The Emperor’s New Clothes Review - Russell Brand Is Lying To You

The anti-capitalist doc has some good ideas, but its presenter doesn't really back what he's saying.

Rating - ˜…˜… There was a time not too long ago where a Russell Brand film called The Emperor€™s New Clothes would have been sub-standard comedy inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale, destined to be watched exclusively by high people on Netflix, with the semi-verbose comedian in a starring role as some cocky celebrity not dissimilar to himself learning a lesson in humility and wealth. But this is 2015. The Emperor€™s New Clothes we now get is a political documentary, with Brand at its centre and Michael Winterbottom, the excellent British filmmaker, behind the camera. Originally the plan was to make a film somewhat inspired by Brand€™s autobiography, My Booky Wook, which looked at Brand€™s life growing up in the Essex town of Grays, but since those early days the scope has been much expanded. Bringing in elements from Russell€™s YouTube series The Trews and a direct focus on the fallout of the banking crisis, the film has been made into something with a much greater sense of importance. This is still very much The Russell Brand Show, but he does have some good points to make and delivers them in a way that smartly toes the line between educational and entertaining (that€™ll be Winterbottom there). Moments of him bumping into random fans or breaking the law, a likely hangover from the Booky Wook idea, don€™t add much, but work to show the star as a regular person fighting the system (remember that - it€™ll be important later). Whether or not you side with Brand politically (although you€™d have to be one of the 1% yourself to not have your blood boil at some of the injustices raised), it's hard to escape the truth; this is a film that, for a lot of its runtime, serves as a snapshot of modern Britain, with high streets dominated by betting, charity and loan shops and a widespread, exhausted acceptance of inequality. But none of that really matters when you finish watching the film. Why? Because as much as the film trumpets change and revolution, it winds up feeling like a misleading divergence, with Brand a totally unsuitable figurehead for this movement.

Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.