The two of us: Claire Foy and friends in ‘H is for Hawk’.
H IS FOR HAWK **** (115 minutes) M
The powerful bond between a grieving woman and an irascible goshawk forms the crux of a deeply moving, beautiful, brutally honest film about inconsolable loss and emotional renewal.
Based on the 2014 memoir by Helen Macdonald, Claire Foy (The Crown) plays Macdonald, an academic whose soul is profoundly bruised when her bird-loving father Brendan Gleeson, in yet another finely etched supporting role) passes on.
In dire need of solace and therapy she acquires a semi-trained hawk, with whom she forges an initially healthy attachment.
In a splendidly directed scene with just the two of them in frame, you can feel the transference of the love she has for her father flow into the bird. It’s but one of many examples of the exceptionally fine, subtle hand Philippa Lowthorpe has brought to the work.
Foy’s performance is a magnetic cross-section of vulnerability, muted turmoil and encroaching derailment from the demands and obligations of her real life.
But it is the hawk that makes the movie. There might be some digital assist here and there (in the hunting scenes) but the birds Foy interacts with are the real deal. No CGI, thank God. Beautifully shot, it makes a big difference.
The film inevitably draws comparisons with the 1969 Ken Loach classic Kes, though honourable mention must go Healing, the underrated 2014 Australian film.
BACKROOMS **** (110 minutes) M
The mischievous spirit of supreme surrealist Salvador Dali seems to permeate Backrooms, a brilliant, compelling horror-mystery adventure that offers a seat-anchoring sense of brain-warping anticipation so rare in movies these days.
The set-up is as simple as it is ingenious, grabbing you from the get-go.
While dealing with some bafflng elctrical problems, frustrated furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers a secret entrance to a bizarre labyrinth of rooms and corridors that look as though they were designed by someone with a demented sense of perspective.
He doesn’t know what’s going on and neither do we, a classic mystery/thriller movie storytelling device director Kane Parsons and writer Will Soodik deploy brilliantly.
There are, of course, tantilizing hints as to what the oddly angled passageways and furniture (that appear in piles, sometimes semi-submerged into the floor) signify.
Clark is recovering from a failed relationship that robbed him of his dignity, his home, his money and his career as an architect. His psychiatrist believes he might be having a major breakdown while his two assistants simply think he might be nuts.
The horror genre has recently been cooking up some ingenious reworkings of its signature tropes and Backrooms is a sterling example of creativity colliding with convention to produce something fresh and intriguing.
The film is based on the web series created by Parsons, but you don’t need to know anything about it to thoroughly enjoy this most mesmerising movie trip.
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