Film REVIEW: The Children Act, BlacKkKlansman and The Spy Who Dumped Me

This is when film distributors usually put their riskiest products in the shop window – mid-budget dramas with no concessions to teenage fads or award panel worthiness.

We’re not quite there yet, but you can feel a change is in the air with The Children Act.

Adapted by Ian McEwan from his 2014 novel of the same name, this is a very grown-up British film that deals with weighty issues like moral responsibility, love, death and the limits of religious freedom.

As a high court judge, Emma Thompson’s family court judge Fiona Maye has to deal with these matters on a daily basis. We meet her during a very tricky case involving a pair of conjoined twins.

Fiona must decide whether to order a surgeon to separate them, saving one child’s life but effectively condemning the other to death.

Shortly after delivering her verdict, her fussy clerk (Jason Watkins) hands her another file.

This the case of Adam Henry (Dunkirk star Fionn Whitehead), a 17-yearold Jehovah’s Witness who is refusing a life-saving blood transfusion in accordance with the rulings of his religion.

As, legally, Adam is still a minor Fiona has the power to enforce the treatment against his will, according to the Act of Parliament referenced in the title. But as he is almost 18, she decides on the very unconventional step of visiting him in hospital to determine if he is acting out the wishes of his devout parents (Ben Chaplin and Eileen Walsh).

Meanwhile, another thorny dilemma is waiting for her at home. Fiona has been so consumed with her work that her relationship with her lecturer husband Jack (Stanley Tucci) has suffered.

The childless couple haven’t had sex in 11 months (he has a diary entrance to prove it) and one day he brazenly informs her he is planning to have an affair with one of his students. Unsurprisingly, Fiona doesn’t take this announcement well. She’s imperious in court but after Jack’s announcement we see her crumble.

This won’t be everyone’s idea of a fun night out at the cinema. It’s a bit stagey, very wordy and it takes a slightly melodramatic turn in the final act But I suspect that nobody will disagree about Emma Thompson’s beautifully judged portrayal of a complicated woman trying to navigate her way through some very thorny dilemmas.

Thompson lets us see her determination and vulnerability but, above all, her humanity.

BlacKkKlansman **(15, 135 mins)

Ron Stallworth’s 2014 memoir is another book crying out for a sensitive adaptation. As an African American undercover detective infiltrating civil rights groups, Ron must have faced a moral dilemma every day and the film BlacKkKlansman focuses on his most unusual case.

In 1978 Ron noticed that the Ku Klux Klan had launched a recruitment drive in the personal section of his local newspaper.

Intrigued, he wrote them a letter spouting racist drivel and before long he was in telephone contact with the leader of his local chapter. Ron asked if he could join and they said yes. So began one the most unlikely police stings in history.

It sounds easy but it wasn’t exactly straightforward. Clearly, a black face would raise eyebrows at a cross burning. So he teams up with a white detective who plays him at any face-to-face meeting.

Two obvious models for a movie adaptation spring to mind – the gritty police procedural or a true-life farce along the lines of ice skating drama I, Tonya. It is doesn’t take long to work out how Spike Lee is going to attack the story – with a sledgehammer.

The movie kicks off with a comedy sketch from actor and Saturday Night Live’s Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin, who plays a hapless white power extremist who keeps fluffing his lines while shooting a recruitment film.

His racist language is shocking but it’s not especially funny and it has no connection with the story. It does, however, set the tone for Lee’s film perfectly.

For the next two hours or so Ron’s story will be swamped in broad satire, boundarypushing racist language and on-the-nose Trump bashing. After Baldwin’s sketch and a baffling clip from Gone With The Wind, Lee gets to the story.

We begin with Ron (played by John David Washington, Denzel’s son) spotting a recruitment poster and immediately signing up for the force. After short scenes of him suffering racist abuse from a bad cop, he falls in with good cops Jimmy (Michael Buscemi) and Flip (Adam Driver).

Ron’s first undercover assignment is to infiltrate a rally held for Black Power activist Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), where he starts an unconvincing romance with activist Patrice (Laura Harrier). Lee lets us savour the rhetoric of Ture’s speech but he doesn’t seem interested in Ron’s inner conflict.

Still, it doesn’t take him long to find a cause he can buy into. A quick succession of scenes see him find the newspaper ad and persuade Flip to meet the Klan.

Lee paints the racists with the broadest of strokes. They are paranoid, pottymouthed, frequently drunk and almost certifiably stupid. In case we miss the point, they also frequently talk about “making America great again”.

Alongside this clunky grandstanding, Lee seems to have lost his sense of style. The flat lighting, half empty police station and one-note characters give the film a pre-Hill Street Blues cop series feel. There are some moments of suspense but the overall effect is Kojak with Tourette’s.

After a very messy finale, Lee switches to news footage of the recent racist attack in Charlottesville and Trump’s refusal to condemn the “alt-right”.

So who is this blunt agitprop aimed at? Is it for racist Trump fans who admire the Klan and pay to see Spike Lee movies? I’d admire Lee’s passion but I suspect his film may have had a wider impact if Stallworth’s story had been allowed to speak for itself.

The Spy Who Dumped Me *** (15, 117 mins)

If you’re after a light-hearted comedy this weekend, you’re stuck with The Spy Who Dumped Me. Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon play Audrey and Morgan – two rudderless 30-somethings who are plunged into an espionage caper after it turns out Audrey’s ex-boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) is a super-tough CIA operative.

When Drew is gunned down in Audrey’s flat he tasks her with delivering a mystery package to Vienna. Loud-mouth Morgan jumps at the chance to help her uptight best friend and soon they are being chased across Europe by gun-wielding goons.

The action-scenes are well-staged and McKinnon delivers some very funny lines but the two elements don’t quite mesh.

Instead of a full-blown spy spoof it feels like director Susanna Fogel has settled for a straight espionage thriller with comic interludes.