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Reviews
Only You (2018)
Horribly contemporary heart-breaking love story
Hard to watch at times and with two magnificently matched players in the lead roles, this tale of star-crossed lovers has a similar sense to Shakespeare's play of the dangers that face those who want the romance but struggle with the reality of being together. That is slightly to reduce it, because this is not a simple 'marriage is tough' film. It drifts gently into tragedy and alarm bells only go off quietly at first, before you realise that everything is on fire, and rescue seems impossible. And there's not really anyone you can blame for what's happened, either.
Cleverly edited, skipping unnecessary and sluggish exposition, and only on one or two occasions does the script (such as it may have been, a lot of technically brilliant improvisation appearing to go on) feel like it's about to wear thin. Not a line is over-egged or overplayed, there's not a single overly melodramatic moment, everything just is as you might imagine it would be in the best and worst of all possible worlds.
For me, an acid test of the quality of a film is when (whether you mean to or not) you find yourself desperate to know how the characters will fare and rooting for things to go well, feeling frustrated or heartbroken if they don't. This passes that test with flying colours. A standing ovation for all involved.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Silly yet profound
Like all fairy tales this is both charming and ridiculous, with people behaving inconsistently and contrary to any normal expectation. When it's done elegantly and beautifully though it doesn't always seem to matter.
The performances - and I have little to no time for Mr LeBeouf in general - are all exceptional, with a host of what seems to be local amateur talent brought in for the walk-on roles. The sets and the cinematography are simple and powerful, and the soundtrack evocative and intense.
Most importantly, this is a tale of redemption, of people who seem to be bad guys finding a way to be better, and those who find life challenging being given the tools to fight their way to the top. It's about family, friendship and freedom from those who think they know better but have none of your best interests at heart. It's about risk taking, trying, failing, trying again. It feels like it could only have been made in the country that has taken being pioneers, gun-owners and liberty lovers as its heroes - now seen as the bad guys. For this alone, it stands out like a sore thumb, and is worth cherishing.
The Wife (2017)
Close, Slater and the Idea
These three things are the only ones worth a star in this absolute turnip of a film.
Cloth-eared dialogue, embarrassing performances, and clearly some cast members who absolutely insisted they weren't going to revert to a 1992 hairstyle or wardrobe in case it punctured their massive ego (calling Mr Irons!).
Close manages to rescue most of it with a tremendously subtle, unhysterical performance, closely aided by the now rather underrated Slater, but everyone else is phoning it in (without much help from the scriptwriter).
The idea itself is terrific, though having not read the book, I can't tell whether this is a lousy adaptation, or if the plotting and characterisation is just as clunky in the original. A waste of time.
My Old Lady (2014)
A not altogether unpleasant oddity
You can tell when films are adapted from plays because generally the writing is top-notch, the ideas are dense, and the pacing and plot will be unconventional.
They can also fall flat on their face. That doesn't happen here for two reasons. One is that Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott-Thomas bring their A-game, even when delivering a boring caricature of alcoholism. Maggie Smith, who mainly annoys me, actually does a great job playing a sympathetic old lady, not some shrill old aristocratic boot.
The oddity would be a spoiler so I won't, but let me just say that this becomes a bit more complicated than happy/unhappy families in an unexpected way, where you can find yourself suddenly thinking 'wait - what?'. The fact that things so serious are dealt with so flippantly (as Wilde suggested, take the serious things lightly and the light things seriously) so goes against the grain that it's no bad thing when something like this makes it to the screen, so we should be grateful for that.
The premise is brilliantly knotty, the unknotting is a bit meh, the twists and turns are a bit eyebrow-raising, Paris looks stunning, there's a brilliantly eccentric opera scene that bookends the film, and the casting really is spot on. Not a complete waste of time, not at all.
Stan & Ollie (2018)
Top notch performances, bottom drawer script
The situation is perfect plot fodder - two stars dealing with decline, a classic Hollywood trope. The actors chosen to portray them not only have a physical resemblance to the stars, they are capable of putting on a performance worthy of them. The gag's so old, it has whiskers, but Laurel/Coogan entering the stage and immediately wandering off the other side, before returning and remonstrating with an off-stage person is so brilliantly executed it can't fail to have old and young in fits. Ditto the 'crossing paths but not meeting' gag. Ditto the performance for one in the hotel lobby in Newcastle. Ditto blowing so hard your hat goes up. It was and is first-class clowning.
Yet with all that talent and potential, the script served up smells like fish four days old. Trite reflections on stardom. Characters telling each other things they already know. Walk-ons setting up ironies so bluntly it's like being hit with a comedy hammer. This is the 'BBC film' side of things. Very little ear for a well-written script at that state-funded excuse for a production company.
So all the credit for cheering us up with perfect recreations of classic comedic set-ups, giving us a little window into how they came about (why not a bigger window?); zero credit for a wasted opportunity to tell this story with a decent writer of dialogue.
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
The clue's in the title
Snagged into watching this. By the rating on here, I feel it is only reasonable to try and rebalance this entirely deceptive average of above 7 with a lowly single star. However, I should have known that anything that included 'Enfield' in the title, possibly London's most boring suburb, other than Penge, was not going to set the world alight.
The prologue is the scariest thing in the whole film. It's then followed by 50 solid minutes of people screaming at doors banging. Then the Americans arrive and people float in the air a bit and a tree falls down scarily. Someone spends ten minutes trying to axe open a cellar door when there are at least a dozen windows they could try breaking. The police come round once, appear on TV, then are never seen again. A girl holds water in her mouth in the dark for five minutes.
Then there are the anachronisms. No working class home had a TV remote in 1977, and if they did, it had a cable running to the set. Tape to tape machines did not work on batteries. No Londoner ever said "Guys" to a group of people before 2011. And not all London interiors looked like they had been plastered with cement.
The actors on the other hand are doing a pretty stand up job with the year 7-level script and there's a very good rendition of Love Me Tender on acoustic guitar. They deserve a star. The rest? No.
A Monster Calls (2016)
Great story, clunky script
One of those films which could have been a work of genius if not for the sophomoric script, which, to be fair, might be because the film is targeted at an adolescent audience whose expectations are not as high.
Plenty of implausibilities and conveniences which are enough to have you sucking your teeth every ten minutes, punctuated with absolutely brilliant special effects and a perfectly chosen voiceover in Liam Neeson. And it's not obvious where it's going and why until it gets to, as the monster puts it, the fourth tale, which means the plot is doing its job amazingly.
There's much to applaud in the performances, but even Sigourney Weaver can't save the dialogue (admittedly she has been reduced to uttering inanities ever since Alien), and so everything has to be judged through the lens of that key flaw.
But this movie really seems to capture something essential about grief, absent fathers, and why life both is and is not a fairytale, and why when we want it to be, it can be.
Their Finest (2016)
The BBC occasionally doesn't waste its money
With the BBC's name attached - an almost sure-fire guarantee of a terrible movie crammed with platitudes and bien pensance - and the usual repertory of jobbing British A-listers, there was little to nothing to suggest that this film might be any good.
And yet it is. Very good. This may have something to do with the source material, a novel of which I know very little. It may also have something to do with the light, effective touch of the screenwriter. It had to be, given the meta-narrative of producing a film which seeks to celebrate a feminine contribution to the art - it could so easily have collapsed in on itself. But nothing is telegraphed, much is unexpected, the genre is bent and not broken, and the humorous, underplayed nods to the 'way things used to be done' are absolutely spot-on.
Sam Claflin is an absolute revelation in this; had it been Arterton mugging on her own it would have been a nightmare. But Claflin gives her the attention she needs, and no more, takes his time, and lets the terrific script do all the hard work.
I can well understand those who will point to elements of formula and deux ex machina shocks - but that's exactly the point of the movie. How do you reinvent the wheel? How do you make a romance that isn't just another Love Actually? There are lots of answers here, and everyone involved should be thoroughly proud of themselves. Even Bill Nighy.
And the two musical interludes are absolutely magical. Well done, everyone. Well done.
The Babadook (2014)
The longer it went on, the worse it got
Shockingly bad psychological thriller that makes the student filmmaker mistake of substituting cheap spectacle for story. Assuming that gothic horror just means different shades of dark, and hoping against hope that the FX budget will do the heavy-lifting, this is a lazy one-dimensional excuse for the writer-director to indulge maternal torture fantasies, thinking that there is 21st century entertainment in just watching people suffer. Appalling.
Love & Mercy (2014)
By turns innovative and ordinary
There are probably two sides to this story, but with the seal of the approval of the Wilsons, this is the version we get. Thankfully it has magnificent lead performances (the supporting actors are a pretty weak bunch) that completely carry it and make you massively care. The chemistry between Cusack and Banks is extraordinary, and they really make you believe in their fairytale, with the scene between them at the piano particularly electrifying.
Some terrific touches using the audio (as you'd hope and expect from a film about a musician) and the idea of 'hearing voices', mingled with effective use of the original studio recordings. These are compensated for by some fairly banal directorial choices at times, leaving the movie unbalanced, with one or two scenes and quite a few lines that were entirely surplus to requirements. Nevertheless, fully entertaining, particularly if you didn't know the Wilson story.
Was he really a 1960s Mozart? Nope not really, but to misquote Paul McCartney, he was part of a pretty darn fine pop group.
A Simple Favor (2018)
Some interesting stuff
It may be less than meets the eye but I'm open to being persuaded.
Excellent character actresses looking amazing and making the most of the sharply plotted script, there are very few snag points, though one might wish for a less tidy ending somehow.
The question is whether the use of French-language singers on the soundtrack, filled perhaps with hidden references, and the mention of Les Diaboliques, is simply fluff to make us believe this is a better movie than it is or, in fact, just as good a movie, only without the pretension that actually being French, in black and white, and sixty years old gives it. Absolutely worth the ride though.
McFarland, USA (2015)
As American as Taco Bell
A story so old it has whiskers (but that's why you buy the ticket) of family, community and patriotism, which does what every single version of the tale does: dodges the spiky detail to paint the big blancmangy picture.
Without Costner, who turns every single naff line into the most vital piece of wisdom you'll ever hear with the effortlessness only he has fully mastered, this film would deflate like a soufflé. But the late 20th-century's Jimmy Stewart (sorry Tom Hanks, but Kev's the true pretender to that throne) brings the man-with-a-tough-decision-but-not-that-tough-because-he-has-values to life like no other can, and that's why you love him and, doubtless, this film.
Herrens veje (2017)
First series so good I just wanted to applaud at the end of each episode
A religious drama based in Denmark, regardless of the quality of a lot of Danish series, definitely sounds like a tough sell, and had I remembered much about it before watching it I may have delayed that moment even further. But right from episode 1 you are thrown into a moral maelstrom which takes in the frontier between religious awakening and madness (are they the same? The series does not answer, only explores, and never in a patronising way), family secrets, filial duty, love and its limits, cultural encounters, in such a way that you really do not know where it might go next. In other words, it's dangerous, because it will shake your faith in everything, including your own belief, or lack of it.
Of course, without the incredible writing and performing it would be nothing, but on top of that it looks and sounds absolutely beautiful, with a couple of near-death sequences which are so moving it would give hope to the most ardent atheist.
Perhaps a tonic for our troubled, spiritually empty times; if not, 'just' an exceptional drama, with fully rounded characters who you never stop empathising with. I can only speak of series one, but I would sum that up as stunning, and I am measuring my words.