While it’s very basic in some ways, and we never really learn what the villains were planning to do, there are genuine thrills and surprises along the way. The fairground sequence is highly effective. And it was difficult to predict the ending. The filmmakers wrestle with how to make typing on a computer keyboard look exciting and just about make it work with fast edits and unusual close-ups.
As always, Sandra Bullock is highly watchable.
Darwin (Paul Bettany) attempts to complete On the Origin of Species while dealing with the grief of his daughter Annie’s death. He’s also semi-estranged from his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), and his theories about the beginnings of life on Earth are inflaming tensions in the God-fearing community.
There are impressive scenes of nature, illustrating the idea of evolution as Darwin perceives it.
Bettany’s compelling performance lifts the film and makes it highly watchable. Connelly brings a welcome complexity to her part as she tries to reconcile her love for her husband with her love of the God his life’s work debunks.
Sharon Stone plays a woman who has just got out of prison and returned to see her gangster boyfriend (Jeremy Northam) in New York. But one of his henchmen has just shot dead a family, leaving only a seven-year-old boy alive. Gloria grows attached to the child and tries to save him – and herself – from a life of crime.
It’s a touching and funny story. Both Gloria and the boy have a brash, smart-talking exterior that masks their true vulnerability, and they bring out the best in each other.
Directed by Sidney Lumet, it’s lively and exciting but also full of unsentimental warmth and charm. The script is sharp, and Stone gets some witty lines. She’s magnetic and highly convincing. Jean-Luke Figueroa is superb for a child actor, too, simultaneously expressing toughness and fragility.
Gloria lost money and was critically panned – perhaps because people were more fond of the 1980 film it remade. It deserves more credit, though, as it’s hugely enjoyable.
Pierre Brossard (Michael Caine) was a Nazi collaborator, and has been at large in France for nearly 50 years. He has been protected by loyal Catholics and others, but when a lawyer (Tilda Swinton) and a colonel in the National Gendarmerie (Jeremy Northam) start to pursue him he’s forced to take more extreme measures.
Caine is absolutely excellent as a man plagued by guilt and wracked with psychic pain, yet someone who is also still a self-interested racist bigot. I could totally believe his character as he lurches – with his fervent faith and his heart problems – from one crisis to another.
The narrative works well, with some fairly dramatic moments. The only unsatisfying element is that it’s never quite explained why so many people go to such lengths to defend the indefensible. Yes, the various priests were worried that their own crimes might be revealed, but how does that apply in a wider sense? It seems like there’s a joined-up conspiracy to protect him, involving the Church, members of the police force and government officials, some of whom have little connection to the events of 1944.
The diverse cast also includes Alan Bates, Ciarán Hinds, John Neville and Charlotte Rampling.
Moore is especially good as the scheming Laura Cheveley, intent on blackmailing a government minister. Driver is appealing as Mabel Chiltern, although for some reason she seems too “modern” to fit into the era that was being evoked. Everett gets it just about right, pitching his character somewhere between affable buffoon and trusty good sort.
It’s wittily and nimbly constructed. It works both as a piece of lighthearted froth and as a fairly engaging study of human nature in its various forms.
