At the beginning of Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) arrives on a remote island with his superior, Tom Wake (Willem Dafoe), to tend to the titular beacon. Their path, along steep craggy cliffs in howling winds, was difficult, but there will be no relief inside either. As Winslow bumps his head on the low ceiling of their shared upstairs quarters, Wake is already urinating into a chamber pot, farting and barking orders about Winslow’s duties. Life on the island is hard. Winslow’s tasks are back-breaking and seemingly never-ending, everything but the more rewarding nursing the light itself – a…
-
-
As titles go, it’s hard to think of one more misleading than Good Time since people went to see Eraserhead thinking it was about a teacher with a penchant for clean notebooks. No one is having a ‘good time’ in the Safdie brothers’ latest offering: not Robert Pattinson’s Connie; not his girlfriend Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh); and certainly not the viewer. This is as intense a noir thriller as you’re likely to see. All the action takes place over a particularly manic 24 hours in New York. It starts with Connie and his mentally challenged brother Nick (Ben Safdie) attempting to…