I’m sorry if this offends all of the franchise’s many, many fans, but I’ve never really ‘got’ the Mad Max movies. Maybe it’s because I’m just not that into action movies. Or maybe I don’t like watching dystopias where I know deep down that I wouldn’t last an hour. I mean, I can barely parallel park.
But George Miller’s new triumph Furiosa has changed all that. Here is why I loved Anya Taylor-Joy’s turn at playing the brave and fierce Furiosa…
As a member of the somewhat uninitiated when it comes to the Mad Max universe, the set-up quickly established the devastation and fury of Furiosa’s destroyed childhood.
Living in a glorious land full of abundance, but kept as a hidden secret from the rest of the world, Furiosa is kidnapped by members of a bike gang who stumble across the magical place, and left with the monumental task of somehow one day finding her way back home, despite now being a bargaining chip for warlords including Chris Hemsworth’s maniacal Dementus, who makes Immortan Joe looks like a friendly neighbourhood villain.
Anya Taylor-Joy's star turn
I was completely taken with Anya’s performance - as well as the portrayal of a young Furiosa by Alyla Browne - because the character’s origin story is one so devastating that, although Anya only has around 30 lines of dialogue in the two-hour-30-minute saga, her misery and anger is deeply felt through her eyes alone - which never once seemed to not be filled with tears of rage.
Anya has said herself that she found the filming experience of the blockbuster difficult - and I’m not surprised. Speaking to The New York Times, she said: “I’ve never been more alone than making that movie. I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard.”
She later told Deadline: “[Furiosa is] a character that’s very much in her head and she’s very, very quiet, so it felt everything around me that pushed that sense of isolation… To be fair, I think it’s truthful to the character and I did get into this experience to be pushed. So, I think there’s an element that thrilled me.” Her journey in the movie is a bleak one - but also one filled with hope. And cars. So many cars.
The highs and lows
The cinematography and sound editing will not disappoint, as the violent world is practically tangible. At times Furiosa struggles with pacing and takes a while to get into the main rhythm of the tale, but it is never boring. For saying I’m not the biggest action fan, there is an action sequence in here so incredible and well done, with the two major players never being more than seconds from death at any given moment, that I watched through my hands, watching for tragedy to fall at any given second. The sequence took 77 days to shoot - and is a stand-out in an already incredibly impressive film.
A Mad Max sequel?
And it sounds like this won’t be the last of the instalments.
I attended the Furiosa press conference at Cannes with the cast as well as director George Miller, who said he thought there were plenty more journeys to explore in the universe. He said: “There’s certainly more stories there… Maybe because to tell the story of Fury Road, we needed to know about Furiosa and Max in the years before. I’ll definitely see how this goes!”
You know what George? If you do make another, I promise I’ll be watching.