Franklyn - World Premiere

Posted on Sat 20 Jun 2009

Franklyn reviewed by Netribution

If you’ve seen the latest trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes then you’d be forgiven for deciding never to watch a film from a British director again. But don’t let the ex-Mr Madonna put you off as Franklyn (E1 Entertainment) will restore your faith in the talents that are abound in this country.

Gerald McMorrow’s feature debut is a bold science-fiction fantasy about a masked vigilante who roams the streets of the futuristic ‘Meanwhile City’. His story is intertwined with those of people from the present day, including a jilted lover and a man desperately looking for his missing son. As the film progresses we soon discover how each story connects and just how the future will influence the present.

This is a stylish piece of work that invites comparison with many other genre films including Brazil, Dark City and Strange Days. There are points when the story gets slightly obtuse but – much like Donnie Darko – part of the joy of the film is re-watching it and working out things that you have missed before. There’s some strong performances from up and coming British actors such as Sam Riley whilst veterans Art Mailk and Susannah York bring gravitas to it all. Sometimes the film can get bogged down in its efforts to look stylish but, even with these flaws, it’s nice to see that they are people who know that British cinema can reach beyond gritty realism and revel in the telling of fairy tales.

Extras are rather sparse with a ‘making of’ and deleted scenes: it would have been nice if there was a commentary as, with the sheer amount that goes on in the film, it would have made for a fascinating listen.

Read the full post here... http://www.netribution.co.uk/blogs/reviews/135/1733-special-edition-29 [netribution.co.uk]

Posted by Sam Jones in Reviews on Mon 15 Jun 2009

Franklyn reviewed by Real.com

Republished from http://eu.real.com/video/movie_review/2009/02/24/franklyn [eu.real.com]

Faith can be described as: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (New King James Version of the Bible). As a film about faith - or lack of it, you must have a lot of faith to see writer/director Gerald McMorrow’s new fantasy thriller, Franklyn, through to the bitter, grim end, as there is little evidence of what it’s really all about to begin with. But, arguably, that’s its appeal - as long as you don’t become disinterested in the meantime. However convoluted it may appear in parts, it is an intelligent and intriguing story concept that becomes more apparent, the more you delve deeper in the mysteries surrounding its four troubled main characters: a vigilante from ‘Meanwhile City’; a beautiful, suicidal art student; a jilted-at-the-alter groom; and a religious father desperately searching for his missing son. And there is revelation in the end as the parallel universes merge into one feasible explanation - however incomplete it may be. The film is certainly one of the most unusual seen this year - so far…
———
An attractive feature of the production design of Meanwhile City is the dominating and compelling references to an uncertain time in history, the Industrial Revolution, with its gloomy but enterprising times, and the sinister, old-style Peel bobbies that work for the Ministry in this film. Faith was very much in danger in this period as people moved, en masse, to the cities to work, meaning the Church had less local control of the working classes. McMorrow’s script emphasises these uncertain times with its colourful array of street merchants, peddlers and speakers, as well as the Ministry’s desperate attempt to flush out people with no faith - including vigilante John Preest (Ryan Phillippe).
——–
On the other parallel plane is an equally gloomy, rainy London that appears to have lost all hope, where the other three complex characters and lost souls live. The most captivating - and really the only one of any interest - is the dramatic and desperate art student Emilia, played the hauntingly beautiful, ex-Bond girl, Eva Green. It is through her character’s outlook and in the final showdown with Preest that reality blurs with fantasy, where London blurs with the looming skyline of Meanwhile City. All four characters are linked by fate and by the choices they make at certain moments, which is what draws you into the narrative to find out how? Apart from Green’s engaging performance, the other leads, including Phillippe are fairly unremarkable, but strong enough to hold your attention.
——-
Franklyn is a difficult and unsettling film to describe in a nutshell to the uninitiated, without giving away the punchline. But it has enough intrigue, suspense and visual wonderment to keep its momentum flowing and its mystery alive - even if, at times, there are too many elaborate twists that are in danger of losing the interest of the most eager audience member. What is does do quite effectively is suggest that we all address our own faith - whatever that may be - in present, uncertain times. This is a sobering thought for a film that is described as an ‘urban fairy tale’. Still, aren’t fairy tales the best and ’safest’ places for questioning all elements of life’s ambiguities?

Posted by Sam Jones in Reviews on Mon 15 Jun 2009

Director's Interview @ Digital Spy

From the annals of http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies [digitalspy.co.uk]

Inteview by Simon Reynolds.

With short film Thespian X under his belt, Brit filmmaker Gerald McMorrow penned Franklyn, an urban fairytale where four characters' lives intertwine and cross between fact and fiction. Visually impressive on a modest £6 million budget, McMorrow creates expansive futuristic metropolis Meanwhile City inhabited by mysterious vigilante Preest. Digital Spy gave Gerald a call to discuss Franklyn and making a fantasy in the gangster-movie dominated British film industry.

Franklyn is quite a complex movie with overlapping stories. What was your starting point?

"It was after the first short film I did, I immediately went on to write another short film and this was something that was going to be about a young woman who was going to commit suicide in her apartment and a killer upstairs who's about to take someone out across the street. As that started getting more meat to it, I wanted to know more about those characters and it started trailing back and became a bigger thing. The third act of Franklyn essentially became the short film - a reverse 'what if' situation. The plotlines are complex but at least they started by being finished up."

Was it a fight for you to direct this, being as it's your first movie?

"I was very lucky in that my agent had sent me and the project straight to Jeremy Thomas, who is one of the few producers in town who takes on brave projects and has worked consistently with David Cronenberg and done left-field cinema. I was rather protected by the company I ended up keeping. For every possible time we could've ended up getting dumbed down or get developed into non-existence Jeremy was there fighting for the integrity of that story. I also knew there was no way I was going to be given something like that to direct my first time."

Can you talk about Ewan McGregor and Paul Bettany's involvement in the movie?

"We started off with Ewan and Paul and you can't start fighting agents and studios when things go awry. Ewan broke his leg that year doing his second Long Way Round and when you have a wobble in a cast as precarious as that, suddenly things start falling apart really quickly. While we were developing the script, I had one eye on the trials and tribulations of casting. Eva was always involved and she was there from day one. As others dropped out we weirdly ended up with the right people. The moment Sam walked in, this was before we'd seen Control, he was just so obviously Milo. Ryan coming in at the last minute got everything up and running and flying."

What was Ryan's reaction when you approached him about this?

"I remember his manager had read the script and passed it on to Ryan. By that point we were really right up against it, it was now or never. You have preconceptions about people and it's only when you get the chance to work with someone that you start looking them up and I couldn't believe that here's a guy who's done 36 movies, but you look at what he's chosen to do and they're all really, really interesting off-piste choices. You expect the bleach-blond Californian kid and what you got was an incredibly erudite, brought-up-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks Philadelphia actor. When I met him we did not stop talking all afternoon. Not just about the script, but the political situation in both our countries."

What were your visual reference points for Meanwhile City?

"It started with what Preest hated, and what he was riling against was religion. It came together when I was in Mexico City. Right next to my hotel was a shopping mall the size of Westfield. In every window, it was all religious paraphernalia. I suddenly realised, 'What if you had this place that was run by iconography of religion and faith?' The idea was that if you're going to have a capital city based on religion, you've got somewhere like Florence or Rome and send somewhere like that three miles into the sky."

Preest looks a little like Rorschach from Watchmen. Is that an influence?

"It's weird actually, seven years ago I had no idea Watchmen would be coming out. Our influences for Preest, we wanted a simple mask, really the costume designer based it on Claude Rains's Invisible Man. Part of Preest's delirium and fantasies are based on the religion surrounding him and comics he read and films he saw. He sort of pieces together a jigsaw of his own delusions."

Why do you think the British film industry is so reticent to make films like Franklyn and leans towards rom-coms and gangster films?

"People end up looking at things that work and I think British film is associated with romantic comedies and gangster movies. I think what needs to happen... the more you experiment with things that are slightly different, the more chance there is that one of those genres will work and work at the box office. Adversely you see something like Slumdog coming out of nowhere and now everyone's going, 'We need to do a Slumdog.' It just doesn't work like that. Hopefully, things like that do give producers a little kick up the arse and they can start entertaining the idea of doing something left-field."

Posted by Sam Jones in Interview on Tue 26 May 2009

Eye for Film Review

From http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk [eyeforfilm.co.uk]


Franklyn is a breath of fresh air for British cinema and is the most impressive, daring feature from a first-time writer/director I've seen in some time. Gerald McMorrow has conjured up a film that spans many genres, coupling inventive storytelling with a strong visual aesthetic.

Franklyn is an urban fairytale set between the parallel worlds of a contemporary London and the futuristic faith-dominated metropolis of Meanwhile City. The film weaves a tale of four lost souls whose lives are intertwined by fate, romance and tragedy; as these worlds collide, a single bullet determines the destiny of all of them.


Ryan Phillippe is Jonathan Preest, a feared vigilante of Meanwhile City, a place where religion is the law and he is the only atheist who stands against society. Wanted by the Clerics - the city's police force - Preest is betrayed and arrested by the cops. Left to rot in prison, with memories of the death of a young girl at the hands of sworn enemy The Individual haunting him, he vows revenge.

In present day London we meet Emilia (Eva Green). Born into privilege but deeply troubled, this beautiful art student is forced to endure therapy with a mother she despises, causing her to become cynical and depressed. Things are so bad that she has resorted to filming suicide attempts for her art degree.

Milo (Sam Riley) is also suffering. Recently dumped at the altar, he wonders if he'll ever find true love. One morning he spots an old schoolfriend called Sally on the street. Desperate to see her and take his mind elsewhere, he decides to track her down. His investigation leads him to the school where they met, where she is now a teacher - it's this chance encounter that reawakens Milo's sense of romance and they decide to meet for dinner.

Bernard Hill plays Peter Esser, a deeply religious man who has come to London to find his son David, a Gulf War veteran who has escaped from psychiatric care. Esser learns his son holds a grudge against him so he decides to smooth things out between them.

McMorrow expertly moves the narrative of Franklyn between the real world and the imaginary. Each character is fully fleshed out as we explore the relationship between life, love, fantasy and faith. His writing is complex, setting each character on a fatalistic path, where they are searching for something. Visually, too, all these stories have their own feeling and style.

Meanwhile City is a fantastical, stunning world with incredible architecture that has the feeling of something created by Terry Gilliam. In the real world, London has never looked and felt better and the film makes bold use of its metropolitan locations.

On one level it's surprising to see a Hollywood heartthrob such as Phillippe take a role in which he's unrecognisable, but he's an actor who enjoys a challenge and that's what this script provides. Green has the most challenging role but she steals all the scenes she is in and proves there is a lot more to her than being a French fancy.

Riley is engaging as Milo, a romantic, gentle soul. He brings charm and humour to his role and by taking this film after Control it only emphasises the point that he makes interesting choices and so far his instinct hasn't let him down.

McMorrow clearly has a fascination with how we perceive life, love and loss. He has made a film that will cause endless discussions and viewings as the story is unravelled and then knitted back together again. Franklyn won't be an easy sell, but for audiences who love films with an offbeat edge it is perfect. and is the most impressive, daring feature from a first-time writer/director I've seen in some time. Gerald McMorrow has conjured up a film that spans many genres, coupling inventive storytelling with a strong visual aesthetic.

Franklyn is an urban fairytale set between the parallel worlds of a contemporary London and the futuristic faith-dominated metropolis of Meanwhile City. The film weaves a tale of four lost souls whose lives are intertwined by fate, romance and tragedy; as these worlds collide, a single bullet determines the destiny of all of them.


Ryan Phillippe is Jonathan Preest, a feared vigilante of Meanwhile City, a place where religion is the law and he is the only atheist who stands against society. Wanted by the Clerics - the city's police force - Preest is betrayed and arrested by the cops. Left to rot in prison, with memories of the death of a young girl at the hands of sworn enemy The Individual haunting him, he vows revenge.

In present day London we meet Emilia (Eva Green). Born into privilege but deeply troubled, this beautiful art student is forced to endure therapy with a mother she despises, causing her to become cynical and depressed. Things are so bad that she has resorted to filming suicide attempts for her art degree.

Milo (Sam Riley) is also suffering. Recently dumped at the altar, he wonders if he'll ever find true love. One morning he spots an old schoolfriend called Sally on the street. Desperate to see her and take his mind elsewhere, he decides to track her down. His investigation leads him to the school where they met, where she is now a teacher - it's this chance encounter that reawakens Milo's sense of romance and they decide to meet for dinner.

Bernard Hill plays Peter Esser, a deeply religious man who has come to London to find his son David, a Gulf War veteran who has escaped from psychiatric care. Esser learns his son holds a grudge against him so he decides to smooth things out between them.

McMorrow expertly moves the narrative of Franklyn between the real world and the imaginary. Each character is fully fleshed out as we explore the relationship between life, love, fantasy and faith. His writing is complex, setting each character on a fatalistic path, where they are searching for something. Visually, too, all these stories have their own feeling and style.

Meanwhile City is a fantastical, stunning world with incredible architecture that has the feeling of something created by Terry Gilliam. In the real world, London has never looked and felt better and the film makes bold use of its metropolitan locations.

On one level it's surprising to see a Hollywood heartthrob such as Phillippe take a role in which he's unrecognisable, but he's an actor who enjoys a challenge and that's what this script provides. Green has the most challenging role but she steals all the scenes she is in and proves there is a lot more to her than being a French fancy.

Riley is engaging as Milo, a romantic, gentle soul. He brings charm and humour to his role and by taking this film after Control it only emphasises the point that he makes interesting choices and so far his instinct hasn't let him down.

McMorrow clearly has a fascination with how we perceive life, love and loss. He has made a film that will cause endless discussions and viewings as the story is unravelled and then knitted back together again. Franklyn won't be an easy sell, but for audiences who love films with an offbeat edge it is perfect.

Posted by Darren Amner in Reviews on Tue 26 May 2009

Franklyn Production story

FRANKLYN is an original screenplay by writer/director Gerald McMorrow, who came up with the idea, shortly after completing his 2002 TCM Classic Shorts Film Competition-winning short THESPIAN X. "When I was making short films I was constantly looking for ideas; one of which was the idea of a young woman who is attempting a suicide and someone in the apartment above her is planning to assassinate somebody across the street. So that was the seed of it. I liked the idea that someone who was about to take their own life was suddenly, within five minutes, fighting for it."

McMorrow realised that he wanted to develop a feature based on that original idea, which ended up being the denouement of the film. "I worked backwards from that initial idea," says McMorrow. "I wanted to know more about these two characters. Who was across the road and who gets in the way of the assassination? It ended up being a bigger story involving four strands of characters."

McMorrow secured the backing of Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas. Thomas is well-known for supporting first time directors and has launched the careers of a number of directors including Jonathan Glazer (SEXY BEAST) and David Mackenzie (YOUNG ADAM). "I liked the originality of the script and found it very exciting when I read it. It had an enormously satisfying ending. I'm always tempted by scripts with great endings. I thought THESPIAN X, was outstanding, which although low-budget had a lot of very ambitious effects that Gerald had constructed in a home-made way." The veteran producer was also impressed by McMorrow's confidence and vision. "I thought Gerald really understood what he wanted to make and managed to bring the film alive for me when I first met him. That original vision has moved into the shooting which is rare in a first time film-maker."

The neo-noir FRANKLYN is a split narrative set simultaneously in contemporary London and in a parallel fantasy metropolis governed by religious fervour, Meanwhile City. It is the story of four souls divided by two parallel worlds. Preest is the masked hero of Meanwhile City whose objective is to track down the Individual, the leader of a religious cult, but in the real world Preest is David, an emotionally damaged young man struggling to confront his demons. Emilia is a beautiful young woman, who is upset with her life, angry at the world and orchestrates her own suicide attempts as art installations. There is also Milo, who’s been jilted at the altar and tries to find happiness as he rekindles a friendship with his childhood love, the enigmatic Sally. And finally there’s Esser, the desperate father who’s searching for his missing son. These lost souls are, in more ways than one, intertwined as they move toward an inevitable collision of two fractured worlds.

McMorrow describes the complex plot succinctly. "All four of the characters are dancing round a maypole that brings them closer and closer together as the story unfolds." Ryan Phillippe plays Preest, the masked vigilante out to avenge a death. McMorrow was delighted to find the actor prepared to take on the unusual role. "The great thing about Ryan is that if you look back at what he's done he's made some really interesting choices. I think he liked it because there was nothing relying on his looks or the perception of him as the clean-cut idol. He was happy to do something a little bit strange." Phillippe was attracted by the script. "It was completely original and intelligent, it wasn't black and white. That's what I am always looking for as an actor, to be part of something that I haven't seen and that I would want to see. There is so much derivative and recycled material out there, but to find something as unique as this was pretty exciting. After meeting Gerald I could see that he knew exactly what he wanted and it was very easy for me to believe in him. There are four stories and they are all completely different. My character is not what he seems. I thought it was so visionary and it was so exciting for me to get to know Gerald's voice as a writer and all the themes of love, hope and faith were pretty compelling.”

Phillippe, a black-belt in Tae Kwon Do, performed all his own stunts. “I started doing martial arts when I was eight years old and Gerald found that out early on. The most difficult thing about doing the stunts was being in the mask and heels.” Before filming started Phillippe spent some time preparing for the role. “I did a fair amount of physical preparation for the stunt work and I spent a fair amount of time looking at comic books and trying to copy poses. There's something about the part of the film I'm in which is meant to be iconic and remind you of these action heroes and we drew on that kind of material quite a bit.”

Eva Green plays Emilia, an art-student whose suicidal art projects become increasingly deadly. She also plays Sally, Milo’s childhood sweetheart. McMorrow felt Green completely embodied the part of Emilia. "Eva is Emilia. I just couldn't imagine it being anybody else. She is an unbelievably correct balance of depth, beauty and kookiness with a little bit of an element of strange danger. I would find it very hard to find anyone else who could get away with that. There's something fascinating going on in there that comes out in her performance. It's an other worldliness which fits with Emilia's character."

For Eva Green playing two characters was part of the appeal. "It's quite a metaphysical movie about fate. The madness of the script was very appealing; the story of those four lost and lonely characters and the fact that I was playing two characters was very interesting. There's Emilia who is very dark and tormented and she expresses her lack of well-being through her art. She puts herself on tape and pretends to commit suicide several times. It's dramatic but also quite funny, she's not self-indulgent she's a real artist. It's quite a lot of fun actually and it's a journey of self-discovery and at the end she realises how valuable her life is so it's an interesting journey. Then there's Sally who is very light and loves life, so the contrast of the two was really challenging and interesting."

Green worked with a dialogue coach and the costume and make-up designers to establish the two distinct characters. Green explains “We worked a lot on the voices to distinguish between the two characters, Emily's is quite low and cracky and Sally was higher pitched and light and less tormented. The looks are also very different. Sally has red hair and looks like she's stepped out of a 1950's movie. Emilia hides behind her costumes and a lot of make-up, smoky eyes and dark hair and flea market clothes. And Sally has almost no make-up. She is a pure creature."

Sam Riley plays Milo, the heartbroken romantic trying to find his way back to the purity of his first love. McMorrow explains how Sam was originally up for the role of Preest. “Sam came in to read for Preest. There's an innocence to Sam Riley and he doesn't really have that feeling of damage that was necessary to play Preest, but of course he was a natural for Milo and there's a gentleness and humour to Sam that worked perfectly."

Riley was happy to switch roles. "I loved the idea of the film. I just wanted to be part of it in any way and Milo is an interesting character. He’s a romantic, gentle soul and I liked the idea of being slightly mad as well, without being too crazy. Gerald told me he was loosely based on him, but I think Gerald is almost every character in the film. Out of everything I had read since CONTROL, it was the most interesting. It's different, it's confusing and contemporary and I really liked Gerald when I first met him. He's really enthusiastic with tons of ideas and I loved his short film THESPIAN X. I knew he was going to make Meanwhile City look pretty incredible and the descriptions of that sounded pretty awesome in the script. “

Riley neatly sums up what the film is about for him. “It's about fate and true love and the horrors of war and how London is turning into a futuristic nightmare in many ways and the idea of religion being so dominating and it's part action movie which is always good fun." Rounding out the cast is Bernard Hill playing Peter Esser, the desperate father searching for his son. "Bernard is just one of those guys that people want to be their dad.” says McMorrow. “He’s an everyman who on the face of it is doing all the right things, but underneath there is a sadness and a loneliness that Bernard can play beautifully.”

Meanwhile City, the alternate world where church and state collide was filmed over seven weeks on locations throughout London. McMorrow gave the two different worlds their own distinct look. “The most logical way was to treat London in a rather fluid and beautiful way, but it had to look real. Meanwhile City is a lot more colourful, but in the style of the old masters with one light source, and deep rich earthy colours. In a way we shot the reality like the fantasy and the fantasy like the reality so that should be an interesting balance.”

Production Designer Laurence Dorman found the creation of the fantasy world Meanwhile City challenging. “20 percent of the film is a big budget movie done on a low budget. Gerald already had a lot of conceptual stuff in his mind about what Meanwhile City was and he also had a collection of reference material of strange buildings and so on so he was able to illustrate quite easily what kind of a place he wanted Meanwhile City to be. Meanwhile City is an imaginary London filtered through religion so everything has a religious emphasis. Everybody is some kind of religious practitioner. The whole world is about religion. It’s been very liberating to do something as imaginative as this.” Mexico City not only inspired the idea of a whole world dominated by religion, but also inspired the look of Meanwhile City. "There's a mishmash and clash of religions there," says McMorrow. "I was staying next to a shopping mall and all it sold on two tiers was religious goods. This place existed to provide your faith needs. This is showing the way the world is going; the powers that be realising that as long as you have a faith you can be manipulated, whether that's militant Muslims, Christians or the Midwest of the US. It’s summed up by the Epicurius quote: "Religion is known by the commoners to be true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful.”

"The combination of the faded grandeur and huge ancient ornate architecture with a high level of design that has just been left to rot. Our idea was to take a place that is intended to inspire you with religious awe and throw in everything from every era with mixed fashions, all very non denominational and non-specific and over-looked by this kind of Vatican in Manhattan kind of feel." commented Dorman. Costume designer, Leonie Hartard, enjoyed the part costume had to play in the film, particularly in the scenes in Meanwhile City. “It was very exciting to read a script with such a bias towards costume. It was a combination of graphic novels and film noir. We discussed using a colour palette very early on for Meanwhile City so everything would look very dark and shabby and would have a period feel without it being of any specific time. The costumes are a mix from medieval to fetish wear. There was so much scope to play, but within the colour palette. Amish, Hindu, Buddhist, Dutch nuns are all mixed together, but nothing looks like a specific religion. We used robes and capes that suggest religious wear, but with a twist.

Production designer, Laurence Dorman was equally able to throw in a wide mix of objects and references. “I invented lots of strange things that look like they might be religious and created things that look like shrines and organ pipes, but we've avoided anything that looks like any specific religion. I took some inspiration from the Notting Hill carnival.” Dominating the scenes in Meanwhile City is the masked vigilante, Preest. Phillippe describes the city inhabited by his character. “Meanwhile City is where I reside and it's an alternate reality, there are things that are quite antiquated within it so you don't have a direct sense of where it is in time. Everyone has to have a faith, the policemen are clerics, and the city is in the grip of religious figures and people who are dictating a life and religious power. It's allegorical, you can see what the inspiration is, but it's certainly not real."

Hartard was able to collaborate freely with her director, except when it came to the design of Preest’s mask as she explains. “Gerald has a great understanding and love of graphic novels and comics and he was very clear and unswerving in his vision for Preest. I almost had the sense that Gerald knew what the mask would look like before he started writing the script! “The first draft I received had a tiny drawing of a man in a mask in one corner and it hasn't changed that much. The shape of the eyes and the blankness were Gerald’s ideas and he wanted it to be sombre, so there would be no identity.”

McMorrow explains the effect he was looking for. “The mask serves as anonymity, It’s a blank. There are two eyes, but there is no expression. It’s disconcerting, when I was giving Ryan direction you've just got these two deep pools staring back at you. It's interesting what an effect it has on people he's talking to. There is automatically discomfort. And the other reason was that it just looked really cool - that's my comic book geek coming out.”

Phillippe comments. "80 percent of the time I'm in a mask and you don't see my face. I had to do stunts and difficult scenes in a mask so it's been a bit like a piece of performance art and about body movement and it’s been a completely different approach to my work. It was a great physical challenge and I like the mystery of it. It's been interesting being on set in the mask people can’t read your expression there's something interesting about that.”

McMorrow was determined to exploit the vast range of locations unique to London. “I was born in London and I think it's got a lot to give in terms of undiscovered country. We've been creative in where we've filmed, beyond the usual cliché views of London. We've pushed the envelope a little bit in finding ways to shoot not only our regular stuff, but also our fantasy stuff. We've been all over the place, on the roof of the V & A (Victoria and Albert Museum), the bowels of Abbey Mills Pumping Station, which has this incredible abandoned faded grandeur and it still works; it looks fantastic.”

Sam Riley enjoyed shooting on the streets of London. "We shot on Oxford Street on a busy Saturday afternoon and that was pretty cool. We also shot on the V + A roof and recognisable locations in the city, I think it’s pretty excellent.”

For producer Jeremy Thomas it was exciting to film in a London not seen on screen before. “We've seen so many films set in London, so to take a story that is not just a genre story, but try and make a film that is it's own special film and doesn't fit into a typical London genre film - gangster, period, but is something more challenging.

Posted by Cult Labs in News on Tue 26 May 2009

Den of Geek Review

Den of Geek

Franklyn review

Martin Anderson

Published on Feb 23, 2009

Meanwhile City is a strange place, particularly if you're an 'unbeliever' like the unfortunately-named Preest (Ryan Phillippe). In this city, you have to pick a religion - atheism is not an option.

On the plus side, it's a multi-faith metropolis whose denizens worship everything from Buddha to nail-polish. Sects and cults abound, and the mask-clad Preest tasks himself with rescuing those kidnapped into their clutches.

But tonight, out on the Blade Runner-like streets, towered over by miles of skyscraping cathedrals and shrines, Preest is plotting revenge, not rescue. Someone is going to die for what they did to a 'hostage'...

Meanwhile in present-day London...

Goth artist-student Amelia (Eva Green) is lost in a period of rage and regret, and the psychiatrist her mother hires can't heal the family wounds. Her repeated suicide attempts are part of an 'art-project' for her course, but they're getting awful risky...

Elsewhere, Esser (Bernard Hill) is a decent dad who's come down from Cambridge to London to seek his estranged and ill son, who's always one step ahead of him...

Elsewhere again, jilted spouse Milo (Sam Riley) finds his own emotional turmoil leavened by the sudden re-appearance in his life of his childhood sweetheart. Who's also played by Eva Green...

There's very, very little I can say about the multi-threaded and multi-temporal plot of Franklyn without spoiling it for you; since it's a thought-provoking and intelligent sci-fi film in the vein of Slaughterhouse 5 and Brazil, I don't really want to do that.

In a climate clamouring for more superheroes, the sight of Ryan Phillippe in a Watchmen-style mask in the film's publicity probably gives the wrong impression of exactly what type of movie Franklyn is. There is a great 'cathedral city', there are some fantastic effects shots by Double Negative and there is some extraordinary imagery and production design likely to appeal to fans of Ridley Scott and Terry Gilliam. And, while these are interspersed with the conventional modern London locations, they are not doled out in such small amounts as to make you feel that you've been had.

You may well have been had, but not for that reason; rather, these comic-strip environs are not really what Franklyn is about.

Director Gerald McMorrow is taking a big risk crediting his audience with some intelligence when that's so unfashionable; Franklyn doesn't worry that you'll begin to connect the various threads of the mystery before the narrative resolves them. The revelatory finale doesn't try for a Fight Club-style coup of the viewer's perceptions, but leaves enough questions unanswered to intrigue.

Those hoping for a committed anti-religious tract might be disappointed; despite its plot-description, Franklyn has very little to say about religion one way or another, and it's used instead as a narrative device and aesthetic motif for the film. One late development suggests that the movie's votive anti-religion sentiment is inspired by events in the middle-east, but that's evidently too hot a topic to pursue, except as a cryptic sub-text.

The film owes more to Brazil than any other influence, particularly in one amusing scene where the masked Preest asks some information from a female clerk. Talking of her 'current religion', she points over to a group of well-coiffured women filing their nails in a gleeful circle: "I'm a Seventh-Day Manicurist," she tells Preest, "but I'm thinking of changing. The chat's not very good, and they're running out of colours".

The cast are excellent, but they're not excellent in every scene; Franklyn's commendably high standard of writing, directing and acting seems to suddenly drop in certain scenes, with clunky dialogue and wooden performances that evinced the odd unintentional laugh at the screening I attended.

That said, Bernard Hill, Art Malik and Susannah York are prize-finds for secondary roles, whilst Eva Green continues to demonstrate the most potent combination of attitude, acting ability and attractiveness since Sophia Loren. I liked Sam Riley a lot in Control, much as I did in Franklyn, but he's on very much the same territory here, and can't do too many more 'emotionally vulnerable' turns before the style sets hard on his career.

Ryan Phillipe's accent adds to the confusion in Franklyn: he's American, and yet turns in an unconvincing American accent for the film-noir voice-over that accompanies the 'Meanwhile City' segments. It could be an intentional stylisation, but it is odd. 'Menacing' is a bit of a reach for this actor, but he acquits himself well enough, particularly at the finale.

This is, above all, a very British film both in tone and approach; the high-budget stylings of the religious metropolis are there to counterpoint that fact, not compensate for it. The lack of an American release date is no surprise once you've seen the film, for this is as local an effort in intent as The Full Monty, and it's very hard to gauge how such projects will translate in the US market.

France virtually had the sci-fi movie market to itself last year, but the likes of Eden Log and Dante 01 channelled the SF classics without adding anything of their own; to its credit, Franklyn actually has something of its own to say, and has digested its influences enough to stand on its own merits.

There are too many rough edges to take Franklyn beyond three stars, but I'm so grateful to see a sci-fi film with a brain that I'm compelled to add another...

4 stars

Posted by Martin Anderson in Reviews on Mon 25 May 2009

Franklyn: The Directors Statement

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I think at heart Franklyn is an urban fairytale. As in all classic fairytales, this story contains the elements of love, faith, redemption, suspense, good and evil and a sense of a higher power, perhaps an almost magical power at work.

Franklyn is a glimpse into the inner workings of fate, whether designed or random, as it affects four totally different human beings across vastly different environments, from the gritty streets of London to the stunning parallel world of Meanwhile City’s religious metropolis.

We follow the stories of four complex characters, each inexorably set on a fatalistic path. They are all searching for something - whether it is the love of their remaining family, a promised happiness, the purity of first love or simply an explanation to the tragedy and horrors of everyday life.

Visually these four stories have their own feel and style. Each on a sliding scale from fantasy to reality.The eclectic nature of Preest’s hometown of Meanwhile City is a melting pot of religiously based architecture, a stunning and imaginative world where John Preest’s shadowy vigilante detects amongst the shadows of totalitarian religious control.

Milo is a romantic at heart; he’s just forgotten it. The tragedy of his failed engagement and cancellation of his wedding only goes to confirm his worst fears – that his grasp on true love is forgotten, possibly gone forever. Milo’s world is one of mundane, day-to- day, survival – but amongst these regular working hours he witnesses snatches of sunshine, a glimpse of a previous, purer way of feeling in the form of Sally, his childhood friend and first love.

Peter Esser’s world is solitary and empty. He is a simple man on a lonely mission to London to find his estranged and mentally damaged son. From the depressing streets around the homeless shelters in the west end we will watch as he searches the desperate world of London’s lost souls. Emilia lives in her own form of mild fantasy. Her increasingly dramatic cries for help give her life a sense of the absurd, her flat, and her view on life slightly more skewed than Milo or Esser’s. In fact as the story moves toward the denouement in her flat we will find that it is increasingly difficult to tell Meanwhile City and Emilia’s world apart.

Franklyn is a delicate balance of reason and fantasy. There are two different ways of looking at the events that unfold. The first is on a grounded reasonable level, that the existence of Meanwhile City and the parallel lives of our characters are simply coincidence and the product of psychological problems or delusion. The other is that there are agents at work, in this case under the guise of Sally and Pastor Bone (an angel like herald, a janitor in one world, maybe something a little more Dionysian in another. They are earthly incarnations of a higher power, existential janitors if you like, turning up when the line between worlds begins to blur and individuals have strayed from their true course. Both of these are eminently possible and depending on your point of view, either could be true.

I have always been a fan of audience/reader manipulation and flights of the imagination. I guess this reflects heavily in Franklyn. However I also have a
fundamental interest in people, a fascination with people’s perception of love and happiness - so intricately and sensitively entwined with fantasy – the two really only a hairs breadth apart. This is why I feel the everyday can combine so easily with the bizarre.

Ultimately I hope this story will be discussed, unravelled and put back together again. It can provoke debate about ourselves, the existence of true love, and the possibility of claiming back the innocence and faith that gradually disappears from us, as we grow older, wiser but more cynical. A comment on the world’s obsession with religious belief, the eccentricities of dogma and the madness of power and control in the name of faith. But throughout Franklyn will remain an emotional fantasy thriller that twists and turns through a uniquely illustrated view of a world we know, a world we don’t and the grey areas in between.

A modern fairytale for cynical times.

Gerald McMorrow 2008

Posted by Gerald McMorrow in Reviews on Mon 25 May 2009

Franklyn - Director Panel & Signing!

If you want to meet the director of Franklyn he'll be at the MCM Expo at the London Excel Centre this Saturday - 22nd May 2009!

Gerald McMorrow will be doing a Q&A Panel with footage from the film to be shown and discussed at 12pm and then at 1.45pm will be signing original theatrical posters from the cinema release - these are limited in quantity (50- well they are originals!) and lovely things to have - especially if you like a large picture of Eva Green or Sam Riley on your bedroom wall!

For full details click here [londonexpo.com]

This is a great show - if you love Tony Curtis, Linda Hamilton, Lindsay Wagner, James Duval it's well worth coming down as they'll be there plus more! Plus if you arrive early the first 3000 people through the door get a Franklyn goody bag - and watch out for the man in the mask himself - ask nicely and he might pose for a picture...

Posted by Almar@Cult Labs in News on Fri 22 May 2009

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.