I have been an admirer of Paula Beer since seeing her in "Frantz" and "Undine". I have no doubt that she would be more than capable of portraying the complexities of a woman like Stella Goldschlag, to the point where, while not accepting the decisions she made, one might at least be able to understand the reasons that she made them. That belief remains true, but sadly, Kilian Riedhof's film is not her chance. While technically capable, and with superior attention to period detail, "Stella: A Life" - particularly in its last two thirds - fails in the prime area of narrative cinema: "Storytelling". Indicators of Stella's motivations are lost in what becomes a frustrating series of virtual jump cuts, and the audience is left to fill in the gaps to try and understand what has not been shown. The protagonist's evolution from "victim" to "villain" seems to have been left in the cutting room floor, and all that remains of Beer's performance is a slide show, rather than a fully developed characterisation. It is disappointing to see this wasted opportunity discuss a (still) largely unexamined aspect of such a pivotal epoch of social history.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Tulip Fever
(2017)
Good cast, great production values, abysmal script
3 December 2017
"Tulip Fever" looks superb, with spot-on set design and costumes, and boasts an impressive cast. The sheer bloody awfulness of the script, however, turns it into the filmic equivalent of the sort of novel you buy at an airport book stand and don't persist with 5 minutes after take-off: an improbable bodice-ripper which lurches from one subplot to another without any regard for continuity of mood or respect for narrative coherence. Mercifully, these inadequacies reveal themselves from the very start, when a first-person voice-over by Holliday Grainger ("Maria") is accompanied by the image of Alicia Vikander ("Sophie) standing alone on a beach. Whose story is this? one may ask, and still not have the answer by the time the end credits finally roll. Others have commented on the fact that the film was subject to extensive re-editing in the two years between its originally planned release in 2015 and 2017, when this cut was released on an unsuspecting public - and it shows. While it is difficult, in this version, to judge the quality of individual performances, those responsible for the cinematography and production design can hold their heads high. The same cannot be said for "director" Justin Chadwick.
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