‘Empire of Light’ Review: Do Yourself a Favor and See Sam Mendes’ Ode to Movies on the Big Screen

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‘Empire of Light’ Review: Do Yourself a Favor and See Sam Mendes’ Ode to Movies on the Big Screen
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What better definition of 'movie magic' can one find than the sight of Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward's faces, reflecting their feelings for one another? Read our review of Sam Mendes' EmpireOfLight.

” is the proof. While the world was in lockdown these past couple years, Mendes let his imagination run to his happy place: a grand old English movie palace he dubbed the Empire Cinema. Thousands pass through its art deco doors seeking escapism, but Mendes is more interested in the employees — the projectionist, the ticket takers, the box office attendant and so forth — whose stories, he senses, are every bit as interesting as the ones they show.

The year is 1981, Margaret Thatcher’s in charge, and England is in turmoil in ways that will seem uncannily similar to today’s Brexit and MAGA mindsets. Meanwhile, between big-budget distractions, movies like “Chariots of Fire” and “Being Crazy” offered a progressive industry’s best answer to problems beyond their control .

The pandemic compelled so many of us to look in the mirror and pose existential questions about what we were doing and why. Mendes clearly had a lot on his mind, too, from race relations to mental health, and in the Empire, he found a container to explore them all. Too many issues in too neat a space, some might argue, but better that than the opposite.

The budding romance between them is surprising for any number of reasons: the age difference, the racial attitudes suggested in the town around them, the fact that Stephen loves movies, whereas Hilary’s never bothered to watch one in all the years she’s worked at the Empire . Hilary favors poetry to film and has no friends to speak of, whereas Stephen still lives with his mom and seems relatively naive on certain subjects. “No one’s going to give you the life you want,” she tells him.

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