The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Walter Mosley

Apple TV+

ā€œI GOT to set things right,ā€ says Ptolemy Grey, Samuel L. Jacksonā€™s latest screen incarnation. He talks into a tape recorder while loading a bullet intended for the man banging on his apartment door. ā€œThat motherfucker got to pay for what heā€™s done.ā€ The Last Days of Ptolemy Greyā€˜s opening scene could have been lifted from a belated Pulp Fiction spin-off, revisiting Jacksonā€™s foul-mouthed, fast-food-obsessed, gun-toting hitman Jules Winnfield nearly three decades on.

Then the action flashes back to just two months earlier. Now we see Ptolemy as a dishevelled, confused 93-year-old living on tinned sausages and beans in a cockroach-infested flat. Regular visits from his kindly great-nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) are his only respite.

This six-part drama, adapted by Walter Mosley from his 2010 novel of the same name, begins by painting a heartbreakingly convincing picture of a man with his mundane daily routines are interspersed with visions of his beloved late wife and often horrifying flashbacks from his childhood in the Deep South.

The story takes a turn for the fantastical when Ptolemy discovers he is eligible for a new drug trial that will restore his memories in crystal-clear detail. The catch is that it is a temporary fix and will worsen his condition in the long run.

Despite this obvious drawback, Ptolemy jumps at the chance to sign up, having discovered that what he thought was a birthday party was actually Reggieā€™s funeral. He needs his mind back to find out who is responsible for Reggieā€™s death.

It is an intriguing set-up, but one that Mosley fails to capitalise on. Ptolemyā€™s amateur sleuthing isnā€™t engaging, and the culprit is eventually revealed so casually that it barely registers. A gripping whodunnit this isnā€™t, perhaps surprisingly considering that Mosley built his reputation on his novels about the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins.

The series works much better as a meditation on memories, consciousness and the passing of time. Ptolemy enjoys learning how things like hip-hop and the internet have progressed during his cognitive decline.

But as he tells Dr. Rubin (Walton Goggins), who is running the drug trial, some things are forgotten for a reason. Remembering elements of his traumatic childhood under racial segregation solves a few mysteries, but also increases his night terrors. And as Ptolemy gets closer to the truth about his great-nephew, he finds it harder to control the reactions that would have stayed buried with his memories.

Jackson, giving his first on-screen lead performance in TVā€™s new golden age, appears to relish flexing his acting muscles a little harder than he has of late. Through some impressive ageing and de-ageing make-up, he gets to portray Ptolemy across a half-century of his life, giving his characterā€™s shifts between degeneration and regeneration an emotional resonance that has been lacking in some of his recent big-screen work.

Fresh from her BAFTA-nominated role in Judas and the Black Messiah, Dominique Fishback also impresses as teenage orphan Robyn, the only other member of Ptolemyā€™s circle who sees him as a person rather than an inconvenience. Their touching, platonic relationship is far more engaging than any of the several romantic subplots.

But even this strong central pairing isnā€™t quite enough to compensate for an unfocused and underwhelming narrative. Ironically, for a drama about the power of memory, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is unlikely to leave a lasting impression.

Film

Maria Schrader

Film

Another Round

Thomas Vinterberg

Due for release in December

ACCORDING to some reports, Norwegian psychiatrist Finn SkĆ„rderud once suggested that humans are born with a blood alcohol level that is 0.05 per cent too low. An unorthodox idea, for sure, and one that is at the heart of Danish midlife crisis drama Another Round. The results, it is fair to say, wouldnā€™t stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, the film sees four childhood friends ā€“ now all teachers ā€“ become willing guinea pigs during a 40th birthday meal. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is morose, bursting into tears over his stale marriage and a history class that has revolted over his blatant apathy. He throws himself wholeheartedly into a SkĆ„rderud-style study: how social and professional performance can be affected by a constant level of inebriation. Thanks to regular top-ups of vodka, Martin soon has both his once-disillusioned students and previously aloof wife Trine (Maria Bonnevie) in raptures.

Psychology lecturer Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) and choir leader Peter (Lars Ranthe) also reap the benefits of day drinking early on, with the latter inspiring a rousing practice between swigs from his secret stash. This motley trio appear to back up a that found creative cognition can significantly improve with the buzz of alcohol. Participants just under the US legal limit proved to be quicker problem-solvers than those who were entirely sober.

Gym instructor Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), however, probably isnā€™t the ideal candidate for their haphazard experiment. According to one from 2000, athletes who drink habitually are twice as likely to be injured, while alcohol consumption can also affect healing times, dehydration levels and performance. Little wonder, then, that the most physically active test subject has the most difficulty adapting.

Yet it doesnā€™t take long for the othersā€™ lives to go hopelessly awry too. Walls are bashed into and relationships are torn apart as on-screen blood alcohol levels show just how much they push past that supposed sweet spot of 0.05 per cent into oblivion. Martin may cite under-the-influence high-achievers such as Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill to justify the debauchery, but it is pretty clear that the gang isnā€™t going to be penning literary classics or guiding a nation any time soon.

Vinterberg isnā€™t interested in demonising alcohol, though. Sure, the quartetā€™s issues are exacerbated by a tipple or 10, but as Martinā€™s mid-dinner breakdown proves, they had already risen to the surface before the experiment began.

Like his Oscar-nominated drama The Hunt, which starred Mikkelsen as a man accused of child abuse, Vinterberg isnā€™t afraid to lighten the mood with flashes of dark humour. Take when a wasted Nikolaj tries to breathalyse himself with a baby monitor, for example, or an equally sozzled Peterā€™s supermarket meltdown over the lack of fresh cod (incredibly, none of the utterly convincing leads touched a drop of alcohol throughout the shoot).

Offering neither a celebration nor a condemnation of drinking culture, the filmā€™s well-balanced narrative may frustrate those expecting a Leaving Las Vegas-esque descent into despair. Yet SkĆ„rderudā€™s idea doesnā€™t appear to be remotely sustainable in the real world ā€“ well, Vinterbergā€™s version of it anyway.

Film

Archive

Gavin Rothery

Available on demand from 10 July

ā€œHE WHO remains passive when overwhelmed with grief loses his best chance of recovering elasticity of mind,ā€ Charles Darwin once wrote.

Passiveness certainly isnā€™t a trait that can be attributed to Archiveā€˜s leading man George Almore (Theo James). He is a bereaved researcher secretly attempting to resurrect his wife, played by Stacy Martin, using analogue memories and robotics.

We meet George in 2038, two years and two prototypes into his mission. He has produced J1, a boxy, WALL-E-esque figure that is slightly rigid and watches vintage cartoons, and V2, its more advanced ā€œsisterā€ with a jealous streak.

Holed up in an isolated facility deep in the heart of Japanā€™s snow-capped Yamanashi prefecture, George must care for these specimens of ā€œdeep-tiered machine learning and artificial intelligenceā€ while keeping his project a secret.

Having lived through the road accident that killed his beloved, Almore cuts an enigmatic yet often sympathetic figure. He has genuine compassion for the robots, all too aware they are essentially failed experiments. And there is a palpable survivorā€™s guilt driving his mission.

Though the film is very much about Almore, there are other good characters too. Take the hard-nosed, hologrammed vice president (Rhona Mitra), for example, who is threatening to withdraw funding from the project providing Almoreā€™s cover. Thereā€™s also Toby Jonesā€™s inquisitive company representative, who suspects that the 200 hours of posthumous conversation data from Almoreā€™s wife is being misused. Oh, and letā€™s not forget the gun-toting risk-assessor, played by Peter Ferdinando.

ā€œAlmore has genuine compassion for the robots, all too aware they are essentially failed experimentsā€

The film will inevitably be compared with an episode of Black Mirror called ā€œBe Right Backā€, in which a widow revives her partner, who died in a car crash, using a mail-ordered digital consciousness.

Archive, however, focuses just as much on the mechanics behind the concept as its implications. Version 3.0 of Almoreā€™s robot wife turns out to be difficult for him to control. Her construction from confused, disembodied head and torso to fully realised ghost-white being is also remarkable, and sometimes very disturbing to observe.

This is a feature-length debut for writer and director Gavin Rothery. His only previous sci-fi work was a 2014 short called The Last Man, in which a soldier is awoken into a war-ravaged world. Rothery also supervised the visual effects on Moon, including parts of the eerie mining facility that the film is set in.

While it doesnā€™t quite hit all of the heights that it could, Archive is an entertaining watch. Its clever ruminations on free will, grief and immortality provide an immersive and visceral experience ā€“ one that, like its protagonist, is anything but passive.