“Empire of Light” is a remarkably failed film that dares not to tell a lot
The new film by Oscar winner Sam Mendes maintains a self-distance that has become rare. Like Steven Spielberg and Damien Chazelle this year, Mendes deals with cinema – and its limitations.
On a love trip: Stephen (Micheal Ward) and Hilary (Olivia Colman).
The cinema is a place to discover, dream, fly. And it can offer asylum for spiritual and material homelessness, a shelter for those for whom life throws no roses in their path. One such is Hilary (great: Olivia Colman), a lonely woman with mental health issues and part of the crew of a venerable movie palace called the Empire. It’s the 1980s in a town in cold, gray southern England, ruled with an iron fist by Margaret Thatcher. The only thing that shines into the night sky above the beach landscape are the light bulbs of the playhouse. The light that once shone on the British Empire has long since gone out.
