ABC has refused an advert for theĀ lesbian dramaĀ Carol due to the mild depiction of a sexĀ scene between its main characters.
The Weinstein Company, which distributed the film, is considering “making adjustments to fit network TV execs’ requests” after ABC rejected their proposed advertisement. ABCĀ demanded that Weinstein provide “more coverage on” the film’s stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara during a scene thatĀ features non-explicit nudity, according toĀ The Guardian.
The advert was planned to run ahead of next month’s Academy Awards to entice members to vote for the film in the six categories it was nominated for. The Academy drew criticism from many after failing to nominateĀ Carol for a Best Picture or Best Director Oscar, despite rave reviews (read our five-star review here). Blanchett and Mara are competing for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.
Carol depicts the burgeoning love between an older married woman (Blanchett) and a young shop assistant (Mara) and was directed by openly gay filmmaker Todd Haynes. We called it “captivating, absorbing, all-encompassing” andĀ “an instant-born classic” in our review.
Watch a rough cut of the original advert and let us know in the poll below if you think ABC should have rejected it.
Almost every reference to Ibsen's The Wild Duck starts with how rarely it's performed. You can see why: the play is basically a tragedy wrapped up in a comedy wrapped up in questions of class, status, gender, and whether deception is a necessary social glue. It's a Rubik's cube of a play but -- credit where it's due -- director Simon Godwin makes it look easy. In his hands, this is an intimate, tragic-comic domestic drama you can really get your teeth into.
And kudos to Godwin (and adapter David Eldridge) for seeing how relevant The Wild Duck is for a 21st century audience. Even if Ibsen writes as a man of his times, it's still true that a single mother today might push her daughter towards financial security, a young man might make an ideological break from an overbearing father, and a destabilized family might forget to protect its fledgling.
A cute, warm-hearted adaptation, Jocelyn Bioh's Merry Wives grabs Shakespeare by the breeches and bum-rushes him into the 21st century and the boisterous mix of Harlem's West African community. Although the Bard's play is certainly here (the program notes tell us Bioh has kept more than 90 percent of the language), there is such a strong sense of the African performance tradition that it feels quite a bit more like the lively telling of a traditional fable. There is a certain charm to this concept and execution, but it also brings a few challenges.
Right out of the box, one of the biggest is the accents. There is no question that this apparently American-born-and-bred cast does a stellar job with them, but there is also no question that it's often hard to catch some of the language Bioh has so painstakingly preserved. It may bring a pleasing authenticity, but it was up to director Taylor Reynolds to test-drive it for clarity. It isn't bad enough to get in the way of the conversational gist per se, but for those hoping to be transported on flights of aural precision, this blurring of the edges may cause some heartburn.
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