The Girl on the Train

Woebegone coy wailing whispers, loves lost unavailing misters, crescents incoherent past, conjuring disclosed the tracks exacting causal punishments, the unignored passions hellbent mystery steeping pains in bellowed seemingly surficial celloed, instinct buried deep beneath each crushing dipsomanic beat, could she clue in expressly solve and vindicate romantic sprawls?

Wherewithal.

Consensual adulterous ramifications haunting Tom (Justin Theroux) and Anna's (Rebecca Ferguson) marriage, his ex-wife Rachel (Emily Blunt) obsessively views the putters of the wealthy suburb where she once happily lived as she passes by on the train every morning, like a saturated classics scholar trying to piece together the activities of an ancient civilization based solely upon tantalizingly loose scattered fragments, it soon becomes apparent that she has seen something, although it will take some fecund fogcutting to find out if she has indeed taken note.

Panoramic puzzling.

Cross worded deluge.

Tate Taylor's The Girl on the Train sounds comedic but is in fact deadly serious.

Tensions gradually increase as the baffled slowly fit the pieces together, jilted jigsawing jousts in stark rendition, autumnal auspicious reminiscence, engendered through firm resolve.

Acrimony.

Tenderness.

The film's well-structured, deftly integrating seemingly innocuous lives to suspensefully prepare you for myopic innocence with scenes that prevaricate in probability.

Multiple characters skilfully intertwined as Rachel's ride proceeds bush tag.

Hokey at points and Rachel's conclusion could have been lengthier.

Traditional comments on marital infidelity chimed.

Infatuated caprice.

Destructive blind ceremony.

Shame

Consumed and dominated by uncontrollable sexual desires which demand constant strategic salacious improvisations, Brandon Sullivan's (Michael Fassbender) unquenchable thirst for carnal pleasures is disproportionately interrupted by a visit from his little sister (Carey Mulligan as Sissy Sullivan).

Who, as it turns out, has no where else to go.

His private carnivalesque prurient pursuits must now adjust themselves to the potential impact of familial judgment and the threat of patronizing restraint. As it becomes clear that Sissy's economic circumstances are by no means self-sufficient, the resultant limitations psychologically materialize a contemptuous backlash which leads to a breakdown in their sustainable relations.

And a resurgent unfettered libidinous conflagration.

Shame works as an emotionless stark rigid character study which sociologically examines localized affects of satyriasis. Michael Fassbender's focused distant unattached self-absorbed performance seductively infuses Mr. Sullivan with a wantonly calculated individualistic purpose. Carey Mulligan's struggling confused desperate counterpoint functions as an effective curve.

Responsibilities bear their consequences in jolting destructive strikes whose unleashed immediate pressures instantaneously distill a sense of belonging.

Consequent reactions determine semantic interpretations incorporating previously manifested patterns built into historical socio-foundations established in relation to a kaleidoscopic point of view.

Director Steve McQueen's direct approach attempts to resist the interpretative labyrinth.

In so doing we're given the cold hard narrow unforgiving facts.

Which themselves impose additional limits on Brandon Sullivan's freedom.

The Devil's Double

Caligula meets Scarface in Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double, a sickeningly volatile portrait of Saddam Hussein's lunatic son Uday and the unfortunate subject coerced into functioning as his double(Latif Yahia). Dominic Cooper plays both roles and displays a remarkable tenacity in their execution.

It's a shame they're so difficult to watch.

I have no idea what Uday Hussein was like while living but if the acts he's depicted unleashing in The Devil's Double are even seriously exaggerated he must have been a first rate fucker. The spoiled capricious tyrannical salacious vindictive murderous son of a despot, he never holds back when it comes to satisfying whatever whim crosses his mind, and operates within a mad ethical spectrum wherein he is the insane judge, jury, and executioner. If you should displease him, his forces will destroy you and everyone you love, brutally. Unfettered, energetic, unconditioned jouissance, with unlimited resources at its disposal.

As it pursues its desire.

He needs a double to represent him in public and the humble Latif tries to successfully yield to his will. The two form a tempestuous public/private yin and yang as they carve a place for themselves in their culture's destiny. Love interest Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) melodramatically complicates things as she craves them both. Munem (Raad Rawi) tries to maintain a hemorrhaged degree of order as his upright constitution continuously confronts Uday's.

Oddly, Saddam (Philip Quast) isn't presented as a monster and he occasionally attempts to keep Uday in check. Uday's brother is shown in a dimly flattering light as well as he responsibly handles his political affairs.

The film staggeringly balances the two sides of Uday's identity as it attempts to reasonably analyze a maniac while working within his irrational frame. According to Tamahori's portrait, there's little room for ambiguity in the construction of Uday's constitution.

Adolescence meets power and refuses to accept responsibility. Pleasure endures without consequence. A populace rages and weeps. Madness ruins a civilization.

The argument can be made that if reprobates like Uday were given free reign in Iraq to do as they pleased, their elimination represents a victory for liberty. But externally inflicting such liberation on an oppressed people robs them of the catharsis obtained from settling the matter for themselves. It also sets up a dangerous set of circumstances wherein the 'liberators' eventually become the 'oppressors' thereby opening up critical domains which attempt to justify the excesses of the usurped as their authoritarian rule becomes more appealing in the aftermath.

Helping the people's revolutionary goals after they've been set in motion and then departing after the misery has been removed is a different matter.