AMMONITE: 3 ½ STARS

Ammonite

The plot of “Ammonite,” a new romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan now playing in theatres, is simple but the film is not. A complex study of love, what it lacks in plot it makes up for in masterful performances.

Set in the 1840s, Winslet plays self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning. Her scientific glory days behind her, she now supports her ailing mother (Gemma Jones) selling fossils found on a nearby beach in the barren Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. Still feeling the sting of the breakup of her last relationship with fossil-hunter Elizabeth Philpot (Fiona Shaw), she has developed an exterior as hard as the rocks she cracks open to find fossils. 

When wealthy Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), whose wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) suffers from “mild melancholia,” passes through Lyme Regis, he hires Mary to look after his wife while he travels. 

It’s not an easy fit. Mary is all work and no play, but needs Murchison’s money. Charlotte is used to being coddled and of getting her own way from the hired help. Soon, it becomes apparent that Charlotte’s melancholia is caused by a lack of passion in her marriage, an excitement she rediscovers with Mary.

Director Francis Lee begins the picture in a shroud of grey. Dull matte hangs over every frame of the film, echoing the icy relationship between… well, almost everyone on screen. As Mary and Charlotte’s relationship heats up, so does the movie’s visual sense. Colours are introduced and flowers, once mere stems, bloom. It’s a lovely backdrop for the blossoming of love, or at the very least, infatuation. 

“Ammonite” is, first and foremost, a vehicle for two wonderful performances. Ronan and Winslet deliver austere, quiet performances but share electrifying chemistry. Their initial disdain of one another is palatable, and later, their attraction is fervid. Even when they aren’t reciting pages of dialogue, their inner most thoughts are clear and unmistakable. Every gesture and glance fills in a blank and helps move the story forward. 

Despite the passion from the leads “Ammonite” feels listless for much of its running time. It’s a serious story—although apparently not based on the actual facts of the real-life Mary Anning’s life—that feels as though it is trying to exert a sense of gravitas through spare dialogue, depiction of grief, and the use fossils as a metaphor for what was once alive and vital. 

COME AWAY: 2 ½ STARS

Come Away

“Come Away,” a new fantasy film for kids starring Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo and now available as a Download to Own, weaves familiar themes and characters into its uneven story of loss and love.

Jolie and Oyelowo are Rose and Jack Littleton, a married couple with three children, David, Peter and Alice (Reece Yates, Jordan A. Nash and Keira Chansa). When we first meet them, it’s a content family, with a carefree mother, a model-ship building father, and happy-go-lucky siblings.

Cracks begin to appear when prissy Aunt Eleanor (Anna Chancellor) swoops in, teaches Alice “how to be a lady” and sends David off to a private school.

Spoiler ahead: Soon after tragedy strikes, leaving David dead, and the family in tatters. Peter and Alice, who we soon come to understand are actually Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland try to fix things by selling a family treasure, but instead are swept into a dangerous adventure that features a menagerie of fabled characters come to life, the Hatter (Clarke Peters), the Red Queen and the White Rabbit.

Themes of alcoholism, gambling addiction and death make “Come Away” a movie unmoored from any sort of pigeonhole. It’s not exactly a children’s film, although it contains many elements of kid’s entertainment but it doesn’t quite seem geared for grown-ups either.

On the upside, there’s nothing formulaic about the storytelling. Ideas that reflect real life issues are bashed into one another, held together with ribbons and bows. Even when the film takes an imaginative twist it is generally grounded in some earthly and very grown-up concerns. Tonally, it’s an uneasy match that gives the film a wonky tone.

“Come Away” is a very handsomely appointed movie, with beautiful imagery and fanciful set decoration. There are interesting performances, particularly from Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the adult Alice, but the remix of two classic tales, “Peter Pan” and “Alice in Wonderland,” never achieves lift off as a flight of fantasy.

FREAKY: 3 STARS

Freaky

A more accurate title for “Freaky,” the new Vince Vaughn slasher comedy now playing in theatres, might have been “Freaky Friday the 13th.” A mix and match of the classic body swapping kid’s comedy and the Jason Voorhees horror movies, it has laughs and a surprisingly high body count.

The film opens with a killer on the rampage. The Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), part urban legend, part serial killer, is doing what he does best, finding interesting ways to murder young, attractive people.

In an attempt to gain supernatural powers he stabs teenage outcast Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) with a ceremonial knife called the La Dola Dagger. Something mystical happens, alright, but not the transformation the Butcher hoped for. As he stabs the high school senior, they switch bodies. The hulking serial killer’s body is now inhabited by Millie’s essence and vice versa. According to the legend of the dagger they have just twenty-four hours to reverse the curse or they will be trapped in the wrong bodies forever.

“Look, I know I look like The Butcher. But it’s Millie.”

Part of the built-in fun of director Christopher Landon’s “Freaky” is Vaughn’s performance. His change from menacing killer to teenager is as ridiculous as it sounds, but it takes advantage of the actor’s comedy chops. He adopts Millie’s mannerisms in subtle ways and adds in other touches, like constantly bumping his head because her new body is a foot or so taller than the old one. He even brings a genuine lightness to a budding romance between his alter ego and her crush Booker (Uriah Shelton).

By the time he proves that he’s actually Millie in the Butcher’s body by answering questions—“I tell people my favorite movie is Eternal Sunshine but it’s actually Pitch Perfect 2.”—the transformation is complete. It’s fun work from an actor whose recent resume doesn’t contain many laughs.

“Freaky” rides the line between slasher movie, dark comedy, and satire. As it has fun with high-school stereotypes it delivers some genuinely creepy moments, even if Landon has some trouble calibrating the humor and the horror. After a strong start, and some engaging moments, it gets trapped trying to reinvent the movies that inspired it.

DINNER WITH FRIENDS: 2 ½ STARS

Dinner with Friends

“Dinner with Friends,” a new comedy starring Malin Akerman and Kat Dennings now on VOD, is a Hollywood Hills friends and family farce that seems to have done much of its casting at the nearby Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip.

Dennings and Akerman are Abby and Molly, BFFs who have both recently split with their significant others. After declaring she would love her to “the moon and back,” Abby’s girlfriend left abruptly and Molly is now a single mom after her four-year marriage imploded. Their plan to spend a quiet Thanksgiving is turned upside down when Molly’s one-night-stand (Jack Donnelly) blossoms into a relationship and decides to crash their party.

From there the party grows and grows as word gets out of a Friendsgiving at Molly’s house. Her touchy-feely mom Helen (Jane Seymour) arrives, fresh off her fifth divorce, and gets friendly with Molly’s old boyfriend (Ryan Hansen). Then there’s an assortment of characters like self-described “shawoman” Claire (Chelsea Peretti), the hemorrhoid obsessed Rick (Andrew Santino) and Lauren (Aisha Tyler) who shows up with her husband (Deon Cole), two kids and a stash of magic mushrooms.

Predictably, things swing out of control as friends, family and ex-lovers collide. There’s even a trio of “Fairy Gay Mothers” (Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Fortune Feimster) who descend to offer Abby some life advice.

“Dinner with Friends,” called “Friendsgiving” in the United States, is an all-out farce with a heart of gold.

By the time the end credits roll the movie reveals itself not to be about a randy mother figure or a friend’s psychedelic trip.

Ultimately, it’s a story of healing and working through dysfunction. Along the way, however, are enough raunchy jokes to curdle your eggnog. It’s an old formula and despite some winning performances—many from the stand-up comics who migrated down from the Comedy Store—it feels as stale as Thanksgiving’s left-over stuffing.

SAINT FRANCES: 3 ½ STARS

Saint Frances

The obvious comparison to make with “Saint Frances,” a new dramedy from writer and star Kelly O’Sullivan now playing on iTunes Canada and on-demand, is Amy Schumer’s 2015 comedy “Trainwreck.” Both are about women in their thirties at a crossroad in life, but where “Trainwreck” went for laughs, “Saint Frances” goes for the heart.

O’Sullivan plays Bridget, a thirty-four-year-old self-described agnostic feminist who quits a job as a waiter to become a nanny for the precocious and often outspoken Franny (Ramona Edith Williams). She’s unsuited for the job but when Franny’s previous nanny makes a quick exit the little girl’s parents, Maya and Annie (Charin Alvarez and Lily Mojekwu), hire Bridget because they can’t find anyone else to take the job.

At the same time Bridget starts seeing Jace (Max Lipchitz), a sweet guy who accepts her when she says, "this isn't a relationship, we're just hooking up." When she becomes pregnant and has an abortion Jace has deeper feelings about it than she does. Even when she finds herself bleeding for weeks afterward, she is casual. “It’s fine,” she says. “I’m just really tired and weak all the time.”

As her friendship with Franny, Maya and Annie blossoms, so does the way Bridget looks at life.

“Saint Frances” is forthright, frank and heartfelt in the manner in which it explores issues women face day to day. Writer and star O’Sullivan creates an emotional roadmap for Bridget as she navigates a new phase in her life. By times laugh out loud funny, by times touching and raunchy, it never fails to feel grounded in reality.

O’Sullivan is a find. In a nimble, breakout performance she portrays Bridget in all her messy glory. She doesn’t have an epiphany moment, just a series of events that lead her down a different path. O’Sullivan is natural, believable and can deliver both comedy and drama.

“Saint Frances” is a smart movie about empowerment, that doesn’t feel like a message movie. It carefully studies life’s most constant aspect, change.