On the Basis of Sex (12A.)
Directed by Mimi Leder
Starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Kathy Bates, Sam Waterston, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen Root and Jack Reynor. 120 mins.
The title says sex but it's not sex sex, it's sex as a synonym of gender, either of which is to be collocated with discrimination. This is the year's second whirl around the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Jones), the supreme court judge who was one of the first women to study law at Harvard and went on to prosecute landmark gender equality cases in the 70s. January's RBG was a documentary that covered her whole life. This dramatisation starts at such a pace it looks like it is going to try and cover the lot too: husband Martin's (Hamer) testicular cancer is contracted, diagnosed and cured in five minutes. The pace eventually eases up when we reach the early 70s and she takes on her first groundbreaking cases.
The film is a perfect Oscar Pleading nightmare, being a mix of biopic and courtroom drama, the two genres that are apt to show Hollywood at its most ridiculous and phoney. As a piece of moviemaking, it is as outdated and outmoded as the sexist attitudes Ginsburg confronted. It includes all the howlers that audiences have been ridiculing for decades. There's the You Know Gloria Steinem speech where the daughter (Spaeny), while saying that she bunked off school to attend a Steinem rally, ironically explains who she is to the mother who knows damn well who she is in order to inform the audience members who don't. And there's the Epiphany In Rainfall moment where she stands getting drenched in the rain after her daughter's actions have just inspired a breakthrough moment of inspiration. Really, there should be a law against it.
Behind every great woman there is a strong man, and in RBG it was made clear that the union between Ruth and Martin had been rare and wonderful thing, unusually strong and supporting. Putting that across on screen is tricky though because they just end up like every other idealised screen relationship. The stars always looks so damn perfect and neither convince; Jones is too English while Hamer looks like an Aryan Clark Kent, never putting a foot wrong and seeming like an invincible statue of gleaming perfection.
At one point all the evil white men are in a room, discussing what is at stake in this case and Waterston says that if they lose it will mean children coming home to empty homes, wages being driven down, divorce rates rising and “the end of the American family.” Which is an odd moment because the baddies actually have a pretty coherent case. The American family is still chunking along, but all the other things came to pass just as they warned. That this crusader for freedom and equality also unwittingly handled a precious tool to the forces of free market capitalism and globalisation isn't considered. So this is the basically the story of how half the population was liberated from the shackles of domesticity, to join the 99% in the drudgery of wage slavery.
Directed by Mimi Leder
Starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Kathy Bates, Sam Waterston, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen Root and Jack Reynor. 120 mins.
The title says sex but it's not sex sex, it's sex as a synonym of gender, either of which is to be collocated with discrimination. This is the year's second whirl around the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Jones), the supreme court judge who was one of the first women to study law at Harvard and went on to prosecute landmark gender equality cases in the 70s. January's RBG was a documentary that covered her whole life. This dramatisation starts at such a pace it looks like it is going to try and cover the lot too: husband Martin's (Hamer) testicular cancer is contracted, diagnosed and cured in five minutes. The pace eventually eases up when we reach the early 70s and she takes on her first groundbreaking cases.
The film is a perfect Oscar Pleading nightmare, being a mix of biopic and courtroom drama, the two genres that are apt to show Hollywood at its most ridiculous and phoney. As a piece of moviemaking, it is as outdated and outmoded as the sexist attitudes Ginsburg confronted. It includes all the howlers that audiences have been ridiculing for decades. There's the You Know Gloria Steinem speech where the daughter (Spaeny), while saying that she bunked off school to attend a Steinem rally, ironically explains who she is to the mother who knows damn well who she is in order to inform the audience members who don't. And there's the Epiphany In Rainfall moment where she stands getting drenched in the rain after her daughter's actions have just inspired a breakthrough moment of inspiration. Really, there should be a law against it.
Behind every great woman there is a strong man, and in RBG it was made clear that the union between Ruth and Martin had been rare and wonderful thing, unusually strong and supporting. Putting that across on screen is tricky though because they just end up like every other idealised screen relationship. The stars always looks so damn perfect and neither convince; Jones is too English while Hamer looks like an Aryan Clark Kent, never putting a foot wrong and seeming like an invincible statue of gleaming perfection.
At one point all the evil white men are in a room, discussing what is at stake in this case and Waterston says that if they lose it will mean children coming home to empty homes, wages being driven down, divorce rates rising and “the end of the American family.” Which is an odd moment because the baddies actually have a pretty coherent case. The American family is still chunking along, but all the other things came to pass just as they warned. That this crusader for freedom and equality also unwittingly handled a precious tool to the forces of free market capitalism and globalisation isn't considered. So this is the basically the story of how half the population was liberated from the shackles of domesticity, to join the 99% in the drudgery of wage slavery.
