Writers Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare created the character of Colonel Hamilton, Emily’s father, to represent the burgeoning wealth of a still young country in the new movie ‘The raven’. “Hamilton is emblematic of America at that time,” says Livingston. “It was a pretty rough and tumble place.

The U.S. was at war on several fronts throughout the first half of the 19th century and men like Hamilton had fought in those wars and gone on to become wealthy industrialists. They thought that through sheer will they could make the world they wanted. But no matter how much power Hamilton wields, he can’t stop what is happening to his daughter.”

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson brings his tough patriarchal gravitas to the role. “He had a great sense of humor about Hamilton, which was important because Hamilton doesn’t really have much of a sense of humor about himself,” says director James McTeigue. “It would have been very easy to play him simply as an overbearing father figure. Brendan saw more. He brought the bluster, but there is also the softer side of the father who brought up his daughter without a mother. Brendan understood the depth that was hinted at in the script and brought it to life.”

“Hamilton is a moneyed elite,” says Gleeson, “But he is a self-made man accustomed to being in control. He had a naval career at one point and built himself him up through industry, so he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty when necessary. His daughter is his only heir and obviously the apple of his eye. He’s not used to being powerless in any situation, so Emily’s disappearance is very difficult for him.”

Hamilton sees Poe as a corrupting influence on his extraordinary only child. “In Hamilton’s opinion, Poe is feckless and essentially worthless,” says Gleeson. “It is not that he is simply an autocratic parent getting in the way of young love. He truly cares about his daughter. Hamilton isn’t in need of social approval, so he’s not looking for a ‘good’ match for her, but this man is, in his eyes, malign. The idea that his beautiful, mischievous daughter is going to be brought into dark and evil places is appalling for him. I think it would be for any parent.”

When Emily disappears, so does everything Hamilton values and he lashes out wherever he can. “It all turns to dust for him,” the actor says. “His initial response is to blame everyone else. He throws the anger and the guilt and the frustration on the police and particularly on Poe, whom he feels has visited this upon her. Everything he feared about Poe has come to pass in a way.”

The film’s deft combination of psychological thriller, romance and action helped bring the acclaimed actor to the role. “It has unexpected depth,” says Gleeson. “When I initially read it, I thought it could become essentially about the action, and the other issues might not get an airing. And so it has been fantastic to come and see James McTeigue take it to a more profound place.”

Screenwriter Ben Livingston says he couldn’t be happier with the casting of the ‘The Raven’. “When I write a script, I have a certain image in in my head that I try to put on the page when I’m describing the character for the first time. But this was the first time I’ve come on the set and thought, that’s exactly what I had in my head.”

Image Courtesy of   The Raven

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‘Safe House’, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds and directed by Daniel Espinosa, is a 2012 action thriller about a CIA agent charged with keeping track of a dangerous rogue agent with a specialty in psychological manipulation. As exciting as it may sound, the film reflects its title more than its promise of fantastic chase sequences and is too “safe.”

The plot is predictable down to the letter, and the characters are thin, formulaic caricatures of the typical spy thriller genre. This is not to say that the movie is bad, but it does follow an exact pattern laid out by a lackluster script, despite the acting chops of its main cast.

The film opens following Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) in Cape Town, South Africa as he meets with a shady ex-CIA operative to receive an encrypted file. Frost makes the drop, injects the file capsule into his skin for safekeeping, but immediately notices he is being tailed by shadowy figures. He quickly dispatches the first handful of agents and makes a run for it, but he is outnumbered, so he walks into an American consulate.

Since he is a wanted criminal, the CIA is immediately notified that he has been sighted, and they instruct the consulate to escort him to the nearest safe house, which is a facility designed to keep wanted criminals and important informants secure before they are moved to more permanent residences.

Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is in charge of the designated safe house and has been for a year. He is introduced in a parallel shot during the beginning sequence as anxious to leave the safe house because of the boring nature of his job and his impatience to be with his girlfriend, Ana (Nora Arnezeder). Frost is taken in by a team assigned by Matt’s bosses, Catherine Linklater (Vera Farmiga) and David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson).

The commander of the extraction team begins brutally waterboarding Frost to find out why he willingly surrendered himself to the authorities. Matt watches in horror until the men who had been chasing Frost at the beginning of the film kick in the front door. The entire CIA extraction team is killed, and Matt is forced to take Frost out of the safe house and to another location, as the CIA scrambles to get another team to Cape Town to help.

In the meantime, Matt deals with Frost’s methods of manipulation as he tries to make Matt doubt the loyalty of his superiors. The cinematography of the film is divided between intense close-ups that drive home the pain and intensity of the interactions between Matt and Frost and shaky camera shots of the car chases and fight scenes.

While this does work to create an air of danger, it does detract from the enjoyment of the fight choreography because it is difficult to keep track of who is hitting whom with the camera’s jittery movements. Establishing shots of the city are well done and keep the audience current with their surroundings, but there is nothing special about it.

Reynolds and Washington both turn in rather average performances, which could be due to a plain script with no surprises. Washington’s portrayal of Frost weaves between a cold-blooded killer manipulating a young man and a regretful former agent who wants to expose the truth as payment for his past crimes.

Reynolds’ portrayal of Matt begins as a naïve agent eager to escape his boring circumstances and shifts to an on-edge man who realizes the people he works for are not who they seem. It is kept clear that Frost has the upperhand at all times, and Matt is scrambling to catch up with him, but their relationship does not congeal as well as one would hope.

Frost blatantly admits that he used to be Matt, and by the end of the film, he advises him to be better than he used to be. There is no subtlety about the similarities the two share, and that perhaps is what makes the film so average. Neither man goes through an extraordinary change by the end. They are tweaked somewhat, but since they have thin characterization, the audience does not get the chance to connect with them before the end credits.

The biggest detractor of the film are the clichés riddled throughout the plot from start to finish. Any seasoned moviegoer can guess each sequence of events from scene to scene, and it does not miss a step. Even the twist in the third act comes as no surprise. While in the theater, no one in the seats near me jumped when it happened because everyone saw it coming.

The predictable nature of the plot sucks most of the tension out of the fight scenes, though they are excellently handled. Thus, ‘Safe House’ is nothing more than the typical action spy thriller with almost nothing unique about it. Not good, but not bad, simply average and ultimately safe.

OVERALL GRADE: 2/5

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Award winning actress Glenn Close plays a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some thirty years after donning men’s clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making. Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson and Brendan Gleeson join the prestigious, international cast that includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker and Pauline Collins in ‘Albert Nobbs’, opening in cinemas all over the U.S. on January 27.

Rodrigo Garcia directs from a script that Glenn Close, along with Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, adapted from a short story by Irish author George Moore.

Glenn Close’s connection to the character of Albert Nobbs stretches back almost three decades to her 1982 performance in Simone Benmussa’s theatrical interpretation of the short story, Albert Nobbs, by nineteenth century Irish author George Moore. ‘I think that Albert is one of the truly great characters, and the story, for all its basic simplicity, has a strange emotional power,’ begins Close, whose turn in the Off-Broadway production prompted rave reviews and garnered the actress an Obie Award.

Even as Close’s career skyrocketed the character remained with her. “There’s something deeply affecting about Albert’s life,” the actress continues, “She never stopped continuing to move me. I became very busy in my career, but always thought that Albert’s story would make a wonderful movie.”

Close has worked continuously on story ideas across the intervening years, developing a passionate attachment to the character of Nobbs; a woman living in 19^th century Britain, who has survived by disguising herself as a man and becoming a waiter. As the story begins, we find her working at Morrison’s, a reputable hotel in Dublin, where she has been for past 17 years.

“Albert doesn’t want to end up in the poorhouse,” explains Close. “At that time Ireland was extremely poor. Around the corner from the hotel was abject poverty. She knows that without her job that’s where she could end up. And she knows anyone can get fired at any moment. There is a sense of fear among all the hotel workers.”

When the audience meets Albert, the character has played her role as a male servant in Morrison’s Hotel for so long that she has lost her own, true identity. “She doesn’t even know her real name,” Close says. “She was an illegitimate child, raised by a woman who was paid to take care of her and who never revealed Albert’s true identity. I figure the woman was paid to not tell because family didn’t want the child to, one day, show up on their doorstep. So Albert, who already didn’t know who she really was, disappeared into the guise of a waiter when she was fourteen years old. When we meet her thirty years later, she is isolated and invisible, albeit an impeccable servant, having lived in hotels her whole life.”

Benmussa’s play adaptation of George Moore’s Albert Nobbs, was minimalist, with a considerable amount of mime used to tell the story, but, even so, Close believed that the tale’s poignancy, heartbreak and humour — the latter realized by a wonderful collection of characters who people Morrison’s Hotel — would fuel a film adaptation.

“The play was very austere,” concedes the actress, “The power of the story is like a simple glass of water,” she continues, “When light reflects in a glass of water, it creates something extremely complex. The story is simple and linear, but it touches on complex human issues that reflect on everyone’s own life and everyone’s own baggage, and gives them something to take away as well. I’m hoping it will be universally appealing.”

Certainly producers Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn agreed, with Curtis responding to Close’s passion for, and knowledge of, the character and the story. ‘One of the elements that interested me as a producer was Glenn’s hands-on, nightly experience in the theatre with the story,’ Curtis explains. ‘Making this movie with Glenn made a lot of business sense to me.’

Curtis met Close on the 2005 comic drama The Chumbscrubber. ‘It was day two of her time on set,’ recalls Curtis, ‘and Glenn walked up to me, gave me a script, and said, “I must play this part on the big screen before I die.” She was looking me right in the eye and I said we should do it right there and then.’ Curtis laughs, ‘She suggested I might want to read it first.’

The producer read the script that very night, ‘and it got inside me in ways I didn’t even understand,’ she says, ‘and I knew it would be right. When someone like Glenn says that they must play a part before they die, you figure it’s a good character and script. Albert has that struggle for identity and purpose and yet she hasn’t been equipped with the tools to get there. I think that it is a really universal life experience.’

Fellow producer Julie Lynn concurs. “The story is about a woman who is naïve, and is in her own bubble of loneliness because she’s lived with her face hidden from the outside world for decades, as a means of survival and self-protection. When we first meet her, she has been separated emotionally from the rest of the world.”

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In the upcoming movie ‘Albert Nobbs’ the primary character, and the central point around which the story turns, is of course Albert Nobbs; a woman posing as a man to work as a servant in nineteenth century Ireland. Glenn Close who plays the title character notes that she’s able to carry off the role because of Albert’s position in the hotel.

“The key is that Albert is a very good servant,’ Close says. ‘Servants weren’t supposed to make eye contact so that was very much in her favour. There’s comportment, the way of moving, with pants that are a bit too long and shoes that are a bit too big, but I think the biggest challenge for me is lowering the voice and the accent.”

Alongside Albert is a clutch of workers at the hotel, many of whom find their lives affected by the quiet, withdrawn butler.

When looking for the right person with whom to share her life, Nobbs is drawn to the character of Helen in the movie, a maid working in the hotel, someone with whom Nobbs believes she can share a better a life, a partner to share dreams of running an independent business. Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, whom director Rodrigo Garcia cast in her first-ever American production, “In Treatment,” plays Helen.

“I opened up my email and there in the inbox was an email saying it was from Rodrigo Garcia saying “Albert Nobbs job offer”, and I just thought, “Yes, I’ll do it”,” says Wasikowska. “I didn’t even need to read the rest of the email! I knew I was going to do it straight away, but then I read it and it just got better and better, especially hearing that Glenn Close was so involved.”

“My character, Helen, is a young maid working in the hotel,” continues the actress. “She’s a spirited person and kind of cheeky but also there’s a soulfulness about her. She’s in her early 20s and has probably been working in the hotel for years. She definitely has aspirations to work up the ladder in the hotel.”

When Nobbs begins gently courting Helen, the young maid is encouraged to show interest by her boyfriend, Joe. “Helen goes on these dates with Albert with the idea or intention of helping her and Joe get out of the hotel,” says Wasikowska. “Albert and Helen’s arc really grows, however, and their relationship changes as they go on these dates. Albert wants to form a partnership with her that can be safe and secure; Albert is courting her, while Joe is encouraging her to go on these dates to get gifts like chocolate and whisky and money.”

“Helen reluctantly goes to please Joe. They get to know each other and Albert reveals himself the most to Helen, and he, or she, has never done that before to anyone, and Helen takes that on board. She’s doesn’t like the idea of conning someone but she is in love with Joe and wants to do the best by their relationship.”

The bond between Helen and Joe was a feature of Moore’s original story, but here the producers note that the relationship is ‘boosted a little.’ Julie Lynn explains, “Our ensemble is insanely good and we have such fantastic chemistry between the characters of Helen and Joe.”

“Joe’s youth is a real boon, too,” she says. “It means that despite some of the unpleasant things he does, you can understand him a little more and why he is making his mistakes. And it makes us much more likely to forgive him. And when you have an actor who is just 20 years old, it gives him a vulnerability and allows us to forgive him, in a way in which I’m not sure we could with an actor who’s way into his 30s.”

Joe, played by English actor Aaron Johnson, arrives at the hotel early in the piece. “Joe is going from job to job and stumbles across Morrison’s Hotel, blags his way into a job as a boiler man, and ends up taking a job there as a handyman,” explains Johnson. “Joe is ambitious and has high hopes and dreams that one day he’ll get out, go to America and make a life there. He’s not educated, can’t read and write but in his mind he thinks he can get to America and there might be an opportunity to do something great.”

As the story transpires, Joe is revealed as having suffered a troubled upbringing. “Joe has real ambition. He is a very clever boy, but is caught up in a cycle of abuse,” explains Johnson. “He was abused by his father and will become an abuser if he leaves it the way it is. He desperately tries to break that; he doesn’t want to become like his father. That’s what he’s fighting against. He can’t advance himself or his family.”

One of the most boisterous characters in the film is Doctor Holloran. Irish actor Brendan Gleeson takes on the role “Holloran, a medical doctor,” explains the actor. “He came down from Belfast where he’d been living his with wife and having an affair. He loved both women but they wanted exclusivity and so he bailed out. He reveals that part of his life to Albert at one point. He may be drinking himself to death. I have a feeling he’s someone quite bright and brilliant but never wanted to work too hard on anything, so had reached that place where he hadn’t achieved a lot.”

All the main characters in Albert Nobbs find their lives affected by the quiet, retiring butler, and while the film unfolds as a tragedy it plays with levity and lightness of touch. “The piece is not showy — Glenn’s not that way — and there’s an awful lot of fun going on,” says Gleeson. “You can knock quite a lot of laughs out of something that is supposed to be very poignant and sad and tragic.”

Close says that she recognized the humor in the story from the very outset. “Through all these years of working on Albert Nobbs I knew that there was humor in it, even if other people didn’t see it,” she says. “It’s not leaping off the page – it’s not that kind of humor – it comes through the character and nuance and situation. I knew when people saw all these characters together that it is really fun. There are some beautiful moments.”

Producer Bonnie Curtis agrees. “Nobbs is so endearing,” she says. “The piece is a witty drama, a human comedy, and it’s also a love story. As a producer you’re trained to keep the message simple and sell it as one thing, but with this it is so rich and complex.”

Close concludes: “I’ve always thought that, if I could do the Albert of my dreams, without major compromise, with an impeccable team, then I could retire! The fact that this particular group of people finally gathered together to tell this particular story is truly wonderful. For years I struggled to make it happen but the time was never right. Then it happened. It was just meant to be — the perfect time with the perfect team. We made it!”

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The full list of nominees for the 2012 Irish Film and Television Awards have been announced, with old favourites and emerging talents comprising this year’s selected actors, writers and other creative talents.

The 9th Annual Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA), sponsored by Irish Film Board and RTÉ, will take place on Saturday February 11 at the Convention Centre in Dublin and will bring together the best in film and television that Ireland has to offer, as well as numerous international stars who will be competing in a handful of categories dedicated exclusively to honouring those from other countries around the globe.

Two-time IFTA winner Ciarán Hinds is back in competition thanks to his strong performances in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, which has already received multiple recognitions from other award bodies, and ‘The Debt’ in which he co-starred with Dame Helen Mirren. Hinds has been nominated in the fields of Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role, respectively.

Brendan Gleeson is another Irish actor who has received double-recognition from the IFTA voters this year, as his roles in ‘The Guard’ and ‘Albert Nobbs’ earn him lead and supporting nominations as well, respectively. ’Albert Nobbs’ leads the field alongside ‘The Guard’ with each film receiving nine nominations apiece.

Gleeson’s co-stars in ‘Albert Nobbs’, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Brenda Fricker, are both nominated in the category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role, while the film itself has received acknowledgement in the Best Film, Best Script, Best Make-up & Hair, Best Original Score and Best Sound categories. American actress Glenn Close rounds off the film’s successful IFTA reception as she earned a spot in the Best International Actress.

Aine Moriarty, CEO of the Academy, released the following statement regarding this year’s festivities:

“The Irish Film & Television Awards is Ireland’s showcase to the world of what our small but outstanding film and television community has to offer: excellent and challenging feature films and dramas; entertaining television and engaging factual content. The Irish industry consistently delivers world-class standards of work that is watched by a global audience.

Ireland’s economic struggles have been well documented, but against this pressure it’s heartening to see how Ireland’s hard-working creative community continues to punch above its weight and really deliver.”

The Academy’s shortlist for the Best Film category would appear to be reflective of their endeavour to ‘showcase’ the best in Ireland’s original content, with the four nominated titles covering such topics as cross-dressing (‘Albert Nobbs’) and sociopaths (‘Charlie Casanova’), while delving into black comedy (‘The Guard’) and questions of religious faith (‘Stella Days’).

The final choices for Best International Actress are also of note considering the pairing of Kristen Wiig – for her role in ‘Bridesmaids’ – with Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Tilda Swinton, each of whom represents a film with a much greater sense of gravitas (‘Albert Nobbs’, ‘The Iron Lady’ and ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’, respectively).

HBO’s fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones’ and Showtime historical drama ‘The Borgias’ were among those honoured in IFTA’s main television categories. The awards will be hosted by Simon Delaney and will be broadcast live on RTÉ One at 9.30pm on Saturday February 11.

For the full list of this year’s IFTA nominees, click here.

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