Rooney Mara Archives - Greg King's Film Reviews

DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Gus Van Sant Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Jack Black, Udo Kier, Kim Gordon, Beth Ditto, Mark Webber, Tony Greenhand, Carrie Brownstone. The late US cartoonist John Callahan is not a household name, and is largely unheard of outside of the United States, which makes this quirky and unconventional biopic a bit of a hard sell. Callahan died in 2010. Set in Portland Oregon during the late 70s and early 80s this biopic looks at the life of Callahan (played here in a career best performance by Joaquin Phoenix), an …

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MARY MAGDALENE

Australian, Drama, Film Review, Foreign Language, M

Reviewed by Greg King Director: Garth Davis Stars: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tahar Rahin, Denis Menochet, Tcheky Karyo, Ryan Corr. In the 50s, Biblical films were extremely popular, with sweeping epics like the Oscar winning Ben Hur and the spectacular The Ten Commandments scoring at the box office. These stories drawn from the Bible featured timeless themes of good versus evil and epic battles. But in the 60s their popularity seemed to wane. More modern takes on Bible stories have tended to be revisionist in nature – Martin Scorsese’s …

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SONG TO SONG

Drama, Film Review, S

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Terrence Malick Stars: Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Iggy Pop, Val Kilmer, Patti Smith, Flea. I loathed the past couple of films from revered auteur Terrence Malick, particularly his To The Wonder and Knight Of Cups, with their frustratingly obtuse, indulgent and abstract experimental nature, existential meditations, impressionistic and unconventional approach to narrative, the mumbled and at times inaudible dialogue often delivered as internal monologues, the …

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A GHOST STORY

A, Drama, Film Review

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: David Lowery Stars: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Will Oldham. Despite its title, this is not a horror story, nor is it a conventional haunted house story. Nor is it a remake of the 1981 John Irvin film Ghost Story, that was based on a novel written by Peter Straub. Rather this oblique and glacially paced art house drama is a film about a ghost suffering an existential crisis. The film offers a melancholy and haunting meditation on love, loss, death, the legacy we leave behind, and existence itself. The film follows C (played by …

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UNA

Drama, Film Review, U

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Benedict Andrews Stars: Ben Mendelsohn, Rooney Mara, Riz Ahmed, Ruby Stokes, Tara Fitzgerald. Based upon the controversial Olivier-award winning play Blackbird written by Scottish playwright David Harrower, Una is a confronting film that deals with some difficult and troubling and taboo material. Fifteen years ago, a 13-year-old Una (played by newcomer Ruby Stokes) had a crush on her next-door neighbour Ray (played by Ben Mendelsohn, from Animal Kingdom, etc), a much older man. She ran away with him, and he was eventually …

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LION

Australian, biopic, Drama, Film Review, Foreign Language, L

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Garth Davis Stars: Dev Patel, Sunny Pawal, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Rooney Mara, Divian Ladwa. The moving Australian-produced drama Lion is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley, a young Indian boy from a poor rural family who, the age of five, became separated from his older brother Guddu in his native village and who eventually found his way home a quarter of a century later. Saroo (played by newcomer Sunny Pawal) became lost on a train that carried him 1500 miles away from home to the alien environment and the …

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KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

Animation, Action, Family, Film Review, K

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Travis Knight Stars: voices of Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, Brenda Vaccaro, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. This stop motion animated action adventure comes from Laika Studios, and maintains the high standards established by their previous works like Coraline and Paranorman. Set in a mythical Japan during the era of the Samurai, the film draws upon the traditions and culture of ancient Japan, including the Kabuki theatre, origami, samurai legends and anime comics. Written by …

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CAROL

C, Drama, Film Review

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Todd Haynes Stars: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy, Sarah Paulson, John Magaro, Kevin Crowley, Sadie Heim. Director Todd Haynes returns to the morally conservative America of the 1950s for this nicely observed, sensitive, insightful and introspective coming of age story and intimate exploration of a female relationship, gender, loneliness, and queer sexuality in conservative America. But this moody story of forbidden love is largely a character driven piece, and has a different texture and feel than Haynes' earlier …

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