Review
DULCIE PEARCE AT THE MOVIES
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a 60s courtroom drama on the riot track
THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
(15) 129mins
★★★★☆
BOY, does Aaron Sorkin love Brits.
In fact, it looks like the American writer/director took a people carrier down to the Royal Shakespeare auditions for this all-male lead cast.
5
Mark Rylance, , Sacha Baron Cohen and Alex Sharp star in this tale about the Sixties protest movement in America. It centres on the trial of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators charged with causing violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Sorkin, famous for creating The West Wing, is notorious for his frantic, fast dialogue and he doesn’t rest in this sharply written, engaging story.
In a blizzard of introductions we meet the main characters before we hurtle straight into the trial. Over the next two hours, time is gently pulled back and forth, charting the politics of how the protests unfolded — and led to violent clashes with police.
Each character is an exaggerated version of themselves.
5
There is the stoned, wild-haired Yippie (Youth Inter-national Party) member Abbie Hoffman (Baron Cohen), sniggering at authority; Black Panther leader Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who stands and power-fists at every chance; exasperated, blazered intellectual Tom Hayden (Redmayne); and the grubby yet decent lawyer (Rylance) who takes on their case.
But they never creep too much into cliché, making them both believable and watchable. Apart from a ropey accent from Baron Cohen, the Brit boys do us proud with their performances, while the film itself rarely loses pace.
However — and it breaks my heart to say this — Michael Keaton’s scenes as the sympathetic Attorney General feel indulgent.
Sorkin cleverly edits some of his riot scenes with real footage, ensuring even those who know little about the case remain transfixed. The ending ensures the hairs stand up. All in all, I plead guilty to enjoying this courtroom drama.
5
- In cinemas now and available on Netflix from October 16.
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ETERNAL BEAUTY
(15) 95mins
★★★☆☆
JANE is not well. In fact, she has paranoid schizophrenia.
Having spent several spells in mental hospitals undergoing shock therapy, she now lives alone in a very beige house, visited regularly by some pretty appalling family members.
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Juggling different medication, and then choosing to come off it completely, a fragile Jane – played superbly and sympathetically by Sally Hawkins – meets aspiring singer Mike (), who is also ill.
The pair embark on a sweet and naive romance.
He writes her love songs, they dance in her bedroom and have terrible sex.
With a solid British cast, including Billie Piper, Alice Lowe and Penelope Wilton, this debut from actor-turned-director Craig Roberts is stylishly shot in 35mm film and features well-used, purposefully bland, symmetrical sets.
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The skewed camera angles are meant to show you what it’s like to be in Jane’s headspace, but with those and some clunky flashbacks, it’s hard to ever relax into a scene and indulge in the excellent acting.
While empathetic, brutal and often funny, this complex subject matter is given a little too much complex treatment.
5
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