If you
haven’t seen any of the films, I can briefly summarize them here. Genova is the story of a Joe, a husband
and father whose wife has died in a car accident that may have been caused by
their youngest daughter who was sitting in the backseat of the car together with her older
sister, playing a game. The husband decides to move his daughters and himself
to Genova, Italy for a short while; the film relates their daily lives in a new
and strange city, and the adventures each of them embark upon. Colin Firth as Joe,
and Willa Holland as Kelly (the eldest sister) are very good, but it is the
youngest daughter Mary, played by Perla Haney-Jardine, who shone in this film. Her
acting is superb; there were times when you just wanted to reach out and hug
her, she was so good, especially when her awkwardness and loneliness shone
through. In real life, she is about sixteen years old now; when the film came
out, she was about eleven. She had a remarkable self-possession at that young
age that was riveting. Composed, observant, guarded, smart as a whip, but full
of feelings and thoughts that she did not really understand or know how to
express at that age; the scene where she talks to a female friend of her father’s
and tells her that she feels guilty and responsible for her mother’s death is
heartbreaking. Her wonderful self-possession reminded me of my niece when she
was that age; she had (and still has) many of those same qualities.
Creation is the story of Charles Darwin and his family,
at the time before he wrote the book that would make him famous, The Origin of Species. The film details
his struggle to acknowledge the scientific truths about evolution that he has discovered
which put him into conflict with his Christian faith and with his wife, who is
very religious. Charles Darwin and his wife Emma are played by Paul Bettany and
Jennifer Connelly, who are married in real-life; they are terrific together.
Darwin’s life was complicated by poor health and much unhappiness; he lost his
eldest and beloved daughter Annie, played so convincingly and movingly in the
film by Martha West, most probably to tuberculosis. Their relationship was
close on many levels, and she was clearly his favorite child, likely because
she was so interested in his work and in the natural world. Had she lived, she
could have become a scientist like her father. The film depicts the conflicts
in the Darwin marriage as well as the events surrounding the death of Annie,
and is based on the book Annie’s Box:
Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human
Evolution, by Randal Keynes. So much of the film revolves around Annie and
the impact her death had on Charles Darwin; Martha West did a wonderful job as
Annie. It was impossible not to be moved to tears by her performance. The same
can be said for Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.
Hugo is the third film where a child figures
prominently in the story; it reminded me a bit of the film Oliver! (1968). The
young boy Hugo Cabret, played by Asa Butterfield, has a wistful look to him,
much like Mark Lester’s Oliver in that earlier film, and his performance is
very nuanced and very good. Both of them play young boys who are orphans;
Oliver lives in an orphanage, whereas Hugo lives in the walls of a Paris train
station where he fixes and maintains the station’s clocks, a job he learned
from his drunken uncle who disappeared months ago and who is discovered drowned
in the Seine river. The film is the story of how Hugo slowly befriends an older
man who knows that Hugo steals from him, a shopkeeper by the name of Georges
Méliès', played by Ben Kingsley. Georges works in the train station selling and
repairing trinkets and small toys; Hugo steals parts from him sporadically in
order to repair the ‘automaton’ he and his father were working on before his
father’s tragic death. But Georges was once a promising filmmaker, before WWI
destroyed those plans and ambitions, turning him into an unhappy and bitter man.
As fate would have it, this automaton was actually designed by Georges Méliès' when
he was a young man. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that the film is based
on the real-life story of Georges Méliès', a French filmmaker who was way ahead
of his time in terms of special effects and surreal sets and props, and a magician
as well. He is known especially for two films, A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The
Impossible Voyage (1904).
It is not
possible to predict what the future will hold for Perla Haney-Jardine, Martha
West, or Asa Butterfield in terms of their future film successes, as child actors
often have a hard time repeating the successes of their youth. But they
certainly deserve many more chances to express their tremendous talents and to shine
as brightly as they did respectively in each of these films.
