Make Up Review

Make Up was released as a part of the BBC’s New Films From New Voices Season. Make Up was Claire Oakley’s directional debut and it was made as a part of the iFeatures scheme.

Ruth (Molly Windsor) is a young woman who goes to a holiday park in Cornwall where her boyfriend, Tom (Joseph Quinn), is working. She quickly lands a job at the park and gets to spend the winter with Tom. However, Ruth suspects Tom is cheating on her, she sees a red-haired woman around the park, and Ruth befriends Jade (Stefanie Martini), an older woman who works at the park.

Make Up is a film where there is a gulf between the critical and audience reception. At the time of writing Make Up has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the film earning highly positive reviews from critics like Mark Kermode, Peter Bradshaw, and Robbie Collin. But the IMDB score was an underwhelming 6.0 and it has an average 3.3 on Letterboxd. Make Up was a film made for a niche audience and serves as a calling card for its director rather have some mainstream appeal.

Make Up was a slow burn of a film, even with its run time of 79 minutes. It comes across as a director trying too hard to impress with her artistic flourishes and symbolism. It led me to think of the Youtube film critic Mathew Buck and his ‘SYMBOLISM’ joke. An example of this was when Shirley (Lisa Palfrey) talked to Ruth about the cleansing power of seawater and I was thinking that’s going to be important later.

Make Up had a loose story to the point that it was directionless. It starts off with Ruth suspecting her boyfriend was cheating, then it evolved into Ruth having hallucinations involving the red-haired woman, and also be a story about Ruth’s sexual awakening. The film stretched itself too thin as it tried to cover these topics but left them underdeveloped. It made the film hollow.

Oakley’s best attitude as a director so far was her ability to create an atmosphere. The park was an eerie place at night. The wind bashes against buildings, foxes make screaming sounds, and there were many things that went bump in the night. The park was also a lonely place – all the tourists were gone and all that reminded were the few residents, including an old woman suffering from dementia and an 11-year-old girl. In winter it was a remote and desolate place.

The other aspect of the film that worked was the acting. Molly Windsor has shown herself to be an incredible talent in The Unloved and Three Girls and she does alright in Make Up. She played an awkward teenager who’s trying to make head or tails of the events around her. Theo Barklem-Biggs was thoroughly unlikeable as Tom’s boss due to his aggressive personality. The most impressive member of the cast was Stefanie Martini as the woman that Ruth befriends and becomes more infatuated by her.

Make Up was sadly an unfocused, unengaging, and underwhelming film. Oakley needs to have more of a story for any follow-up films.