Empire of Light

As a huge fan of both Sam Mendes and Olivia Colman I figured that a collaboration between the two of them would be amazing so I went to see Empire of Light at the Broadway last night.  Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.  Hilary Small (Colman) is a sad and lonely middle-aged manager of a beautiful Art Deco cinema in the seaside town of Margate in the early 1980s.  Stephen (Micheal Ward) is a young Black man with aspirations of attending university to study architecture who is hired at the cinema as a ticket taker.  They eventually begin a secret relationship but it is threatened by the racial tensions in Thatcher's Britain and by Hilary's worsening depression.  The one thing that helps them both heal is the community they find at the Empire Cinema.  Colman gives an incredibly subtle but powerful performance and the most compelling moments occur whenever the camera is focused on her face, especially in a scene where she is overcome by emotion while watching a film by herself.  Ward is also very affecting and his scenes with Colman are so tender.  The images on the screen are absolutely gorgeous (Roger Deakins just does not miss) and I loved the use of the piano in the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross because it is so haunting and plaintive.  My biggest problem with this movie is that it lacks focus because there are some extraneous sub-plots, such as Hilary's degrading sexual relationship with her boss (Colin Firth), and a few elements that I wish were explored more, such as Hilary's previous experiences with mental illness and Stephen's experiences with racism.  Also, the message about the power of film is not developed beyond a great monologue from the cinema's projectionist (Toby Jones) and the aforementioned scene where Hilary watches a film.  There are so many ideas and none of them are tied together in a cohesive manner so this movie is more like a series of beautiful vignettes.  I wanted to like it more than I did.