Posts Tagged ‘Kevin McKidd’

It Ends with Us

Director: Justin Baldoni

Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar, Kevin McKidd, Amy Morton, Hasan Minhaj

Running Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

We thought romance had died a sudden death on the cinema screen recently.

Luckily director Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestselling novel It Ends With Us has lavishly appeared on the cinema screens.

American actress Blake Lively takes on the role of Lily Bloom, a beautiful young woman who after briefly mourning the death of her father in her home town of Plethora, Maine, moves to Boston, Massachusetts to start a new life and open a florist.

On the rooftop of a swish apartment building in downtown Boston, Lily meets the handsome Ryle Kincaid a neurosurgeon who she initially resists but then he sweeps her off her feet. Lily Bloom superbly portrayed by Blake Lively (The Age of Adaline, The Town, Café Society, Savages), who proves she has the acting skill to navigate a complex role, is still dealing with the trauma of having an abusive father Andrew Bloom, briefly played by Kevin McKidd (Tulip Fever, Made of Honor) while dealing with an overbearing but well intentional mother Jenny Bloom wonderfully played by Chicago PD’s Amy Morton.

It Ends With Us is a beautifully crafted film which deals with subtle psychological abuse suffered by women in relationships with violent overbearing men.

While Lily’s florist thrives, conflict in her life appears when she accidentally sees her teen lover again after many years, a smouldering Atlas Corrigan superbly played by Brandon Sklenar (Midway, Vice) last seen on the small screen in the ravishing series 1923 playing a hunter Spencer Dutton in colonial Africa. It’s clear that the sparks between Atlas and Lily have not died and soon their relationship rekindles.

On every level, It Ends with Us is a beautiful romance with some skilfully interwoven themes about abuse, female empowerment and finding love. Blake Lively is sensational in this film, in every scene she looks like a supermodel. An absolutely beautiful woman to play the central character in a contested love triangle peppered with abuse, admiration and adjustment.

It Ends With Us is primarily aimed at a female audience but it was refreshing to see how full the cinema was to witness a film devoid of violence, special effects, action and gratuitous nudity. Sometimes it’s a romance that will fill the cinema seats and in this case It Ends with Us delivers on every level with some sensational lead actors.

It Ends with Us gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing for those that have read the novel and want to experience a riveting romantic drama on the big screen. See it now!

Tulip Fever

Director: Justin Chadwick

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Christoph Waltz, Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Judi Dench, Jack O’Connell, Kevin McKidd, Holliday Grainger, Tom Hollander, Zach Galifianakis, Joanna Scanlan, David Harewood, Sebastian Armesto, Matthew Morrison, Douglas Hodge

British director Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl, Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, The First Grader) tackles a cinematic version of Deborah Moggarch’s novel Tulip Fever with the literary assistance of Anna Karenina screenwriter Tom Stoppard.

Assembling an international cast including Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and fellow Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), Tulip Fever is set in Amsterdam in 1623 at the height of the Tulip trade which flourished in the Netherlands and was in essence the first stock market which blossomed illicitly behind Tavern doors and co-opted by solicitous nuns who grew the beautiful flowers in sacred abbeys away from the hustle of Dutch city life.

With sumptuous costumes by Michael O’Connor and suitably dark production design by Simon Elliott, Tulip Fever focuses on the young orphan Sophia Sandvoort superbly played by Vikander who is forced to marry the wealthy yet childless Burgermeester (local mayor) Cornelious Sandvoort played by Waltz.

Like all Dutch noblemen, Sandvoort commissions a young and impoverished painter to paint the couple’s portrait, a 17^th century trend which made Rembrandt famous. In steps the exuberant and excitable Jan van Loos played by Dane DeHaan (Valerian, Kill Your Darlings).

Soon van Loos falls for the ravishing Sophia and deception is conceived mainly for her to escape from her pompous husband who really wants to impregnate her with his preferably male heir.

In a parallel narrative, Sophia’s devoted maid, Maria played by British actress Holliday Grainger (Jane Eyre, The Finest Hours, Cinderella) has fallen for the charming if not smelly fishmonger Willem Bok played by Jack O’Connell (Unbroken) who aspire to get married and have six children together.

In a bizarre twist both Bok and van Loos, two young men desperately trying to increase their liquidity embark on making money on the booming tulip trade, in which the precious bulbs fluctuated in price depending on their rarity and natural beauty of the elusive flower.

Oscar winner Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love) plays the Abbess who has to sternly guide the young men in the flourishing yet turbulent tulip trade while the Netherlands was expanding its colonial empire to the Dutch East Indies and South Africa.

Despite the slightly convoluted plot and frenetic story line, Tulip Fever is an enjoyable and raunchy period drama held together by amazing performances by the four main leads which serves as a Dutch version of Twelfth Night.

Audiences that enjoyed Girl with a Pearl Earring and Shakespeare in Love, will undoubtedly love Tulip Fever, which provides a fascinating cinematic perspective on the brief but flourishing Tulip trade which made the Netherlands one of the riches countries in Europe especially in the 17^th century, establishing their own national stability and making them the money lenders of Europe.

With all the deceit, obsession and money trading, Tulip Fever is a riotous period drama and gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

Tulip Fever is recommended viewing as a historical drama with a uniquely Dutch twist.