​     I was reluctant to get into another series, but this one, with its dystopian promises and comic book origins just lured me in. And sure enough first episode was as bombastic and exciting and a good comic book story with all the action intrigue and high body count you can want…and then I noticed that this is a remake. Somehow I did not know that and I love British tv shows. Wtf, self. Anyway, uncharacteristically enough I decided to do some comparison based research and watched episode one of the British show. And then switched back to the American for one more episode. And then back to British and then stayed with British.
     And here’s why…well, basically for all the glitz and production value of the American version, it is essentially a dumbed down easier to digest variant that is so prevalent in US adaptations. Outside of the fact that the show seems determined to resurrect John Cusack’s career from the Nicholas Cage presided made to DVD cheap thrillers abyss where once upon a time male stars go to fizzle out, you have a cast of underwhelmingly charismatic young and youngish nobodies. They get some aspects of their originals, but not the others. Nebishness without resolve or cuteness not backed by realism. Especially noticeable in Jessica’s representation, where Sasha Lane manages the feral look without the feral coiled dangerousness.
     The role Fiona O’Shaughnessy (whoever she is, Wikipedia doesn’t tell me much) has played to perfection through killer stare and weird angularity of her face to her tightly controlled animation and dynamics, Sasha Lane just seemed determined to kinda gutterpunk millennial through, with no age, experience or presence to back it up.
     And look, this is admittedly a limited comparison, I’m not yet done with BBC’s season 2 and I’ve only watched 2 episodes of the US version, but for now it seems very emblematic of US adaptations of British shows, stretched out, dumbed down, made shinier and louder and with easier to digest morals.
     The latter is important, Utopia is a profoundly moralistic show, divisively so. It contemplates the future and comes up with a terrifying solution and then spends the entire show on it. So you gotta be on board. And the other thing is…the original came out years ago and it is eerily prescient for 2020. The modern version was probably catered specifically to this sh*tty year. So originality kudos definitely go to the Brits. Also the theme song…very funky.
     BBC’s Utopia isn’t a perfect show by any means, some of the logistics are questionable, the timeline is definitely questionable as amply evidenced by the prequel episode (season 2 episode 1), the artwork isn’t as nice, etc. But it is definitely a superior version if only for being smarter and addressing their audience as such.
    Overall, I’m glad both Utopias exist, on only because the new one turned me onto the old one. But with both versions available on Prime, you can decide for yourself. After all, few things define modern age as much as options.

     In 1654, a great thinker and scientist Blaise Pascal wrote: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” And he is right, of course. In fact at no time has that statement been more tested than now, December 2020, a culmination of the year during which the best, smartest and safest thing was to stay inside and everyone failed at it, resulting in thousands upon thousands of deaths.
     This is a movie about one man’s journey to find that stillness.
     Ruben Stone, played terrifically by the always great Riz Ahmed, has the life. A job he loves (beating the crap out of a set of drums for adoring fans), a girl he loves (the also always good Olivia Cooke as Lulu of terrifyingly dyed eyebrows), a vintage Airstream to live in wherever the wind (or tour schedule) takes them. And then Ruben is stricken with sudden deafness and his world is turned upside down. A drummer who can’t drum, a boyfriend, whose girlfriend promptly deposits him in a rehab facility for the deaf and vamooses back to her cushy life with daddy, Ruben is now a man at sea.
      After some time and some uncomfortable adjustments and reckonings, Ruben discovers a new life awaits him, a life without sound, but nevertheless with purpose. But, while everyone around him has pretty much acquiesced to a silent life, he still wants more. One desperate firesale later and he has enough money for a revolutionary procedure that gives him some sound back, but now his life is a liminal zone between the two, a claustrophobically staticky existence that may or may not be enough to win back Lulu and his old life.
    So yeah, another poignant steeped in realism Amazon studios movie and, to be fair, a dramatic improvement over the preposterous Uncle Frank that even Paul Bettany’s lanky charm was unable to save from the soapy cheesy ludicrous premise of a bigoted homophobic Carolina family in the 70s suddenly accepting their gay son like it’s some inane afterschool special on inclusivity of love.
    Sound of Metal actually hits all the right notes, but at times mutedly, which works well thematically with Ruben’s journey. From a brief glance at the trailer (otherwise much like this review they give away way too much) it seemed like a movie about a musician couple working through the impossible tragedy of music disappearing for one of them, but in reality this is very much Ruben’s story. Lulu f*cks off immediately at the first sign of discord, despite their otherwise very happy seeming four years together, a privileged moneyed girl through and through, she was just touring the reality Ruben has actually lived in this entire time. Slumming it with a recovering addict covered in some genuinely hideous ink. And on his own, Ruben for all his swaggering street tough appeal, is a compelling if not immediately likeable character. It’s difficult for him to navigate the rigid constraints of the very narrowminded, do it our way or get out rehab or the possibility of getting his life back.
     In the end it is uncertain which way he’ll go, he has the opportunity to navigate both worlds, but only to an extent, and there can’t be that many prospects for a homeless deaf drummer with no education or vocational training in the world, so staying clean and sober should be challenging all the more. But once thing is made plain…the man has learn to sit still quietly. So maybe he’ll be ok, after all.
     Recommended for fans of good character dramas, well acted (Ahmed and Cooke do their own screaming singing and drumming here too) indies, etc.