In the Earth (2021)

Direction: Ben Wheatley
Country: UK

Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth uses cheap tricks for mood, never achieving acceptable levels of satisfaction. The narrative develops with chunky episodes and mechanical dialogues, following a cooked-to-formula script that tries to play edgy with contemporary anxieties and an impure-nature setting.

The story pairs up Martin Lowery (Joel Fry), a scientist impassionately committed to making crops more efficient, and Alma (Ellora Torchia), an affable park ranger, as they venture into the woods when a deadly virus keeps ravaging the world. In the course of this journey they bump into a deceiving stranger, Zack (Reece Shearsmith), as well as Martin’s fellow colleague, Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires).

There’s not enough skill in the plotting and execution of a criminally boring fiction that comes packed with hallucinogenic pretentiousness. While exposing glaring plot holes, the film drowns in waves of imbecility, rendering everything frigid with a tacky approach.

The only thing this murky film can do is to trigger an epileptic attack via the unpleasant images that try to bring it to a climax. The woods can actually be scary, but not here. Wheatley’s new trance is not recommended, confirming the bad shape of the British director after the unsuccessful remake of Hitchcock’s Rebecca in 2020.

Rebecca (2020)

Direction: Ben Wheatley
Country: UK / USA

Working from a script by Jane Goldman, Joe Schrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, British director Ben Wheatley (Sightseers; A Field in England; High-Rise) doesn’t succeed in adapting Rebecca, the famous novel by Daphne du Maurier and immortalized as a motion picture by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940.

There’s an embarrassing lack of freshness in this remake that will hamper many viewers from being charmed, thrilled or even intrigued by this emotionally-bland, color version of the aforementioned literary work.

The splendorous decors and an adequate performance by Kristin Scott Thomas as the villainous housekeeper - in opposition to the unconvincing acting of Lily James and Armie Hammer as the newly married de Winters - are the best this romantic psychological thriller has to offer. The soundtrack revealed to be another setback together with an inadequate lightness in a storytelling that required more dramatic grandeur and emotional depth.

Happy New Year Colin Burstead (2018)

Direction: Ben Wheatley
Country: UK

Ben Wheatley is known for his subversive wittiness and distinct filmmaking style, aspects that earned him not just general acclaim but also some cult status with works such as Sightseers (2013), High-Rise (2016), and A Field in England (2014). His new film, Happy New Year Colin Burstead is nothing we haven’t seen before, depicting one of those nerve-wracking family reunions with equivalent portions of love and hate. Despite the familiarity of the tone and the slightly fussy dynamics, it still punches some impactful hooks through moderately uncomfortable situations.

During the first minutes, Colin Burstead (Neil Maskell) occupies the center of the stage, as he welcomes his relatives to a luxurious country manor he rented to celebrate New Year's Eve. As you are probably picturing in your head, the film includes a bunch of peculiar characters that, moved by assorted conflicts and disputes, take the party in unplanned directions. The principal focus of tension here is Colin’s brother, David (Sam Riley), who arrives from Berlin with his German girlfriend Hannah (Alexandra Maria Lara). Invited in secret by his naive sister Gini (Hayley Squires), David finds his brother and parents, Sandy (Doon Mackichan) and Gordon (Bill Paterson), still disgusted with the fact that he carelessly abandoned wife and children to embrace a new life in Germany.

If the pugnacious Colin argues with his father about financial predicaments, David charms his mother by playing on the piano a sentimental song he wrote for her. It’s nothing but a game of power, where everyone claims attention. The coolest figure is uncle Bertie (Charles Dance), an eccentric who dresses in woman’s clothes and nurtures a genuine tenderness for everyone. He was the only one that made me laugh.

Commanding a handheld camera, Wheatley orchestrated this comedy with delirium-free, improvised-like routines that bring it closer to the experimental genre. Moreover, he consolidated his script with additional material by the cast. Some of the film’s passages struggle with unevenness and the watching is more relaxed and fluid after the sometimes arduous task of identifying who is who.