The Descendants

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 22nd January 2012

The Descendants is a surprising and wonderful beast, capsizing all your expectations of “the latest George Clooney movie” at every turn.

The trailer is saccharine and banal and, thankfully, misleading – we are warned that Matt (Clooney) is a Hawaii-based lawyer, perennially busy and out of touch with his two daughters, grappling with the ramifications of his wife’s accident-induced coma. Will he bond with his girls? Will the wife survive? How is it not even George Clooney can make a Hawaiian shirt look cool?

In hindsight, the trailer is doubtless all part of brilliant director Alexander Payne’s cunning plan. Echoing the paradoxical, bittersweet tone of his acclaimed films Sideways and Election, Payne is adept at eliciting entirely naturalistic performances from a universally excellent cast of varying experience (teenager Alex, played by the little-known Shailene Woodley, displays a maturity beyond her years), aided of course by a terrific script, and the gift of authentic family melodrama. Clooney is a joy to watch, as he is tortured by attention-seeking children, challenging in-laws, and the small matter of a local community in opposition to his major land deal.

Granted, for the first quarter of an hour we are subjected to the most naive and cliched of voiceovers – whether Payne is winking, one can’t be sure – but as soon as Matt finds his outer voice and the quest begins to find truth and settle his family’s turmoil, the integrity of both character and story grows.

Don’t be fooled by the garish shirts and the lilting hula soundtrack – this is a tricky, clever, multi-faceted little film. There is plenty of room for painful revelations and bedside recriminations in this blackest of comedies which has you tearful one moment, then laughing with awkward relief the next.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 22nd January 2012

No, this isn’t one of those pandering, pointless American remakes, designed to make European arthouse fare palatable to the subtitle-averse masses (like the squirm-inducing Dinner for Schmucks and the redundant Let Me In).

While lovers of the novels and the original Swedish film may understandably be sceptical, just two words validate this rendition: David Fincher. The visionary director of Se7en, Zodiac and latterly the Oscar-winning The Social Network knows more than a thing or two about portraying the dark side of human existence, and with a top-notch cast of mainly non-American actors he assembles a surprisingly worthy English-language adaptation of the hugely popular story.

True, the original is a hard act to follow. An involved, twisting story of a disgraced journalist solving a decades-old murder, and his enigmatic tattooed and pierced accomplice who is battling her own very sinister demons, the prototype proved an unexpected foreign-language success with English audiences.

The two-and-a-half-hour remake gives us a handsomer Blomkvist in Daniel Craig and an outstanding performance from The Social Network‘s unassuming Rooney Mara. Fans will possibly henceforth be divided into Team Noomi vs Team Rooney, but whichever side you choose, the slight but feisty Mara gets full credit for embracing all elements of Lisbeth Salandar’s painful upbringing and broken heart.

The film is faithfully still set in Sweden, the actors speaking in vaguely Scandinavian accents (odd, but it works), and delivering their lines naturalistically framed by Fincher’s trademark atmospheric photography.

It is as tense and horrifying as the original, while somehow more accessible and (despite the length and plottyness) comprehensible. Rather than “unnecessary”, this remake is instead an exciting and impressive tribute.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 15th January 2012

A long time ago, in a country on the other side of the world, Alec Guinness appeared in his seminal television performance as George Smiley, a taciturn, inscrutable secret agent on a mission to dig out a Soviet mole. The BBC series screened over seven weeks in 1979, one of the first instances of “appointment viewing” for a British public that was enthralled by the hunt: which of the four suspected MI6 spies was the traitor?

It has taken three decades for John le Carre’s source novel to earn a big-screen adaptation, but it comes with a high-calibre cast under the steady hand of Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (well- regarded for his arthouse vampire flick Let the Right One In, and here bringing to bear all of his expertise in creating dark action in the thick of a tense, brooding atmosphere).

Gary Oldman takes on Guinness’s legendary role, eschewing the wild-eyed craziness of much of his career and here capturing Smiley’s quiet man perfectly. By saying less and seeing more, Smiley is the perfect spy sent to catch a spy. Oldman sports his trademark 70s spectacles and tan overcoat, shrugging off aspersions cast about his good name, while rising above the rumours of his wife’s infidelities. As the characters pace about the brown and orange set design of the era, the British secret service has none of the sheen of contemporary shows such as Spooks. With no cellphones to trace or DNA samples to test, old-fashioned spy-work is all about using the little grey cells and hard-won intelligence.

And a modern audience, particularly one which doesn’t recall the TV series, will need every little grey cell in order to keep up with this story. Condensed appropriately and successfully into a little over two hours, one must listen carefully to everything said by Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Kathy Burke and the many other excellent actors who work with and against Smiley in his pursuit of the mole. It’s refreshing to be back in a Cold War, pre-Islamic terrorist world, though this change in mindset may prove challenging for some viewers. Often told in flashback, many of the set pieces are gripping, accompanied by an edgy, agitated soundtrack. It is almost a relief when we see the spooks at play during their work Christmas party, proving they are as real and fallible as us civilians.

Tinker Tailor is a smart film about spies and spying that is spellbinding and rewarding.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 1st January 2012

I thought I quite enjoyed the first movie (by which I mean, of course, not the Basil Rathbone classics of Sherlocks past, but Guy Ritchie’s bombastic 2009 interpretation which first paired Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as the crime-solving duo).  But with a strong sense of déjà yawn after two hours of A Game of Shadows, I’m not so sure. 

The bromance between Holmes and Watson, nicely set up in the first film, here limps along as Watson prepares to marry his fiancée.  His stag night is predictably hijacked (whether by Holmes or his new nemesis Moriarty or perhaps even Stephen Fry, it’s hard to know) and off we fly on an adventure that involves terrorist bombings, a train, interminable pugilism, and, redundantly, Holmes in drag.

Ritchie does a few things well in his movies, but unfortunately he then does them to death at the expense of other things, here focusing on slow-mo, graphic novelesque fight scenes (granted, the escape through a forest is spectacular) while sacrificing a decent script and comprehensible plot.  When Holmes first speaks of Professor Moriarty “who must be stopped before his evil machinations come to a crescendo”, one’s heart quickens – this is the stuff Sherlock Holmes is made of! – and Jared Harris (son of the late and legendary Richard) is superb as the treacle-voiced villain.  But then we are rushed from pillar to post through London’s grimy streets, picking up a gypsy fortune teller en route (Dragon Tattoo’s Noomi Rapace) and pausing only long enough for Holmes’ brain to jump-cut its way through a tricky situation about which we are left none the wiser until he stops to talk Watson through it later.

One big disappointment is the usually excellent Downey flouncing around in a one-note performance, and another is the casting of Fry as Holmes’ brother Mycroft, simply because Fry effectively plays himself, while spouting unfunny lines, naked.    

But the biggest blow is that the film looks great, has a high calibre cast, and really ought to be carrying this huge legacy into a braver, clever new era.  Unfortunately it looks as though Ritchie has simply frittered the gift away.

Restless

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 1st January 2012

In Restless, Enoch crashes funerals and plays Battleship with his ghost friend, a Kamikaze pilot called Hiroshi. Annabel is a shy nature-lover with a penchant for quirky felt hats.  Rather like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, they meet in the unusual circumstance of a funeral and, against a Danny Elfman soundtrack, develop their own tentative love story, bound together by a common appreciation of death and the attempt by external forces to keep them apart.

There are elements of the story that seem surprisingly naive for director Gus Van Sant (whose last work was the brave, challenging, Oscar-winning Milk).  This film is bloated with typically youthful affectations – two outcasts wearing sassy, vintage clothing, reading encyclopaedias about birds, and playing kooky games – that may cause older viewers to sigh with frustration, but might nonetheless resonate with a younger audience.

This is not meant to patronise. There is a time and place for the joy and folly of first love, and most of us have been there. The surprise is in Van Sant’s lack of restraint, as he ticks off each of the cliches.  That said, the film is beguiling, thanks to lead performances by an off-beat Henry Hopper (son of the late Dennis) as Enoch, and the elfin Mia Wasikowska, freed from her Jane Eyre corset to play quirky Annabel. Like many a burgeoning relationship, it feels awkward at first, but gets easier, at times offering some genuinely touching moments.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 18th December 2011

Tom Cruise is back as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, busted out of a Russian jail in the frenetic and exciting opening scenes of the latest Mission: Impossible adventure.  Teaming up with Simon Pegg’s eager Agent Benji and the beautiful Paula Patton (from Déjà Vu), Hunt sets out to save the world from impending nuclear disaster when weapons codes fall into the hands of the wrong evil maniac (a fairly orthodox baddie performance from Dragon Tatttoo’s Michael Nyqvist).

With technology and gadgets to rival James Bond and exotic locations Jason Bourne hasn’t yet been to, the film is one huge spectacle best experienced in Imax, as the camera swirls around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – only the tallest and most challenging settings for Cruise, surely one of the most committed movie stars around (who apparently did his own abseiling stunt in the incredible tower-climbing scene).    

Director Brad Bird made The Incredibles, proof if any was needed that he can more than handle a live-action blockbuster.  Wisely including all the hallmarks of the Mission series, you’ll be laughing and gasping in equal measure. Mission accomplished.

Melancholia

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 11th December 2011

Put aside Lars von Trier’s controversial interviews and his recent foray into body-horror – Melancholia is a sublime piece of cinema, wrapping up the director’s very personal nihilistic vision in an exquisite parcel of visual ecstasy, impassioned soundtrack and magnetic surrealism. So far, so Lars.

Justine (a superb performance from Kirsten Dunst) arrives late to her own wedding reception in the beautiful home of Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg, also brilliant as the beleaguered older sibling). Justine’s depression and subsequent bad behaviour cause strife, and since weddings are the perfect opportunity for all sorts of worms to come out of the can, tensions grow as the night progresses. Part Two of the film focuses on Earth’s impending collision with the planet Melancholia, everyone being assured by Kiefer Sutherland’s rich scientist that it will pass unscathed. However, as Justine’s mood lifts, Claire’s anxiety grows.

Von Trier is all about mood setting, placing the art of Bruegel, Millais and Wagner within an outlandish premise like one big art installation. The film channels beautiful, eerie tableaux, and despite its dark imagining, it’s impossible not to feel that this is really what cinema was made for.

The Adventures of Tintin

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 11th December 2011

After patiently waiting several years and negotiating plenty of hype, audiences might be nervous and excited in equal measure about this latest blockbuster to combine innovation in computer graphic technology with the translation to screen of childhood treasures. The good news is Messrs Spielberg and Jackson clearly care as much as we do and have worked tirelessly to produce a thrilling tribute to a well-loved cartoon strip.

What hits you from the opening scenes is the quite simply extraordinary animation. A painter’s easel, hair ruffled in the wind – it all looks so real you can’t be sure you’re not watching a normal live-action film. It is with relief and delight that Tintin looks just as you might have hoped, his boyish face mature enough to convince as the young Belgian reporter whose adventures have taken millions of young (and not so young) readers on jaunts to exotic foreign lands for the past 80 years. Immediately we are swept up in an adventure that never loses pace as it melds three of author Herge’s early stories into one cohesive plot.

Purists may baulk that the movie doesn’t take one book and depict it exactly but the creators wanted to introduce key characters such as Captain Haddock (a superbly rambunctious Andy Serkis beneath all that motion-capture technology) and the detectives Thompson and Thomson (British comedy actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) into the first movie. (Yes, there are to be more.) Thus we get a very effective mash-up as Tintin and Haddock traverse oceans and deserts in their efforts to solve a great mystery.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never read Tintin. This family-friendly rollercoaster ride suits all ages, producing a story that not only shows off awe-inspiring illustration of dust, shattered glass and light flares, but exhibits “cinematography” – the chase scene from a North African palace includes a two-minute take that could never have been possible in live-action film-making.

Much of the story is necessarily shown in flashback but the segues are handled with great wit, and if Snowy’s eyes seem ever so slightly too close together, we can let that go. Roll on Prisoners of the Sun.

The Best Films of 2011

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

Proof that documentaries can be more thrilling, humorous and entertaining than anything fiction can dream up – a bunch of motorcycle enthusiasts on the Isle of Man, a mad chap from Lincolnshire and 3D technology collided to produce my Top Film of 2011. 

Blue Valentine

This glorious antidote to the saccharine romance of The Notebook saw Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams’ young marriage go into cardiac arrest.  I watched with a heavy heart while marvelling at the incredibly accomplished direction, artful camerawork and achingly real performances. 

Senna

Even if Formula One isn’t your thing, this documentary about legendary Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna will have your heart in your mouth and tears in your eyes.  Simply by compiling archive footage of Senna’s races and interviews, director Asif Kapadia made one of the year’s most affecting pieces of cinema.

Incendies

On the death of their mother, grown-up twins are prompted to search for the father they thought was dead and a brother they never knew existed.  Flashing back and forth between their mother’s Middle Eastern upbringing and their contemporary quest, the film is enthralling to its last, devastating denouement. 

The Trip

For two hours of pure, effortless, laugh-out-loud comedy, nothing beats watching two of Britain’s finest comedians trying to outdo one another’s impersonations of famous actors.  Situating them in fine restaurants in the quaint English countryside somehow made it all the sweeter.

The King’s Speech

Colin Firth ditched Darcy once and for all as he stammered and swore in a very un-Royal manner, aided and abetted by a superb Geoffrey Rush, in this true story of one man’s triumph over a speech impediment.  The Academy loved it too.

Drive

For a movie that seems to exist solely on the references/nods it makes to the best of its genre, Drive had a bit of a cheek to expect our admiration.  But, rather like its no-named protagonist with his toothpick and his shiny bomber jacket, with pure panache it out-cooled its way onto the Best Of list of critics all over the world. 

Brother Number One

Tracking New Zealander Rob Hamill’s mission to discover the fate of his murdered brother Kerry, this local documentary deservedly won festival prizes and left audiences reeling from its humble, expertly-told intensity.  A quarter of Cambodia’s population was massacred by Pol Pot’s callous regime in the late 1970s, but it’s an international issue to this day and Brother Number One is a film that must be seen. 

In A Better World

Deeply moving in its honesty, realism and charm, this Danish story of two families, two schoolboy friends and the impact of bullying in all its forms garnered the film an Oscar and more kudos for its director, Susanne Bier.

Of Gods and Men

Rather like an extended period of contemplative meditation, this exquisitely languid film managed to ratchet up the tension as a group of Christian monks living in Algeria stood firm in their beliefs against the prospect of kidnapping and death by Islamic terrorists.  Less about God than the godliness in your fellow man.

The Kid with a Bike

A lousy dad deserts a troubled kid who is in turn adopted by a caring hairdresser.  The Dardennes brothers brought us yet another story of devastation and heartbreak, but this time carried with such love and optimism that we left the cinema feeling warmed. 

Bill Cunningham New York

An elderly man rides around the Big Apple on his bicycle, snapping photos of people on the street.  Lauded by fashionistas while shunning material gain, Bill Cunningham proved to be the best type of documentary subject – a paradox of humility and celebrity who quietly tells his story while we hang on his every word.

Melancholia

Kirsten Dunst got married in a haze of depression and bad behaviour, while her sister Charlotte Gainsbourg worried about a planet colliding with Earth.  Trust Lars Von Trier to come up with something so gloomy – but also trust in him to make it exquisitely beautiful, confronting and bravely surprising.  Melancholia drowned us in stunning visuals, sublime music and a thumping heartbeat, inducing screams of “This is what cinema is for!”

Barney’s Version

Paul Giamatti played Barney Panofsky, whose three marriages, various business ventures, exotic travels, characterful family members and a murder accusation provide ripe fare for cinema.  The ensemble cast seemed to be having the time of their lives, notably the glorious Rosamund Pike as the wife whom Barney meets at his wedding to Minnie Driver’s Jewish princess.

Brighton Rock

Control’s Sam Riley reprised Attenborough’s seminal 1947 performance as Pinkie Brown, a scooter-riding nasty piece of work who inveigles the innocent Rose into falling in love with him so he can keep her quiet.  Stylistic and atmospheric, it divided critics over its ending, but nonetheless proved a gripping gangster flick.

X-Men: First Class

Ever wondered how the X-Men came to be? This expertly told prequel gave us all the clues dished up asOxfordgraduates and Holocaust survivors, laced with the dulcet tones and intense stares of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender.  Clever and hugely entertaining, it was one of the year’s few quality blockbusters.

The Fighter

Early on in the year, a little boxing movie made a lot of noise as two superstars gloved up to play real-life brothers whose fortunes took very different trajectories.  Bale won an Oscar for his drug-addled, toothless brawler, and Wahlberg won respect for letting Bale steal all the scenes. 

Little White Lies

French wunderkind Guillaume Canet brought a group of his talented, beautiful acting friends together to play a group of talented, beautiful friends who go on holiday while their mate lies injured in hospital.  Secrets, lies and recriminations unfold as the week goes on, thanks to a superb script and naturalistic performances.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen is back! and this time we can say “bienvenue” and open the champagne.  Dopey Owen Wilson takes the Allen role as a screenwriter on holiday in Paris with his fiancée, who longs for the golden age of writers and artists and miraculously manages to live out that dream.  Charming wish fulfilment at its most magical.

Black Swan

Natalie Portman deservedly won her Oscar for this tortured portrayal of a young ballerina pushed to physical and psychological limits.  Some thought it melodramatic and laughable, while others found it compelling, disturbing and exquisitely photographed.  Personally, I was breathless to the last hysterical moment.

Fastest

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star Times, 4th December 2011

Hopefully this year’s brilliant TT3D: Closer to the Edge has whetted the appetite of fans of documentary, motorcycle racing and extensive use of riders’ eye camerawork, because there are further thrills to be had watching Fastest.

Director Mark Neale’s follow-up to his 2003 film Faster follows the superstars of the MotoGP World Championships in 2010 and 2011. Our heroes are the good-natured daredevil Valentino Rossi and his team-mate and rival, the more circumspect Jorge Lorenzo. Although the portraits are not as intimate as with Guy Martin in TT3D, the GP riders have charm in spades and plenty to say. Rossi in particular is the pride and joy of his Italian home town, where cardboard cut-outs bearing his image appear in doorways, on shop fronts and on billboards. Growing up, his racing made him “the despair of the police”, the locals tell us with evident delight. (In Italian, the term for motorcycle rider is “centauro”, literally centaur, those mythical part-human, part-horse creatures, which shows the great esteem in which they are held.)

Bike enthusiast Ewan McGregor narrates a potted history of the sport, explaining the relevance of Rossi’s numerous wins and later losses, and the high stakes played by all the riders. The race footage of crashes and smashes is eye-bulging stuff, as you’d expect in a film about this sport, and you’ll find yourself on the edge of your seat for much of it. It is also poignant seeing the recently killed Marco Simonelli speaking so brightly of a future in the game.

Although not completely personality-driven, the film allows for a fascinating insight into a rider’s motivation for leaving a winning team to join the competition (it’s not just about the money) and his commitment to winning at all costs. Fastest is enormously entertaining and thrilling, and safer experienced in the cinema than trying it at home