The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, September 11, 2018 — 5
Riddled with issues, ‘The
Nun’ proves enjoyable
FILM REVIEW
By just about any measure, “The
Nun” is a subpar movie, at best.
What plot it has is inconsistent,
and its characters are little more
than a name, a face and a generic
backstory, yet after a summer that
began with “Blumhouse’s Truth
or Dare” and ended with “Slender
Man,” there’s a playfulness to the
horror that’s easy to appreciate.
Towards the end of the first
act, during a lengthy sequence
revolving around a Black Plague-
era cemetery, I wrote in my
notebook, “I don’t know who any
of these people are, what they’re
doing or why I’m supposed to
care.” At the end of that same
sequence, I wrote simply, “Well,
that was fun.”
That’s the duality of “The Nun”
in a snapshot. It has undeniable
problems — more on that in a
moment — but it’s fun in a way
those aforementioned movies nix
for po-faced tedium. If nothing
else, it proves that a little bit of
personality goes a long way —
though I’ll add that this is the
second release of the year, after
“Winchester,” in which a character
shoots a ghost. I didn’t care for it
then, and I don’t care for it now.
In another welcome change
from the norm, director Corin
Hardy (“The Hallow”) makes an
admirable attempt in the first half
to focus more on building tension
and dread than on assaulting
his viewers with sudden blasts
of sound. It isn’t devoid of jump
scares, but in what may be the
greatest twist of 2018, they’re
occasionally sacrificed in favor of
dramatic irony — we see the Nun
looming in the background, but
the characters remain blissfully
unaware, resulting in a much
scarier scene. Of course, I may be
biased; after I saw “The Conjuring
2,” the Nun stuck with me, and I
lost a good deal of sleep.
However, it doesn’t take long
to notice that despite Hardy’s
competent
direction
and
despite those fun touches, Gary
Dauberman’s (“It”) script doesn’t
do much else than ferry us from
one scare to another. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in the
final act, which succumbs to its
lack of strong foundation and
becomes an out-of-nowhere “Da
Vinci Code”-style treasure hunt
that’s completely at odds with the
haunted castle horror flick that led
up to it.
The movie’s greatest weakness
is its writing — beyond just the
general feeling of plotlessness.
Several characters are laden with
exposition-filled
monologues
that aren’t unfamiliar ground
for this series but are more
perfunctory here than they have
been elsewhere. Unlike similar
scenes in “The Conjuring,” it’s
simple information vomit instead
of answers to questions. There’s
no catharsis to gaining this
knowledge because the story is
so muddled that we’re not sure
what questions we’re supposed
to ask. It’s like the endless march
of “Lost” rip-offs from the late
2000s and early 2010s; the premise
is
hypothetically
interesting,
but it’s playing its cards so close
to the chest in service of some
Big Mystery that it’s hard to get
invested.
More importantly, for all the
fun it is in the moment, the movie
misses out on what attracted
people to the Nun and the
“Conjuring” universe as a whole in
the first place. In “The Conjuring
2,” the Nun was a surprisingly
character-based scare, a profaned
image of what should have been a
holy figure that was meant as an
attack on Lorraine Warren’s faith.
It’s a simple idea — a villain tries to
turn a hero’s strengths against her
— but it’s that sort of good-versus-
evil simplicity that’s central to the
series’ appeal. “The Nun” follows
in the footsteps of “Annabelle”
and even the otherwise engaging
“Annabelle: Creation” and forsakes
that accessibility in favor of lore
dumps and horror tropes that
never work as well.
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
The movie’s
greatest
weakness is
its writing —
beyond just the
general feeling
of plotlessness
“The Nun”
Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX,
Goodrich Quality 16
Warner Bros.
JOEY SCHUMAN
Daily Health and Wellness Columnist
Warner Bros.
‘Save Me’ is a masterclass
in subtle understatement
TV REVIEW
“Save Me,” a six-episode
series making its U.S. debut
on Starz this fall, is a British
crime drama only in the
sense that it’s both British
and a crime drama. Anything
else that phrase might evoke
isn’t found here. There are
no
sleepy
towns
rocked
by
scandal
or
collectively
grieving;
In
“Save
Me,”
South London hums along
unperturbed by the horrible
crime. There are no rough-
hewn, mismatched detectives
deconstructing
leads
in
dimly-lit rooms, with one
exception: when the motion-
sensing lights at the police
station turn themselves off.
And the story isn’t a languid
slow-burn that unfolds drop
by drop, but one that moves at
an absorbing, steady clip. In
short, it’s the rare show that’s
dark, but doesn’t feel the need
to constantly remind you of it.
Like
many
of
those
atmospheric British dramas
(think
“Broadchurch”
or
“Doctor Foster”), the mystery
of “Save Me” surrounds a
missing
child.
Thirteen-
year-old
Jody
(Indeyarna
Donaldson-Holness,
“Absolutely
Fabulous:
The
Movie”), has left her pristine
suburban home in Surbiton to
visit her estranged biological
father Nelly (Lennie James,
“The Walking Dead”) for a
week. In a video message
Jody leaves for her mother
(Suranne
Jones,
“Doctor
Foster”), she explains that she
and her father have been in
correspondence for a while,
and that he has expressed
interest in seeing her. The
problem? Nelly hasn’t seen,
spoken with or thought about
Jody in 10 years.
So when Nelly is arrested on
suspicion of Jody’s abduction,
he’s initially confused, and
then horrified. Someone has
been chatting online with
Jody, pretending to be Nelly.
And as he reviews the chat
logs, which are peppered with
accurate details about his life
and family, it dawns on him
that the kidnapper must be
someone he knows. To clear
MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
“Save Me”
Starz
Season 1 Premiere
his name, Nelly sets out to
track down Jody himself.
Nelly,
unlike
a
certain
famous onscreen father, has
no very particular set of
skills with which to rescue
his daughter. He’s a down-
on-his-luck womanizer with
little going for him besides
his sheer charm, spending
his days at a local pub and
his
nights
on
whichever
girlfriend’s couch is available.
Lennie James is a treat to
watch in the role, equal parts
swagger and desperation. He
is matched by the brilliant
Suranne
Jones,
whose
performance as Jody’s mother
Claire is muted but rich and
stirring. In one especially
wrenching scene, a choked-
up Claire watches the police
film a Jody lookalike walking
through London, re-enacting
the CCTV footage of the
hours before the abduction
in the hopes it will trigger a
witness’s memory.
Along the way, as it begins
to feel more and more grim,
the show is granted some
levity through small, lovely
moments of London color. A
woman in a burqa walks down
the street carrying a flame-
painted skateboard. A man in
Nelly’s neighborhood doesn’t
let the deafening sound of
police sirens interrupt his
morning tai chi. “Save Me”
is also brightened by Dustin
O’Halloran’s (“Transparent”)
gorgeous score, which opts
for delicate strings in favor
of anything too bombastic
or obvious. And that’s the
real beauty of this show — its
ability to steer itself clear of
sensationalism
and
horror,
and instead tell a story so
quietly devastating.
The story
isn’t a languid
slow-burn that
unfolds drop by
drop, but one
that moves at
an absorbing,
steady clip
Starz
The unexpected key to
health and wellness is
in Judge Judy’s hands
HEALTH AND WELLNESS COLUMN
I think I was in eighth grade
when I made perhaps my
greatest clothing acquisition:
an NPR “Get Smarter” t-shirt.
Never mind that, at that time
of my life, “Morning Edition”
meant a big bowl of Reese’s
Puffs, and the word “podcast”
connoted some form of nap. It
would be years before I was
blessed with my first Terry
Gross interview. But I looked
past the qualifications. I liked
the implication behind the
shirt; it was a statement. It
suggested that maybe, just
maybe, my cool, progressive
parents
had
surrounded
me with formative cultural
intellectualism, an exposure
to a level of enlightenment
my peers wouldn’t begin to
sniff until at least 2014. It was
conceit in its purest form. Be
still, my subservient plebeian
fourth
period
lunch
table-
sharers. I did it all in the name
of the smarts, existent or not.
Those brain cells? The key
to feeling good. And that’s the
point of this column. They’ll
feel replenished, rejuvenated
even, by someone transcendent.
Bold. Fair. If you haven’t
guessed by now, I’m talking
about judicial royalty. The
original enforcer. When we
look for fairness, we find that
it lies in due process. In due
process lies life improvement.
And here, we arrive at Judge
Judy.
You might be wondering
what separates the judge from
the rest of daytime television.
Well, Maury is exploitative
and tasteless. Jerry is not nice.
They’re unkosher entertainers
who live to stir the pot each
Tuesday afternoon. On the
other end of things, Oprah
is sanctified, and Ellen is an
angel. In my mind none of
these icons (good or bad) can
challenge Judy’s unique place
in TV.
Judy,
in
fact,
shouldn’t
need
her
credibility
vindicated by anyone, but for
those
skeptical,
here’s
one
endorsement: Jim Harbaugh.
In March 2016, Michigan’s
head football coach tweeted,
“I urge President Obama to
nominate
to
the
Supreme
Court the wise and competent,
Judge Extraordinaire Judith
Sheindlin.”
Harbaugh is an Xs and Os
mastermind.
A
quarterback
guru. Even after disappointing
finishes in his past two years
in Ann Arbor, he remains one
of the most well-respected
coaches in the sport. It says
a lot then, that for a break
— a meditative pause — this
jackhammer of a human turns
to Judge Judy. Why shouldn’t
you do the same?
There’s
something
about
her fiery mix of authority and
subtle warmth that adds up to
an intangible sort of feng shui
for viewers. For 22 minutes
each day, you know what you’re
getting, and there’s legitimate
therapeutic
value
in
that.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the
show, because it might be the
only semblance of normalcy in
your life. I know that has been
the case for me. At the very
least, you get a meme. A not-
good meme. 2012-core. But a
chuckle.
What exactly about Judge
Judy makes us feel better?
Consider how she handled
this dog’s reunion with its
owner. The judge is hands-off
yet observant. Calculated and
articulate. When she realizes
the authenticity of the moment,
she allows it to resonate in
the room. As she orchestrates
the scene, we, the (hooked)
audience, better understand the
bond between owner and dog.
There’s nothing cheap about
it. So maybe it’s her feel for
things, her procedural digging
into
visceral
emotion.
She
uncovers the truth, of course.
It’s resettling, internally.
And it’s no bit. Not really, at
least. I don’t quite know what
self-care means and I can’t
pretend to know how to nurture
myself or, more importantly,
improve
the
well-being
of
others. I do know, however,
when I need to slow things
down while everything else
goes blurring by. Some of my
most vulnerable moments have
come in that overwhelming
blur of everythingness, but
all of my most triumphant
resurgences have occurred at a
point of extreme nothingness.
For me, that point is often on a
grandparent’s couch in a part of
the universe far, far away from
real shit. The change of scenery
is the machine, but Judy is the
mindlessly wholesome engine
that keeps the mental regroup
going. It’s my cliché “stop,
take a breath and reassess,”
and it’s of an un-underminable
importance.
Sometimes
you
need background noise. Other
times you need mind-bendingly
cathartic
entertainment
to
distract. Luckily, Judge Judy’s
show can do both. Besides: If
you’ve made it this far in this
piece, you’re either my mom
or someone undergoing a last-
ditch effort to improve your
wellness. Why not give Judy a
shot?
Some of my
most vulnerable
moments have
come in that
overwhelming
blur of
everythingness,
but all of
my most
triumphant
resurgences
have occurred
at a point
of extreme
nothingness
The show is
granted some
levity through
small, lovely
moments of
London color