Maiden

Sailing takes on a different attire in the oceans of Antarctica.

(2018) Documentary (Sony Classics) Tracy Edwards, Jo Gooding, Bruno Dubois, Barry Pickthall, Skip Novak, Bob Fisher, Howard Gibbons, Sally Hunter, Nancy Harris, Jeni Mundy, Claire Warren, Dawn Riley, Angela Heath, Marie-Claude Heys, Tanja Nisser. Directed by Alex Holmes

 

We like to characterize women as the fairer sex, but there’s always the underlying “the weaker sex” that goes unspoken except in actions which are, of course, much louder than words. Over the last century or so women have been struggling to prove that myth wrong and have done so, sometimes in triumphant fashion.

Sailing has always been a man’s world. There was the unadulterated bull excrement that it was bad luck to have a woman on board sailing vessels, as if vaginas somehow brought on the wrath of the gods. For longer endurance races, however, there was always the need for physical strength and endurance, something that admittedly men possess in greater amounts.

Tracy Edwards grew up in England a rebellious teen who was devoted to her father who sadly passed away at a young age. When her mum remarried, she found her stepdad to be a loathsome individual so she left and took on odd jobs from flight attendant to bartender, eventually working on the crew of yachts for hire. There she fell in love with sailing.

When she heard about the Whitbread Endurance Race, the longest of its time, she was eager to be part of it. However, the nearest she could get was to be a cook on one of the entrants. She was treated as a second class citizen and felt that she wasn’t contributing as much as she would have liked to. She realized early on that the only way to run the race as an on-deck crew member would be to captain her own boat, something that had never been done before. And since few male crew members would work for a woman, she would need to hire herself an all=female crew.

She was met with a great deal of skepticism if not outright hostility. It’s expensive to enter a vessel in the Whitbread and finding sponsors was a heck of a mountain to climb. Most were at best apathetic; others treated the idea as a joke. There were some sympathetic to her plan but quite frankly they were concerned about the publicity that would be incurred if the ship sank during the race and they went down with all hands – a distinct possibility particularly in the rough and treacherous Antarctic seas. Nobody could believe that she could actually do it.

By random chance, she met King Hussein of Jordan who grew to believe in her. He arranged for Jordanian Air to sponsor her and through that she was able to buy and refurbish a second-hand boat which was re-christened the Maiden Great Britain (get the aural pun?) and entered the vessel in the race. Journalists were skeptical with one, Bob Fisher, going so far to call the entry a “tin can full of tarts.” Nevertheless, she entered the 1989-90 Whitbread and journalists eagerly and with more than a little snarky glee took bests on how far they’d get. The rest would be history.

You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of any of this. I confess I didn’t even know about the Whitbread (which is now called the Volvo Race after their current sponsor) and knew even less about Edwards. All this occurred 30 years ago and frankly I don’t really follow sailing at all. This isn’t a situation unique to me and an obstacle director Alex Holmes has to overcome.

He does the best thing possible to overcome it – he tells the story simply and lets the power of the narrative and the character of the participants draw the viewer in. Utilizing a lot of interviews with the participants in the race, their rivals aboard other boats and the journalists who covered the race as well as home movies and archival coverage, Holmes weaves the story nicely. The sequences in the Southern Ocean are particularly harrowing as we watch the tiny boat navigate rough seas that would put the North Atlantic to shame.

Edwards loathed the term “feminist” although her deeds mark her as a feminist to the core. The movie does lack a bit of context; what sort of effects did the Maiden voyage (see what I did there?) have on the world of yacht racing and on women in sports in general? Have there been any other all-female crews since? I can’t answer that but I can imagine that plenty of young girls who watch this movie may end up inspired enough to put together a team of their own.

REASONS TO SEE: A gripping story told well. The cinematography is spectacular as is the score. Edwards and her crew make for engaging subjects. Brings to light a little-known historic event.
REASONS TO AVOID: Really doesn’t delve into how the voyage of the Maiden changed things and the effect it has had on how women are regarded.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity. Mature situations and some sexually suggestive content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film debuted at last year’s Toronto Film Festival.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/21/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 97% positive reviews: Metacritic: 79/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: All is Lost
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: The House (2019)

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Charlie St. Cloud

Zac Efron responds when asked if there are any High School Musical alumni out there.

(Universal) Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Charlie Tahan, Donal Logue, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger, Dave Franco, Jesse Wheeler, Matt Ward, Augustus Prew, Miles Chalmers, Desiree Zurowski, Adrian Hough, Jill Teed, Valerie Tian, Grace Sherman, Brenna O’Brien. Directed by Burr Steers

One of the most difficult events we can go through in life is to watch a loved one die before their time. This can only be made worse by having that loved one be a child and feeling responsible for that child’s demise.

Charlie St. Cloud (Efron) is a golden boy. He’s wicked good-looking and a fantastic sailor, so much so that Stanford has given him a scholarship to be on their sailing team. His mom (Basinger) pulls double shifts at the hospital so that he can achieve his dreams, although I have not a clue how a working class kid can afford a racing sloop; it’s probably best if you try not to think about such things.

Charlie has a very close relationship with his little brother Sam (Tahan) who is devastated that Charlie is going to leave, in a sense just like their dad did. “I’m not dad,” Charlie says a bit crossly when Sam voices that fear. I can imagine that the comparison occurred to Charlie too.

Sam is a huge Red Sox fan and wants to play baseball; Charlie is only too happy to coach him every day. He’s just graduated (and the principal expects Great Things from this young man; to be sure, Charlie answers somewhat immodestly “So do I, sir”) from high school and has the entire summer in their coastal Washington town to teach Sam how to throw a slider.

Of course, being that it’s graduation time, Charlie wants to spend some time with his friends, particularly Sully (Franco) and Green (Wheeler) who have joined the military and are shipping out to the Middle East in a week. However, mom has landed another shift at the hospital, putting Charlie on Sam duty, which interferes with his plans. Thinking that Sam has fallen asleep, he tries to sneak out but Sam catches him and demands to be taken somewhere where he can watch the Red Sox game – apparently quite a few of them are broadcast in Washington.

Sam gives in and perhaps he shouldn’t have. On the way to wherever it is they are going, Sam is rear-ended by a drunk driver who pushes Charlie into oncoming traffic where they are T-boned by a rather big truck. A paramedic (Liotta) brings Charlie back from the dead, but Sam isn’t as lucky.

Charlie is devastated. At Sam’s funeral, he can’t bring himself to leave Sam’s mitt and ball in the casket, so instead, having glimpsed what he thought was Sam leaning against a tombstone, he runs into the woods, only to come up to Sam’s apparition, petulantly whining that Charlie and he had a deal. They do indeed; and at sunset when the town’s yacht club conveniently fires off a cannon to signal that they are fully capable of warding off pirates, they will meet in the woods and play catch.

Fast forward five years. Charlie has put his life on hold and works as a caretaker where his brother lies buried. He has but one friend, an obnoxious Englishman named Alistair (Prew) and yes, he has fulfilled his promise to his brother each and every day, rain or shine, come hell or high water. Mom has moved on to Portland, but Charlie remains in a stasis of his own grief.

That’s when Tess (Crew), an old high school classmate of Charlie’s returns to town, apparently having become a pretty fair sailor herself. She has entered herself in an around the world yacht race, and her coach Tink Weatherbee (Logue) thinks she’s got a good shot. She’s back in town, apparently to just take her boat on a trial run, but really she’s there to run into Charlie and fall in love with him. She does both admirably.

Charlie’s deepening relationship with Tess is putting a serious crimp in his meetings with his brother Sam. Sam is terrified of being deserted by his brother and that he will fade into nothingness if Charlie moves on; However, Charlie doesn’t want to exist in this half-life anymore. Will Charlie choose Tess over Charlie, or will he remain tied to his dead brother, doomed to remain a slave to his own grief?

This is based on a best-selling novel by Ben Sherwood and was originally set in Massachusetts. Quite frankly, the novel screams New England what with prep schools, Red Sox, yachting, old cemeteries and ghosts. Unfortunately, the production (in order to save money) chose to film in British Columbia instead and perhaps realizing that the Pacific Northwest doesn’t look anything like New England, set the action in a small town in Washington state. Unfortunately, many of the New England trappings remain and their presence makes the movie look a little bit ridiculous. For example, rather than having Sam be a Red Sox fan, couldn’t he be a Mariners fan instead?

Quite frankly, even though they were filming in BC I think the movie still should have been set in New England. I might have found the movie a bit more believable (as believable as a movie about a guy who sees his dead brother can be anyway) and more palatable.

The movie took was flayed by critics when it was released; quite frankly, I think most critics dislike any movie that makes you cry. After all, in order to weep you must have a heart that can be broken and most movie critics have cast iron hearts. I will admit that the movie is quite manipulative in that regard, but quite frankly it can be awfully cathartic to have a good cry at the movies.

Efron is pretty solid in the lead; he has to be because he’s in nearly every scene. He has improved by leaps and bounds since his High School Musical days and is quite likable; he might have a long career ahead of him if he doesn’t make bad choices. Tahan is actually quite likable in his role; there are few really good male juvenile actors out there (Josh Hutcherson comes to mind) compared to the female ones, so it’s nice to find one that doesn’t ACT like he’s in child actor 101. His relationship with Charlie seems very natural and close in the way that brothers are, and forms the heart of the movie.

This is a good looking movie with plenty of sunsets, sun-dappled forests, and quaint town shots, as well as beautiful boats knifing through the sea. It doesn’t particularly add much insight to life – I think it’s fair to say that most of us are aware that there comes a time that we all must set aside our grief, no matter how intense and overwhelming it may be, to pick ourselves up and move on which is what the movie’s central theme seems to be. There’s a nice little twist I won’t spoil that elevates the movie past the realm of the mediocre. Had they not made the critical tactical error of setting this in the Northwest, I think I might have been even more charmed by the movie than I was. As it is I can give the movie a recommendation – a surprised one to be sure but a recommendation nonetheless.

REASONS TO GO: Efron is making satisfying progress as an actor and Tahan handles his role without reverting to typical kid-actor clichés. There’s some beautiful cinematography here.

REASONS TO STAY: There are quite a few logical lapses that had a lot to do with transplanting the story from New England to the Northwest. It’s also a little too over-the-top manipulative in places.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some mild language concerns and a fairly intense auto accident depicted; certainly should be okay for most teenagers and mature pre-teens.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While the book was set in Marblehead, Massachusetts, unfortunately it was too cost-prohibitive to film it there so the action was relocated to the Pacific Northwest and filming took place in British Columbia.

HOME OR THEATER: In all honesty I thought this might be best served by seeing it at the multiplex.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Pride and Glory