REEL LOVE (EMPIRE OF LIGHT)

 

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Sam Mendes has little to prove as a film director.

His first film 'American Beauty,' after all, won him a Best Director Oscar.

He conquered the box office with two 007 films 'Skyfall' and 'Spectre'.

An accomplished theatre director, he has demonstrated he can clearly handle actors onscreen as well from Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet to Tom Hanks and Paul Newman to Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux.

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Mendes has proven on the cinema screen that he has a better grasp of the requirements of visual storytelling than most theatre directors - particularly in his previous film, the superb First World War tale '1917'.

His long awaited follow-up is 'Empire of Light' - an intimate story conceived during lockdown about a two screen cinema on the seafront of the English seaside resort of Margate.

It is a lovingly crafted film with Mendes turning to his long time collaborator, the Academy Award winning cinematographer Roger Deakins to conjure up gorgeous image after gorgeous image.

And that's what Deakins does with each frame beautifully constructed and tenderly lit.

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Beginning in the depth of winter on Christmas Eve 1980, Olivia Colman plays Hilary Small, a lonely duty manager in the Empire Cinema who supervises the team of ushers and locks the cinema up at night after both auditoria are cleaned.

While cleaning up at the end of one night, Hilary's colleagues Tom Brooke's Neil and Hannah Onslow's Janine trade grim war stories about surprising or disgusting things they have discovered after a screening.

Hilary, however, stops them in their tracks with her story about coming across a dead patron.

In addition to supervising the ushers, Hilary is taken advantage of by the manager of the cinema, Colin Firth's pompous Donald Ellis who often summons her into his office for his own sordid sexual pleasure.

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Turning up with his wife, Sara Stewart's Brenda in a local restaurant where Hilary is dining alone, his employee quickly leaves out of shame and embarrassment.

Hilary is bipolar and has been prescribed lithium by her GP, going for regular check ups.

However she begins to stop taking the medication when she becomes romantically involved with a new employee, Micheal Ward's Stephen - a much younger man of Trinidadian origin and a fan of Two Tone.

Showing him around the cinema on his first day, she is cajoled by him into opening a padlocked door which reveals a dilapidated, closed off area of the Empire which once housed two other screens and a bar.

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Now occupied by pigeons, Stephen notices one of them has a broken wing and with the help of Hilary, comes to its aid.

After they bond while watching New Year's Eve celebrations on the roof, Stephen and Hilary embark on a clandestine affair with Neil noticing their frequent visits to the old part of the building but remaining tightlipped.

Stephen strikes up a friendship with Toby Jones' projectionist Norman who introduces him to the art of projection.

However with Hilary stopping her medication and pressure mounting on all the staff to get the Empire in ship shape for a gala premiere of Hugh Hudson' 'Chariots of Fire,' you know something is going to give.

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And so it transpires, with devastating consequences.

Mendes has a lot going on in his screenplay.

So while the film is forged around Hilary's struggles with her mental health and the impact on her relationship with Michael, it also serves as an ode to the ability of the cinema and the arts in general to give all of us respite from the mundane reality of our everyday lives.

The Empire is adorned with posters and hoardings advertising John Landis' 'The Blues Brothers,' Martin Scorsese's 'Raging Bull,' Sidney Poitier's 'Stir Crazy' and Bill Forsyth's 'Gregory's Girl'.

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It is all so lovingly recreated, you can almost smell the popcorn and the lingering cigarette smoke.

The film's 1980s setting also enables Mendes to explore the issue of racism in Britain at the time, with Hilary witnessing Stephen being taunted by skinheads on the street and a far right National Front march also bringing terror to the town.

There's a clear #MeToo storyline going on with Hilary's treatment at the hands of Mr Ellis, who gropes her and demands masturbation in his shabby office.

The film also has a number of visual metaphors - a crumbling cinema in Margaret Thatcher's Britain called the Empire, anyone? 

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A pigeon with a broken wing nursed back to health?

Yet the clunkiness of these metaphors is somehow cloaked by Deakins' stunning images and a tender tale of an unexpected interracial romance.

Cynics may scoff at the notion that Stephen and Hilary would ever be lovers.

Yet somehow Mendes, Colman and Ward make it work, with both actors delivering astute performances.

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Colman, in particular, knows how great screen acting isn't always about what you say or how you say it but often how you look.

And the looks exchanged between her and Ward speak volumes.

It makes her exclusion from the Academy Awards Best Actress shortlist all the more puzzling.

But Colman's isn't the only impressive performance.

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Mendes is blessed with an exemplary cast.

Ward is sensitive and charismatic as the kind hearted Stephen.

Toby Jones is wonderful as Norman who initially seems distant and introverted but reveals greater depth and compassion as the film wears on.

Firth is excellent in the unenviable role of a pompous and sleazy cinema manager.

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Brooke is terrific as Neil who, when you strip away his buffoonery at the start of the film, shows a much bigger heart than you might expect.

Ron Cook has a great cameo as a rude, racist customer Mr Cooper, while the always excellent Monica Dolan also pops up in a key role.

Tanya Moodie and Crystal Clarke catch the eye as Stephen's big hearted mum Delia and as his on-off girlfriend Ruby.

Like Woody Allen's 'The Purple Rose of Cairo,' Giuseppe Tornatore's 'Cinema Paradiso' and Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast,' Mendes' film is full of nostalgia and affection for the magical escapism of the movies.

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There are wonderful nods to David Lean's 'Brief Encounter,' Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo,' John Frankenheimer's 'The Birdman of Alcatraz' and Hal Ashby's 'Being There' with Peter Sellers which we see clips of.

Norman's projection booth, which is adorned with pictures of British and American cinema greats like Kenneth Williams and John Huston, is treated like a sacred space with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score resembling church music.

Mendes doesn't just saluting the transformative power of cinema.

The poetry of Alfred Tennyson and Philip Larkin is specifically referenced, while the soundtrack features the music of The Specials, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens.

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The use of The Specials' 'Do Nothing' is a specific reminder of the ability of ska to bring black and white youths together - a radical concept at a time when racist abuse was a common sight on British streets.

With the help of Mark Tildesley's pretty production design, Neal Callow's art direction, Philippa Bruges' set decoration and Alexandra Byrne's costume design, Mendes has conjured up his own movie magic.

And as you leave the cinema, it leaves you puzzled as to why other lesser fare has been showered with much more love at the Oscars and other awards.

'Empire of Light' is a fitting tribute to the "illusion of life" onscreen that Norman gushes about, made possible by a beam of light, the whirr of a projector and an optical illusion that turns static images into moving ones.

It deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible with complete strangers.

In fact, you would be a fool to let the chance to see it on a cinema screen pass you.

('Empire of Light' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on January 9, 2023)