SLEUTH
Kenneth Branagh

„So you are fucking my wife?“ says Michael Caine early on to Jude Law in Kenneth Branagh's new film Sleuth. Straight away it is made clear that the tone is different in this remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1972 film of the same title. Calling it a remake however does not do this new film justice. Like the location, an old country estate on the outside but on the inside a highly stylised palace ridden with security cameras, the new film is a luxuriously reinvention. The screenplay is by none other than Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter who is far too clever to fall into the trap of simply updating Anthony Shaffer’s stage play. He has made it his own. The fabulous dialogue is Pinter is through and through.

Milo Tindle (Jude Law), the wife’s lover, visits crime writer Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine) asking him to divorce her. Wyke involves the young man in a dangerous cat and mouse game in which personal vanities, hurt pride and simple spite clash. What seemingly starts as an insurance fraud soon spindles out of control. The setting is cold and uncomfortable. White marble floors and designer furniture are wrapped into blue light, every fancy feature of the house is controlled by a tiny remote control. There are no doors but entire walls move and every movement is constantly detected by a high tech security system. Michael Caine and Jude Law are fabulous in a film that heavily relies on its superb actors. Their style is theatrical as they throw the perfectly composed dialogues at each other, seldom responding to but rather testing the actual meaning of what they hear.

Kenneth Branagh knows exactly how to make the most of his actors and he indulges in their art as well as the script and the set, while creating a beautiful cinematic look. The film effortlessly joins into the work of this director who makes highly clever films that hit the stomach first and then the intellect, leaving both satisfied. It seems a futile effort to judge this film on comparison to its predecessor. It may share the title but it does what a remake always should, it stands completely on its own two feet.

A Few Words In Favour Of...Tom Cruise

To be honest I am not a big fan of Tom Cruise. He annoys me with his silly marriage and his scientology affliction.
His new film Valkyrie, a film about SS officer and almost Hitler assassin Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg recently made headlines when German authorities refused the film to be shot on original locations and a delegate in charge of sects in the Berlin senate, taking pride in never even having seen a film starring Tom Cruise, said that this high rank scientology member must not be allowed to play Stauffenberg.
All this is very silly because there is one thing that all these people in uproar seem to forget about Tom Cruise. The fact that he is an actor. In the world of cinema, cannibals have been played by vegans, Jews by Christians, historical figures by rather young contemporaries. It is called acting, and all these self proclaimed authorities on what and what not to do in cinema appear to have trouble grasping that. A little look past Tom Cruise into this whole project and a basic knowledge of contemporary films should have eased the excitement. Director Bryan Singer and a very high quality cast including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Terence Stamp among others could mean that there is a pretty good film on its way to our screens. I don’t know I have not seen it yet BUT all this fuss around Tom Cruise is unnecessary especially, if the quality of the film itself is never the issue.
At the moment Cruise stars in Robert Redford’s film Lions for Lambs and I suggest all you Tom Cruise haters out there go and take a look. Magnolia wasn’t just a one off as some might say, no, Tom Cruise is actually a good actor. Yes he has made some horrendous films, boring ones, whatever. Yes his public persona is getting more and more irritating. But he is very good at what he does. This should be the important thing. His religious views, however crazed they might be, are not the business of the state, not even of Hollywood. We might have to keep an eye on what Scientology is up to, but we don’t need protection from Tom Cruise. We don’t need politicians to interfere with the casting of films.
Especially so, if these interferences appear to be solely based on sympathy. The reason Valkyrie was not allowed to shoot Stauffenberg’s execution at the Bendlerblock in Berlin where it happened, was that it would ‘disturb a place of mourning’. The German TV Drama Stauffenberg, starring Sebastian Koch, however was allowed. Why is that we must wonder?
The reason was not the protection of a place of mourning, but prejudices against Hollywood and to be honest a quite embarrassing ignorance of film. This unfounded self importance interfering in the arts is infuriating. And it turns “a history drama into a hysteric drama” as Lorenz Maroldt rightly pointed out in the German newspaper Die Zeit. Whether the problem is actual concern about Scientology or the fact that Hollywood is touching one of Germany’s holy cows, neither topic is discussed in any justified form if the basis of the argument is “This star is not allowed to…” Interestingly enough, the opponents of the Cruise-Stauffenberg casting are not film makers, some of them, like Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck have spoken out in favour of Mr Cruise but ultimately they have been excluded from the argument. The matter of cinematic expression has been completely forgotten about. Film itself has not once yet been taken seriously in this fight.
How can we take someone seriously telling us that Tom Cruise is bad, who in the same sentence announces to never go and see a film with him? I’d suggest waiting for the film’s release and then talking about its quality and content might result in a more interesting discussion, led by more qualified people.