LIFE (2015)

Genre: Drama
Director: Anton Corbijn
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton, Alessandra Mastronardi, Stella Schnabel, Ben Kingsley
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Some Nudity)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 31 December 2015

Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and Hollywood’s rebel actor James Dean (Dane DeHaan), brought together for a LIFE Magazine assignment. Their journey leads to an unbreakable friendship and some of the most iconic images of the age.

Movie Review:

If you’ve never heard of the series of iconic portraits of the late James Dean by ‘LIFE’ magazine photographer Dennis Stock back in 1955, then you really shouldn’t bother with this tepid re-telling of that photo-spread. Indeed, Anton Corbijn’s film of the same name isn’t a biopic of the method actor who had died in a car accident in the same year at the tender age of 24; rather, it tells of the brief and testy friendship between Dean and Stock as the latter tracks the former from New York to Indiana to photograph the ascending actor whom he believed was on the cusp of major stardom – more specifically, right before the premiere of ‘East of Eden’ and Dean’s filming of what would be his last motion picture ‘Rebel Without A Cause’.

Essentially a two-hander between ‘Twilight’s’ Robert Pattinson (who portrays Stock) and ‘Chronicle’s’ Dane DeHaan (who plays Dean), it is as interested in the photographer as well as much as the photographer’s subject, both of whom shared a mutual disillusionment of the Hollywood publicity machinery. A freelancer whose calling card is his black-and-white set photos of Nicholas Ray’s ‘Johnny Guitar’, Stock is first seen at Ray’s Chateau Marmont shindig angling for a similar gig on the set of the notable filmmaker’s next project – which would be ‘Rebel’. That career borne out of such ad-hoc shoots and red-carpet assignments has led Stock to be estranged from his wife and young son in New York, and Stock is frustrated both with the knowledge of his inadequacy as a father and the fact that his artistic career seems to have stagnated.

It is at that same dinner party that Stock would meet Dean, who invites Stock to watch a private preview of ‘East of Eden’ the very next day that would convince him there was something extraordinary about its lead actor. “I want to capture his awkwardness,” Stock says. “It’s pure.” The relationship that follows is unfortunately anything but, less so we suspect from the vague sexual chemistry between them than the result of an ambiguous screenplay that cannot quite find the right footing for the pair. Instead, it is content most of the time to let Stock corral Dean to pose for the camera, including a recreation of the most famous Dean image of all – that of the actor moodily striding through New York’s Times Square in the rain, smoking a cigarette and with his coat collar turned up.

There are some brief moments of – for the lack of a better word – life, such as when a scene-chewing Ben Kingsley as Jack L. Warner (of Warner Brothers) tells Dean off for dissing his studio’s Western and refusing to toe the line with the studio publicists. Another memorable scene has Dean laying his heart bare to Stock in a train dining car on the way to the former’s childhood home in Indiana about the painful loss of his mother as a child. Yet, these moments are too few and too far in between a film that never quite knows where it is going or where it wants to go with the central relationship between Stock and Dean – and in the absence of anything meaningful or compelling, one wonders if it is even basis for a whole movie.

That frustration is compounded by a listless turn by Pattinson, who pretty much shrinks his way throughout the show. We’re not quite sure what kind of person Stock was when he was trying to persuade Dean back in the time, but we doubt such a lethargic and obtuse person would have ever convinced Dean to agree to any kind of shoot in the first place. DeHaan, on the other hand, has the unenviable task of trying to translate an enigmatic real-life person into something more than a mirror impersonation, and despite mumbling his way through a lot of the time, succeeds in portraying his character’s awkwardness, insouciance, and rebellious nature. It is still an affected performance all right, but at least it does pop.

As much as ‘Life’ may have seemed a perfect project for Corbijn, who is best known for creating classic images for rock acts U2 and Joy Division, the Dutch-born filmmaker never quite finds a focus for his latest film. All the same, the one compliment we will give is the fact that it does look lovely, aided by his gifted d.p. Charlotte Bruus Christensen and production designer Anastasia Masaro, who vividly evoke the 1950s style of Hollywood, New York and the farming town of Fairmount, Indiana. Like we said at the beginning, those familiar with the portraits might be curious to check out the back story to the shoot; otherwise, this meandering study of the bond between the star and his photographer is too slight and too out-of-focus to matter.

Movie Rating:

(Unless you are a sucker for all things James Dean, this frustratingly obtuse portrait of the relationship between the star and the photographer of his 1955 'LIFE' portraits is not worth your time) 

Review by Gabriel Chong