Tag Archives: Drama

Quartet  (2012)    80/100

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Rating :   80/100                                                                       98 Min        12A

Dustin Hoffman’s first time behind the camera is an adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s play of the same name. Harwood wrote the screenplay, and also wrote that of ‘The Pianist’ (02) and ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ (07) amongst others, and the two artists seemed to have gelled well together, producing a sentimental, reflective piece on the vagaries of growing old. It follows very much in the same vein as ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (11), and those who enjoyed that will not be disappointed here. However, by focusing on four main characters, and two of those a little more intimately, this has a neater, more personal feel to it.

It centres on a retirement home for musicians, and the four in question are played by Tom Courtenay, Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins. All of the cast are fantastic, indeed much of the support is made up of actual musicians and a nice tribute to them all plays during the credits. A little bit of a fuss has been made over this film being a fairly small scale one going on a wide cinematic release and going toe-to-toe with blockbusters, but frankly if a film has an engaging story and good performances then it is entirely justified in being given a wide release in theatres, and it’s a little misleading to suggest this is the only film out there doing just that.

If I was to criticise something, then it would be that some of the comedy feels a little too obvious, and perhaps the delivery on occasion could have done with a couple of more takes but it’s a small quibble really. Hoffman’s direction feels a little off kilter in places but seems to settle as the film goes on, and his use of classical music and the instruments themselves as a fifth main character, splicing everything together, works well. A certain decision was made toward the end, which makes sense in terms of the filmmakers’/writer’s options, but nevertheless will disappoint audiences a little. Not withstanding that though, it’s the main cast’s ability to engage our empathy that really make this an emotional gem.

Midnight’s Children  (2012)    3/100

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Rating :   3/100                                                                       146 Min        12A

Based on his novel and produced, narrated, and written by Salman Rushdie, this fairly epic in length and scope tale follows the woes and fortunes of children born on the stroke of midnight as India gained her independence from the United Kingdom. This historical event occurred on the 15th August 1947, and on the preceding day the independent Muslim states of East and West Pakistan were created, with predominantly Hindu and Sikh India atwixt the two, all from territory previously controlled by the British. Thus the birth of these children occurs at a unique moment in history, and the story revolves around a special spiritual significance given to their inception.

Which is all fine and well. The film begins in a traditional way, telling the back story of the narrator’s family (he is himself one of these children) and it’s quite a nice, gentle introduction. Then, however, one of the secondary characters does something so horrendously evil, with so little reasoning behind it and, as we will come to learn, so hopelessly out of character, that a palpable break in the story is created. As we realise this evil deed was pure narrative artifice, the break becomes an ever increasing abyss between the audience and the whims of the storyteller, as he introduces ever increasing layers of whimsy and mysticism surrounding the birth of midnight’s children. Their arrival on the earthly plane at the time of India and Pakistan’s new dawn invites legitimate questions over what the author is trying to say, what the overall message may be, or whether or not there are simply several undercurrents all with some sort of legitimacy of their own. As the story continues to degenerate into an almost Bollywood version of ‘Heroes’, we realise that it’s just complete nonsense.

The tale would have been much more effective, not to mention meaningful, with the simple evisceration of all the spiritual mumbo-jumbo and a focus on the real gritty and fascinating history. The complete and dismal failure of the movie is by far and away the fault of Salman Rushdie himself, although the filmmaking does begin to falter and let itself down in the last third as well, which doesn’t help. A few points for simply illustrating some of the history, though complaints have been raised over the depiction of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and it will be interesting to see how it’s received in India upon its general release there later this year. A Canadian/British movie, filmed in Sri Lanka under a false title to avoid protests from extreme parties in both India and Pakistan, the novel it’s based on won several prestigious accolades, one can only assume most of its content was lost in translation.

Age of Consent  (1969)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                       98 Min        12

Great little film from master director Michael Powell featuring an early starring role for Helen Mirren, and based to a large degree on the novel of the same name by prolific Australian artist Norman Lindsay (who also wrote the classic children’s work ‘The Magic Pudding’, published in 1918). James Mason attempts an Australian accent, with varying degrees of success, as Bradley Morahan, an artist looking to get away from the stifling constraints of urban life who relocates to an idyllic island (specifically Dunk island, in the Great Barrier Reef region of the Coral Sea). In the beginning the pace is a little too slow, as the artist meanders around, his inner turmoil matched by angry and frenetic snapshots of the natural world surrounding him. Enter the beguiling water nymph of Mirren’s Cora Ryan, whose determination to save money and leave the location of his self imposed exile creates a symbiotic relationship between the two; he pays her to model for him, and much as the artist has to make use of the light before it fades, the opportunity to appreciate the rare creature he has before him rekindles his passion for life and art alike, whilst she playfully revels in the mysterious appreciation. This forms the core of the film, as we see him produce colourful and soulful work, almost like a cross between Van Gogh and Gauguin, whilst the other characters are given to share that sense of vibrancy in their varied distinction, and several dogs are tossed around for comical effect (sometimes by each other).

The film is sadly not yet available on DVD in the UK. It was recently restored by Martin Scorcese’s The Film Foundation and his long time editor Thelma Schoonmaker (the former is a long time admirer of Michael Powell’s work, the later was his wife at the time of his passing in 1990) as part of their worthy project to protect the work of the auteur. Just as their successful restoration of Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘The Red Shoes’ led to it becoming a favourite of an entirely new audience and generation, so too might Film 4’s decision to air this restored gem spark more interest in the director’s work, and in this, his last ever feature film (though he would do one more as part of The Archers with Pressburger again). James Mason also met his future wife Clarissa Kaye (who plays his character’s old flame in the early part of the movie) on the shoot, and the two remained together until his death in 1984. Interestingly, it’s mentioned in the cast list at the end that Helen Mirren is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a nice plug for her early career, and something which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen done in the credits to a movie before. An, at times, mouth-wateringly bright and infectious piece, and a fantastic way to bow out of an eclectic career in film.

Great Expectations  (2012)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     128 Min        12A

The audience’s over familiarity with the subject matter was always going to be a big stumbling block with this latest film interpretation of Dicken’s penultimate novel, considered by many, including himself, to be one of his most artful and mature. Though this problem can be overcome, as shown by Andrea Arnold’s very fine indeed version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ last year, and to a lesser extent ‘Jane Eyre’ also from 2011, the issue is compounded by the fact a televised version of ‘Great Expectations’ with Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham was aired for the festive season only one year ago, and one of the most famous and deservedly well liked British films of all time is David Lean’s version of the story, which despite being released in 1946, still gets shown on the big and small screen on a semi-regular basis. Comparing that version to this, there is a famous with scene with a young Jean Simmons that universally gets a laugh in response, the same scene here never even registered a titter with the audience.

Although you can’t really go too far wrong with Dickens, there is nothing in this film that makes it stand out at all and money would be better spent simply renting the Lean version. Here, the quality of the acting varies drastically, with it being the third mild mannered role in a row for lead Jeremy Irvine (after Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ 11 and ‘Now is Good’ 12 – a fantastic film incidentally) which may not bode well for his future career, although he does seem the right age for the role, unlike John Mills in Lean’s film. Holliday Grainger looks resplendently radiant when she is revealed as the grown up Estella, but Miss Havisham is played by Helena Bonham Carter, who is perfectly capable of doing the role justice but instead decided to go with ‘I get to dress up like a Goth and act all crazy again, yay!’, it’s like watching Miss Havisham as played by Johnny Depp and, frankly, how many more times do we have to watch the same charade of meritless self indulgence. Robbie Coltrane, Ewen Bremner, and Ralph Fiennes all give wonderful turns to provide a balance to some of the others, resulting in an unmemorable and limp, but not wholly unenjoyable, final rendition.

The Hunt / Jagten  (2012)    87/100

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Rating :   87/100                        Treasure Chest                     115 Min        15

A Danish film from Thomas Vinterberg, who is known for his 1998 film ‘Festen’ and whose work has remained in relative obscurity ever since. With this in mind, and the knowledge that this follows the story of a male primary school teacher and his relationship with one of the young girls in his class, a relationship accused of being grossly inappropriate, one might be inclined to think it’s a grab at controversy and sensationalism in order to regain the spotlight. However, this is very much the opposite of the story in ‘Festen’, almost as if the director felt a sense of legitimacy and need to show this dark reality from the other side, and my goodness is it compelling. It has the virtue of successfully allowing us to sympathise with all the characters’ conflicting points of view, and also share in the protagonist’s (played by Mads Mikkelsen, on very fine form) growing sense of outrage and injustice. The title is no doubt also a reference to not only witch hunts in general but also the most infamous among them; those taking place in Salem in the 1690’s as immortalised by Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, which the film has more than a few things in common with.

There’s a nice nod to Mikkelsen’s tell as Le Chiffre in ‘Casino Royale’ (06), but from beginning to end the film remains serious, gripping and never loses its sense of reality, never oversteps into melodrama. It’s good to see a film tackling such horrid issues, indeed it’s most topical in the UK at the moment with the ongoing debacle of the Jimmy Savile investigation, the deceased BBC icon who whilst in the afterlife has been revealed to be a serial sex offender, and the subsequent police investigation, operation Yewtree, continues to uncover more culprits on a weekly basis, prompting the question how had so many high profile people got away with something so terrible for so long. In fact, literally as The Red Dragon types this up from the cosy confines of his cave, Max Clifford, one of the most high profile publicists in the country, has been arrested “on suspicion of sexual offences” as part of the same investigation. Only last month Lord McAlpine, the former Tory treasurer, was falsely insinuated to have been a perpetrator of child abuse after a piece of shoddy journalism went live on BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ programme, such a serious error that the Director General of the BBC, George Entwistle resigned over the affair and the BBC reached a settlement of £185,000 with Mr McAlpine. ‘The Hunt’ may just put that sum into an appropriate context.

As an aside, Vinterberg is one of the co-founders of the Dogme 95 movement along with Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. It was founded on the principles of reducing filmmaking to a very raw and accessible level, a tangent to huge budgets and artificial theatricality, and produced enduring films such as the aforementioned ‘Festen’, and von Trier’s ‘The Idiots’ (also from 98). The movement lasted for more or less a decade from its inception in 1995.

Silver Linings Playbook  (2012)    75/100

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Rating :   75/100                                                                     122 Min        15

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence star as two psychologically and emotionally disturbed individuals whose lives become intertwined, both sharing a recent trauma and each believing the other to be more unhinged than themselves. Bradley Cooper gives a really fantastic performance, as does Robert De Niro playing his OCD father. Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t wholly convince as someone who’s not quite the full shilling, but I think that is the point, rather than being in the same boat she is acutely aware of how she comes across to others – a foil to Cooper’s character who is mostly oblivious to the social consequences of his condition, and there is no denying she imbues the role with her strong screen presence; at times like a rattled, but still perfect, porcelain doll in search of a soulful remedy to countermeasure her carnal, desperate, desires. Moving, often amusing, and deserving of the accolades it’s bound to garner it is also laced with the spirit of the title, and has a very well selected soundtrack in accompaniment.

Based on the 2008 debut novel of Matthew Quick but with a shift from New Jersey to Philadelphia, David O. Russel (‘Three Kings’ 99, ‘The Fighter’ 10) both wrote the screenplay and directed the film, having a special interest and relationship with the material as his own son is both bipolar and has OCD, which may be why the whole film feels sympathetically grounded in reality.

End of Watch  (2012)    59/100

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Rating :   59/100                                                                     109 Min        15

From writer/director David Ayer, this is very much the opposite of his 2005 flick ‘Harsh Times’, and stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two LAPD patrol men buddying up and busting crime in downtown Los Angeles, ‘district 13′, and it opens with a pretty awesome rallying call in the form of a voice-over from Gyllenhaal as their squad car hones in on a couple of gangbangers. Initially, the whole film is shot as a largely handheld camera piece, with our view switching between pinhole cameras on the officers’ uniforms, Gyllenhall’s handheld, and the camera on their vehicle. This creates a major problem with the film, as with others in the genre, as the beginning quickly becomes ‘end of ability to watch’ with shaky cam taken to extremes and time wasted justifying and talking about the various cameras. It’s not necessary to contain the footage of these films within the confines of the characters’ own photography equipment, the viewer should be in mind at all times and there is no reason at all not to switch between the handhelds and more traditional views. Eventually, the director seems to come to the same conclusion and ditches some of the handheld footage, which actually makes all the shaky use from before fairly pointless.

As the action begins to ramp up things get much more interesting. It’s where this style of filmmaking can be really effective, as we experience first hand the thrills and horrors of their occupation from their own point of view, and we really root for them as they deal with all manner of undesirables. These events are interspersed with ‘chum time’ as we get more insights into their private lives and their camaraderie. It’s unfortunately a little obvious and hackneyed, and initially slightly awkward to boot, though the actors seem to settle more into it as the film progresses, possibly as they become more familiar with each other in their roles. Some wonderful tension is created, but the flaws continually diffuse what could have been a much more intense and acute thriller.

The handheld filmmaking style, which really began to filter into the mainstream after the success of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in 99, seems almost to be allowing ‘Realism’ into Hollywood via the back door. It has largely been confined to horror, where it continues to be refined by the likes of ‘Paranormal Activity’ 07 (featuring security cameras rather than handheld ones), in which series numbers 2 & 3 were arguably the best, and the actually pretty darn scary ‘Insidious’ (10). It could be that with this style of horror movie it has run its course – ‘Paranormal Activity 4’ (12), and the very similarly styled ‘Sinister’ (12) with Ethan Hawke were both very predictable in terms of when the scare was coming and in what form it would take, as well as how everything would end up. However, as evinced at times by ‘End of Watch’, Hollywood filmmakers still have a lot of unexplored territory to put to good effect with the technique, so long as they don’t shoot themselves in the foot by obsessing over it unnecessarily. For a couple of good uses of handhelds see horror film ‘Quarantine’ (08 – itself a remake of the also very good Spanish film ‘Rec’ 07), ‘Project X’ (12) which was kind of a feel good film done in an unexpected way, and ‘Troll Hunter’ (10), a Norwegian film which was beautifully shot and put together.

The Passenger  (1975)    71/100

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Rating :   71/100                                                                     126 Min        12

A mid 70’s team up of one of the most famous Italian directors of all time, Michelangelo Antonioni, and one of the hottest actors of the decade, Jack Nicholson. The story begins with an act committed by the protagonist which sets his life on a new path, and as the film progresses we learn more of his backstory and we watch as the consequences he sets in motion fall like implacable, vengeful dominoes. It is perhaps a tale of conformity versus freedom and adventure, but with the price of acting thoughtlessly spliced with an understated and hopeful lesson on the value of what’s left behind. Maria Schneider co-stars, playing much the same part as she did in ‘Last Tango in Paris’ (72), her work for another Italian heavy weight, Bernardo Bertolucci.

For anyone put off by the fact this would come under the umbrella term of ‘foreign arthouse film’, it is in English, and the main thing that sets it apart from more standard Hollywood movies, and this is true of many arthouse films, is that instead of inserting music to tell the audience what to think, only diegetic sound is used (that is, sound the characters themselves would hear), effectively opening up space and inviting the viewer to make up their own mind. This was often put to great effect by the masters of Italian cinema, and although this isn’t quite as good as Antonioni’s most famous work, ‘L’Avventura’ (60), it has many of the same themes in common, and is only really let down by a lull about halfway through.

Interestingly, much as Shakespeare is rumoured to have died on the same day as Cervantes, Antonioni died on July 30th 2007, the very same day Ingmar Bergman passed away, quite possibly the most famous arthouse filmmaker of all time, and, indeed, one of The Red Dragon’s top three favourite directors.

Brick Lane  (2007)    15/100

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Rating :   15/100                                                                    102 Min         15

Trash. This is about a Bangladeshi family living in a high rise block in London, dealing with how to make ends meet and the feelings of cultural and romantic isolation as well as the expectations and duty of family, in particular focusing on the mother of said family. It’s based on the 2003 debut novel by Monica Ali of the same name (‘Brick Lane’ is a street in London at the centre of the Bangladeshi community), but going by the motion picture version of the story, there is little to suggest the book is anything more than one of those torturously bad novels sold at airport newsagents. The fact is, minus the race element this film would never have been made at all, and the only reason it was is that the book was successful and a race related film set in London is made every year or so, which generally proves negative in outlook and can surely only further ingrain cultural stereotyping. That’s not to say some of the issues here aren’t real, or that they aren’t serious, but it needed more than melodramatic clichés to really engage the audience – even the Twin Towers attack seems to feature as nothing more than opportunistic storytelling. It’s not surprising the book caused some outrage from within the very community it was supposed to be depicting.

We assume the main character is to be a triumph of feminism versus her own shyness and the difficulties imposed upon her by culture, however she is presented as little more than a limpid hussy who drops her knickers at the first glance from a young man, seemingly oblivious to any possible consequences. In confrontation she is also far too weak for the audience to really feel much sympathy for her. The film only gets a rating of fifteen due to the good job Satish Kaushik does as the husband, and a slight redemption of the storyline toward the end, though even this is riddled with ambiguities. Only watch this if you are from an ethnic minority background and living in a large city in England, female, with a partner you dislike but lack the courage to leave, love self pity and crying that the world is against you because you are repressed by everyone and life just isn’t really fair in general, and there’s a young hot guy you could have if only you weren’t burdened by the man you’ve ended up with, O and the fact that he’s an extremist too….

The Phantom of the Opera  (2004)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                     143 Min        12A

To be fair, I’ve never seen the musical, nor any of the previous film versions, but with Andrew Lloyd Webber on both production and screenplay duties it’s probably fair to say this film was made in much the same spirit as his stage version that captivated audiences around the world and has become the longest running and most financially successful show in Broadway history, claiming many such accolades from around the globe (just to be clear, this is the cinematic version of that same show, as opposed to another film adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1909 novel, from which the musical is adapted). It’s directed by Joel Schumacher who not only manages to fit in a Batman reference with one of the masks in the masquerade scene, but injects a certain fiery passion into the whole. From the lustre of the rich and vibrant set design and costumes, to the sense of naïve innocence rocking in the wake of the Phantom’s damned passion, (here played by an intense Gerard Butler with Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson as Christine and Raoul respectively) it’s a tale of social isolation and interminable lust that proves vivid and alive enough to enthral even those normally turned away at the prospect of watching a musical.