Film picks: Superman, Special Cantonese screenings of The Way We Talk
129 minutes, now showing
★★★★☆
Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet) struggles to reconcile his dual identity as both human and Kryptonian alien. After Superman involves himself in a conflict between two warring nations, tech billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) seizes the chance to discredit and defeat him. Along the way, Superman meets other heroes, including Mister Terrific, Metamorpho, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl.
This is a story of a hero who feels uncomfortable in his own skin. Some think he is a force for good, but many see him as a menace.
He falls in with a group of snarky but gifted people; they become frenemies. The allies, made up of comically loud blowhards and timid followers, fight in battles choreographed to the beat of rock hits from years past. The freaks are on the side of good, while handsome villains murder civilians for corporate and national interests. It all ends in a heist on which everything rides.
This could describe any James Gunn film, and Superman is packed with his signature style.
His version is billed as a return to the Superman of old, which is true – this is the hero from the 1970s to recent times, before Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2005 to 2012) caused a reset that made Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel (2013) and his Superman films that followed to grim explorations into the nature of gods and humanity.
Writer-director Gunn, who is also DC Studios' chairman-CEO, brings back John Williams' iconic score, which made its debut in the 1978 Superman with Christopher Reeve in the title, and mostly omitted in the Snyder films.
Its lump-in-the-throat emotional pull cannot be overstated. Gunn employs it as an undercurrent, making its force even more potent and, more importantly, avoiding nostalgia overload.
Corenswet dons the costume – the old one with the red underwear on the outside – as if it were made for him. His physique is not as chiselled as that of Henry Cavill when he played the Man of Steel, but it makes sense. Corenswet's character is a regular man with an extraordinary job, while Cavill played a god-given human form.
Gunn opens the movie with the hero as an adult holding down a job at the Daily Planet newspaper. As Lois Lane, Rachel Brosnahan's role is meaty and the actress is superb as the woman who provokes Clark into questioning his identity as an alien.
Clark's alienness is a driving theme, with Gunn seeing parallels between the native-versus-foreigner dilemma and current news headlines. The message that humanness is determined by choice, not by genetics, has rarely felt so sincere, or presented with such style.
The Way We Talk (PG13)
(From left) Neo Yau, Marco Ng and Chung Suet Ying in The Way We Talk.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE FILM SOCIETY
Presented by the Singapore Film Society (SFS), this 2024 coming-of-age drama from acclaimed Hong Kong film-maker Adam Wong (She Remembers, He Forgets, 2015; The Way We Dance, 2013) will have four screenings presented in the original Cantonese and Hong Kong Sign Language.
Three deaf people grapple with questions of identity and belonging. Sophie (Chung Suet Ying) uses a cochlear implant (CI) and has been taught by her mother to hide her disability, such as by learning vocal speech instead of sign language.
She meets Alan (deaf actor Marco Ng), a proponent of CIs who is happy and well-adjusted. His childhood friend Wolf (Neo Yau) is opposed to CIs – he thinks deafness is not a flaw that needs fixing. His advocacy for sign language intrigues Sophie, who discovers that passing as able-bodied is not as fulfilling as she was taught to believe.
At the 2024 Golden Horse Film Festival, Chung won Best Leading Actress while Neo Yau earned a nomination in the Best Leading Actor category.
The Way We Talk's screening on July 26 is held in collaboration with the Singapore Association for the Deaf, with a portion of the proceeds going to the organisation. There will be a post-screening panel discussion aimed at raising awareness of Singapore's deaf community and its diverse identities.
A review in the Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post gives the film 4.5 stars out of 5, saying that 'this deeply humane drama is Wong's best film – it simulates the experience of hearing loss, incorporating meticulous sound design and wordless sequences that transcend the formula of mainstream film-making'.
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