ABC Arts May Film Wrap: New Horror, Rom-Com, and Video Game Adaptation

Welcome to the ABC Arts May film wrap.

This month sees Australian director use the local housing crisis as a vehicle for generation on generation horror in Birthright.

Plus the rom-com of yore returns in Finding Emily, the farmyard mystery that's been delighting audiences, and a gory Hollywood video game adaptation filmed on the Gold Coast.

Happy watching!

Birthright

Finding Emily

H is for Hawk

The Mandalorian and Grogu

Mortal Kombat II

Obsession

Power Ballad

The Sheep Detectives

Birthright

Australia's housing affordability crisis isn't just being reflected in policy decisions and water-cooler conversations — it's being mirrored in art.

Writer Fiona Wright has penned a novel titled Kill the Boomersthat is everything its title suggests, and Bloomshed’s reimagining of Pride and Prejudice in an age of unimpeded landlords and increased concentration of wealth was recently restaged at Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne.

Enter Zoe Pepper’s debut feature film Birthright, a tragicomedy that applies a razor-sharp lens to the very same topic.

Cory (Travis Jeffery) and his pregnant wife Jasmine (Maria Angelico) are down and out. Dangerously close to Jasmine's due date without a roof over their heads or jobs, they find refuge in Cory's icy parents' (the excellent duo of Michael Hurst and Linda Cropper) well-appointed house.

What ensues is an intergenerational battle of wits as both sides attempt to wrest control from the other in pursuit (or safeguarding) of what Cory and Jasmine are sorely missing — housing security.

Pepper's sharp script hits achingly familiar beats, from the precarity of short-term contracts to classic talking points trotted out by boomers as they justify their fortune. But implausibilities hamper the film from the outset.

How realistic is it that only child Cory would be left high and dry by his parents? Isn't the favourably taxed inheritance of intergenerational wealth one of the reasons we're in this mess of inequality?

Birthright never quite addresses this as the film shifts (too) quickly from realism into increasingly unhinged territory, as horrifically enjoyable as the ride is.

Sonia Nair

Finding Emily

They don't make rom-coms like they used to. Whether it's because we're collectively disillusioned about love as we grapple with societal collapse or missing the screenwriting nous of Richard Curtis and his ilk, there hasn't been a moment for the ages quite like Meg Ryan's feigned orgasm in When Harry Met Sally.

No chase quite as comically suspenseful as Julia Roberts chasing after Dermot Mulroney chasing after Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding. No moment as moving as John Hannah's eulogy in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

But we now have Finding Emily, and what a rom-com it is.

The archetypes are alive and present, albeit updated to reflect the contemporary discourse.

Two individuals as unlike one another as Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy? Tick. An underlying betrayal a la Ten Things I Hate About You and She's All That? Tick. A heartbreaking reveal culminating in a humiliating grand gesture of love? Tick.

Spike Fearn plays idealistic Mancunian musician Owen, a delightfully awkward and gentle-hearted young man who meets the love of his life, Emily, one night. But the phone number she's given him is missing a digit and Owen has no way of getting in touch with her. Enter budding academic Emily (Angourie Rice), a misguided cynic who's conducting an experiment on the futility of love and has found her perfect guinea pig in the lovestruck Owen.

Together, they team up to find nightclub Emily — sparking heated discussions about male entitlement, the manic pixie dream girl trope, class disparity and the ugliness of unchecked ambition as their quest takes on a life that transcends them.

Under Alicia MacDonald's direction, Rachel Hirons's screenplay is grounded in a strong sense of place and the unbridled freedom of youth. Manchester's queer and indie nightlife is beautifully brought to the fore, featuring a special appearance by Blossoms, drag queens and cosy pubs scattered along Canal Street.

Fearn and Rice expertly inhabit lived-in characters with utterly believable chemistry, supported by a cast of friends and family as idiosyncratic as they are charming. The rom-com of yesteryear is so back.

Sonia Nair

H is for Hawk

Best known for her period drama roles (Women Talking, The Crown) a bare-faced Claire Foy brings her talents to the present day — well, 2007 — in this nature film adaptation of Helen Macdonald's award-winning memoir, H is for Hawk.

The film centres around Helen (Foy) and her grief following the sudden death of her father (Brendan Gleeson), an acclaimed press photographer who she adored.

Living in Cambridge as a research scholar, Helen spirals deeper into sadness, later manifesting as depression. In the midst of it all, she makes the impulsive decision to take in a wild goshawk — part mirroring her untameable sorrow and part escapism from reality — with her mother's warning ringing true: "Just don't get lost."

Supporting characters, best friend Christina (Denise Gough, sporting a fantastic Aussie accent), and Helen's mother, played by Lindsay Duncan, are underwritten. Instead, scenes of Helen retreating from the world, shying from the door with each knock and sleeping curled up in the living room alongside hawk Mabel, demonstrate her despair and their symbiotic relationship.

Foy, who learned falconry in just two weeks, makes every scene with Mabel tender and utterly convincing.

Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, whose early documentary roots shine through, the film's intimate, near-wordless scenes are the most compelling.

Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen spectacularly captures Mabel soaring through damp English woodland, often from the hawk's perspective. There's a beautiful recurring motif too: vision framed through holes and glass — a viewfinder, a rolled-up magazine — the act of watching nature to learn, just as her father once did.

Despite sharing a contemplative pace with memoir adaptations like Penguin Bloom and The Outrun, the film's tension remains muted throughout, the stakes frustratingly low. The closest it comes to a climax is during Helen's final academic address, where she delivers, almost as a revelation, "death is constantly around us … we're all going to die".

Foy is magnetic, front and centre, but something elusive keeps this quietly affecting film from fully soaring like its subject.

Ying-Di Yin

The Mandalorian and Grogu

If you're new to Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu is not the entry point you're looking for. But for every confused and deflated audience member walking out of this film, there will be twice as many die-hard fans frothing over Pedro Pascal's shiny bounty hunter and his pint-sized cuddly companion, Grogu.

Framed much like an episode of the beloved (if quite predictable) series The Mandalorian, this two-and-a-half hour creature feature sees Pascal's Mando befriending, rescuing, or 'retiring' the who's-who of 'freaky little guys' for which Star Wars is so famous — or maybe you know them better as the Glup Shittos of a galaxy far, far away.

In terms of a narrative arc, you'll have to do some squinting, but there's something of a hero's journey here — just not for the titular characters.

The prime creature of this feature is Jeremy Allen White's Rotta the Hutt: the six-packed slug-like son of the infamous Jabba the Hutt. He's just a guy trying to escape his father's enormous shadow (by getting even more enormous in the galactic gym, apparently)!

Mando is tasked by the incestuous (maybe? It's possible I read too much into their close-canoodling) twin siblings of Jabba to rescue Rotta, and for a huge bounty, too. This is the way, I suppose.

Aping elements of better films that came before it, The Mandalorian and Grogu pays homage to A New Hope, Bladerunner, Hong Kong action hit Hard Boiled, and Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy (mainly in Ludwig Göransson's spectacular Westernesque score, and some very specific costume choices).

It's safe to say that Jon Favreau's most interesting directorial decisions here are all in how this story mimics others, so please take all glowing reviews with a grain of salt.

Silvi Van-Wall

Mortal Kombat II

Gamers who've spent an inordinate amount of time removing spinal cords to the tune of "FINISH HIM" come to Mortal Kombat expecting extreme gore and goofiness.

Sadly, Australian director Simon McQuoid's first jaunt to Outworld, shot in Adelaide, took itself too seriously, barring local hero Josh Lawson as a bogan variation on slippery mercenary, Kano.

It's a bummer he was offed by Sydneysider Jessica McNamee's Sonya Blade.

Thankfully, the Midway Games-created franchise is a mystically-minded smash-em-up packed with magical MacGuffins, elder gods and reality-warping realms.

So Kano's back for Mortal Kombat II, minus an eye, but now with his iconic laser sight, thanks to Damon Herriman's mascara-loving necromancer, a minion Kano dubs scary clown Pennywise, in a whirl of pop culture nods that keep pace with mortality's revolving door.

Now shot on the Gold Coast, the sequel's latest big bad is Martyn Ford's undead emperor, Shao Kahn. A Shredder lookalike who is Thanos-coded, he kills Adeline Rudolph's spiky fan-slinger Kitana's dad in the prologue. It's beef she shares with Zoe Saldaña's guardian of the galaxy, Gamora.

New writers Jeremy Slater, Ed Boon and John Tobias wisely up the snappy quips and bones, adding Kiwi Karl Urban to the mix as MMA fighter-turned-faded-movie star Johnny Cage, as sweary as his boss from The Boys, plus Furiosa actor CJ Bloomfield as an adorkable take on dentally-overendowed Baraka.

If the core crew, including Mehcad Brooks's Jax and Lewis Tan's Cole, are still a bit beige, the silliness and gore-spilliness carry the faithful closer to a flawless victory.

Stephen A Russell

Obsession

The original ending of Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning debut Get Out was so incredibly bleak that, after poor test screening reactions, the director changed the climax to have just a tiny glimmer of catharsis.

Granted, indie horror Obsession probably didn't have the testing budget Get Out had, but the decision to go with the most stomach-pitting yet still unsatisfying conclusion keeps writer and director Curry Barker from sticking the landing after an otherwise exemplary execution.

Obsession follows a traditional "be careful what you wish for" narrative but swaps a monkey paw for the 'One Wish Willow', a hokey kids toy which falls into the lap of greasy 20-something Bear (Michael Johnson), just as he's trying to drum up the courage to tell co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) he has romantic feelings for her. But as is an incel's wont, he forgoes the truth in favour of snapping his willow on a wish for Nikki to love him more than anybody or thing. Bloody chaos ensues.

While it follows a well-worn path, Barker refreshes Obsession with tight editing (also courtesy of the writer/director), chilling lighting tricks and a sense of morbid humour that would make Zach Cregger proud. However, the film's greatest feat is the casting of Navarrette, who throws everything into her performance as the obsessed/possessed love interest. Her physical movement and command over intricate dialogue is where the film lands its biggest laughs and scares.

Barker makes the most of his reported $US1 million budget with Obsession. It'll be a thrill to see his skills grow alongside his funding.

Velvet Winter

Power Ballad

Twenty years on from the breakout success of Once, writer-director John Carney continues to work from the same crowd-pleasing formula — the cinematic equivalent of a four-chord song.

There's the unsung talent Rick (last name Power), a former rocker played by Paul Rudd, and his unexpected creative collaborator Danny, a lower-tier ex-boy-band singer played by Nick Jonas (though Kevin Jonas would've made for more accurate casting).

Both meet-cute at a gig booked by Rick's wedding band, where the sheer power of their new bromance fuels a non-stop night of jamming.

It's sweet and sentimental and threaded together by genuinely catchy original songs (co-written by Carney and Gary Clark) — but Power Ballad throws in an unexpected key change when Danny, who's struggling to mount a career comeback, resorts to stealing one of Rick's songs.

The film amusingly resembles the inverse of Danny Boyle's Yesterday, with Rick struggling to convince anyone, his family included, that he's the creative force behind the song topping charts everywhere.

It's a crash-out exacerbated by a mid-life crisis as Rick faces the downstream effects of swapping out a life on the road for domesticity. In an era dominated by plagiarism machines, there's a nostalgic appeal to watching a movie about some good old fashioned art theft.

Jamie Tram

The Sheep Detectives

The Sheep Detectives might sound like mass-produced kid-slop but I promise you this tender, hilarious whodunnit is anything but — you just have to surrender to the premise.

George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is the most moral, upstanding shepherd in the tiny British town of Denbrook.

He tends to his loving flock and creates miracle sheep medicine during the day; by night his woolly dependants gather around to hear his fanciful murder-mystery stories.

The flock's comfortable lives are interrupted when George is found dead one morning and the only person (reluctantly) on the case is the town's bumbling Officer Derry (Nicholas Braun). So it's up to George's sheep, including 'smartest sheep in the world' Lily (Julia Louis-Dryfus), her offsider Mopple (Chris O'Dowd) and literal black sheep Sebastian (Bryan Cranston) to bring the murderer to justice.

Writer Craig Mazin (Chernobyl, The Last of Us, but also apparently handy with some CGI sheep), lovingly follows the Agatha Christie format while never falling into predictability. Director Kyle Balda lingers deliciously on sparkling background jokes that lean more The Simpsons than young kid fare. Six foot seven Braun gives the physical performance he was born for as the kindly but clumsy police officer, Emma Thompson as a sharp city lawyer does a lot with a little screen time and the movie's various suspects all land at least one laugh-out-loud line.

But the MVPs are the sheep who, despite not having real faces, are tasked with carrying the movie's surprisingly grounded musings on death, grief and memory. This is one kid's movie that you wouldn't mind as a franchise.