Emile

This is definitely a character based movie. As such it's never a total waste to watch Ian McKellan work - playing someone trying to come to terms with the difficulties and poor choices in his past, and Deborah Unger truly nails her character - a woman who is bruised and bitter but determined not to give up on life. It's always a treat to see a movie filmed in Canada that doesn't pretend to be somewhere else. Alas the resolution seemed a little too easy and contrived, and I found the soundtrack monotonous and intrusive.

Emile is an upper-class British man, a university professor who just retired. But also a man who has a past to deal with. Four decades ago he was a young farmer in Saskatchewan, living with his two brothers on the farm he was born. Their parents died young, making them responsible too soon of the family's farm.

The youngest brother wanted to be a writer, Emile wanted to be a scientist. They both didn't really care about the farm, which was unacceptable for their older brother for whom it was their fate. Therefore he became angry and violent, continuously putting them under pressure.

Emile found his way out with a scholarship to study in England, a premeditated way to abandon them and never look back. A country thousands of miles away to start all over, and forget. He only came back once ten years after when his two brother died to rent up the farm, learning he was the only family left of his young niece and left her in an orphanage without even seeing her. He went back alone to England and never came back.

Forty years after he first left, he has to go back for a second time, to receive a degree from a Canadian university. And now that he's an old man, he feels it's his last chance to make peace with his past and his niece...

Emile is a wonderful story about terrible choices we sometimes have to make. About unforgivable wounds you have to find a way to forgive.

During the whole movie there's a terrible tension between Emile and his niece. They both have a terrible need to know each other, and a terrible need to talk about the past, and you see them finding their way through, step by step.

Every moment has its emotion, every actor is brilliant, every line is thoughtful. You just let yourself go in the movie and finish it to think about yourself, about life, about your own choices. About things you've done and may need to be forgiven for. A true movie my friends

In the second part of a twin bill for Ian McKellen, he stars with Deborah Kara Unger in a compelling drama about a man who goes back home after 40 years and has to deal with the past he left behind.

In contrast to Cold Comfort Farm, in which McKellan played a small role, this movie is all about him. He goes back and forth from the present to his life in Canada 40 years before. He even engages in conversations with his brothers, who appear in the present. he works to resolve his crisis and, with the help of 10-year-old Theo Crane, is able to come to a comfortable conclusion.

For those of us who leave home and return, there is a lot of things familiar in this very good movie.

Wonderful performances by all actors involved, Ian McKellen especially gives a typically intelligent and nuanced rendering. The plot is solid, but the main flaws lie in the tedious direction, cinematography and editing. Flashbacks are overused and signalled with horrendous transparency. The direction is terribly heavy-handed, which is unfortunate; plot-lines that are already capable of arousing viewer sympathy are then dwelled upon with even less subtlety. The ponderous soundtrack would be palatable under normal circumstances, but rapidly becomes irritating when prefaced by a "have you ever...?" question and combined with slow-motion, sepia effects. There is also a problem with the audio, where inconsistent mixing/mastering have allowed too many low-mids in the mix about half of the time, making some of the dialogue indistinct.

Worth watching if you appreciate Ian McKellen's work, but expect to lose interest by the end.

Unlike many movies discussing family, Emile focuses on the relationship among brothers, among uncle and nieces. Sometimes, it is a lot of so-called obligations between father/mother and son/daughter. The bond is too strong to escape from it. It is more romantic, as holiday hobby is more romantic than weekday job. There are a lot of space for one's free will, a man doesn't have to scarify just because he is someone else's whoever.

It is why I can only partially agree with the footnote of the movie `it is a movie about human being rather than human doing.' He has choice, what he has done of course decides what he is. I just grasp something from existentialism.

Compare to the director's previous work, Lola, the movie with a younger woman as leading character, I can identify myself with the characters in Emile more. People in Emile suffer more struggles inside their hearts. Lola does experiences many exciting and fantastic, and she does suffer something. However, I can't find any identity in her `innocent' expression.

It is an interesting thing when the movie reminds me of another Ian McKellen's great acting, Gods and Monsters. Maybe it is because of the way of describing, putting now and then, reality and imagination together in the same picture. (It made me think that `Ian McKellen's acting is similar to his previous one' at first. Actually, Emile and James Whale are built much different.) Director Carl Bessai spent much effort to build up such the atmosphere of what happens in an old man's mind, much more than Bill Condon did, in my `humble' opinion, a little too much. Carl Bessai chose still rather than action. It seems to express the idea `human being rather than human doing'. It is also a trade off a director must take.

In a picture, a motion picture, the present and the past are seamlessly married, but not in a logic. The screenplay doesn't give a good and strong reason to release the ice wall between Emile and his niece, Nadia. A strong ending doesn't mean exciting action or whatever else. Of course, you can choose a tranquil way, but the most tranquility has huge surges beneath.

Ian McKellen's acting is so convincing, Emile seems a part of himself. (Maybe he would protest that there is no a single character can present himself.) It is rare that a veteran actor can bring a sense of innocent. And Deborah Unger surprises me much. Her coldness toward Ian is the most incredible, because it is also rare that a young actress can build up such tense to someone much older than herself, rather than go in the same direction. Tygh Runyan did not act much in the movie, but he has a sensitive looking.