Judy & Punch2019

Judy and Punch may not be as thought-provoking as it wants to be, but what it lacks in cultural critique it more than makes up for in escapism, eccentricity, and eye candy. It’s transporting, in every sense of the word, and it comes along just when we most seem to need it.

This is understandably a quite dark and grim film, in terms of the themes. While it may be categorised as a comedy film, this is not an out and out humorous film as such - its definitely very much dark comedy, just to make that clear. It's very much a re-telling of a folk tale. I liked the costumes and I'd say its definitely got a sinister feel to it. Sinister and somewhat atmospheric, I suppose. I thought that, certainly with the first scene depicting a puppet show, that it reminded me a little of the puppet scenes from 'Being John Malkovich' - mainly as its also a dark film, both in terms of the lighting and settings mostly being in the evening or night and in terms of the not very light thematic elements. I did feel that Damon Herriman gave a decent performance as Punch. He is fairly animated (in his gestures etc., rather than it being at all an animated film, of course) and has somewhat of a presence on screen, I'd say. I wasn't familiar with the actor previously, so that stood out to me somewhat. I can't say I thought a great deal of what could be described as a Gladiator-esque moment though. There are one or two pretty decently choreographed moments/scenes as well. Its more of a dark drama than its an out and out period drama, although it is clearly set very much in the past. It centres on working class England, rather than well off families living in castles on high, certainly. This film felt like it was missing something but i'm not sure I can put my finger on what exactly. I suppose it may be that I know the story roughly and knew it'd be dark and fairly depressing and maybe I wanted to hope there would be more in the way of complicated context given but that isn't really the case. Its not a badly made film, not an especially great one but I'd say its worth a watch, if the story of Punch & Judy is one that interests you, particularly in terms of the social historical aspect of it.

It’s a mouth-puckeringly tart movie that’s tonally in a world of its own – darkly disturbing, absurd, brutal and silly, with a batsqueak of bonkers.