*/****
starring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Tom Brooke, Colin Firth
written and directed by Sam Mendes
by Walter Chaw While I know the “light” of the title refers to the light that carries a film from carbon arc to silver screen in a grand Art Deco theatre called the “Empire,” what it more accurately refers to is Empire of Light‘s puffed-up inconsequence. Whatever one thinks of Sam Mendes’s films (and I think not much of them if I can help it), Mendes is not the first director who swims to mind when it comes time to tackle questions of racism, “crazy” women, and institutional misogyny. Particularly not when it’s all wrapped in awards-trolling prestige, couched in the merry, glad-handing fuckery of “movies can bring us all together, and so can ska-punk pioneers the English Beat–and let me read to you the last stanza of ‘Death’s Echo’ by Auden, here, my hand, child.”
What’s frustrating is that Empire of Light could’ve been a finely-observed mini-“Upstairs/Downstairs” detailing the loves and tragedies of ticket-takers and popcorn poppers writhing under the thumb of a frustrated big fish/minuscule pond in Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth) and his beleaguered right hand, Hilary (Olivia Colman, Firth’s wife in the recent Mothering Sunday), as they prepare for the first major “premiere” of their existence: a black-tie affair showcasing Chariots of Fire. (Chariots of Fire being, as it happens, precisely the sort of eggshell-smooth, buttoned-up, emotionally facile, bloated entertainment that continues to serve as the template for what attracts Oscars like gold-plated flies to horseshit.) But focusing on the working class and their meaningless brushes with greatness would require a Ken Loach–an artist. Instead, Empire of Light is a compelling milieu tasked to be the skeleton on which is overlaid a May-September interracial imbroglio between Hilary and her new charge, Stephen (Micheal Ward), with Thatcher-era Britain and skinhead riots serving as the backdrop and the revelation that poor Hilary has been driven literally mad by the patriarchy serving as the big idea. I’m not saying white men are incapable of telling these stories–I’m saying Sam Mendes is not capable of telling these stories, and there’s a whole-ass body of work as testimony.
Hilary is having an affair with her boss as Empire of Light begins, shot as an illicit and ugly thing introduced by, “Hilary, can you come to my office for a few moments?” and proceeding with joyless stand-up, doggie-style pumping, Mr. Ellis begging Hilary to finish him orally while Hilary does her best to demur. Gross? It is–terrible, really, the more so when it happens a couple of times with different stratagems employed to further humiliate our ostensible heroine. The power dynamic is grievous, you’ll agree, especially once we learn that Hilary is essentially unemployable for the nervous breakdown she’s suffered and Mr. Ellis has taken her on as an act of coercive charity. Hilary, let’s say, internalizes her abuse by immediately turning around and boinking young Stephen, who dreams, doe-eyed, of attending “university” one day, is very curious about the doings of Toby Jones’s gnomic projectionist, Norman (because he likes to learn and better himself, you see), and is observed, unbeknownst to him, getting racially attacked by a gang of cartoon droogs. Hilary later looks at Stephen paternalistically in a team meeting at the theatre. He seems sad, and she knows why. But he doesn’t know she knows his supervisor knows his humiliation, so…so basically, it makes a scene later where she upbraids Stephen for making fun of an old man behind his back an act of real hypocrisy. Is Empire of Light painting the portrait of a complicated woman unaware of her biases and exploitation of power dynamics in capitalism? Or is Sam Mendes the one blind to his biases and exploitation of power dynamics as a first-time scribe writing what he has called a highly personal, vulnerable film that is autobiographical somehow? No fair guessing.
As ill-equipped as Mendes is to write a young Black man, he is equally ill-equipped to write a mentally ill middle-aged woman of the kind Colman has portrayed at least three times now and probably more. She’s the Christopher Walken of crazy British ladies, and what’s painful is I think she’s marvellous and could be doing a lot more than this. In the introduction to the world premiere (meta-irony!) of the film at the Telluride Film Festival, Colman, via Zoom, declared Mendes her favourite director she’s ever worked with, and I think that’s not only an unkind thing to hear if you’re, for instance, Maggie Gyllenhaal, or Eva Husson, or Yorgos Lanthimos, but also a dangerous thing to say, because what if her work here is weaker than some of her recent performances and suggests she needs a director she likes less in order to do more? Again, I’m not saying Mendes isn’t allowed to do whatever the hell he wants, just that he’s not very good at what Empire of Light is specifically doing. As you might imagine, Hilary has another bad break, shouting lines from Philip Larkin and Tennyson while writing shit-talk on her cavernous flat’s stuccoed walls. Oh, and there’s a riot in which punks beat the crap out of Stephen and put him in the hospital, where his mom (Tanya Moody) is a wise nurse who gives Hilary a frank appraisal before offering her a solemn handshake. Did I forget pretty college drop-out Ruby (Crystal Clarke), who functions as the “proper” girlfriend for Stephen (i.e., age- and race-appropriate)? Whose only function in the film, frankly, is to be the right match for Stephen–but then Stephen concurs, so even though Steven does heal Hilary enough to inspire an uplifting final shot of looking forward and hoping for the future, they don’t actually end up together because yuck?
Empire of Light is for Sam Mendes’s demographic, currently or aspiring: rich, white, knocking on the AARP’s door, twice-divorced or more, holding court over minorities, women, and the proletariat about issues concerning Mendes’s people while assuming the role of fatuous oppressor. (Knives Out nailed this with the Don Johnson character’s emotional hijacking of his father’s nurse into a political conversation, handing her his empty teacup when he’s done patronizing her opinion.) Hilary humiliates herself in front of an audience, Stephen nobly nobles along his super-duper noble way, and the wanks in the audience applauding this garbage congratulate themselves and their business partners for tingling at the right moments and thereby somehow giving at the office of social responsibility. And in the middle of that storm of garbage is a modest tale about the people on the frontlines of exhibition–removed from the sociopathic jackals at the top–who deal with the audiences, appeasing their peculiarities and cleaning up their filth to ensure the show goes on. In the good version of Empire of Light, Norman still teaches Stephen how to run a parallel 35mm projector set-up and steps aside on the big night with Sir Laurence Olivier and Hugh Hudson in the house to let the kid “perform” for thousands of rapt guests. The magic of the moviehouse lives in the dedication of the smallest cogs (who are the largest cogs) in this ancient ritual of storytelling and communion, like the kid who cares about Hilary and tries to warn her about investing her affections in the wrong places; or the goth girl who loves going clubbing and doesn’t notice the stares she gets when she’s out with Stephen; or even Mr. Ellis, who has minor ambitions and limited imagination but deserves better than to be a punchline in a sitcom about bad bosses. It all could have said something, had it not tried so hard to Say Something. I mean, if you try to make a message movie, you need to be Costa-Gavras or some shit, because many accomplished filmmakers have fallen to their deaths from such lofty heights. Mendes never had a chance.
