Hollywood loves making movies about movies, and this year is no exception, from the subplot about a production company shooting a film called “The Gambler” in “Downton Abbey: A New Era” to the porn-movie-within-the-horror-movie in “X” to Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans” to the upcoming Golden Age epic “Babylon” to Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” which takes place in and around an English coastal cinema in the early 1980s.
With the versatile and greatly talented Mendes (“American Beauty,” “Road to Perdition,” “Skyfall”) writing and directing, and a first-tier cast featuring Academy Award winners Olivia Colman and Colin Firth, along with the great character actor Toby Jones and rising star Micheal Ward, not to mention the gorgeous visuals from legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, “Empire of Light” has all the trappings of a prestige, awards-bait film (especially given how much the movie business loves to REWARD movies about movies), but this is one of the most disappointing efforts of the year. The material is relentlessly dour, the primary relationship feels contrived and implausible, and a couple of major developments late in the film come across as forced and heavy-handed.
