Another on Leon's recommendation. Also I've somehow got the impression that Armie Hammer is worth watching, but for the life of me I can't remember why, beyond The Social Network. Third time around with Timothée Chalamet I think: previously Lady Bird, Little Women. Ah, also Interstellar, so completely flushed from my brain.
The first thirty minutes of this coming-of-age flick is pure montage. We're in postcard Northern Italy, circa 1981 (the reviewers say 1983). Things are peaceful and there's a vast amount of archaeology to do, so much that it occupies about five minutes of film time. The older grad student decides to get it on with the supervisor's son. The supervisor is very wise about it all. Things get a bit American Pie. The stations of the love affair are mostly stock and awkward in the usual ways. The cinematography is lush. The smoking is of the old school. There's a sequel in the offing, and I can't imagine what it has left to say.
Dana Stevens. Manohla Dargis observes the class structure.
Kindle. Dominic Dromgoole sold it to me. The premise is rich: an educated Muslim in the royal courts of England and Scotland around 1600 CE, apparently a time of Queen Elizabeth I and James VI/I. My history is too weak to have gotten all the allusions; I spent most of the book waiting for an account of how the highly ambiguous and underdrawn James came to commission the King James Bible, which — I'd've thought — did more for his claims to Protestantism than anything presented here. It's a bit Visit of the Royal Physician, a bit A Gentleman in Moscow, and the ending is entirely 25th Hour. It's too repetitious; the early foreshadowing worked well, but at some point he just needed to get on with it. A decent edit might have cut 15% and yielded a taught philosophical thriller.
