Star Trek holds a special place in my heart, as it has done for many people for its 50 year history, combining thoughtful science fiction with adventurous derring do, characters we have all come to love and a positive, progressive ethos that spoke of the best of humanity. I reviewed Star Trek Into Darkness here back in 2013 and it was written, like this one, in that initial post-viewing glow. I liked aspects of Into Darkness then, but over time, the frustrations I spoke of during that film deepened. I watched it once more and came to resent it a great deal. I'm still not over it.
Into Darkness made the mistake of infecting Star Trek with a cynicism the show rarely possessed and the way they approached the story, the bizarre retread of Khan and the appropriation of Trek history was such a disappointment that I was ready to outright ignore the Kelvin timeline and await Bryan Fuller's TV series. I speak of this now to provide some context to my emotions going into Star Trek Beyond. I've been deeply reserved throughout the marketing campaign, growing more cautiously optimistic when the early positive buzz started filtering through, but still very hesitant.
It is, therefore, a joy to report that not only did I enjoy Star Trek Beyond, but it has managed to almost entirely renew my faith in the Kelvin timeline; STID means I will never be 100%, but hey, this is one hell of a comeback.
Captain James T. Kirk is three years into his five year mission of discovery and boldly going with the rest of the Enterprise crew. He's a little weary and considering making a promotional step that would take him out of the captain's chair and behind a desk. When a distressed refugee arrives at the Yorktown starbase (a truly phenomenal piece of design) needing help to retrieve her crew, it is, naturally, the Enterprise that is tasked with the rescue mission. They head off into uncharted space and straight into a trap that scatters the crew. Kirk, Bones, Spock et al. are forced to combine their smarts to outwit their rather angry opponent and get the crew of the Enterprise back together again.
What strikes me most about Beyond is that it feels, from the start, like a Trek story. The world around them has a tangible history to it, allowing for subtle callbacks to the Federation's history that fans will understand. Unlike the heavy-handed reference-flinging of its predecessor, Beyond simply allows its world to exist rather than feeling the need to consistently and loudly point it out. Much of this comes for an inherent respect of the property that they're working with, helped enormously by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung's screenplay. The love of Trek practically bursts through the screen on occasion and it's hard not to get swept up in such enthusiasm.
And, like the best Trek tales, Beyond manages to combine its adventurous tone with a thematic weight and properly worked character arcs. The key message here, oft-repeated, is the idea of 'strength in unity,' what the Federation stands for across the galaxy. The bad guy, Krall (an imposing Idris Elba), believes it's all empty rhetoric and that his particular brand of conflicted, battle-scarred individuality is the way to go. It sets up an intriguing opposite to Kirk who acknowledges the need for his crew at all times; he's never the individual hero here, but part of a team.
Justin Lin's direction yields some beautiful moments of sublimity including a gorgeous shot of Kirk surveying recently wrought destruction from a position of powerlessness. But Lin also can't seem to keep still. There are great looping camera movements around characters or through Yorktown, all of which look very pretty, but becomes a little tiresome as the film goes on. The editing during the action sequences falls into one of the common traps of never quite being able to convey what is happening. Some fights are more than a little confusing, which is a shame during some of the higher concept action sequences as there's some inventive choreography going on there.
When it comes to the cast, Chris Pine is one of the major strengths of Beyond, depicting the loneliness of command early in the film before slotting instantly into the leadership role as the narrative demands. He anchors the core conflict of individuality versus community in his performance that, at times, feels Shatner-esque in tone or expression, but without resorting to the parody of the character that the other two films lapsed into on occasion. This Kirk is a product of his father's death and all the anxieties that come with that and it's in the little moments that that comes forth, such as a close up of his hand nervously gripping his chair arm during a battle sequence that feels deeply human. It's not all drama though; the wicked sense of humour gets a chance to shine frequently.
That sense of humour spills into the other characters too, especially Bones and Spock. Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto are the most Bonesy and Spockish they've ever been; their expanded relationship is given the time to explore their respective roles as representatives of the heart and the head. They have a conversation about mortality, a theme of the film that gets a little lost in the action elsewhere, but here feels like a near-perfect microcosm of how they work together as the clash of heart and hea. The Bones-Kirk-Spock trifecta is also seen more and carries a real sense of how the trio's inter-dependence becomes essential to their relationship. It's the closest they've come to matching their Prime timeline counterparts and it bodes well for future instalments.
The other crew members are served well with Sulu and Uhura each getting their turn in the spotlight. The use of Uhura as the audience proxy with Krall is a clever play on her communications role, her conversations with him offering us insight into his history and motivations. The late Anton Yelchin's enthusiastic performance as the adorable Chekov gives the film its bittersweet note and he's a joy once again here, all badly pronounced Vs and gesticulation. Newcomer Sofia Boutella's Jaylah slots in well to the existing line-up and allows for that strength in unity theme to be played out in another format as she learns to work with the crew.
Above all, the message of hope that runs through Beyond feels needed now more than ever. There is no problem here that can't be solved with a little ingenuity, no obstacle that feels insurmountable if everyone is working together. In the current unsettled political climate, it feels particularly timely. The threats are clear and present, the stakes high, but you have faith, just like Kirk, that the crew will find a way out of whatever dilemma they've wandered into because that's exactly what they're good at. It's an enormously positive message and a love letter to the power of a united population. And that, to me, is quintessential Star Trek.
Now if I could just stop thinking about Madness every time I read the title...
- Becky
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Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) once wrote a book together collating their hypotheses around the paranormal, but their lives have diverged and they're no longer speaking. Erin is approached by a man with the book she thought was lost who wants help with a resident ghost. She tracks Abby down to beg her to stop selling the book, only to find herself discovering the haunting is real, their theories are correct and someone is trying to bring a whole host of ghosts to New York. Together with Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) and their ditzy secretary Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), the Ghostbusters must fight to convince the city that ghosts are real and everyone is in danger.
I'll not dwell on the ongoing furore around the film until now because, ultimately, it falls away as soon as you watch the film, reduced to a classy punchline and closed as fast as an internet browser window. Ghostbusters counters those toxic attitudes with a relentless positivity. As with The Force Awakens, I want to bottle the feeling I get of seeing these women - in all their strength, vulnerabilities, quirks, body types, intelligence, wit and determination - up on that screen. I also want to bottle the feeling I get when I see women and girls responding to this. It's hard to explain how it feels to have heroes like these, entirely independent of men or the male gaze, but it's really, really awesome.
A huge part of that is down to the central four cast members with not a single weak link among them. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy's chemistry is present and correct, used to power the emotional core of the film. We may not see much of their prior friendship, but Wiig and McCarthy convey enough to make their key moments land as well as sparking off of each other to regularly bring the laughter. They're the heart of the film and ground it just enough to let the wackier comedy of McKinnon or Hemsworth's dumb blonde to keep the gag rate high.
McKinnon is the particular breakout here, walking away with most of the film's most memorable lines as well as carving out a character that is always eccentric but never rings hollow. Holtzmann is zany, hilarious and also very sweet. She also works well alongside Jones' Patty, whose more forthright humour contrasts Holtzmann's flightier moments. Then there's Chris Hemsworth, gleefully playing up his blockbuster beefcake persona with Kevin, who doesn't quite know how glasses work nor is he capable of answering a phone. The scenes with all five of them together have a dysfunctional family theme to them, playing well with the film's continual positive drive.
Even when dealing with Rowan, the walking version of toxic masculinity villain of the piece, Abby tries to save him first, the four only prompted into fighting when they have no other choice. Rowan's an intriguing character, a riposte to the types that have been hammering away at keyboards and furiously clicking their mouse to downrate a film they have no intention of seeing. He's the perfect villain to contrast our heroes with; he's been bullied and uses this as his excuse for his power grab and he's resentful of everyone around him, alone in his rage.
Despite what Rowan thinks, Abby is keen to point out that they're not so different; we see these women belittled, mistreated and suppressed by those around them, whether it's a cameoing Charles Dance's stern professor, Andy Garcia's polished mayor or Patty's customers on the subway. The difference between them and Rowan is that they own it and turn it to their advantage, trying to save the world regardless of how it treats them. It might be largely a kids' film, but Ghostbusters was a pretty insightful examination of how society treats men and women differently and how they react in turn. In truth, it could have made more of this analysis; it's a hopeful message about turning adversity into strengths and successes.
There's a couple of bumps along the way; Kevin goes through a bit of a character shift without any real explanation and there are one or two jokes that linger a little too long. However, the good-natured charm of it all and the crackling chemistry of the cast powers it through to a rather spectacular climax. The final battle arrives suddenly, but it's a vibrant sequence, full of wisecracks and badass moments (Holtzmann, man) with gorgeous and creepy ghost designs. It feels fitting for everything that has gone before, one in which the four women get a chance to show off not only their skills, but their love for each other in that so much of the battle is about them working together to solve the problem.
There will always be naysayers when it comes to this film, whether it comes from a deep, abiding love of the original or, as has been largely the case, because there are women in it. The important thing, however, is how it makes women and girls watching this film feel. And it feels awesome. I can forgive the bumps for that.
- Becky
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Welcome to a new, hopefully ongoing Assorted Buffery feature in which we wax lyrical about books we've read recently that we quite liked. Our book reviews will continue to focus on newer releases, so this is a chance to talk about older books we have discovered and feel deserve to be shared.
Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins was first published in 1934, set in the 1870s, based on the true story of a notorious criminal case involving a woman called Harriet Staunton. The case of the Stauntons is a shocking one, a tale of unimaginable cruelty and neglect. Jenkins spins it into a domestic horror, telling the tale of the fictional Harriet Richardson; she's over 30, not yet married and is still living with her parents due to what we would recognise now as some form of learning difficulty. When she is sent to stay with family friends, she is wooed by the opportunistic Lewis Oman who swiftly marries her for her money, much to the disapproval of her parents. Not quite able to understand what is happening to her, Harriet slowly finds herself locked in an abusive and exploitative relationship with extremely dark consequences.
The novel begins as many do, with a young woman falling in love with a prospective suitor. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in particular, the 'marriage plot' was a popular narrative, documenting a couple falling in love, overcoming certain trials and finally promising to marry at the end of the novel. It is a formula that persists to this day, most notably in rom-com formats (When Harry Met Sally is a classic marriage plot narrative). Other novels, such as George Eliot's Middlemarch, Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd and Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall offered alternative, and subversive looks, beyond the initial bliss of matrimony promised elsewhere by Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice (though it is worth noting that all three examples go on to end with a socially acceptable and happy marriage after all).
It is into the latter category that Elizabeth Jenkins' novel slides into, bringing with it a biting critique of the late nineteenth century social and legal systems that forced women to marry and ensured their husbands took control of their property and wealth. Alice, a chief antagonist of Harriet and originally Lewis' intended, buys into this system wholeheartedly and willingly encourages Lewis to abuse it out of her own jealousy of Harriet's much wealthier situation. Harriet's possessions are slowly appropriated by Alice, just as her money is appropriated by Lewis. Harriet's social confinement is still well within the realms of legality by Victorian standards. It is only later in the novel, when that confinement becomes physical, that the true horror of her situation is revealed.
Out of this situation, Jenkins crafts a slow-burning domestic nightmare without ever going into any graphic detail. In fact, any hints towards Harriet's abuse are dropped into the text with little to no fanfare. The first time you realise that she has been subject to physical violence is when she is offered a hat with a small veil to cover a bruise around her eye. Nor is her starvation examined in any great detail. It simply becomes a process that the family and their servant adheres to. As the Afterward by Rachel Cooke points out, there's the implication of sexual assault and, given that Harriet has trouble understanding the world around her, the connotations just keep getting darker.
That almost indifferent approach to Harriet's suffering gives the novel a truly chilling edge that persists right through to the last page. As it is based on a true story, the lack of sentimentality works well, simply allowing that "almost unbelievable callousness and cruelty," as she termed it, to speak for itself. Cooke states that "in Jenkins' hands, the quartet's unspoken complicity is deftly unpicked [...] She presents the Stauntons' crime not as a plan, but as a tacit agreement." Though there were doubts as to whether the Stauntons truly intended to commit the crime they did, Jenkins' fictional iterations of the counterparts are, without doubt, guilty. That judgement is the closest feeling of emotion you get from Jenkins, a quietly simmering fury that this family could agree to something so cruel.
Harriet is perhaps one of the most masterful explorations of the darker side of humanity that I have read; though the truth of the situation renders it horrible already, Jenkins manages to wring that into something so much worse by illustrating the plausibility of it all. She also never loses sight of Harriet at the heart of her tale, a woman victimised not only by those people around her who are supposed to care for her, but a social system that renders her powerless and refuses to understand her.
Harriet is available from Persephone Books.
- Becky
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