NOVEMBER 16
The November 16 weekend belongs to the ladies as Kristen Stewart steps into the shoes of Bella Swan for the last time, Marion Cotillard stars opposite Matthias Schoenaerts and Keira Knightley brings to life Leo Tolstory’s “Anna Karenina.”
First we’ll begin with the final film in the franchise that has so far brought in over $2.5 billion worldwide after its first four films. While The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is sure to face a small uphill PR battle after its stars Stewart and Robert Pattinson were involved in a public parting of the ways, I’m sure it won’t keep the horde of Twilight fans out of the cinemas as they bid them farewell into the annals of the cinematic abyss.
The one film of the three I have already seen is the outstanding Rust and Bone from director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and starring the aforementioned Cotillard and Schoenaerts. There is a lot going on in this flick, more than any kind of sentence summary can sum up. So instead I’ll give you a paragraph from my Cannes review and direct you over there for further dissection:
It’s a raw and animalistic feature that changes its vantage point continually. Be it the confused eyes of a young child, the fallen damsel or the brutish thug. There’s power, pain, love, despair and confusion within these characters and each trait serves as a tie that binds, bringing everything together.
Be sure and seek this one out. It’s a winner.
Before the year began Rust and Bone was one of my most anticipated, but now that I’ve seen it I had to readjust my anticipation list and of the films left this year one I certainly can’t wait to see is Joe Wright‘s latest teaming with Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina.
The film was shot almost entirely in a single location as Wright explained in a recently released video saying:
“Just as the Russian aristocracy of the 19th century could be described as living upon a stage, our story unfolds in a dilapidated theatre. We shot almost all of the film in this single location, over 100 sets were built within the theater, creating a kind of fluid linearity. You can walk from one house under the stage, straight onto the horse-training ground, or go through a door and there’s a Russian landscape.”
That alone is enough to get me excited, but Wright’s track record with Knightley is the major reason to keep an eye out for this one because if it’s anything like Pride and Prejudice or Atonement we may have a serious contender for best of the year on our hands here.
