By Julian Carrington. “Let’s make an agreement,” declares Anjelica Huston’s estranged matriarch to her trio of wayward sons in the penultimate scene of The Darjeeling Limited (2007): “We’ll stop feeling sorry for ourselves. It’s not very attractive.” Following the downbeat double-header of Darjeeling and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)—which had seen cinema’s most…

By Julian Carrington Despite frequent disclaimers that Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is “difficult to watch,” the reverence that has greeted the film’s theatrical release speaks to its essentially and calculatedly benign character. There can be few clearer indications of the film’s eminent palatability than its garnering of the audience award at this year’s…