Quantum of Solace (2008)
Synopsis
Still reeling from the eleventh hour demise of Vesper “the bitch is dead” Lynd, Bond distracts himself by chasing a billionaire environmentalist with low integrity projects and Chinatown aspirations.
Particulars
Director: Marc Forster
Writer/s: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis
Producers: Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Stars: Daniel Craig as James Bond, Olga Kurylenko as Camille Montes, Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene, Judi Dench as M, Giancarlo Giannini as René Mathis, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields, Jesper Christensen as Mr. White, David Harbour as Gregg Beam, Anatole Taubman and Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner
Budget: $200-$230 million
Shot: Mexico, Panama, Chile, Italy, Austria, Wales and Pinewood Studios
Inspired by: the title of a short story in For Your Eyes Only, an anthology and the eight book in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series
The one I’ve reappraised
I remember entering the cinema to watch Quantum of Solace with great excitement (drummed up by Casino Royale) and exiting with great disappointment. Prior to this Bondathon I’d seen it a couple more times and with each the disappointment grew, slowly morphing into the take that it’s a shit film. I also never knew what the fuck the title meant. Having finally looked it up after this revisit, I feel a bit silly.
Quantum of Solace’s title has a double meaning. Figuratively, it refers to the closure Bond needs to move on from the events of Casino Royale that left him traumatised. That I only just learned that ‘quantum’ means a small measure of something explains why I failed physics and why the title confused me. From a literal standpoint, Quantum – the criminal organisation within the film – was reverse engineered to fit the title and retconned later to be part of SPECTRE.
That the title is pulling in two directions is representative of the film as a whole; part of it works really well and the other part weakens the impact of the whole thing. Leading with positivity, here’s what I liked.
A Bond character study
Roger Michel (of Notting Hill and the Craig-starring Enduring Love) was set to direct but the script took too bloody long that it ended up with Marc Forster instead. He’s an interesting choice; his directing credits include Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland and Monster’s Ball and he admits that he wasn’t a big Bond fan. After seeing Casino Royale and how it had humanised Bond, he became interested in creating a sequel that expanded on Bond’s unresolved feelings.
This is where I owe Quantum of Solace a bit of grace because as a character study of James Bond in a particular moment, it’s remarkably effective and quite emotionally resonant.
I don’t think I’d ever watched the film directly after Casino Royale before but in doing so, I realised just how incredible Craig’s continuity of performance is. We pick up right where we left off – with Mr. White in MI6 custody and Bond still feeling raw about Vesper’s betrayal and death – and Bond is trying to be so hard in the beginning of the film that it’s saddening to see.
He’s now able to kill dispassionately (like M urged in Casino Royale) because passion is what got him into trouble. But at the same time, he yoinks a photo of Vesper and her boyfriend from MI6, seemingly for his own personal agenda. He still drinks Vesper martinis, even if he can’t bring himself to say the name. When the opportunity to ‘rescue’ a damsel presents itself he jumps, only to end up accidentally foiling said damsel’s (Bond girl Camille) revenge plot against the exiled Bolivian General who murdered her family.
This is only the second time (the first being Licence to Kill) that we get to actually see the fallout from Bond losing someone he loves. And the film does a really good job of projecting Bond’s current state onto returning characters Mathis and Felix, both being dragged back into his inertia and depression.
While it’s not among my favourite Bond films, it is one of the few that has made me cry; Mathis’ death and Bond staying with him at his request as he slips away (before coldly dumping his body in a dumpster because “he wouldn’t care”) is both moving and crucial to Bond’s personal development.
A test of M’s faith
M’s main fight in this film is grappling with who to trust. Since it turns out that her personal bodyguard of five years and MI6 employee of eight was actually Mr. White’s contact, she is suitably shook. So when Bond kinda goes rogue and keeps getting framed for murders, M has to either double down on trusting Bond or admit that her faith has been misplaced.
Quantum of Solace further strengthens the M/Bond dynamic that I love so much and provides an essential thematic bridge between Casino Royale and Skyfall. Say what you like about this film but if it weren’t for the work it does in solidifying the (forgive me) bond between M and her favourite 00, Skyfall wouldn’t hit so hard.
I also relish any opportunity to see into M’s life and various houses and I think her Get Unready With Me bathroom routine is important lore in the Bond franchise.
An emotionally satisfying epilogue
Stripping the film back to its bare bones, disregarding the villain subplot and viewing it as an epilogue to Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace is actually a satisfying and thoughtful contribution to the franchise.
I suspect the film knows this is where its strength lies and I’m grateful that the filmmakers didn’t try to pad it out further to meet the runtime we’ve become accustomed to. At 106 minutes it’s noticeably leaner than the majority of films in the franchise and Bond is undoubtedly the most interesting character in this story. It provides a satisfying resolution to this rough stage of his life and he learns a very important lesson: that personal vengeance, especially when you’re in espionage, is not what’s best for the world and it’s also not what’s best for you.
Outside of this tightly plotted character study, the rest of the film’s elements are pretty unexciting and lacking in a cohesive identity.
The script went through turmoil because of the 2007/2008 writers’ strike and according to Craig, “The rules were that you couldn’t employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished.”
This explains a lot. Quantum of Solace feels half like a return to formula – we get more CGI, lots of explosions, new titles from MK12 and visual references to previous Bond films – and half like an exploration of ideas that aren’t fully formed.
Depending on which report you go off, its budget was almost double its predecessor’s and yet there’s not really anything in it that makes you go “wow”. This extends to Jack White and Alicia Keys’ song ‘Another Way to Die’ which sounds kinda cool when it starts but descends into a bit of an unpolished mess.
Camille is given a decent amount of agency as a Bond girl but Kurylenko lacks chemistry with Craig and her story ultimately isn’t that integral to Bond’s arc. I just flat out don’t like Dominic Greene as a villain, not because he’s particularly nasty but because the character is a bit of a wimp and I don’t believe he would’ve survived this long without being double crossed by bigger, badder dudes, especially when he’s pissing off murderers at some frequency.
With my thoughts reassembled, I now sing quite a different tune about Quantum of Solace. While it’s not wholly successful as a Bond adventure in its own right, it is an essential piece of the Craig era (specifically the narrative trilogy of the first three films) and it really understands who the character at the heart of this franchise is.
RANKING CATEGORIES (70%)
Bond execution = 10
Villain = 4
Bond girl(s) = 6
Song = 5
Opening titles = 7
Plot/action/gadgets = 7
Franchise identity = 5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT (30%)
6/10