Secret Smile (2005) Movie Review: Doctor Stalker, That's Who

Warning:

(Oh, all the River_Song_Spoilers.gifs I could use!)

This is one of those movies where, throughout the entire two hours or so, I have one word in my mind, just throwing itself at the character on the screen: “Bastard.” Potty mouth, yes, but David Tennant’s character really deserves it.

Handsome, charming, creepy and nothing short of lunatic, Brendan Block (David Tennant) is a stranger whom Miranda Cotton (Kate Ashfield) meets, kisses and tumbles into bed with. Ten days later, he turns out to be a creepy stalker. She chucks him out, and five weeks later, he and her love-struck sister, Cary, are engaged. To sum it up quickly, he plays with her depressed brother’s head, causing him to commit suicide, marries Miranda’s best friend on the morning of his wedding to Miranda’s sister, kills his new wife (the police wouldn’t believe Miranda when she insists it wasn’t an accident), gets her money and moves in with another girl, Naomi. Miranda warns Naomi about him, and when Naomi leaves him, Brendan storms into Miranda’s flat, rapes her and kills her. Or so we thought. In the end, we find Miranda in Australia, having planned and fabricated the crime scene with Naomi.

Plot-wise, it’s brilliant (thanks to Nicci French, author of the book the film was based on), although there were a few moments of stupidity on Miranda’s part (lock the door when you’re in the bath! Change the lock on your door! Move out! It’s a trap, you doozehead!). The twist is good, the tone well-sustained. Especially enjoyable is the psychological manipulation Brendan pulls off on everyone around him, with the exception of Miranda.

What I love about TV movies, and British films in particular, is that the acting is always impeccable. The cast are all fine actors, and Robert Lowe, who plays Miranda’s teenage brother, Troy, is to be praised for his portrayal of both a happy, loving brother and a tortured, confused kid.

Kate Ashfield is a very tense Miranda, and filled the whole movie, particularly the first part, with so much angst that I was on edge in my seat the entire time. Her eyes speaks fathoms, and she really reels you in, setting you against Brendan even though sometimes you wonder if you’re mistaken about him and he really is just the charming man he seems to be.

One of the few things I wasn’t quite satisfied with, though, is that the angst might just be drawn out a little too much. I was squirming for the first part, because Miranda looked so worried all the time. Still, there’s cause for that. And she could be a little thick at times. Still, he did take the lives of two of her loved ones, so one can hardly blame her for that. (This is what you get when you meet, kiss and tumble into bed with someone, Miranda!) Still, Kate Ashfield does it well, and she’s deliciously three-dimensional when injecting her martyred anxiety into her pig-headed, tenacious character.

David Tennant, however, is the one I’m actually watching the film for, Whovian that I am. This was before he was introduced as our Doctor, and for all those Tennant-fanatics who adore the Tenth Doctor, I wouldn’t recommend this film. It’ll shatter your idolization of Tennant as the perfect man. But if you’re one of those more open-minded ones, I’d tell you that he’s definitely worth watching this film for. After all, actors have a fear of being typecast.

And it’s safe to say that I wasn’t disappointed by his performance. That comes as no surprise, as we’ve already seen his talent in Doctor Who. Winning, creepy, indignant and completely terrifying—he does it all, and pulls it off with such finesse that River Song must be informed that he is not simply a pretty boy.

Basically, my hand was just itching to slap Brendan Block the whole time, although in the beginning I was just dying to shout at David Tennant being the bad guy. I mean, he’s the Doctor! Nevertheless, he can cast away all worries about being typecast. The man’s a splendid actor, and his portrayal of the no-he-can’t-be-a-stalker-he’s-such-a-perfect-guy-not-to-mention-sexy stalker will haunt you.

I’m sorry if I’ve sidelined most other things and actors in this review, but I’m here because of David Tennant, after all. And for my previous review of Womb—well, I was there for Matt Smith. I tried to watch Jude for Christopher Eccleston, but I couldn’t sit through that one; the choppy scenes were unbearable for me. I’m also going to watch Billie Piper in The Secret Diary of a Call Girl soon. Oh, Doctor Who, the things that you do to me.

Now I’m off to purge my mind of creepy David Tennant with perfect David Tennant, with a side dish of TenRose feels.

Womb (2010) Review: Oedipus by the Beach

Warning:

Having just finished the 2010 indie film Womb, I'm left with an odd, quiet poignancy, not just by the ending of the film, as is the case with many other movies, but by the film as a whole.

Directed by Hungarian Benedek Fliegauf and starring Eva Green and Matt Smith (who was the reason I watched this film in the first place; I was intrigued by Eleven not being Eleven), this film explores the controversial topic of incest, interwoven with the themes of cloning, loving, losing and letting go.

Summary: Rebecca (Eva Green) and Tommy (Matt Smith) are childhood friends and, possibly, sweethearts, who are separated when Rebecca goes to live with her mother in Tokyo. Twelve years later, she returns to the beach by which he lives, and they pick up where they left off. Disastrously, he is killed by a van on their road trip, all because she had to pee. Struck by her sudden loss, Rebecca decides to clone Tommy, and gives birth to him and brings him up. In the end, he finds out that he's a clone and, after consummating their relationship in a fit of angst, he thanks her for his life and leaves her. It takes a bit of linking, but we figure out that the beginning of the movie is the end: Rebecca is pregnant with the second Tommy's child.

As horrifying as it may sound to the more conservative, it's actually a very well done film. The incest is handled tastefully, with slightly unsettling moments of sexual tension, and quietly, and the one sex scene between Rebecca and the second Tommy is implicit and only suggestive. The child actors are, in their innocent ways, stunning, and morph well into their older characters. The cinematography is wonderfully done, with many spectacular shots of the beach and the house that reflects Rebecca's isolation and loneliness, despite her son/lover, and touches the viewer's heart.

And, of course, the performance by Green and Smith leave nothing to be desired. At first I thought Green's Rebecca was rather too understated, with her quiet tones and many glances, but as I gradually eased into the indie vibe, I found myself enthralled by how much she conveys through her eyes--her conflicting desires towards Tommy, her unwillingness to accept Monica, grown-up Second Tommy's girlfriend, and her own grief, even after so many years of having a second chance at being in Tommy's life.

Matt Smith, although having a somewhat underwritten role--what with half the time spent with a young Tommy--gives a touching performance, first as Rebecca's childhood friend grown up, then as a carefree Second Tommy and, finally, as a Tommy torn when finding out about his true identity. He handles the heavy emotions of his character very well, and manages to portray how the two Tommys are, at the same time, same but different.

As for my own feelings, I was mesmerised by the whole understated tone of the film. I'm not usually one to go for the short, choppy scenes and few lines, and the only other indie film I've watched is Winter's Bones, but the actors and the plot won me over. The entire thing was so quiet that the few and brief moments of rage, mostly from Smith, were powerful, and the abundant meaningful glances from Green even more so. I loved how one scene cut to another and then flowed into the next in the beginning, and the killing off of Smith's character had me clutching my pillow with sympathy for Rebecca.

I also admired the use of foreshadowing in the film. At the beginning, where young First Tommy calls Rebecca on the day before she leaves to tell her he'll send her off, he's cut off abruptly, the reason for which we're never told. It seems eerie, somehow, when you look back at it. One moment he's there, the next he's suddenly gone. Something that happens three times in the film. Plus, there was this part where young Second Tommy is playing a computer game. He says to his mum, "I keep dying." She replies, "Try again." A well put-across point. Then there's another scene where he dies in the game again, and his character falls endlessly off a cliff just as it manages to climb up it. Suggestive.

Now, I'm all for controversial topics, and I'm definitely not faint-hearted about them, but the one scene that truly disturbed me was the one where young Second Tommy is mock-wrestling with his mother, and then lies on top of her and says, "Now I can do anything I want with you," to which Rebecca replies, "Go ahead."

Image taken from Andrea from Germany, whose review of Womb can be found here.

The scene, strangely infused with sexual tension, mirrors (say "foreshadows" if you will) the one with the older Second Tommy.

My only concern about this scene is that it is with a young boy about ten years old. Surely it's not healthy to feel sexual tension with a child. Nevertheless, we feel it there very strongly, and it's certainly provocative. Which serves the purpose of the film.

A review at Hollywood Reporter calls Womb "a sappy drama about human cloning that has no point of view at all," but in my opinion, the point of the film is not to have an opinion, but to arouse one, or, which is more likely, several. Additionally, I can't help but feel that the film isn't so much about human cloning--which, oddly and ironically, is more of a sub-plot--than about letting go. Or not being able to do so. One tends to question Rebecca's motive for cloning Tommy. Is it to give Tommy a "second chance" at life, or to give herself a second chance with him? Or is it simply because she can't stand the thought that a friend, a lover whom she hasn't had the chance to properly live out her life with, won't be around anymore?

It might be all those reasons. But one might ask--is raising your sweetheart as your child the best way of reclaiming that lost love? That's where the question of cloning comes in. And, with it, Rebecca's conflicting feelings about him as her son and as her lover.

There is a sub-theme about clones, called "Copies" in the film, being ostracised by the community, something Second Tommy, oblivious to his own origins, partakes in as an unthinking child. It's because of this that Rebecca shields her son even more, and the scene where several mothers inform her of why she shouldn't invite Copies into her home is pulled off very well, with Green's tormented eyes and strained face conveying her feelings strongly. Personally, that scene evoked a strong sense of indignation in me.

Then there's the big elephant in the room--incest.

We all know there's a big elephant in the room.

For fellow Whovians out there.

You might argue that it's not technically incest, since Rebecca isn't biologically Tommy's mother, but the fact remains that she mothered him, brought him up as her own, and I see that as a firm mother-child bond. It certainly makes one think about issues usually pushed to the back of the mind, and that's the impact the film leaves on you.

The end, however, is where the whole letting go thing comes full circle. Having had her life with Tommy, Rebecca watches calmly as he takes his bags and walk out the door, after thanking her. Then he walks away, and we cut to the shot of his figure disappearing into the distance, leaving the vast, empty beach and the little house on their own, with Rebecca alone again.

It's not a film for everyone, that's for sure, and if you can't be open-minded about such topics, then you'd better not watch it. But in the end, it's a thought-provoking and intensely moving film, and its haunting beauty will linger long after the screen fades to black.