – her sunny personality shines through in the interview.
“A person can live on bread and onions,” she declares when asked how dire the situation had to be to cause her to leave.
Her happy facade cracks, however, when she talks about her daughter, now living in a safer city, but whom she has not seen in over three years.
This documentary – at once heartbreaking and uplifting – puts a human face on a conflict that the rest of the world seems to have forgotten.
