reVIEW (42)
SHALLOW GRAVE

After first hearing the buzz on Shallow Grave (1994, Talking Movies, if memory serves me right), then seeing the trailer, I immediately thought this looked like a crackerjack thriller that I needed to see.
And when I did, a bunch of names quickly barged their way onto my Need To Keep Tabs On list: among them, director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor.

An impressive feature film debut for all three, Shallow Grave tells the story of three friends and flatmates, Alex Law (McGregor), Juliet Miller (Kerry Fox), and David Stevens (Christopher Eccleston), who, at the top of the film, are interviewing prospective flatmates, in a humourous montage that highlights both the insularity of their clique, and their individual characteristics: the pushy smart-a$$ Alex, the coolly detached Juliet, the exacting David.
Soon however, they find themselves in possession of a suitcase stuffed to the brim with money, and the film gradually enters dark territories, where they are forced to navigate the slippery slopes of morality and sanity, with a suitcase full of temptation making the journey all the more difficult.

Like a blackly humourous version of one of Boyle’s subsequent films, Millions, Shallow Grave is a clever, smartly-told thriller that, through a great script by Hodge, becomes a showcase of not just Boyle’s keen directing talents, but also of a trio of excellent performances.
McGregor, of course, would go on to become the breakout star (largely in part due to his second collaboration with Boyle and Hodge, Trainspotting), one of today’s most charismatic performers, and that potential is already evident here. His Alex is that certain someone we all know who thinks he’s funnier, and more charming, and smarter than he actually is, who constantly runs off at the mouth, quite possibly to mask his own insecurities.
For all his flaws though, Alex is a charming devil, and the on-screen presence McGregor has is plainly evident. As such, the performances by Fox and Eccleston may perhaps be overlooked by some, but they’re just as informed and effective as McGregor’s. Eccleston does wonders with a torch, and Fox, well, she just subtly exudes “manipulative b!tch” like it was the latest scent from Dior.

Also, just as McGregor may have outshone both of his co-stars, Boyle himself may have served to eclipse the significant contributions Hodge made through his script, maintaining the thrills while giving us real people with palpable personalities to (perhaps) care about. The writer-director tandem would go on to collaborate in three subsequent features, Trainspotting (for which Hodge would be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars), A Life Less Ordinary, and The Beach, and it would only be in the last, in that disastrous Leo-starrer, that the team would disappoint me sorely.*
Cinematographer Brian Tufano is also present on Shallow Grave, and he would then go on to shoot both Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary for Boyle, as well as provide additional photography for Millions. An excellent cinematographer is always a key element of Boyle’s creative arsenal, the reason why his films look so great.
Paired with editor Masahiro Hirakubo (who would edit Boyle’s films till The Beach), Tufano shoots dynamic film that alternately crackles and simmers with energetic imagery. (Though admittedly, Tufano’s true skill with the camera would be displayed more conspicuously in his two latter collaborations with Boyle.)

Slamming out of the gate with the compact and effective Shallow Grave, Boyle would go on to genre-hop like mad (drug cinema, screwball romantic comedy, zombie cinema, science fiction), in the process becoming one of modern cinema’s most inventive and interesting voices.
It all starts here though, in a flat in Edinburgh, with three friends, and a suitcase full of money.
You never really know, do you? The inauspicious beginnings of greatness…

* Sadly, for whatever reason, Hodge and Boyle would cease to collaborate following the 30-minute short film, Alien Love Triangle (originally meant to be part of a discontinued anthology feature), which was done after The Beach.

Parting shot: Shallow Grave was honoured with the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 1995 BAFTAs.

(Shallow Grave OS courtesy of amazon.co.uk; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

SUNSHINE
(Review)

Before I wrote this review, Danny Boyle had only ever really disappointed me one time, with his disastrous adaptation of Alex Garland’s The Beach. He bounced back though, with a bloody-minded vengeance, with 28 Days Later (from a script by Garland), and followed that up with the charming curve ball, Millions.
Boyle then re-teamed with Garland for Sunshine.

Now, Boyle’s disappointed me one and a half times.

The Icarus II is on a mission.
Our sun is dying, and so is our planet. Following the failure of a previous mission (thus, the Roman numeral), Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada, recognizable from the Ringu films) and his crew are presently in transit, with the payload that will signal a literal dawning of a new age on Earth, should they succeed.
The mission: to detonate a stellar bomb the size of Manhattan Island, in the sun, and thus, re-ignite it, giving humanity a second chance.

We’ve all seen this one before: the very survival of the human race in the hands of a crew on board a spaceship. (Sadly, we all still remember Armageddon and Deep Impact, don’t we?)
Now, not only is Sunshine a film from the Save the Planet from Destruction school, it’s also that particular sort of sci-fi film that seems to be an exercise in giving the Ten Little Indians a remedial course in Murphy’s Law.

We all know that in the course of completing their mission, the crew will make a singular, catastrophic decision that will then become the crux for the entire film’s narrative.
This will occur because, A) the decision was inherently the wrong one to make in the first place (see Alien), or B) human error will bollocks the whole thing up.
In Sunshine’s case, it’s B.
Fit will then continue to hit the shan as the story unfolds, repeatedly proving Murphy’s Law to the audience’s satisfaction, as the Indians drop like flies.
All the while, completion of the mission parameters will look increasingly bleak, till the last minute, when the day will be saved by the remaining crew members. (Survival of said crew members by end credits roll, uncertain.)

The reason Sunshine doesn’t do it for me is precisely because Boyle and Garland never seem to successfully transcend the confines of this type of sci-fi film. The structure of the film’s narrative is pretty much as outlined above, so the proceedings get pretty by-the-numbers in very short fashion.
Additionally, in a set-up like this, the characters aren’t usually very deep. The performances can elevate the material though, and supply us with subtext, with the impression that these people have lives beyond this ship, and have real relationships between each other. (Again, see Alien.)
Now, there aren’t necessarily any outright terrible performances in Sunshine. Most though, are serviceable, and not much else. Perhaps the only actors who manage to deliver something noteworthy are Cillian Murphy (as Capa; Murphy’s worked with Boyle and Garland before, on 28 Days Later), and Rose Byrne (as Cassie; Byrne was in Sofia Coppola’s brilliant Marie Antoinette, and incidentally enough, in the upcoming sequel, 28 Weeks Later).
Murphy is the only one whose character we really see in some significant personal private moments (sending off a message to his parents Earthside, for one), while Byrne’s Cassie brings a much-needed level of humanity to the crew (she’s the only one who seems to really give a damn about her other crew members, as opposed to blindly chanting the “complete the mission” mantra).

Beyond the fact that Sunshine isn’t as horrible as The Beach (and it’s certainly better than either of the asteroid movies), there isn’t much else I can say in its favor.
It’s serviceable sci-fi, but certainly not great. It does benefit, however, from Boyle’s sharp visual stylings, which go a long way to making the film an agreeable viewing experience.
Admittedly, Sunshine does have its moments.

Thus, it’s only a half-disappointment for me.
I mean, this is the writer-director team that gave the zombie film a welcome do-over with 28 Days Later, so when I first heard they were tackling science fiction, I got excited. So that’s months and months of anticipation, and now that I’ve seen it, well, Sunshine just doesn’t cut it.
Which is sad. I wanted to love this movie. I wanted to sit there as the end credits rolled and have that same rush I had after I’d seen 28 Days Later, that rush of having just experienced excellent cinema.
All I thought after Sunshine ended was, “Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as The Beach.”

(Sunshine OS courtesy of worstpreviews.com.)