Nothing to Hide (2018)

14 Monday Jan 2019

Tags

Bérénice Bejo, Dinner party, Doria Tillier, Drama, Fred Cavayé, Grégory Gadebois, Mobile phones, Perfect Strangers, Remake, Review, Roschdy Zem, Secrets, Stéphane De Groodt, Suzanne Clément, Vincent Elbaz

Original title: Le jeu

aka The Game

D: Fred Cavayé / 92m

Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Suzanne Clément, Stéphane De Groodt, Vincent Elbaz, Grégory Gadebois, Doria Tillier, Roschdy Zem, Fleur Fitoussi

Seven friends gather together for a dinner party, held at the home of cosmetic surgeon Vincent (De Groodt) and his wife, therapist Marie (Bejo). Joining them are newlyweds Thomas (Elbaz) and Léa (Tillier), who have decided to try for a baby; distant married couple Charlotte (Clément) and Marco (Zem); and single friend Ben (Gadebois), who should be bringing his new girlfriend for everyone to meet, but who turns up alone as she’s fallen ill. A discussion about mobile phones and the secrets they may contain leads to Marie suggesting they all play a game: if anyone receives a call, or a text, or an e-mail, that person has to answer the call (with the loudspeaker on), or read out their texts and e-mails for the whole group to hear. The “game” starts off innocently enough, but it’s not long before some of the calls prove uncomfortable for the people receiving them. As the evening continues, secrets are revealed and relationships find themselves under threat, as the seven friends begin to realise that perhaps they don’t know each other as well as they thought…

One of a staggering eight remakes of Perfect Strangers (2016) that have been made in the past two years (and soon to be joined by four more), Nothing to Hide cleaves faithfully to the original set up, both in the secrets it reveals and the physical layout of Vincent and Marie’s apartment; there’s even a balcony for the friends to gather on when it comes time to take a group selfie. And although imitation is apparently the sincerest form of flattery, what Cavayé does with his adaptation, which he also scripted, is to take the pressure cooker atmosphere of Paolo Genovese’s original and dial it down to make it more recognisably French. There are outbursts, there is anger, but these aspects are much more subdued, and Cavayé’s decision to apply a degree of subtlety to the material helps the movie achieve a different kind of impact, one that fits the minor changes made to the narrative, and the overall approach. Here, there are silences and periods where the characters are forced to examine their indiscretions and lies that offer painful reminders that we all keep secrets, even and sometimes especially, from our loved ones. But is the price we invitably pay, ever worth it?

As with the original, the movie retains the curveball that marred Genovese’s ending, but somehow Cavayé makes it work, and with a wistfulness that feels completely in keeping with what’s gone before. He’s also assembled a terrific ensemble cast, with each getting a chance to shine, and each getting the measure of their characters. This leads to insights and revelations about each of the friends that help add layers to the narrative and which also allows the viewer to feel a degree of sympathy for each one – but especially Marco, who acts bravely but misguidedly to protect one of the others. Bejo and De Groodt are a convincing couple, and as the duo least affected by the fallout from the game, act as our touchstones as things get worse; they’re also at the centre of the movie’s best scene, when Vincent has to deal with a difficult and emotive issue concerning their daughter, Margot (Fitoussi). Elsewhere, Denis Rouden’s deft camerawork and framing catches reactions and behavourial tics that might otherwise go unmissed, and Mickael Dumontier’s restrained yet intuitive editing style ensures Rouden’s efforts are maximised for the best impact. It’s a French take on a universal story, and infused with a great deal of charm and wit, and as a cautionary tale – be careful of the games you play – very enjoyable indeed.

Rating: 8/10 – a rare remake that improves on the original, Nothing to Hide is a dramedy that often hits close to home in the way that it exposes the lies we tell ourselves in order to keep secrets; unexpectedly sobering at times, and laugh out loud funny at others, it does flirt uncomfortably with homophobia at one point, but overall this is an intelligent, entertaining remake that has its own style and its own way of being relevant.

NOTE: Apologies for the dubbed and subtitled trailer – sometimes you just can’t win!

Beatriz at Dinner (2017)

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Connie Britton, Dinner party, Drama, Healer, John Lithgow, Miguel Arteta, Mike White, Review, Salma Hayek

D: Miguel Arteta / 82m

Cast: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker, Chloë Sevigny, David Warshofsky, John Early

The dinner party has long been used as an excuse for movies to explore the differences between people, or to expose secrets, or to raise questions of a social, sexual, psychological, philosophical, or moral nature. Beatriz at Dinner seeks to cover each of these angles in its relatively short running time, but is it as successful as it may have wanted to be? The answer lies in the way in which it establishes its main character, the titular Beatriz (Hayek). When we first meet her, Beatriz is in a rowboat in a mangrove swamp. It’s a beautiful location, peaceful and calming, and on a bright sunny day. It’s idyllic. But then Beatriz spies a white goat stranded on the shore line. The camera moves in closer – and then Beatriz wakes up; it’s all been a dream. However, it’s a dream that has a basis in reality, because Beatriz has a goat in a pen in her bedroom. It tells us a lot about her, about her principles, and what type of person she is. How will she fare then, when placed in a room with a group of people whose experiences of life, and whose attitudes, are so different from hers?

That’s the question at the heart of Mike White’s screenplay, one of four that were made into movies during 2017 – the others were The Emoji Movie, Brad’s Status, and Pitch Perfect 3. White is a multi-hyphenate who has built up a solid reputation for himself as a screenwriter, and since his first script for Dead Man on Campus (1998), he’s plied his trade in both mainstream and indie circles. Beatriz at Dinner is definitely one of his indie projects, and it reunites him with Arteta, who directed another of White’s scripts, Chuck & Buck (2000). But where White is usually sharper and more astute with his indie scripts, this time around there’s a sense that not all the movie’s ambitions have been met. It’s puzzling, yet perhaps shouldn’t be, because it all hinges on Beatriz, and Beatriz isn’t exactly the kind of heroine that we were probably expecting. She’s a legal migrant from Mexico, she works as a therapist at a cancer treatment centre, and she does private massages for a variety of clients. She doesn’t wear any make-up, drives an old beat up car, has a goat and two dogs, doesn’t appear to be in a relationship, and believes in an holistic approach to life.

One of her clients is Kathy (Britton). Kathy lives with her husband, Grant (Warshofsky), in a gated community outside of Los Angeles. Their house has a view of the ocean and practically yells new money. Beatriz arrives one afternoon to give Kathy a massage, but her car won’t start when she tries to leave. Kathy insists that Beatriz stay for dinner, even though it’s a dinner party for two of Grant’s business colleagues and their wives, and Beatriz is only waiting on a friend to come and get her car started. The first guests, Alex (Duplass) and Shannon (Sevigny) arrive, followed by the other couple, Doug (Lithgow) and Jeana (Landecker). The three couples are celebrating a business deal that Alex has closed, and which stands to make them even richer than they already are. Beatriz begins to suspect that she knows Doug from some time in her past, perhaps in Mexico. As the evening progresses, Beatriz has a little too much to drink, but not enough to stop her voicing her disgust when Doug brags about his having hunted big game in Africa. But her outburst causes a rift between her and Kathy, and when she learns more about Doug and challenges him on some of his sharp practices as a businessman, that rift grows even wider…

Beatriz at Dinner has been widely regarded as a comedy as well as a drama. This is a little misleading, as while there are certainly humorous moments, and other moments where a darkly satirical tone is adopted, this is a drama through and through, serious in its intentions, and direct in its approach to the material. White is looking to skewer the pompous, affected nature of these entitled men and their equally entitled wives, and he does so by providing them with dialogue that makes them sound crass, insensitive, patronising, and lacking in self-awareness. It even extends to the “help”, when John Early’s eerily proficient Evan interrupts Beatriz when she’s talking, to advise on the starters that are available. Beatriz is talking about the hardships she’s experienced in her life; he wants to make sure the guests know what sauces go with the beef and the halibut. Just by that alone you know the evening isn’t going to go well.

Tension arises through the character of Doug, whose company has been involved in several controversial incidents, some of which have occurred in Mexico. The scene is set for a showdown between Beatriz and Doug, but White makes Doug look like he’s made out of Teflon; no matter how angry or aggrieved Beatriz becomes, Doug just shrugs it off as if it’s of so little importance than he can’t even be bothered to acknowledge it. By adopting this approach to the character, White has made him incapable of being affected, and so he remains a largely anodyne villain, in place to stir up emotions and provide conflict, but too remote in attitude to care about being attacked in the first place. Lithgow is good as Doug, expressing right-wing opinions on a variety of topics, and forever wondering why anyone should care if what he does is harmful or even immoral. Doug is a character we want to see bested and taught a valuable lesson about responsibility, but White has other ideas, and so in those terms the movie ends unsatisfactorily, and worse still, elliptically.

Aside from Beatriz, Doug and Kathy, the characters are bland, interchangeable versions of each other, though Grant does show a huge propensity for ass-kissing (see how many times he agrees with something Doug says). As a result there’s little in the way of scene-stealing, and Sevigny and Duplass are on the periphery of the action for the most part, their roles more mundane than necessary. Britton is good as the outwardly empathetic but inwardly image conscious Kathy, while Hayek connects well with Beatriz’s sense of herself as a healer, expressing the character’s spiritual and environmental passions with an understated yet still fervent sincerity. Arteta has trouble mustering enough energy in some scenes, leaving the movie feeling flat and prosaic, and there are times when it seems as if something momentous is about to occur – but it doesn’t (though when something momentous actually does occur, even then it’s undermined by narrative decision making). All this makes for occasionally intriguing viewing, but in the end, the movie leaves too much unaddressed to make it work consistently or completely.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that often lacks substance thanks to the stereotypical nature of most of its characters, Beatriz at Dinner is neither acerbic enough nor penetrating enough in its efforts to expose the moral and ethical lassitude of America’s nouveau riche; Hayek gives an impassioned portrayal, but it isn’t matched elsewhere, and though the script strives for political relevance, it doesn’t offer the kind of insights that would have an audience nodding their heads in weary recognition.

Perfect Strangers (2016)

08 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Affairs, Alba Rohrwacher, Anna Foglietta, Comedy, Dinner party, Drama, Edoardo Leo, Friends, Giuseppe Battiston, Kasia Smutniak, Marco Giallini, Mobile phones, Paolo Genovese, Relationships, Review, Secrets, Texts, Valerio Mastandrea

Original title: Perfetti sconosciuti

D: Paolo Genovese / 96m

Cast: Giuseppe Battiston, Anna Foglietta, Marco Giallini, Edoardo Leo, Valerio Mastandrea, Alba Rohrwacher, Kasia Smutniak, Benedetta Porcaroli

Seven friends gather together for a dinner party, held at the home of cosmetic surgeon Rocco (Giallini) and his wife, therapist Eva (Smutniak). Joining them are newlyweds Cosimo (Leo) and Bianca (Rohrwacher), who have decided to try for a baby; distant married couple Lele (Mastandrea) and Carlotta (Foglietta); and single friend Peppe (Battiston), who should be bringing his new girlfriend for everyone to meet, but who turns up alone as she’s fallen ill. Before the dinner party gets under way, we’re treated to telling glimpses of the three couples’ relationships, and in particular, the fractious way in which Rocco and Eva deal with their daughter, Sofia (Porcaroli).

With an eclipse of the sun due to occur that evening, the friends muse on that and various other topics before a phone call to one of them raises the question of whether or not any of them know each other as well as they think. With the call used as an instigator, Eva suggests they all play a game: each has to place their mobile phone on the table and if they receive a phone call during the evening they have to let everyone else hear what the caller is saying, or if they receive a text or e-mail they have to read it out and show someone else to prove what they’re saying is correct. Rocco isn’t too keen to play the game but he’s in the minority, and so he goes along with it. Eva is keen to see if anyone has any secrets they want to hide, but everyone denies the likelihood that she’ll be proven right.

As the evening progresses, certain calls and texts lead to certain revelations: that at least three of the friends are having affairs, one is on the verge of doing so, two are living a lie, and one has been betrayed from the very beginning of their relationship with their partner. Emotions run high, accusations are made, confrontations are endured, and relationships are smashed apart with only the barest possibility of reconciliations occurring in the future. And still more secrets go unrevealed…

Before the invention of the telephone, the letter was the pre-eminent way for lovers, especially those conducting their affairs under cover of secrecy, to communicate their feelings for each other (when they weren’t able to snatch some time together). The telephone made communication easier and more immediate – no more waiting for a letter that might be intercepted or not even arrive – but with the explosion in telecommunications over the last twenty years it’s become easier to conduct our secret affairs in private, and to keep our unwitting partners in the dark, our misdeeds hidden behind a barrage of passcodes and biometric security.

Against this, it’s hard to imagine anyone agreeing to reveal the nature of the calls and messages they receive on their mobile phones, especially if their partners are there with them at the time, so Rocco’s objection seems correct. Like everyone else he has a secret, but in relation to subsequent revelations it’s on the trivial side (though it does speak volumes for the state of his relationship with Eva). But because everyone else, despite some minor objections, agrees to go along with Eva’s “game”, Perfect Strangers avoids discussing either our over-reliance on modern technology, or the ways in which it can allow us to lead hidden, secretive lives. Instead, and after a suitably languorous period where suspicions go unraised and calls/texts are easily explained away, the movie starts to unravel the lives of its characters and the façades they adopt in everyday life. As the poster puts it, each of us has three lives: a public one, a private one, and a secret one.

Once these façades are exposed for what they are – the masks we wear to prove that our deceit is necessary and/or acceptable, at least to ourselves – the script by director Genovese, Filippo Bologna, Paolo Costella, Paola Mammini and Rolando Ravello piles on the anguish and the shame and does its best to up the ante with each new secret that’s revealed. With some of the secrets proving inter-connected, and in ways that stretch the narrative’s carefully established plausibility – these are friends you can believe have known each other for years, and are comfortable with each other – the movie becomes overheated, its characters behaving as if the betrayals they’ve discovered are worse than any betrayal they’ve committed themselves. There’s a stark, angry moment when the provenance of a pair of earrings reveals an unexpected connection between two of the characters; it’s a brief scene that arrives out of the blue and is all the better for it. Otherwise, the script opts for extended, unlikely conversations that feel too articulate for the emotions everyone’s supposed to be feeling.

That said, this is the type of movie that feels as if it could have been adapted from a stage play (or could be adapted into one). Rocco and Eva’s apartment, an assortment of rooms dominated not by the dining room (which always feels cramped, adding to the notion of a pressure cooker environment) but by their vast kitchen, is the kind of set where a camera can prowl around characters with impunity and a keen eye for deceitful behaviour or motivations. Genovese frames his characters carefully, always showing the emotional distance between them (as well as the physical distance) while they’re at the dinner table, and the further distance they put between themselves when they’re away from it. As the movie progresses, and small rifts of insecurity become gaping chasms of duplicity, it reinforces the idea that we never really know anyone, even someone we live with or have known for a long time.

At the movie’s end, and with the guests departing in various degrees of haste, Genovese and his co-screenwriters throw audiences a curveball that allows for a different, perhaps more mournful ending than expected. It’s awkwardly done, and as curveballs go, isn’t signposted too well; some audiences may be confused by what they’re seeing, but in relation to what’s happened throughout the evening it does allow the individual viewer to make their own mind up as to whether or not “honesty is the best policy”.

The cast all get their moments to shine, with Battiston delivering Peppe’s verdict on his friends’ behaviour with a sad resignation that’s entirely appropriate. Foglietta is on fine form as the wife who yearns for something more from her marriage but can’t find the wherewithal to find it and keep it, and Rohrwacher gives a touching performance as Bianca, the naïve young newcomer to the group whose aspirations as a wife and willing friend are cruelly dashed. Mastandrea has the most difficult role, but thanks to some poorly crafted dialogue, isn’t allowed to make Lele’s secret as affecting or believable as it needs to be. Genovese directs them all with aplomb, allowing each character to grow and develop, but again there are too many moments where, in the wake of a revelation, the movie struggles to maintain momentum thanks to the recurring decision to have a character express their feelings at length, and with too much hesitation.

Rating: 7/10 – a fascinating, though contrived drama, Perfect Strangers takes a dinner party game and uses it as a way of exposing the deceptions and dishonesty that can lie at the heart of modern relationships; too astute for its own good at times, the movie is occasionally uncomfortable to watch, but it features a wealth of good performances, some effective and unexpectedly poignant moments, and doesn’t – not once – allow the audience to feel superior to any of its characters.

http://amzn.to/2js0gWd

Coherence (2013)

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Blackout, Comet, Dinner party, Drama, Emily Foxler, Hugo Armstrong, James Ward Byrkit, Maury Sterling, Review, Schrödinger's Cat, Sci-fi

D: James Ward Byrkit / 89m

Cast: Emily Foxler, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon, Elizabeth Gracen, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, Hugo Armstrong, Lorene Scafaria

Eight friends gather together for a dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing close to Earth. Em (Foxler) is the first to arrive and just as she gets there the screen of her mobile phone cracks for no apparent reason. The same thing happens to Hugh (Armstrong). Passing it off as an unfortunate side effect of the comet’s passing, the group of friends continue with their meal. There is some tension as one of them, Amir (Manugian), has brought his new girlfriend, Laurie (Maher) with him and she used to go out with Kevin (Sterling) who is there with Em. As they talk about various issues, Em has a growing sense of unease. When the lights go out suddenly, a look outside reveals the whole area is without electricity – except for another house a couple of blocks away. With their mobile phones not working, and no landline, Hugh and Amir decide to go over to the other house to see if the people there have a phone they can use.

When they return, they have a box with them. When they open the box they find a ping pong bat and pictures of themselves with numbers written on the back of each of the pictures. What makes this discovery even more disturbing is that the photo of Amir has been taken that evening, there in the house. As the group tries to work out what’s going on, personal rivalries and past betrayals come to the fore, and the secret of the house nearby begins to reveal itself.

To reveal more about the structure and the nature of Coherence would be to do a disservice to both the movie and any potential viewers. Suffice it to say, the movie is a clever, intriguing mix of science fiction and relationship drama, with more twists and turns than the average Agatha Christie adaptation. The central premise is well executed, and the way in which the characters behave, and how they react to what is going on, is handled with careful attention to detail. The mystery unfolds slowly at first, and deliberately, until the effects of the comet’s passing begin to snowball, with one revelation after another pulling the rug out from under each of the friends.

Be warned though: you will need to pay attention, and not just to what’s being said, but also to the visuals, where there are plenty of clues to be found. Coherence demands a lot, but it’s worth the investment. Thanks to the cleverly detailed script by writer/director Byrkit, the movie takes a recent development in quantum mechanics and uses it as the foundation for the strange events that take place. As the movie gets “weirder”, Byrkit keeps track of the marginal changes that occur alongside the more obvious ones in a way that – mostly – keeps the viewer up to speed. It’s often the more subtle clues that have the greater effect (keep an eye out for the band aid). That said, the movie does trip itself up a couple of times in its efforts to make things even more complex than they already are, but for such a low-budget, and largely improvised production, these should be forgiven.

The cast do extremely well with the material, especially considering they were given only basic outlines of their characters and motivations, and the more major plot points. To their collective credit, they all acquit themselves well, with special mention going to Foxler (better known as Emily Baldoni), Brendon (as host Mike), and Armstrong. Considering the set up, and its potential for some unnecessary over-acting, it’s good to see a cast who are committed to the material in such a way that even the most dubious of reactions or decisions are acceptable, or made plausible by their conviction. One revelation could have easily gone down the route of being played as soap opera, but instead it’s played with power and validity.

In the director’s chair, Byrkit orchestrates things with confidence and uses hand-held cameras to provide a sense of immediacy. It’s a sometimes dizzying effect and can be annoying when anyone ventures outside the house and there’s a reliance on close ups (so as to avoid any evidence of non-blackout areas in the background), but by and large it adds to the growing sense of paranoia and disquiet. The use of Byrkit’s own home as the principal setting allows for an increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere, and he uses the space to move his characters around like pieces on a chess board.

Anyone interested in science will (hopefully) find much to like – it’s a rare movie that takes time out to explain the concept behind Schrödinger’s Cat – and there’s enough here to attract the attention of fans of cerebral dramas also. The movie does descend into thriller territory as one character searches for a way out of their predicament, and while this does seem forced, it also adds another layer to the quandary everyone’s facing, giving rise to the question, What would you do if it was you yourself that was threatening your place in the world?

Rating: 8/10 – some narrative stumbles aside, Coherence is a complex sci-fi thriller that is as much about notions of existence as it is about the nature of reality; intelligent and gripping, this is one movie that is rigorous, inventive and when it needs to be, effortlessly chilling.

Dr. Jekyll and His Women (1981)

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Chemical bath, Dinner party, Dr Jekyll, Giant phallus, Howard Vernon, Marina Pierro, Miss Osbourne, Mr Hyde, Patrick Magee, Review, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sadism, Sex, Udo Kier, Walerian Borowczyk

Original title: Docteur Jekyll et les femmes

aka: Bloodbath of Doctor Jekyll; The Blood of Dr. Jekyll; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne

D: Walerian Borowczyk / 92m

Cast: Udo Kier, Marina Pierro, Patrick Magee, Gérard Zalcberg, Howard Vernon, Clément Harari, Gisèle Préville

A rarely seen outing from late in Borwoczyk’s oeuvre, Dr. Jekyll and His Women, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is in many ways a typical Borowczyk movie, heavy on the production design and shot using an array of filters, with a loud soundtrack punctuated throughout by repetitive shouts and screams, and brief forays into the kind of erotica that now looks merely quaint instead of shocking.

Centred around a dinner party to announce the engagement of Henry Jekyll (Kier) to Fanny Osbourne (Pierro), the various guests – including a general (Magee) and his daughter, a doctor, Lanyon (Vernon), and the reverend Regan (Harari) – and staff, find themselves at the mercy of a sadistic maniac who calls himself Edward Hyde (Zalcberg). Hyde is the result of Jekyll’s immersion in a chemical bath; this allows the mild-mannered doctor to express the darker, more rapacious side of his nature. With the guests being attacked and/or abused by Hyde – in one scene he bends the general’s daughter over a gramophone and rapes her, displaying one of Borowczyk’s trademark large phalluses – a state of siege is soon in place, with Dr Lanyon attempting to take charge. When Hyde sodomises another guest, a young man, it becomes clear he really has no qualms about his behaviour, and the remaining guests redouble their efforts to stop him.

Of course, Jekyll is absent throughout all this, but when the effects of the chemical bath wear off, he returns to his guests to find one of the staff has been killed etc., but instead of helping he returns to his laboratory to immerse himself yet again in the chemical bath. However, Fanny, who has been looking for him, sees Henry transform into Hyde. She tries to convince Henry that he can overcome his baser instincts, but Hyde shoots her with an arrow, wounding her.Hyde kills the general and his daughter before being held at gunpoint by Dr Lanyon. Hyde avoids being killed by convincing the doctor to give him a medicine called Sokilor. He takes the medicine and reverts back to Henry Jekyll. When Henry gets back to the laboratory he finds the wounded Fanny. She attempts to get into the chemical bath but Henry is too weak to stop her, despite her injury. Revitalised, she entreats Henry to join her in casting off their inhibitions once and for all.

Borowczyk would only make three more movies after this one – including the execrable Emmanuelle V (1987), which he disowned – but this is generally regarded as the last flourish of a director whose ability to create a dreamlike world not so far removed from our own was a testament to his ingenuity as a director and his beginnings as a painter. No matter what else you might say about Borowczyk’s movies, they always looked good, and Dr. Jekyll and His Women is no exception, its darkened rooms and authentic-looking Victorian set design adding to the tense atmosphere created by Hyde’s attacks. When Jekyll’s alter ego vents his anger on inanimate objects, often smashing them repeatedly, Borowczyk keeps the camera on the objects for longer than necessary, highlighting the mundane and the banal ephemera of Jekyll’s life, and showing Hyde’s disdain for it all. It’s another form of transformation, and entirely in keeping with Hyde’s hatred of the world he finds himself in.

Focusing the events of Stevenson’s novella into a period of one night obviously means that much is overlooked in the adaptation, but there’s enough here to lay claim to a greater fidelity than some other cinematic versions of the story. The idea of the chemical bath is neither a plus or a minus in terms of the rest of the movie (and watching Kier and Pierro writhe around in the water is more amusing than chilling), but Hyde’s murderous impulses are effectively portrayed by the eyebrow-less Zalcberg, making Borowczyk’s decision to cast separate actors in the two main roles an inspired one. Kier brings a nervous intensity to the role of Jekyll, while Pierro, a Borowczyk regular, gives one of her best performances. Sadly, Magee looks drunk throughout, though B-movie veteran Vernon is as capable as ever, lending his customary commitment to the kind of role that has ‘generic’ written all over it.

Borowczyk exploits the vagaries of his own script – Jekyll’s house seems impossibly huge, Jekyll’s mother (Préville) is forced to play the piano by Hyde but continues to do so after he’s left the room – to add to the sense of increasing dread, and he’s aided by a formidable score by Bernard Parmeggiani that effortlessly complements the horror that’s unfolding. However, the movie isn’t as carefully assembled as it should be, and Khadicha Bariha’s editing often stifles the flow of a scene, leaving the viewer adrift in a sea of disconnected images and shots, and undermining the sterling work of cinematographer Noël Véry. And the so-called sleaze – so tame now by today’s standards – is a minor distraction at best, although the sight of the general flogging his daughter’s bare behind is still unsettling on so many levels.

Rating: 7/10 – much better than it appears to be on face value, Dr. Jekyll and His Women is a hybrid horror/romantic drama with occasional sexual and comedic overtones; that it works so well is due to Borowczyk’s unique style and a commitment to the material that makes for an invigorating, often jarring version of Stevenson’s classic tale.

Mini-Review: Le Week-end (2013)

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Dinner party, Drama, Jeff Goldblum, Lindsay Duncan, Marital problems, Paris, Review, Roger Michell, Wedding anniversary

D: Roger Michell / 93m

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, Olly Alexander

Nick (Broadbent) and Meg (Duncan) are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Paris, returning to where they had their honeymoon. It soon becomes clear that all is not well with their marriage, and that their relationship is foundering: they’ve lost any intimacy they once had, and Nick has recently lost his job as a teacher. As well, there are accusations of adultery, emotional abuse and repeated examples of each other’s despair at how things have gone so wrong. Nick is physically needy, while Meg is emotionally needy; both characters seem unwilling or unable to see beyond their own misgivings or regrets and rekindle the love they once had. This makes for a chilly romance between the pair who can imitate the love they once felt for each other, but have no idea how to resolve the issues they have. A chance encounter with one of Nick’s old college pals (Goldblum) leads to a dinner party invite and the confrontation of feelings they have been avoiding for so long.

Working from a script by Hanif Kureishi, director Michell has fashioned a creaking treatise on faded love and what it means to be aware of that loss within a failing relationship. Broadbent and Duncan are saddled with some awful, trite dialogue that wants to be meaningful but falls far short of the mark. At the dinner party, Nick makes a dreadful speech outlining his feelings that is so out-of-place and awkward it would only appear in a movie where the characters’ main purpose is to navel gaze repeatedly. Why movie makers continue to believe the dinner party confession is still a viable set piece in this day and age is incredible. On the plus side, Paris is as lovely as expected (there’s a particularly impressive view of the Eiffel Tower from Nick and Meg’s hotel room balcony), and Goldblum is a welcome antidote to the verbal posturings inflicted on the audience by his senior co-stars. By the movie’s end – itself feeling truncated and leaving things unresolved – it’s hard to care if Nick and Meg manage to sort things out or not. Still, it’s good to see Broadbent and Duncan in action – however hampered they are by the script – and at a trim 93 minutes, the movie doesn’t outstay its welcome. What would be interesting however, is this movie given a Before Sunset/Sunrise/Midnight make over; what Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy could make of this idea… now that would be interesting.

Rating: 5/10 – a sadly under-performing movie, Le Week-end strives to be profound in its own small way, but merely ends up sounding arch; growing old is bad enough without the possibility of ending up like Nick and Meg.