Review: Lonely Souls At the Cinema in ‘Empire of Light’

(AP) -- Olivia Colman plays the manager of a movie theater in Sam Mendes’ new film “ Empire of Light.” It’s a cinema palace in a small town on England’s south coast that is showing its age. The once grand establishment used to play films on multiple screens on multiple floors. The top floor even had a large ballroom area, a piano, a stately bar and booth-style seating next to large windows looking out onto the sea. Going to the movies here, you imagine, must have been an occasion worth dressing up for. But now it’s just gathering dust and providing shelter to the local pigeons.

This is not a movie about people watching movies, however. Not literally at least. There is a wistful monologue about how projection works, from Toby Jones, and another about how the movies can be an escape and, of course, it’s all building to something. But movies are mostly just the glamorous backdrop to a dreary workplace. “Empire of Light” is instead about a few people who make the movie theaters run, who take the tickets and sweep the popcorn and other disgusting items people leave on the floors and seats.