Written by Andreas Babiolakis

When I was looking ahead to the 2022 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, I was anticipating Sam Mendes’ then-upcoming feature Empire of Light. I was completely spellbound by 1917 a few years ago, and felt like the director was hitting a new stride (additionally, I will never not champion American Beauty: one of my favourite films of the 1990s). Of all of the Mendes films I have seen, I never disliked any of the risks he took or the choices he made, and even then I would still argue that this is true. However, it pains me to say that Empire of Light is my least favourite Sam Mendes feature thus far. It had everything going for it to even make me find a personal connection with it, including being a film that details cinephilia (lord knows I am a softy for those). All of the separate elements here seem like they would click into place. Roger Deakins is always a plus, and his photography here is up to his usual, sublime standards. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are also highly welcome with their occasionally traditional, sometimes tense score (the dichotomy of their music this time around makes for a nice see-saw of emotions). I’ll get into the real reason to watch the film shortly, but Empire of Light is quite well made in a few ways, particularly its production and world building. I should be getting lost in this film.

Except I don’t, and it is extremely frustrating. For almost the entire film, I felt like I was a child on the outside of this fascinating shop with my face smushed against the glass and having to wipe away the condensation of my breath as it collected before my eyes. It never seemed like I could get into the store. The door was locked, or I was held back by a guardian. I didn’t soak up anything here whatsoever, and it’s not like Empire of Light had nothing to say. This is quite the opposite. Hilary Small is a manager at the Empire theatre during the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and there is quite an unsettling aura surrounding the film. She is exploited and abused by the theatre’s head honcho Donald Ellis, unbeknownst to the rest of the cinema staff. There’s a new employee named Stephen who will start as an usher; he is placed under Hilary’s wing quite quickly in the film. As a Black man, Stephen is facing a lot of racist harassment in his daily life. Hilary takes a liking to him rather swiftly, and Empire of Light proceeds onward.

As it continues, Empire of Light doesn’t know how to progress or resolve, well, any of its plot points. Every event feels like a snippet of something larger, as if this was the first draft of a screenplay that got rushed into production without any meticulous sculpting: there’s hardly anything definitive here. Racism exists and interracial relationships are judged. We already know this. What do we get from Empire of Light that we don’t already know? Cinephiles love films, obviously. Great. We don’t really experience this outside of the discussion or feature of classic works here and there. As someone who works in a cinema on the side and have done so for years, not a single ounce of that spark that one feels being amidst likeminded fanatics is caught here; not even the buzz of being in a theatre and preparing for an anticipating audience is present. Thatcher’s time is a polarizing one, and anyone could tell you this. There are flashes of conversations about how women are gaslit and mistreated in the workplace and by society, but these go nowhere. Does anything really happen during Empire of Light that gets commented on outside of the simplest of platitudes like “racists suck”, “movies are awesome”, “Margaret Thatcher pissed off a lot of people”, and “women should be treated better”? We already know all of these things. Empire of Light isn’t shining the beacon on anything but the obvious before it sprints on to the next uncooked idea.

Never would I ever predict that I would say that Kenneth Branagh’s homage to cinema and his upbringing during times of turmoil would turn out better than Sam Mendes: a director I typically much prefer. If this is a love letter by Mendes, then it doesn’t know what it is trying to say. We’re transported back to the early 80s, but the film is so unimpressionable that it could have been any era and it would feel the same way. I feel quite awful saying all of this because I can see that everyone tried their best, but something is lost in translation here. There’s all of this apparent love and truth on screen, but almost none of it resonates whatsoever. I felt like I was trying again and again to feel something with Empire of Light, and yet I don’t. I just am present without connecting. Outside of a couple of standout moments, the film exists on its own plane.

However, there is one fixture of glue that keeps this entire picture together, and that is Olivia Colman as Hilary. Her performance is the only constant throughout that is reliable and hoists Empire of Light to higher levels at almost any given point. She is clearly dead on the outside but full of life waiting to burst on the inside, and you see moments where she bursts with glee and it warms my heart so much. She also lets her anger out once in a while, and you feel her agony more than anything else in the film can convey. It’s a shame that the disjointed writing and/or editing makes me feel like we’re seeing fragments of a bigger story involving Colman’s Hilary, but every single second she is on screen is a blessing regardless. Empire of Light is watchable because of Colman’s committed performance that is an entire palette of existence for one hundred minutes. The film doesn’t quite get saved, but it’s given a purpose to be seen at least once. It’s a shame that her performance is the only element that works in a feature full of honest efforts, especially when regarding a motion picture that vows to be fully truthful. It’s not that Empire of Light is dishonest, nor is it ever trying to be. It’s just a part of something larger to the point of feeling incomplete and unvarnished. You can’t tell a story by using every fifth word; it won’t make a lick of sense with that much missing information.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.