Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022) - Movie Review

I don’t know if karma is actually a thing. It’s a nice idea as a general principle, and it would certainly help the world make a bit more sense, but... well, that’s just it: It relies on things in the world having a logical progression to them, and I’m not so sure of that. Bad people get rewarded for their dickery all the time, while those trying to do good often run at a deficit because altruism isn’t exactly a profitable endeavour. We should be good to each other and to ourselves, but that doesn’t mean getting recognised by some nebulous universal force is going to be part of the deal. Not that it isn’t a dream worth striving for, though, and dreams are bountiful when it comes to this particular film.

Benedetta (2022) - Movie Review

I have been eagerly looking forward to seeing this movie and reviewing it. Hell, I’ve been itching for the chance to talk about its director for quite some time. Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven has one of the most fascinating, if not outright legendary, filmographies of any cinema creative I’ve come across. After some modest successes in his native Holland over the ‘70s and early ‘80s, Verhoeven moved to the United States and had one hell of a hot streak. RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man, all one right after the other over the course of thirteen years. This is why I love auteur theory: So many of the idiosyncrasies in those films suddenly make a bit more sense once you realise they’re from the same mind.

And after a brief return to the Netherlands for 2006’s Black Book, he has since settled down in France where he put together the immensely uncomfortable (and I say that as someone who sat through Una and The Nightingale) Ella. For as much as I can appreciate the characterisation in that film, it also shows a darker side to Verhoeven’s iconic lack of taste that is not easy to sit through, and not exactly for the best of reasons. As someone with a serious admiration for the man’s work at his peak (Showgirls isn’t a so-bad-it’s-good movie, it’s a legitimately great film, and I will die on that hill), I was truly hoping that his latest wouldn’t be more of the same unpleasantness. And indeed, this is quite a different beast from the likes of Ella.