Keira Knightley and the Apocalypse: Review of the film "Silent Night"
A Christmas skit with a scattering of stars, which cannot decide on the genre in any way and either falls into political libel or drowns in melodramatic sentiments.
"Silent Night, Wonderful Night" are the unforgettable words of a Christian song that accompanies every second (or every first?) Christmas movie, be it a romantic comedy or a bloody slasher (for example, the one about Santa with an ax in 1984). The shelf of festive ribbons has arrived - Camille Griffin's debut painting is climbing onto the mezzanine filled with tinsel. But even after the credits, it is not clear what this film really wants: to laugh or laugh together, remove all masks or hide all secrets, scare or dissolve in the end. But first things first.
"Silent Night" begins with the usual series of vain shots: family, friends (close and sworn) gather for Christmas dinner at Nell and Simon's. The program includes sparkling wine, roast from the hostess, charades, carols and other delights of cozy evenings by the fireplace. Griffin immediately seeks to bribe the viewer with the cast: here and Keira Knightley, who has not appeared in significant projects for the last 5 years, and gentleman Matthew Goode, and Lily-Rose Depp (a foreign agent from the USA among prim Britons), and the young talent Roman Griffin Davis - curly the boy from "Jojo Rabbit" and by a lucky "coincidence" the director's son. All this gives rise to the idea that ahead is either the British "Ideal Strangers", or the Russian variation of the same project in the New Year's decorations "Feedback". But the script tries to be much more topical than kitchen showdowns accompanied by funny songs.
And he doesn't succeed. Or only half of it succeeds. The illusion of a festive mood is destroyed in the first third of the gatherings (it seems that even trailers are not afraid of this spoiler): no one will survive a quiet, loud, joyful, sad night - either a hurricane or a cloud of poisonous gas will bring death to all living things. UK on the news. And therefore, in the end, you can have time to have dinner, have a fight and make up, and then take a release pill and fall asleep in a peaceful sleep forever. Death on Christmas Day is almost as poetic as death in Venice - all that remains is to go with dignity to the fanfare.
But Griffin never figured out who she was seeing off on her last journey: Queen Elizabeth II and the conservatives, the smug bourgeois or the unfortunate victims of political intrigue, loving parents or disobedient children? As a result, the director zealously fights for all the good against all the bad: behind the flood of declarations, it is completely unclear what to laugh about and about whom to cry. For the black comedy, which the film appears in promo videos, the tape lacks irony, albeit with a bitter taste. For a drama about the end of the world - at least minimal sympathy for all those gathered, who rather annoy than make them empathize with their fate. Everyone has long known that both the rich and the middle class cry, and the poor, even on the verge of death, will cry a little louder - for the socially defenseless (migrants, homeless and others), the Queen and the government did not have any pills. But this New Year's party hardly reaches the sane satire - rather, it only demonstrates its teeth, but does not bite.
Among the kaleidoscope of different circumstances, aggravated by the approaching finale - pregnancy, quarrels, elderly parents and lack of free will - the character of Matthew Goode evokes the greatest response, who tries to be a good father even before Armageddon. Whether the artist's play, or well-articulated scenes of interaction with children really make the celebrants feel sorry for them. But these flashes of doomed tenderness are rather an exception, which once again takes the picture away from black humor.
As a result, it seems that the guests gathered in the same living room do not know what to do while waiting for dessert: board games are not carried away, all gossip is overdone, and stories are told, and I want to go home as soon as possible to lie on the sofa and see which one. -not shit on Netflix.
This article was sponsored by Sylvie DHAUSSY
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