Weapons: the real-life tragedy that inspired the film
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Scotsman
2 days ago
- Scotsman
Film reviews: Materialists
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Materialists (15) ★★★★ Weapons (18) ★★★★ If you've seen the trailer for Materialists you might mistake Celine Song's follow-up to her Oscar-nominated debut Past Lives for the sort of formulaic rom-com studios used to churn out every other month. Materialists | Contributed There's Dakota Johnson's professional matchmaker on a meet-cute with a rich and handsome potential client (Pedro Pascal) while her hunky cash-strapped ex (Chris Evans) pines for her in the wings. Wind the clock back 20 years and it could have been a vehicle for Jennifer Lopez, Kate Hudson or Sarah Jessica Parker, with Matthew McConaughey no doubt popping up shirtless somewhere in the mix. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This is deliberate of course, but also a bit of a ruse. Within minutes of the film opening with a Kubrick-style wild-swing prologue (it involves early human hunter-gatherers), it's clear that while Song is working within the framework of a more obviously commercial movie, she's adapting the genre to her tastes, not letting it subsume her voice. Set in the brutally frank world of the New York dating scene, the film revolves around Johnson's character, Anna, as she starts to question her own proven track-record of helping successful singles find romantic partners that check enough of their boxes to convince them that happiness is possible. The catalyst for her encroaching existential crisis is Pascal's Harry, whose earnings, height and attractiveness make him a 'unicorn' in her industry, the sort of too-good-to-be true man every straight woman is apparently desperate to marry. Harry, however, only has eyes for her, but she's also got unresolved feelings for her ex-boyfriend John (Evans), a struggling actor who re-enters her life the same night she meets Harry. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad That in itself feels pretty clichéd, especially for a filmmaker who's already deftly explored the complexities of a love triangle in Past Lives. But there's something about the way she lays bare the transactional nature of the New York dating scene that gives it a pleasingly sharp edge; even when she's embracing the pleasures of the genre – paying homage to When Harry Met Sally, say, or revelling in the film's upscale New York locations – she's simultaneously stripping away the gloss to present a more finely textured portrait of modern romance. Materialists may end up in a predictable place, but it doesn't get there in a predictable way. Weapons | Contributed Weapons finds writer/director Zach Cregger following up his outré debut Barbarian with a horror film that subverts expectations on an even grander scale. It's built around a creepy premise: one night, all but one of the kids in the class of a new primary school teacher mysteriously disappear, leaving the town in shock, the parents angry and the teacher, Justine (played by Julia Garner), the focus of everyone's suspicions and confusion. Intriguingly, though, Cregger doesn't then turn it into an anguished missing children movie. Instead, starting with Justine, he decides to zero in on a handful of characters, incrementally exploring the mystery from overlapping perspectives and immediately wrong-footing those looking for a straight-up supernatural chiller. Owing more to Tarantino's novelistic storytelling style, this is a film that takes its time establishing characters, using jump scares and creeping moments of dread sparingly to punctuate the sprawling tale, before going all out with a crazy ending. Whether it has anything more to offer than this is up for debate. In the context of a film about children disappearing en masse, the title and some of the imagery hint at some larger reality involving school shootings. Yet this turns out to be more of a red herring, which is perhaps that's no bad thing. So-called elevated horror too often feels like a thesis in search of a movie. Cregger's more like an old-fashioned carnival barker, confident in his ability to deliver something entertainingly freaky.
Evening Standard
3 days ago
- Evening Standard
Weapons: the real-life tragedy that inspired the film
"If Barbarian was an outward-facing movie, a movie that had a lot to say about society — that sounds so pretentious — but it was a movie that was looking out and talking about the world,' he told Slash Film. 'Whereas Weapons is a movie that's very much like me looking inwards and inventorying my shit, my life."
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Amy Madigan's life before Weapons including forgotten Grey's Anatomy role
She plays Aunt Gladys in the hit new horror Amy Madigan's film career spans decades, but her role in a breakout new horror film is bringing her star power to the attention of a whole new generation. The 74-year-old portrays the terrifying and mysterious Aunt Gladys in Weapons, the latest release from Barbarian director Zach Cregger. The film follows a community grappling with the mysterious disappearance of an entire classroom of children who run out of their homes at the exact same time in the middle of the night. Only one child from the class turns up for school the next day, with teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) quickly being ostracised by parents who suspect she is somehow involved. Madigan's role in the film isn't revealed until much later in the story (and we don't spoil anything here), but her turn as Gladys Lilly will likely earn her a legion of new fans. So what more is there to know about the award-winning actress? What else has Amy Madigan been in? Madigan rose to fame in the eighties, appearing in a string of big hits. One of her biggest roles was as Annie Kinsella in 1989 fantasy drama, Field of Dreams, in which she starred opposite Kevin Costner. Since then she has built up a hefty CV across the world of film and TV and spanning a range of genres. She won a Golden Globe award in 1990 for her role in 1989's Roe vs. Wade, and she was even nominated for an Oscar for her role in 1985's Twice in a Lifetime. Her more recent credits include 2020's The Hunt, 2021's Antlers and 2013 comedy The Lifeguard. Viewers may also know her from her stint on Grey's Anatomy, where she played Dr Katharine Wyatt across three seasons. How did she land the Weapons role? Weapons director Cregger cast Madigan as Aunt Gladys on their very first meeting. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker said he was looking for someone "who is naturally sparky and hilarious and also ruthless and laser focused and intimidating." He found that in Madigan, explaining: "Amy can do anything. She has that Chicago Midwestern spark that just oozes off of her in a wonderful way, but at her core, there's something reptilian that she can access." Is Amy Madigan married? She is married to Westworld star Ed Harris in a union that has spanned more than 40 years. They have one child together, Lily Harris, who has also followed her parents into the world of acting. The pair first crossed paths in 1980 when Harris was performing in a play in Los Angeles. Describing the moment she first laid eyes on her now-husband, Madigan recalled: "I just thought 'Well there he is'. It was obvious to me that I'd see him again." They married in 1983 at the same time they were starring together in the film Places in the Heart. They regularly work together and have starred opposite each other in plays on Broadway and in multiple films.
