Scandi-Noir: The Killing III

Right, that's it, I need to get me a Sarah Lund Faroe Island sweater.

This, the third season of The Killing - or Forbrydelsen in the native Danish - is the final in the Scandi-noir series that follows Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) as she solves murder mysteries in and around Copenhagen. This latest installment sees Lund continuing to investigate crime the only way she knows how - with minimal emotional investment, but with a drive to get to the bottom of it.

In this season, Lund investigates the kidnapping of the daughter of a wealthy businessman, which leads to a series of murders and is somehow linked to the alleged suicide of an orphaned teenage girl sometime earlier. In the meantime, the government is in a state of meltdown and Lund is dealing with an unexpected pregnancy - not hers.

Although not to the strength of the original or second seasons, The Killing III is still compelling watching, and continues the tradition of revealing only bites of information from which the audience may hypothesise the killer. This season presents multiple perspectives on the same event, or series thereof, only to leave the audience questioning what they saw, who the killer might be; and when they're revealed to have been mislead, wondering which character is not quite telling the truth.

What you learn from the original season of The Killing is that there is, in fact, enough information in the opening episode(s) to tell you whodunit, but it isn't until the end that the pieces fall into place. What you also learn from the preceding two series is that when it comes to Lund, no one is safe and no one is above suspicion.

This series also sees the return of everyone's favourite Detective Chief Inspector Lennart Brix. Portrayed by Morten Suuballe, I am convinced of his brilliance as an actor as he somehow manages to convey a great deal with only the slightest adjustment of his face. Gråbøl is consistent in her portrayal of Lund who is, as always, a withdrawn yet fascinating, strong and driven character. However, some cracks are beginning to appear in her stony-face with an old flame, Mathias Borch (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) - her partner on this case, stirring some deep and long repressed emotions.

SBS screened The Killing III on free-to-air earlier this year, which was an intensely frustrating affair because it takes ten weeks to get to the point! It's really no wonder people download these things! Thankfully it is now available on DVD through Madman, which is how I recommend you view it - in sequence, and preferably in one or two sittings. That way the mood is established and the momentum of the mystery, although lacking slightly with this final season, is maintained.

The Killing III is available through Madman.

-Stevie O'C

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No Thanks For Sharing

Thanks for Sharing is Director Stuart Blumberg’s Hollywood debut. An ensemble film starring Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, and Alecia Moore (better known as Pink) it's pitched as a ‘dramedy’, or drama-comedy to us lay-folks, about sex addiction. However, Thanks for Sharing never quite manages to achieve either the ‘drama’ or the ‘comedy’ aspects successfully enough to combine the two. Some of the most powerful stories are those that manage to offset utter tragedy with just the right level of humour to hammer home the message - Thanks for Sharing is not an example of this. This film is not what you think it is, judging by the poster anyway.

I had a number of issues with this film, but mostly I was bothered by the superficial way in which the impact of addition on other people is almost entirely glossed over. Take, for example, Mike’s (Robbins) long suffering wife (Joely Richardson) and son (Patrick Fugit). In a passing discussion we learn he has given his wife Hepatitis-C and all too briefly we learn that the reason his son has gone off the deep-end is due to being the constant subject of negativity and rage from a father who is a violent drunk. Nor do we know why Phoebe (Paltrow) refuses to date another addict beyond her statement that it’s all too complicated.

In truth, the film doesn't even consider the real impact addiction can have on the addicts themselves. We don’t really know what Adam (Ruffalo) has been through to get to his five years, although we do briefly see how superficial his sobriety is. But it’s not sobriety so much as it is outright exclusion from modern life in many respects. Continuing with the superficiality, we have no real concept of Dede’s (Moore) experience beyond her introductory statement that without 'another way' she’d end up killing herself. Powerful stuff but it is left hanging. This, unfortunately though, is the only way this film can deal with anything that can’t be pointed and laughed at.

And this is where I have a fundamental problem. Worse than the treatment of those characters already described is the lack of acknowledgement that the character of Neil (Josh Gad), a doctor and someone in a position of power and trust is actually a sexual deviant. He has been up on some sort of charges relating to his ‘addiction’ as he is attending group sessions not voluntarily but because a court ordered him to do so. Given that in some American states you can be put on a sexual predator list for having a wee outdoors, I fail to understand how he is allowed back into the ward at all.

It’s also scary to think that the tapes he destroys later in the film are videos he has shot himself. Of what, and of whom is not actually revealed but the path we are led down is a frightening one. Instead, Neil is played as the misunderstood lovable rogue, with no consideration of the impacts on those whom he has violated for his own gratification either on public transport, as patients or as colleagues. And I'm sorry, but he’s not going to go from a chronic up-skirting habit to burning tapes and singing Kum-ba-ya in what, thirty days?

It’s really not clear what the film is trying to achieve with the character of Phoebe. Her obsessions are obviously intended to present a contrast to Adam's, with Phoebe’s presented as eccentric, quirky and a bit weird while Adam’s are apparently beyond his own control. Here’s the thing though, Phoebe’s preoccupation with health, fitness and food appear to be motivated by an actual disease, being cancer, while Adam’s constant referral to his own obsession as a 'disease' presents a degree of self-righteousness and arrogance in the character, almost a sense of my suffering is worse than your suffering, which eventually comes to undermine their relationship.

Competent casting means that there is nothing wrong with the performances. Ruffalo plays his Adam as charming for the most part, until he adopts the victim mentality and we see glimpses of a potential arsehole. Robbins delivers some absolute clangers with conviction, however in an effort to be perpetually Zen his character is one dimensional in situations where you’d think he’d be far more multifaceted. The rest of the cast is equally competent but restrained. On the whole the film and its characters suffer from this idea that the middle classes cannot be anything other than one emotion, all of the time, and plays this as being normal.

And thoroughly middle class this film is. Even Pink’s ‘alternative’ character has a day job in a hipster hair salon. It deals with none of the underlying causes of addiction, nor does it look into the consequences of addiction in any meaningful way. But then how could a dramedy, really? All you need to know is that middle class life is hard.

Thanks for Sharing is in cinemas October 3.

-Stevie O'C

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Blue Jasmine: A Review

To be honest, had I known Blue Jasmine was a Woody Allen film I probably wouldn’t have gone along to see it. I haven’t switched on an Allen film since the first ten or so minutes of 2005’s Match Point, so it would have been with extreme trepidation that I’d have given another a go with fair warning.

Funnily enough, Blue Jasmine is the quintessential Allen film, which I still hadn’t cottoned onto until after the film, when I had to be told and it came as a bit of an ‘aha’ moment. But it’s Allen at his best, and is more akin to his 1970s/80s work than anything more recent.

Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, who was married to Hal (Alec Baldwin) until his investments and her marriage went belly up and she lost everything. This sees her land on her sister Ginger’s (Sally Hawkins) doorstep with her Louis Vuitton cases piled high but utterly broke and quite mad. Through a series of flashbacks the sorry tale that is the collapse of Jasmine’s marriage and her mind is revealed.

Having never been to either, I’m pretty sure Allen’s San Francisco is more New York than it is San Fran. That aside, the story is one based on a certain kind of voyeurism that compels us to bear witness to the progressive downfall of someone we all hope is kind of deserving of their own fate. It’s watching the fall from grace of someone who is predominantly unsympathetic and unlikeable, but an accurate characterisation of The Real Housewives of [insert random American metropolis here]. I hate her, but I desperately want to see what happens to her, and secretly want it to all go very, very wrong.

The film is skilfully acted, with Blanchett an absolute stand out in a very theatrical portrayal of a woman unable to come to terms with the loss of the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed, or that of her own mind. Hawkins portrayal of the sister left behind is genuine, even when she’s doing what she can to help her sister despite the damage Jasmine has previously caused her – because that’s what family does. The dynamic between the two sisters, who have been separately adopted from different biological families, makes for interesting motivation, especially given the circumstances in which they find themselves, and Allen handles it well. 

Bobby Cannavale as Ginger’s boyfriend, Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s former husband, Peter Sarsgaard as Jasmine’s potential new suitor, and Louis C.K. as Ginger’s momentary lapse in judgement all offer up strong support.

Blue Jasmine is in cinemas from September 12.

-Stevie O'C

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