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Book Review: ‘The Ice Child’

May 21, 2016 By Thelma Leave a Comment

The Ice Child (Patrik Hedström, #9)The Ice Child by Camilla Läckberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This is a gripping Nordic noir in Camilla Lackberg’s series that, in part, charts the arc of married couple Erica Falck and Patrik Hedstrom — she’s a true-crime writer, he’s a detective — on another grisly adventure. This one begins with a traumatized young girl wandering blindly in the snow observed by a horsewoman: we won’t truly understand the significance of this scene or the depths of its evil until the very last page.

Sweden’s Lackberg works on a big canvas — there are many, many interconnected characters in these books. That can be a curse or a blessing — like a Russian novel you have to keep track of who’s who. The best way I find to do that is to take my smartphone and charge it on the opposite side of the house and just let myself go.

Lackberg’s plotting is on a plane with, is it too much to say, Agatha Christie? At the very least her plots have that level of complication and awareness that even old apparently harmless ladies have a knowledge of the world that should never be underestimated. Besides its insane page-turner quality that kept me up on succeeding nights well after a reasonable bedtime, there are so many fascinating domestic themes. Erica and Patrik and their extended families are constantly trying to achieve a work-life balance with the help-hindrances of parents and in-laws. As a married couple, they are also trying to keep a balance of passion, compassion and mutual respect in a world awash in evil (and, yes, that is no exaggeration).

One theme that fascinates me in this particular novel is reflections over and over again on the subject of mothering: what makes a good mother, what limits maternal feeling, the extent a mother will go to protect a dangerous and even deranged child. In one very quiet scene toward the book’s climax, a daughter finally asks her mother the question that the teen must have asked herself a thousand times a day: mama, why don’t you love me? It is a raw question and cuts deeply. Sitting there, in my nightgown, racing toward the end and the many final revelations that keep spinning the story in surprising directions, I paused and wondered what is that question I have for my mother — and would I ever be brave enough to ask it.

And all this while corpses pile up and cold cases thaw. Lackberg is top-shelf Nordic Noir, and if you’ve done the Steig Larsson, Jo Nesbo, Anne Holt, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir circuit, Camilla Läckberg is a must-read.

View all my reviews

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Camilla Lackberg, Crime, motherhood, mystery, Nordic Noir, Swedish mysteries, thriller, Women Writers

Critic’s Pick: ‘Only God Forgives’

July 19, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters

We’ve all heard the stories of the Cannes Film Festival audience booing the premiere of “Only God Forgives,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s first film after “Drive” with Ryan Gosling back front and center. Not very forgiving, huh?

Those who are less judgmental, or less enamored of the sentimentality of “Drive” — and “Bronson” die-hards — will know to lower their expectations and see what strange, stylized crime drama the Danish director is serving up this time.

“Only God Forgives” is not “Drive 2” even if America’s sexiest curmudgeon stars. Gosling may don the wife-beater and bloody his fists — and the spoken language is most frequently English — but this is definitely a foreign film.

The plot could hardly be simpler: Gosling plays Julian, a Bangkok black-marketeer. One steamy night, after a hard day working in the underworld, Julian’s older brother Billy (Englishman Tom Burke) picks up a hooker, then brutally murders her in a tawdry hotel room.

RELATED: ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ Director Derek Cianfrance Reveals That Ryan Gosling Fantasizes About Robbing Banks

Enter slice-n-dice policeman Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), not one to let white devils pull this crap on his turf. Chang ensures Billy won’t pull that stunt again. Ever.

Before long, the boys’ bloody mama, Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) arrives. The dead-ringer for Donatella Versace has traveled 8,000 miles from the U.S. to retrieve her elder son’s body and avenge his death, while inflaming Julian’s Oedipus Complex.

This can’t end well. And it doesn’t.

RELATED: Ryan Gosling Booed as Cannes Pans ‘Only God Forgives’

In a mad turn of casting against type, Scott Thomas electrifies, trash talking with a broad American accent in the kind of mean matriarch role that delivered Jacki Weaver an Oscar nomination for “Animal Kingdom.” Gosling does his very, very, very slow burn – and then pops. And Pansringarm’s cop, who occasionally pauses the action to sing, lounge style, to his colleagues, is a standout for the actor’s quietly coiled coolness.

Punctuated with raw humor and rancid violence, “Only God Forgives” presents an atmospheric Asian crime tableau bursting with of arresting set pieces. In one torture scene set in a fancy bordello where Chang uses an associate of Billy and Julian for a pin cushion, it’s the images of the elegant prostitutes with their perfect make-up and hair closing their eyes to the violence at Chang’s insistence that tattoo themselves on the viewers retinas. Plot, what plot?

Cannes audiences may be less forgiving than God, but Refn’s divisive martial arts movie digs in to its own stylish groove abetted by a killer performance from the queen of British period restraint, Scott Thomas.

Bottom Line: Refn and Gosling “Drive” off a genre cliff and Scott Thomas is there to catch them

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Crime Drama, Critic's Pick, Kristin Scott Thomas, movie review, Nicolas Winding Refn, Only God Forgives, Ryan Gosling, thriller, Yahoo! Movies

Movie Review: Black Swan

December 2, 2010 By Thelma 1 Comment

Black Swan,Best Picture,Goldderby.com,Natalie Portman,Thelma Adams,Academy Awards,The Social Network, The King's Speech, Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges,Annette Bening,Julianne Moore,Amy Adams, Melissa Leo

Us Rating: ****

No ugly duckling, this drama about a ballerina on the verge of a nervous breakdown — or artistic breakthrough — stands as 2010’s most powerful and provocative movie. Backstage at an NYC ballet’s production of Swan Lake, rising star Nina (Natalie Portman) gets cast as the lead yet still lacks the necessary maturity. Enter easy going rival Lily (Mila Kunis), who unleashes Nina’s repressed sexual impulses (the two share a passionate love scene) — and catches the eye of the ballet master (Vincent Cassel). Meanwhile, fading diva Beth (Winona Ryder) desperately attempts to retain his favor. Director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) never eases the tension for a moment, whether showing the obsessive details of a dancer prepping her shoes, the breathless duet between teacher and student or the intrusive demands of a stage mama (Barbara Hershey) pushing Nina to excel. Successfully blending both the light and dark of Nina’s character, Portman pulls off her most complicated role to date. Brava!

click here for usmagazine.com review

Filed Under: Criticism, Oscar Race Tagged With: Academy Awards, best actress, best picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best supporting actress, Black Swan, movie reviews, Natalie Portman, Oscars, thriller, Toronto International Film Festival, Us Weekly

Review: Fair Game

November 5, 2010 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Us Rating: **

Naomi Watts plays real-life mom, wife and covert CIA agent Valerie Plame — whose spy career ended in 2003 when The Washington Post outed her — in this admirable, female-driven story that unfortunately collapses. Watts seems jittery and uneasy in the role and displays little chemistry with her ex-ambassador spouse (Sean Penn, in an unconvincing performance). As the two try to trace the leak’s source, the plot grows confusing and the tension wanes.

http://tinyurl.com/24pbquj

Filed Under: Criticism Tagged With: Fair Game, movie reviews, Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, thriller, Us Weekly, Valerie Plame

Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

October 30, 2010 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Us Rating: **

In the third Swedish thriller based on the bestselling book series, the critically wounded Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) — now charged with attempted murder — lands in a hospital. With the lead bedridden for almost half the film, the action drags. Worse: Those who missed the first two movies won’t be able to connect the dots.

http://tinyurl.com/27f8sbu

Filed Under: Criticism Tagged With: movie reviews, mystery, Nooney Rapace, Swedish, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, thriller, Us Weekly

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