Tag Archives: Relationships

Short Cuts (1993)

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

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D: Robert Altman / 188m

Cast: Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr, Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Annie Ross, Lori Singer, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, Huey Lewis, Michael Beach, Charles Rocket

When the pre-teen son of television commentator Howard Finnigan (Davison) and his wife Anne (MacDowell) is knocked down by a car driven by waitress Doreen Pigott (Tomlin), he refuses to let her drive him home afterwards. Later, he falls unconscious and is taken to hospital. It’s the day before his eighth birthday. Doreen is harassed at the diner where she works by Stuart (Ward), an out-of-work salesman, and his buddies Gordon (Henry) and Vern (Lewis) before they head off on a fishing trip. Gene Shepard (Robbins), a cop whose wife, Sherri (Stowe), doesn’t know he’s having an affair, abandons the family dog because of its excessive barking. Ralph Wyman (Modine), a doctor, and his wife, Marian (Moore), are a couple in crisis who stay together out of convenience instead of love, while the Finnigans’ next door neighbours have a pool cleaner, Jerry Kaiser (Penn), whose wife, Lois (Leigh), works as a phone sex operator…

These are just some of the stories that intertwine and intermingle with each other in Robert Altman’s majestic adaptation of nine short stories and one poem written by Raymond Carver. Possibly the finest ensemble piece ever made, Short Cuts examines the lives of twenty-two separate characters, and does so with a precision and an understanding of the underlying desperation that each of them is feeling; it’s like watching a group therapy session where everyone is jockeying for the most attention. Altman achieves the impossible here: he makes every one of those twenty-two characters appear credible and relatable, and he does so by stripping away the masks they hide behind in order to reveal the fallible, scrabbling egos that fuel their shallow pretensions and selfish conceits. It’s holding up a mirror to society time, an indelible foray into the casual brutality of everyday lives, with verbal, physical, and emotional attacks being meted out, seemingly at every opportunity, in order for these characters to feel superior to the people closest to them: the people they purport to love. At times it’s terrifying to see the depths of despair that some characters are experiencing, while others go about their lives blithely and with an equally terrifying lack of self-awareness. How do these people survive from day to day?

The answer is: any way they can, and Altman, along with co-screenwriter Frank Barhydt, artfully highlights the ways that they achieve this, whether it’s through forbearance, a reliance on alcohol, or by simply ignoring what’s happening around them. All this – and at over three hours – could seem like spending time with a group of people you’d happily cross the street to avoid, but the movie has such a bone dry, and darkly scabrous sense of humour that you can’t help but find amusement in even the most horrendous moments (and sometimes to laugh is just about the best and only option the viewer has). With Los Angeles providing the perfect backdrop for all this psychic turmoil, and pitch perfect performances from all concerned, the movie is evenly structured among the characters for maximum effect, and Geraldine Peroni’s editing ensures the action occurs with fluidity and a pace to match. Aside from The Player (1992), Altman has never been this good, his direction proving incisive and perceptive in equal measure, and his mastery of the various storylines is an object lesson in how to make each disparate element of a movie as important as all the rest. It’s an impressive achievement, one that rewards the audience at every turn, and better still, with each repeat viewing.

Rating: 9/10 – a bold, multi-layered odyssey through the hellish environs of middle-class America, Short Cuts is abrasive, awash with attitude, fiendishly funny, and starkly revealing of the deceptions that ordinary people employ to give their lives meaning; a one-of-a-kind movie that goes to some very dark places indeed, it still has a degree of hope running throughout the various storylines – even if it is chafed and frayed to snapping point.

Untogether (2018)

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

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D: Emma Forrest / 99m

Cast: Jamie Dornan, Lola Kirke, Jemima Kirke, Ben Mendelsohn, Billy Crystal, Alice Eve, Jennifer Grey, Scott Caan

Andrea (Jemima Kirke) is a recovering heroin addict (straight for a year now) who wrote a successful literary novel when she was twenty-one, but who hasn’t written a word since. She has a one night stand with a doctor, Nick (Dornan), who has had recent literary success himself with a memoir of his time in a war zone. For the first time since her recovery, she feels a connection to Nick and finds herself pursuing a relationship with him. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Tara (Lola Kirke), is in a relationship with Martin (Mendelsohn), a former musician who’s much older than she is. When she meets a rabbi, David (Crystal), and he offers to help her reconnect with her faith, Tara finds herself smitten by him, and unsure suddenly about her feelings for Martin. Both sisters find themselves dealing with their own insecurities as they navigate these new relationships, and having to also deal with the fallout of the decisions they’ve made. Things are made even more difficult when Tara doesn’t attend a comeback gig that Martin has arranged, and an unexpected truth about Nick’s memoir is revealed…

The feature debut of English writer/director Emma Forrest, Untogether is another of those LA fables that revel in presenting a handful of characters with a surfeit of insecurities, and traits that keep them from ever being happy, no matter how hard they try. Your patience for this sort of thing will be dependent on how many similar movies you’ve seen already, because although there’s no shortage of pointed humour and affecting drama in Forrest’s debut, ultimately the problems and the issues her characters face aren’t all that original. Andrea is another in the long line of movie novelists who struggle to find that elusive second book, and detest the negative attention that comes with it. Nick isn’t a writer, and his easy success rankles with her, and it’s this and her own doubts as to whether she’ll ever write again that causes Andrea to do what she can to sabotage her relationship with Nick, and take steps toward self-harming. However, a lot of this perceived angst is just that, perceived, as Forrest’s script never takes Andrea to a dark enough place to make her as sympathetic as she should be. You just want her to get over herself and stop brooding about what she hasn’t got, and to focus instead on what she has got.

Unfortunately, the same is true of Tara. While we can assume that she likes older men given her relationship with Martin, her sudden attraction for David is never convincingly portrayed, despite good work from the ever reliable Kirke, and Crystal in a serio-comic role that carries a lot of warmth. This leaves the relationship between Tara and Martin to founder more and more as the movie goes on, becoming less and less interesting as Forrest moves her characters from Point A to Point B by way of convenience instead of natural progression. As for Nick, Dornan is stuck with a role that has no arc, and makes little impact, leaving Andrea’s infatuation for him something that comes across as more curious than plausible. Though her script struggles to avoid the clichés inherent in such intertwined stories, Forrest has better luck in the director’s chair, and keeps the viewer involved thanks to a combination of placing the emotion in a scene front and centre, and a cast that enters into the spirit of things with a commitment and gusto that smooths over the screenplay’s rougher patches. By the end, you may be glad that it’s all over, and that the journey wasn’t worth the time and the effort, but there are enough good moments along the way to make sticking with it a reward in itself.

Rating: 6/10 – another tale of lost souls in LA (just how many can there be?), Untogether sees its characters tasked with taking risks in their lives, but having no idea what to do, or being too afraid to do so in the first place; frustrating for its lack of a coherent message, but worth it for the performances (Mendelsohn is particularly effective), perhaps it’s an indication that Forrest should focus on directing instead of writing.

Jeune femme (2017)

27 Thursday Sep 2018

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aka Montparnasse Bienvenüe

D: Léonor Serraille / 98m

Cast: Laetitia Dosch, Grégoire Monsaingeon, Souleymane Seye Ndiaye, Léonie Simaga, Erika Sainte, Lilas-Rose Gilberti-Poisot, Audrey Bonnet, Nathalie Richard

After ten years living in Mexico with her boyfriend, professor and renowned photographer Joachim Deloche (Monsaingeon), Paula Simonian (Dosch) finds herself back in Paris (where they used to live), and chasing Joachim in an attempt to win him back. When her intital attempt fails – and leaves her with a nasty cut on her forehead – she takes his cat and decides to make a go of things by herself. However, that’s not as easy as it might seem. Paula has no friends, no job, no money, and a personality that could be charitably called inconstant. Moving from couch to couch, it’s not until she’s mistaken for someone else and befriends Yuki (Simaga) that things begin to improve. She finds work as a live-in nanny, finds a second job working in a knicker bar in a large shopping centre, and attempts to reconnect with her estranged mother (Richard). There’s a tentative romance on the horizon with security guard Ousmane (Ndiaye), even more tentative contact from Joachim, and surprising news that helps Paula make a number of important decisions…

Winner of the Caméra d’Or (for its director) at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Jeune femme opens with Paula headbutting Joachim’s front door and sustaining that nasty cut. In hospital, she launches into a free-form diatribe that seeks to challenge the nurse tending to her, and the wider world around her. It’s a direct confrontation, fuelled by what appears to be long-held anger, and a clear indication from writer/director Serraille that Paula is definitely not a shrinking violet. But Serraille isn’t going to let her volatility be the only aspect of Paula’s personality to define her. As the movie progresses, we find that she can be coy and approachable (as with Ousmane), enthusiastic and open (as during the interview for the knicker bar), sad and yet determined (when confronting her mother), silly and childish (in her role as a nanny), and expressive and flirtatious (with Yuki). With all this it would be easy to view Paula as a mass of contradictions, but Serraille’s take on the character is much more subtle than that. Paula is a chameleon, adapting to the people she’s with, and her surroundings. She even looks different at every turn, her features transforming themselves noticeably but to good advantage given the needs of the situation.

What this all provides is a portrait of an enigmatic, rootless woman who knows what she should be doing to fit in, but who finds it easier to compartmentalise her life and behave accordingly. All her relationships are transitory, and end despite Paula’s best efforts to maintain them. No matter how hard she tries, and no matter how good her intentions, it’s inevitable that Paula will need to start again. And keep trying – because what else can she do? Dosch gives a terrific performance as Paula, vulnerable and tough, self-assured and resilient, but still adrift from everyone around her. It’s an unsparing portrayal, highlighting the character’s flaws and strengths in equal measure, and doing more than enough to make her more and more sympathetic as events unfold. By the end you’re rooting for her, but Serraille remains true to Paula’s knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The final shot is a triumph of sorts for Paula, but in a bittersweet way that adds poignancy to the moment. It’s confident, persuasive elements such as this that help elevate the material from being another worthy yet predictable examination of how hard it is to be a woman in today’s society – and having its lead character be the architect of most of her troubles makes it resonate so much more.

Rating: 8/10 – with an awards-worthy performance from Dosch allied to a perceptive script and assured direction, Jeune femme is an intelligent, deftly handled movie with an eminently relatable heroine, and a sly streak of humour beneath all the drama; regarded by some as the French Frances Ha, this is far more involving and far more interesting, and is effortlessly sincere to boot.

The Middle of X (2018)

21 Friday Sep 2018

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D: Peter Odiorne / 82m

Cast: Bre Blair, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Josh Cooke, Colin Egglesfield, Jeremy Gabriel, Jason Gray-Stanford, Sammi Hanratty, Benjamin King, Chrisdine King, Tina Parker, Elizabeth Stillwell, Nicky Whelan

Having graduated from high school, Mack Prescott finds himself at odds with his future, or at least, what it may bring. Twenty-five years later, and on the eve of a high school reunion that he’s hosting at the home that used to belong to the parents of his wife (and high school sweetheart) Emily (Whelan), Mack (Egglesfield) is still ambivalent about his life and where it’s taking him. As many of his teenage friends, some of whom he hasn’t seen in years, begin to arrive, Mack discovers that he’s not the only one with problems. His best friend, Carter (King), drinks too much and has an unhappy marriage; Dick (Gray-Stanford) and his wife, Lydia (King), are struggling financially; and teenage sweethearts Casey (Cooke) and Sam (Blair) are hopeful of rekindling their old romance. Only Marty (Blevins), who suffered a terrible personal tragedy the night everyone was last together, appears to be happy, and then through sobriety. As the evening unfolds, Mack begins to realise what it is to be happy, and why Life has a knack for leading people to where they need to be…

Upon reading that synopsis, you could be forgiven for thinking, Uh-oh, not another movie about angsty middle-aged, middle class people wondering where it all went wrong from the safety of their palatial homes. And you would be right; this is exactly that kind of movie. Thankfully, writer/director Odiorne offers just enough of a spin on this well-worn set up to make The Middle of X an entertaining if resolutely lightweight examination of middle-aged ennui. The drama unfolds in fits and starts, and some of the various sub-plots surrounding Mack and Emily’s fractured marriage – he cheated on her so she did the same – don’t play out as well as others. There’s a sense that the running time has been dictated not so much by the length of the script but by a limited budget, and as a result, those same sub-plots feel truncated. A case in point is Marty, who is given a terrific introduction, and who is set up to be a major character. But once he arrives at the house, his story doesn’t go anywhere, and he’s used as a way of undermining another, minor character who’s quickly disposed of. It’s as if Odiorne had loads of great ideas but didn’t know what to do with them all.

He – and the movie – are much more successful with the comedic elements. There’s a sardonic streak of humour that runs throughout the material, from Carter’s commitment to continual boozing, to Dick’s desperate attempts at nabbing new clients to keep his job afloat. By pricking at the aspirational natures of his characters, Odiorne makes their unhappiness and perceived failures a source of mirth. It’s cruel in places, but much sharper than if we were witnessing their unhappiness as straight drama. This also allows for a clutch of enjoyable performances, with Benjamin King and Whelan on particularly impressive form, while the likes of Cooke, Blair and Blevins are good but don’t have the opportunity to flesh out their roles to better advantage. By the movie’s end, a major wrong has been remedied (if a little too easily), problems have been solved (if only for a while – or until the next reunion), and there’s a moment of shameless manipulation that could have been horribly mawkish but which succeeds thanks to the efforts of the actress involved. It’s moments such as these, though few and far between, that show what Odiorne could do with a bigger budget and a sharper script.

Rating: 6/10 – the material could have made more effort to skewer the pretensions of its self-absorbed characters, and a longer running time could have allowed for more satisfying resolutions to many of the sub-plots, but for a first-time outing as a writer/director, Odiorne acquits himself well enough; The Middle of X may not attract many viewers because of its generic sounding nature, but for those prepared to give it a try, there are enough rewards to make it worth their while.

A Hundred Streets (2016)

03 Monday Sep 2018

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aka 100 Streets; One Square Mile

D: Jim O’Hanlon / 93m

Cast: Idris Elba, Gemma Arterton, Charlie Creed-Miles, Franz Drameh, Kierston Wareing, Tom Cullen, Ken Stott, Ashley Thomas, Ryan Gage

Max Moore (Elba) is a retired rugby player whose fame on the field has translated into a media career where he promotes a favourite, sports-related charity. His public image – seen in clubs and bars and at functions, often surrounded by attractive women – is at odds with the fractured home life he’s trying to repair. He’s estranged from his wife, Emily (Arterton), and their two young children. While Max plays at being a responsible family man in an effort to win Emily back (after sleeping with the children’s nanny), she has embarked on an affair with an old friend, Jake (Cullen). Kingsley (Drameh) is a young man whose aptitude for street poetry, plus a chance meeting with well connected actor Terence (Stott), provides him with an opportunity to leave behind the gang he’s currently a part of. And George (Creed-Miles) is a cab driver who, along with his wife Kathy (Wareing), is looking to adopt their first child. Over the course of several weeks their lives will intersect in unexpected ways, but each will be irrevocably changed by their experiences…

A low budget British drama with a glossy sheen to it, A Hundred Streets looks like the kind of movie that will offer a pointed and affecting social commentary on modern life in the UK capital, and which will examine in detail the pressures that people endure in order to get by. Alas, a closer inspection reveals a movie that paints its characters against a far broader canvas than might be hoped for, and by using brush strokes better suited to a daytime soap opera. Writer/producer Leon Butler (who raised the entire budget single-handedly), immediately gives the viewer two problems to deal with. The first is Elba’s Max, a caricature of a faded sports star who behaves badly but underneath the promiscuity and self-loathing, has a good heart and loves his kids. Despite these good qualities, Max is unsympathetic from the start, and though Elba tries hard, remains so until the end, and a dramatically absurd sequence that sees him waving – and firing – a shotgun from a balcony window, while the police standby until Emily can get home and talk him down (and let’s not mention the police marksman who has Max in his sights the whole time – for tension purposes only).

Neither Max nor Emily are characters you can warm to, so self-absorbed are they in their individual needs. This leaves Drameh’s earnest Kingsley and Creed-Miles’s dopey George to pick up the slack, but therein lies the second problem: their storylines are just as routine as Max and Emily’s. Tragedy stalks them both, but in such a way that neither tragic incident comes as a surprise, or indeed the events and outcomes that follow. As the movie progresses, it becomes something of a tick-box exercise for the viewer, and for the movie makers, as the characters behave either recklessly for no reason, regressively for “dramatic” purposes, or reactively because the script demands it. Struggling to make more out of Butler’s script than he’s able to, director Jim O’Hanlon can only focus on the performances, and though Elba and Arterton are adequate, Creed-Miles, Drameh and Stott at least manage to make an impact in their roles, though this is very much against the odds. Stott in particular is good, but even he has trouble with some of the dialogue Terence is given, and hearing it makes you wish there had been more opportunities for improvisation.

Rating: 5/10 – formulaic and at times dramatically challenging – though not in a good way – A Hundred Streets aims for a modicum of prestige but misses by a square mile, and then some; adopting clichés as if they were the answer to every problem raised, the script undermines the movie from the word go, and as a result, leaves it in just as good a state as Max’s career as a rugby star.

Sixteen (2013)

24 Friday Aug 2018

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D: Rob Brown / 79m

Cast: Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Rachael Stirling, Rosie Day, Fady Elsayed, Sam Spruell, Alexis Zegerman, Christopher Simpson, Deon Lee-Williams

Despite having escaped his life as a child soldier in Congo, and having been adopted by Laura (Stirling), fifteen year old Jumah (Nsengiyumva) is finding it difficult to adapt fully to his new, British life. He’s only been at his latest school for three weeks, and already he’s in trouble for headbutting one of the other students. He has a friend, Alex (Lee-Williams), and a potential girlfriend in Chloe (Day), but otherwise he keeps himself to himself. He wants to be a barber, but lacks the self-confidence to pursue his ambition. When he and Alex witness another student, Josh (Elsayed), commit a violent crime, it causes a rift between them, and brings local drug dealer Liam (Spruell) into Jumah’s life. As he struggles to maintain an equilibrium that is already difficult to achieve, Jumah’s relationship with Chloe begins to suffer just at the point where it becomes more serious, and Liam becomes a more and more threatening presence. His relationship with Laura becomes strained as well, and it all leads to Jumah making a fateful decision that could have dire consequences for all concerned…

The feature debut of award-winning shorts director Rob Brown, Sixteen is a bold piece of movie making that isn’t afraid to paint a dour portrait of average inner city life, and its effect on someone trying to leave behind a terrible past and adjust to better surroundings. What makes this so effective is the performance of Nsengiyumva, who himself escaped from Rwanda during the Nineties, and whose blank expressions coupled with a haunting gaze reveal the pain and anger Jumah is trying so desperately to put behind him. Dominating every scene he’s in, he’s a tightly wound force of nature, mature beyond his years in many ways but also still a child trying to make sense of the new world around him. When he’s first confronted by Liam, Liam expresses veiled concerns regarding what Jumah has seen that would normally intimidate any other teenager, but Jumah is unfazed and unimpressed. And when Liam has finished, Jumah dismisses him with a simple, “I’ve met men like you before.” This is the kind of adversarial relationship he has no trouble with. If only the same could be said of his budding romance with Chloe, a relationship that comes close to foundering completely because Jumah can’t express himself half as well.

Brown, who also wrote the script, arranges his characters against a backdrop of urban misfortune that highlights the daily struggles they all face, whether it’s Jumah’s faltering attempts at social integration, Laura’s working long hours to support them both (her husband left her because he couldn’t deal with Jumah’s behaviour), Chloe’s own need to be wanted, or Josh’s damaged aspirations. Brown doesn’t make it easy for any of them, but it’s through these struggles that he manages to create characters who feel real and sharply defined. Also, Brown doesn’t let the material descend into melodrama, keeping the action credible throughout, even when Jumah decides that his previous life of violence is the only way to solve his troubles. By doing this, Brown ensures an even tone and a steady pace that suits the narrative and which is further enhanced by Barry Moen’s precise editing. Beneath all the pessimism though, there is a message of hope, that a person’s life can change, even if their life till now has been terrifying and horrible. It’s a message that is best encapsulated by the example of its star’s own life, and which goes a long way to making this a movie with a tremendous emotional charge.

Rating: 8/10 – with a bravura performance from its lead, Sixteen isn’t the coming of age tale that it appears to be, but is instead a coming to terms tale that doesn’t soft peddle any easy answers for the tough questions it poses; affecting and mature movie making from a confident and instinctive director, it’s a movie that never gives up on its main character, and never opts for being simplistic.

Permission (2017)

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

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D: Brian Crano / 98m

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Gina Gershon, François Arnaud, Morgan Spector, David Joseph Craig, Jason Sudeikis

Anna (Hall) and Will (Stevens) have been together since forever, a couple with no other relationship experience except their own. They’ve never lived as a couple with anyone else, never had sex with anyone else, and never felt that they’ve missed out on anything as a result. In short, they live in a state of blissful monogamy. Will is an artisan who makes furniture and is renovating a house for he and Anna to move into, while Anna is finishing up her music thesis. Will has begun to believe that it’s the perfect time to propose, but at the same dinner in which he plans to pop the question, another one is raised by Reece (Spector), the partner of Anna’s brother, Hale (Craig): how can either of them be sure each is “the one” when they’ve never “been” with anyone else? Will holds off on proposing, and it isn’t long before both of them are contemplating the idea of sleeping with other people. Soon an agreement is reached whereby Anna meets musician Dane (Arnaud), and Will meets wealthy divorcée, Lydia (Gershon). But their agreement soon starts to cause problems between them…

It’s not immediately obvious while watching Permission, but Brian Crano’s second feature after the more easy-going A Bag of Hammers (2011), has a secret agenda that it doesn’t reveal until at the very end. You could say it’s in the nature of a twist, something that the viewer won’t see coming, but with any good twist the clues should be woven into the narrative from the start so that even if the twist really does come as a complete surprise then at least the viewer can look back and – hopefully – spot those moments where they were hoodwinked. Unfortunately, writer/director Crano doesn’t do this, so when one of his two main characters does pitch that curveball, it’s likely to provoke more headscratching than nodding in agreement. But before then, Crano is already sending the viewer mixed messages, so perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising. Anna and Will are set up initially as the poster couple for committed monogamy, but the speed with which they allow Reece’s poser to have them throwing away their commitment to each other is as unseemly as Anna’s later encounter with a gallery owner.

Of course, this is the thrust of the movie: is Anna and Will’s specific kind of monogamy healthy enough for a relationship to succeed? But the material is too uneven to provide any kind of definitive answer (though it does decide that casual hook-ups are a no-no), and so instead of having Anna and Will explore other sexual experiences and then bring those experiences back to their own relationship, both engage in new relationships that test their own commitment in different ways. Crano can’t resist throwing in some clichés – Will asks if Dane is bigger than him, Dane falls in love with Anna – but too often the script fails to relate things back to Will and Anna except in the most perfunctory of ways. Hall is as spiky and watchable as ever, while Stevens has more of a comic role that feels at odds with the intended drama of the material. As the objects of Will and Anna’s new affections, Gershon is breezy and likeable while Arnaud is left high and dry by his character having nowhere to go. There’s an intriguing sub-plot involving Hale’s desire to have a baby (which isn’t shared by Reece), and at times this is more interesting, but overall this is a movie that puts its central characters into a number of uncomfortable situations and then gifts them a convenient way out almost every time – so where’s the lesson there?

Rating: 6/10 – if monogamy is your thing and “well-meaning” affairs are the antithesis of what you believe is right, then Permission won’t be the movie for you; even as a potential comedy of errors and/or manners it falls short, and if the movie has any kind of message it’s that you actually don’t have to be careful what you wish for.

There’s Always Woodstock (2014)

09 Monday Jul 2018

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aka Always Woodstock

D: Rita Merson / 97m

Cast: Allison Miller, James Wolk, Anna Anissimova, Jason Ritter, Rumer Willis, Katey Sagal, Finesse Mitchell, Richard Reid, Richard Riehle, Brittany Snow

For Catherine Brown (Miller), life means just chugging along. She has a self-absorbed actor boyfriend, Garrett (Ritter), a mid-level job at a record company, Abundant Records, that her best friend Ryan (Anissimova) got her, and a stifled ambition to be a singer/songwriter. She’s just getting by. But when she loses her job and discovers Garrett is having an affair – all on the same day – it triggers a tailspin that lasts for a week before Ryan stages an intervention. Faced with starting afresh, Catherine decides it’s time to go home, to Woodstock, where she grew up. There she meets local doctor, Noah Bernstein (Wolk), with whom she shares an instant attraction, and begins to work on her songs. Aided by new friend, Emily (Willis), and local singer Lee Ann (Sagal), Catherine begins to find her feet, but when a song of hers comes to the attention of her ex-bosses at Abundant Records – and Garrett shows up in her life again – her old life clashes with her new life, and causes even more problems than before…

Before settling down to watch There’s Always Woodstock, another caveat needs to be borne in mind: There’s Always the Stop Button. The first feature from writer/director Rita Merson, the movie is an ill-formed and poorly structured romantic comedy drama (with music) that does a disservice to each of its thematic components, and which asks its cast to behave in some very odd ways indeed. It’s the kind of romantic comedy with added moments of drama that has the ability to put people off from watching other romantic comedies with added moments of drama. It’s a bad movie made with good intentions, but a bad movie nevertheless. Nothing in it makes any kind of sense, from the opening scene where Garrett cries like a grossly affected man-child after he and Catherine have ludicrous looking sex, to the scene where Catherine and Ryan have their first argument and which sees Ryan ask Catherine if she’s “a mental” before Catherine tells Ryan, “I hate your baby” (Ryan has just revealed she’s pregnant). There’s much else besides, with moments where Catherine behaves like a spoilt child and does her best to antagonise everyone around her with her selfish motivations and crass insensitivity. That anyone in Woodstock likes her, especially for herself, is a miracle only the script could have come up with.

The characters and the situations they find themselves in lend themselves to absurdity at almost every turn, and even when the movie does try to be serious, it’s to offer the kind of cookie-cutter wisdom that has been done a thousand times before in other, better movies. The comedy is strained and relies heavily on Miller looking bewildered or anxious or a combination of both, while the romance is bland and insipid, something which isn’t helped by Wolk’s grin-happy, what-am-I-doing-here? performance. As for the songs – a collection of subdued observations on failed or failing relationships – these at least are bearable, and offer some relief from the reluctance to be fully engaging that the movie promulgates the rest of the time. Miller is left high and dry by the script’s demands on her character, while the likes of Willis, Sagal and Anissimova pop up every now and then, contribute some lines, and then fade into the background again. It’s indicative of the problems that plague a movie when none of the supporting characters make much of an impact, and the heroine is an infuriating nitwit who has to be force fed positive life lessons in order to achieve anything.

Rating: 3/10 – with its stock characters trapped in a mildly diverting storyline, and no real attempt being made to make Catherine even remotely likeable or sympathetic, There’s Always Woodstock is a disaster as a romantic comedy with added moments of drama; with a bland visual style as well, and Merson’s clumsy hand at the tiller, this is tonally uneven, dramatically banal, and undeniably terrible.

Paper Year (2018)

05 Thursday Jul 2018

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D: Rebecca Addelman / 89m

Cast: Eve Hewson, Avan Jogia, Hamish Linklater, Andie MacDowell, Grace Glowicki, Brooks Gray, Liza Lapira, Daniela Barbosa

In Rebecca Addelman’s debut feature, we first meet Franny (Hewson) and Dan (Jogia) minutes after they’ve gotten married. It hasn’t been a big, arranged wedding, just a spur of the moment, impetuous decision made by a couple who are so in love they just couldn’t wait any longer, and rushed to the nearest courthouse. Naturally, Franny’s mother, Joanne (MacDowell), is hugely disappointed, especially as neither of them has a job, and are living in Franny’s tiny apartment. But when Dan lands a job housesitting for six months for actress Hailey Turner (Barbosa), and Franny in turn lands a job as a writer at a TV production company, their relationship begins to feel the strain. As they see less and less of each other, and become disenchanted with married life, Franny finds herself becoming increasingly attracted to co-worker Noah (Linklater), while Dan finds a notebook of Hailey’s writings and becomes obsessed with the image he builds up of her. Further complications ensue, complications that put Franny and Dan in the uncomfortable position of having to decide if being married is the right thing for both of them…

In many romantic movies, the wedding is the culmination of a story that has seen its erstwhile couple work through various problems and overcome various stumbling blocks on their way to the altar. In Paper Year, this is the launchpad for a different kind of story: what happens once that culmination is over with, and the couple have to actually begin the rest of their lives together. But while the idea is a good one, the movie itself isn’t quite as successful at making that idea work. Part of the problem lies in being introduced to Franny and Dan at their happiest, and without ever learning what brought them together in the first place. As the movie progresses, their first flush of marital bliss gives way to doubt and disillusionment, and as their characters develop, we can’t help but wonder how or why they became a couple in the first place. They don’t really have much in common, and when they’re apart it’s almost as if they’re behaving in ignorance of the other. Franny’s attraction to Noah causes her to make a number of rash decisions, while Dan retreats into a fantasy world where Hailey is his soulmate and not Franny.

Matters are further undermined by the disparity in the characters’ development, particularly in relation to Dan. He’s an actor who hasn’t had a job in two years and doesn’t appear to have any real ambition in that direction, and one of the few things we learn about him is that, left to his own devices, he’s a chronic masturbator. His obsession with Hailey feels forced, as if Addelman needed a similar character arc for Dan to match Franny’s attraction to Noah. But her script isn’t so tightly constructed that any of these decisions and behaviours appear organic or entirely credible. By the end, with their marriage in freefall and potentially doomed, the viewer is unlikely to care if their relationship survives or not. The tone of the movie is uneven as well, with scenes displaying mordaunt humour one moment and emotional drama the next, and never fitting the two together. The perfomances suffer as a result of the script’s uncertainty, with Hewson and Jogia having to play selfish and unsympathetic with very little room for anything else. Linklater is the only other actor given any prominence, but his role is so generic to indie dramas that he can’t do anything with it either, and Addelman, as with so much of her script, doesn’t have anything original for him to do.

Rating: 5/10 – a stab at being a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at the demands of early married life, things fall apart too quickly and too easily to make any appreciable impact; as a drama, Paper Year relies on too many well-worn, stock indie movie set ups – yes, there’s a disastrous dinner party – to offer potential viewers something new or unexpected.

The Intervention (2016)

18 Monday Jun 2018

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D: Clea DuVall / 89m

Cast: Clea DuVall, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Vincent Piazza, Jason Ritter, Ben Schwartz, Alia Shawkat, Cobie Smulders

Annie and Matt (Lynskey, Ritter) are travelling to meet up with their friends, Sarah and Jessie (Lyonne, DuVall), Peter and Ruby (Piazza, Smulders), and Jessie’s brother, Jack (Schwartz), for a weekend get together. There is an ulterior motive for the get together: the rest are convinced that Peter and Ruby’s marriage is on the rocks and that an intervention is needed; they intend to suggest the couple divorce for both their sakes. When Jack arrives he brings a new girlfriend with him, Lola (Shawkat), but while this is initially regarded as inappropriate, it’s quickly forgotten with the arrival of Peter and Ruby. The couple bicker and squabble in front of their friends, and though Annie appears to the group’s prime mover, she fumbles a first attempt at confronting Peter and Ruby by getting drunk. Before another attempt can be made, divisions between the other couples are brought to the fore, partly because of Lola’s freewheeling sexuality, but also because of long-buried animosities. And things don’t improve when the intervention finally takes place, and Peter and Ruby react in ways that prove unexpected and which threaten the group’s friendship – perhaps irrevocably…

DuVall’s debut as a writer/director, The Intervention is a broadly optimistic, genial and amusing movie that works surprisingly well despite its largely conventional narrative and collection of characters. The basic premise plays out as you’d expect, adding fault lines in each relationship as the movie progresses, but thankfully not to the point where it looks as if each marriage/partnership needs their own intervention. Instead, DuVall does something that’s a little bit sneaky (maybe even underhanded): she pulls the rug out from under the viewer by revealing said fault lines but without wrapping them up neatly in a nice dramatic bow by the movie’s end. In doing this, she keeps the material fresher than it appears to be at first, and allows the main storyline and its various sub-plots to make much more of an impact than usual. Little betrayals and far from imagined slights have their place, but it’s the characters’ reactions to them – their bemused, uncomprehending reactions – that provide much of the enjoyment to be had from DuVall’s astute observations and the movie’s overall tone. If there’s one caveat, it’s that the drama is often underplayed in favour of the humour, but when it needs to, the script stings deliberately and painfully.

If DuVall’s first outing as a writer isn’t always successful – Lola is too obviously a catalyst for upset, the male characters aren’t as clearly defined as their female counterparts – as a director she’s on firmer ground, orchestrating matters with a great deal of confidence and precision in the way scenes are staged, and knowing when to focus on the appropriate dynamics relating to each couple. She’s aided by a terrific ensemble cast that’s headed by the always reliable Lynskey. As the commitment-phobic Annie, Lynskey invests her character with a pliable sense of responsibility and a survivor’s ignorance of individual culpability. It’s yet another performance that reinforces the fact that she’s one of the best actresses working today. Almost matching her (it’s really close) is Smulders, her portayal of Ruby as melancholy and subdued as you’d suspect in a woman whose marriage is visibly imploding (Smulders broke her leg shortly before shooting began; rather than re-cast, DuVall wrote it into the script). The rest of the cast enter into the spirit of things with gusto, and thanks to DuVall’s actor friendly approach, it’s the performances that prove to be the movie’s main attraction.

Rating: 7/10 – uneven in places, but with a sincerity and a sharpness to the material that keeps it (mostly) fresh and appealing, The Intervention is rewarding in an undemanding yet enjoyable way; bolstered by a raft of good performances, it’s unpretentious stuff that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and which knows not to resolve all its characters’ problems.

Kate Can’t Swim (2017)

09 Saturday Jun 2018

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D: Josh Helman / 90m

Cast: Celeste Arias, Jennifer Allcott, Grayson DeJesus, Josh Helman, Zosia Mamet, Evan Jonigkeit

Kate (Arias) and Em (Allcott) have been best friends for years. Recently, Em has been in Paris following the break up of her latest relationship. When she returns, she has a surprise: having been in exclusively lesbian relationships before now, now she’s met and is seeing a man, Aussie photographer Nick (Helman). Kate is surprised and pleased at the news, and accepts an invitation for herself and her partner, Pete (DeJesus), to spend the weekend at Nick’s lakeside cabin. Kate and Pete take to Nick straight away, and he’s a gracious host, even if the cabin is full of framed photographs of the models Nick has slept with. As the weekend progresses, tension begins to develop between Kate and Nick following a prank where he threw her into the lake. Matters worsen during a game of Sardines when Kate does something to threaten the stability of both relationships, as well as her friendship with Em. It coincides with Pete learning he’s landed a new job that means moving to Seattle (he and Kate live in New York), and it all puts Kate in the position of having to decide what she wants moving forward…

An indie movie co-written by Helman and Allcott, Kate Can’t Swim takes two couples, puts them in a remote, semi-isolated cabin in the woods, and proceeds to challenge each individual’s middle class, aspirational values, and the security of their partnerships. Kate is a writer struggling with her first novel, Em is an artist whose work appears to be recognised but we’re never sure who by, Nick is a well-regarded photographer looking to move from nudes to portraiture, and Pete is on the cusp of getting the job he’s worked so hard for over the last five years. They are all fun-loving, serious when necessary individuals, apparently secure in their own emotions and beliefs, but beneath the surface there are tensions and insecurities that beset all of them (though to different extremes). Helman and Allport aren’t in any rush to exploit these tensions and insecurities, which means that the movie takes a while to get going, content to introduce each character slowly and deliberately, and to provide a few obvious clues as to where it’s all heading. It’s lively in places, thoughtful in others, and engaging enough to keep the viewer interested in what’s going to happen.

However, what happens leads to a final twenty minutes that feels unbalanced against the rest of the movie. Even though things become necessarily more serious, there’s also a large dollop of melodrama introduced to the mix that feels clunky and contrived, as if Helman and Allcott didn’t know how to address fully the issues raised by Kate’s actions and the emotions we learn she’s been repressing. These developments may alienate some viewers, while others may find themselves happier to go with the flow, but either way, the fact there’s a choice to be made is still concerning. Helman’s direction is at least consistent, opting for static shots as a way of highlighting the isolation each character is feeling at various times, and he coaxes good performances from his co-stars, particularly Arias, whose portrayal of Kate is sympathetic, though not entirely so. The inter-relationships are effectively portrayed, and there’s some knowing humour to help leaven the growing drama, all of which makes the movie a mostly enjoyable experience, even if the structure is a little predictable. It’s not an indie movie that stands out from the crowd per se, but it is one that offers a number of small pleasures along the way.

Rating: 7/10 – easy-going and happily laid back for most of its running time, Kate Can’t Swim doesn’t always offer a fresh take on its choice of storyline, but it does enough to hold the viewer’s interest throughout; solidly assembled and amenable in its approach, on this evidence any further movies from Helman and Allcott will be ones to look forward to.

Monthly Roundup – March 2018

31 Saturday Mar 2018

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The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) / D: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan / 101m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn

Rating: 6/10 – when you’re the despised son (Franco) of an evil warlord (Theroux), there’s only one thing you can do: vow to defeat him with the aid of your ninja friends; after a superhero mash-up and a solo Batman outing, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brings us ninjas, but in the process forgets to provide viewers with much in the way of story, though the visual  innovation is still there, as is (mostly) the humour, making this something that is only just more of a hit than a miss.

Braven (2018) / D: Lin Oeding / 94m

Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sala Baker, Teach Grant, Sasha Rossof

Rating: 4/10 – a trip for Joe Braven (Momoa) and his father (Lang) to their family cabin located in the Canadian wilderness sees them fighting for their lives when drug runners come to claim a shipment that has been hidden in the cabin; an unsophisticated action thriller, Braven has an earnestness to it that sees it through some of its more absurdist moments, but its Nineties vibe works against it too often for comfort, and despite the occasional effort, Dillahunt remains an unconvincing villain.

Passport to Destiny (1944) / D: Ray McCarey / 61m

Cast: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld, Joseph Vitale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 6/10 – in World War II, a cleaning woman, Ella Muggins (Lanchester), who believes herself to be protected from harm thanks to a magical glass eye, determines to travel to Berlin and kill Hitler; a whimsical comic fantasy that somehow manages to have its heroine save a German officer (Oliver) and his girlfriend, Passport to Destiny is an uneven yet enjoyable product of its time, with a terrific central performance by Lanchester, and a winning sense of its own absurdity.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) / D: Gary J. Tunnicliffe / 81m

Cast: Damon Carney, Randy Wayne, Alexandra Harris, Paul T. Taylor, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Helena Grace Donald, Heather Langenkamp

Rating: 3/10 – the hunt for a serial killer finds its lead detective (Carney) coming face to face with the Cenobites – still led by Pinhead (Taylor) – but the solution to the case isn’t as obvious as it seems; the tenth movie in the series, Hellraiser: Judgment at least tries to offer something new in terms of the Cenobites’ involvement, but in the end it can’t escape the fact that Pinhead et al are no longer frightening, the franchise’s penchant for sado-masochistic violence has lost any impact it may once have had, and as with every entry since Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), it fails to introduce one single character for the viewer to care about.

The Final Year (2017) / D: Greg Barker / 89m

With: Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Barack Obama

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the final year of Barack Obama’s second term as President of the United States focuses on his foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts on the global stage; featuring contributions from some of the key players, The Final Year is an interesting if not fully realised documentary that never asks (or finds an answer for) the fundamental question of why Obama’s administration chose to concentrate so much on foreign policy in its last days, something that keeps all the good work that was achieved somewhat in isolation from the viewer.

And Then Came Lola (2009) / D: Ellen Seidler, Megan Siler / 71m

Cast: Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, Jessica Graham, Angelyna Martinez, Candy Tolentino, Linda Ignazi

Rating: 4/10 – in a series of Groundhog Day-style episodes, the undisciplined Lola (Sumner) is required to rush a set of photographs to her interior designer girlfriend, Casey (Bennett), so she can seal the deal at a job interview – but she has varying degrees of success; an LGBTQ+ comedy that stops the action every so often to allow its female cast to make out with each other, And Then Came Lola doesn’t put enough spins on its central conceit, and doesn’t make you care enough if Lola comes through or not.

The Ritual (2017) / D: David Bruckner / 94m

Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter

Rating: 7/10 – following the tragic death of one of their friends, four men embark on a memorial hiking trip in Sweden, but when one of them is injured, taking a short cut through a forest puts all their lives in jeopardy; a creature feature with a nasty edge to it and above average performances for a horror movie, The Ritual employs mystery as well as terror as it creates a growing sense of dread before it runs out of narrative steam and tries to give its monster a back story that brings the tension up short and leads to a not entirely credible denouement.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) / D: Jake Kasdan / 119m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner

Rating: 7/10 – four teenagers find themselves transported into a video game called Jumanji, where, transformed into avatars, they are charged with thwarting the dastardly plans of the game’s chief villain (Cannavale); a reboot more than a sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has the benefit of well-drawn, likeable characters, winning performances from Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan, and confident direction from Kasdan, all things that serve to distract from the uninspired game levels and the predictable nature of its main storyline.

Paddington 2 (2017) / D: Paul King / 103m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes, Noah Taylor, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 9/10 – the theft of a unique pop-up book sees Paddington (Whishaw) end up in jail while the Brown family do their best to track down the real thief, Phoenix Buchanan (Grant); an absolute joy, Paddington 2 is just so unexpectedly good that even just thinking about it is likely to put a smile on your face, something that’s all too rare these days, and which is thanks to an inspired script by director King and Simon Farnaby, terrific performances from all concerned, and buckets of perfectly judged humour.

Gangster Land (2017) / D: Timothy Woodward Jr / 113m

Original title: In the Absence of Good Men

Cast: Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jason Patric, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli, Mark Rolston, Michael Paré

Rating: 4/10 – the rise of boxer Jack McGurn (Faris) from potential champion to right-hand man to Al Capone (Gibson), and his involvement in Capone’s feud with ‘Bugs’ Moran (Facinelli); a biopic that’s hampered by lacklustre performances and a leaden script, Gangster Land wants to be thought of as classy but budgetary constraints mean otherwise, and Woodward Jr’s direction doesn’t inject many scenes with the necessary energy to maintain the viewer’s interest, something that leaves the movie feeling moribund for long stretches.

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) / D: Trish Sie / 93m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, Matt Lanter, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, DJ Khaled

Rating: 4/10 – the Borden Bellas are back for one last reunion before they all go their separate ways, taking part in a European tour and competing for the chance to open for DJ Khaled; a threequel that adds nothing new to the mix (even if you include Lithgow as Wilson’s scoundrel father), and which is as empty-headed as you’d expect, Pitch Perfect 3 isn’t even well thought out enough to justify its existence and trades on old glories in the hope that the audience won’t notice that’s what they are.

Something Real and Good (2013) / D: Luke Rivett / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Alex Hannant, Colton Castaneda, Marla Stone

Rating: 4/10 – he (Jones) meets her (Hannant) in an airport lounge, and over the next twenty-four hours, get to know each other, flirt, have fun, and stay in a hotel together due to their flight being cancelled; the slightness of the story – boy meets girl, they talk and talk and talk and talk – is further undermined by the cod-philosophising and trite observations on life and relationships that they come out with, leaving Something Real and Good as a title that’s a little over-optimistic, though if it achieves anything, it’ll be to stop people from striking up random conversations with strangers in airports – and that’s now a good thing.

Ladies First (2017) / D: Uraaz Bahi / 39m

With: Deepika Kumari, Geeta Devi, Shiv Narayan Mahto, Dharmendra Tiwari

Rating: 8/10 – the story of Deepika Kumari, at one time the number one archer in the world, and her efforts to obtain Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016; a sobering documentary that for a while feels like it’s going to be a standard tale of triumph over adversity (here, relating to Indian culture and gender equality), Ladies First offers a much deeper examination of success and failure than might be expected, and shows that in India, as in many other countries, there are precious few opportunities for women to be anything more than wives and mothers.

Heritage Falls (2016) / D: Shea Sizemore / 88m

Cast: David Keith, Coby Ryan McLaughlin, Keean Johnson, Sydney Penny, Nancy Stafford, Devon Ogden

Rating: 4/10 – three generations of males head off for a bonding weekend designed to overcome the divisions that are keeping them distant or apart from each other; a mixed bag of drama and lightweight comedy, Heritage Falls wants to say something sincere and relevant about father-son relationships, but falls way short in its ambitions thanks to a script that can’t provide even one of its protagonists with a convincing argument for their position, a bland visual style, and even blander direction from Sizemore, making this a turgid exercise in emotional dysfunction.

The Long Dark Hall (1951) / D: Anthony Bushell, Reginald Beck / 86m

Cast: Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Denis O’Dea, Reginald Huntley, Anthony Dawson, Brenda de Banzie, Eric Pohlmann

Rating: 7/10 – when an actress is murdered in the room she rents, suspicion falls on her lover, married man Arthur Groome (Harrison), but even though he goes on trial at the Old Bailey, his wife, Mary (Palmer), stands by him; an early UK attempt at film noir, The Long Dark Hall has its fair share of tension, particularly in a scene at the Groome home where Mary is alone with the real killer (Dawson), but Harrison doesn’t seem fully committed (it wasn’t one of his favourite projects), and the screenplay lurches too often into uncomfortable melodrama, though overall this has an air of fatalism that keeps it intriguing for viewers who are used to their crime thrillers being a little more straightforward.

Ready Player One (2018) / D: Steven Spielberg / 140m

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 7/10 – in 2045, people have become obsessed with a virtual reality game called Oasis where anything can happen, but when its creator (Rylance) reveals there’s a hidden prize within the game, one that will give overall control of the game and its licence to the winner, it’s up to a small group of gamers led by Parzifal (Sheridan) to stop a rival corporation from winning; an elaborate sci-fi fantasy that provides a nostalgia overload for fans of Eighties pop culture in particular, Ready Player One has plenty of visual pizzazz, but soon runs out of steam in the story department, and offers way too much exposition in lieu of a proper script, a situation it tries to overcome by being dazzling if empty-headed, but which in the hands of Steven Spielberg still manages to be very entertaining indeed – if you don’t give it too much thought.

The Temple (2017) / D: Michael Barrett / 78m

Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Sklenar, Naoto Takenaka, Asahi Uchida

Rating: 4/10 – three American tourists – best friends Chris (Huffman) and Kate (Warner), and Kate’s boyfriend, James (Sklenar) – are travelling in Japan when they hear about an abandoned temple and decide to go there, little knowing what will happen to them once they get there; even with its post-visit framing device designed to add further mystery to events, The Temple is a chore to sit through thanks to its being yet another horror movie where people behave stupidly so that a number of uninspired “shocks” can be trotted out, along with dreary dialogue and the (actually) terrible realisation that movie makers still think that by plundering legends and myths from other countries then their movies will be much more original and scary… and that’s simply not true.

Chokeslam (2016) / D: Robert Cuffley / 102m

Cast: Chris Marquette, Amanda Crew, Michael Eklund, Niall Matter, Gwynyth Walsh, Mick Foley

Rating: 5/10 – a 10-year high school reunion gives deli owner Corey (Marquette) the chance to reconnect with the girl he loved, Sheena (Crew), who is now a famous female wrestler; a lightweight romantic comedy that pokes moderate fun at the world of wrestling, Chokeslam is innocuous where it should be daring, and bland when it should be heartwarming, making it a movie that’s populated almost entirely by stock characters dealing with stock situations and problems, and which, unsurprisingly, provides them with entirely stock solutions.

All the Money in the World (2017) / D: Ridley Scott / 132m

Cast: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charlie Plummer, Marco Leonardi, Giuseppe Bonifati

Rating: 8/10 – a recreation of the kidnapping in 1973 of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and the subsequent attempts by his mother, Gail (Williams), to persuade his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom, something the then world’s richest man refuses to do; Scott’s best movie in years, All the Money in the World is a taut, compelling thriller that tells its story with ruthless expediency and features yet another commanding performance from Williams, something that takes the spotlight away from the presence of Christopher Plummer (who’s good but not great), and which serves as a reminder that money isn’t the central concern here, but a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017) / D: Nico De Leon / 98m

Cast: Chris Bruno, Nikki Howard, Lindsay Sawyer, Jeffrey Holsman, Chris Costanzo, Amaanda Méndez, Ian Daryk, Jorge Navarro, Lorna Hernandez, Michelle Cortès, Nicholas Nene

Rating: 3/10 – a four-headed shark terrorises the waters off Palomino Island in Puerto Rico before mutating into a five-headed shark, and being hunted by both the island’s police force, and a team of marine biologists from a local aquarium; operating at the bargain bucket end of the movie business, 5 Headed Shark Attack, SyFy’s latest cheaply made farrago, references Sharknado (2013) early on (as if it’s being clever), and then does it’s absolute best to make its audience cringe and wince and wish they’d never started watching in the first place, something the awful screenplay, dialogue, acting, special effects and direction all manage without even trying.

I Am Nasrine (2012)

03 Saturday Mar 2018

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D: Tina Gharavi / 88m

Cast: Micsha Sadeghi, Shiraz Haq, Steven Hooper, Christian Coulson, Nichole Hall

Nasrine (Sadeghi) lives in Iran with her mother and father, and her older brother, Ali (Haq). One day she finds herself being detained by the police. What happens to her is both violent and distressing. Fearing for her continued safety, her father decides that she and Ali must travel to the UK and seek asylum there. They enter the country illegally and find themselves in another difficult situation: while their application is processed, Nasrine has to attend school, while Ali is forbidden to work. They are given a flat in which to live, but in order for them both to get by, Ali finds work in a car wash and, later, a kebab shop as well. At school, Nasrine finds it hard to fit in, but makes a friend in Nicole (Hall), who is part of the local travellers community. Meanwhile, Ali struggles to fit in socially, his serious demeanour keeping others at bay (his concerns about his sexuality don’t help either). Nasrine also has relationship issues, having attracted the attention of Nicole’s older brother, Leigh (Hooper). But with the events of 9/11, both Nasrine and Ali discover that being refugees in a foreign country has unexpected consequences…

The debut feature of Iranian-born Gharavi, I Am Nasrine is a coming-of-age tale that explores issues surrounding the refugee experience, politics and sexuality, and finding one’s place in the world. But though it addresses these issues in various ways, and to varying degrees, it’s a movie that is about connections, how difficult they are to make, how difficult they are to maintain, and how difficult they are to break when they’ve run their course. In Iran, Nasrine’s actions cause the end of her middle-class lifestyle. In the UK she has to start again. The same applies to Ali, charged with being Nasrine’s protector, but equally unnerved by the changes that have led them to a dingy flat in London, and an uncertain future. Whether they are better off proves more and more debatable as the movie progresses, but it’s the siblings’ attempts at fitting in that provide the necessary dramatic focus. Whether it’s Nasrine’s growing friendship with Nicole and then Leigh, or Ali’s attempts to deal with his feelings for other men, including kebab shop customer Tommy (Coulson), it’s the way that writer/director Gharavi takes these basic desires and shows their universality that makes it all work so well. Refugees or not, Nasrine and Ali deserve the same respect we ourselves feel entitled to.

Gharavi’s approach is often straighforward and/or blunt, but this isn’t a bad thing as it precludes the possibility of any unnecessary sentiment, and allows what happens to Nasrine and Ali to remain unforced throughout. There’s a degree of unexpected and poetic beauty in the movie’s imagery as well, from the shot of Nasrine looking back from the motorbike she’s riding on in Tehran (see above), to the moment when she and Leigh experience their first kiss. Gharavi is also confident enough to minimise the impact of 9/11, safe in the knowledge that it will resonate quietly as the narrative unfolds, an unspoken component of the racial distrust and hatred that follows. She’s aided by a terrific performance from first-timer Sadeghi who instills Nasrine with a naïve yet determined quality that won’t be swayed, and unobtrusive production design courtesy of Chryssanthy Kofidou that anchors the narrative in a recognisable and credible setting. Gharavi occasionally makes some obvious dramatic choices that border on being predictable and rote, but the sincerity and the integrity of the story she’s telling more than make up for these choices, making the movie an absorbing exercise in what it is to try and belong anywhere where belonging comes at a price.

Rating: 8/10 – an engaging, thought-provoking movie that paints a candid and guileless picture of the need for acceptance, whatever someone’s personal circumstances, I Am Nasrine is severe and heartelt at the same time, and entirely up front about its plea for inclusivity; Gharavi’s passion for telling Nasrine’s story is evident throughout, and the story itself is rendered with compassion and honesty, making this a movie that is far more effective, and affecting, than it might seem at the outset.

NOTE: The quote by Ben Kingsley on the poster translates as: “An important and much needed film.”

Brakes (2016)

26 Monday Feb 2018

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D: Mercedes Grower / 85m

Cast: Julian Barratt, Kelly Campbell, Seb Cardinal, Juliet Cowan, Julia Davis, Noel Fielding, Jess-Luisa Flynn, Kerry Fox, Roland Gift, Salena Godden, Mercedes Grower, Martin Hancock, Kate Hardie, Siobhan Hewlett, Oliver Maltman, Paul McGann, John Milroy, Steve Oram, Daniel Roch, Morgan Thomas, Peter Wight

In Mercedes Grower’s debut feature, we’re introduced to a number of couples whose relationships are on the verge of breaking up, or which have actually reached the point of no return (or further investment by one or both parties). There’s Elliot (Barratt) and Raymond (Maltman), whose unexpected fling in Spain has been misinterpreted as something more permanent by Elliot. There’s Rhys (Gift) and Brinie (Fox), a couple who can’t spend time together without trading veiled insults or outright criticism, and there’s Livy (Davis) and Alan (Wight), a would-be actress and her theatrical producer partner who are finding themselves at odds over the types of roles that Livy can play. And then there’s Daniel (Fielding) and Layla (Grower), a couple expecting a child but being forced apart by his apathy and intransigence. These and several other stories show the various ways in which relationships can come to an end, and how differently people allow themselves to be affected.

All of this makes up Part II of Brakes, and is shown first. We see the characters often at their worst, and Grower shows just how selfish and uncaring we can be when we want to extricate ourselves from a relationship we no longer want to be a part of. On the flip side, we see the pain and the hurt that this approach can cause, and Grower wades through a variety of emotions and responses, from anger to disbelief, to sadness and resignation, and denial and regret. Inevitably, some stories fare better than others, with Daniel and Layla’s break up in a public toilet coming across as too absurd to be credible, and hampered by the decision to have Daniel behave like a six year old. Conversely, the austere yet stinging conversation between Rhys and Brinie is so tense and uncomfortable that it’s a relief when he goes out for beers (it also helps that Fox’s performance is particularly impressive). Most of the other scenarios fall somewhere in between, but the necessity of keeping things short (for the most part), means that if one story disappoints there’ll be another one along quite soon.

Once Part II is out of the way, then Grower presents us with Part I, in which we see how these relationships began originally. It’s a neat idea, and having seen the outcomes of each one already, the viewer can judge for themselves if any might or should have turned out differently, and it does allow the movie to end on a positive note, but the knowledge that none of these promising, hopeful unions is going to end well also leaves a bitter after-taste. With the script proving to be a hit or miss affair in terms of the stories, the performances fall into the same category. Alongside Fox, there are fine portrayals from Davis, Wight, and Barratt, while some of the cast – e.g. McGann, Milroy, Hewlett, and Oram – are hamstrung by clichéd dialogue and unconvincing set ups. Grower does show promise, and she’s able to inject some much needed humour when it’s required, but she needs an idea that she can focus on exclusively instead of a number of different ones all at the same time. That said, the movie does feature some appropriately gloomy cinematography by Denzil Armour-Brown and Gabi Norland in Part II, and a brighter, more upbeat tone in Part I, something that gives rise to the notion that if more time had been available, then this could have been so much better.

Rating: 6/10 – with a sixty per cent success rate in regard to the stories themselves, Brakes is often a frustrating movie to watch, but it does have singular moments where the breadth of Grower’s ambition is met and exceeded upon; in the end, though, it’s a movie that makes a number of telling points about our inability to communicate with each other when it matters, but which doesn’t always find the right context to express itself fully.

Mustang Island (2017)

14 Sunday Jan 2018

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D: Craig Elrod / 86m

Cast: Macon Blair, Lee Eddy, John Merriman, Molly Karrasch, Jason Newman, Byron Brown, Haley Alea Erickson

In Mustang Island, the second feature from writer/director Craig Elrod, Bill (Blair) and his girlfriend Molly (Karrasch) break up on New Year’s Eve. Reduced to uncontrollable tears by this event, Bill crashes his car into a boat, breaks his arm and flees the scene before he’s arrested by the police. Later, he learns that Molly may have gone to her family’s place on Mustang Island. Rounding up his brother, John (Merriman), and John’s friend and co-worker Travis (Newman), the trio set off for the island with Bill intending to make things right with Molly. When they get there, the house is empty and there’s no sign that Molly has even been there. Bill decides to stay a while in the hope that Molly shows up, and John and Travis stay with him. At a local diner, John spies a waitress, Lee (Eddy), that he’s attracted to. But John is painfully shy and despite Bill’s attempts to bring them together, it soon becomes clear that Lee likes Bill instead of John. Bill finds that he has feelings for Lee as well, but as ever with Bill, there are problems to overcome…

Set on the real Mustang Island (which is located on the Gulf Coast of Texas), Elrod’s follow up to The Man from Orlando (2012) is a quirky, understated tale that relies heavily on nuance and tone in order to tell its simple yet engrossing story. Elrod’s script calls for dozens of moments where the camera lingers on a character’s face and the viewer is given the time to realise and understand what that character is feeling or thinking. It’s these quiet moments that are of the greatest importance, as the characters are not as articulate as they would like to be, and expressing their emotions is uncomfortable and scary for them. By focusing on their features and the range of expressions that play across them, Elrod and his talented cast ensure that the viewer is in no doubt as to what anyone is thinking or feeling. This allows for moments of sadness, heartbreak, vulnerability, and poignancy as the characters strive to make sense of their own feelings while trying not to hurt anyone else’s. It’s a subdued, reflective movie that offers hope amidst the setbacks experienced by its characters, and is shot through with a winning sense of humour, particularly in a diner scene where Bill thinks everyone is looking at him.

Headed by Blair, the main cast members offer impressive, detailed performances that are sincere and refreshingly unspoiled by notions of “acting”. Blair and Eddy are married in real life, and this adds a sensitivity to their portrayals that makes them all the more convincing. Merriman is one of the movie’s best assets, though, his solid, restrained performance a sheer pleasure to watch whenever he’s on screen, and his expressions of happiness and delight are to be treasured thanks to the childlike innocence they convey. The movie’s real trump card, however, is the decision to shoot in black and white. This adds another level of detail to Elrod’s already meticulously assembled screenplay, and the use of light and shade to complement the characters’ moods, emotions and desires, adds depth to all those aspects. And the movie is simply beautiful to look at, with as many striking compositions encompassing the island surroundings as there are devastating close-ups (especially the final one). It’s all rounded off by a well chosen soundtrack, and a warm and thoughtful score by first-timer Benjamin Prosser.

Rating: 8/10 – assembled with care and intelligence and a surfeit of confidence, Mustang Island is a beautifully observed romantic comedy drama that does justice to all those elements, and which has so much to offer viewers, it’s a stone’s throw from being embarrassing; Elrod and everyone else involved are to be congratulated for making a movie that is genuinely, unashamedly heartfelt in places, and unswervingly affectionate toward its delightful cast of characters.

NOTE: Surprisingly, there is no trailer available for Mustang Island.

Floating! (2015)

12 Friday Jan 2018

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Original title: Das Floß!

D: Julia C. Kaiser / 86m

Cast: Julia Becker, Jakob Renger, Anna König, Till Butterbach, Rhon Diels, Christian Natter, Nina Bernards, Sina Bianca Hentschel

German movies haven’t really been too conspicuous in recent years. In the new millennium, and though the German movie industry has climbed out of the doldrums brought about by the rise in home viewing in the 1990’s, on the international stage, German movies have rarely made an impact. The arrival of Toni Erdmann (2016) was a much needed fillip for the industry, but for the movie buff who is prepared to do a little digging, there are other movies out there that are worth a look and a mention. One such movie is Floating!, the first feature of writer/director Julia C. Kaiser. The set up is a simple one: Katha (Becker) and Jana (König) have decided to get married and to have a child via artificial insemination. They’ve even chosen a sperm donor, called Momo (Renger). One weekend, both have their bachelor/bachelorette parties. Katha heads off to the countryside to meet her brother Tobi (Natter), her oldest friend Charly (Butterbach), and friend and work colleague, Ken (Diels), for a trip on a motorised raft. Jana meanwhile, stays at their flat and has several of her friends over. But unexpected guests at both parties – Momo at the raft, Jana’s ex-partner Susan (Bernards) at the flat – threaten to cause both women to question their relationship.

Floating! is exactly the kind of feature that’s needed to remind people that German movie makers can produce the same astute, enjoyable, and carefully crafted movies that their European counterparts can make. Focusing on the pre-marital doubts that could affect any couple, straight or gay, Kaiser’s gently probing script gives the us time to get to know the characters and understand enough of their back stories so that we can sympathise with the emotional issues that they find themselves facing. Katha, surrounded by males who all view her differently, finds herself wondering if there’s any merit in being straight (or at least finding out what it might be like). She’s comfortable with their bloke-ish camaraderie and easy-going behaviour. She even comes to appreciate Momo’s presence, even though she makes it clear he won’t have a role in the baby’s life. With copious amounts of alcohol to help confuse matters further, Katha becomes unsure of herself and her commitment to Jana. Meanwhile, Jana is shocked by the presence of Susan at her party, and though she does all the right things in trying to avoid her/get rid of her, when Susan explains why she’s there, Jana – who walked out of their relationship – begins to doubt the wisdom of her past actions. And she too finds herself torn between what she has and what she could have.

This being a romantic drama with suitable helpings of comedy to make it more agreeable, Floating! remains a consistently plausible and thoughtful examination of the natural doubts any couple might have before making that final commitment to each other. There’s a lightness of touch and emphasis in Kaiser’s direction that allows us to feel like we’ve known the characters all their lives, and the cast respond accordingly, giving natural, appealing performances that further enhance the sense that these are all people you could meet at any time, and anywhere. The dialogue is entirely natural sounding too, and very little feels forced or contrived. It’s all shot by DoP Dominik Berg using an autumnal colour palette that emphasises the possibility of change within the characters as well as the season, and Nicole Weber’s editing ensures that the pace of the movie is reflected in the bustle of Jana’s party and the laconic ease of the raft party.

Rating: 8/10 – a wry, sympathetic, and engaging look at love found and nearly lost, Floating! is a delightful movie anchored by finely balanced, intuitive performances, and Kaiser’s confident direction; one not only for fans of German cinema, but for anyone who wants to see a movie that tells its tale with an understated grace and in a very simple, yet very effective fashion.

NOTE: The trailer below doesn’t have English subtitles.

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) (2015)

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Original title: Bang Gang (une histoire d’amour moderne)

D: Eva Husson / 94m

Cast: Finnegan Oldfield, Marilyn Lima, Lorenzo Lefèbvre, Daisy Broom, Fred Hotier, Manuel Husson, Olivia Lancelot, Raphaël Porcheron, Tatiana Werner, Olivier Lefebvre

Eva Husson’s debut feature, set in the world of Biarritz high-schoolers, could be described as a French reworking of Fight Club (1999), but with sexual activity instead of fighting. What’s the first rule of Sex Club? Answer: nobody talks about Sex Club! This may sound like a trite way of approaching the movie but it’s hard not to draw parallels with a number of other movies that focus on teens and the troubles they have in negotiating that dread period of time between being a teenager and becoming an adult. Here, the teens are predictably bored, listless and lacking in ambition (except for Gabriel (Lefèbvre), who creates his own music). Alex (Oldfield) has his mother’s house all to himself and has decided that conspicuous hedonism is the way forward; he’s aided by his friend, Niki (Hotier), who’s a little dorky but not as arrogant as Alex. Best friends George (Lima) and Laetitia (Broom) have little experience of the opposite sex, though both are curious to learn in their separate ways. Gabriel, meanwhile, is Laetitia’s neighbour, something of a loner, and attracted to George.

Thus the movie is ripe for exploring the tangled relationships that only horny and confused teenagers can endure, and the inevitable fallout when things start to go irretrievably wrong (as it does here, when their school is forced to implement a particularly embarrasing round of health screenings). But the movie doesn’t quite manage to make any of the characters’ predicaments anything more than perfunctory. The sex parties (which begin innocuously enough with games of spin the bottle) include drug taking as well, and participants are allowed to take photos or record videos of what goes on, but only for future sharing within the group. Of course, this lasts about as long as it takes for George and Laetitia’s friendship to crumble when they both sleep with Alex, and soon the widespread knowledge of the group’s activities causes further problems, but for the most part, these teenagers are still as bored, listless, and lacking in ambition as they were at the beginning. Does anyone learn anything? It’s hard to tell, not even if the lesson is simply to avoid getting involved with sex parties, and Husson’s script strives for meaning far too often and without providing any answers.

That said, the performances are engaging and acceptably fearless, with Lima a stand out as the emotionally compromised George, a character whose injured self-esteem leads her into wanton behaviour that undermines her self-esteem even more. But Husson doesn’t seem able to make anyone truly sympathetic enough for the viewer to identify with, and the whole sorry mess that the sex parties engender is best summed up by Gabriel’s father (Husson) as, “…so profoundly mediocre.” This extends to the parties themselves, which provide tame examples of the kind of “action” that would be taking place, and which for all the “freedom” that is on display, is content to show females kissing and getting together, but not males doing the same (are there no gay teens in Biarritz?). It’s a movie that also feels lightweight in terms of any social or sexual subtexts, and there are frequent allusions to train wrecks on the local news that offer clumsy counterpoints to the derailment of normal teenage behaviour taking place at Alex’s house. All in all, the movie struggles for relevance, and tells its story in too mundane a fashion for it to strike any chords – even amongst teenagers.

Rating: 5/10 – not as controversial as may have been intended, and not as fascinating as the scenario could have been, Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) offers a glimpse at a world that seeks to flout traditional rules of propriety, and without any long-term consequences; all wrapped up too neatly, Husson’s feature debut reveals a director with a certain visual flair but who needs to be aware that narrative loopholes – of which there are several – can hinder the success of any project.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

19 Sunday Nov 2017

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D: Noah Baumbach / 112m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel, Grace Van Patten, Judd Hirsch, Rebecca Miller, Candice Bergen, Adam Driver, Matthew Shear, Sakina Jaffrey, Gayle Rankin, Michael Chernus

Harold Meyerowitz (Hoffman) is a semi-famous sculptor who hasn’t had a show in years, and who has become somewhat marginalised within the New York art world. His work is admired by those that know of it, but his contemporaries, such as L.J. Shapiro (Hirsch), are still exhibiting and still getting the recognition that Harold thinks they don’t deserve. Harold is on his fourth marriage – to Maureen (Thompson) – and has two children from his first, Danny (Sandler) and Jean (Marvel). Danny is in the midst of separating from his wife, and has a precocious teenage daughter, Eliza (Van Patten), who is about to leave for college. Jean is a spinster but leads an otherwise happy life. Harold has another child from his third marriage, Matthew (Stiller), but he lives in LA, and works as a financial consultant. He’s successful, and has a young son he would like to spend more time with. This is the family Meyerowitz, and despite outward appearances, many of which they foster themselves, they all need help (oh boy, do they need help).

What’s impressive about Noah Baumbach’s latest feature is that he takes a stereotypical dysfunctional family, and spins that stereotype ever so slightly off its axis, so that each nugget of information about any of the characters seems fresh and unexpected, even though a closer inspection reveals tropes and metaphors that we’ve seen countless times before. This is due to Baumbach’s very eloquent and very astute screenplay, a piece of writing that manages to include a number of complex and yet succinct observations on the nature of father-son relationships and the effect that an inwardly scared parent can have on their children. It’s no surprise that Baumbach has chosen to examine the issue of what children need from their parents as this has formed the basis of much of his work in the past, from The Squid and the Whale (2005) to While We’re Young (2014). But this is easily his most impressive and most fully realised project, and it has a smoothness and an ease about it that makes it all the more enjoyable to watch.

The main focus is, at first, on Danny. With his marriage coming to an end and Eliza going off to college, Danny has to reassess what he’s going to do with his life (he’s been a house husband up until now, having chosen that as his “career” instead of being a musician). He and Jean get involved in arranging a retrospective of Harold’s career, but Baumbach is quick to make the viewer realise that this isn’t being done out of love or affection, and not even necessarily out of respect for their father’s work. Like so many other things connected to Harold that they do, it’s done because they view it as the right thing to do; it’s a familial obligation. But Harold is obsessed with how his work is perceived, because his work is the only thing that, to him, makes him stand out from the crowd. He’s constantly seeking approbation from everyone around him, and insists he receives it from his kids. But if they don’t, then he’s oblivious to both them and their needs. Such is their lives as adults, such was their lives as children.

Harold’s narcissistic expressions about himself, and his short-fuse dismissal of anyone he deems unimportant, has had an unpleasant effect on all three of his children. Danny has spent an enormous amount of time and energy in raising Eliza so that they’re more like friends instead of father and daughter. As a result he’s a better father than Harold was to him, but the irony is that in its own way, it’s as unhealthy as the relationship Danny had with him as a child. Baumbach makes the point well: too little attention or love can be just as bad as too much. But while that may seem obvious (and it is), it’s the way in which Danny tries to strike a balance between the two, and without necessarily being aware that he’s doing it, that makes all the difference. Jean has her own reasons for keeping her life separate, and though it seems that she’s perhaps the most “adjusted” of the three, this later proves to be incorrect. And then there’s Matthew, who professes to be “over” his father’s ability to make him angry for having a successful life (Harold is almost as obsessed by money as he is by maintaining his reputation). Matthew, like Danny, is trying to be a better father than Harold was, but he can’t seem to connect with his son, despite his best efforts.

Watching these four people struggle to communicate with each other, and struggle to find the answers that are often in front of them, should be frustrating for the viewer,  but Baumbach, and the sharpness of his script, helps avoid all that. The family dynamic is entirely credible and perfectly judged, with superb performances from all concerned. Sandler has only been better once before, in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and here he proves that he can be a fine dramatic actor when he wants to be (which isn’t often enough). Sandler displays a warmth and a heartfelt sincerity as Danny that allows the viewer a way in to the Meyerowitz family and its myriad issues. He’s a sweet, caring guy trying to do his best, and he has enough self-awareness to know that he doesn’t always get it right. Stiller is equally as good, channelling Matthew’s anger at being unfairly singled out for Harold’s praise as a child when the praise, and what it related to, wasn’t important to Matthew at all. In support, Marvel, Thompson and Van Patten offer touching performances, while there are a clutch of more minor roles that allow for a few scene-stealing moments (Chernus as a snippy nurse is a treat). But this, perhaps expectedly, is Hoffman’s movie, his portrayal of Harold as a manipulative, emotionally remote artist one of the best things he’s done in years.

Baumbach approaches the material and the characters with a great deal of care and attention, and it’s this that makes the movie so effortlessly dramatic, and so effortlessly funny. Nobody behaves in a manner that might seem odd or inappropriate because that’s how they’ve always behaved. With some questions there’s an answer provided, but many’s the time when Baumbach keeps the viewer in the dark, as if to say, “these characters still need time to figure things out, and it’s not going to happen before the movie’s over”. It all adds up to a remarkably humane and sympathetic look at expectations between the generations, and how personal legacies can hamper the growth of those who are raised in the shadow of them. Thoughtful and considerate of its characters’ foibles and muted aspirations, Baumbach’s latest is a sprightly mix of drama and comedy that succeeds on both fronts, and is his best work yet.

Rating: 9/10 – that rarity: a comedy-drama with heart as well as intelligence, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is a cautionary tale that never once feels forced or that it’s struggling to find its own voice; the characters linger in the memory, along with Baumbach’s clever script and fluid direction, and a number of quality performances, making this a movie that everyone should try and see, and especially as an alternative to more mainstream, big-budget moviemaking.

The Incredible Jessica James (2017)

02 Monday Oct 2017

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D: Jim Strouse / 84m

Cast: Jessica Williams, Chris O’Dowd, Lakeith Stanfield, Noël Wells, Taliyah Whitaker

Despite having their name plastered all over the advertising, potential viewers of The Incredible Jessica James can rest easy – this is not a Netflix original. Instead it’s a movie that Netflix picked up for distribution after it debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. With that near miss taken care of, it’s unsurprising to learn that the latest from the writer/director of People Places Things (2015) is on a par with that movie, and head and shoulders above many other so-called romantic comedies released this year. Shot through with Strouse’s gift for natural-sounding dialogue, the movie brings together two characters who are trying hard to deal with the fallout from relationships that have recently ended. How good are they at doing this? Does the phrase “cyber stalking” give you a clue?

The title character, Jessica James (Williams), has split up from her boyfriend, Damon (Stanfield). She’s not sure how it happened, but she is sure she still has feelings for him. Well, confused feelings, as she arranges dates with guys on Tinder and meets them in places where she knows she’s likely to bump into Damon, just so she can tell him how well she’s doing without him (she also continues to follow him on social media). Three and a half months have passed since their relationship ended, and while it seems Damon has moved on, Jessica is so critical of anyone else she meets that she might as well not bother. Then her friend, Tasha (Wells), suggests Jessica go on a blind date with someone she knows called Boone (O’Dowd). Boone is eight months divorced, and is prone to following his ex’s Instagram account, as well as hanging around outside the apartment she shares with her new partner. Their date doesn’t go too well at first, but once they agree to talk honestly about their previous relationships, the pair find themselves hitting it off. So well, in fact, that they end up spending the night together.

The rest is almost entirely predictable, and follows such a standard arc that the average viewer could probably describe it in their sleep. But in amongst the familiar tropes and romantic ups and downs, Strouse weaves a charming tale of burgeoning love that is anything but formulaic, and which owes a lot of its success to Strouse’s gifts as a writer, and the easy way in which he translates his screenplay into well structured yet seemingly carefree incidents. We follow Jessica as she navigates this new friendship with Boone, as well as teaching at a children’s theatre workshop, and trying to get her work as a playwright recognised by a theatre company. She’s smart, she’s intelligent, she’s sexy, she’s trying hard not to be a slave to her emotions, and she’s taking it all one step at a time. Two things stop her from moving forward with confidence or the appropriate speed: her mixed feelings for Damon, and Boone’s mixed feelings for his ex, Mandy Moore (not the singer/actress).

Boone is plagued by similar doubts, but of the two of them he seems to be the more prepared to commit to Jessica and forge a new relationship. Inevitably there’s a stumbling block, a situation that pulls them apart before they’re reunited at the end, but it’s all done with an honesty and a simplicity that is in many ways, quite refreshing to witness. Strouse uses dialogue as a way of exploring the characters’ emotional needs, and to draw out small but effective contributions to the way in which both of them deal with disappointment and pain, and being hurt. They’re both vulnerable people, determined to be honest with each other as a relationship “best policy” and to protect themselves, and Strouse is on fine form when it’s just the two of them, happily tiptoe-ing through the minefield of a new romance and largely unafraid of losing a metaphorical limb.

Strouse is helped immensely by relaxed, detailed performances by Williams and O’Dowd, a romantic “odd couple” you probably wouldn’t have put together in a million years. And yet, there’s a definite chemistry there (if not a completely convincing physical one; when they kiss it’s like watching two people trying it out for the first time and getting the basic idea from a manual). Williams has a very likeable screen presence, and she uses her expressive features and comic timing to very good effect. Those viewers who only know her from US TV’s The Daily Show (where she’s played roles as varied as Abraham Lincoln and Lorena Bobbitt), may well be surprised by the way in which she handles the more serious elements of Strouse’s script, but when she is called upon to jettison the comedy and hit up the drama, you can see just what an all-rounder she really is. She’s in good company with O’Dowd, who, no matter what movie he appears in, is pretty much the definition of relaxed and easy-going. He’s proven his range on many occasions, and though Boone is something of a supporting character, O’Dowd plays him as if he’s integral to the whole movie, and makes him both inherently credible and hugely sympathetic; you want Boone to find happiness with Jessica (and vice versa).

Strouse, who’s work as a writer/director seems to get better and better with every movie, handles a number of subplots with aplomb as well, gaining extra mileage from the situations his romantic duo find themselves in when they’re not together. Jessica tries to persuade the mother of one of her pupils of the importance of the class itself, while Boone is confronted by his ex-wife’s new partner and only barely survives the encounter without sounding like a complete ass. Strouse isn’t afraid as well to make Jessica initially unsympathetic, with her treatment of potential suitors brought into question by her abrupt manners and rude dissemination of why she doesn’t want to be there. But as she begins to find love with Boone, Jessica mellows and allows herself to trust a lot more, and the character blossoms as a result. Again, it’s all held together by the quality of Strouse’s writing, and the quality of Williams’ and O’Dowd’s portrayals, and in the end, the movie ends up being a more than pleasant way of spending eighty-four minutes, and one that makes you wonder just what kind of a life the pair will have long after the credits roll.

Rating: 8/10 – somewhat of a surprise (though it shouldn’t be given Strouse’s involvement), The Incredible Jessica James is a sure-fire winner that doesn’t have a lot to shout about on the surface (in terms of originality), but which is deceptively graceful below it; a low-key experience that rewards dramatically and comedically, this is a movie that works to its strengths throughout, and in doing so, stakes a claim to being one of the most intelligent and pleasurable romantic comedies of the year.

Mountain Men (2014)

08 Friday Sep 2017

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D: Cameron Labine / 89m

Cast: Chace Crawford, Tyler Labine, Ben Cotton, Britt Irvin, Christine Willes

Families – the movies love ’em. And the more dysfunctional they are, the more writers and directors want to tell their stories. Hundreds of family-based dramas and comedies (and dramedies) are made each year, and each of them follow a tried and tested and unstinting pattern: the family members are shown to be at odds with each other (often over a misunderstanding that no one fully remembers, or how it all started), rows and disagreements follow, characters remain at odds with each other for the majority of the movie, but by the end, everything has been resolved and everyone loves everyone else again. To quote Mrs Potts, it’s a tale as old as time, and you could be forgiven for thinking that every last wrinkle has been smoothed out in movie makers’ efforts to provide us with yet another example of the genre.

And though it does try to be different, both with its location and its main characters’ need to survive in the harsh environs of the Rockies, Mountain Men doesn’t quite have the wherewithal to stand out from the crowd. And it’s a shame, because while it just misses out on having the necessary substance or the required depth needed to make it more memorable, the movie does have a great deal of understated charm, and though he’s playing the kind of character he’s known for (again), Labine is the movie’s top draw, and it’s worth watching for his performance alone (that and some very impressive Rocky Mountain scenery, stunningly depicted by DoP Catherine Lutes).

It’s a tale of two brothers, Toph (Labine) and Cooper (Crawford). Toph is the eldest, still living in their small hometown, and kind of drifting through life, selling a little weed here and there, and when we first meet him, learning that his girlfriend, Leah (Irvin), is pregnant. Cooper has long fled the family nest. He has a well-paid, high-powered job, a girlfriend who’s a twelve, and apparently, not a care in the world. Back home because their mother is remarrying (everyone believes their father died somewhere in the surrounding mountains, but his body has never been found), Cooper is intent on staying for just a couple of days, but Toph has other ideas. Toph wants them to spend some quality time together, and suggests that they go up to their father’s cabin on the pretext of confronting someone who’s squatting there. At first Cooper declines to go, but when their mother (Willes) suggests he spends time getting to know his new stepfather, Cooper finds Toph’s proposition sounds like the better option.

Once there, though, Cooper makes it clear that he’s in a hurry to leave, and the very next morning. Toph is upset by this, but agrees to return home. However, Toph’s truck won’t start, and Cooper’s solution leads to not only the car going up in flames, but the cabin as well. With only basic winter clothing and minimal supplies, they decide to head for a nearby ranger station. Once there they settle in for the night, intending to leave at first light and reach the road that will lead them back to town. But in amongst the food rations that Toph has brought are some pot cookies, and Cooper eats a couple of them. Later, and while still under their influence, his gazing at the stars in wonder leads to his breaking his leg, and putting the brothers in a difficult, life-threatening situation: namely, how to get back home and how to survive the harsh weather conditions in the meantime…

Making only his second feature after the under-rated Control Alt Delete (2008), Cameron Labine clearly knows a thing or two about fraternal love (yes, he and Tyler are brothers), and it’s equally clear he knows just how fraternal animosities can impair a relationship as well. As is common in these types of comedy dramas, Toph and Cooper are opposites in character, personality and demeanour, with Toph the outwardly goofy, irresponsible brother who’s on the verge of having to “grow up”, while Cooper is the serious one, weighed down by the choices he’s made and the mistakes that have arisen from them (it’s no surprise that both his professional and personal lives have unravelled spectacularly). But Labine isn’t interested entirely in telling a commonplace tale of sibling misunderstanding or rivalry, and instead uses Cooper’s injury to remind the brothers of just how important their relationship is to both of them. He also makes Toph the dependable one, solving each problem that arises once Cooper is incapacitated, and helping his suffering brother in more ways than one.

And there’s much for Toph to deal with, as Labine garlands Cooper’s problems with hints of mental illness and self-loathing, and raises issues surrounding the death of their father that takes the material into much darker territory than expected. But even then, Labine holds back from exploring this idea more fully, almost as if he’s remembered the movie is also a comedy and he needs to strike a balance. It’s this that holds the movie back from achieving its full potential as a drama, and keeps it from being as effective as it could be. That said, the humour is fresh and appealing, and arises out of the characters and not just their situation (one jump cut is guaranteed to make viewers laugh by itself, though). Along the way, Labine also ensures that the brothers’ predicament remains credible, as well as the solutions that Toph comes up with, and this makes the movie more engaging than it might appear from its basic premise. The brothers’ journey, both physical and emotional, ends up being beneficial for both of them, and though this isn’t entirely surprising, Labine does more than enough to make tagging along with them a surprising and enjoyable experience.

Rating: 7/10 – modest in both scope and ambition, and hindered somewhat by being so, Mountain Men is nevertheless the kind of movie that sneaks up on the viewer and proves pleasantly entertaining; having Crawford and Labine on board is a plus, and so is the beauitiful scenery, but if anything truly resonates, it’s the way in which Labine deftly examines the mutual bond of love and affection that unites these brothers no matter how well or how badly either of them (think they) are doing.

Appropriate Behavior (2014)

24 Thursday Aug 2017

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D: Desiree Akhavan / 86m

Cast: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson, Halley Feiffer, Ryan Fitzsimmons, Anh Duong, Hooman Majd, Arian Moayed, Justine Cotsonas, Scott Adsit, Maryann Urbano, Aimee Mullins, Rosalie Lowe, James C. Bristow

The basic premise of Appropriate Behavior, the feature debut of director, producer, screenwriter and actress Desiree Akhavan, is one that many of us will be familiar with: the break-up of that all-important first, serious relationship. This being an indie romantic comedy-drama, though, there’s an inevitable twist, but one that Akhavan handles with a great deal of skill: her central character, Shirin (Akhavan), is a bisexual woman of Iranian heritage struggling to make sense of her relationships –  familial, social, emotional – while attempting to deal with the fallout from a relationship that she thought was going well. So with all the usual relationship issues to deal with, Shirin also has to find a way of dealing with the way her sexuality impacts on her life (and the lives of those around her), and the entrenched beliefs of her family. (There’s nothing like stacking the odds against a character for a bit of extra added dramatic effect.)

At the start of the movie, Shirin’s relationship with Maxine (Henderson) has ended after a bitter falling out over Shirin’s inability to come out to her parents, and other issues surrounding Maxine’s expectations of their relationship. Shirin finds herself homeless, unemployed, newly single, and still maintaining a façade with her morally strict, culturally retentive parents (Duong, Majd). Thanks to her friend, Crystal (Feiffer), Shirin finds a place to live, renting a room in an apartment owned by a couple of avant-garde performance artists. In time, she also finds a job (of sorts) teaching movie making to five year olds (only in New York…). But working her way through the minefield of her emotions proves to be far more complex and demanding a proposition than she could have ever imagined. First there are her residual feelings for Maxine, which prompt Shirin to try and win her back. Second, there’s the expectations of her family, muted yet still supportive on her parents’ side, more acerbic on her brother’s side (Shirin’s mother: “She was the only freshman in high school who could swim in the varsity team. And she didn’t even take lessons.” Shirin’s brother: “Wow! That’s a real resumé builder right there”). And then there’s the further burden of trying to date and possibly build a new relationship from scratch.

Shirin really doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going, and it’s this confusion that drives the movie forward, as Akhavan puts her heroine through the wringer in one embarrassing scene/encounter after another. Shirin is the kind of rootless, semi-aimless twenty-something who should be annoying because of her general lack of self-awareness, and passive-resistant personality. But Akhavan is clever enough to balance Shirin’s less attractive qualities with a genuine likeability borne out of the character’s underlying vulnerability; she’s someone you can imagine spending time with and enjoying the experience. The same might not be true for Shirin, though, as she’s always looking for that deeper, more permanent connection that will help her make sense of her place in the world. If only she can make that connection, she reasons, then everything else will fall into place.

Of course, nothing is that easy, and Shirin finds that making the kind of progress in her life that she needs to, is hampered by the whims and foibles and personal idiosyncrasies of the people around her. Maxine is more self-contained and outwardly confident, but has an ambition that may or may not be her life’s goal; if it is then it’s going to make her relationship with Shirin that much more complicated (Akhavan deftly avoids dealing with this issue in just the way people would do in real life). Her friend, Crystal, is very supportive but doesn’t have any answers, while her parents occupy a protective bubble of their own making, equally as supportive as Crystal but equally as lacking in answers. Shirin attempts to connect with new people, such as party pick-up Henry (Bristow), and sexually adventurous couple Brendan (Fitzsimmons) and Jackie (Urbano), but she’s so unaware of what she really wants that her discomfort really shows through (the threesome scene is perhaps the most awkward, uncomfortable ménage à trois ever portrayed in a movie). Throughout it all, Akhavan keeps Shirin moving forward, even if she has no real sense of direction and is just doing her best to connect with whomever comes along.

One of the best things about Appropriate Behavior is the way in which Shirin’s bisexuality isn’t an issue but a statement of fact that needs no further examination. It may explain her pan-sexual approach to relationships (casual or otherwise), but it’s not an “issue” as it might have been in the hands of less intuitive movie makers (Akhavan has based much of her movie on her own experiences but Shirin’s story isn’t autobiographical). With this acceptance set up from the beginning, the movie is free to explore the issues and crises and dynamics of modern day relationships. If there is a message Akhavan is trying to get across it’s that contemporary relationships rise and fall in often spectacular fashion because individual selfishness always gets in the way. Shirin may be looking for love, but like Maxine (with whom she has much more in common than she realises), it has to be on her own terms and to meet her needs before her partner’s. With the inevitable clashes that will always arise from this kind of emotional dynamic, it’s no wonder that Shirin feels stranded and unfulfilled.

Akhavan proves equally adept at comedy as she does with drama, and peppers her script with some terrific one-liners and biting exchanges (see above). She also makes some witty observations about the contemporary New York social scene, and the upmarket pretensions of Brooklyn’s Park Slope community with its moviemaking classes for ten year olds (“We are doing a shot for shot remake of a scene from The Birds”). Elsewhere, the perils of dating are addressed with acuity and appropriate amounts of dissemblance, while Akhavan draws together Shirin’s cultural background, family history and lack of adherence to both to good effect through her performance and those of Duong and Majd. As the star and the writer and the director, Akhavan shows good instincts in her choice of material, and its structure, but it’s her knowing critique of Shirin’s environment and lifestyle that scores most highly. Reconnecting with Shirin in ten years’ time may not be on Akhavan’s agenda, but on this basis, it would definitely be intriguing to see where Life has taken her.

Rating: 8/10 – an enjoyable piece of indie navel-gazing, Appropriate Behavior is smart, funny, occasionally waspish, but always entertaining; Akhavan is a talent to look out for, and based on this evidence alone, could well be a movie maker whose future sees her going from strength to strength.

Person to Person (2017)

01 Tuesday Aug 2017

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D: Dustin Guy Defa / 84m

Cast: Abbi Jacobson, Michael Cera, Tavi Gevinson, Bene Coopersmith, George Sample III, Philip Baker Hall, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Mchaela Watkins, Olivia Luccardi, Ben Rosenfield, Buddy Duress

Ensemble movies have to play things very carefully. There are so many boxes to tick – quirky but relatable characters, humorous/dramatic scenarios as required, switching between them if necessary, maybe connecting each in an organic way, creating an interesting environment – all these things and more have to be taken into consideration before the cameras even start rolling. Pity the poor writer/director who takes on such a project and isn’t fully prepared from the word Go. And pity the poor viewer who settles down to watch such a project with a great deal of anticipation. Because not only do ensemble movies have to play things very carefully, they also have to be credible.

Person to Person is an ensemble movie where several of the tick boxes mentioned above remain resolutely unticked from start to finish. Partly because whatever writer/director Dustin Guy Defa’s message is, it’s obscured by the bland characters on display, the lack of any real humour or drama (even though a potential murder occupies the attention of two of the characters), and certain scenes that are so leadenly paced that ennui is likely to seep in before they come to an end. This is a movie to watch with one eye open, while the other takes a well-earned rest. It’s sluggish, gives us dramatic scenarios that don’t ring true, and introduces us to a slew of self-absorbed malcontents and socially awkward worriers.

First up is Bene (Coopersmith), a middle-aged jazz fan and collector who has his sights set on buying a rare red vinyl LP by Charlie Parker. At the same time, Bene’s best friend, Ray (Sample III), is staying with him after breaking up with his girlfriend, Janet, but he just sits on the sofa doing nothing. Bene encourages him to get up and go out, even if it’s just around the block. Meanwhile, there’s Wendy (Gevinson), a waif-like teen with a waspish, anti-everything stance that hides a desperate need to be liked, and more importantly, loved (but of course she doesn’t know how to commit to anyone or trust them). She spends time with her best friend, Melanie (Luccardi), but Melanie is more interested in talking about her boyfriend than listening to Wendy’s tirades about life, love and relationships. And then there’s newbie journalist Claire (Jacobson), working her first day and teamed up with her editor, Phil (Cera), to report on a potential murder. She’s nervous and unsure if this is the right job for her, while he’s doing his best to impress her into sleeping with him. The police investigation leads them to a watch repairer called Jimmy (Hall), and the victim’s wife (Watkins). And while all this is happening, Ray leaves Bene’s apartment and attempts to make things right between himself and Janet, but soon finds that he’s being tracked down by her brother, Buster (Whitlock Jr), who wants to break both his legs (in a particularly misguided moment, Ray uploaded naked pictures of Janet onto the Internet).

These are the stories that Defa has assembled for Person to Person, and though they all prove superficially engaging, by the time the movie struggles over the finishing line by having Phil thump his desk in self-pity and frustration, Bene attend a party with his girlfriend, Claire go home to her cat, Wendy standing alone on a sidewalk, Ray breaking down in front of Janet, and everyone else left in limbo, the only true resolution the movie offers is connected to the possible murder. It’s a narrative decision that feels awkward when you think about it, and feels even more awkward when you see it. Defa wants to show his audience the various problems that disparate people can face every day in New York (another character that isn’t best served by Defa’s screenplay). But the problem with that lies in the stories he wants to tell. Claire is ostensibly the most sympathetic character, but she’s also the most wishy-washy, apologetic character you’re ever likely to meet in an indie dramedy. Bene, at first, appears quite switched on and self-aware but then he frets about a new shirt he’s bought, and he does it all day long and to anyone who’ll listen.

These quirks (and others) are meant to endear the viewer to the characters, but therein lies another problem: the characters aren’t that likeable or too sympathetic. Watching them go through their day so totally wrapped up in themselves isn’t all that interesting, and Defa has trouble convincing us that we should care about them. They may all be misfits to one degree or another, but that doesn’t auomatically give them a free pass to our understanding and appreciation. Even the cast, which is very talented indeed, can’t elevate the material to any level where the viewer might become more involved or more intrigued or more interested. Only Hall, who’s been around too long to let a character get away from him, makes anything of his role, and he’s appropriately subdued. Elsewhere, the likes of Gevinson and Coopersmith are stuck portraying characters you’d cross the street to avoid, and Cera brings his usual schtick to a role that requires less schlep and more chutzpah (though the sight of Cera pretending to be a metalhead is funny all by itself).

Thankfully, the one good decision Defa has made is to keep it brief. At eighty-four minutes the movie is not a minute too long, but even then there are times when it feels longer, as when Claire has to attempt an interview with just about anyone. These are meant to be comic moments, but they lack the kind of humorous resonance that would instill laughter in an audience, and instead just look painfully awkward, both for the character and the actor or actress. That said, Defa has been fortunate in obtaining the services of DoP Ashley Connor, who gives the movie a polished look that makes it feel bright and airy, while also using close ups to good effect. But all in all, this is a movie that doesn’t even manage to get even halfway to being as good as it could be.

Rating: 4/10 – with too much room for improvement, Person to Person fails to engage and fails to impress, leaving the viewer with little to do but sit back and hope things improve (which they don’t); there’s the germ of a good idea buried somewhere deep inside Defa’s screenplay, but the execution does the material no favours, and the end result is entirely disappointing.

Table 19 (2017)

16 Friday Jun 2017

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D: Jeffrey Blitz / 87m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow, Craig Robinson, Stephen Merchant, June Squibb, Tony Revolori, Wyatt Russell, Amanda Crew, Thomas Cocquerel, Margo Martindale

Eloise McGarry (Kendrick) is in a difficult place: with her best friend Francie’s wedding fast approaching, her boyfriend (and Francie’s brother) Teddy (Russell) dumps her, but she still receives an invitation to the wedding. She decides to attend but at the reception, finds that she’s been allocated a seat at Table 19, the furthest table away from the bride and groom’s. There she meets Bina and Jerry Kepp (Kudrow, Robinson), diner owners who know the groom’s father; Jo Flanagan (Squibb), who was Francie’s first nanny; Renzo (Revolori), whose parents are acquaintances of the groom’s family; and Walter (Merchant), a cousin of Francie’s father. Together they are the Randoms, the people who don’t fit in with any of the other tables. And as Jerry points out, it’s the table nearest the toilets.

As the reception gets under way, Eloise and Teddy argue over her being there, Renzo reveals that his parents have pushed him into going in order to meet a girl, Walter reveals a criminal past, Jo reflects on the good times she had as Francie’s nanny, and Bina and Jerry’s marriage shows signs of being under strain. As they learn more and more about each other they begin to find common ground, and band together when it’s clear that no one else at the reception will miss them or engage with them. A stranger (Cocquerel) makes a brief but telling connection with Eloise, Jo persuades most of the group to take medical marijuana with her, Bina surprises Jerry with the real reason why she agreed to attend the wedding, Renzo makes increasingly inappropriate overtures to one of the younger female guests, and Walter throws caution to the wind and comes out of the shell his family have imposed on him. By the end of the night, all their lives will have changed, and mostly for the better, with Eloise making a very big decision, and her actions emboldening everyone else who was assigned to Table 19.

On the face of it, Table 19 has all the hallmarks of an amiable comedy of manners that opts for easy laughs and doesn’t try too hard to entertain its audience. And on the face of it, that’s entirely true. For the most part, the movie is entirely predictable, plays it safe in terms of characterisations and its by-the-numbers storyline, and offers little in the way of wit or sophistication. Viewers who like this sort of thing will be able to guess who Eloise ends up with right from the start, and there are several scenes that exist just to provide unnecessary exposition instead of pushing the various subplots forward. Some of the movie is also unbearably trite, and there are moments where director Jeffrey Blitz – making only his second feature after Rocket Science (2007) – seems unable to combat the curious sense of inertia that settles over the movie and halts its momentum.

But buried amongst all the familiar rom-com tomfoolery and wacky behaviour of Kendrick et al, there’s a relationship drama unfolding that perhaps should be the focus of an entirely separate movie. When we first meet Bina and Jerry they’re sitting in adjacent booths in their diner, and with their backs to each other. They bicker about attending the wedding, and conclude their bickering by giving each other the finger. It’s amusing (to a point), but an early indication of the disparity that’s grown to the fore in their marriage. Jerry is supremely confident about most things, while Bina is subdued and quick to challenge Jerry’s assertions. As the evening draws on, we see how unhappy Bina is, and how oblivious Jerry is to her unhappiness. At one stage he tells her he hasn’t changed, as if it was a badge of pride. But Bina’s argument is much more succinct: if he believes he hasn’t, then why is she so unhappy? The only real dramatic element in a movie that tries hard to make a virtue of being twee and genially subversive at the same time, Bina and Jerry’s fractured marriage is also the only element that is likely to engage the audience and offer any real reward or satisfaction. As the couple-at-odds, Kudrow and Robinson deliver confident and touching performances, and their scenes together are absorbing for being so different from the rest of the movie (which is a good thing). It’s a pleasure to see two actors who are known more for their appearances in comic roles, commit so completely to examining the interior lives of two supporting characters, and achieve so much in the process. Simply put, they make the viewer care about both of them.

Blitz has written the screenplay based on a story he’s collaborated on with the Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark. This is likely the reason that Bina and Jerry’s story has such resonance, as the dialogue between the two regularly steps outside the range of a mid-budget, mainstream romantic comedy. It’s a shame then that their story has to rub shoulders with the rest of the movie, and take a back seat to the trials and tribulations experienced by Eloise, and the rest. The good news is that the ensemble cast has been well chosen, with all six Table 19-ers (except Kendrick) triumphing over the screenplay’s stock situations and tired characterisations. And the movie does at least have its visual moments thanks to Ben Richardson’s skillful cinematography and Timothy David O’Brien’s clever production design, which takes a modern day wedding reception and keeps it looking like a throwback to the Eighties. But these are plusses in a movie that otherwise contents itself with being only occasionally effective.

Rating: 5/10 – worth watching for the dynamic between Bina and Jerry alone, Table 19 is let down by its generic rom-com approach and laboured sense of humour; a sharper, more detailed script would have benefited the movie greatly, but as it stands, it’s yet another wasted opportunity released to audiences who will have seen this sort of thing too many times for comfort.

Before I Fall (2017)

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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D: Ry Russo-Young / 99m

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Kian Lawley, Elena Kampouris, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi, Erica Tremblay, Liv Hewson, Diego Boneta, Jennifer Beals

It’s Cupid’s Day (12 February), a day for romantic gestures, red roses, and if you’re high schooler Samantha Kingston (Deutch), the perfect time to lose your virginity with your boyfriend, Rob (Lawley). As her day begins, Samantha is teased about this by her three best friends, Lindsay (Sage), Ally (Wu), and Elody (Rahimi), but she’s comfortable with their comments and single entendres. One of her classes is interrupted by the arrival of flower girls, students going from classroom to classroom and distributing roses for the lucky students who have an admirer (known or unknown), and while Rob has sent her some, she receives another that she believes has come from Kent (Miller), someone she’s known since they were children. Later, Kent invites her to a party he’s having that night. At the party, Rob drinks too much to be of use sexually, while the arrival of Juliet (Kampouris), an outsider that Samantha and her friends have bullied for some time, leads to an altercation and Juliet running off into the surrounding woods. The four friends leave soon after, but as they travel home in Lindsay’s car, it hits something in the road and crashes, killing them all.

But Samantha wakes up and it’s Cupid’s Day again. She can remember what happened, but when she meets up with her friends again, they’re all doing and saying the same things they did the day before. Samantha relives the day knowing that something isn’t right, but while some incidents and events happen differently, the end result is the same and Samantha finds herself waking up on Cupid’s Day. This continues over and over, with Samantha finding different ways of dealing with each same day. As she does so, she discovers things about Lindsay that she didn’t know, and about Juliet, and begins to understand much of what was going on in her life, but which she’d either ignored or wasn’t aware of. But with each change she makes there are consequences, some emotional, some moral, some unexpected. In time she begins to realise that the true benefit of having so many days in which she can experience her life over and over again, is the ability it brings to live a perfect day, and to use it to put right so many of the things that would otherwise remain unalterably wrong.

Before I Fall is based on the young adult novel of the same name by Lauren Oliver, and while it certainly paints an interesting portrait of the group dynamic surrounding Samantha and her friends, on its wider, broader themes of bullying, peer pressure, socially approved acceptance, and emotional confusion, Maria Maggenti’s screenplay lacks the focus needed to make the movie as compelling as it could have been. The opportunity to provide viewers with a powerfully realised exploration of teenage redemption as seen through the eyes of Samantha and the cruel circumstances of her death, is undermined by the determinedly soap opera elements of the plot, and the stereotypical natures of the characters.

Samantha is revealed to be the conscience of her little clique, while Lindsay is the overbearing queen bitch that the other three defer to, and Ally and Elody are the “other two”, the less rounded but nevertheless essential characters needed to make Samantha and Lindsay more important in comparison. With these stock incarnations established, and the movie’s opening twenty minutes devoted to the kind of socially exclusive banter and posturing that quickly grows tiresome if you’re not a member of the group itself, the movie heads for Kent’s party and an awkwardly staged – and edited – hazing of Juliet that you can’t help but feel wouldn’t have happened because Juliet would never have gone there in the first place. It disarms the movie in moments, and brings the viewer out of what up until then, had been an acceptable small town milieu with recognisable small town behaviours. But without it, a major part of Samantha’s coming to terms with her own attitudes and prejudices would go amiss, and her Road to Damascus would take a lot longer to travel along. It’s a compromise, but it’s also dramatically unsound.

The tone of the movie varies too, with domestic scenes at Samantha’s home taking centre stage just as further explorations of her friends and their interactions seem likely to reap better dividends, and then again when the plot decrees that of course Samantha’s relationship with Rob is inappropriate and it shifts her attention to Kent. There isn’t always a through line to connect all these disparate elements though, and while there is a piecemeal, episodic approach to the material that’s no doubt derived from its Groundhog Day-style structure, what connections there are, are often left hanging in order for the action to move from one scene to the next. By the time of Samantha’s last day, the day when she makes everything right, the movie has corrected this imbalance, but it’s too late. However it all turns out, whatever sympathy or support the viewer may have had for Samantha and her efforts will have evaporated long before then (like so many of the movie’s subplots).

What also evaporates very early on is any attempt at providing the plot and the characters with any depth. Maggenti’s script references Sisyphus (a clumsy metaphor for Samantha’s plight) and the Butterfly Effect (an inane metaphor for… what exactly?), but otherwise keeps things simple and simplistic in equal measure. Even the blatant promotion of the mantra Be Yourself (here reworked as Become Who You Are) has all the resonance of a greetings card homily. Meaning and purpose are bandied about with abandon, but neither land with conviction on either the script or the characters, and when pressed into action, feel contrived and pedantic.

The performances are serviceable, with Deutch given the kind of voice over dialogue that even the likes of Meryl Streep or Julianne Moore would struggle with, and only Kampouris makes any real impression, and that’s thanks to possibly the most unflattering blonde wig seen in many a year, and the strident nature of her portrayal. Otherwise it’s business as usual in a teen drama, with the problems of a bunch of well off kids put into sharp relief by the banality of their issues, and their persistent bullying of one of their classmates proof that they’re as shallow as their own gene pools.

Russo-Young’s direction is as wayward as the script, and they seem to be a perfect match for each other, but though the director lacks the wherewithal to make a better movie out of Maggenti’s ill-focused screenplay, she is at least able to relay a sense of the painful ennui that must come eventually from reliving the same day over and over. Thematically, she doesn’t have as tight a control on things as the viewer would like, and this shows in the pacing too, as scenes that should have a directness and a sharpness of intent are allowed to go on for too long, and jeopardise the viewer’s patience and/or interest. It’s all topped off by a slightly trippy score courtesy of Adam Taylor that, much like the movie overall, is intermittently successful at adding to the mood, and sometimes, is overly intrusive.

Rating: 5/10 – to borrow a phrase from sellers everywhere, “Buyer beware!”, because Before I Fall never lives up to its promise, and never focuses long enough on what it needs to in order to be more effective; a drama attempting to be something much more than it is, it’s a project that – like so many others – needed a much better script before it was allowed into production, and which works best if you go into it with absolutely no expectations at all.

Folk Hero & Funny Guy (2016)

16 Tuesday May 2017

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D: Jeff Grace / 91m

Cast: Alex Karpovsky, Wyatt Russell, Meredith Hagner, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Ian Black, Hannah Simone, Heather Morris, David Cross

Paul Scott (Karpovsky) used to work in advertising, but he’s given it all up to be a stand-up comedian. His new career has its moments, but it’s still early days and he still has to refer to a notebook on stage for his material. Paul’s best friend since they were children is folk singer Jason Black (Russell). Jason’s career has brought him a degree of fame and popularity, and he’s the kind of carefree, live-for-the-moment guy that’s the complete opposite of Paul’s more grudging, dissatisfied approach to life (it doesn’t help that Paul’s just been dumped by his girlfriend). Seeing that his friend needs a bit of a lift, and some encouragement, Jason suggests Paul open for him on his upcoming solo tour. Paul thinks it might be a bit odd, a comedian opening for a folk singer, but Jason reassures him it’ll all be fine.

They set off in Jason’s battered old Volvo (his regular tour bus is too expensive for just the two of them), and on the first night of their trip they find themselves in a bar in Tom’s River, NJ, that has an open mic night. After hearing a very talented singer called Bryn (Hagner), Jason is cajoled into performing. While he does, Paul strikes up a conversation with Bryn, and they hit it off. The next morning, Paul is surprised to learn that Jason has invited Bryn along with them on the tour, and that she’s the new opening act, with Paul going on second. He’s a little flummoxed by it all, as he thought the tour was a chance for two old friends to spend some time together, but he’s also pleased because he’s attracted to Bryn and wants to get to know her better.

As the tour progresses, Paul and Bryn become good friends, while Jason pursues his usual vices. Bryn’s act goes down well with audiences, but Paul struggles to find the kind of form onstage that he can produce offstage. He begins to have second thoughts about being on the tour, and whether or not he should continue to pursue his dream. He and Bryn become closer still, until the revelation that she and Jason slept together that first night they all met, threatens to sever old and new friendships as Paul finds he’s unable to deal with it all…

Writer/director Jeff Grace – here making his feature debut – is also a stand-up comedian. Adam Ezra, who provides the movie’s original soundtrack, is a musician who it just so happens went on tour with Grace as his opening act. Using this as the basis of his screenplay, Grace has fashioned a perceptive, entertaining movie that has many pertinent things to say about the nature of old friendships, love and romance, and the downside of ambition. It’s a semi-serious comedy that isn’t afraid to show its three main characters in a less than flattering light, and it’s a very funny drama that highlights the difficulties involved in trying to start a relationship when you can’t articulate what you need from that relationship.

Paul is almost a classic underachiever, his personal life littered with regrets and misunderstandings that he can’t get past or overcome, and his new professional life proving to be just as frustrating. Part of the problem in both areas is that Paul doesn’t do enough to make things work in the way that they should. He makes the minimum effort required, and doesn’t see that this intransigence is what’s stopping him from achieving his goal as a stand-up, or committing fully to relationships. Even when he does try to commit, it’s done in such a way that the relationship is bound to founder as a result. Ultimately, Paul doesn’t trust in his own happiness, and he finds ways to sabotage things when they seem to be going well.

Jason is the exact opposite: confident, spontaneous, a risk taker, and someone who doesn’t overthink things. The tour is Jason’s idea of helping Paul regain some of the self-confidence that he had when he worked in advertising. He sees that Paul is down in the dumps, that his negative attitude needs challenging, but in the same way that Paul works against himself and any chance of contentment, Jason has the best of intentions but lacks the skill to reinvigorate his best friend’s life. He tries, but his efforts always backfire because he just can’t put himself in Paul’s shoes. Jason lacks the awareness that what pleases him and keeps him happy, isn’t going to work in the same way with Paul. There are times when you wonder just what it is that has kept them friends for so long, and Grace’s judicious script skirts this issue until the last night of the tour and the inevitable confrontation between the folk hero and the funny guy.

Grace handles the comedic elements with unsurprising aplomb, putting Paul on stage and letting him bomb in the same kamikaze way each time (“What is up with e-vites?”). It’s funny, sad and frustrating all at the same time, because before he gets to that point in his act, he always does so well. But Grace isn’t interested in making things easy for Paul – hell, even Paul isn’t interested in making things easy for himself – and Paul’s pent-up frustration leads to his being properly funny only when he lets things blow. It’s a good indication of the kind of stand-up comedian Paul could or should be, and Grace appears to be leading the audience in this direction when in fact he’s clever enough to steer everyone to a different place altogether. This makes the movie more intriguing than expected, and opens up the possibility that in good old indie movie fashion, things may not turn out so well for everyone at all.

Along the way, Grace gives Karpovsky some great routines to have fun with (until the rot has to kick in), and allows Russell and Hagner the chance to impress on more than one occasion with their soulful singing styles. All three give good performances in the kind of well written roles that only seem to come along in the indie sector these days, and in a brief supporting role, Melanie Lynskey proves yet again why she is one of the best character actresses working today. Grace does extremely well for a first-time director, drawing out the subtleties of his script with a sure hand and managing to avoid making it all look too obvious. If Paul’s intransigence becomes wearing after a while – and it does – then it’s a small price to pay for a movie that deals so effectively in portraying Paul’s downbeat persona, and counter-balancing it with Jason’s more hedonistic approach to everything. It all adds up to a movie brimming with heart and soul, and which never short changes its characters or its audience.

Rating: 8/10 – an appealing and thoughtful movie about the nature of unequal male friendships, Folk Hero & Funny Guy is also an irresistible road movie-romantic comedy-drama; with a great soundtrack and score, it’s a movie that signals Grace as a moviemaker to watch, confirms Russell to be an actor with an engaging, amiable screen presence, and features a screenplay that’s sympathetic and non-judgmental to all three of its main characters.

Little Boxes (2016)

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

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D: Rob Meyer / 89m

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Nelsan Ellis, Armani Jackson, Oona Laurence, Miranda McKeon, Christine Taylor, Janeane Garofalo, Nadia Dajani, Veanne Cox, Maliq Johnson

Gina McNulty (Lynskey) and Marcus “Mac” Burns (Ellis) are an interracial couple with a young, pre-teen son, Clark (Jackson). Gina is a photographer, while Mac is trying to come up with an idea for his second novel, his first having been published to moderate acclaim. They live in Brooklyn, have a nice, comfortable middle-class lifestyle, a great social life, and lots of friends with similar backgrounds and life experiences. In short, they’re comfortable. But their lives are about to change when Gina accepts a teaching job at a university in Rome, Washington State. Travelling across the country by road, they arrive at their new home to find the removals truck isn’t there (and won’t be for a while), and that they’ll have to make do until it does. A set of inflatable mattresses and a camping stove later, and they’ve officially moved in.

Rome proves to be a predominantly white town, with virtually no other ethnic groups represented there. This reveals itself slowly to the trio, and in different ways. Gina is accepted immediately by some of the female, tenured professors. Mac goes for long walks listening to free-form jazz on his MP3 player and encounters several of the locals who seem overly pleased that he’s moved there. Clark begins spending time with two girls near his own age, Ambrosia (Laurence) and Julie (McKeon). Gina’s acceptance is based on her being artistic and a woman. Mac’s acceptance is based on his being black, and when the local bookseller finds out, a published author. Clark is popular with Ambrosia and Julie because he’s ostensibly black and doesn’t mind being treated like a show-and-tell friend.

But at the same time, their acceptance by the townsfolk of Rome leads to divisions within the family. While Gina goes off to the university, and Clark spends more and more time with his “girlfriends”, Mac stays at home and works on an article for an online food blog. They spend less and less time together. As they adapt to their new surroundings, further cracks begin to appear in what used to be their comfortable lifestyle. Arguments and disagreements ensue, and Clark, determined to live up to Ambrosia and Julie’s expectations of him, begins acting like a surly teenager. When things go a little too far between him and Ambrosia, Gina and Mac begin to feel a sense of isolation, and it’s not long before they’re wondering if moving to Rome was such a good idea in the first place.

Diversity and equality seem to be cinematic buzzwords at the moment. The number of movies addressing issues surrounding racism and racial inclusion/exclusion seems to have increased exponentially in the wake of the OscarsSoWhite controversy in 2016. That most of these movies were in production before last year’s Oscar ceremony seems to point also to some kind of cinematic zeitgeist finally making itself felt. But one thing’s for sure: you won’t find a more low-key, or subtle, examination of middle class racism than in Little Boxes.

It’s a movie that takes reverse (or positive) discrimination and makes it feel just as insidious as direct discrimination. Mac is out walking when one of his neighbours asks if he needs any help. The inference is clear: it’s a white neighbourhood, and Mac shouldn’t be there. But the neighbour quickly realises that Mac should be there, and from then on it’s all okay, and Mac is treated like an old friend. The turnaround is sharply made and hard to dismiss as anything other than tokenism. Mac is initially bemused by this sort of thing, but as time goes on, he begins to like it, even though deep down he also despises it. Meanwhile, Clark is learning that fitting in can mean a loss of identity, but as long as Ambrosia and Julie spend time with him and include him in what they’re doing (mostly dance routines and lounging by the pool), then he seems happy to be the person they think he is: a cool black kid that only they are friends with.

It could be argued that, along with its glacial, racial undertones, Little Boxes is also about maintaining oneself in the context of a new environment. Mac struggles because he lacks a defined purpose. His writing appears stalled, and he’s more concerned about the mould he discovers in the house than anything else. And he’s easily led astray by his neighbour, knocking back uppers and ending up in a bar. For Gina, the path towards fitting in is paved with good intentions and liquid lunches with her colleagues. She does her best to fit in but finds it causes too many problems, problems that she discovers she’s ill-equipped to deal with. Clark’s growing rebelliousness adds to the lack of unity and faith in each other that all three had previously in Brooklyn, and it soon becomes obvious that this is a family that may have made a really bad decision in transporting themselves so far out of their combined comfort zones.

But while the movie examines these themes with candour and no small amount of intelligence thanks to Annie J. Howell’s perceptive script, it doesn’t make the family’s disintegration too believable. Just why their close-knit harmony and commitment to each other should fall apart so easily is never explained, and without this, the movie falls into the trap of presenting the trials and tribulations of a moderately well-to-do middle class family in an indie setting, and expecting the audience to feel sorry for them. Sadly, this doesn’t happen, and not just because these are characters who have attained a certain level of privilege in their lives, but because the trials and tribulations that they face operate on the level of minor farce. There’s nothing here that the average family couldn’t overcome or deal with as soon as it arose. Yes, it’s another movie where the characters say a lot, but aren’t actually talking to each other.

Thankfully, most of this is offset by the quality of the performances. Lynskey is a pleasure to watch – as always – and portrays Gina’s growing insecurities and bafflement with her usual sincerity. Ellis is on equally fine form, ensuring Mac is equally unsure of himself and his current role in life, and displaying Mac’s wounded pride when things he knows he can do, don’t go so well. Jackson, meanwhile, has that knack that most child actors have of not even appearing to be acting, so good is he as Clark, and he acquits himself so well it appears almost effortless. In the director’s seat, Meyer does a fine job on the whole, but can’t find a way to keep the audience sympathetic to the family and their woes (mostly because they’re self-inflicted). It’s not a movie that has a particularly distinctive visual style, and the narrative stops and starts a little too often, but it does have enough substance to keep viewers occupied, even if, in the end, they’ll find it hard to be concerned by what’s happening.

Rating: 6/10 – several nods to small-town inverse racist attitudes and the fragility of the nuclear family can’t save Little Boxes (a metaphorical title if ever there was one) from failing to connect with the viewer; good performances and a waspish sense of humour go some way to making up for the areas where the movie struggles to provide depth or resonance, but most viewers will find themselves disappointed by so much effort yielding a much smaller return than expected.

20th Century Women (2016)

06 Thursday Apr 2017

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D: Mike Mills / 119m

Cast: Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann, Billy Crudup

Mike Mills’ last movie was the appealing and very enjoyable Beginners (2010), in which Christopher Plummer gave an Oscar-winning performance. Six years on and Mills has upped his game considerably with 20th Century Women, a semi-autobiographical tale set in Santa Barbara, California in 1979. By writing a script that’s much closer to home than his previous outings, Mills has made a quirky, sensitive, and much more mature feature, and one that impresses on a variety of levels.

It begins with declarations of life, as divorced, single mother Dorothea (Bening) recounts giving birth to her son, Jamie (Zumann). Despite being a single mother, and receiving no support from her ex-husband, Dorothea views those early years when it was just her and Jamie with warm-hearted nostalgia. But finances being what they were, Dorothea was forced to take in lodgers. In 1979, with Jamie aged fifteen, he and his mother live with Abbie (Gerwig), a budding photographer, and William (Crudup), a carpenter whose work on the house is often paid for in lieu of rent. Abbie is like a big sister to Jamie, but he and William are virtually strangers to each other. Add in the presence of Julie (Fanning), Jamie’s best friend (and object of his romantic affections), and Dorothea begins to believe that her son, because he doesn’t have a father (or father figure) to guide him, and because she feels as if her connection with him is slipping away, decides he needs help “understanding women” and being a “good man”.

To this end, Dorothea recruits Abbie and Julie and persuades them to help Jamie learn more about life and relationships and women. When she tells him this, he reacts angrily and goes off with some of his friends to L.A. to see a concert. When he gets back he finds out that Julie has slept with someone and thinks she might be pregnant. Leading on from that, Dorothea advises Jamie that Abbie, who is in remission from cervical cancer, will be attending a doctor’s appointment and may receive bad news; she asks that he be at home in case she needs some support (Dorothea can’t be there). Instead, he goes with her. The news is both good and bad, but Abbie is glad of Jamie’s presence, and she starts to “teach” him about women by giving him books on feminism.

Jamie’s “education” causes a growing rift between him and his mother, and it provokes a straining of the relationships between Abbie and Dorothea, Jamie and Julie, and William and Dorothea. The friendship between Jamie and Julie is tested the most: an admission made by Julie causes him to question his feelings for her, but she manages to persuade him to take a trip along the coast with her. In San Luis Obispo, things come to a sticking point and Jamie leaves Julie at the motel where they’re staying. Julie alerts Dorothea, and she heads there along with William and Abbie. It proves to be a turning point for everyone, and the status quo is irrevocably affected.

There is so much more to 20th Century Women that any proper synopsis would run to thousands of words instead of mere hundreds. What is mentioned above is only a fraction of the material that Mills has collated for his screenplay, but almost none of it feels extraneous or superficial. Each scene acts in service to the character(s) appearing in it, and each scene helps to further the narrative and the myriad of subplots that float along waiting for the next occasion when they can be exploited. Mills has written such a carefully constructed screenplay that there are dozens of moments that echo or resonate in relation to both earlier and future moments (yes, it’s that good a script), and there are a similar amount of subtle references and non-linear connections that add to the quality and the depth of his writing.

Mills has also taken the time to make the various characters memorable and credible and unique in their own way, with special attention given to the relationships between them all. Dorothea is an odd mix of honest maternal concern and inappropriate parenting, wanting her son to be a “good man” but still wishing he could remain her little boy. The emotional tug-of-war that occurs through these warring factions leave Dorothea looking and sounding a little distracted at times, as if the notion of being a mother requires abstract thought for it to make sense (to her, at least). Bening perfectly captures the hopeful, yet curiously distant nature of Jamie’s mother with her customary skill and attention to character detail, making her by turns alarmingly obtuse and/or resolutely indifferent, and fixated by love at the same time. It’s a fine balancing act, and one that would have challenged most actresses, but Bening carries it off with seeming ease, displaying an emotional and intellectual dexterity in the role that serves as a reminder of just how fine an actress she is.

There are equally impressive turns from Fanning and Gerwig. As the seemingly carefree (and care-less) Julie, Fanning shows the character’s innate vulnerability even when she’s trying to be offhand or dismissive of her feelings, and there are times when Julie seems determined to suffer the fate she believes others expect her to. This kind of disturbing fatalism can be difficult to pull off (if it’s given too much emphasis it can come across as irreparably narcissistic), but Fanning acquits herself well, grounding the character through the discomfort and confusion she feels at being regarded solely as an object of desire. Gerwig is just as impressive as Abbie, taking the character’s history and using it to portray a young woman who speaks for the rights of others, but who seems unable to heed her own advice when it comes to the opposite sex. Like Jamie, she lacks a father figure in her life, and this informs her behaviour far more than she would like to admit, and when she’s challenged over this, she can only retaliate, and in doing so, deflect the pain she’s all too aware she’s causing herself. It’s a very subtle role indeed, but Gerwig carries it off with style and confidence.

On the male side, Crudup is the kind of sensitive, caring man who always appears attractive to women, even though they won’t ever commit to a sustained relationship with him, and the actor portrays him with an easy-going attitude that plays off well against the stresses and strained emotions of the female characters. And then there’s Zumann, a young actor showing a lot of promise, and more than capable of keeping up with his more experienced co-stars. Like a lot of child actors, Zumann has the ability to be casually audacious, and show the kind of emotional range that some adult actors never achieve. He’s intuitive, adventurous, quick off the mark, and he has the gift of making it seem that he’s much more wiser than his years. His scenes with Bening are touching, and Mills is to be congratulated for finding a young actor who can share a scene with her and not be intimidated or do anything that doesn’t match the effort she herself is putting in.

By setting the movie in 1979, Mills makes use of that period’s history to provide a backdrop of social and political upheaval that compliments the upheavals going on in the Fields’ household. He also plays deliberate havoc with the characters’ pasts and futures, illuminating them in a way that adds even more resonance to the main storylines. And while it can be an emotionally messy movie at times, Mills has become such a strong, confident movie maker that he can be forgiven the occasional misstep. He’s said in the past that, “Making a movie is so hard, you’d better make movies about something you really know about.” By making this semi-autobiographical tale so moving and funny and poignant and life-affirming, he’s certainly done that, and to an incredibly rewarding degree.

Rating: 9/10 – a movie that constantly surprises and impresses, 20th Century Women is that rare thing: a picture about women told from a male perspective and infused with a great deal of understanding and respect; with a clutch of great performances, and an equally great soundtrack to accompany it, Mills and his cast and crew have created a movie that is so good, repeat viewings will only make it look and sound better.

The Hollars (2016)

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

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D: John Krasinski / 89m

Cast: John Krasinski, Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley, Margo Martindale, Anna Kendrick, Charlie Day, Josh Groban, Randall Park, Ashley Dyke, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Mary Kay Place

Dysfunctional families – where would indie movie makers be without them? A staple of indie movie making, the dysfunctional family has provided us with some great movies over the years, from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) to Little Miss Sunshine (2006) to August: Osage County (2013). Now it’s John Krasinski’s turn to shine a light on a family for whom “normal behaviour” isn’t exactly customary practice.

Krasinski plays John Hollar, a struggling graphic artist whose self-confidence is almost exhausted. As if that wasn’t enough, his girlfriend, Rebecca (Kendrick), is expecting their baby. Feeling the pressure from both sides, things get even more stressful for him when he learns that his mother, Sally (Martindale), is in the hospital and needs an operation to remove a brain tumour. Returning to his hometown after several years away, John reconnects with his father, Don (Jenkins), and his older brother, Ron (Copley). With a few days to go before the operation, John comes face to face with the problems and issues that occupy his family members’ time. Ron is screwing up his divorce from Stacey (Dyke) by spying on her and her new partner, Reverend Dan (Groban), as well as acting inappropriately in order to spend time with his two daughters. Meanwhile, Don’s plumbing business is on the brink of going under.

Adding to John’s worries is one of his mother’s nurses, an old high school classmate called Jason (Day) who has married John’s old girlfriend Gwen (Winstead). At first, Jason is concerned that John is going to try and sleep with Gwen while he’s back. John reassures him that he won’t, and receives an invitation to dinner. But though his intentions are honourable, Gwen’s aren’t and he has to rebuff her advances. Wanting to be open and honest about the encounter, he tells Rebecca about it, but in such a clumsy way that she becomes worried and travels to his hometown to be with him. Once there, she reveals a few truths that John has been avoiding admitting, while he too reveals a truth that she has been unaware of. Meanwhile, Ron finds an unlikely supporter in Reverend Dan, Don takes a job at a wine store to bolster his business’s finances, and soon, the day of Sally’s operation is at hand.

Krasinski has said that the one-liner for The Hollars is something that we’ve heard before: a guy goes home to his family and finds out about himself. And he’s spot on. But while it’s true that it’s a theme that’s been done several times before, and that the movie doesn’t really offer us anything new in terms of characterisation or the narrative, what the movie does do is to introduce us to a new, disparate bunch of people who are all trying to deal with their own individual problems, while also trying to support each other as best they can. But that’s the basis of any movie about a dysfunctional family. The question to ask is: within its own terms and its own ambitions, does The Hollars work?

Inevitably, the answer is yes and no. There is much to recommend The Hollars, and Krasinski plays to the strengths of Jim Strouse’s screenplay at every opportunity. The characters are well-drawn, and the interaction between them is sympathetic and knowing, allowing the cast to display each character’s vulnerabilities and strengths to good effect. From Krasinski’s self-doubting, slightly adrift John to Copley’s manic, short-sighted Ron, from Jenkins’ overly emotional, self-deluding Don to Martindale’s anxious yet eternally supportive Sally, and Kendrick’s mostly confident, comforting Rebecca, the movie is populated by characters who are easily recognisable and a pleasure to spend time with. Strouse keeps the various inter-relationships on the simple side, with few complications to upset or muddy the waters. This allows the viewer to engage with them more easily, and though this also leads to a feeling of unnecessary mawkishness that develops as the movie goes on, Krasinski’s skill as a director ensures it doesn’t overwhelm the material as a whole.

Krasinski is helped by a clutch of great performances, and he exploits each member of his talented cast in justifiable fashion. Jenkins does bewildered to very good effect, making Don seem as if he’s barely in the room. Copley’s take on Ron is to mix a committed father with an ADD sufferer, and he provides a good deal of the movie’s easy humour. Kendrick tenders another slight variation on the type of character that she always plays in this kind of thing, but Rebecca is very much a supporting role whose job it is to show John the way forward when he needs it. Krasinski slips easily into the central role, and plays the gauche, somewhat perplexed John with a good deal of charm. But if anyone stands out from the ensemble cast then it’s Martindale, who once again, reaffirms her status as one of the best character actors currently working in movies. As the affable, good-natured Sally, Martindale gives a delicate, thoughtful performance that is entirely natural and heartfelt.

But while the performances are the movie’s main draw, some of the subplots fail to take hold in – perhaps – the way they were meant to. Ron’s often childish behaviour, particularly in the presence of Reverend Dan, is a little over-the-top and far from credible, even for a character who appears, for the most part, to be a man-child. And Don’s business problems, which at first seem like they’re going to have a lasting impact on the family as a whole, waste a whole scene where he’s refused credit, only for a solution to come along that fails to address the issue of depleted funds entirely. The inclusion of John’s ex-girlfriend, Gwen, has even less impact, as beyond the dinner scenes, she doesn’t reappear, leaving the viewer to wonder if she was meant to have an effect on John’s life in some way. But if that’s so, then it seems it was either left out at one of the draft stages, or on the cutting room floor. These failings help to make the movie feel uneven at times, and there’s a definite sense that more time would have been needed to address them properly.

Overall, Strouse’s screenplay and Krasinski’s direction combine to make The Hollars an enjoyable comedy with serious moments, and a poignant drama with humorous stretches. A lot of it is predictable, but that’s not a bad thing as this is one of those occasions where familiarity breeds fondness and uncomplicated indulgence instead of contempt. With a suitably indie soundtrack made up of original songs by Josh Ritter, and a winning, relaxed feel to proceedings, The Hollars provides viewers with an offbeat, captivating experience that adds up to a warm-hearted, generous good time for anyone that seeks it out.

Rating: 7/10 – genial and obliging, The Hollars doesn’t waste a second in its attempts to get you to like it, and once you do, you can forgive it when the material stumbles over itself from time to time; buoyed by a great ensemble cast, and a good sense of its own strengths and weaknesses, it tells its story succinctly and without any undue fuss – and that’s not always when there’s a dysfunctional family involved.

Fences (2016)

23 Thursday Feb 2017

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D: Denzel Washington / 139m

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Saniyya Sidney

Movie adaptations of stage productions, especially hugely successful stage productions, don’t come along too often. The two mediums don’t always make for good bedfellows, with one medium’s strengths rarely translating well to the other. For every Casablanca (1943), there’s a Boom! (1968); conversely, for every Hairspray (1988) there’s an Evil Dead: The Musical (2003). But sometimes a stage-to-screen adaptation comes along that has a built-in advantage, a guarantee of quality that ensures it’s going to be as impressive on screen as it was on stage. And Fences is such an adaptation.

Set in 1950’s Pittsburgh, the movie opens with best friends Troy Maxson (Washington) and Jim Bono (Henderson) working as refuse collectors for the city. Troy is facing the possibility of losing his job because he’s challenging the idea that only white men can drive the garbage trucks. But Troy is unperturbed; he reckons he has right on his side, and that’s all he needs. They also talk about a woman that Troy has been spending time with, Alberta. Troy denies there’s anything wrong in what he’s doing, but Bono remains unconvinced. At Troy’s home, Bono and Troy’s wife Rose (Davis), listen to Troy relive a time when he almost died from pneumonia. He tells them he fought the Devil and beat him while he was sick, and he’s ready to take him on again. Rose and Bono laugh at his bluster, and so does Troy, but there’s a distinct feeling that he believes what he’s saying.

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Troy has two sons: one, Lyons (Hornsby), from a previous relationship, and Cory (Adepo), whose mother is Rose. Lyons is in his thirties, an aspiring musician who only visits when he needs money. Cory is a teenager who wants to play football, but when Troy finds out he’s not working after school as agreed, but is going to football practice, Troy rails against it. Convinced that his own career in baseball was cut short by racial prejudice (and not his age at the time), and that the same will happen to his son, Troy refuses to support Cory’s ambitions. Meanwhile, Troy’s younger brother, Gabriel (Williamson), who has a metal plate in his head from serving in World War II and is mentally impaired, talks about knowing St Peter and needing to be ready when the Gates of Heaven will be opened.

Troy and Cory fight over Cory’s ambition to play football, while Rose takes her son’s side. But Troy is adamant, and when he learns that Cory isn’t working at all, he refuses point blank to sign any permission documents. Their animosity over the issue also leads Troy to visit the school and get Cory kicked off the team. With tensions flaring between the two, Troy’s inability to read or write backfires on him when he has to sign papers that leave Gabriel institutionalised. Fate takes further aim at him when Bono confronts him over his now having an affair with Alberta. Urged by Bono to do something about it, Troy has to face up to Rose and tell her the truth – not only about the affair, but that he’s going to be a father again…

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Fences, first performed on stage in 1983, was revived on Broadway in 2010 to major acclaim and won a stack load of awards. It starred Denzel Washington and Viola Davis (who both won Tony’s for their performances), and also featured Henderson, Williamson and Hornsby in the roles they would eventually reprise on screen. With its creator, August Wilson, having passed away in 2005, a movie version rested on one proviso: that the director be an African-American. Step forward Washington, who took a script that August had prepared, and remained faithful to every word of it. There’s a quote from Shakespeare, “the play’s the thing”, and in Washington’s, and Davis’s, and everyone else’s more than capable hands, Fences is a perfect example of that quote.

The problem with a lot of stage to screen adaptations is the dialogue. There’s just too much of it, and while monologues and lengthy speeches are the lifeblood of many a theatrical production, on screen it’s a vastly different matter. Movies are a visual medium, and who wants to watch a bunch of people standing or sitting around talking to each other the whole time? But Fences is, to borrow from the movie’s vernacular, a whole different ball game. Wilson has created such a distinct, precise, rhythmic way of speaking for his characters that it also becomes poetry when listened to long enough. It flows and eddies in ways that ordinary speech never quite manages, but on stage or screen alike, this is dialogue that captivates and mesmerises, and keeps you hanging on every word. Wilson’s dialogue has weight, and a depth that carries such levels of meaning that you could spend hours dissecting each line and find new aspects of it every time. Washington the director knows this, and his fidelity to the words each character speaks is one of the reasons the movie works. They’re simply so well crafted that nobody else could improve on them.

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With the dialogue locked in, the performances follow. The cast know their characters inside out, and it shows. Washington is on superb form as Troy, angry and bitter at the way his life has worked out, and unable to see that the respect he demands from his family is given out of intimidation and fear. Troy isn’t anywhere near likeable for the most part, and Washington isn’t afraid to show just how selfish and controlling he is, daring his wife and sons to challenge him at every turn, a bullish man whose arrogance wears down everyone around him. But if Washington is superb, what can be said about Davis’s performance? Amazingly, she’s on a whole different level. In any two-hander with Washington, it’s Davis that the viewer will be focused on. She gives meaning to Rose’s sacrifice and wounded pride and makes her the strongest character in the whole movie. At one point, Troy asks her to do something that you hope will see Rose turn on him, a final straw for all the pain he’s caused her. But she doesn’t, and her change of heart is both achingly sad and completely understandable all at the same time. Davis is winning lots of awards for her performance, but they’re all justified; she’s simply that good.

The rest of the cast, including newcomers Adepo and Sidney, all add to the acting masterclass that Washington has created, and though some of the staginess of the original is inevitably present, thanks to some careful framing and the editing skills of Hughes Winborne, the movie soon becomes its own thing. Ultimately, Fences is about people – these people – and we learn more and more about them as time goes on, and through the outside influences that have an effect on all of them. Troy talks a lot about duty and responsibility, but these are issues that have affected him, and driven his life for too long, until now he feels trapped. Rose has stood by him, realising that neither will achieve their dreams but counting on their love to help them get by. And Cory is his father’s son, a younger version of Troy who wants his own life and not his father’s, just as Troy tried to emerge from under the shadow of his own father. Emotions run high, battles are fought, and lives are changed. It’s all there in Wilson’s fastidious dialogue, impeccably drawn out and presented by Washington, and all ending on a moment of magical realism that offers a surprisingly positive, and yet apt conclusion to a tale that isn’t afraid to show people at their most vulnerable, and how the notion of family can be both fluid and rigid at the same time.

Rating: 9/10 – a powerhouse of a movie, Fences is emotionally draining for long stretches, and thanks to Washington and Davis, a must-see for anyone even remotely interested in seeing raw, sincere emotions depicted honestly and realistically; naturally the fences of the title are allegorical, but it’s easy to see the boundaries enforced by Troy against the people around him, and though he’s ultimately a tragic figure, one truth the movie espouses is that, within the four walls of his home, he’s not alone.

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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D: Kenneth Lonergan / 137m

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, C.J. Wilson, Gretchen Mol, Kara Hayward, Anna Baryshnikov, Tate Donovan, Heather Burns, Josh Hamilton, Matthew Broderick

Lee Chandler (Affleck) works as a janitor in the Boston suburb of Quincy. He lives alone, he can be rude to some of the residents he comes into contact with (which causes problems with his supervisor), and he picks fights in bars. He’s withdrawn, melancholy, and difficult to get to know. Then, one day, he receives news that his brother, Joe (Chandler), who still lives in their hometown of Manchester by the Sea, has had a massive heart attack. He rushes to the hospital, but by the time he gets there, Joe has died. Lee doesn’t really know how to react, but an old friend, George (Wilson), helps him out and between the two of them, family and friends are contacted, and the funeral is arranged.

Joe has a sixteen year old son, Patrick (Hedges). Lee’s plan is to stay with him until the funeral takes place and then head back to Quincy, but circumstances conspire to keep him in Manchester for longer: the ground is too hard for Joe to be buried, so his body has to go into cold storage until the spring, and Joe’s lawyer (Hamilton) informs Lee that under the terms of Joe’s will, Lee is to be Patrick’s legal guardian until he’s eighteen. Accepting the role of Patrick’s guardian means Lee moving to Manchester permanently, something that he doesn’t want to do; the reason he left Manchester in the first place, was in the wake of a personal tragedy, one that he has no wish to revisit by being in the one place that is a constant reminder.

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While Lee tries to find an alternative solution to being Patrick’s guardian, including Patrick living with him in Quincy, his nephew continues with his life, and appears to be dealing with it all quite well. He has two girlfriends (neither knows about the other), and he spends time with them both, while one of them tries to set Lee up with their mother (Burns). At the same time, Patrick is secretly in touch with his mother, Elise (Mol). She and Joe divorced years before due to her being an alcoholic, and while Lee doesn’t trust Elise because of her past behaviour, when Patrick asks to visit her, Lee agrees to take him. When they arrive they find that Elise has remarried, to Jeffrey (Broderick), and is now a devout Christian. Patrick has hopes of living with her, but the visit goes badly, and later Jeffrey advises against further direct contact between them.

When the funeral can finally go ahead, Lee is reunited with his ex-wife, Randi (Williams). She is pleased to see him, but their past keeps him at a distance, and sometime later, when they run into each other in the street, Randi reveals how she truly feels about him after everything that happened. It’s an uncomfortable moment for Lee, but it is his last encounter with her, as a resolution is arrived at as to the question of whether or not Lee will be Patrick’s guardian.

There is a moment in Manchester by the Sea that takes place at Joe’s funeral. Lee and George are standing off to one side and greeting people as they arrive. Randi arrives with her new husband, Josh. While Randi embraces George, Lee looks at Josh as if he can’t understand why this man is there, at his brother’s funeral. And then it’s his turn to be embraced by Randi. We see his face over her shoulder, and his eyes are looking away from her, as if by looking away he could actually be away, anywhere else in fact. It’s a small moment, tiny even, but so indicative of Lee’s state of mind: he cannot connect with anyone, complete stranger or onetime intimate. If any viewer is in any doubt about what afflicts Lee Chandler, it’s way beyond everyday ennui; this is almost debilitating emotional sadness, and so profound that you can’t help but wonder how he gets out of bed each day, how he manages to motivate himself to do anything. He’s given up on life, on his future, and worst of all, he’s given up on himself.

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With that in mind, you’d expect his return to Manchester to be all about personal redemption, that his relationship with Patrick (already well established thanks to a series of flashbacks) would enable Lee to begin to rebuild his life, and to put the terrible tragedy that happened to him and Randi firmly in the past. But this isn’t that kind of movie. By the movie’s end, Lee isn’t transformed, he isn’t “saved”, in fact he’s still very much the same man we see at the beginning, shovelling snow off of the path outside his home. Lee’s journey isn’t one of renewal or acceptance, and it’s not one where his return home provides him with a restorative environment. What’s important to remember is that Lee is living the life he believes is right for him. Is he happy? Clearly not. Is he contented? Probably not that, either. But is he settled? Well, perhaps not even that, but living and working in Quincy – for Lee – may be the best answer he has to what ails him.

That said, Lonergan’s hugely impressive script does allow Lee opportunities for rehabilitation, but it also recognises that Lee is someone who doesn’t want them. And as the movie unfolds, and we meet the other characters, we learn that moving on isn’t something that anyone else is able to do with any conviction either. Randi has residual feelings for Lee that she hasn’t been able to deal with; Elise has supposedly conquered her demons thanks to her relationship with Jeffrey but it’s clear her newfound faith doesn’t bear up under scrutiny; and Patrick, who has inherited his father’s rundown boat, won’t sell it because it holds too many memories. Too many times we see instances where regret has taken hold of someone and they’ve not been able to shake it off. And too many times, that regret has settled like a heavy mantle across people’s shoulders.

Despite the apparent doom and gloom surrounding Lee’s return home, and despite the themes of guilt, loss and emotional trauma that the movie explores in some depth, Manchester by the Sea is leavened by a tremendously dry sense of humour (at one point, when asked if it’s okay for Patrick to have one of his girlfriends stay the night, Lee replies, “Am I supposed to tell you to use a condom?”). Here, the humour arises from the characters themselves rather than any situational approach, and Lonergan is able to insert these much-needed moments of levity when they’ll have the most effect, making the movie a little less predictable, and a whole lot more enjoyable than expected. Sometimes it requires a delicate balancing act, but Lonergan is as confident a director as he is an intelligent screenwriter, and he handles each comic moment with ease.

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As the emotionally disabled Lee, Affleck gives the finest performance of his career and of 2016. He was in two other movies in 2016 – The Finest Hours and Triple 9 – and in both he wasn’t allowed to match his talent to the material. But here he gets to provide us with a multi-layered portrayal that makes those movies look like poorly set up practice runs. It’s a largely internal performance, with Affleck using his eyes to powerful effect to display just how disengaged he is from everything around him. He’s equally effective at communicating his grief at what happened in the past, and he achieves this by physically withdrawing into himself at moments when that grief is too near the surface, almost as if he’s trying to squeeze it back inside, or push it down. And there’s a fragility to Lee that’s exposed from time to time, leaving the character with an anguished, wounded expression that Affleck conveys so convincingly you can easily forget he’s an actor playing a role. As Lee’s ex-wife, Randi, Williams is on equally fine form, although she has much less to do and is off screen for two thirds of the movie. However, the scene where she reveals her feelings for Lee is one of the most searing and compelling moments not just of the movie itself, but of any other movie you care to mention.

Credit is due to Hedges as well, putting in a mature, richly textured performance as Patrick that highlights the character’s teenage naïvete while also showing signs of the emerging adult that he’ll become. It’s a fearless portrayal in places, brave and audacious, particularly in a scene involving a freezer compartment and a stack of frozen meat that comes out of left field but which perfectly expresses the feelings and concerns that Patrick is experiencing. Elsewhere, Chandler is good in what is very much a secondary role as Joe, while Mol excels as both incarnations of Elise.

In the end, Manchester by the Sea is a triumph for all concerned, a multi-faceted, engrossing, and surprisingly sweet in places movie that doesn’t offer its characters any easy answers to their dilemmas, and which provides an incredible amount of food for thought for its viewers. It’s a defiantly mature piece of movie making, with a raft of standout performances, a perfectly assembled, nuanced script, and direction from Lonergan that subtly orchestrates and highlights each emotional downbeat and upturn, and which also draws out the varied strands of dismay and bitter experience that keep Lee and everyone else trapped in their own versions of Manchester by the Sea. If it sounds like a tough movie to watch, rest assured it isn’t. Put simply, it’s one of the finest movies out there at the moment, and completely deserving of its six Oscar nominations.

Rating: 9/10 – one of the best movies of 2016 – if not the best – Manchester by the Sea is a movie about real people living real lives, and dealing with real and difficult emotions in the best way that they can – and it doesn’t short change them or the audience at any point along the way; funny, sad, poignant, challenging, uplifting, painful, engrossing, bittersweet, and absorbing, this is a movie experience well worth taking up, and which rewards on so many levels it’ll take you by surprise.

All About Them! (2015)

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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Original title: Á trois on y va

D: Jérôme Bonnell / 86m

Cast: Anaïs Demoustier, Félix Moati, Sophie Verbeeck, Patrick d’Assumçao

Mélodie (Demoustier) is a young defence lawyer working and living in Lille. She’s also in a relationship with Charlotte (Verbeeck) that’s lasted for five months. Unfortunately, Charlotte has also been in a relationship with Micha (Moati) for four years. Mélodie and Charlotte have managed to keep their affair a secret from Micha, but for Mélodie it’s reached a point where she wants Charlotte to commit to her. Charlotte has been a little distant recently, and following Micha’s return from a trip away, an evening spent together leads to Micha unexpectedly declaring to Mélodie that he has feelings for her. Against her better judgement she kisses him.

Over the next few days, Mélodie becomes further involved with Micha, while both of them attempt to maintain their individual relationships with Charlotte. They take chances that could lead to them being found out, and Mélodie does the same with Charlotte. While all this is going on, Mélodie receives bad news from her boss, William (d’Assumçao); he needs to let her go due to the likelihood of his being disbarred. He does at least recommend her to another law firm based in Paris, but with everything that’s happening, she doesn’t know if she wants to take up the offer.

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Things almost come to a head at a party that all three attend. Charlotte invites Mélodie who initially begs off because of work, when instead she’s arranged to meet up with Micha. Micha has told Charlotte that he’s going out with work colleagues; she’s told him that she’s tired and will be staying at home. Micha and Mélodie arrive together, but she manages to make it look as if she’s come alone, and Charlotte remains unsuspicious of any relationship between her boyfriend and her lover. Later that night, and back at Micha and Charlotte’s apartment, both of them sneak into Mélodie’s room on separate occasions and attempt to reassure her that each will try and convince Mélodie to live with them now her job is winding up. But when she’s called out to provide defence counsel for someone she’s defended before, it triggers a response for honesty in Mélodie that brings matters to the fore, and the trio to a place that none of them could have predicted.

Ah, the French – they do love an off-beat, quirky romance, especially if it involves two women and a man. Over the years they’ve explored probably every possible twist and complicated convolution in their efforts to provide a wide-ranging exploration of love and romance and the highs and lows that go with them. But All About Them! is possibly the first time that the phrase ménage à trois has turned out to be a completely inadequate description for writer/director Bonnell’s charming, if mostly too broad, romantic drama. By making the inter-relationships between Mélodie, Micha and Charlotte so complicated in terms of arranging the characters from scene to scene, there are times when the movie borders on farce, though thankfully it never falls into the trap completely.

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But while Bonnell’s screenplay tries to play it straight with the characters’ feelings, some of the motivations remain obscured by the dramatic need for secrecy between them. Mélodie’s work as a defence lawyer reveals a pride in winning; we see her winning cases involving a pervert and a suspected terrorist. Her ability to avoid the truth of her clients’ innocence or guilt goes some way to explaining why she keeps her relationship with Charlotte a secret, but at the same time she clearly enjoys getting her own way. Why she’s allowed things between them to go on for so long is never properly addressed. Equally, Charlotte’s inability to choose between Mélodie and Micha smacks more of convenience that an actual emotional dilemma. And Micha’s admission of his feelings for Mélodie, although clearly the means by which the main narrative is set up, never loses the sense of its being engineered rather than an organic development.

With the various romantic entanglements lacking any appreciable depth, the movie is rescued by its trio of central performances. Demoustier is a particular delight, her pale, delicate features capable entirely of showing the various degrees of romantic confusion and commitment that Mélodie experiences throughout, as well as a moment of tearful epiphany after she’s called out to attend the local police station. There are times when Demoustier’s open, expressive face tells the viewer everything you need to know about how Mélodie is feeling at any given moment, and it’s her skills as an actress that often elevates the material. As Micha, Moati has the enviable task of being in love with two striking women at the same time, and he plays the role with obvious relish, though not without recognising the often callow nature of his romance with Mélodie. In some ways it’s an awkward role, precisely because of Micha’s carefree, unconcerned attitude towards betraying Charlotte, but Moati makes him surprisingly likeable. As the third member of the trio, Verbeeck has the least to do, and beyond looking melancholy and withdrawn for the most part, plays Charlotte as a free spirit drawn into relationships that she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with. Even though it’s the minor role of the three, Verbeeck’s distant glances and sanguine approach to the character makes her the most interesting, and when she’s on screen the viewer can’t help but be drawn to her.

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Bonnell orchestrates the various “near misses” with easy-going aplomb, though he does misjudge a scene where Mélodie and Charlotte are kissing in a bar and Micha is outside, oblivious to their presence behind him. Otherwise he avoids banality by peppering the script with witty observations on romance and the craziness of the characters’ situation. The drama remains parboiled throughout but is absorbing enough, though the movie ends too suddenly with one of the characters making an abrupt decision that allows for an unnecessary, and too pat, resolution. By this stage, though, Bonnell and his talented cast have done enough to involve the audience to the degree that they’ll want to know how things pan out (even though they may find themselves feeling disappointed). There are a couple of subplots threaded into the narrative, but Mélodie’s reacquaintance with her pervert client aside, they remain largely ineffective, and add little to the overall proceedings.

Rating: 6/10 – a romantic drama suffused with awkward comic moments, All About Them! shows a lot of promise, but ultimately lets itself down on the drama front by making each relationship less than absorbing; good performances from Demoustier, Moati and Verbeeck keep Bonnell’s semi-effective script from falling down completely, and there’s enjoyment to be had from the various ways that Bonnell keeps his characters in the dark about each other, but otherwise this won’t meet most viewers’ expectations.

Kids in Love (2016)

05 Thursday Jan 2017

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D: Chris Foggin / 87m

Cast: Will Poulter, Alma Jodorowsky, Jamie Blackley, Sebastian De Souza, Preston Thompson, Cara Delevingne, Gala Gordon, Geraldine Somerville, Pip Torrens

Ahhh… to be young and in love… Movies about teenagers attempting to deal with their feelings when in the flush of first love are plentiful, so any new movie trying to tell such a well established story needs to bring something new to the table. Kids in Love, co-scripted by co-stars De Souza and Thompson, does its best but while it’s enjoyable enough and features a terrific performance from Poulter, the drama is lacking and the romance is too bittersweet.

Poulter plays Jack, heading off to university but taking a gap year to travel to South America with his best friend, Tom (Blackley), and take up an internship at a law firm. His life seems set on its course: gap year, university, work as a lawyer (probably marriage and 2.4 children), but Jack is a little restless. He’s not sure he wants the life his parents (Somerville, Torrens) expect of him, but he doesn’t know how to change things. With doubt nagging away at the back of his mind, fate steps in in the form of French girl, Evelyn (Jodorowsky). Carefree and open-minded, she’s the antithesis of the girls Jack knows, and when she invites him to drop in anytime at a bar she frequents, he’s quick to take up the offer.

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Through Evelyn and her group of friends – Cassius (Thompson), Viola (Delevingne) and Elena (Gordon) – Jack is introduced to a world that completely alters the way he views his own life. Free-spirited and seemingly impervious to the more mundane aspects of everyday life, Evelyn et al pursue and enjoy a never-ending party-style existence where responsibility is positively discouraged. Jack finds himself being won over by this hedonistic lifestyle, so much so that his home life and friendship with Tom begins to falter. Smitten with Evelyn – though she has a boyfriend, Milo (De Souza) – Jack spends more and more of his time with this new group of friends he’s made, and in the process he tells Tom he doesn’t go to South America anymore, and he quits the internship before he even starts.

He also learns something about Milo that Evelyn doesn’t know about, but resists telling her. Making the decision to leave home, he heads for Viola and Elena’s place (where everyone hangs out during the day) hoping to crash there, and arrives just as Evelyn and Milo have had a huge row. Viola suggests the two of them get away for a while at her family’s place in the country. Jack and Evelyn take off, but when they arrive, their first night alone together leads to what may well prove to be a mistake that ruins their relationship irrevocably.

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Again, movies about young love are plentiful, and Kids in Love, though made with an obvious amount of care and thought, still manages to fall short in its aspirations. That’s because there are only so many ways you can make a compelling story out of “boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl, girl-loves-boyfriend, boy-waits-for-chance-to-be-with-girl” and make it seem fresh. To be fair, it appears that co-writers Thompson and De Souza are aware of this, which is why it’s a shame that the movie isn’t more successful in achieving its aims, but given the path they’ve taken narratively, it’s not surprising. And while Jack is engaging and enjoyable company – thanks in no small measure to Poulter’s winning performance – Evelyn is the enigma that he, and the audience, have to contend with.

By making Evelyn so “complex” – or awkward, depending on your point of view – Thompson and De Souza paint themselves and the character into a corner. Her relationship with Milo is clearly an unequal one, and he’s abusive towards her at almost every opportunity. The script never manages to explain why she stays with him, or why an alternative life/relationship with Jack is so impossible. Without these distinctions, Evelyn’s interest in Jack becomes a convenience that keeps the storyline going, but which proves frustrating for the audience. And any prolonged interest in Jack’s pursuit of her – which means his looking forlornly at her at every opportunity – wears thin also. In the end it’s a relationship you can’t actually root for.

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With the central romance lacking the necessary spark to keep it interesting, the audience has to look for distractions elsewhere. Thankfully, Thompson and De Souza do manage to make the carefree, wild-child lifestyle of Jack’s new friends look and sound like something we’d all want to be a part of, and though things never get too hedonistic (the beginnings of a threesome in a bathroom is the closest it gets), there aren’t any darker strands involving drugs either. Milo’s “occupation” is the nearest the movie gets to being edgy or upsetting, and even then it’s all over in the blink of a scene. Add to that a clumsy “break up” between Jack and Tom (“Why are you in my room, Tom?”), and you can appreciate that Thompson and De Souza’s inexperience as writers is the movie’s biggest handicap.

Overseeing it all is first-time feature director Foggin. Best known as third assistant director on movies such as The Iron Lady (2011) and The World’s End (2013), Foggin exercises a steady control over the material but keeps things bland and unremarkable for the most part, and there are certain scenes that should be much more affecting and dramatic than they actually are. It’s not hard to watch overall, and Foggin is helped by good performances all round, especially from Poulter who makes Jack’s initial, unaffected nervousness a joy to behold, but when everything is put together the movie lacks cohesion or a central relationship that is strong enough to carry the rest of the material along with it. In fact, sometimes it feels very much like it’s the other way round.

Rating: 6/10 – an appealing, funny, low-key movie with lively performances and a good sense of the milieu it wants to portray, Kids in Love nevertheless falls short of being the terrific little charmer it should have been; that said, it’s still head and shoulders over most of the low budget movies being made in the UK, and it at least tries, something that on this occasion, should be applauded.

Jenny’s Wedding (2015)

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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D: Mary Agnes Donoghue / 91m

Cast: Katherine Heigl, Tom Wilkinson, Linda Emond, Grace Gummer, Alexis Bledel, Sam McMurray, Diana Hardcastle, Matthew Metzger, Houston Rhines

Jenny Farrell (Heigl) is the eldest daughter of fireman Eddie (Wilkinson) and housewife Rose (Emond). She works at placing foster kids and orphans in suitable homes, is well liked and admired by everyone around her – except maybe her younger sister, Anne (Gummer) – and is in a lesbian relationship with her (ostensible) flatmate, Kitty (Bledel). Jenny has never come out to her family because she doesn’t think they’d be able to handle it. Of course, this means she’s lied to them for a number of years now, and as with all lies that are prolonged beyond any possible good they may have done in the first place, Jenny has at least understood that if she tells them, they’ll be hurt and disappointed. But a conversation with her father about marriage and having children and all the responsibility that comes with it, leads Jenny to realise that that’s what she wants: to be married and have kids too.

So, now she needs to own up about her sexuality, and try and do so in a way that won’t upset everyone. She tells her mother first, but Rose is upset; not for herself per se, but for the knock her standing in the local community will take if everyone else was to know. She makes Jenny promise not to tell anyone else except her father, and not even Anne. Not wanting to upset her mother further, Jenny agrees. She tells her dad and while he’s shocked at not having realised after all this time, he’s initially much more supportive than Rose, though he goes along with her wishes.

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Jenny and Kitty begin to plan their wedding. While they do so, Eddie and Rose struggle with the knowledge that Jenny has lied to them, and that they don’t know how to react. The relationships between the three of them begin to unravel, and are thrown into even more chaos when Anne sees her sister and Kitty kissing in a bridal store. When she learns that her parents have known about Jenny being a lesbian, and haven’t told her, Anne is devastated. But it does make her begin to question her marriage to layabout Frankie (Rhines), and the reason their front lawn isn’t green (don’t worry, it does makes sense within the movie). Things reach boiling point, though, at a funeral for a friend and neighbour where a confrontation between her father and Jenny leads to them becoming estranged. As the big day approaches, loyalties are challenged, relationships are tested, and prejudices appear set to interfere with, and derail, Jenny’s happiness.

Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way, right at the start: this is not a good movie. Jenny’s Wedding is tired, predictable, asinine in places, dramatically inert for most of its running time, features another performance from Heigl that makes you wonder how she’s still getting lead roles, and looks and sounds like a Bible reader for those who find lesbianism distasteful. It’s a movie that suffers from trite dialogue, an unconvincing scenario, poorly realised motivations, and some extremely dodgy sexual politics. It tries hard not to be offensive, but fails every time it tries to make Eddie and Rose’s feelings “acceptable” in terms of their characters. Not even Tom Wilkinson, an actor who can inject genuine feeling and credibility into (almost) every role he plays, is stymied here by a script – courtesy of Donoghue – that asks him to either spout platitudes or inanities as a matter of course, and hunch over as if the weight of the world (or the movie’s ineptitude) was on his shoulders.

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But there is one area where the movie is interesting, and it’s one that’s far beyond any expectation of achievement you could have hoped for. While Donoghue piles agony after agony onto a much more deserving Jenny than she probably intended, the movie’s creator tells a much better story about the lies we tell and the reasons we tell them. Jenny lies from the start but puts the onus on her parents for doing so, an act of cowardice that should offset any sympathy we have for her. As the movie progresses, Jenny continues to justify her having lied to her family because she’s unable to trust them to be supportive, and then she acts all hurt and surprised when the amount of time she’s spent lying to them prompts the exact reaction she’s been afraid of. The movie actively punishes her for doing so, an act of retribution that’s far more effective than expected precisely because Jenny is the main character and the audience is – nominally at least – supposed to be on her side.

But Jenny’s parents are just as bad, and although it’s out of confusion, their lies are based around, first, their helplessness about how they feel, and second, about the repercussions they’re likely to experience amongst their friends (in Rose’s case) and colleagues (in Eddie’s case). They lie out of fear and mistrust of others, and it’s here that Donoghue unexpectedly provides the most interesting aspect of the movie as a whole: that daughter and parents are entirely alike. And yet when the inevitable last-minute reconciliation occurs between Jenny and Eddie (Rose comes around much sooner), this isn’t mentioned at all. Instead, Donoghue, clearly unaware of the connection she’s made through her own script, trots out a sorry tale of male emasculation for Eddie’s recalcitrance, and leaves Wilkinson looking embarrassed for having to explain it all.

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There are lies and lying behaviour elsewhere in the movie. Anne’s husband Frankie is always going out on “business” late at night, a clear indication that he’s having an affair, and Rose’s friend, Ellen (Hardcastle), is the kind of hypocritical busybody who’ll take any piece of bad news and use it to her own ends, and embellish her own role at the same time. Her faux sympathy and understanding are a kind of insidious lying, and all the more unforgivable. Again, it’s this element of the movie, whether deliberately included or not, that gives it an edge that the so-called drama of Jenny getting her wedding day as wished for and planned doesn’t have (of course she’s going to get married and have kids – eventually; this is a fairy tale dressed up as a middling drama of expectations).

Like many other romantic dramas, Jenny’s Wedding could be seen as a comedy at heart, but while there are a handful of comic moments, this is a serious attempt at exploring… something. If it’s not readily clear then it doesn’t really impact on any enjoyment that can be had, and aside from the waste of Tom Wilkinson’s time and effort – it really is a stinker of a role – there’s Gummer’s performance to be appreciated, and odd moments where Emond also elevates things by sheer dint of effort. Otherwise, Donoghue struggles at maintaining a consistent tone, and avoids making anyone a bad guy, something that might have upped the drama and made it more interesting. She also marginalises the very relationship that Jenny is involved in, leaving Kitty in the background like an afterthought, and making it all about a self-absorbed coward and liar who wants it all her own way… and if you pay close attention, that attitude never changes.

Rating: 4/10 – some interesting aspects set around lying as a form of personal protection aside, Jenny’s Wedding lacks focus and a central character you can warm to; pedestrian in both its ideas and its presentation, it’s a movie that you’ll forget about soon after seeing it, and serves as another reminder that Heigl’s career is heading nowhere fast.

Blue Jay (2016)

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

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D: Alex Lehmann / 80m

Cast: Mark Duplass, Sarah Paulson, Clu Gulager

Having been living and working in Tucson for a while, Jim (Duplass) returns to his childhood home in California following the death of his mother. He’s in the process of going through the house and clearing it when a trip to the local supermarket finds him bumping into Amanda (Paulson), his teenage sweetheart. She’s in town visiting her sister who’s having a baby. At first, their meeting up is awkward and their attempts at conversation are stilted. They part, but outside in the parking lot, Jim asks Amanda if she’d like to go get a coffee. She agrees, and they head for the nearby Blue Jay diner.

There they begin to catch up properly. Jim reveals that he’s been doing dry wall work with his uncle in Tucson, and is thinking of doing up his mother’s house and selling it, while Amanda speaks of her marriage to Chris, and finding herself a mother to his two kids when they got married. Both tell each other their lives are good, but it’s clear that Jim isn’t as happy as Amanda appears to be. From the diner they go to a store they used to frequent as teenagers, and where the owner, Waynie (Gulager), still remembers them after twenty-two years. From there they venture to a spot near the river where they used to go. There, Jim reveals that he doesn’t have a job at the moment due to a falling out with his uncle, and that he doesn’t have a clue what he’s going to do next.

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Amanda tells him she wants to see his mother’s house. When they get there, Amanda is astonished by the amount of stuff that’s still there from the time they were together: from mixtapes to photos to notebooks and letters, and one unopened letter in particular that’s addressed to her, and which she hides in her coat pocket. Jim digs out an old cassette player and they listen to recordings they made, and one where they were pretending to be an old married couple celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary. They reminisce further, and decide to recreate that fictitious anniversary through having a meal together. As the evening wears on, both Jim and Amanda begin to grow closer, until it seems that their past will overshadow the present…

Although there are several moments in Blue Jay where Mark Duplass’s “script” seems hellbent on striking a pose for lost love, and its reclamation, it’s thanks to said “script” being an outline around which both Duplass and Paulson have improvised their dialogue, that it avoids this likely pitfall, and in doing so makes Jim and Amanda’s predicament all the more credible. Make no mistake, the relationship and the conversations that occur in the movie, could only happen in a movie, and though this level of artifice has all the potential of feeling flat and awkward to watch, it’s a mark of the commitment and the intelligence of its two stars that Blue Jay never once feels forced or uncomfortably set up.

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However, this is an ex-couple who have secrets to reveal, and it’s the way in which these secrets are held at bay until the last ten minutes that is worrisome in terms of what goes before. At first, and despite their initial awkwardness with each other, Jim and Amanda appear to pick up from where they have left off over twenty years ago, and even though we don’t know the reason they split up, there aren’t any signs that it was contentious on either side, or that it’s left them embittered with each other. They’re open and (mostly) honest with each other, and they’re clearly enjoying being together again after such a long time. As well, both Duplass and Paulson seem at ease with each other as actors, and they have a confidence in each other’s abilities that helps the story and their characters along.

Back at Jim’s mother’s house – or his boyhood home, though it’s interesting that it’s rarely referred to as that – further reminders of the past spark what can only be described as an unsettling game of role playing. Watching these two ex-lovers play at being a couple celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary, is an odd, worrisome turn of events that prompts the question, why would they do that? Or, why would they feel the need to revisit the games of their youth in that particular way? Are they that unhappy with their lives now? The answers to those questions remain unanswered for the most part, with only hints and clues dropped at random in the conversations that follow, but what is clear is that there’s a longing for some kind of connection that they don’t have with anyone else. Maybe the role playing facilitates that, and brings them back to the people, the couple, they once were. Maybe that period was their relationship peak.

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You can interpret their actions in many different ways, and the likelihood would be that no one interpretation would be completely wrong or completely right. Duplass and Lehmann (making his feature debut), don’t appear to want the movie to be that black and white (and despite it being shot in that format), but once the reason for their split is revealed it has such a jarring effect that it’s a bit like being slapped in the face. And it has the unfortunate effect of calling into question everything that’s gone before, and the ease with which these two have reconnected. Would their running into each other really have led to coffee and jelly beans and dinner and head rubs? Wouldn’t the wedge that drove them apart still be there, and as it happens, especially on Jim’s side?

In the real world, absolutely (it’s a very big wedge). But again this is a movie, and though we can allow some suspension of disbelief, and admire the consistency of tone and purpose that’s been achieved, the movie is derailed by its revelation; and by the scene that follows, which aims for some degree of closure, but ends up looking and sounding incomplete, the one time in the movie where Duplass, Paulson and Lehmann have decided that what they’ve got is just enough (or perhaps worse still, will have to do). In the end, it upsets the rhythms established earlier in the movie, and leaves the viewer feeling that they’ve been tricked into having to accept an ending that doesn’t match what’s gone before.

Rating: 8/10 – despite it’s unsatisfactory denouement, Blue Jay has much to recommend it, and Duplass and Paulson should be congratulated for maintaining the truth of their characters through improvisation and intuition; Lehmann’s shiny black and white photography enhances the sense of nostalgia the movie revels in, and its quiet, brooding nature is a perfect fit for the way in which the characters move around each other.

Mr. Church (2016)

05 Saturday Nov 2016

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D: Bruce Beresford / 104m

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Britt Robertson, Natascha McElhone, Xavier Samuel, Lucy Fry, Christian Madsen, Mckenna Grace, Natalie Coughlin, Madison Wolfe, Lincoln Melcher

In 1971, something unusual happens to single mother Marie Brooks (McElhone) and her ten year old daughter Charlotte (known as Charlie) (Coughlin): they find they have a cook. His name is Henry Joseph Church (Murphy), and he is effectively a legacy from the man who was Charlie’s father. Employed to look after Marie and Charlie after her father’s death, Mr. Church – as he likes to be called – has been paid to look after them for the next six months. The timescale is important because Marie has breast cancer and has been given that amount of time to live, though she hasn’t told Charlie any of this.

At first, Charlie doesn’t want Mr. Church in their home. But once she tastes his cooking, she slowly comes around to the idea that having him there during the day is a good idea. He brings books into the home that Charlie begins to read, and he makes things easier for Marie. But after six months, Marie is still alive, and is still alive again in six years’ time, though much sicker by now. When Charlie (Robertson) is asked to the prom by the boy she likes, Owen (Samuel), she doesn’t want to accept because she’s afraid Marie won’t be alive by then, but Marie confounds expectations and even helps her decide on a dress. Throughout all this time, Mr. Church has been the rock that both women have relied on; the only thing that bothers Charlie is that after six years, she still doesn’t know anything about him.

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But one night she sees him going into an infamous club called Jelly’s. She doesn’t say anything, and soon after she goes off to Boston University, helped in part by savings Mr. Church has put aside for her. There she meets new people, works hard, and winds up pregnant. Unsure of what to do, she returns home, and with her mother no longer alive, she goes to Mr. Church’s home. He lets her stay on the condition that she continues to respect his privacy. She agrees, but later on, the temptation to find out more about him, leads her to break that one rule and in doing so, bring an end to their relationship.

Putting aside the Beverly Hills Cop retread that was made for TV in 2013, Eddie Murphy hasn’t appeared in a movie since A Thousand Words (2012). In fact, since he made the execrable Norbit (2007) his career has consisted of four theatrical releases, and five outings as Donkey (from Shrek) on both the big and the small screen. Once upon a time, Murphy was the world’s biggest movie star. Now he’s rarely seen at all, and when he is, there’s precious little fanfare. Mr. Church is a movie that has slipped under most people’s radar, and it’s indicative of both Murphy’s place in the acting firmament, and it’s likely reception, that this movie isn’t being promoted more heavily. It’s a small movie, to be sure, but one that has a lot more going for it than might be readily expected.

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For starters, there’s Murphy’s portrayal of Henry Joseph Church. Henry is a quiet, proud man, though he has his demons (as Charlie discovers when she stays with him). Murphy focuses on the man’s quiet demeanour, his initially reserved, almost calculating approach to being Marie and Charlie’s “cook” (he becomes so much more to both of them), and the way in which his relationships with them give his life a greater meaning. And even when he’s dealing with his inner demons, what is more impressive in terms of the character is the alacrity with which he can forget about those demons and continue to be supportive of Charlie and Marie. Murphy doesn’t strike a false note throughout (though an angry outburst nearly takes the shine off, coming across as an awkward line reading of an equally awkward piece of dialogue). Like a lot of comedians, Murphy is a fine, dramatic actor, and here he judges the character and the emotional links to the narrative with quiet aplomb, grounding a movie that at times can strike the viewer as being cloyingly sentimental.

But Murphy is the antidote to that feeling, even when he’s involved in some of that overly sentimental material. Mr. Church is a guardian angel, someone who knows exactly what to do in any given situation, and the former star of movies such as The Golden Child (1986) and Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), effortlessly redeems himself for some of the dreadful movies he’s made in the last twenty, thirty years. Using a neutral expression for the most part, Murphy still manages to evoke feelings and responses in the viewer that a lot of actors would struggle to achieve across a movie lasting five times as long. And in conjunction with Britt Robertson, he’s found someone who can match him in terms of displaying their character’s emotional stance without resorting to an exaggerated acting style. Mr. Church is a tearjerker, and one that works best because of the understated way in which its characters are played.

That’s not to say that the movie is entirely successful, though. Given the era it all takes place in, you could be forgiven for thinking that at some point, racism will rear its ugly head, but there’s not one scene that addresses the issue directly. This makes it seem as if the story is taking place in an historical vacuum, an idea that is further compounded by the realisation that Mr. Church doesn’t have a family of his own, or even friends, and his emotional well-being is entirely dependent on the white family he works for. There are moments where this is highlighted, and awkwardly, leaving the viewer with the suspicion that any such notions were ignored or removed during the movie’s production. But equally, it’s a measure of the movie that as race isn’t an issue for Marie and Charlie, then their acceptance of Mr. Church is a valuable lesson in how to make a movie about just the characters and their relationships, and not about any extraneous issues such as race or creed.

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Some may find that the movie is overly and severely sentimental, but this, for once, isn’t a bad thing. There are several moments where the emotional message behind the movie is turned on like Xmas lights, and while these moments do stick out from the rest of the material, it’s a tribute to veteran director Bruce Beresford (and his cast) that they don’t overwhelm the episodic storyline, or prove too off-putting. There are also times when the characters avoid talking to each other, and almost in deference to Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men (1992) when he tells Tom Cruise’s character that he “can’t handle the truth”. These moments can be frustrating, but by the time you’ve registered the frustration, the story has moved on and the “danger” has passed.

Having previously directed the likes of Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and A Good Man in Africa (1994), Beresford is a good choice for the director’s chair, adding layers of subtlety when required, and allowing emotional outbursts to happen without their feeling staged, or pulling the viewer out of the narrative. He keeps things very simple throughout, and doesn’t allow the various “tragedies” that occur during the narrative to define the characters, leaving them free to grow in their own way. Even secondary characters such as Madsen’s Army vet with a drink problem are allowed to shine at various points in the movie, and while some of them may feel extraneous to things, they all have their place in driving the story forward. It all helps Mr. Church to become more than just a deft “feel-good Samaritan movie”, and more of an ode to (mostly) uncomplicated, mutually dependent and rewarding relationships.

Rating: 7/10 – with its simple message, and even simpler approach to the material, Mr. Church might seem, at first, to be lacking in depth, but thanks to good performances from Murphy and Robertson, and pertinent direction from Beresford, the movie has more to offer than meets the eye; easy to watch and even easier to admire for what it gets right, Murphy’s latest outing won’t win many awards or attract great swarms of viewers, but it is worth seeing as a reminder that he’s still a very talented actor indeed.

The Meddler (2015)

17 Saturday Sep 2016

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the-meddler

D: Lorene Scafaria / 103m

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Rose Byrne, J.K. Simmons, Jerrod Carmichael, Cecily Strong, Lucy Punch, Michael McKean, Jason Ritter, Jo Jordan

Marnie Minervini (Sarandon) is recently widowed. She has a daughter, Lori (Byrne), who lives and works in Los Angeles in the TV industry. At a loss as to what to do with her time, and despite being financially comfortable thanks to her late husband Joe’s foresight, Marnie chooses to focus her attention on Lori. But Marnie has no idea that her attentions are overbearing, and she ignores Lori’s protests that she’s trying too hard to involve herself in her daughter’s life. When Lori gets an plus-one invitation to a friend’s baby shower, Marnie invites herself along. Lori doesn’t show but Marnie is a hit with her daughter’s friends, and soon she’s spending more and more time with them, particularly Jillian (Strong), who reveals her wish to be married but who can’t afford it.

Marnie persuades Jillian to let her pay for the wedding, and soon she and Jillian’s friends (and Lori’s) are planning all the details, including the bridal outfit. Meanwhile, Lori announces that she’s going to New York for a while. The pilot she’s working on is being filmed there, and it makes sense for her to be there if any problems arise. Marnie throws herself into helping others, from the Genius at an Apple store, Freddy (Carmichael), to an elderly lady (Jordan) at the hospital where she volunteers. She even meets a retired policeman called Zipper (Simmons) when she inadvertently wanders into the background of a movie that’s being shot, and is mistaken for an extra.

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A trip to New York to visit Lori and Joe’s family goes awry, and Marnie returns to Los Angeles chastened and beginning to realise just how much her grief has been channelled into helping others at the expense of herself. She spends more time with Zipper, and comes to Lori’s aid when she has an emergency. Jillian’s wedding goes off without a hitch, and Marnie is given a special mention for her help in organising it all. But Marnie still has to make a decision about whether or not she wants to continue as she is – constantly occupied yet unhappy – or begin a new stage in her life, one that will see her still helping others but not out of personal necessity.

While it’s an apt description of Marnie’s character (for the most part), The Meddler is only so apt when it applies to Marnie’s relationship with her daughter. Away from this, it’s not quite so appropriate, as Marnie’s actions are more altruistic than interfering. This leads to a curious fracturing of the narrative, as the scenes where Marnie uses her financial good fortune, and in the case of the old lady in the hospital her compassion, carry a less distinctive dramatic weight than in those where she spars with Lori for her daughter’s attention. It’s hard to determine if writer/director Scafaria, here following up her feature debut Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), intended it this way, or if it was something that was decided on in post-production.

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What emerges is a movie that is able to examine an aging woman’s experience of grief and the twofold way in which she assimilates and deals with it. On the one hand, her relationship with Lori suffers because Marnie isn’t able to tell her daughter just how much she’s still hurting from the loss of the man who was so important to both of them. Instead she tries to protect and control Lori’s life to the extent that she’ll be kept perfectly safe – and Marnie won’t need to worry about losing her as well. That her actions are having precisely that very effect is the irony that compounds the situation, and stops things from being resolved between them. Scafaria makes a clever decision in their early scenes by playing up the humour inherent in the idea of an overbearing mother (at one point Lori suggests her mother take up a hobby; Marnie’s reply? “Maybe you could be my hobby!”). But the humour is gradually eroded and left behind in favour of exchanges that highlight the pain both women are suffering, and the additional pain their discord is causing each other.

Scafaria has created an emotionally complex, unfailingly brave character in Marnie Minervini, and she’s been blessed with the involvement of Sarandon in the role. The actress inhabits the part so completely, and with such ease, that it becomes a quiet masterclass in screen acting. Sarandon’s performance is so subtle, and so shaded, that often it seems she isn’t doing anything at all. And yet, every expression, every gaze, and every physical movement is in service to the character’s emotions, and her struggle to make sense of her continuing grief. To some degree we’re used to Sarandon giving impressive performances, but here she excels in a role that isn’t flashy, isn’t contrived, and isn’t weighted down by unnecessary layers. Sarandon doesn’t even attempt to make Marnie sympathetic beyond the fact of her being a widow; any sympathy Marnie receives from the viewer is earned through Sarandon’s careful attention to the character and the lessons she learns along the way.

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If there’s one criticism that could be levelled at the movie, it’s that Sarandon’s performance is so good that it eclipses those of the rest of the cast. By comparison, Byrne and Simmons et al fall just that little bit short of impressing as much. It’s not their fault, nor is it Scafaria’s – Sarandon is just that good – but it does make the movie feel a little uneven, as if the secondary characters, while important to the overall story, lack the necessary colour to make them stand out. In any other movie it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but here it detracts from the effectiveness of the various relationships.

Elsewhere there’s still much to admire, from the storyline involving the old lady in the hospital who keeps using a hand to make circles in the air, and which is given a poignant resolution; to the brief scene with Joe’s relatives where a very important clue as to the depth of Marnie’s grief is revealed; and Zipper’s owning chickens, which leads to the line, “Turns out, for the optimal combination of happiness and productivity… All roads lead to Dolly [Parton].” These are all minor moments in the overall fabric of the movie, but their understated nature is perfectly in tune with the gentle, good-natured approach Scafaria brings to the material. It’s a simple story, told simply and well, and at no point is the viewer left on the outside looking in. The humour is there, the drama is there, and the pathos is there, and it’s all impeccably put together by its writer/director in conjunction with its editor, Kayla Emter.

Rating: 8/10 – movies like The Meddler come along maybe once or twice a year, and often go overlooked, which is a shame, as Scafaria’s heartfelt tale of unaddressed grief is moving, life-affirming and overwhelmingly positive in its outlook; Sarandon is magnificent, Scafaria directs her own script with skill and clarity, and the movie offers a slew of rewards for anyone lucky enough to see it.

The Automatic Hate (2015)

23 Saturday Jul 2016

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The Automatic Hate

D: Justin Lerner / 97m

Cast: Joseph Cross, Adelaide Clemens, Deborah Ann Woll, Richard Schiff, Ricky Jay, Yvonne Zima, Vanessa Zima, Catherine Carlen, Caitlin O’Connell

What do you do when someone you’ve never met before – or more appropriately, never knew existed – suddenly appears and tells you they’re related to you, that you’re cousins? That’s the situation that Davis Green (Cross) faces at the beginning of The Automatic Hate, an indie drama that asks the question, should family secrets stay secret for the good of everyone involved?

When Davis’s cousin Alexis (Clemens) comes calling out of the blue, his relationship with Cassie (Woll) is going through a rough patch. Cassie is distant yet emotional, and conversation between the two is awkward. When Alexis reveals that she is the daughter of his uncle Josh (Jay), Davis is understandably confused because up until that moment he didn’t know he had an uncle. And when he tackles his father, Ronald (Schiff), over this surprising news, all he gets in return is, “We never talk about him”. As you might expect, Davis isn’t exactly satisfied with his father’s response, but can’t get any further answers.

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Partly to find out why there’s such a hatred and division between his father and his uncle, and partly to give himself some space from Cassie, Davis decides to seek out his extended family and to try and discover why such a serious rift began in the first place. He travels to upstate New York and learns that he has two other cousins, Annie (Yvonne Zima) and Amanda (Vanessa Zima), and in turn meets his uncle. Josh at first believes Davis has been sent by Ronald to spy on him, and insists Davis should leave. But the mystery of the rift, and Alexis’s increasingly romantic attentions keep him there; he finds himself responding to Alexis’s almost desperate attraction to him, and he stops responding to Cassie’s texts and calls.

The discovery of some old home movies by Davis and Alexis shows the two brothers as much younger men, and in the company of a young woman. One scene shows Josh and the young woman holding hands. Davis deduces that the rift is the result of a romantic triangle, and that Josh stole Ronald’s girlfriend from him. But this development has to be put on hold due to the death of Davis’s grandfather (and the brothers’ father). Despite the differences between the two men, Davis convinces Josh to attend the funeral, which is to be held near to a summer house owned by the family. The family unites at last, but tensions are high, and matters are made more difficult for Davis by his relationship with Alexis and the unexpected presence of Cassie. And then the mystery of what happened all those years ago is revealed…

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Fans of indie dramas will be pleased with the nature of Justin Lerner’s latest feature, and in particular with the way in which he sets up the main storyline, which isn’t the mystery at the heart of things, but the relationship between Davis and Alexis. From the moment they meet there’s a clear attraction between the two, but Lerner keeps them apart for quite a while, with Davis’s loyalty and commitment to Cassie as his reason for not acting on his newfound feelings. It’s during this period that the movie moves in parallel with events from the past, and there are tonal and emotional references that infuse both past and present. Lerner, along with co-writer Katharine O’Brien, keeps things low-key, but with hints of the greater drama to come, and the opening forty minutes sees the movie establish a setting and a mood that is very effective.

But then the family comes together, and the movie feels obliged to step up a gear. The ensuing drama, heightened as it is by the revealing of family secrets and the kind of dinner table confrontations – physical and verbal – that have a habit of destroying any attempt at familial accord, is an uncomfortable change of approach and the movie suffers as a result. Alexis’s behaviour in particular is a cause for concern, as the script allows her full rein to express her feelings for Davis. But she does so in such a way that most viewers will be thinking, “Uh oh, watch out Davis!” And how their relationship develops from then on also weakens the movie, leaving the final scenes to limp unconvincingly to the end credits, undoing so much of the good work that’s gone before.

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But while the final twenty minutes prove disappointing due to the script’s need to provide viewers with an unequivocal ending to the problem of Davis and Alexis’s relationship (and the decision it makes regarding their relationship), there are still plenty of things to recommend the movie. Along with Lerner’s confident handling of the material, there’s a clutch of effective, carefully modulated performances with Clemens and Jay stealing the honours from everyone else. Clemens – yet another Australian actress making the successful transition to US movie making – is vulnerable and disturbing in equal measure as Alexis, and exudes an unspoken menace at times that gives her character an edgy, dangerous quality that is both attractive and unnerving at the same time. Jay is equally good as the estranged uncle, resigned, implacable, and dignified in the face of Schiff’s angry brother. He’s an actor you can always rely on, and here he gives one of his best performances, allowing the enmity Josh feels to be expressed in dismissive looks and carefully loaded comments.

And of course, there’s the mystery itself, the movie’s McGuffin. Lerner is canny enough to provide clues that point in one direction while also maintaining the sense that nothing is quite what it seems (the home movie footage, if watched closely, is both explanation and red herring). When it is revealed it packs a punch that doesn’t dissipate easily, but it’s not allowed to overwhelm what follows. Lerner switches focus quickly, and the movie becomes oppressive for how it prompts reactions amongst the characters, and some bitter outpourings. Again, it’s not an entirely successful transition but one of the movie’s strengths is that it doesn’t always do what the audience may be expecting it to.

Rating: 7/10 – with much to recommend it, The Automatic Hate is a worthy indie drama with good performances, a (mostly) well constructed script, and a director firmly in control of the material if not the narrative; tense on occasion, with flashes of mordaunt humour to offset the latter half’s overwrought drama, the movie is on firmer ground as a study of the ties that bind family members, and is especially effective at exposing just how fragile those ties can be.

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)

09 Saturday Jul 2016

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Hello, My Name Is Doris

D: Michael Showalter / 96m

Cast: Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Tyne Daly, Stephen Root, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Beth Behrs, Natasha Lyonne, Kumail Nanjiani, Rich Sommer, Isabella Acres, Caroline Aaron, Elizabeth Reaser, Peter Gallagher

A romantic comedy with a difference, Hello, My Name Is Doris begins with a funeral. Not necessarily the best place for a romantic comedy to start from, but it introduces us to Doris Miller (Field), a sixty-something spinster who works in the accounting department of a trendy, up-market firm. Never married and having spent a considerable amount of her life looking after her ailing mother (who has just died), Doris is adrift in her own life and the home she shared with her mother on Staten Island. But when new art director John Fremont compliments her on his first day on the job, Doris reacts like a teenager and straight away develops a crush on him. And when she attends a self-help seminar hosted by “new you” guru Willy Williams (Gallagher), Doris takes his advice and persuades herself that she can have a relationship with John that can be more than professional.

Ignoring the concerns and the advice of her best friend, Roz (Daly), Doris makes attempt after clumsy attempt to engage John in conversation at the office but she’s too nervous to make much of an impact. It’s not until she mentions her interest in John within earshot of Roz’s teenage daughter, Vivian (Acres), that Doris discovers there’s a way into John’s world that might make all the difference. With John having a Facebook page, Vivian sets up Doris with a fake account and gets John to accept her as a friend. His site reveals various interests, one of which is a band called Baby Goya and the Nuclear Winters. They prove to be an electronic band – not Doris’s cup of tea – but when John finds out she’s a “fan”, and she then learns they’re playing a gig nearby, the stage is set for a “chance” meeting that sees the pair begin to get to know each other… and eventually become friends.

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But John has a girlfriend, Brooklyn (Behrs), and Doris has to find a way of dealing with this development, as well as the increasing concerns of Roz, and the fact that her friendship with John is based on deception. Doris ends up doing something petty and malicious that provides her with an opportunity to tell John how she feels about him. But while Doris is (mostly) having the time of her life, her brother Todd (Root) and his wife Cynthia (McLendon-Covey) are pressuring her to sell her home. They also insist she see a therapist dealing in hoarding issues, as the house is a mess of unneeded junk. Trying to balance these things with her newfound enthusiasm for John and the potential for romance with him, Doris has to try and keep a clear head in the run-up to telling him how she feels about him. But will he feel the same way…?

Hands up anyone who remembers the last time Sally Field had the lead role in a movie… Anyone? Well, if you came up with Two Weeks (2006) then give yourself a big pat on the back. Nine (now ten) years on, and Field is finally back on our screens in a role that not only reflects her age – she’ll be seventy in November – but which also serves as a reminder of just how good an actress she is. Forget the movie’s raison d’etre – which some viewers may find uncomfortable or just plain excruciating – this is a chance to see Field playing both drama and comedy with equal skill and navigating her way through the choppy waters of Laura Terruso and Michael Showalter’s broadly effective screenplay, itself based on Terruso’s short, Doris & the Intern (2011).

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What could well have proven to be a cringeworthy tale of an old(er) woman lusting after a younger man is headed off at the pass by Field’s perfectly judged, and empowering performance. As the socially removed (and then newly improved) Doris, Field shows the character’s vulnerability and desperate need for acceptance – not just by John but by his peers as well – at all times, reminding the viewer that there’s a lot more to Doris than predatory instincts and a late-blooming libido. That the script is sympathetic towards Doris is a given, but it’s Field’s instinctive and assiduous portrayal that stops that sympathy from becoming too cloying or saccharine. While the first half of the movie is content to wring out some offbeat and occasionally embarrassing comedy, the second half gives way to the necessary drama the movie needs to wrap things up. Field’s performance is the glue that holds the movie together, and it’s a pleasure to see her in a role that allows her to show off her range.

Again, the notion of a May-December relationship where the woman is way past the cougar stage may well put off some viewers, but a couple of dream sequences aside, this is a splendidly old-fashioned movie that doesn’t seek to offend anyone, and carries enough modern-day smarts to keep viewers hooked. There’s a smattering of jokes that are very funny thanks to their popping up out of nowhere – at a backstage party, Doris talks to a woman who tells her she’s “a teacher at a gay pre-school” – and Doris’s outfits are a mad jumble of colours and designs that make you wonder if she’s colour blind or has reached a point in her life where she just doesn’t care anymore (either could be true but the movie doesn’t reveal the reason for her sartorial mash-ups). And when things get serious, Field ensures that the poignancy and heartache surrounding Doris aren’t downplayed by the script’s need to be realistic about her relationship with John.

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With Field being on top form, it’s hard for the rest of the cast to look as good, and only Daly manages to stand out from the crowd. Otherwise, there are too many minor roles jostling for attention, and Max Greenfield’s John is too vanilla to make much of an impact (a problem that lies with the script rather than Greenfield’s portrayal). The likes of Lyonne, Reaser and Gallagher appear here and there when needed, while Root and McLendon-Covey play good cop/bad cop as Doris’s brother and sister-in-law, but the movie can’t decide if their characters work better as dramatic foils or comic relief. One area where the movie lacks insight is in its hoarding subplot, with Doris agreeing to see a therapist too readily, and subsequent attempts to show her dealing with this issue feeling shallow and poorly thought out (the therapist is shown to have no interest in Doris’s newfound happiness as John’s friend).

Showalter is a competent director and he has an economy of style that fits well with the material. This isn’t a flashy, unappealing movie – not by a long shot – and this approach suits the material, but it does lead on occasion to a few bland stretches where it appears the script is ticking over until the next big laugh or dramatic scene arrives. Thankfully there’s a terrific soundtrack to occupy the viewer during these stretches, and Brian H. Kim’s score adds immeasurably to the emotional atmosphere of several key scenes.

Rating: 7/10 – worth seeing just for Field’s exemplary performance, Hello, My Name Is Doris is nevertheless well worth seeking out, even if it does feel a little lightweight at times; a touching, undemanding movie for the most part, but one that can raise a smile a lot of the time, and do so without undermining the inherent drama.

Perfect Strangers (2016)

08 Friday Jul 2016

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Perfetti sconosciuti

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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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Monthly Roundup – June 2016

30 Thursday Jun 2016

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Manglehorn (2014) / D: David Gordon Green / 97m

Cast: Al Pacino, Holly Hunter, Harmony Korine, Chris Messina, Skylar Gasper

Manglehorn

Rating: 5/10 – in the wake of a failed romance that has left him heartbroken, locksmith A.J. Manglehorn (Pacino) decides to try again with bank teller Dawn (Hunter), but his personality puts obstacles in his way; despite the obvious talent involved, Manglehorn is a chore to sit through, as the character himself – as Dawn discovers – isn’t someone you want to spend too much time with.

The Brain (1962) / D: Freddie Francis / 83m

Cast: Anne Heywood, Peter van Eyck, Cecil Parker, Bernard Lee, Jeremy Spenser, Maxine Audley, Ellen Schwiers, Siegfried Lowitz, Hans Nielsen, Jack MacGowran, Miles Malleson, George A. Cooper

The Brain

Rating: 5/10 – a fatal plane crash sees a millionaire businessman’s brain kept alive by pioneering scientists, one of whom (van Eyck) finds himself searching for the person who caused the plane crash when the businessman’s brain communicates with him; an erratic sci-fi thriller that gets bogged down whenever it concentrates on the murder suspects, this adaptation of Curt Siodmak’s novel Donovan’s Brain has a great cast and a terrific premise, but is let down by Francis’ pedestrian direction and a style that wants to evoke film noir but can’t because the script hasn’t been written that way.

A Certain Justice (2014) / D: James Coyne, Giorgio Serafini / 96m

aka Puncture Wounds

Cast: Cung Le, Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones, Briana Evigan, Gianni Capaldi, James C. Burns, Robert LaSardo, Jonathan Kowalsky, Sean O’Bryan, Eddie Rouse

A Certain Justice

Rating: 4/10 – Iraq veteran John Nguyen (Le) returns home and becomes embroiled in a fight against big-time drug dealer Hollis (Lundgren) when he saves a hooker (Evigan) from the violent attentions of Hollis’ men; as a showcase for Le, A Certain Justice works well enough, but this is still a muddled actioner that cuts narrative corners more often than it doesn’t, and sees Lundgren adopting a wig and ponytail that makes him look like an aging hippie instead of a menacing crime boss.

Woman on the Run (1950) / D: Norman Foster / 77m

Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O’Keefe, Robert Keith, John Qualen, Frank Jenks, Ross Elliott, J. Farrell MacDonald, Victor Sen Yung, Steven Geray

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Rating: 7/10 – when store window designer Frank Johnson (Elliott) witnesses a gangland execution he goes on the run, leaving his estranged wife (Sheridan), the police, and a persistent reporter (O’Keefe) trying to track him down before the killer does; a cleverly written film noir based on Sylvia Tate’s original story, Woman on the Run may have a misleading title but it features hard-boiled dialogue, bruised relationships, and atmospheric location work, all of which means the movie is an under-rated gem and deserves a wider audience.

The Battle at Apache Pass (1952) / D: George Sherman / 82m

Cast: John Lund, Jeff Chandler, Susan Cabot, Bruce Cowling, Beverly Tyler, Richard Egan, Jay Silverheels, John Hudson, Jack Elam, Regis Toomey

The Battle at Apache Pass

Rating: 6/10 – peace on the frontier with the Apache nation is threatened by the divisive tactics of Indian Affairs agent Neil Baylor (Cowling) and unsanctioned raids by Geronimo (Silverheels); based around two historical events – the Bascom Affair in 1861, and the title encounter in 1862 – The Battle at Apache Pass is an enjoyable Western featuring good location work in Monument Valley, beautiful photography, and Chandler (as Cochise) and Silverheels reprising their roles from Broken Arrow (1950).

The Phenom (2016) / D: Noah Buschel / 88m

Cast: Johnny Simmons, Ethan Hawke, Paul Giamatti, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Yul Vazquez, Louisa Krause, Paul Adelstein, Elizabeth Marvel, Marin Ireland

The Phenom

Rating: 5/10 – Hopper Gibson (Simmons) is a talented pitcher who has a shot at the big leagues but suffers a crisis of confidence, one that threatens his future; well acted but dour and uninviting, The Phenom plods along in such a low-key manner that some viewers may well decide they don’t care enough if Hopper overcomes his slump, and may also decide to watch something else instead.

A Place to Go (1964) / D: Basil Dearden / 86m

Cast: Rita Tushingham, Mike Sarne, Bernard Lee, Doris Hare, Barbara Ferris, John Slater, David Andrews, William Marlowe, Michael Wynne, Roy Kinnear

A Place to Go

Rating: 5/10 – an ambitious young man who wants to get away from Bethnal Green gets involved with a local racketeer (Slater) and a young woman (Tushingham) at the same time, and much to the consternation of his parents (Lee, Hare); a slice of life, East London style, this kitchen sink drama is enjoyable enough but is hampered by a dreadful performance by Sarne and some weak plotting, but still has enough to recommend it, particularly the (deliberately) sad sight of Lee’s character trying to impress as an escapologist.

Shadows on the Stairs (1941) / D: D. Ross Lederman / 64m

Cast: Frieda Inescort, Paul Cavanagh, Heather Angel, Bruce Lester, Miles Mander, Lumsden Hare, Turhan Bey, Charles Irwin, Phyllis Barry, Mary Field

Shadows on the Stairs

Rating: 4/10 – a killer strikes in a boarding house where everyone comes under suspicion; a leaden whodunnit shot in a pedestrian style, Shadows on the Stairs is typical of the period with its mix of drama, comic relief in the form of Hare and Irwin as bumbling policemen, romantic triangles, and occasional flashes of social comment, but it all adds up to a movie that betrays its stage origins at every turn.

Moonwalkers (2015) / D: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet / 107m

Cast: Rupert Grint, Ron Perlman, Robert Sheehan, Stephen Campbell-Moore, Tom Audenaert, Jay Benedict, James Cosmo, Eric Lampaert, Kevin Bishop, Erika Sainte

Moonwalkers

Rating: 4/10 – in 1969, the US military sends unstable CIA agent Kidman (Perlman) to London to contact Stanley Kubrick with an offer to film a mock moon landing (in case the real mission goes wrong) – but he ends up working with a would-be rock band manager (Grint) instead; uneven and often groan-inducing, Moonwalkers takes a great idea and tramples all over it with a mix of psychedelia, undercooked comedy and inappropriate violence, leaving just a few knowing nods and winks in relation to the period to provide anything of interest.

The Family Fang (2015)

21 Tuesday Jun 2016

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The Family Fang

D: Jason Bateman / 106m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman, Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett, Jason Butler Harner, Kathryn Hahn, Harris Yulin, Linda Emond, Marin Ireland, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Taylor Rose, Jack McCarthy, Kyle Donnery, Michael Chernus, Josh Pais

Annie and Baxter Fang (Kidman, Bateman) are the children of performance artists Caleb (Walken, Harner) and Camille Fang (Plunkett, Hahn). While growing up they took part in their parents’ various performances, which were often carried out in public places and without the people around them being aware they were taking part in a performance. Caleb and Camille have always used these “artistic moments” to highlight their idea that true art is only present in the moment it happens (they don’t acknowledge that they might be manipulating “art” in these circumstances rather than allowing it to be spontaneous).

As adults, Annie is an actress whose participation in a series of movies is under threat because she is no longer regarded as essential to the productions; she’s further challenged by a requirement to appear topless that she hadn’t previously agreed to. Baxter is a novelist whose last novel wasn’t well received. While he works on his latest book, he writes articles. On an assignment, he ends up shot in the head by a spud gun, and winds up in hospital. While he’s being treated, and much to Baxter’s consternation, the hospital staff contact Caleb and Camille, who agree to come and take him home. Not having seen his parents in years, Baxter contacts Annie and implores her to come and help him deal with them. Reluctantly, she agrees.

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Back at the Fang family residence, old animosities surrounding the way Annie and Baxter were treated as children, and their involvement with their parents’ art, leads to their being involved yet again in one of Caleb’s schemes. But it backfires, and Caleb and Camille announce they’re heading off for a break. A while later, the local sheriff informs Annie and Baxter that their parents’ car has been found at a rest stop. The pair are missing, and there’s blood all over the inside of the car; foul play is suspected. Annie is adamant that it’s yet another of their parents’ performances, and that they’ll turn up safe and sound somewhere sometime later. Baxter isn’t quite as certain, and harbours some doubts. Annie challenges him to help her look for them in order to prove she’s right, but their efforts go unrewarded, until a song from their past provides them with a lead, one that finds them learning some uncomfortable truths about their parents, and the reasons for their disappearance.

The Family Fang is Jason Bateman’s second directorial feature – after Bad Words (2013) – and while it’s the kind of indie project you might expect Bateman to be attracted to, it’s not as good a fit as it seems. From the trailer the movie looks like a comedy but while there are some great comedic moments, this is a drama that examines notions of parental responsibility, the function of art in everyday life, sibling dependency and rivalry, fame, and personal fulfillment. But while the movie examines these notions, what it doesn’t do as successfully, is reach any conclusions or provide any answers to the questions it raises.

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What it also fails to provide the audience with is anyone to connect with. For all of Annie’s complaining about her childhood, she’s actually broken away from her parents when we meet her. Any issues she has as an adult she relates back to when she was a child, but the movie – and in particular, David Lindsay-Abaire’s adaptation of Kevin Wilson’s novel – doesn’t make a convincing connection between the two. Likewise, Baxter’s inability to stand up for himself when confronted with Caleb and Camille in the flesh. There are flashbacks to instances where Annie and Baxter’s involvement with their parents’ “art” can be construed as inappropriate, but these don’t adequately explain the animosity they display. Without that connection it’s hard to see Annie (specifically) and Baxter (occasionally) as anything but whinging ingrates.

Unfortunately for the viewer, Caleb and Camille don’t come off any better. The movie never reconciles their unwavering dedication to their art with the selfishness that goes with it, and it never attempts to explain or rationalise Caleb’s anger when the public doesn’t recognise or understand what he’s trying to say. And Camille is so much the uncomplaining follower that when it’s revealed she had a promising career ahead of her before she met Caleb, and that she gave it all up to be with him, her reasons for doing so sound insubstantial and contrived.

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As the feuding family, Kidman’s insecure and wailing Annie hogs most of the screen time, while Bateman takes a (largely) back seat as the lacking in confidence Baxter. Walken gives another of his semi-engaged performances, doing just enough to make it look like he’s interested, and is easily outgunned by Plunkett, who at least makes Camille a figure of sympathy even if she has only herself to blame for her predicament. As the younger Caleb and Camille, Harner and Hahn inject some much needed energy into proceedings, while Yulin contributes a pleasant enough cameo as Caleb’s mentor.

Watching The Family Fang, there are too many scenes where it feels that Bateman hasn’t gained a sufficient enough grip on things to make them entirely effective. Also, the pace of the movie works against it, as Bateman directs with a stubborn determination to make each scene work in the same way as all the others and with as much emotional impact (which is mostly diluted). The end result is a potentially intriguing movie that never finds its feet or a direction for it go in. And this despite some sterling camera work by Ken Seng and another wistful, deceptively emotive score by Carter Burwell.

Rating: 5/10 – a movie lacking in focus and drive, The Family Fang never rallies its constituent parts into a unified, satisfying whole; with no one to care about, the movie becomes a stilted, unconvincing piece that is only occasionally interesting, and some well judged moments of comedy aside, isn’t as sharp, or knowing, as it should be.

Mini-Review: Learning to Drive (2014)

25 Wednesday May 2016

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Learning to Drive

D: Isabel Coixet / 90m

Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Jake Weber, Sarita Choudhury, Grace Gummer, Avi Nash, Samantha Bee, Matt Salinger

When literary critic Wendy Shields (Clarkson) learns that her twenty year-plus marriage to husband Ted is over, and he’s leaving her for someone else, she does so in the back of a cab being driven by Indian Sikh Darwan Singh Tur (Kingsley). In the wake of such a disastrous journey, Wendy receives a visit from her daughter, Tasha (Gummer), who is away working on a farm. Tasha wants her mother to come visit her but Wendy doesn’t know how to drive (and doesn’t want to learn). But when Darwan returns an envelope she left in his cab, she discovers he’s also a driving instructor. Plucking up her courage she begins to take lessons, and in doing so, finds that she’s able to deal with the new challenges in her life.

Meanwhile, Darwan is looking out for his nephew, Preet (Nash), who is in the country illegally. He’s also dealing with calls from his sister back in India who’s busy arranging a bride for him. When she arrives, Jasleen (Choudhury) isnt quite what Darwan expected; they have little in common, she’s afraid to leave their home, and Darwan is beginning to have feelings for Wendy. As their friendship develops, both Wendy and Darwan are faced with a similar problem: in facing the future, how can they use what they’ve learned from each other and be happy.

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The second collaboration between Coixet, Clarkson and Kingsley after Elegy (2008), Learning to Drive is a less dramatic affair but still has some poignant things to say about relationships and the effects of loneliness when they’re taken away. Darwan has come to the US and found citizenship through seeking political asylum; he shares a basement property with several other Sikhs, most of whom are there illegally like his nephew. When they are arrested, and Preet goes to live with his girlfriend, Darwan sees his new bride as a way of avoiding being alone. Wendy, however, realises that she’s been alone for some time, even while married, but doesn’t realise at first just how used to that she’s become. As she and Darwan learn more about each other, so they learn to use the strength that believing in each other brings to both of them.

Clarkson and Kingsley have a great on-screen chemistry, and both give exemplary performances, displaying ranges of emotion both below and above the surface that leaves the viewer in no doubt as to the sincerity of their portrayals. The movie allows for humour as well, with Wendy’s blind date, Peter (Salinger), offering the kind of second date arrangement that won’t be heard in any other movie. Coixet directs with the knowledge that Sarah Kernochan’s script – itself based on a New Yorker article by Katha Pollitt – is a little lightweight in places, but this doesn’t stop her from focusing on the characters and their predicaments with a sympathetic eye. In the end, it’s a movie that stands or falls on the quality of its two leads’ performances, and thankfully, that isn’t something Learning to Drive has to worry about.

Rating: 7/10 – sometimes bittersweet, occasionally genuinely moving, Learning to Drive isn’t about learning to drive but rather about learning to reconnect, something that Wendy and Darwan have forgotten how to do; a simple pleasure then, but one that can be revisited from time to time and still be found rewarding.

Burning Bodhi (2015)

16 Monday May 2016

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Burning Bodhi

D: Matthew McDuffie / 95m

Cast: Cody Horn, Landon Liboiron, Kaley Cuoco, Meghann Fahy, Eli Vargas, Sasha Pieterse, Andy Buckley, Virginia Madsen, Wyatt Denny

One of the most popular stories both in literature and cinema – and the wider arts in general – is the one about the prodigal son (or daughter) returning home after a long time away. There will be family issues to face, people to tiptoe gingerly around, and reconciliations to be made, maybe even a few apologies. And it will be an emotional return for all concerned. For all the myriad reasons why someone should return home to face that kind of situation, the most overly used reason is because someone has died. In that circumstance, the pull is undeniable, and the lead character finds themselves drawn back to a place that they’ve done their best to escape from (and plan never to go back to). In its own way, this return is another rite of passage, even if the character is, say, forty or over, because it’s about acknowledging the past and coming to terms with it.

The main character in writer/director Matthew McDuffie’s bittersweet indie drama is Dylan (Liboiron). Dylan is in a relationship with Lauren (Fahy) but it’s not going so well. They’ve had a huge argument right around the time that Dylan learns of the death of his best friend in high school, Bodhi. He’s contacted by a mutual friend, Ember (Horn), who tells him she’s organising Bodhi’s fun-eral (not funeral). Feeling the need to get away for a while, Dylan travels from Chicago to New Mexico, and back to the town he grew up in. He reconnects with his dad, Buck (Buckley), but remains at a distance from his mother, Naomi (Madsen), who left them for another man. Also invited to the fun-eral is Katy (Cuoco), Dylan’s old girlfriend. Their relationship ended badly, but as the fun-eral approaches, he finds old ties hard to resist, and Dylan begins to experience some of the feelings he had for Katy before he left.

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While Dylan, Ember and Katy spend time together arranging Bodhi’s send-off, Lauren follows Dylan down to New Mexico, while another friend of Bodhi’s, Miguel (Vargas) travels down by mini-van. On the way he picks up a stranded young woman called Aria (Pieterse); Aria is six months pregnant and heading to California to start a new life, but she agrees to accompany Miguel to the fun-eral. In the days leading up to the ceremony, secrets are revealed, and old relationships are thrown into sharp relief as Dylan faces up to his fears around commitment, Katy battles the drug addiction that is in constant danger of leading to her child being taken away from her, and Ember tries her best to keep her own hidden feelings from being revealed, and making things even more contentious.

There’s more than a whiff of Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill (1983) about Burning Bodhi, but what’s interesting about this particular movie is the way that it makes communication between the characters both easier and more difficult because of their reliance on modern technology. When Dylan discovers that Bodhi has died, he does so via Facebook, and when he mentions Bodhi’s death to the people around him, it turns out they already know. If death is the great leveller then social media is death’s public relations officer, ready to disseminate news of its activities at the merest push of a button. It’s fast, it’s efficient, and it saves on all the phone calls.

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As a step down from one-to-one conversations, the characters rarely use their phones to talk to each other either. Instead they send each other texts, and while this may seem like mass avoidance on everyone’s part, McDuffie is clever enough to make these exchanges the heart and soul of his movie. He shows how much more easy it is for Dylan and his peers to communicate with each other this way, and how easy it is for them to express their feelings, and more clearly. In one scene, Dylan and Katy exchange texts that explore the idea of their getting back together. Dylan is all for it, believing they can make things work, but Katy is unconvinced. As Dylan tries to persuade her to try again, and Katy resists the temptation, their feelings for each other, dormant but still there, are stated with such deep-rooted poignancy that the viewer can’t help but hope they get back together, even though Katy is right.

McDuffie doesn’t make his movie a talk-free zone however, and there’s plenty of verbal interaction to keep more traditional communicators happy, but he achieves more with his characters in terms of a look or a physical stance than he does with the somewhat over-written dialogue of the last fifteen minutes. Here the likes of Katy and Ember offer semi-profound insights into the nature of life and relationships, and with a side order of mortality thrown in for good measure. It makes them all seem wiser than their years, or that they all studied philosophy in high school (which doesn’t seem likely).

The cast embrace the various storylines with gusto, giving considered yet effective performances. Even Liboiron, called upon to be antagonistic and self-absorbed (aka a dick) for most of the movie, acquits himself well, and he manages to imbue Dylan with a lost puppy aura that offsets some of the more hurtful (and harmful) things he does. Horn is the type of upbeat, freewheeling young woman who should be really annoying, but the actress makes her the most sympathetic character in the whole movie, and she does so effortlessly (even when she’s trying to hook up a mutually unimpressed Dylan and Katy while Katy is doing community service). As the drug-damaged Katy, it’s Cuoco who nearly steals the movie, giving the kind of performance that reinforces the idea that there’s more to her than playing Penny on The Big Bang Theory. With her pasty face made pantomimic by the application of too much make-up, Cuoco allows the audience to view her with pity but not with any feelings of condemnation.

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On the whole, McDuffie and the cast make good work of a narrative that, for all its careful construction, still appears lightweight in places, and this upholds the idea that the script is unlikely to provide anything to shock or cause concern in its audience. Viewers will be able to predict the movie’s outcome well in advance, not because McDuffie is a terrible screenwriter, but because, good as it all is, he doesn’t really take any chances with the material. This leads to a few scenes lacking in dramatic focus, and when a revelation is made about someone’s feelings or emotions, those feelings and emotions are usually left without being explored any further. This does mean a lack of emotional histrionics (which is a good thing), but it also means that a character’s reactions/demeanour aren’t as fully realised as they could be (which isn’t a good thing).

Ultimately, some lessons are learned while others are left by the wayside, and the fates of all the characters are left for the viewer to decide on, even if the script appears to be shepherding them in certain directions. The New Mexico locations are often beautifully lensed by DoP David J. Myrick, and there’s an unintrusive yet inquisitive score by Ian Hultquist that embeds itself in certain scenes and elevates the emotional content of those scenes with an ease that shouldn’t be ignored.

Rating: 7/10 – with its themes of forgiveness, regret and abandonment, Burning Bodhi may seem like it’s a movie with a message (though if it was, that message would arrive in a text), but instead it does its best to concentrate on the characters and how they can keep hurting each other while still loving each other; a few narrative stumbles here and there stop the movie from being awards-worthy impressive, but as a feature debut for Matthew McDuffie, it’s a good indicator that his next movie should be one to watch out for.

Irrational Man (2015)

20 Sunday Mar 2016

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Irrational Man

D: Woody Allen / 95m

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley, Betsy Aidem, Ethan Phillips, Sophie von Haselberg, Kate McGonigle, Tom Kemp

In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, Woody Allen’s annual offering to a grateful movie-going public was something to look forward to. With the turn of the century though, the cracks began to show, and the triple threat of Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006) and Cassandra’s Dream (2007) seemed to indicate that Allen had lost his story telling mojo. Since then he’s managed to regain some of that mojo but the last decade has been patchy at best. When he’s on top form, as with Blue Jasmine (2013), there’s no one who can touch him. But he’s just as likely to release something as oddly unrewarding as You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010).

Irrational Man, Allen’s latest, is a movie that at first glance looks to be one of his on-form releases. A romantic comedy of philosophical manners, Allen introduces us to Abe Lucas (Phoenix), a philosophy professor who comes to teach at Braylin College in Rhode Island. Abe is a troubled soul, weighed down by despair and the kind of melancholy that won’t let him be happy or find joy in the world. He also has a reputation as a womaniser and an alcoholic, but these are overlooked because of the high regard in which he’s held and the caché the college gains by having him there.

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Despite his depressed airs and less than sunny disposition, Abe still manages to attract the attention of two very different women: fellow professor, Rita Richards (Posey), who is unhappy in her marriage and looking for a lover, and philosophy student Jill Pollard (Stone), who is attracted to Abe’s intellect and wants to help him out of the existential crisis he’s experiencing. At first, Abe resists both women’s approaches, and continues to live a bland, unfulfilling existence, refuting their beliefs that they can help him and refusing to accept that there is an answer to his particular personal crisis.

Both women persist in their attentions, with Jill having the better fortune. She begins spending more and more time with Abe, listening to his pessimistic outlook on life and love, and refusing to believe that he’s entirely right. But she’s still not able to gain any real headway… until the day they overhear a woman in a coffee shop complaining about the judge (Kemp) who’s unfairly dealing with her custody battle. Abe is suddenly galvanised into helping the woman with her predicament. His solution: to kill the judge in question. Once the decision is made, Abe finds his whole attitude has changed. He enjoys life again, appears happy and relaxed, and sleeps with Rita. With Jill agreeing in principle that the judge is too mean to live, he sets about concocting the perfect murder.

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Boosted by this newfound purpose, his relationship with Jill deepens, so much so that she splits from her boyfriend, Roy (Blackley). Caught up in Abe’s more positive outlook, she comes to believe that she loves him, and does her best to persuade him that he loves her. As they grow closer, Abe’s scheme to murder the judge is successful, and he and Jill celebrate the man’s demise (though Jill retains her initial discomfort about doing so). But when Jill begins to suspect that Abe really has committed murder, her suspicions, as well as the police arresting an innocent man, lead her to make a fateful decision.

Taking Irrational Man at face value, Allen appears to have constructed a romantic comedy that has a few telling things to say about the nature of free will and moral choices. But beneath the movie’s attractive sheen – the Rhode Island locations are given added lustre thanks to DoP Darius Khondji – Allen’s philosophical insights prove less than convincing, and the justification Abe gives for his actions come across as self-serving rather than fully thought out reasons made from the moral high ground. Along with such telling remarks as “So much of philosophy is just verbal masturbation”, and “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”, the movie looks and sounds like it knows what it’s saying, but when Jill challenges Abe’s assertions later on, the hollow nature of his reasoning becomes clear and the viewer is faced with the idea that Allen may not be as en point as he himself would like.

As a result, concerns over Abe’s philosophical stance remain throughout the movie, and Allen never really addresses the contradictions that arise through the narrative’s insistence on making murder into some kind of aphrodisiac for the soul and mind. But while this is problematical at best, the movie suffers even more thanks to the tired mechanics employed to bring Abe and Jill together. Their relationship has the feel of an intellectual exercise rather than the organic outcome of their proximity in the classroom. Jill’s upbeat demeanour and determination to make Abe “happier” borders on obsession, while her change of heart later on is as abrupt as it is convenient for the narrative. Stone does her best but she’s continually hampered by Allen’s insistence on making Jill a paragon of positivity, a decision that doesn’t give the actress much room for manoeuvring.

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Phoenix fares slightly better by virtue of having the lion’s share of the screen time, but like Jill, Abe is the kind of character who only exists in the movies and as such is more annoying than sympathetic. Allen doesn’t even allow the character (or Phoenix) to display any self-doubt once he decices to kill the judge, and as with Jill’s change of heart, Abe’s road-to-Damascus moment seems forced. Phoenix also appears to be having more fun as the depressed Abe than he is as the energised Abe, something that seems counter-intuitive but on occasion does at least allow the material to feel more natural.

With Allen preferring to show how witty he can be at the expense of various philosophers’, the romance between Abe and Jill takes a back seat, and the other characters, Posey’s desperately lovelorn Rita aside, fade into the background (and often during a scene). A subplot involving Jill’s boyfriend proves distracting and underdeveloped, and a further subplot addressing Rita’s dissatisfaction with her marriage seems included to give the character some measure of depth (or Posey something more to do than look bored and/or frustrated). Ultimately it’s hard to care for anyone in Irrational Man, and that includes Abe and Jill, a couple who look and sound too much like an approximation of a couple than the real thing. All in all, the movie struggles to address the issues it raises and lacks the finesse Allen has brought to other, more successful projects.

Rating: 5/10 – mildly diverting, and superficially amusing, Irrational Man should be filed under Minor Allen; while not entirely unrewarding, the movie isn’t particularly inviting either, and anyone thinking of watching it should do so only if they’re Allen completists or fans of Phoenix or Stone.

Lost and Delirious (2001)

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Lost and Delirious

D: Léa Pool / 103m

Cast: Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, Mischa Barton, Jackie Burroughs, Mimi Kuzyk, Graham Greene, Emily VanCamp, Amy Stewart, Caroline Dhavernas, Luke Kirby

A female-only boarding school. A new pupil still mourning her recently deceased mother. Two roommates who seem especially close. An atmosphere of prejudice and privilege. The attentions of a teenage boy from another, nearby school. Peer pressure. Love rejected and dismissed. An injured falcon. High emotions left unchecked and leading to tragedy. All these and more form the meat of Lost and Delirious, a movie that comes very close to capturing the urgency and intensity of first love, and the spiralling madness that follows in the wake of that first love being rejected out of self-preservation.

The movie opens with the arrival of fourteen year old Mary (Barton) at a semi-remote all-girls boarding school somewhere in Ontario, Canada. She’s shy and hesitant, so obviously a naïf that she might as well have it written across her forehead. Fortunately, the headmistress, Miss Vaughn (Burroughs), places her with Paulie (Perabo) and Tori (Paré), two older girls who take her under their combined protection and help her adjust to being away from home. It isn’t long though before Paulie and Tori’s relationship becomes much clearer: they’re lovers, but only Mary knows.

Of the two, Paulie is the more rebellious, challenging authority at (almost) every turn, and behaving with a reckless abandon. Tori is more studious, less willing to antagonise the teachers in the way that Paulie does, and their differences seem to have brought them closer together. As time goes by they drop any pretence around Mary that they’re not a couple, and she becomes a confidant to their affair. But as with all breathless (and secret) love affairs in such an environment, exposure isn’t too far away, and one morning Tori’s younger sister, Allison (VanCamp), with some of her friends burst into their room and find Tori and Paulie naked in Tori’s bed.

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It proves a turning point for their relationship. Tori is unwilling to admit her feelings, or that she and Paulie are more than friends, and she tells her sister very forcefully that she isn’t a lesbian, and that she didn’t even know Paulie had got into her bed with her the night before. Allison accepts Tori’s explanation and agrees not to mention it to anyone, and especially their father who Tori knows is staunchly homophobic. Her withdrawal from Paulie though has the effect of driving Paulie to ever more extreme actions, including declaring her love for Tori in front of the other students. Embarrassed and afraid of being disowned by her family, Tori maintains her rejection of Paulie, and ever more desperate to win her back, the increasingly disturbed Paulie resorts to her most extreme actions yet.

Fans of all-girl boarding school stories will no doubt be expecting some melo- to go with their drama, and while Lost and Delirious certainly has its moments it’s a much better example of the genre that starts off quietly, taking care to establish its trio of leading characters and affording time to provide a (mostly) convincing backdrop for the action that unfolds. Adapted by Judith Thompson from the novel by Susan Swan, the movie’s isolated locale and sense of modulated behaviours is given potent expression through Mary’s initial feelings of abandonment by her newly remarried father. Seeing her wide-eyed dismay at the enormity of both the school and the task of fitting in that lies ahead of her, Mary’s story is likely to be the movie’s focus, the classic tale of the young girl who seeks acceptance but is rebuffed at every turn. But instead Mary is the young girl who finds herself caught up in someone else’s story, and learns a heartfelt lesson because of it.

By subverting our expectations in this way, the movie shows it’s not afraid to take risks, even if those risks incur some narrative wobbles later on. As Paulie and Tori’s relationship becomes the movie’s true focus, and Mary becomes their “accomplice”, the screenplay becomes playful and carefree, celebrating the girls’ love for each other, and paying no heed to any possible downfall that may be around the corner. It’s during this period that Lost and Delirious is at its most tolerant, placing Paulie and Tori in a perfect bubble of acceptance and indulging itself in their happiness. But from the moment that Allison bursts into their room and shatters that perfect bubble of acceptance, there’s nowhere else their relationship can go but downhill, and with terrible consequences.

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But again, the movie wrong foots the viewer. Instead of Paulie and Tori finding sufficient strength from their relationship to allow them to overcome any prejudice or homophobic resentment towards them, Tori folds under the pressure of family ties and the loss of the life she’s used to. On the surface it seems a cowardly, awful thing to do, to deny your love for someone, but Tori is a product of her privileged background and she has no more choice in the matter than Paulie does in how she reacts. Torn by her sense of duty to her father and her feelings for Paulie, it’s the insidious nature of a “traditional” upbringing that is the villain, and Tori doesn’t have the strength to fight against it.

So it’s left to Paulie to fight against the injustice of losing the one person she loves with all her being. But she’s a tragic figure with a tragic future waiting just ahead for her. The script does nothing to allay our fears on this matter, letting Paulie’s unhappiness shred any remaining inhibitions or emotional restraints until the only outcome that’s possible is one that will have repercussions for all that witness it. As this event draws ever closer, and Paulie’s actions become ever more desperate, it becomes all the more awful to see her floundering in her search for a way to ease the pain she’s feeling.

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As Paulie, Perabo is excellent, putting in the kind of performance that is both affecting and heart-rending at the same time. This came after Coyote Ugly (2000), and while that movie brought Perabo to everyone’s attention, this is the movie that should have cemented her reputation. As it is, it’s possibly her very finest role, one that’s tinged with melancholy, vulnerability, despair, longing, fearlessness, and above all, the joy that only true love can bring. It’s a fierce, impassioned performance, poignant and sincere, and the movie exploits it at every opportunity. Paré is somewhat sidelined by Tori’s self-imposed split from Paulie, but she does a good job in showing the pain Tori herself feels at giving up her own true love. She’s also asked to deny her love for Paulie once or twice too often for narrative comfort, which some viewers may find distracting as well as repetitive. But like Perabo, Paré is equally good at displaying the elation of first love, and their early scenes together are full of the exuberance that comes with loving unconditionally.

Tying all this together neatly and with a studied panache, Pool illustrates the various pressures and required conformities of single sex school life with a greater attention to detail than is at first apparent (this is definitely a movie that delivers more from a second viewing). She focuses on the girls’ emotions to very good effect, and shows a confident grasp of the sexual politics inherent in such an environment, while also displaying a keen eye (and ear) for the other exigencies that come with it. If she has slightly more trouble explaining how Paulie can be consistently rude to Miss Vaughn and her teachers, or that her increasingly disturbed behaviour can go equally unchallenged, then it’s a small price to pay for the quality achieved elsewhere.

Rating: 8/10 – a modest coming-of-age drama that succeeds in elevating itself by virtue of a superb central performance and careful attention to detail, Lost and Delirious is deserving of being “rediscovered” by a wider audience; with an emotional thrust that is both honest and credible, it’s a movie that resonates long after its tragic yet powerful ending.

My Old Lady (2014)

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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My Old Lady

D: Israel Horovitz / 107m

Cast: Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominique Pinon, Stéphane Freiss, Noémie Lvovsky, Stéphane De Groodt, Sophie Touitou

When impoverished American Matthias Gold (Kline) inherits a Paris apartment from his late father, he has no idea that his plan to sell the apartment for several million euros will be stalled by the presence of Mathilde Girard (Smith), the woman who has lived there as a kind of sitting tenant ever since the death of her husband forty years before (she’s now ninety-two). As well, Matthias discovers that the terms of his father’s arrangement with Madame Girard means that he has to pay her a monthly stipend. In France, this arrangement is known as viager, and it also means that the apartment, which consists of three floors and a large garden, can’t be sold until Madame Girard’s death.

Luckily, Matthias has a back-up plan, in the form of François Roy (Freiss), a Paris businessman who is interested in buying the contract for the apartment, and despite Madame Girard’s presence in the property. This means little in real terms for Madame Girard, whose life will be unaffected if the contract is bought by someone else. However, it means a great deal to her daughter, Chloé (Thomas), who also lives in the apartment, and would be left homeless in the event of her mother’s death (what Matthias doesn’t know is that Roy’s plan is to demolish the apartment building and build a hotel in its place).

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Matthias and Chloé are at odds over the situation, and find themselves clashing. Curious about her, Matthias follows her one day and discovers that she is having an affair with a married man, Philippe (De Groodt). Having been “persuaded” by Madame Girard to pay rent while he stays there, Matthias uses this information to blackmail Chloé into letting him stay rent-free. In the meantime, he’s been selling off items of furniture to local antique dealers in order to have some money. While searching the apartment for more items to sell, he finds a number of photographs that point to a much closer relationship between his father and Madame Girard than he ever suspected. In turn, this leads to further revelations that neither he, Madame Girard, or Chloé were ever aware of, and which have a profound effect on them all.

From the poster above (and from the trailer below), you’d be forgiven for thinking that My Old Lady is likely to be a bit of a genial romp, a comedy with heart that features a sprightly Maggie Smith running rings round a clueless Kevin Kline as she outmanoeuvres him time and again as he tries to oust her from the apartment. And initially, that’s exactly the kind of movie it is (except that Smith isn’t as sprightly as you might expect). Kline does a good job of looking exasperated and confused, Smith is polite and excessively punctilious, and the scene is set for a (one-sided) battle of wills, with humour aplenty and generous dollops of heart-warming sentiment served up throughout the movie as Matthias and Madame Girard learn to respect and like each other.

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But writer/director Horovitz – adapting his stage play That Old Lady for the screen – has other ideas. It soon becomes apparent that Horovitz has a different tale to tell, one that includes humour as pathos only, and which at times, makes for a darker, more gruelling story than is first apparent. As Matthias begins to unravel the truths behind his parents’ marriage, and where Madame Girard and Chloé fit into it all, Horovitz takes the viewer on a journey into one man’s personal despair, and the way in which he finds redemption. There’s a long stretch where Matthias unburdens himself of a terrible event that happened when he was younger. It’s a scene that causes the viewer to hold their breath as Kline delivers a masterclass in dramatic acting, highlighting the depth of Matthias’s pain and the emotional devastation it’s caused him, and the effect it continues to have on him.

At first, this scene seems out of place, especially in terms of the movie’s tone, and subsequent scenes lack the power it contains (and some viewers may find the rest of the movie a bit of a letdown in terms of a lack of similar intensity), but it’s a cathartic moment, one that allows the viewer to understand both Matthias’s often crass, uncaring manner, and one that allows the viewer to connect with a character who seems motivated entirely by his own selfish needs. Chloé, who is present during the scene, has her own burdens, and this allows her to purge her resentments as well, as it becomes clear that she’s always known the truth about her mother and Matthias’ father. Both actors are superb, imbuing their characters with a common, tragic sadness that has hampered both their lives for so long, and to such terrible effect.

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Rather than being an out and out comedy, My Old Lady is a compelling drama that focuses on serious topics such as emotional dysfunction, parental neglect, suicide, social occlusion, and inappropriate self-respect, and deals with each one without a trace of flippancy. But it is funny in places, and there are some good visual gags thrown in at odd moments to leaven the drama, as well as some very good reparteé between Kline and Smith that shows neither of them has lost their sense of comic timing.

Clearly at ease with the material, Horovitz blends the comedy with the drama to refreshingly good effect, and takes the viewer on a journey that in meteorological terms, starts off bright and sunny, becomes increasingly cloudy, then very stormy before rays of sunshine start to break through the dark clouds and disperse them. As mentioned briefly before, the last twenty minutes cuts corners in its attempts to wind up the narrative, and some viewers may feel that scenes have been excised in an attempt to bring the movie down to its current running time. But this is a minor disappointment in comparison to what’s gone before, and Horovitz and his trio of outstanding lead performers should be congratulating themselves on a movie that doesn’t shy away from dealing with some very serious matters indeed.

Rating: 8/10 – an intelligent, unexpectedly gripping movie that may put off some viewers (though that would be the wrong reaction to it), My Old Lady is a must-see for fans of serious drama; Kline and Thomas are superb, and Horovitz uses the Paris settings to add a melancholy tone that aids the movie tremendously.

Love the Coopers (2015)

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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Love the Coopers

aka Christmas With the Coopers

D: Jessie Nelson / 107m

Cast: Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei, Amanda Seyfried, June Squibb, Jake Lacy, Anthony Mackie, Alex Borstein, Timothée Chalamet, Maxwell Simkins, Blake Baumgartner, Steve Martin

It’s February, so what better time to watch a movie set at Xmas? Coming to Love the Coopers a couple of months or so after what would be deemed the best time to watch it, the first thing that comes to mind about the movie is that it didn’t have to be set at Xmas at all. As several branches of the same extended family all prepare to get together over the Yuletide period, it’s easy to see how this could have been set at Thanksgiving, or on an anniversary, or in the run up to a wedding (or even a funeral). The backdrop is just that: a backdrop, serviceable enough, but aside from the introduction of mistletoe to encourage some very sloppy kissing, there’s nothing about Love the Coopers that required it to be set at Xmas.

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With that out of the way, the viewer can now sit back and enjoy the highly amusing interactions between the various members of the Cooper family, from acerbic patriarch Bucky (Arkin), to his uptight daughter Charlotte (Keaton) and her nearly estranged husband Sam (Goodman), and on down to their wayward daughter Eleanor (Wilde) who meets a soldier, Joe (Lacy), in an airport bar and persuades him to pose as her boyfriend. Then there’s Charlotte’s brother, Hank (Helms), who’s recently lost his job as an in-store photographer, and their sister, Emma (Tomei), who resorts to shoplifting as a way of getting Charlotte a present she’ll have to pretend to like. Oh, and then there’s diner waitress Ruby (Seyfried), whose friendship with Bucky might mean more to both of them than they’ll admit.

Wait, there was mention of “highly amusing interactions”. Well, that was probably the intention, but sadly, Steven Rogers’ screenplay forgot to include any appreciable laughs beyond the aforementioned sloppy kissing, and the tried and trusted use of inappropriate comments from a senior citizen with dementia, Sam’s Aunt Fishy (Squibb). Matters are made worse by the decision to include a narrator (Martin) who provides a running commentary on what’s happening, and what the characters are thinking, and who at the end, is revealed to be – well, let’s just say the narrator’s identity is meant to be whimsical and in some ways, cute, but it just goes to show how poorly constructed and thought out the whole thing is.

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With the humour left somewhere behind in an earlier draft perhaps, the movie tries to make the most of a series of underwhelming dramatic scenarios, from the impending break up of Charlotte and Sam, to Hank’s inability to get a new job while keeping his recent unemployment a secret from everyone else, to Eleanor’s confusion over what sort of life she wants and whether or not she believes in love (yawn). Thanks again to Rogers’ screenplay though, the viewer will find these trials and tribulations having a minimal impact, and will most likely be checking their watch to see how much longer all these banal travails have got to continue.

Taking advantage of a Xmas metaphor, the movie is the equivalent of the Xmas roast that’s not been cooked properly. It’s dramatically turgid, unconvincing, and despite the incredibly talented cast (who are clearly wasted – and not in an alcoholic way; that might have been more interesting), never takes flight in the way that its makers probably intended. Quite why it was made is hard to work out, and it’s definitely a movie that you’ll only endure once, but if there’s one thing about it that can be used as a positive, it’s that – no, actually, there isn’t anything.

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Rating: 3/10 – the dysfunctional American family coming together to feud and fuss with each other is a staple of US movie making, but Love the Coopers brings absolutely nothing new to the (Xmas) table; poor in every department, and one that its cast will probably want to forget, this is a movie that defies anyone to gain any kind of reward from it.

Grandma (2015)

29 Friday Jan 2016

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Grandma

D: Paul Weitz / 78m

Cast: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Sam Elliott, Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Peña, Nat Wolff, Lauren Tom

Elle Reid (Tomlin) is a once well-known poet. She’s also a lesbian whose long-term partner has recently passed away. She has a daughter, Judy (Harden), she isn’t on very good terms with. She’s grouchy, antagonistic and caustic as the mood takes her. She’s also just shown the door – horribly – to Olivia (Greer) whom she’s been in a relationship with for four months. And now she’s visited by her granddaughter Sage (Garner) who’s pregnant and needs $630 for an abortion by five forty-five that evening. No wonder she’s so unapologetically cranky.

Elle has another reason to be in a bad mood: thanks to an attack of principles she’s cut up her credit card and used it as a wind chime, so she can’t give Sage the money she needs. To make up for this selfish crime against modern day living, Elle agrees to help Sage find the money from other sources. First they visit Sage’s boyfriend, Cam (Wolff), where his aggressive and disrespectful attitude to Elle leads to some unexpected violence and the accrual of $50. From there they try to call in a loan from one of Elle’s friends, Deathy (Cox), but that only nets $65. When Elle next tries to sell some of her first edition books (even though they’re not in the best of condition), that plan backfires when Olivia appears on the scene and an argument ensues. With time running out, Elle decides she has to take a risk and visit an old flame, Karl (Elliott). At first Karl seems amenable to lending Elle the remaining $515 but their shared history ruins things and he refuses. This leaves Elle and Sage with only one remaining option: they have to see Judy and ask for her help, even though she and Elle are effectively estranged and she has no idea that Sage is pregnant (Elle also tells Sage that she’s afraid of Judy and has been since she was five).

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It should take the viewer roughly two minutes of Grandma‘s running time to see why Lily Tomlin signed up to play Elle. In keeping with her literary background, and doing her best to end her relationship with Olivia as quickly as possible, Elle refers to her as “a footnote”. It’s an unnecessarily cruel remark, and Tomlin delivers it casually, as if it were of no more significance than if Elle had called Olivia a terrible lay, or a boring conversationalist. And from that nasty remark, and Elle’s adamant refusal to apologise, the viewer can see that spending time with Elle is going to be made all the more enjoyable thanks to Tomlin’s acid dry performance. Yes, she’s unconscionably horrid at times, and yes she does her best to belittle the people she despises (which seems to be everyone outside of Sage and Deathy), but it’s Elle’s acerbic, take-no-prisoners attitude that is so ironically appealing, and Tomlin knows this. And knowing this she grabs the role in both hands and has a high old time with it.

But Tomlin’s performance isn’t the whole movie, and thanks to Weitz’s command of his own script, Elle isn’t allowed to overwhelm the other characters, and she doesn’t get all the best moments. And it’s not just about one woman’s misanthropic attitude to the world around her, but the ruptured family dynamics that keep her alone following the death of her partner, and how her being needed leads to a reconciliation that everyone is a part of. This gives the movie the heart it needs to balance Elle’s angry behaviour, and leavens the nihilism she seems to revel in. Without it, Grandma would still be funny, absorbing even, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as rewarding.

Weitz is back on form after a string of less than fully realised movies – Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) and Little Fockers (2010) to name but two – and he creates a sympathetic storyline to hang his characters from, as well as making each encounter on the road to Judy’s office as grounded and credible as possible while also indulging Elle’s astringent nature. The outcome of the trip to see Karl is a particular highlight, adding a layer of unexpected poignancy to a situation that some viewers might not see coming until it’s there. It also gives Elliott the chance to show just how good an actor he is, and if Grandma has no other impact than to open the doors for Elliott to give further, equally moving performances then his appearance here will have been entirely worth it.

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By carefully balancing the inherent pathos and humour of Sage’s “situation”, Weitz also gets to poke fun at the American public’s antipathy to hearing the emotive word “abortion”. Elle and Sage are ejected from a coffee shop (that used to be a free clinic) thanks to Elle bemoaning out loud the clinic’s passing – “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?” The word is used liberally throughout, and as an accurate description of the procedure Sage needs to have it’s entirely in context, but Weitz refuses to sugar coat the situation, and it’s to the movie’s credit that when Elle and Sage do encounter a pro-lifer (and her young daughter), their position isn’t criticised or lampooned, but instead is used to provide one of the movie’s best laughs.

With Weitz so assured in the handling of the material, his cast are free to provide fully rounded characters that you can empathise with and support (except for Cam, naturally). Tomlin, as mentioned before, is on superb form, and is ably supported by Garner who gives Sage a wistful nature that makes it seem as if she’s always working things out in her head, but is just a little bit too slow in doing so (“Screw you”). Harden pitches up in the final third and does sterling work as the mother who can’t quite work out why her daughter is afraid to tell her she’s pregnant when she has such a distant relationship with her own mother. Greer has a handful of scenes as the jilted Olivia and displays the character’s dismay and pain at being rejected with aplomb, her need to know the real reason for her dismissal a necessary challenge to Elle’s self-centred arrogance.

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Grandma is a movie that it would be easy to overlook, sounding as it does like an indie chick-flick for the generationally unbiased. That it’s profoundly moving in places, riotously funny in others, and completely charming all the way through is more than enough to recommend it. It’s short, sweet, avoids a lot of the clichés associated with the subject of abortion, features a cast who are behind Weitz all the way, and is just plain terrific.

Rating: 9/10 – one of the smarter, funnier, more enjoyable comedies of 2015, Grandma is a small-scale joy that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible; and let’s say it again, and louder this time: “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?”

Bleeding Heart (2015)

28 Thursday Jan 2016

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Bleeding Heart

D: Diane Bell / 88m

Cast: Jessica Biel, Zosia Mamet, Edi Gathegi, Joe Anderson, Kate Burton, Harry Hamlin

Bleeding Heart is likely to end up being one of those movies. You know the ones, those  “interesting” looking movies you pass by on your way to the New Release/Blockbuster section of your local DVD store (if there still is one in your area). It has a well-known “name” actor or actress in the lead role, and is often a drama that looks intriguing and which you may even pick up to read the blurb on the back of the case. But chances are that even then you’ll think twice and instead, plump for the latest Bruce Willis flick (Career Suicide Part 9 perhaps), or the most recent Katherine Heigl humdrum rom-com. But if you did put Bleeding Heart back on the shelf, then you would be doing both it and yourself a serious disservice.

It begins with Jessica Biel’s slightly ethereal yoga teacher May extolling the virtues of a non-violent, peaceful existence. She and her boyfriend Dex (Gathegi) have big plans to expand their yoga business, and their sense of contentment – with their work, their lives, and each other – is palpable. But May has a personal issue she needs to deal with first: getting in touch with the maternal half-sister she’s only just located (and luckily only half an hour away from where she lives). Nervous and unsure if she’s doing the right thing, May knocks on her door and drops the bombshell she’s been carrying around with her for some time.

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The young woman who answers is ten years younger and suitably shell-shocked by May’s turning up on her doorstep. They agree to meet in a bar and May’s half-sister Susan, who likes to call herself Shiva (Mamet), is nice and agreeable and pleasantly surprised by this sibling revelation. The two get on and at May’s urging, agree to meet up again. Back home, Dex is initially pleased for her, but his focus is on their business and his support dwindles at the realisation that seeing Shiva is likely to become more important than taking their current success to the level.

May accepts a late night invitation to meet Shiva and her boyfriend, Cody (Anderson), outside a bar. Cody is aggressive and clearly has a volatile temper, and when someone reproaches him for speaking harshly to Shiva, he gives them a vicious beating. May and Shiva drive off and they go back to May’s place. The next morning, with Cody in jail, May and Shiva persuade each other that spending some proper time with each other is a good idea and they head for May’s mother’s place. On the way, they stop off at Shiva’s apartment to pick up some things and May discovers that Shiva is a prostitute. May is stunned by this and by the implication that Cody is both boyfriend and pimp. But Shiva is unconcerned by it all, even appearing comfortable with it.

As they begin to get to know each other, cracks start to appear in May’s relationships with her mother, Martha (Burton) (unhappy at not being consulted about May looking for Shiva) and Dex (unhappy that she’s no longer focused on their business). But she feels a bond with Shiva that she’s never felt before, and even though Shiva tells her she doesn’t need to be saved, May’s instincts are to do exactly that. When Cody gets out of jail, Shiva goes back to him, and he drops her off at a client’s home. May, though, follows them, and decides to rescue her, and the resulting effort leads to both a consolidation of their relationship and a showdown with an angry Cody.

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At its core, Bleeding Heart has a lot to say about relationships and the nature of power and control within them. While Shiva and Cody’s relationship is volatile and intense, and his control over her is the frame within which they exist, May’s relationship with Dex is, on the surface at least, more fluid and mutually supportive. But Dex has his own control issues, and in his own way doesn’t want May to do the things she wants to do. When she begins spending time with Shiva, and even gives her money to pay her rent, Dex is angry because May’s behaviour is a threat to the orderly existence he’s cultivated with her. And when May resists his insistence on maintaining their “status quo” his reactions are similar to Cody’s (though to be fair he’s not as violent).

With May coming to terms with the impact of having a half-sister in her life, and the repercussions of pursuing that relationship, the movie concentrates on how both women find their way out of what are unhealthy relationships for both of them. It doesn’t offer any blinding revelations, or even provide any new insights into how people justify their staying with people who profess to care about them but don’t show it in reality (or when it’s really important to do so). But what it does offer is a chance to see how two people can find real dependence in each other, and despite having numerous obstacles put in their way. May and Shiva are more alike than they realise, and Bell’s perceptive script is careful to show the ways in which they begin to mirror each other, with the best of each one’s character having an effect on the other.

Both Biel – an actress whose career resumé is littered with too many lacklustre Hollywood movies – and Mamet are well suited to their roles, and their onscreen partnership is both subtly rewarding and emotionally resonant, with both actresses inhabiting their characters with confidence and skill. Biel undergoes a physical as well as emotional change, and shows a burgeoning strength of purpose that helps May refind herself after years of following what appears to be the path of least resistance. Mamet underplays the vulnerability beneath Shiva’s street smarts, and there are moments where her unhealthy dependence on Cody is both frustrating and yet entirely credible. It’s to both actresses credit that while May and Shiva are clearly recognisable “types”, they’re still sympathetic and likeable, and easy to root for.

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On the opposing side, Gathegi plays Dex like an injured puppy who can’t understand why someone would upset him (deliberately or otherwise), while Anderson’s turn as the outwardly charming Cody is hampered by his character’s lack of depth. Bell can be forgiven for this, as Cody is essentially the unthinking catalyst for the two sisters coming together, and without him this would be a different movie altogether; his adversity is necessary for May and Shiva to bond together with the appropriate intensity. That said, Anderson definitely makes an impression, and it’s difficult to remind yourself that he’s British.

Bell, making her second feature after her impressive debut Obselidia (2010), here tells a simple story with a firm grasp of the dynamics of May and Shiva’s relationship, and the unfulfilling lives they lead. If there’s an element of wish fulfillment towards the end it’s negated by the movie’s resolution, which is tougher and less cathartic than it might seem. Add some unshowy but deft camerawork by Zak Mulligan and you have a movie that is polished and assured and which offers far more than at first glance. And if Bell decides to revisit May and Shiva at some point in the future, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Rating: 8/10 – Bell is a moviemaker to watch, and imbues Bleeding Heart with a simple complexity (not a contradiction) that elevates the movie from its indie roots and provides the audience with unexpected rewards throughout; Biel and Mamet give great performances, and the whole exercise shows that even the most staple of storylines can be enhanced by well-judged brio and conviction.

Goodbye to All That (2014)

02 Saturday Jan 2016

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Goodbye to All That

D: Angus MacLachlan / 87m

Cast: Paul Schneider, Melanie Lynskey, Audrey Scott, Anna Camp, Ashley Hinshaw, Heather Lawless, Heather Graham, Michael Chernus, Amy Sedaris, Celia Weston

For Otto Wall (Schneider), life appears to be ticking along quite nicely. He has a wife, Annie (Lynskey) and a pre-teen daughter, Edie (Scott), a good job, and he wins local running competitions. He’s also quite accident prone, and one day he breaks his foot. One day during his recovery, Annie asks him to meet her at her therapist’s. Unaware of what’s about to happen, he learns that Annie wants a divorce (though the reason why is less than forthcoming). Shocked and confused, Otto struggles with the need to find a new place, and telling the people around him. The only positive is that he can still see Edie, and have her stay over at his new place.

Otto soon learns that Annie has been having an affair. This prompts him to consider dating again. He hooks up with an old girlfriend, Stephanie (Graham), when she contacts him via Facebook, and they have a one night stand that leaves Otto even more confused than before. Using a dating sight he meets Mildred (Hinshaw), who will willingly have sex with Otto, but doesn’t want a relationship. When Edie expresses an interest in going to church, he meets Debbie Spangler (Camp), a young single woman he takes to a cabin for the weekend. They too have sex, but the next morning she freaks out and tells Otto they shouldn’t have done what they did (which makes the journey home a little fraught).