'Napoleon' Comes Up A Little Short (Pun Intended)
#249: "Napoleon," "Saltburn," "Thanksgiving"
Edition 249:
Hey movie lovers!
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This week: A new movie trio! Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon, Emerald Fennell’s class satire Saltburn, and the bloody holiday slasher Thanksgiving. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” we’re searching for a worthy Best Picture rival for Oppenheimer.
Napoleon
Far be it from me to question Sir Ridley Scott, esteemed director of Alien, Bladerunner, Gladiator and other all-time movie masterpieces. At 85 years old, I hope I’m half as capable and as motivated as he is to create unforgettable images (… or run for president, a different newsletter for a different day).
The reasons why I didn’t really like Napoleon are mostly bone-deep. Whenever you get what we call a “cradle to grave” biopic, what you hope for is some explanation or deeper understanding of the figure being highlighted. Even if this means taking some artistic license, as in the case of The Social Network, you’d hope to be given some more universal reason to care about the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte outside of an interest in 19th century French history.
Instead, this movie seems hyper-focused on deconstructing the specific “great man” myth surrounding one of history’s most famous war generals. His strategic acumen on the battle field is not really questioned here, through numerous faithful recreations of battles rendered in stunning detail, but his character is more or less held in a perpetual state of whiny, insecure narcissism.
To continue our discussion from last week, Napoleon here is hardly different from the pathetic “incel” protagonists that have dotted several movies this year. Of course, it’s a take on the role Joaquin Phoenix is well-suited for. For this specific movie he was perfect, but I wonder if his face will really be etched in our memories when we think of Napoleon in the future.
It’s a noble pursuit for the movie to show that “the emperor has no clothes,” even if it is a bit of a bait and switch from the trailer blaring Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” which promised something more…bad ass. And it makes me wonder, if the point of the movie is to insist that Napoleon wasn’t all that great, why are we as viewers supposed to devote 2hr40min of our time to him?
Much of that runtime is spent recreating battle sequences, which Scott does about as well or better than any director ever has. The sheer scale of the horses, cannons, muskets and armies is breathtaking, and each battle is coherent enough to follow through the chaos.
Spliced in between the battles is a drastically different type of movie, a pining (and if I may get Gen-Z for a second, a very TOXIC) love affair between Napoleon and Josephine, played by one of our great hammy actors Vanessa Kirby. She’s going for it as ever, and has the important role of seeing through his confident facade.
Neither plotline is “bad,” at all, my problem with them is that they don’t necessarily contribute to some larger story or character motivation. It seems, in many ways, like the movie is presenting the historical record without a whole lot of authorial signature.
This is kind of the complaint on Scott’s career. Despite being incredibly prolific and making some all-timers, there’s little people can point to as “classic Ridley Scott filmmaking.” Plus, unlike a lot of the other masters, Scott’s stinkers equal or maybe even outnumber his hits. For every The Martian, there’s an Exodus: Gods and Kings. He seems to be about as good as his material is, and in this case, I found the material to be a little listless. In 1796 this happened, in 1812 it was this. If you’re a history buff, maybe that’s enough for you. For me, I was hoping for a bit more.
Saltburn
Theaters
After having seen him star as Elvis in Priscilla and now as a preppy ladies man in this class satire, I’d like to formally induct Jacob Elordi into what I call the Schwarzenegger Phylum. His physical presence — much like past nominees Gal Gadot and Henry Cavill — is like a special effect. He’s so tall (6’5”!) and handsome it’s literally distracting, both from the movie and from the fact that he and the other members of the phylum are not good actors.
Essentially this whole movie is built around the attractiveness of Elordi, who invites our dirt-poor protagonist (played by the always awesome Barry Keoghan) to his aristocratic mansion in the English countryside during the summer off from boarding school. Our protagonist is in love with him, secretly. What starts as a sort of fish-out-of-water comedy of manners, thanks to over the top performances of dumb rich people by Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan and a more sinister Archie Madekwe, slowly becomes something closer to a thriller as tragedy strikes.
I was a big big fan of Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell’s last movie, but that movie caught a lot of critical flack for not being as poignant about the social and political issues it seemed to be about. Saltburn suffers a similar fate, proving in the end not to be an incisive class satire but rather a twisty, surface level genre movie, one that is entertaining but not quite as much of a rollicking ride as its predecessor.
Thanksgiving
Theaters
Campy horror is so back. This holiday-themed slasher movie first appeared as a trailer for a fake movie during Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarintino’s 2007 cult classic Grindhouse, directed by Eli Roth (who Tarintino fans might know as “The Bear Jew” from Inglorious Basterds). Some 16 years later it’s a full length feature whose best quality is that it simply does not give a ——. It’s a B-movie in the purest sense, with gory kills and ridiculous lines like “this year, there will be no leftovers.” It’s a super fun movie, especially with a lively crowd.
I’ve said before I’m not a big fan of ironic, laugh-at-the-material movies, but this movie is in many ways the exception that proves the rule because it does the very rare thing of paying off on the premise through the entire runtime (not running out of comedic steam in the second half and asking audiences to suddenly care about the things they were making fun of).
What’s crazy about the horror genre these days is that it’s a space where everyone feels like they can let their hair down and have a little fun. Patrick Dempsey from “Grey’s Anatomy” and Rick Hoffman from “Suits” are among the recognizable actors playing against type here, circulating around a fun and magnetic young cast (horror is also the place to find new stars). Nell Verlaque is a great discovery in the lead role, can’t wait to see what she goes on to do. One small complaint: if you’re going to stunt cast TikTok’s Addison Rae, you’ve got to kill her in some brutal way. Or what’s the point! Other than that, this movie hit every pleasure point a movie could.
Trailer Watch: Poor Things
Nobody has yet to mount a serious challenge to Oppenheimer’s dominant position in the Best Picture race this year. As I said a few weeks ago, I think Killers of the Flower Moon is a decorated bridesmaid. The Holdovers is coming on strong as the sweet, sentimental favorite for the older demographic of the Academy (the Belfast slot, if you will). But the biggest unknown right now is Poor Things, which has gotten raves at its film festival debuts and is a bit of a sleeping giant because mass audiences have yet to see it. It’s going to be strange — Yorgos Lanthimos was the guy who made The Lobster, The Killing of the Sacred Deer and The Favourite — but it also looks like it has a warm gooey center that could melt the voting body.