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Discover the early lives of your favorite characters in The Tribal War Series FREE ebook
STELLA ATRIUM
SPECULATIVE FICTION WRITER
STELLA ATRIUM
SPECULATIVE FICTION WRITER
Helena Bonham Carter Steals the Show
Comparisons to a-list actors in Oceans 11+ are inevitable, since both movies were produced by Steven Soderbergh and based on characters developed by the late George Clayton Johnson (for Sinatra’s Oceans 11).
She has saved more than one movie like Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella that was about to sink under its own weight before Helena Bonham Carter made a cameo appearance as the fairy godmother, injecting much-needed modern tones into the well-known story.
**Spoiler Alert**
In Oceans 8 Carter serves with an ensemble cast led by understated Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie, and with the stillness of the “recently incarcerated,” and Cate Blanchett wearing skin-tight leather pants in every other scene. Comparisons to how well a-list actors performed in Oceans 11+ are inevitable, since both movies were produced by Steven Soderbergh and based on characters developed by the late George Clayton Johnson (for Sinatra’s Oceans 11).
A story in three acts, Oceans 8 starts with assembling the team of grifters, the actual jewelry heist, and the later worries about getting away with it that includes a tasty twist.
Bullock sets the tone so other actors must play to her Clutch-Cargo delivery where her face seems frozen with botox. Bullock’s bright moments include a Heidi Klum impersonation in German for stalling the museum guards while Blanchett and friends do the wet work. Viewers noticed that the women had to call in a guy, Shaobo Qin as Yen, the acrobatic “grease man” from the Oceans movies, for the actual heist.
Racial diversity is observed with a hacker (Rhianna), a pickpocket (Awkwafina), and a jewelry maker (Mindy Kaling) rounding out the team. Rhianna has several good moments injecting street humor into the stabilizing shop-lifting worldview of Bullock. Only Anne Hathaway gets to act out as the spoiled movie star and supposed mark for their highly convoluted sting to steal a six-pound diamond necklace called the Toussaint at the Met Gala.
Habit patterns are believable for real women, not apeing the men, or trying to appeal to the men, but pursuing their own interests. Characters live close to the street in NYC so that visiting the fence living in the suburbs (Sarah Paulson), the only happily married character who regularly lies to her daughter about her profession, has the same feel that visiting the suburbs always has.
Spectacle is provided especially for entrances and exits in ball gowns borrowed from Vogue, cameos for aging actresses like Marlo Thomas, and tongue-in-cheek jibes (“the ego has landed”) at the cork-screwed ex-lover played by Richard Armitage. I especially liked Paulson’s infiltration of Anna Wintour’s Vogue operation that managed the Met Gala. The world belongs to women who know how to dress.
Back to Helena Bonham Carter whose dialogue is bright, especially for the bits they throw her way. (“I sweat.”) Carter out-acts Bullock and Blanchett in her first scene as an over-the-hill designer deeply in debt to the IRS. She uses an Irish accent and excellent comic timing in her scene to view the six-pound necklace at Cartier, carrying the plot without having to explain it.
Of course, the story has a big hole in the plot. The fake for the stolen necklace is re-evaluated by Cartier on its return to the vault, prompting the story’s third act about getting away with it. However, the other zircon pieces are not re-evaluated upon return and found to be fakes?
All-in-all, a satisfying chick film that can be watched more than once, if only to savor Carter’s acting skill. Also, Rhianna may have a future in movies. I’m looking forward to several sequels.
THE BUSH CLINIC
A planet story of colonisation where tribal wars force hard choices for Dr. Greensboro and the coming-of-age students in her bush clinic classroom.
