Rating: 7.2
Premise: Hilary is a cinema manager struggling with her mental health, and Stephen is a new employee longing to escape the provincial town where he faces daily adversity. Together they find a sense of belonging and experience the healing power of music, cinema, and community.
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Searchlight Pictures
Written & Directed by Sam Mendes
Cast: Olivia Colman, Michael Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Monica Dolan
Runtime: 1hr 55min
Rating: 14A
Drama, Romance
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IMDb Rating: 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 44%
RT Audience Score: 78%
RT Critic Average: 5.9/10
RT Audience Average: 4.1/5
Metacritic Score: 55
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My Review:
I have loved much of Sam Mendes’ filmography! From the very interesting yet masterful “American Beauty”, to his excellent turn as Bond director for “Skyfall” and “Spectre”, to his incredible one-shot war film “1917”, he just hasn’t missed! Unfortunately, with “Empire of Light”, I think we may have just seen his first major misstep. It’s not a terrible film by any means, but surely one of Mendes’ weaker films. Perhaps this is because it’s his first time directing a screenplay he wrote on his own, perhaps it is something else. Regardless, it did not fully work for me like I had expected it to. Heck… this movie was nothing like I thought it was going to be… I felt like the trailer advertised a very different movie than what I actually saw.
The film is unfortunately a muddled mess, so much that I feel I could barely tell you what it was actually about. The overall message was way too broad, leaving not much to chew on as none of the themes could be explored in depth. It just felt like it kept jumping all over the place and never focused itself, and that made me roll my eyes at the movie at times. There were a few flashes of brilliance, most especially in showing how cinema can connect everyone no matter who they are, but again, it really never explored that in depth. It was like an idea Mendes had to explore, but only touched on it throughout the film, while also dealing with complex issues such as mental health and racism (which also do not get highlighted properly). The actual story of the movie also felt like it was really going nowhere, it tended to meander along and never fully piqued my interest. Even the characters weren’t compelling, I actually found most of them pretty unlikable. Overall I found the script was the biggest flaw of this film; Mendes clearly needs other screenwriters attached as I’ve never seen him have a film as messy as this. The problem is that he wrote the script, and then because he was also the director he had no one else to scrutinize the script, instead just directing what he had written on the page. His direction is strong, but when he is so reliant on his own lackluster script it comes off as weaker than it is. Frankly, Sam Mendes is way too good of a director to be directing scripts written by Sam Mendes.
Now, like I said there were some flashes of brilliance throughout the film. The things you would expect to be good were good! Roger Deakins cinematography, like always, is visually excellent. The lighting, framing, and overall crisp digital image looked quite nice, it just felt like there was no substance below that. As well, Olivia Colman of course delivers a stunning performance! It seems that is the only thing she knows how to do, she just can’t seem to ever miss! She kills it with her monologues, I just there was a better script to back her up! Reznor and Ross also cooked up a great score, proving they are just unstoppable even without a great film to inspire them!
I don’t think it is a stretch to say that I didn’t like this movie. I really wanted to, and am disappointed that it ended up like this. It is frustratingly mundane from such a renowned director. Could’ve had awards chances, but I am doubtful of it… there’s just much better films out there this year! Sam Mendes just tried to do too much with the script, which unfortunately weighed the film down. It just did not work for me. Maybe it will for you, I truly hope it does!
Fun Fact: Although this is Sam Mendes' ninth film as a director, "Empire of Light" marks the first time he directed from a screenplay he had written by himself. All of his other films, including his first writing credit, 1917 (2019), were directed from scripts by other screenwriters.
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