movie reviews empire of light

Advertisement

Supported by

‘Empire of Light’ Review: They Found It at the Movies

Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward pursue a bittersweet workplace romance in Sam Mendes’s look back at Britain in the early 1980s.

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

“Empire of Light” takes place in and around an old movie palace in a British seaside town. This cinema, which is called the Empire, is more than a mere setting: it’s the movie’s center of gravity, its soul, its governing metaphor and reason for being.

In the early 1980s, the Empire has fallen on hard times, rather like the global power evoked by its name. The sun hasn’t quite set, but the upstairs screens are now permanently dark, and a once-sumptuous lounge on the top floor is frequented mainly by pigeons. The public still shows up to buy popcorn and candy, and to see films like “The Blues Brothers,” “Stir Crazy” and “All That Jazz,” but the mood is one of quietly accepted defeat. Even the light looks tired.

That light is also beautiful, thanks to the unrivaled cinematographer Roger Deakins , whose images impart a tone of gentle nostalgia. It’s possible to look back fondly on a less-than-golden age, and Sam Mendes (“Revolutionary Road,” “1917”), the writer and director, casts an affectionate gaze on the Empire, its employees, and the drab, sometimes brutal realities of Thatcher-era Britain.

“Empire of Light” has a sad story to tell, one that touches on mental illness, sexual exploitation, racist violence and other grim facts of life. But Mendes isn’t a realist in the mode of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. The period-appropriate British movies that find their way to the Empire’s screens are “Gregory’s Girl” and “Chariots of Fire,” and Mendes borrows some of their sweet, gentle humor and heartfelt humanist charm.

Olivia Colman plays Hilary, the Empire’s duty manager, who oversees a motley squad of cinema soldiers. There is a nerdy guy, a post-punk girl and a grumpy projectionist. They are soon joined by Stephen (Micheal Ward), a genial young man whose college plans are on hold.

Hilary and her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), are carrying on a desultory affair. For her, the rushed encounters in his office are part of a dreary workplace routine, evidence of an ongoing malaise. Things could always be worse, and for Hilary, they have been. She has recently returned to work after spending time in a mental hospital after a breakdown and takes lithium to maintain her equilibrium.

Stephen’s arrival jolts her out of her torpor, which is both exciting and risky. He seems more open to experience, more capable of happiness, than anyone else in this grubby little city, and he and Hilary strike up a friendship that turns into more. His encounters with hostile skinheads and bigoted customers open Hilary’s eyes to the pervasiveness of racial prejudice. Together they nurse a wounded pigeon back to health.

For a while, their romance unfolds in a quiet, quotidian rhythm that allows you to appreciate Colman and Ward’s fine-grained performances. “What are days?” the poet Philip Larkin asked — he’s a favorite of Hilary’s, along with W.H. Auden — and his answer was both somber and sublime. “Days are where we live.” The daily rituals of work at the Empire, and the pockets of free time that open up within it, add a dimension of understated enchantment, as if a touch of big-screen magic found its way into the break room, the concession stand and the box office.

It’s inevitable that the spell will break, and when it does, “Empire of Light” falters. Mendes raises the stakes and accelerates the plot, pushing Hilary and Stephen through a series of crises that weigh the movie down with earnest self-importance. A film that had seemed interested in the lives and feelings of its characters, and in an unlikely but touching relationship between two people at odds with the world around them, turns into a movie with Something to Say.

The message is muddled and soft, like a Milk Dud at the bottom of the box, and the movie chews on it for quite a while. “Empire of Light” arrives at its emotional terminus long before it actually ends. Things keep happening, as if Mendes were trying to talk himself and us through ideas that hadn’t been fully worked out. There isn’t really much insight to be gleaned on the subjects of mental illness, racial politics, middle age or work, though an earnest effort is made to show concern about all of them.

What “Empire of Light” really wants to be about are the pleasures of ’80s pop music, fine English poetry and, above all, movies. Like everyone else at the Empire, the grumpy projectionist takes a liking to Stephen, and shows him how to work the machinery, eliciting exclamations of wonder from the young man, and also from old-timers in the audience who might remember the vanished sights and sounds of celluloid. The velvet ropes and plush seats, the beam of light and the whirring — it’s all lovely and bittersweet to contemplate.

Movies have always been more than a source of comfort: They have the power to disturb, to seduce, to provoke and to enrage. None of that really interests Mendes here, even though the story of Hilary and Stephen might have benefited from a tougher, less sentimental telling.

Empire of Light Rated R. Sex and violence, just like in the movies. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series  based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

Movie review: 'empire of light'.

Bob Mondello

"Empire of Light" is director Sam Mendes' tribute to cinema. Actress Olivia Colman plays a slowly unraveling employee at Britain's Empire Theater in the 1980s.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Cinematic nostalgia comes in all shapes and sizes this holiday season. Steven Spielberg's latest movie, "The Fabelmans," is about how he became a filmmaker. The comedy "Babylon" will soon offer a portrait of Hollywood in the Roaring '20s. And today we have "Empire Of Light," which critic Bob Mondello says is set almost entirely inside a grand old movie palace.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: When it opened in the 1920s, the seaside Empire theater must have been fabulous - towering art deco sign facing the boardwalk; a grand double staircase in the lobby; burnished, curved wood on the walls; brass fittings polished till they gleam like gold to match the gold swirls in the burgundy carpet.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "EMPIRE OF LIGHT")

TOBY JONES: (As Norman) Look around you. This whole place is for people who want to escape, people who don't belong anywhere else.

MONDELLO: And that's just the lobby. In the auditorium, acres of seats face a velvet curtain that parts to reveal a majestic screen.

MICHEAL WARD: (As Stephen) Wow.

MONDELLO: It still has the power to awe. But this is the Maggie Thatcher '80s. And the films on the marquee now are "The Blues Brothers" and "All That Jazz," two titles because the grand old Empire theater fell on hard times and got chopped into a multiplex. But folks still come. And Hilary, played by Olivia Colman, still forces a smile through her numbness while selling them popcorn until the arrival of a new employee, a student played by Micheal Ward, with an upbeat, Sidney Poitier vibe. They strike up a friendship, and suddenly, she's full of life, encouraging him.

WARD: (As Stephen) They turned me down the first time.

OLIVIA COLMAN: (As Hilary) To study what?

WARD: (As Stephen) Architecture.

COLMAN: (As Hilary) Oh, that would be wonderful.

WARD: (As Stephen) Yeah.

COLMAN: (As Hilary) You have to try again.

WARD: (As Stephen) Yeah, maybe.

COLMAN: (As Hilary) Well, you can't just give up. Stephen, don't let them tell you what you can or can't do. No one's going to give you the life you want. You have to go out and get it.

MONDELLO: Excellent advice, though, of course, she's not done that herself. And when her moods turn erratic, it becomes clear why. That numbness she had before? Medicated. Stephen's there and responsible, but when she's off her meds and creates a scene...

WARD: (As Stephen) Hilary, are you all right?

COLMAN: (As Hilary) Tell me truthfully. Did I humiliate myself?

WARD: (As Stephen) What?

COLMAN: (As Hilary) Tell me. Did I?

MONDELLO: There's only so much cover he can provide.

WARD: (As Stephen) No, it wasn't humiliating. It was just intense. To be honest, I thought you were a bit of a hero.

COLMAN: (As Hilary) That's very nice of you. Hard to believe.

MONDELLO: Filmmaker Sam Mendes reportedly built "Empire Of Light" around Colman, and eyes darting, smile tentative, she delivers for him. The director also built the film around his setting. And the Empire theater doesn't let him down either, a movie palace of the sort that audiences have increasingly been giving up for streaming services despite the everyday miracle they deliver.

JONES: (As Norman) Film - it's just static frames with darkness in between.

MONDELLO: Toby Jones' projectionist musing to Stephen about the magic they work in this place.

JONES: (As Norman) There's a little flaw in your optic nerve. So if I run the film at 24 frames per second, it creates an illusion of motion, an illusion of life. So you don't see the darkness.

MONDELLO: Darkness - what darkness? For Mendes, darkness is what you get when you turn off the TV. At the cinema, he sees, as will audiences, an empire of light. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“Empire of Light,” Reviewed: Sam Mendes’s Synthetic Paean to Movie Magic

By Richard Brody

The writer and director Sam Mendes’s new film, “Empire of Light,” centered on the employees of an English movie theatre in the early nineteen-eighties, belongs to a genre unto itself: cooking-show cinema. Mendes seems to have given himself a list of mandatory ingredients and develops the film to fit them all in, however clumsily. There’s no intrinsic problem with conspicuous contrivance or a willful cinematic collage, whether involving the Marx Brothers or the New Wave. The trouble with Mendes’s film is in the effort to combine the pieces in a way that feels natural, in an artifice that’s devised to be nearly invisible. It’s a synthetic that presents itself as organic. In the process, the film smothers its authentic parts, never lets its drama take root and grow, never lets its characters come to life.

Olivia Colman stars as Hilary Small, the so-called duty manager of a spectacularly appointed movie theatre in a provincial seaside town on the southern coast of England. (The movie was filmed at Margate.) She is on the cusp of middle age, and her solitude appears to weigh on her. She lives alone, she eats alone, she seems to have little social life outside of her cordial association with her colleagues. At the start of the action, just before Christmas, she has recently returned to work after a stay in a mental hospital; at her doctor’s office, she tells him that she’s feeling “numb,” which he attributes to the lithium that she takes. (She lies to him about having family and friends to talk to.)

Hilary is also having an affair, of sorts, with her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), the theatre’s general manager, who is married. She’s a reader with a fund of poetry to quote, seemingly a literary person who appears out of place in her daily role overseeing ticket sales, dispensing popcorn and candy, cleaning the theatre, tidying Ellis’s office, and organizing the other half-dozen or so employees’ time and tasks. She doesn’t seem bored, she doesn’t seem miserable—she merely seems mechanical. Then Ellis hires a new employee to help with ticket sales and other practicalities, Stephen Murray (Micheal Ward), a cheerful and eager young man whose elegant wit and easy curiosity sets him apart from the others; he and Hilary become fast friends, and then lovers. (He’s the first to pursue the friendship; she’s the first to demonstrate romantic feelings.) Stephen harbors the unfulfilled ambition go to university to become an architect. Hilary encourages him to pursue his dream, and, thanks to him, she begins to come out of her shell.

Stephen is Black, a fact that’s of no significance among his white colleagues, who are friendly and welcoming, but one that proves to be of appalling importance in general. He is confronted in the theatre by a patron who makes racist remarks, and the town is infested with white supremacists who, emboldened by British nativist politicians and enraged by Black British people’s demands for equal rights, harass Stephen in the street and turn increasingly dangerous. Meanwhile, his relationship with Hilary begins to take a toll on both of them, as their co-workers begin to suspect something.

Hilary is reprising the kind of relationship that she and Ellis have had—not just one among colleagues but one between a supervisor and a subordinate. That—along with (perhaps) the racial difference, along with (perhaps) the age difference, along with (perhaps) the fact that Stephen is still grieving over a failed romantic relationship with another woman, along with (perhaps) his academic ambitions—comes between them and threatens to push Hilary into crisis mode. That crisis, a story of past troubles and past horrors, of a hard childhood and subsequent abuses, of thwarted dreams and stifled rage, is the emotional core of the film.

Hilary is something of a classic character: a sad sack. In American movies, a sad sack is a sociopath-in-waiting, a ticking time bomb preparing to explode, whereas a British sad sack is merely a human machine going through the motions of life, a ticking clock that is simply winding down. American society, thin on formalities, exerts little pressure on solitary characters, whereas British life, which is more formal and punctilious, may add structure to lives that otherwise have little of it. That’s where “Empire of Light” is at its best; in treating Hilary like a compressed figure, shaped from the outside by social forces, Mendes tries (and, to a limited extent, manages) to show not the character but the forces themselves, to show the mold into which the character has been pushed, deformed, tormented. But the dramatic result of showing the mold rather than the character is the lack of detail in characterization—which wouldn’t be an issue if the movie weren’t a character study.

Mendes builds the movie mainly in dialogue scenes that often start promisingly, that show his protagonists confiding and confessing, struggling to express themselves and beginning to find the strength to do so. But they are typically cut short (whether by Mendes’s editorial will or by the mere limit of his own screenwriterly imagination) once the scene dispenses the tidbits of information that fit into the tight dramatic mosaic. It’s a movie filled with its perhapses and its vaguenesses, and the characters turn up only enough cards to keep viewers guessing at the table. The movie plays ambiguously with Hilary’s illness, to significant symbolic ends but frustrating dramatic ones: Mendes suggests that it’s the unchallenged assumptions of social life, of gender relationships, that are sick—that what Hilary has endured is enough to depress and derange any woman sensitive enough to take stock of the dire situation. It’s a rhetorical notion that the film places alongside the overt racist pathologies afflicting England; Mendes, in putting an age gap between Hilary and Stephen, also suggests a changing generational approach to endemic abuses and systemic injustices.

The movie’s motives and premises are its strengths. Its utter absence of detail, nuance, inner life, and complex expression are its failures. Its connection to the world of movies, as a subject, is simply incongruous, although the theatre itself is a virtual character in the film—the building is a kind of masterwork of populist modernism, and its slender yet slablike parts and its asymmetrical perpendicularity are meshed with Art Deco details and lavishly comfortable furnishings. Hilary has little connection to movies, but a great one to the building itself—and to past graces that it harbors, ghostlike, in a shuttered upstairs ballroom that formerly hosted dances. (The theatre’s marquee still advertises that erstwhile attraction.) Her association with it remains (yes, again) unspecified. As for the cinema itself, its glories are incarnated by the theatre’s longtime projectionist, Norman (Toby Jones), who decorates his booth with the iconography of classic movies and their stars. Norman talks about the equipment of 35-mm. projection with love and initiates the curious and technically adept Stephen in that love, too.

“Empire of Light” gets its title from the wry illusions of Magritte, but reflects none of their self-deflating humor or conspicuous delight in deception. Rather, it builds to a grand, nostalgic, sentimental paean to the art of popular movies, and does so with no irony, no sense of history, no self-questioning of the art form itself. Mendes doesn’t contemplate or hint at the connection between the Hollywood movies (and the British hits) of the era and the social crises that he diagnoses, between mass media and mass politics, between the mores of movies and the ways of private life and public discourse. Instead, Mendes nostalgically connects himself to a fading and troubled past, without ambivalence or self-doubt, as if he had the recipe for its redemption. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

A Harvard undergrad took her roommate’s life, then her own. She left behind her diary.

Ricky Jay’s magical secrets .

A thirty-one-year-old who still goes on spring break .

How the greatest American actor lost his way .

What should happen when patients reject their diagnosis ?

The reason an Addams Family painting wound up hidden in a university library .

Fiction by Kristen Roupenian: “Cat Person”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Ronan Farrow

By Eric Lach

By Andrew Marantz

By Adam Iscoe

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Challengers Link to Challengers
• I Saw the TV Glow Link to I Saw the TV Glow
• Música Link to Música

New TV Tonight

• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• The Jinx: Season 2
• The Big Door Prize: Season 2
• Them: Season 2
• Knuckles: Season 1
• Velma: Season 2
• Secrets of the Octopus: Season 1
• Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story: Season 1
• We're Here: Season 4

Most Popular TV on RT

• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• Under the Bridge: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1 Link to Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

All Zendaya Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Video Game TV Shows Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2024

Poll: Most Anticipated Movies of May 2024

• Trending on RT
• Marvel Movies In Order
• Seen on Screen
• Most Anticipated Movies of May
• Play Movie Trivia

Empire of Light Reviews

I did not enjoy it, too navel gaze-y, too long, too depressing

Full Review | Apr 24, 2024

Sees Mendes return back to a time when his movies actually said something. If you go into this film expecting this to be like his work on the James Bond franchise you will be disappointed - this is a love letter to cinema from Mendes himself.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2023

Empire of Light’s lack of focus and glaringly obvious thematic overtures had me wondering if we’d be better off watching these characters sit through a screening of An American Werewolf in London or Time Bandits instead.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2023

Although there isn't a true character development, the performances are excellent, and the story leaves us thinking about discrimination, racial violence, and the misogynistic attitudes that prevail in the environment. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 10, 2023

Colman plays each moment with an honesty that is so brilliant it does often eclipse the work of those around her.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Aug 9, 2023

Mendes offers a melodrama that on the surface looks beautiful with Deakins's visual craftsmanship, but whose love story stumbles into platitudes that lacks emotion and is populated by bland characters. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 6, 2023

As far as 2022 movies in which a Black character exists mainly to reflect the journey of the white protagonist go, it’s not as bad as Armageddon Time. But it’s close.

Full Review | Aug 2, 2023

Some have called out the screenplay as the singular weak spot in this barrage of masterclass craftsmanship, but I’d argue that the loose threads contribute to the melancholy vignette quality of the film.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 29, 2023

As an exploration of a May-December romance, an unstable psyche, racism, or movie magic, Empire of Light sputters along the same well-worn road that far better films have traveled before.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Empire of Light works best as a love letter to the art of filmmaking and the theater experience.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 25, 2023

At its heart, "Empire of Light" doesn't know what it wants to be, often relying on its audience to transport themselves into an empty movie theater, signifying nothing.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

I fell completely and utterly in love with Empire of Light. A soothing, beautiful, & touching film that Sam Mendes put his heart & soul into. A film that showcases how important cinema is in connecting each & every one of us no matter who we are!

Empire of Light is a lovely, personal film illuminating tiny splices of life. Mendes brings magic to the employees of the Empire, but unfortunately, his mixture of themes never fits into one solid story.

Empire of Light is lost in its own grandness. The film wants to be a meaningful celebration of the almost religious experience it is to go to the movies, but seems to believe that isn’t enough to sustain a two hour movie.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

Empire Of Light may not appear sexy at first glance, but it’s a must-see for anyone who likes a good old love story with an unconventional twist as it provides one of the more realistic depictions of true love that we’ve seen in a long time.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2023

Disjointed and empty-handed...

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 19, 2023

Surprisingly, it is the actors who shine in this intimate and poignant film, taking center stage and breathing life into the story, a departure from the directorial prowess of Sam Mendes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 16, 2023

A tribute to how kindness creates friendships and how movies can be transformative.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 28, 2023

Empire of Light works best as an homage to movie theaters, and cinema itself, as a necessary escape from reality. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | May 1, 2023

There are scenes that try to spectacularly intertwine political strife with personal drama in a way that may be reminiscent of Alfonso Cuarón's cinema... yet in this film, they feel excessively abrupt. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 24, 2023

‘Empire of Light’ Review: Do Yourself a Favor and See Sam Mendes’ Ode to Movies on the Big Screen

What better definition of 'movie magic' can one find than the sight of Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward's faces, reflecting their feelings for one another?

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

• ‘The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady’ Review: Eva Green Surprises in French Blockbuster’s Less-Than-Faithful Finale 1 week ago
• ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ Review: Henry Cavill Leads a Pack of Inglorious Rogues in Guy Ritchie’s Spirited WWII Coup 2 weeks ago
• ‘Challengers’ Review: Zendaya and Company Smash the Sports-Movie Mold in Luca Guadagnino’s Tennis Scorcher 2 weeks ago

In the era when content is king, Sam Mendes still believes in moving pictures. “ Empire of Light ” is the proof. While the world was in lockdown these past couple years, Mendes let his imagination run to his happy place: a grand old English movie palace he dubbed the Empire Cinema. Thousands pass through its art deco doors seeking escapism, but Mendes is more interested in the employees — the projectionist, the ticket takers, the box office attendant and so forth — whose stories, he senses, are every bit as interesting as the ones they show. And so he put them up on-screen where they belong.

Popular on Variety

The pandemic compelled so many of us to look in the mirror and pose existential questions about what we were doing and why. Mendes clearly had a lot on his mind, too, from race relations to mental health, and in the Empire, he found a container to explore them all. Too many issues in too neat a space, some might argue, but better that than the opposite. “Empire of Light” is what I think of as a “snow globe movie,” the sort where everything looks perfect, to the point of artificiality: The camera doesn’t wobble; the light is just right. If you were to walk the empty aisles, your shoes wouldn’t stick to the floor. On the soundtrack, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross supply a lovely music-box score. But even within that aesthetic, there’s room for reality — and the deeper you get into Mendes’ story, the tougher and more unpredictable it gets.

Meanwhile, the too-tidy vibe results in part from Mendes’ ongoing collaboration with DP Roger Deakins, who’s a master to be sure, but no longer someone who works on the intimate scale this project seems to want. The duo shoot in hi-def digital widescreen, which feels like the right fit during scenes where “Empire of Light” aims to emphasize the sheer grandeur of the cinema’s design — as in the magical scene where Hilary first takes Stephen upstairs to see the empty ballroom and unused screens — but feels less intimate a few scenes later, when they share New Year’s Eve on the roof and Hilary boldly steals a kiss.

The budding romance between them is surprising for any number of reasons: the age difference, the racial attitudes suggested in the town around them, the fact that Stephen loves movies, whereas Hilary’s never bothered to watch one in all the years she’s worked at the Empire (no prizes for predicting that will change before the end credits). Hilary favors poetry to film and has no friends to speak of, whereas Stephen still lives with his mom and seems relatively naive on certain subjects. “No one’s going to give you the life you want,” she tells him. “You have to go out and get it.” In other areas, he has to educate her (and a few of us), as in a valuable walk-and-talk session following a run-in with a racist customer.

Hilary doesn’t seem to have any hangups about dating a Black man, but Stephen knows the dangers, removing his arm from around Hilary’s shoulder when a white man boards the bus. Readers probably needn’t be reminded that such issues have hardly gone away, though they might not recall how tensions boiled up in 1981 England (obviously the reason Mendes chose to set the film then), with urban race riots in some cities and National Front mobs in others. “Empire of Light” climaxes early as that situation gets out of hand, trapping everyone we care about inside the lobby.

Reviewed at Telluride Film Festival, Sept. 3, 2022. Also in Toronto Film Festival. Running time: 119 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.-U.S.) A Searchlight Pictures presentation. Producers: Pippa Harris, Sam Mendes. Executive producers: Michael Lerman, Julie Pastor.
• Crew: Director, writer: Sam Mendes. Camera: Roger Deakins. Editor: Lee Smith. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross.
• With: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie, Hannah Onslow, Crystal Clarke, Toby Jones, Colin Firth

More From Our Brands

Meet the mvp of ‘shōgun’ — ex-punk rocker and japanese movie star tadanobu asano, inside a $3.3 million one-bedroom condo in l.a.’s famed sierra towers, lakers’ prince invests in emerging shoe brand crossover culture, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, tracker’s justin hartley teases what comes next after post-super bowl debut: can colter’s mom be trusted, verify it's you, please log in.

Empire of Light (2022)

• User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews
• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Movie Reviews

Empire of Light review: Olivia Colman shines in Sam Mendes' 1980s ode to cinema

The Oscar winner stars alongside newcomer Micheal Ward in the 1917 director's sweetly observed drama.

For nearly as long as there have been movies, there have been love letters to the art of it on screen, from Singin' in the Rain and Cinema Paradiso to La La Land . Sam Mendes' Empire of Light , which premiered yesterday at the Telluride Film Festival, is one of those mash notes: a tender, meandering ode to cinema that also plays as an unlikely romance, a misty snapshot of a bygone era, and an often-incandescent character study. That's in part because Mendes wrote it specifically with his star Olivia Colman — an actress who seems incapable of giving a clumsy or conventional performance — in mind. She's Hilary Small, a woman who works at a seaside cineplex on the south coast of England at the turn of the early 1980s. It's the age of The Blues Brothers and All That Jazz and Sunday matinees, when going to see a film was still a social occasion (albeit one accessible to anyone with £1.50 for a ticket; seniors are 75 pence.)

The grand old Empire, nestled so close to the waterfront that sand and seabirds nearly come up to the front doors, is an only slightly decrepit temple of plush swirly carpets, brass fittings, and attendants in crisp polyester uniforms. Hilary is considerably older than most of her coworkers — aside from a persnickety but kind projectionist played by the great Toby Jones — though she seems just right for the priggish manager, Mr. Ellis ( Colin Firth ), a man who likes the way she pre-warms his office slippers in the morning and submits to being occasionally bent over his desk for sex. When she's not selling concessions or sweeping up spilled popcorn in the aisles at work, she drinks wine in the bathtub and eats her Christmas dinners for one, waiting for the moments when Mr. Ellis will deign to shine his light her way.

The arrival of a new hire named Stephen ( Lovers Rock 's Micheal Ward) hardly seems like the thing to change that; he's too young and brash and handsome to even register some middle-aged lady. But he's also Black in a time and a place where just walking down the street can turn into a gauntlet of spittle-flecked cruelty and physical abuse, and he senses something kindred in Hilary. Soon they become improbable friends and then lovers, though their sexual connection feels more like a manifestation of their mutual loneliness than anything remotely sustainable in the real world.

And it isn't sustainable, of course, particularly when Hilary's deeper issues begin to surface (there's a reason she's on lithium, even though she hates the way it numbs her), and Stephen starts making plans for a life beyond the ticket booth. That, and the rising racial and economic tensions of Thatcher England, bode several darker turns in Mendes' script, though his narrative often plays less like a conventional drama than a memory palace, its rhythms slowed to match the tempos of this sleepy town. In that way, Empire can seem like a minor work for the director of two Bond movies, American Beauty , and one of the most ambitious war films in recent history .

But Colman, her eyes darting between hope and devastation, is so lit-up and specific (and funny , a quality that doesn't seem to get mentioned enough) that she lifts nearly every scene. And the 24-year-old relative newcomer Ward, who looks a little like a young Sidney Poitier, is remarkably warm and grounded in a part that could easily have been swallowed by the Oscar winner playing across from him. The legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins — who last won an Oscar for Mendes' 1917 — gives their beach trips and late-night bus rides a suffused glow, and even in a movie as modest as Empire , Mendes fills out the corners of his story with carefully observed details and eccentric characters, weaving them into a sort of sweetly self-contained whole. We can't live our lives sitting in the dark, he seems to say, but movies can still save us, at least a little bit. Grade: B+

Related content:

• Even Olivia Colman was surprised she won the Emmy over Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Emma Corrin
• Women Talking review: A religious commune reckons with rape and retribution
• Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. review: A zingy mega-church satire

Related Articles

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Empire of Light review – Sam Mendes’s sprawling love letter to cinema

Despite the best efforts of Olivia Colman and cinematographer Roger Deakins, the director’s first solo writing effort is uneven

T here are plenty of themes swimming around in Sam Mendes’s sprawling, uneven Empire of Light , but few coherent ideas linking them. Set in the 1980s, in the kind of pursed-lipped and sanctimonious British seaside town that wears its former glory like a long outdated party frock, the film awkwardly slings together mental health issues and racially motivated violence, then ties it up with a rather glib point about the unifying power of cinema.

Olivia Colman plays Hilary, a troubled front-of-house manager at a seafront picture palace, who forms a romantic bond with a much younger employee (Micheal Ward). Colman is a phenomenal talent and Ward shows potential, but even so, the relationship between them struggles to convince as anything more than a plot device. This is the first film that Mendes has directed from his own screenplay (he had a co-writing credit on 1917 ), and for all its visual flair, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins , there’s little to suggest that Mendes has the writing chops to match his directing skill.

In cinemas from 9 January

• Drama films
• The Observer
• Olivia Colman

Most viewed

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Become an FT subscriber

Try unlimited access Only $1 for 4 weeks

Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Cancel anytime during your trial.

• Global news & analysis
• Expert opinion
• Special features
• FirstFT newsletter
• Videos & Podcasts
• Android & iOS app
• FT Edit app
• 10 gift articles per month

Explore more offers.

Standard digital.

• FT Digital Edition

Premium Digital

Print + premium digital, weekend print + standard digital, weekend print + premium digital.

Today's FT newspaper for easy reading on any device. This does not include ft.com or FT App access.

• 10 additional gift articles per month
• Global news & analysis
• Exclusive FT analysis
• Videos & Podcasts
• FT App on Android & iOS
• Everything in Standard Digital
• Premium newsletters
• Weekday Print Edition
• FT Weekend Print delivery
• Everything in Premium Digital

Essential digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• Everything in Print

Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

Terms & Conditions apply

Explore our full range of subscriptions.

Why the ft.

See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times.

International Edition

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

‘Empire of Light’ celebrates the power of film to heal lost souls

Olivia colman delivers a delicate yet ferocious performance at the heart of sam mendes’s tender and tear-soaked valentine to cinema.

Olivia Colman delivers an alternately delicate and ferocious performance as a cinema manager in “Empire of Light,” a tender, tear-soaked valentine to the ineffable joys of moviegoing.

Colman plays Hilary, a quiet, rather dowdy woman living in an unnamed seaside town in England in the 1980s. As “Empire of Light” opens, we meet one of her most beguiling co-stars: the Empire Cinema, a faded but vibrant art deco movie palace whose marquee during this Christmas season is advertising “The Blues Brothers” and “All That Jazz.” We meet the staff as they compare notes about eccentric customers and the worst thing they ever found as they cleaned up after the last show. Eventually, Hilary’s boss, Mr. Ellis — played with characteristic diffidence by Colin Firth — arrives, stiffly giving her a box of candy “with deep affection.”

Here are the movies everyone will be talking about this holiday season

Just how deep becomes disquietingly clear in scenes to come; written and directed by Sam Mendes, “Empire of Light” doles out its information carefully and discreetly, as the contours of Hilary’s life make themselves known. There’s a tightly coiled sense of control at the center of her studied equanimity. When a newcomer joins the staff — an attractive, exuberant younger man named Stephen, portrayed with a disarming lack of guile by newcomer Micheal Ward — Hilary’s world expands, but her growing happiness also threatens to tip over into something more dangerous and increasingly terrifying.

The sleepy, small-town rhythms of “Empire of Light” are given pace and momentum by Mr. Ellis’s news that the Empire will play host to a genuine red-carpet premiere, of a new movie called “Chariots of Fire.” Thus is the film’s climax set in motion, except that it turns out to be something of a misdirect. Filmed by Roger Deakins in exquisite hues of gold and amber, and accompanied by an equally sensitive score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Empire of Light” is commendable not for its plot but for its collection of (mostly) sympathetic characters — not just Hilary and Stephen, who pursue an interracial friendship against the backdrop of Thatcher-era skinhead thuggery — but the Empire’s eclectic staff: the punk-tough usher Janine (Hannah Onslow), the observant junior manager Neil (Tom Brooke), and Norman (Toby Jones), the theater’s fastidious projectionist who carries film canisters as if he’s bearing the holy elements.

“Empire of Light” turns out to be the second movie this season in which a character delivers a tutorial on the concept of persistence of vision — the trick of the eye that allows movies to work their magic, whereby a series of single frames is perceived to be one continuous image. In Steven Spielberg’s “ The Fabelmans ,” that speech was meant to show the audience how the artist as a young man became fascinated not just by the mechanics of film but by its manipulative effect on the audience.

For Mendes, such disquisitions aren’t as self-congratulatory; rather, he has made a movie dedicated to the modest proposition that it takes viewers — not heroic auteurs — to create a film, or at least complete its expressive circuit. Colman dominates the film’s most dramatically vivid scenes, when Hilary reaches the end of the many ropes she’s been gripping so tightly. But the most upsetting sequence might be one in which a “scooter riot” of the aforementioned fascist hooligans comes dangerously close to destroying the grandeur of the Empire’s magnificent lobby, as if insurrectionists were attacking a citadel of civility itself.

“Empire of Light” occasionally overplays its sentiment — a subplot involving an injured bird feels manufactured and contrived. But it’s a soothingly beautiful film — visually pleasing, emotionally rich, and authentically touching when it comes to Hilary and Stephen’s evolving relationship. (A shot early in the film, in which Hilary tends to the box office alone, exudes a Hopper-esque tone of elegiac solitude.) Mendes pays homage to the films of his youth by way of the films that play as a way to mark time: “Stir Crazy” here, “Raging Bull” there; but his ode to the medium he loves goes even deeper, not just to its power to generate empathy, but to its pluralism. In “Empire of Light,” the theater is a great democratizer: a convener for misfits, loners and dreamers of every stripe. With this bittersweet gem of a film, Mendes has given spectators a modest but profound gift: the reminder that, at their best, movies offer us not just a refuge, but a way to join the thrum of life, in all its pain and ungovernable glory.

R. At area theaters. Contains sexuality, strong language and brief violence. 119 minutes.

• Entertainment

‘Empire of Light’ review: Olivia Colman shines in this Sam Mendes drama

Movie review.

The Shakespeare quote “Find where light in darkness lies” is painted on the lobby wall at the Empire, a handsomely fading 1930s cineplex that faces the sea in a small British town. The setting is the heart of Sam Mendes’ drama “Empire of Light,” and the quote feels appropriate for a place where audiences sit in shadows, happily mesmerized by the images in a flickering beam. And it nicely sums up the film itself, which goes to difficult places but ultimately leaves its audience with poetry and light.

It’s the early 1980s, and middle-aged Hilary (Olivia Colman) is the longtime duty manager for the Empire, where she supervises a staff mostly much younger than she is, and quietly moves through her uneventful life. She lives alone, seems to have no friends or personal connections (other than a secret, subservient affair with the married theater manager, played with oily precision by Colin Firth), and struggles to move beyond some past episodes of mental illness, for which she takes medication that leaves her feeling, in her words, “a bit numb.” But Hilary finds a connection with a new employee, Stephen (Micheal Ward), a Black college-age man who’s himself feeling alienated in their very homogenous town. A tentative relationship ensues, as does trouble.

“Empire of Light” is clearly a very personal film for Mendes (who has spoken in interviews about his mother’s struggles with mental illness) and its minor flaws are the sort of thing that can happen when you’re very close to something. Stephen occasionally seems rather too saintly (a couple of scenes involving a wounded pigeon feel a little too spot-on), and the way the cinema’s projectionist (Toby Jones) talks about film seems better suited to a reverent documentary than a realistic drama. (Though he does present a rich metaphor to consider: Film consists of static frames with darkness between them, but when it’s projected correctly, you don’t see the darkness.)

But it’s a film full of lovely, poignant detail: Hilary eating dinner alone, with a sole Christmas cracker next to her plate; the quiet, knowing gaze of Stephen’s mother (Tanya Moodie); the lovingly filmed shots (the gorgeous cinematography is from longtime Mendes collaborator Roger Deakins) of an empty cinema waiting for dreams to come; the old-school art of watching for the tiny flash that alerts a projectionist that a reel change is imminent; the way Firth’s Mr. Ellis pours Glenfiddich for himself and Hilary, but gives her much less; the tiny smudge of lipstick on Hilary’s teeth, indicating her inner turmoil.

And Colman, on whose face the film frequently rests (does anyone in cinema have a more open, guileless smile?), quietly holds the drama in her hands. Her Hilary is fragile, yet touchingly determined to will herself toward the light. “Empire of Light” brings hope at the end — for her, for Stephen, for the impromptu family that forms at the Empire — and poignantly reminds us of the everyday miracle of movies.  

With Olivia Colman, Michael Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Tanya Moodie. Written and directed by Sam Mendes. 119 minutes. Rated R for sexual content, language and brief violence. Opens Dec. 9 at multiple theaters.

Most Read Entertainment Stories

• K-pop star Jay of ENHYPEN talks about WA roots, Fate Plus world tour
• HGTV's 'Ugliest House in America' has some thoughts on WA homes
• 'The Bachelorette: Season 21,' featuring Jenn Tran, films in Seattle WATCH
• Photographer alleges he was forced to watch Megan Thee Stallion have sex and was unfairly fired
• Kidnapping of California woman that police called a hoax gets new attention with Netflix documentary

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

Review: Movies may be magic, but Sam Mendes’ ‘Empire of Light’ can’t conjure the illusion

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

In “Empire of Light,” Sam Mendes casts a nostalgic eye toward the movies. Like several other auteurs this winter season , Mendes has crafted what could be considered a “love letter to cinema” (see also: Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon”), but “Empire of Light” is less of a mash note to moviemaking than a tribute to the movie theater itself, that cathedral of collective dreams borne by a single beam of light.

The Empire in question is the fictional Empire Cinema in Margate, a coastal city in England; the year is 1980 and the story concerns the unlikely, and complicated, friendship between Hilary ( Olivia Colman ), the duty manager at the Empire, and Stephen (Micheal Ward), the new ticket taker. Movies are their business, and the backdrop to their relationship, which blooms among the popcorn and candy and takes flight in the Empire’s abandoned upstairs club room, a once-glorious space now serving as a pigeon roost.

For your safety

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials .

“Empire of Light” is beautifully shot by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins , who contrasts the blueish seaside exterior light with the warm, rich interior of the Empire outfitted in golds and reds, the staff clad in aubergine. It is a gorgeous film, at once airy and earthy, the proud, yet crumbling glamour of the Empire placing us in this moment in time.

Funnily enough, “Empire of Light” shares some story DNA with another workplace movie that takes place at an “Empire”: “Empire Records,” that mid-‘90s romp about a group of misfit teens working at a record store. Both films take place at a business dedicated to a physical space where fans come to worship their art form of choice, and where the employees form an oddball family, contending with their various personal issues. In “Records,” a corporate takeover threatens obsolescence, and though that hasn’t quite arrived yet in “Light,” it’s clear Mendes, setting the film four decades ago, is reckoning with the possible extinction of the movie theater in his own way.

As to the employee issues, Mendes, writing alone for the first time ( he previously co-wrote “1917” ), saddles Hilary and Stephen with some heavy-duty personal obstacles that reflect the social plagues of the time. Hilary contends with an ongoing mental health crisis stemming from gender-based trauma (see the “woman = woe man” graffiti on the walls of her squalid apartment), while Stephen, the son of Caribbean immigrants, has to shoulder the burden of racism building in Thatcher’s England, where skinheads are emboldened to attack. At one point, he despairingly lists a spate of racist incidents to Hillary after an ugly encounter with an aggressive patron. It feels less like realistic dialogue and more like Mendes attempting to set the context.

The story feels like a mashing together of these social ills with various references to influential films of the era (“Stir Crazy,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Raging Bull”), music (The English Beat, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens), and a few favorite poets (W.H. Auden and Philip Larkin), while the cinema setting offers the opportunity to wax poetically about the magic of projected celluloid ( Toby Jones plays the wise projectionist Norman). But Mendes ends up making the misguided, and flat, argument that movies can treat mental illness, and ska music can fight racism.

For movie lovers and appreciators of the experience of 35-millimeter film projected in a beautiful old movie house, it’s easy to understand where Mendes is coming from, and to agree with his assertions. But as a movie lover wanting to fall in love with a story, “Empire of Light” does not provide that experience. Deakins’ work is beautiful, Colman is incredible, and the role of Stephen proves to be a breakout for Ward. But the story is too scattershot and contrived for an audience to be swept away and moved in the same way that Colman finds herself swept away by the experience of the Peter Sellers classic “Being There.”

We don’t need someone to remind us that movies are magic by stating that up front, usually it’s the magic of storytelling itself that achieves that, which “Empire of Light” ultimately, and unfortunately, fumbles.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

‘Empire of Light’

Rated: R, for sexual content, language and brief violence Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 9 in general release

More to Read

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ collects a cool $45.2 million at weekend box office

March 24, 2024

Review: At least the cast is having fun in the overstuffed ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’

March 21, 2024

The best entertainment photos of 2023

Dec. 20, 2023

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Oh, Zendaya knows all about that ‘Spider-Man’ female lead-to-tennis player ‘prophecy’

April 26, 2024

Emma Stone would like to be called by her real name, if you don’t mind

Company Town

After scandal, movie producer Randall Emmett is flying under the radar with a new name

This is what Billie Eilish talks about when she’s not promoting ‘Barbie, Barbie, Barbie’

April 25, 2024

‘Empire of Light’ Isn’t the Shining, Important Movie It Thinks It Is

• By David Fear

Nostalgia. Romance. Mental illness. Racism. The magic of the movies. Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light contains all of these elements, each of them gently sidling next to — and occasionally colliding clumsily into — each other. Any one of these subjects would be enough on their own to power a movie, especially one dedicated to looking back at the early years Thatcher’s bulldog-eat-bulldog Britain with equal emphasis on the good, the bad, and the ugliness. Weave them together, and you could emerge with an Altmanesque tapestry piece that views a certain moment in time from a variety of angles. Or: you could end up making a movie that strives to be about every one of these things without actually being about any of them.

Editor’s picks

The 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term.

While Mendes is more than happy to give his actors a lovely showcase for their conversational banter, he’s also not staging a period-piece riff on Annie Baker’s Pulitzer-winning play The Flick. Melodrama is already hovering around the edges, in the form of taunting skinheads and hostile customers and enigmatic doctor visits. It’s hinted that Hilary has a history of instability, and that the introduction of a deeper connection with Stephen means she also may be off her meds. A day trip to the beach hints at greater, more pendulum-like mood swings to come, as well as the idea that an interracial relationship isn’t widely accepted in a place like this or an era like the early 1980s, when the National Front was stirring shit up.

Billie Eilish Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

Kristi noem describes executing puppy she 'hated' in new book, kanye west announces 'yeezy porn' amid reports of adult film company, billie eilish, lorde, green day among artists to sign letter in support of ticketing reform act, 'wicked little letters' is reason no. 347 that olivia colman is a national treasure, olivia colman talks pay disparity: ‘if i was oliver colman, i’d be earning a f-ck of a lot more’, ebon moss-bachrach shouts out 'special scene partners' taylor swift and olivia colman at critics choice awards.

Still, Empire of Light does feel designed to play like a memory piece, albeit one that only taps in to the maudlin aspects and leaves everything else the subgenre does well on the cutting room floor. The depictions of Hilary’s 100-klieg bursts of sunniness and outbursts of rage, her retreats into reclusiveness and fuzzy returns to “normal,” may be personal for Mendes (and Colman handles these scenes with sensitivity and commitment like the pro she is). Yet there’s something slightly distant about this time-travel trip, something disconnected — it’s the rare remember-when narrative that feels both way too sentimental and way, way too chilly at the same time. Even the movie love is muted. Yes, the slow death of places where people dream in the dark is symbolically powerful. But story-wise, Hilary and her fellow ticket jockeys could work anywhere. Her 11th-hour conversion to film nerddom, courtesy of Jones’ projectionist showing her Being There after hours, feels like an afterthought.

The racial aspects serve to remind viewers that the past is never really past, plus ça change, et al. Yet that too feels oddly obligatory, with the film playing up the animosity just for conflict and peeking into the home life of Stephen and his mother (Tanya Moodie) out of sheer courtesy. You never doubt the divisiveness of the times — you just don’t get deeper than headlines and clichés here. Colman’s performance keeps pushing things forward, offering glimpses of messy realities and genuine struggles, yet big-picture illuminating this is not. The sun sets on Empire of Light long before the movie itself fades out.

Meet the MVP of 'Shōgun' — Ex-Punk Rocker and Japanese Movie Star Tadanobu Asano

• TOKYO DRIFTER

What’s the Story Behind the ‘I Told Ya’ T-Shirt in 'Challengers'? 

• Game, Set, Match!
• By Kalia Richardson and Sage Anderson

SZA and Keke Palmer Land Lead Roles in New Issa Rae-Produced Comedy Film

• TriStar Trifecta
• By Larisha Paul

Aaron Sorkin Blames Facebook for Jan. 6 and He's Trying to Write a 'Social Network' Sequel About It

• Drop The 'The'
• By Jon Blistein

Bon Jovi, Forever Young, Comes Face-to-Face With Mortality in 'Thank You, Good Night'

• By Joseph Hudak

Most Popular

Anne hathaway says 'gross' chemistry test in the 2000s required her to make out with 10 guys: that's the 'worst way to do it' and 'now we know better', louvre considers moving mona lisa to underground chamber to end 'public disappointment', 'the lord of the rings' trilogy returning to theaters, remastered and extended, sources claim hugh jackman’s worrying behavior may have something to do with his breakup, you might also like, animated vr anthology ‘blue figures’ brings jazz greats to life, victoria justice shimmers in sequins at latin american music awards in dazzling cutout dress, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, ‘what’s the matter with helen’ is a quotable midnight movie ritual made for two, vince mcmahon lists final tko shares for sale.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Empire of light, common sense media reviewers.

Romantic drama touches on racism, mental health; language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The importance of human relationships and how they

Hilary is a lonely middle aged woman who has a his

At the center of the movie is Hilary, a 40-somethi

Racial violence includes a marching gang of racist

Two characters are conducting an affair. Seen from

Language includes "bitch," "bastards," "d--khead,"

A number of confectionary brands are clearly displ

Characters are regularly seen smoking both at home

Parents need to know that Empire of Light is a British romantic drama with themes around mental health and racism, and has strong language, smoking, and a number of non-graphic sex scenes. Olivia Colman plays Hilary, a lonely woman with a history of mental health issues. Her outlook on life becomes improved…

Positive Messages

The importance of human relationships and how they can come in many different forms. Compassion and empathy are shown. Teamwork in the context of the workplace. Never give up on your dreams. Racism, as well as sexual misconduct in the workplace, are also displayed. Cinema is celebrated, as is the ability of music to bring people together.

Positive Role Models

Hilary is a lonely middle aged woman who has a history of mental health issues. She cares about her job at a movie theater and likes those she works with, but has little else beyond this. That is until Stephen comes to work at the theater. Stephen is kind and smart, and shows compassion and empathy toward Hilary and two begin a sexual relationship. The other employees at the theater also show kindness toward Hilary. However, the manager, Mr. Ellis, abuses his position by conducting an extramarital affair with Hilary.

Diverse Representations

At the center of the movie is Hilary, a 40-something year old woman who is struggling with mental health issues. She begins a tender and intimate relationship with Stephen, a much younger Black man. Though Stephen shows compassion and a willingness to understand Hilary's struggles, she occasionally fails to call out some of the racist behavior he faces. This is addressed within the film. There are moments of racial violence and more subtle bigoted behavior, such as when a man on a bus stares at Hilary and Stephen.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Racial violence includes a marching gang of racists breaking into a movie theater and attacking a Black man. They punch and kick him on the floor, which results in them being rushed to hospital with broken ribs, lost teeth, and bloody injuries. During the incident other people are pushed to the floor. A character becomes upset on a number of occasions and behaves erratically. References to childhood trauma.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters are conducting an affair. Seen from behind, one of them masturbates the other. The recipient asks if they will perform oral sex, but are refused. A couple have sex on a few occasions in an empty room at work, but no graphic nudity. Affection shown between characters, including kissing and hand holding. A character goes into a tirade where they describe certain sex acts. A character is seen in the bath and shower but no sensitive body parts are shown. Another character strips naked at the beach and is seen running toward the sea, their bare buttocks on display.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "bitch," "bastards," "d--khead," "piss off," "bloody hell," "arse," "s--t," "bugger off," "tosser," and variants of "f--k." "Jesus" and "oh my God" also used as exclamations. Racist language includes the British slurs "wog" and "coon," as well as "chimp," references to bananas, and monkey chants. Sexual language includes "suck me off" and "wank." The derogatory term "nutter" is used in reference to someone who has mental health problems.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A number of confectionary brands are clearly displayed within a movie theater, with some customers ordering them by name. Other branded products are also clearly shown. However, this is all largely to help set the 1980s era.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters are regularly seen smoking both at home and at work. There is also drinking, usually in moderation, at meal times and celebrations. However, a character who is struggling with mental health issues appears drunk in one scene, although their behavior is also down to their mental state. The same character is seen taking lithium, which has been prescribed by a doctor.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Empire of Light is a British romantic drama with themes around mental health and racism, and has strong language, smoking, and a number of non-graphic sex scenes. Olivia Colman plays Hilary, a lonely woman with a history of mental health issues. Her outlook on life becomes improved when she starts a relationship with the kind and compassionate Stephen ( Micheal Ward ), a much younger man who starts a job at the movie theater where Hilary works. The sex scenes between the two are not explicit with no nudity. There is one scene, however, which involves a character masturbating another, and sexual language is used. Other language includes "bitch," "s--t," and variants of "f--k." There are also scenes involving racist language and violence. Stephen, who is Black, is attacked by a group of racists. He is punched and kicked, resulting in him being taken to hospital. Set during the 1980s, most of the characters smoke. There is also drinking, although mostly in moderation. Hilary does appear drunk in one scene, when behaving erratically, although this is also due to a breakdown of her mental health. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say
• Kids say (1)

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

Set in the early 1980s on the coast of England, EMPIRE OF LIGHT finds Hilary ( Olivia Colman ) lonely and struggling with her mental health. But when a young man called Stephen ( Micheal Ward ) gets a job at the movie theater where Hilary works, the two begin a relationship that brings meaning to her life.

Is It Any Good?

Written and directed by Sam Mendes , this British romantic drama is a celebration of both cinema and the importance of human relationships. Empire of Light also tackles themes around racism, mental health, and abuse of power within the workplace, which are all packaged up into a beautiful looking movie. The problem is that these are big themes and ones that need exploring thoroughly and with due care, rather than being used as plot points to jump back and forth.

That's not to say there's not much to enjoy from the film. As mentioned, Roger Deakins' cinematography looks incredible, and the two central performances are just as impressive. Colman is given license to show her full skillset, with Hilary ranging from quiet to manic. While Ward more than holds his own as Hilary's younger and kind lover, Stephen. The soundtrack also packs a punch, Mendes once again recruiting the talents of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. But it's perhaps because of this wealth of talent that Empire of Light leaves you feeling a little short changed.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how mental illness was portrayed in Empire of Light . How was Hilary's mental health portrayed? Did you think it was an accurate portrayal? Discuss how mental illness is portrayed in other movies you may have seen.

Discuss the racism portrayed within the movie. Do you think things have changed from when the movie was set? How to talk with kids about racism and racial violence.

How did the film portray sex ? Was it affectionate? Respectful? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

In what ways did Stephen demonstrate compassion and empathy ? Why are these important character strengths ? Can you think of a time when you've demonstrated these traits?

Talk about the strong language used in the movie. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 9, 2022
• Cast : Olivia Colman , Micheal Ward , Colin Firth
• Director : Sam Mendes
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
• Studio : Searchlight Pictures
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Friendship
• Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy
• Run time : 119 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : sexual content, language and brief violence
• Last updated : June 22, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

This Is England

Call Me by Your Name

Drama Movies That Tug at the Heartstrings

Romance movies, related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Abigail Review

19 Apr 2024

In 1907, twist-in-the-tale specialist O. Henry published The Ransom Of Red Chief , a short story about kidnappers whose victim is so obnoxious they wind up paying the brat’s family to take him back. It’s been repeatedly adapted, officially and unofficially, including versions by Yasujiro Ozu and Howard Hawks. Abigail offers a new spin. Twelve-year-old ballerina — Alisha Weir, in a ferocious how-not-to-be-typecast-forever-as-Matilda-from- Matilda - The-Musical turn — is actually an ancient, bloodthirsty, rage-fuelled vampire with extreme daddy issues.

It’s slightly an issue that trailers and pre-publicity not only reveal the end-of-the-first-act twist but sell it as the high concept. The film, wittily scripted by Stephen Shields ( The Hole In The Ground ) and Guy Busick, teases effectively for half an hour. It’s a heavy hint that the theme music, accompanied by a solo ballet turn, is that snatch of Swan Lake heard at the beginning of Dracula in 1931, but the first act then plays like a shadowy riff on Reservoir Dogs . Mastermind Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) teams up flawed experts to pull off a kidnapping, insisting they not know anything about each other and giving them Rat Pack code names.

A welcome sister to the Orphan and M3GAN in a trinity of tween-impersonating killing machines.

Smarty-pants medic Joey (Melissa Barrera) does a Sherlock Holmes bit, deducing that team leader Frank (Dan Stevens) is an ex-cop, hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is a rich kid rebel, muscle Peter (Kevin Durand) is Quebecois and a secret softie, sniper Rickles (William Catlett) is ex-military, and wheel man Dean (Angus Cloud) is a sociopath. Enough is going on with the fractious gang they don’t notice Abigail has been brought to her own house as a hide-out. The creepy old mansion — with secret passageways, a basement corpse depository and metal ‘you’re-fucked’ window shutters — is a death trap.

At gunpoint, Abigail admits she’s the daughter of a big shot whose fearsome rep suggests a cross between Keyser Soze and Dracula. Eventually, she loses patience with pretending to be human and goes into an athletic biting frenzy. Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett made the recent Scream revivals (with Barrera) but landed on the horror map with Ready Or Not (scripted by Busick); here, they revisit the chase-around-a-spooky-mansion scenario, with smart, desperate chatter and gruesome splatstick comedy. Once the vampire card is on the table, there are several more surprises to spring. Future horror scholars can ponder why audiences in our era were so terrified of monsters shaped like little girls, but Abigail is a welcome sister to the Orphan and M3GAN in a trinity of tween-impersonating killing machines.

Related Articles

Movies | 13 03 2024

Movies | 22 02 2024

Movies | 12 02 2024

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Across a strikingly monotone desert landscape a figure cloaked in black rides atop a horse. It’s a vision that instantly recalls the horsemen of the apocalypse. But when the rider dismounts the horse at the first sight of water and removes her breast from her robes, filling the oasis with breast milk, we are spellbound as we come to understand the concoction of historied fables and narrative reinvention that gives “Omen” structure. 

In his directorial debut, Congolese-Belgian rapper Baloji reckons with the spiritual and existential in a narrative rife with sorcery and familial face-offs. “Omen” is split into four chapters, each named after its respective protagonist (though each chapter intersects). Koffi ( Marc Zinga ), like Baloji, is a Congolese man living in Belgium. With nearly two decades separating him from his last return home, Koffi and his wife, Alice ( Lucie Debay ), pregnant with twins, are heading back to introduce her and their children-to-be to his family. Yet Koffi, riddled with anxieties over his parents’ traditionalism, is nervous not only to bring his white wife home, but apprehensive to re-engage with the strict, highly spiritual culture that previously cast him out. 

The film’s title rings as a warning through every action taken, every crossed path, every “accident” encountered. When Koffi lands in Congo, he is unable to reach his sister, who is supposed to pick him up from the airport. Left to their own devices, when they obtain a car, they travel to the mines to look for his father and deliver a dowry, and he is nowhere to be found. And after arriving at the family party, Koffi holds his sister’s infant son, and while doing so, gets a nosebleed that spatters the child’s cheek in blood. The boy is ripped from his arms as the women insist that he has cursed the baby, and he is dragged to a hut where a shaman performs rites to rid and redeem, dunking his head in water and nailing a wooden mask around his head. The question of omens is not only posed to Koffi, but to us as well. Are these hysterics wrong or warranted? 

While Koffi is the film’s core character, his sister Tshala ( Eliane Umuhire ), mother Mujila ( Yves-Marina Gnahoua ), and a young boy named Paco ( Marcel Otete Kabeya ), whose story runs alongside rather than intertwined with Koffi’s, are given their own chapters in the story. The formula of “Omen” sees its cast approaching their utterly human fates under the influences of omens, shamans, and a surrealist spirit realm. Tshala, casually rebuked by her family for moving to South Africa “to live with the white Africans” hides her polyamorous relationship for fears of greater rejection. Mujila battles motherly instinct against spiritual belief, struggling to find ground firm enough for confident dwelling. And Paco, living in a repurposed bus with his crew of tutu-clad wrestling gangsters, mourns the loss of his sister while also navigating the increasingly violent threats of a rival gang. 

Each of these protagonists finds themselves on the defensive end of a fight to pilot their own existences, and the world in which they search for support feels on constant brink of collapse. “Omen” excellently captures the feelings of both cultural and generational alienation. In script and performance, there is never a moment of certainty. When the hard-boiled problems of shunned family, complex relationships, and mortality are met with the elusive treatments of cultural spiritualism, it’s apparent in Koffi’s fear, Tshala’s dejection, Mujila’s mournful eyes, and Paco’s indignant anger that everyone is clawing for control in a world that permits none. 

The tenets of the culture’s belief system are never unpacked, only passively hinted, and are portrayed differently from a separately suggested otherworldly dimension that we see in a flashback with Paco and his sister. What these psychic portrayals don’t lack, however, is style. Creative camera angles, puffs of colored smoke, static shots marked by nighttime chiaroscuro or daytime technicolor, and eclectic wardrobe choices that just makes you think “god that’s cool,” are easy distractions. While Baloji’s intent could be to lean into ambiguity, context becomes desired even as the stunning visual tableaus and excellent costuming seek to be enough. The surreal is in living breathing form in “Omen,” and the magical realism is aptly bewitching. What remains consistent is the film’s base commitment to the motif of life substances: blood, milk, and water; corruption, subsistence, and redemption. 

“Omen” is a visually enthralling piece of magical realism proposing ideas on pariahs, culture, and individuality in a world with constantly changing rules. But in devoting so much work to the aesthetic, it falls behind in making sense of its phantasmagoric storylines. The intentions are clear, and some of the feelings snake their way through the high grasses of its flair, but the ideas that form the foundation of “Omen” are built on splintering wood, cheekily threatening to crush it all. 

Peyton Robinson

Peyton Robinson is a freelance film writer based in Chicago, IL. 

Now playing

The Fall Guy

Brian tallerico.

Peter Sobczynski

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver

Simon abrams.

Nowhere Special

Asphalt City

Glenn kenny.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Christy lemire, film credits.

Omen (2024)

Marc Zinga as Koffi

Lucie Debay as Alice

Eliane Umuhire as Tshala

Yves-Marina Gnahoua as Mama Mujila

Marcel Otete Kabeya as Paco

• Baloji Tshiani

Latest blog posts

Speed Kills: On the 25th Anniversary of Go

Joanna Arnow Made Her BDSM Comedy for You

The Movies That Underwent Major Changes After Their Festival Premiere

Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives Is A Spinoff Stuck In Limbo