AUGUST CINEMA RUNDOWN: PART 2

*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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