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ROCKS (2020) FILM REVIEW

10/19/2020

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*****

12A, 91 Mins

A riotous riot of pure girl power.
‘Rocks’ (2020) is a tragicomic fable that really captures all the glories and grotesqueries of growing up. Directed by Sarah Gavron (‘Brick Lane’ (2007), ‘Suffragette’ (2015)) and co-scripted by playwright Theresa Ikoko and Film and TV writer Claire Wilson, the film combines the bare-knuckle brutality of East End deprivation with the kindred spirit of pure girl power. It has a genuine sense of light and dark which is essential for any film about childhood and adolescence.

‘Rocks’ takes its title from the cartoony nom de guerre accorded to its teenage East Londoner protagonist Shola Omotoso (Bukky Bakray). She’s 15, half Nigerian, half Jamaican and hangs out with a group of girls - Sumaya (Kosar Ali), Agnes (Ruby Stokes), Khadijah (Tawheda Begum), Yawa (Afi Okaidja) and Sabina (Anastasia Dymitrow).

Rocks lives on a council estate with her single mother Funke (Layo-Christina Akinlude) and younger brother Emmanuel (D’Angelou Osei Kissiedu). One day, Rocks comes home to a pathetically apologetic note from her depression-suffering mother saying she has left because she needed to “clear her head”.

Desperate to avoid being put into care, Rocks and Emmanuel find themselves shuttling endlessly between chintzy hotels and friends’ houses. Meanwhile the arrival of a prim and pretty new student from Nottingham named Roshe (Nottingham-born Shaneigha Monik-Greyson) provokes violent jealousy amongst the girls…

Shot on shaky and seemingly hand-held lenses, everything about ‘Rocks’ smacks of authenticity. Its induced documentary style is amplified by Snapchat posts of the girls singing along to Shirley Caesar’s ‘You Name It’ on a train. 

The dialogue is an eclectic blend of Multicultural London English and regional pronunciations. For example, Roshe is mocked for using the word “buum” (insert East Midlands vowells) for “nice”. Simultaneously the opening sequence - featuring the five girls upon a rooftop - mimics real-life by having multiple characters talking over each other.

The film’s soundtrack is minimal and absent throughout a vast majority of the runtime. However music plays an integral part in emphasising the movie’s darker moments. During the scene where Emmanuel is taken into care, the piano amps up Rocks’s tears, anger and pain at separation.

On the strength of this scene, Director Gavron matches Ken Loach’s ‘Cathy Come Home’ (1966) for gritty social realism. Yet ‘Rocks’ doesn’t wallow in miserablism. A classroom Malawah fight has the slapstick silliness of a Buster Keaton caper. Then a sunny day at the beach calls to mind the more joyous elements of Celine Sciamma’s ‘Girlhood’ (2015).

Born out of a monopoly of TV and Film workshops, the young cast is simply superb. Bukky Bakray encapsulates Rocks’s anguish and heartbreak and her scenes with Emmanuel are guaranteed tear-jerkers. 

Other standouts include Nottingham’s very own Shaneigha Monik-Greyson who is always handsy for a fight as Roshe. It’s interesting too that the roughest girl on the block should come from Nottingham. A subtle nod to the city’s reputation as the gun capital of the UK? The statistics that once dubbed us “Shottingham”.

‘Rocks’ firmly establishes Sarah Gavron as the mistress of British “feelgood realism”. As she did with her excellent women’s suffrage drama ‘Suffragette’, Gavron has an eye for making social justice accessible. And this warm, witty, wonderful film does exactly that...

‘Rocks’ is in cinemas and on Netflix now.
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A version of this article appears in LeftLion and can be found at:
https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2020/october/rocks-film-review/
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THE TRAITOR (2020) FILM REVIEW

10/12/2020

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***

15, 153 Mins

As long and lavish as ‘The Godfather’, but not nearly as subversive.
I do love a good gangster saga and Marco Bellocchio’s film most certainly is that. ‘The Traitor’ (2020) is a two and a half hour tale of a mobster’s unravelling that’s as long and lavish as ‘The Godfather’ (1972), but not nearly as subversive.

The film begins at the height of an all-out war between Sicilian mafia bosses over the heroin trade of the early 1980s. Real-life mobster Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) has fled Palermo for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Back home, his sons and brothers are being killed in action. Meanwhile Buscetta is extradited back to Italy by the Brazilian police. Here he becomes “pentito” - the Italian word for a member of a criminal organization who has collaborated with a public prosecutor. 

Buscetta does this by meeting with Judge Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi). Thus betraying the generation-standing vow he made to the Cosa Nostra...
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‘The Traitor’ is a violent movie in the manner of Brian De Palma’s blood-splattered ‘Scarface’ (1983). There’s a raunchy sex scene - with bare boobs and buttocks - that’s interrupted by a police raid. And a man’s arm is slashed off by a machete.

Director Bellocchio clearly understands that a Mafioso is a profession of violence. And yet still finds beauty in it. For example, a shootout amidst a hall of mirrors is a particular cinematographic treat. Later, expert special effects are called for during a car crash on a rollercoaster road. As glass shatters, there is physicality, heft and most importantly pain.

The costumes and sets are immaculate. Especially in the opening party scene which just explodes with tuxes, white robes and maxi dresses. ‘The Traitor’ unfolds over three decades and Bellocchio’s succulent costume design reflects the changing fashions and attitudes of the eras. In scene 1 set in 80s Palermo, Buscetta looks dapper in a white suit and black shirt. Moving the setting to Fort Collins, Colorado, he is considerably more sombre in a tweed jacket, thick jumper and comfy scarf.

Bellocchio also exercises a stunning eye for location and scenery. A scene where Buscetta has a smoke by his balcony overlooks Rio’s romanticized skyline, for instance. Elsewhere, a helicopter’s landing in Palermo moistly photographes the sapphire colour schemes of the Tyrrhenian.

‘The Traitor’ isn’t a youthful kind of gangster film. There’s no utterance of the line “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” from ‘Goodfellas’ (1990). This is not a story of a kingpin’s rise and fall from grace. More a mournful, late-life reflection on the highs and lows of gangsterdom. Very similar to ‘The Godfather: Part III’ (1990) or, more recently, ‘The Irishman’ (2019).

But I can’t help, but wonder whether we’ve seen this done before and frankly done better. The film tips its hat to surrealism in a bizarre fantasy sequence where Buscetta is nailed into a coffin by his family. This is supposed to symbolize Buscetta’s declining mental state. And the concept of a mobster with mental health issues is similar to ‘The Sopranos’ (1999-2007).

The problem is Pierfransesco Favino is no James Gandolfini. He didn’t intimidate me every time he entered the way Tony Soprano did with his hulking 6ft1 height and pot belly. 
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What Bellocchio has here is style. This film is really good at filming the glamour and the pizzazz that comes with the Mafia lifestyle. What it leaves behind is the subversion and the commentary. ‘The Traitor’ has very little to say about the lives lost to a life of crime…

‘The Traitor’ is in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema now.

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AUGUST CINEMA RUNDOWN: PART 2

10/3/2020

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*Babyteeth (in cinemas) - ****
*Hope Gap (in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema) - ***
*Spree (in cinemas) - **

You’ve got to feel a wee bit sorry for Eliza Scanlen. Specifically because cinema seems to really enjoy killing her off at the moment. First as Beth March in ‘Little Women’ (2019) and now in ‘Babyteeth’ (15, 118 Mins) where she plays a terminal cancer patient. In Scanlen’s favour, the best thing I can say about ‘Babyteeth’ is that it avoids ever feeling polemical.

Like ‘Saint Frances’ (2020) did for abortion and menstruation, Shannon Murphy’s film approaches a potentially upsetting subject through the facade of a coming-of-age family drama with romantic inflections. Scanlen plays Milla - a 16 year old girl about to begin chemo and whose family houses a drug dealer named Moses (Toby Wallace) when he is kicked out of his house. 

Milla’s orthodox parents (Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis) disapprove mightily of Milla and Moses’s increasingly touchy-feely friendship. Particularly due to the fact that Moses is 23 and they catch him stealing from their kitchen. That’s not to say mum and dad Anna and Finlay don’t have serious issues of their own. Anna self-medicates with prescription pills to cope with her daughter’s illness. Meanwhile Finlay is cheating on her for a younger neighbour (Emily Barclay) who has now become pregnant.

The schmaltz and sentimentality of many YA cancer dramas are justly avoided. In their place are sensitive themes about identity, sexuality and sexual experimentation. “That boy has problems!” Anna screams at Milla in reference to Moses. “So do I!” Milla answers explosively before growling and pulling a tiger face.

This idea about Milla being something of a wild animal is evident in her Princess and Pauper relationship with Moses. Despite him being a druggie and a thief, she still loves him. It’s as though she sees an element of her own premature desire for rebellion in him. He’s an escape for her from the expected conformities of being a woman.

Milla’s rebellion and escapism extends into her sexual orientation. In one pivotal scene, she dances with a male cross-dresser in a nightclub. The soundtrack weaves, whirs and woozes in and out of all Milla’s greatest hopes, doubts and aspirations. Is Milla bisexual? Her dilated pupils gliding across the female bodies on the dancefloor certainly have an air of seduction. But I don’t think Director Murphy is particularly interested in exploring LGBTQ culture or identity. Just as cancer provides the backdrop for a domestic saga, this subplot is secondary to Milla’s introduction into womanhood and adulthood which has a much more universal appeal.

‘Babyteeth’ isn’t perfect. The storyline involving Finlay’s pregnant girlfriend feels tacked-on and underdeveloped. But the film does boast powerful performances from Scanlen and most significantly from Ben Mendelsohn. Usually a go-to bad guy in Hollywood, he’s just a joy to watch here as the disciplinarian dad who begins to mellow with news of his daughter’s condition. Mendelsohn is also the only person who can make the line “you threatened my wife with a meat prong?!” sound funny as f**k!

‘Babyteeth’ is a funny and moving account of the glories and grotesqueries of growing up that just happens to have a tumour growing in its breasts…

Screenwriter William Nicholson steps behind the camera for the 2nd time in ‘Hope Gap’ (12A, 100 Mins). A bit of a career blind alley for the man who penned ‘Gladiator’ (2000) and ‘Les Miserables’ (2013). There’s no sword or sandals in sight on the chalk cliffs of East Sussex. The film’s basic premise is ‘Marriage Story’ (2019) meets ‘Summerland’ (2020), but more able to house real drama and real characters.

It takes its title from the real-life cove Nicholson played under as a child and the marital breakdown at the centre of the film is based on his own parents’ divorce. Thus Josh O’Connor (so fantastic in ‘God’s Own Country’ (2017)) is a semi-autobiographical version of Nicholson, returning to his pristine hometown of Seaford to find his parents’ marriage in disarray. 

Bill Nighy’s Edward is cheating on his wife Grace (Annette Bening) for a mostly unseen younger woman. The revelation of the affair brings an end to the couple’s 29 year marriage. ‘Hope Gap’ resists the temptation to cast the adulterous husband as the villain of the picture. Much is made about his age being out of touch with the times (he uses coins rather than contactless to pay for an ice cream), but Edward is overall the more sympathetic side to the marriage. A meek, docile individual given to the temper tantrums of his off-kilter wife. 

Grace, on the other hand, is a selfish, manipulative and occasionally abusive woman. There’s a scene where she slaps Edward during a heated argument at the dinner table. This scene kept my cuticles chewed as much as when Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson were screaming profanities at each other in ‘Marriage Story’. A nice encapsulation of the craziness of divorce.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Bill Nighy imbues his quintessential British deadpan into the part of the placid husband. Meanwhile Annette Bening appears to be channeling the matriarchal spirit of Emma Thompson. Both in her impeccable English accent and thoroughly conservative acting. The best thing about her performance is that she gets us to sympathise with a character quite so insufferable.

Some of the subplots don’t work. Grace’s love affair with the poems of Christina Rossetti reeks of pretension, for example. Especially when being recited to the clashing tides of the South East coast. And there’s a storyline about a mixed race couple (Aiysha Hart and Ryan McKen) that is underwritten.

The scenery really is stunning though. This is a film that’s sense of location and place is unparalleled. It’s also a strong portrait of the emotional and psychological impact divorce has on family and community.

Finally, a word or two on ‘Spree’ (15, 93 Mins). How many pale ‘Taxi Driver’ imitations do we need for us to realise this classic doesn’t need imitating? This one has a potentially interesting set-up. ‘Stranger Things’ Joe Keery is a social media obsessed ride-hail driver who murders his passengers, films it and posts it on Snapchat.

There’s plenty of room for commentary on the digital dangers of vesting too much faith in social media. Unfortunately this is mostly obliterated by the film’s crude and charmless violence. And, no matter how impossibly charismatic Keery might be, he is never in the slightest bit engaging in the way Director Eugene Kotlyarenko appears to think.

‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) is the greatest film ever made because it peered behind the visor of Travis Bickle. Travis may have been a misogynist, a sex addict and a homicidal maniac, but you still sympathised with him. You felt sorry for him when he was rejected by Betsy. And egged him on as a hero when he rescued Iris from the brothel. We were encouraged to identify him as a misunderstood outsider who didn’t quite fit in.

Even the recent ‘Cuck’ (2020) (a film I absolutely hated!) found reasons worth sympathising with its misanthropic lead character. For example, the woman at the bus stop who told him to “f**k off” really was rude to him. Meanwhile his racist spat with a group of black youths was set off by them loitering on his property and calling him “OP”.

In the case of ‘Spree’, there’s never any indication as to why its character commits these murders nor why he’s so messed-up. This makes it an entirely one-dimensional portrait of sociopathy.
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TENET (2020) FILM REVIEW

9/26/2020

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*****

12A, 149 Mins

A terrific 10/10 for ‘Tenet’!
Time after time Christopher Nolan has fidgeted and fiddled with the concept and mechanics of time itself. ‘Memento’ (2000) was famously told backwards. In ‘Batman Begins’ (2005), Bruce Wayne’s origins story was told non-chronologically. Time works differently depending which dream level you’re on in ‘Inception’ (2010) and depending which planet you’re on in ‘Interstellar’ (2014). And, in ‘Dunkirk’ (2017), time differs depending on which character perspective you’re being shown.

Now, with ‘Tenet’ (2020), the genius film-maker tackles time travel with a fistful of plutonium and a shard of inverted bullets in this skull-spinning, cortex-splitting Sci-Fi thriller. A blockbuster with both brawn and brains, ‘Tenet’ balances sledgehammer action with cerebral ideas about parallel worlds, paradoxes and fixed points in time. It is unhesitatingly Nolan’s best film to date and, released in the current Covid crisis, deserves to go down in history as the film that saved cinema in 2020.

‘Tenet’ opens in suitably breathless fashion. A Kiev opera siege visually recalls Bane’s stadium attack in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012) and matches ‘The Dark Knight’s bank robbery prologue for sheer excitement. As masked terrorists hijack an opera house, it’s down to a band of men in black face masks and spandex suits to save the day.

Nolan dexterously choreographes shots of men running around the building to the thundering staccato of Ludwig Goransson’s palindromic score which BRAAMS and BUURS with the action. There’s a musical veracity to the reversed gunfire with bullets bouncing off objects echoing against the soundtrack. Most impressive and immersive about that first scene is how little dialogue it actually involves. With the exception of the quote “we live in a twilight world” (a nice nod to the poems of Walt Whitman), it basically powers along on a great, surging tidal wave of visual and physical storytelling. Nolan demonstrates here a profound understanding of the machinations of silent cinema that would make Melies proud.

From here, we are introduced to The Protagonist (John David Washington). He’s a secret agent tasked with preventing World War III. “Nuclear holocaust?” he questions to Clemence Posey’s perceptive scientist. “No...something worse” she answers forebodingly.

Threatening world peace is “inversion”. This is the ability to reverse an object’s entropy from travelling forwards in time to backwards in time. And there’s a great scene where The Protagonist fires a pistol into a rock face and the bullet shoots back into the magazine. “You’re not shooting the bullet...you’re catching it” says Posey. A simplistic, but cognitive description of the physics of inversion.

The metaphysical theory of the Grandfather Paradox has been explored many times in ‘Doctor Who’ (1963-). That’s the idea that changing the past to even the smallest degree can have grave consequences for the future. Marty McFly discovered exactly this when he prevented his parents from meeting on the dancefloor in ‘Back to the Future’ (1985). Thus making his own birth impossible.

‘Tenet’ addresses the possibility of paradox in a rather more breathtaking fashion. In the build-up to the climactic battle, a key conversation highlights, in the words of The Doctor, “the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux”. In reference to the upcoming “armageddon”, The Protagonist poses to Robert Pattinson’s Neil that “doesn’t us being here now mean it never happened?”. Neil’s response highlights the prospect of parallel worlds. Where an infinite amount of polar opposite scenarios can co-exist in time and space.

Bringing about this “armageddon” is Kenneth Branagh’s Andrei Sator - a Russian oligarch who can “communicate with the future”. With a reedycuulous Russkie accent and itchy stubble, it’s a role that should be total ‘Austin Powers’ camp, but Branagh plays it straight and serious. Even when verbally sparring off Washington with the most Bondian of quips. “How would you like to die?” he cackles in pure Dr. Evil mode. “You chose the wrong profession”...

Yet despite my initial pre-judgements, the director’s not-so-secret adoration of the franchise and Branagh’s trademark Eastern European baddie, this is not Nolan’s riff on James Bond. The film-maker apparently chose not to watch any spy movies in preparation for ‘Tenet’. I’m also not particularly sure about the comparisons with ‘Inception’. What do these two movies have in common beyond being fiendishly complex?

For the character of Neil, Robert Pattinson reportedly based his mannerisms on English author Christopher Hitchens. However - with his slick back hair, chunky scarf and tweed jacket - it appeared to me he was doing an impression of Christopher Nolan himself. Especially when pontificating and doing articulate hand gestures about crashing a plane. I just pictured Nolan pitching the line “not from the air! Don’t be so dramatic!” to the studio bosses at Warner Bros.

The aforementioned 747 crash is carried off with flame-grilled gusto. Looking and sounding especially spectacular when surrounded by a BIG, juicy IMAX screen. The most exciting plane crash since Flash Gordon crashed his jet into a greenhouse.

Early on, Washington has a punch-up with a gang of brutes in a kitchen. Through close-ups of each and every punch, the camera shakes and judders with the fisticuffs of the contest. Particularly when Washington grates someone’s ear off with a cheese grater. On the strength of this scene, Nolan could stand toe-to-toe with Paul Greengrass when it comes to delivering action of such physicality.

The wait for ‘Tenet’ has been long and, at times, painful. Nolan took a gigantic gamble insisting his movie come out in a summer wrecked by Covid-19. Whether his old-fashioned British stubbornness pays off remains to be seen. I just pray people get behind this bloody brilliant film. If you want the theatrical experience to survive, go and see ‘Tenet’...

‘Tenet’ is in cinemas now.
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THE RIFLEMAN (2020) FILM REVIEW

9/23/2020

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***

15, 104 Mins

Emotionally immersive tale of masculinity in the trenches.
What with ‘Dunkirk’ (2017), ‘1917’ (2020) and ‘Greyhound’ (2020), movies about British and American soldiers in World Wars I and II are hot in demand right now. Now, it’s time for the Latvian side to the story.
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‘The Rifleman’ (2020) is based on Aleksandrs Grin’s ‘Blizzard of Souls’ - a 1934 novel based on Grin’s own frontline experiences and which was banned by the Soviets for 60 years. It tells the story of Arturs (Oto Brantevics). Arturs is 16, lives on a farm and spends his mornings milking cows.

That is until the Germans invade his village, murder his mother and burn his house down. In 1915, Arturs signs up to join the national battalions of the Imperial Russian army alongside his father Vanags (Martins Vilsons) and brother Edgars (Raimonds Celms). Arturs is too young to join the army and his father too old, but exceptions are made due to the latter’s excellent marksmanship. They go on to fight the Germans in World War I, but the hell of war is nothing like Arturs imagined…

‘The Rifleman’ is at its most immersive as a tale of toxic masculinity in the trenches. Entering into war, Arturs is blessed with the macho, misguided belief that it is a world of hope, fairness and glory. Assumptions that come crashing into his face like exploding shrapnel when serving on the frontline. A harrowing moment where a soldier with his legs blown off screams “mommy!” calls to mind the Omaha bloodbath of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998). In that movie, a man cried “mama!” while holding his intestines.

That aforementioned scene personifies ‘The Rifleman’s attitude towards war. That young men were essentially sold a lie. There was no hope or glory. And big, strapping lads were reduced to quivering wrecks, wetting their pants and begging for their mothers.

In such a dark portrait of warfare, there is some light. A scene where a soldier named Spilva (Renars Zeltins) farts in the trenches had me chortling like a hyena. Especially due to the line that follows - “you gonna gas out the Germans, Spilva?”. Meanwhile shots of Arturs and his battalion’s bare bottoms skinny-dipping in the sea will send women wild.

Where this film is less successful is in capturing the cinematic spectacle of conflict. Budgetary constraints are particularly evident in the opening battle sequence. Its jerky, shaky camerawork has a touch of ‘Tropic Thunder’ absurdity and the rapid gunfire just looks like laser beams from ‘Star Wars’ (1977). There are also storylines that don’t gel such as Arturs’ romance with a nurse named Marta (Greta Trusina).

But I enjoyed ‘The Rifleman’, though, at its most nihilistic and emotional. Pulsing and throbbing with the chaos of battle in my veins. Viewed by over 200,000 people in the first five weeks of screening (the highest-grossing film of all time at the Latvian box office), it appears I wasn’t the only one…

‘The Rifleman’ is in cinemas now.

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AFTER WE COLLIDED (2020) FILM REVIEW

9/22/2020

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*

15, 105 Mins

​Like watching two Christmas trees humping for 2 hours.
The opening shot of ‘After We Collided’ (2020) includes raindrops, a lake and the side of a woman’s buttocks during sexual intercourse. Playing all over this is Aron Wright’s ‘You Were Supposed to Be Different’. That’s really all you need to know to know where you are with this dreary and dirgey YA romance.

It’s actually officially a sequel to a movie I’d never heard of - 2019’s ‘After’. And, in turn, it’s based on a series of new adult fiction novels by Anna Todd that, again, I’d never heard of. The movie, however, seems to believe that everyone has; littering its protracted 1 hour 45 min runtime with flashbacks and softcore porn voiceovers from the previous film. Hence the raindrops, the lake and the female buttocks.

The protagonists are Tessa (Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) - two of the most unsympathetic characters in the world. Tessa works at a publishing company called Vance Publishing and is a wee bit cross that Hardin (YES, THAT’S HIS NAME!) supposedly had sex with a girl called Molly (Inanna Sarkis) at a party. 

Hardin is an insufferable British frat boy with a mum (Louise Lombard) whose shiny skin complexion could easily double-up as his sister. Him and Tessa have less chemistry than candle wax, but ‘After We Collided’ thinks f**king will solve this.

They f**k literally everywhere. On the couch. In the shower. Under a tree. And yet, with no spark between them, these repetitive sex scenes are the least titilating I’ve seen in a movie in 23 years. It’s like watching two Christmas trees humping for 2 hours.

Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s performance as Hardin is particularly awful. In every scene, he just juts his bottom lip forward and tenses his eyebrows. His accent sounds a lot like Andrew Garfield, but without any of his charm or acting prowess.

Watching ‘After We Collided’, I was really hung up on the most minor details. Like why Hardin’s name sounds a lot like “hard-on”. How his mother looks young enough to be a sibling. And what a lech Hardin is especially during a yoga class where, as she bends over, he remarks about Tessa - “did you know you have the most amazing bum?”.
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When that’s what you’re thinking about, you’re clearly not engaged in the fantasy of the film. And yet I saw this in a packed screening room with a crowd of predominantly teenage girls who were really lapping it up. Say what you want about modern cinema audiences being stupid, they turned up to ‘After We Collided’ in their droves. I guess sex sells...

‘After We Collided’ is in cinemas now.

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THE ROADS NOT TAKEN (2020) FILM REVIEW

9/21/2020

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**

15, 85 Mins

Javier Bardem plays dementia well, but looks profoundly stupid as a “smart” writer.
‘The Roads Not Taken’ (2020) unfolds in three distinctly non-linear time frames. One featuring Javier Bardem as a man with Early-onset Alzheimer’s being looked after by his daughter (played by Elle Fanning). Then there’s a storyline about Bardem’s romantic reveries with a hot Spanish woman named Dolores (Salma Hayek). And thirdly he’s a “smart” writer on a boat; chatting up young American chicks because they “look like my daughter”.
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Bardem plays dementia well. His asymmetrical, even beastly face is perfect for conveying the confusion, paranoia and humiliation of the disease. There’s a couple of great moments that really capture the condition’s debilitating nature. For example, when he wets himself during a trip to the dentist. Or when he jumps out of a taxi and whacks his head on the pavement. Or when he steals a woman’s dog - thinking it’s his own pup Nestor - and gets pinned down by police officers.

The likeable Elle Fanning rises to the challenge of portraying an Alzheimer’s carer. A scene where she takes off her pants while changing her dad’s trousers provokes a particular giggling delight. It’s a role that will no doubt resonate amongst the 700,000 informal carers living in the UK.

Unfortunately Salma Hayek’s part as lost lover Dolores is underwritten. I also never believed Bardem as a genius writer. With his tawdry spectacles, chunky knitwear and coffee table facial hair, he just looks profoundly stupid.

Director Sally Potter (‘The Party’ (2017)) contrives a moving scene where Bardem - lost in the city - is offered shelter by a group of taxi drivers. One of them is particularly kind, giving him water and referring to him as “uncle”. And when his colleague shouts at Bardem “address! What is your address?!”, he tells him to “show some respect”.

And yet, in her decision to give Bardem a reason for his dementia, Potter appears to forget that the best movies about illnesses thrive on ambiguity. ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ (1995), for instance, didn’t feel the need to reveal why exactly its protagonist drinks. The drama there was more about the emotional and psychological toll Alcoholism had on Nic Cage and his loved ones. A late in the game twist here involving the loss of a loved one just feels terribly hackneyed. 

‘The Roads Not Taken’ is in cinemas now.

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AUGUST CINEMA RUNDOWN: PART 1

9/19/2020

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*An American Pickle (in cinemas) - ***
*Pinocchio (in cinemas) - ****

I’ve been slacking a bit lately - both when watching and writing. Since the end of June, I’ve failed to catch up on a substantial bulk of releases on streaming services. Both the critically lauded (‘Lynn and Lucy’ (2020)) and derided (‘Irresistible’ (2020), ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’ (2020)) have slipped under my critical eye. Meanwhile others such as ‘Clemency’ (2020) (shaping up as one of my 2020 favourites) have been seen, but not reviewed.

Perhaps my summer slack in film watching and writing is synonymous of the industry’s own slack in wake of the lifting of lockdown. UK cinemas have been allowed to open since July 4th, but only Odeon and Showcase chose to open their doors on that date; scraping by on re-releases of beloved cinematic classics (I’ve now seen ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993) for the zillionth time as a result!). 

Other chains such as Cineworld chose to stagger their reopening plans; shifting from July 10th to July 31st on the basis of a lack of new releases. To say the whole cinema relaunch has been haphazard is a joke.

August finally saw the theatrical release of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ (2020). Delayed three times in the past 2 months, the film finally dropped on August 26th. I’ve often described Nolan as the “saviour of mainstream cinema” when it comes to creating cerebral, original content amidst the Hollywood cacophony of sequels, prequels and reboots. However, in Covid times, such a statement has never felt more physical. I just pray people - social distancing and all - head down to the local multiplex to support ‘Tenet’ in person. If we want cinema to survive that is…

I will review ‘Tenet’ here on the website once I’ve seen it one more time. In the meantime, though, I saw a fair few films at the pictures last month. Surprisingly Nolan’s blockbuster of the year isn’t the only movie playing at the Corner House...

First it was down with Seth Rogen, an eggscruuciaating Eastyern Euuropeaan accyent and a jar full of pickles in ‘An American Pickle’ (12A, 88 Mins). This enjoyably outrageous fish-out of-water comedy casts Rogen in a ‘Fight Club’-style double role. On one side, he’s Herschel. This is a Polish Jewish laborer waking up after being preserved in a vat of pickles for 100 years.

Greeting him in modern-day Brooklyn is his great grandson Ben (also played by Rogen) - his only living relative. He’s a freelance app developer with his own app “Boop Bop” that checks company ethics. Naturally adjusting to 21st century life proves harder than it looks…

The film is funniest when experimenting with typical “man out of time” tropes such as Herschel misjudging pop music. There’s a hilarious moment where he beats up a group of construction workers for putting up a poster for newly-flavoured “Vanilla Vodka” (loathed for killing the authentic Polish tradition of straight Voddy). Such a scene is a masterstroke in Keaton-esque slapstick. Later, Director Brandon Trost pumps up the stakes in a chase through the forests that has something of the reckless energy of the Coen Brothers.

Herschel eventually becomes an American symbol of free speech albeit for all the wrong reasons. When hosting a friendly university debate, he condemns Christianity and blasphemes against Christ. With Herschel despised by the public, posting un-PC Twitter rants and missing his immigration files, the Government soon tries to deport him.

Here proceedings are increasingly more farcical and frankly less funny. Meanwhile Rogen’s other role of Ben is sorely underwritten. Still it’s great to see Seth truly enjoying himself as he licks up the scenery as Herschel (ridiculous accent and all!). Along with definitely more than 6 laughs, ‘An American Pickle’ comes underpinned with poignancy and pathos. 

For all the bobbins absurdity of its premise, there’s a classically down-to-earth story of tradition vs. progression at the film’s heart. Of a man struggling to adapt to the changing delicacies of modern America (vanilla Vodka and “Boop Bop” app I’m looking at you). That and ideas about what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century (a scene where Ben camps out in a local synagogue is particularly moving). This is a very personal role for Rogen and he relishes it.

Reviewing Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ (1940) for LeftLion back in May, I noted that the film managed to “shiver me timbers” through funhouse excesses of blow-up policemen, gurning clowns and red-faced statues showering children in tobacco. That is despite a universal age rating and Pinocchio not killing Jiminy Cricket, getting his feet burned off or hanged. 

The same is true of Matteo Garrone’s 2020 adaptation of ‘Pinocchio’ (PG, 124 Mins) which is closer to Carlo Collodi’s 1883 source material and does indeed feature the marionette boy doing all those things. Far creepier, though, is its menagerie of textured creatures. A woman with a snail’s body is a Del Toro-esque treat (unsurprising considering Guillermo Del Toro is currently working on a stop-motion version of the classic for Netflix). Meanwhile a Tuna with a human face provides the stuff of kiddie nightmares.

Garrone’s film differentiates greatly from the Disney version. Most significantly, the beautiful Blue Fairy doesn’t coo the immortal line “a lie keeps growing and growing until it’s as plain as the nose on your face”. That is when casting the spell that makes Pinocchio’s nose elongate.

I saw this movie on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Showcase; sitting behind a young family of four. As well as breaking any cinematic code of conduct, they were audibly repulsed by the young puppet’s revulsive mutation into a donkey. The fact that these Cronenbergian touches creep their way into a PG-rated family film is an astounding feat. This is certainly not a kids movie.

What it is is a terrifically physical fantasy. Where many modern fairytales prefer to create their creatures lazily on laptops, Director Garrone puppeteers his monsters with an abundance of rubbery practical effects and prosthetics. For example, a slobbery chimpanzee judge reminded me of Donald Trumbull’s sinewy and azure primate make-up applied to the winged monkeys of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939). The other puppets of Mangiafuoco’s company also call to mind the grotesque “Muppets from hell” goblins from Jim Henson’s ‘Labyrinth’ (1986). 

Like that film, ‘Pinocchio’s world wasn’t carved by today’s CGI or green-screens. Its picturesque Italian sets and marionettes were chiseled with time, care and, most importantly, heart. Add to this a lovely performance from Roberto Benigni as Geppetto and this is a fantasy film with some real magic.

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THE LOVEBIRDS (2020) FILM REVIEW

5/22/2020

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**

15, 86 Mins

Sizzling stars aside, 'The Lovebirds' can't romance rom-com sop with macabre violence.
For my full review, visit:
​https://www.moviequotesandmore.com/the-lovebirds-2020-movie-review/
​
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THE COUNTY (2020) FILM REVIEW

5/22/2020

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****

12A, 92 Mins

A contemporary Icelandic western.
For my full review, visit:
https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2020/may/the-county-review/

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    Meet Roshan Chandy

    Freelance Film Critic and Writer based in Nottingham, UK. Specialises in Science Fiction cinema.

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