From its first moments, in which an employee played by Olivia Colman opens the grand, golden Empire cinema for the day, "Empire of Light" feels like a love letter to the experience of moviegoing.
Although Colman's Hilary never actually has time to watch movies, "Empire" is filled with the kinds of things designed to make a cinephile's heart race. The projectionist, delicately played by Toby Jones, gets a heartfelt monologue in which he describes the magic by which the characters in movies appear to move. The climax occurs when the Empire is chosen to host a premiere of "Chariots of Fire" (the movie is set in coastal England in the early 1980s). Cinematographer Roger Deakins photographs the Empire so that it looks like a burnished Edward Hopper painting, all rich colors, shafts of light and loneliness. And there's even a secret theater within the theater, with dazzling midcentury architecture and spectacular Atlantic Ocean views.
Especially in an era when movie theaters are struggling, that stuff is irresistible. But you may have noticed that none of it sounds much like plot. "Empire," written and directed by Sam Mendes ("1917"), sounds like a British take on "Cinema Paradiso" but there's quite a bit more to it.
