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Reviews
Will: The Play's the Thing (2017)
The Play's the Thing: When Shakespeare meets Punk-Rock.
When TNT finally announced that the long-awaited series focusing on William Shakespeare was premiering in July, nothing could stop the barrage of potential viewers commenting their excitement and distaste for what was coming.
The series' premiere episode entitled The Play's the Thing, doesn't take too much time in setting up William's arduous life- state. Married with three children while living in a cramped flat, William strives and dreams of a grandeur life for his family.
Much to his wife's worry, and his relatives' disapproval, William, nicknamed Will, heads out to London as The Clash's London Calling plays.
This sets the series' overall tone, as the entire creative team tells the audience this is not the "old Bard" but a rather young, colorful, and rebellious Bard.
Laurie Davidson, who plays the titular character, is handsome and has deep blue eyes that emote and will turn the up-and- coming actor into a star.
As shallow as it may sound, this is smart casting on the production's part. Nothing grabs the audience's attention faster than a beautiful cast, that then delivers an engaging narrative.
Will's welcome to London doesn't go over smoothly as Craig Pearce, the showrunner and the episode's scribe, places all the players upon the massive stage and sets up the scene.
From the political and religious state, the Protestants hunting down and literally killing the Catholics it's quite clear that this is not Shakespeare in Love, but rather a Shakespeare heavenly influenced by the age of Game of Thrones.
With the political intrigue subplot aside, Pearce introduces multiple characters, though not all get enough screen time to give the audience a clear understanding of who they are.
Alice Burbage, played by Olivia DeJonge, is a character that should engage with the audience and it is clear that she is going to be a major player within the series. Though the character gives off a smart and strong female presence in her first appearance on screen, she turns into a girl pining over a married man post-meeting Will.
Nevertheless, this is the first episode, and much can still change.
Shekhar Kapur's direction is quite stylized, giving Will a very unique visual landscape. From an overactive camera that is synced with the speed of the edits, it concretes the "Punk-Rock" vision that Craig Pearce wanted for this telling of the Bard's young life.
The narrative is non-linear with a few flashbacks of Will's father and older brother that haunt Will throughout the episode. One of the most memorable hauntings, however, plays off as more of an Easter egg.
Will's father appears before him and directly warns him to walk away from the "sinful" life he is currently leading, much like Hamlet's father appears to his son in Shakespeare's infamous play.
Earlier in the episode, after Will rap battles a famous and academic author in iambic pentameter, one of the most entertaining sequences of the episode, he and his friends exit the pub as one of them utter "a pox on both of them", an echo of Romeo and Juliet's "a plague on both your houses".
Here, Pearce strategically places all these seeds in order to show the audience that Shakespeare, much like all writers and creators, find their inspiration in the world that surrounds them.
This grounds the energetic and colorful series and shows Bard-loyalists that though the showrunner's vision is a punk rock and hip Shakespeare, it doesn't mean that respect for the literary genius is thrown off-stage.
As the curtain falls on the first episode, the political stakes are raised as one of the show's most intriguing characters takes center stage with Will by his side.
James Campbell Bower, who is no stranger to the world of Shakespeare, plays Christopher "Kit" Marlowe, a playwright and poet that Shakespeare, among many others, owes a huge debt. Bower's performance is powerful and shows how comfortable the actor has become in playing these complex characters in period dramas.
The show has not received positive reviews from critics, which is a reason to worry about the future of the series.
For now, however, Will's first episode is entertaining and intriguing enough to bring audiences back for more.
Solitaire (2016)
Finally a genuine Lebanese story worth telling!
It's no surprise that the Lebanese film industry continuously suffers from lackluster films, that come off as hollow, fake, and idiotic.
From narratives attempting to be feminist and tackle the state of marriage in Beirut, to those that are Saturday Night Live sketches stretched out to form a 90-minute film, cinema in Lebanon has become shameful.
As if an answer from the heavens, this year has been gifted two great films: one almost completing its run with audiences hopefully having listened to my advice to go watch it, and the other will grace our screens on March 16th.
Sophie Boutros's debut film Mahbas (Solitaire), is the film that the Lebanese audiences have been waiting for.
A simple yet layered tale of a Lebanese mother who harbors slight hatred towards Syrians due to her brother dying from a Syrian bomb. Her world turns upside down when her daughter returns home from Dubai in order to introduce her Syrian boyfriend, soon to be fiancé, to the family.
The film is structured perfectly around the classical arc paradigm, with every beat properly in its place cueing the audience with a laugh or a tear as the events unfold and secrets are revealed.
The characters wonderfully crafted, each with their own intention and function, driving the narrative forward in a way that feels natural.
Embodying the characters, each of the actors in this wonderful film does a fine job, and yet when one places Lebanese actors before Syrian actors – Syrian actors will own the spotlight.
Jaber Jokhadar who plays Samer, the Syrian fiancé, is a force to be reckoned with. His nuanced switches from happiness to jealousy to heartbreak, his performance stands out amongst the multitude of talent.
Julia Kassar continues to prove she is a gift to Lebanese cinema screens and an utter pleasure to watch. During the film's final act, Kassar delivers on every level ensuring that every mother in the audience will be brought to tears.
Serena Chami, the film's lead, meets the needs of the character and though at times feels a bit flat, she carries the character's arc well.
From Betty Taoutel's hilarious next door neighbor to Bassam Koussa's warm and loving future father-in-law, this is one memorable cast, worthy of a family album.
The film's cinematography is minimalistic and one of the reasons the film works so well.
Rather than fill this narrative with an ostentatious camera movement, Director of Photography Rachel Aoun gives the film a rather cozy visual style. By limiting long shots and electing the closer medium long shots (American shots) and close-ups, Aoun keeps the audience close to the characters and the action.
The mise-en-scene has this nostalgic feel to it, almost as if old and new Lebanon are combatting for relevance, paralleling with Therese, played by Julia Kassar, who struggles to let go of the past and accept the future.
Even the film's colors seem faded like that of a distant dream.
Thematically, the film is about acceptance: a mother accepting her daughter's life choice, a wife accepting the truth about her marriage, and a sister accepting to let her dead brother go.
All of these masks are worn by the film's protagonist, Therese, who leads the audience through this classical journey and leaves them satisfied.
Though Lebanese audiences have been exposed to themes of acceptance in various mediums and forms, the tale told here executes it and delivers in a fresh way. Staying away from religion, and politics both Sophie Boutros and Nadia Eliewat focus on the characters' humanity.
Keeping emotions as the main force behind the conflict grounds the story and makes it accessible to a global audience even though the events occur in a small village in Lebanon.
Ziad Boutros's musical score follows the film's overall minimalistic approach and is beautiful nonetheless.
Mahbas (Solitaire) ushers the dawn of what is hopefully going to be a new age of Lebanese cinema. An age of better storytelling, an age where hollowed films that are filled with gimmicks will not conquer the box office, and Lebanese audiences will regain pride in our cinematic arts.