爱丽丝的失踪

The first and third features from English filmmaker J Blakeson, who most certainly has a partiality for dark and queer characters. TDoAC is a three-person hostage thriller shot on a shoestring, in the mode of William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR (1965), only more ascetic and messier.

The titular Alice Creed (Arterton) is a rich daddy’s girl, who is kidnapped by two ex-convicts Danny (Compston) and Vic (Marsan), things would go peachy for everyone had it not been the fact that Danny is Alice’s ex-boyfriend, and once this cardinal information is divulged, the whole shebang veers to murkier waters as viewers cannot ascertain who among the three would be the victor, each one seems to an unknown quantity.

The craft on show is adroit, the opening wordless sequences are neat and bracing shot and edited, they smooth the way for audience to gear up for what it is coming - a typical hostage situation set in a single, drab location, where a voluptuous Arterton has to undergo some roughhousing, being gagged, tied, undressed (the usual suspects of S&M fantasy), redressed, and later choked and slapped, but most humiliating of it all, urinating to a bedpan in front of two masked kidnappers.

Well, Blakeson does not actually go to extremes on the path to a torture porn, instead he manipulates various plot twists in a canny way that each time, when a character achieves some sort leverage, the table will be turned in a trice. Also, the fluidity of sexuality plays a major part in the double-cross/counter-double-cross gamesmanship, can sweet nothings soften the gun barrel pointing at your face? Twice out of three you might not luck out.

The long and short of it, TDoAC is an absorbing debut feature mines brilliantly into its meager resource and the outstanding performances from its three players. Can a cowing Eddie Marsan transform himself into a meek lover? You must see for yourself; whereas Martin Compston portrays Danny’s bisexual oscillation with adequacy and Arterton goes for broke in her birthday suit, when all is said and done, countering to what its title alludes to, “disappearance” could be a blessing in disguise.

However, in I CARE A LOT, a Rosamund Pike’s feminist vehicle, Blakeson’s irony and sarcasm goes pitch black. Pike plays a ruthless con woman Marla Grayson, who operates a company legally acquiring the guardianship of elderly people through a duplicitous scheme (often assisted by unscrupulous doctors and inane judges), so their assets are completely at her disposal (though on the face of it, the juridical procedures feel rather facile).

Her gravy train hits a snag when she milks a wrong cow, Jennifer Peterson (a nonplussed then fuming Wiest is always a corker), the apparently perfect candidate, affluent, childless, all alone in the world, actually has a formable friend at court, the Russian mafia boss Roman Lunyov (Dinklage). So when the gloves are off, it is Marla and her girlfriend Fran (González) versus the murderous gangsters, do they have a chance? Or, shall we care?

The answer is yes and no, the ineptitude of Roman’s riffraff is astonishingly shocking (what can you say? they botch not one but two cases of snuffing a defenseless, unconscious woman!), and Marla is depicted as an amoral overachiever, a stony-faced ballbuster, a totally unregenerate bitch (not a scintilla of remorse can be traced on her face), ergo, that really puts audience off from empathizing with her, save for the pungent disgust towards the American Dream she is spoiling for.

If its paint-by-number predator/prey dichotomy sounds trite, its David and Goliath tale seems incredulous and oversimplified, what saves I CARE A LOT from heading to the abyss is Pike. Tricked out in fetching attire and unflappable towards any threats shot at her from the other sex, her Marla is “Amazing Amy” with a vengeance and irrefragably batting for the other team (her affection for Fran is genuine, a viewer might second-guess Marla’s unspecified backstory, how her reprehensible carapace could be the outgrowth of the malefic influence inflicted by the world at large, and Fran’s female warmth becomes her only safe haven). Even in the absence of cordial redeeming feats, it is still riveting to watch Pike’s Marla in action, her fearlessness is both scary and inspiring, you hate her guts but also crave for her guts (or maybe just a part of) ambivalence is here to stay.

At last, Blakeson plumps for poetic justice to put paid to Marla’s unstoppable ascension (can it be construed as a veiled pro-gun testimony? In the United States, the only way for a poor, miserable guy to seek justice from a powerful woman is to use anti-personnel weaponry, how reassuring!), but it feels bathetic, unlike Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013), Blakeson doesn’t know how to dream up a proper coda for a repulsive character, he settles for the safest exit strategy, since everything in I CARE A LOT is Manichaean.

Elsewhere, a debonair Messina lights up the screen as an unethical, soigné lawyer who tries and fails to railroad Marla into dancing to his tunes; Dinklage is always an atypical screen magnet, here his surly temperament is a good match with Pike’s posh sharpness. From TDoAC to I CARE A LOT, the production design goes from drab to hip, Marc Canham’s hypnotic electronic buzz swells and intensifies, but Blakeson’s script and imagination seems to be impeded by a bigger scale and more handsome budget, is it the downside of the money monster?

referential entries: William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR (1965, 8.0/10); Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013, 8.0/10).

Title: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Year: 2009

Country: UK

Language: English

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Director/Screenwriter: J Blakeson

Music: Marc Canham

Cinematography: Philipp Blaubach

Editing: Mark Eckersley

Cast:

Gemma Arterton

Martin Compston

Eddie Marsan

Rating: 6.9/10

Title: I Care a Lot

Year: 2020

Country: USA, UK

Language: English

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller

Director/Screenwriter: J Blakeson

Music: Marc Canham

Cinematography: Doug Emmett

Editing: Mark Eckersley

Cast:

Rosamund Pike

Peter Dinklage

Eiza González

Dianne Wiest

Chris Messina

Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Damian Young

Nicholas Logan

Alicia Witt

Macon Blair

Celeste Oliva

Rating: 6.4/10

两男一女极简布景——《爱丽丝的失踪》

今天聊聊电影《爱丽丝的失踪》。

片名The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009)，别名爱丽丝蒸发奇案(港) / 爱丽丝失踪事件簿(台)。

本片是导演J·布莱克森自编自导的处女作长片，影片用极少的演员和极简的布景，完成了一个极为有趣反转颇多的惊悚小故事。

但凡能够闯出一番名号的处女作，作品都是带有鲜明的个人特点和为人称道的优点。本片最大的特点与昆塔《落水狗》类似，没有复杂的布景，仅依靠台词和表演推动剧情，最终呈现一个完成度极高的有趣故事。

就像演职员表所示，《爱丽丝的失踪》全部演员总共就三人。

两男一女共处一室，两名男人是绑匪，女人是被绑架的倒霉蛋。

绑匪里年纪大的叫维克特，面相凶恶，行事干练，一举一动透露出惯犯的自信和沉稳。年纪轻点的叫丹尼尔，看起来唯唯诺诺，唯维克特马首是瞻，复杂打下手，类似从犯角色。

剩下那位女性就是片名提到的爱丽丝。她是一名富家女，老爸很有钱，但她和老爸感情却不见得多好，显得很叛逆。

《爱丽丝的失踪》的主要场景也十分简单，就一座密不透风的房子，绝大部分时间两男一女都在这间房子里度过，顶多加上一辆汽车和废仓库。

简单布景同时，影片还照顾了重口味恶趣味。变装、囚禁、捆绑、受辱、野外……似乎这些极为吸睛的标签都可以用在这部影片上。而且观众们看完正片后也不会觉得有一丝一毫的标题党，这些元素都在影片中有详细表现。

最为亮眼的就是影片剧情。剧情也像布景一样，猛地一看十分简单。绑匪精心策划绑架了爱丽丝，向爱丽丝老爹索要两百万现金。

从影片第一秒开始，凌厉的剪辑就瞬间抓住观众，经验丰富行事干练的绑匪预示着他们将要做一起大案。于是从影片一开始，悬念就设立完成。

而紧随其后的剧情更是反转不断，每每以为事情可以一帆风顺地走下去时，就会来一点儿揪心的小状况。小悬念也没有停过，大到整个绑架案、小到一个弹壳，都能玩出新花样。

好的剧本是成功的一半。《爱丽丝的失踪》优秀的剧本是影片成功的基础，影片进行中持续不断地推出新悬念，慢慢积蓄观众情绪，直到最后高潮彻底宣泄，整体感受酣畅淋漓。

最后回到片名《爱丽丝的失踪》，三个人一顿充满悬念的操作后，最终，爱丽丝还是失踪了……

对于这种强调反转的电影，观众们只需要按照片名去找来看就行。千万不要看那些剧透式详解，所谓详解就是毫无营养地将整个故事复述一遍，观众将毫无观影乐趣可言。

所有的小悬念、小反转，观众一定要沉浸式体验电影时才能有所体会。

两男一女极简布景，

悬念不断反转不停。

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