BETTER MAN*****

Recency bias, but BETTER MAN may be one of the best films I saw in 2024. I cannot describe just how imaginative, kinetic, audacious and moving this film is.  Admittedly, Robbie Williams was a big part of the pop-cultural backdrop of my teenage years and early 20s. But I would like to think that even if you had never heard of one of Britain's biggest selling music stars, you would still get a lot from this deeply raw, deeply humane, film.

Williams has been open about his life story, not least in a multi-part Netflix doc.  He grew up in poverty in a former industrial town in England, with a father (Inside No. 9's Steve Pemberton - superb) who dreamt of stardom and abandoned Robbie and his mum when he was little.  At 15, he was plucked from obscurity to be part of one of the biggest Boy Band's of all time, but on the strict instructions that he was just the clown and the backing dancer, rather than having any musical or creative credibility.  By 19 he had left Take That and gone solo, with the self-imposed demons of trying to impress his absentee dad and trying to outcompete his old band and their newer rivals, Oasis. If Oasis sold out Knebworth, then Williams too had to sell out Knebworth.

The film is absolutely blunt about Williams' demons.  He is an alcoholic and drug addict and faces demons of self-doubt and self-hatred.  At many points we see Williams cutting cocaine with a razor and we later see suicidal ideation.  The genius of Williams and writer-director Michael Gracey (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN) is to depict Williams as a CGI-chimp, overlaid on real vocal and physical performance from Jonno Davies.  Through that avatar we see Williams as he sees himself - an outcast, a court jester, an animal.  But we also see an incredible range of emotion - from fear to joy to hurt and anxiety.  The eyes are so expressive and the child-hood version of the chimp is particularly winning.  And when Robbie is facing his demons, they are avatars of himself as a chimp - in various guises and from different parts of his life.  When he finally faces them down, and learns to forgive his dad in order to love himself, it's a moment of deep catharsis.

That Williams survives is down to his own hard work in rehab and his own honesty - but also the love of three women - his mum, his adoring grandma (Alison Steadman - superb as always) and for a period his fiancé his Nicole Appleton.  This part of the story is hard to watch.  Williams' addiction is in full-throttle and she is clearly in love with him.  We also get the revelation that she was forced into an abortion by her manager as she was on the cusp of her own chart success.

And what of the construction of the film?  Well, hear me out: this may well be the best movie musical of 2024, and yes that includes WICKED. The set-piece numbers are sensational.  There's a bravura montage set to Williams' hit Rock DJ, filmed on Piccadilly and Regent Street, that takes us through Take That's rise to success. For those of who remember those outfits and haircuts and dance moves, it's a kinetic, technically brilliant piece of musical theatre. Later in the film there's an equally brilliantly staged montage that shows Williams going from a meet-cute with Appleton to getting engaged and mourning the abortion.  The actress Raechelle Banno must be quite some dancer, as that dance scene set on a boat is phenomenal.  The final musical number I would like to call out is to Williams' hit Angels. Here we have him on the verge of Knebworth but mourning the death of his grandma. This is when I started crying.

I cannot speak more highly of Williams' honesty and creativity and his partnership with Gracey. BETTER MAN is one of the most unique, compelling and affecting films I have seen all year. It's also one of the most honest and moving depiction of addiction and mental health crisis that I have seen on film EVER.  I heartily recommend it to you.

BETTER MAN is rated R, has a running time of 134 minutes, and was released in the USA on Christmas Day and  UK on Boxing Day.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL****

I finished the film year strong with a double-bill of films about miserable life experiences tempered by kindly grandma figures who like the TV comedy show The Two Ronnies. In the first, by Adam Elliot (MARY & MAX) we are in a stop-motion depiction of childhood in 1970s Melbourne, Australia.  Grace (Succession's Sarah Snook) is a sweet but nerdy girl obsessed with snails, and beloved by her brother Gilbert. The first in a series of awful events results in her being split from that brother and fostered by a couple of swingers. Meanwhile, Gilbert is fostered by a couple of religious fundamentalists who want to suppress his incipient homosexuality.  As an adult, Grace is alone but for her kindly old grandma-substitute friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Even her fiancé isn't all he's cracked up to be  As with BETTER MAN the film does end with Grace creating a safe and happy space for herself, and letting go of some of her childhood trauma. But the overall feel of the film is - as with Elliot's prior works - miserabalist. If anything shitty can go wrong for Grace it will. As ever, the animation is beautifully rendered. There's something so unique and expressive in Elliot's style that you want to pause frames to pick up on the detail. But I found this inverse WALLACE & GROMIT just a bit too unrelenting in its sadness.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has a running time of 95 minutes and is rated R. It played the BFI London Film Festival 2024 and will be released in the UK on February 14th 2025. It was released in the USA in October.

MY OLD ASS***

Writer-direct Megan Park returns with he R-rated dramedy MY OLD ASS in which 18-year old Elliott (Maisy Stella - Nashville) takes some shrooms with her friends and suddenly finds herself talking to her 39-year old self (Aubrey Plaza - White Lotus). The films starts off being utterly hilarious with lots of shocked teenage horror that a 39 year old isn't married and is still in school. And why Stella may not look much like a young Plaza, she gets her give no fucks wry humour and confidence. 

At first, older Elliott's advice seems really good and helpful but there's one glitch.  Old Elliott tells Young Elliott to avoid a guy called Chad, even though they seem to have an instant connection that belies E's assumption that she is gay. The movie then takes a somewhat jarring tonal turn into a far more serious and affecting drama. Which is all good. I just didn't see it coming. And it felt a bit rushed and underdeveloped - and well - trite - by the end.  That said, Maisy Stella has a real talent for comedy and I hope this film leads to her getting more parts.

MY OLD ASS is rated R, has a running time of 89 minutes, and was released in September.

THE OUTRUN*****

THE OUTRUN is a brilliantly constructed and occasionally visually and aurally beautiful film about a young woman getting sober.  It doesn't cover up any of the pain and violence and hurt of her journey, including relapse, but culminates in a scene of such visceral euphoria that it leaves you hopeful.

The film was produced by and stars Saoirse Ronan (BLITZ) as Rona.  The film intercuts three eras in Rona's life. In her old life in London she parties hard to EDM, gets drunk and lashes out at her long-suffering boyfriend (Paapa Essiedu) to the point where she hits bottom and ends up in a strict residential programme.  In her new sober life back home in Orkney - and a series of ever smaller islands off its coast - we see her serendipitously find a new passion for life.  The third strand sees Nora remembering her childhood, with her father (Stephen Dillane) suffering bouts of severe depression.

The film is based on a memoir by Amy Lippintrot, adapted for the screen by director Nora Fingscheidt.  I love that it balances gritty reality with hope but never feels mawkish.  Even a final flourish in the end feels earned and light.  Ronan is - as we expect - stunning and raw and vulnerable in the central role.  But note also Dillane's subtly heartbreaking performance as her dad.  

As one might expect from a film based in some of the most harsh but beautiful land and seascapes, the film looks fantastic. But most importantly, it sounds fantastic. From needle drops, to the score by John Guertler and Jan Miserre, to the sound design by Jonathan Schorr and Oscar Steibitz.  Just as with SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE, THE OUTRUN is doing something special with sound that takes us into the mind of its protagonist and reflects the pressures bearing down as well as joyous release. This culminates in a wonderful scene on a beach where a now sober Rona is conducting the waves in a moment of euphoria, contrasted and intercut with her old life dancing to EDM.  This film really is something special.

THE OUTRUN is rated R and has a running time of 118 minutes. It played Sundance 2024 and was released in the UK in September and in the USA in October.

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE*****

Director Tim Mielants has delivered a quiet masterpiece in this film set in early 80s Ireland and based on the equally powerful, slippery novel by Clare Keegan with a screenplay by the writer Enda Walsh (HUNGER).

It stars Cillian Murphy (OPPENHEIMER) as Bill Furlong, the owner of a small coal business who is happily married and lives in a home filled with laughter and the tumbling chaos of a gaggle of daughters.  Nonetheless, as many who have scraped their way up from poverty, he can never quite shake off that feeling of insecurity and is haunted by memories of his childhood as an illegitimate child taken in by a kindly rich woman (Michelle Fairley - Game of Thrones).

The moral crisis of the film is triggered by Bill making a delivery to a convent himself, and seeing the exploitation of the girls there, and receiving a plea for help from one distraught teenager in particular. As viewers, we are sadly all too familiar with the decades-long abuses of the Magdalene Laundries, in which the Catholic Church exploited young pregnant women. The question is: what Bill will do?

As is made clear to him by the presiding Sister (Emily Watson - chilling), going against the Church means a kind of social ostracisation - and Bill has many girls to educate in the school that they run.  And yet, and yet, he all too well knows that his own mother might well have ended up in such an institution, had she not been taken care of by her kindly employer. 

The resulting film is beautifully acted and captures the claustrophobia and oppression of a small town suffocated by the Church.  The sound design is particularly notable for depicting the twin horrors breaking in on Bill's mind - of his childhood and what is happening in the convent. Just as with the novel, this is a movie that absolutely envelopes you in a certain time and place, and stirs up emotions and provokes moral questions. It is a thing of beauty and brilliance.

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 98 minutes. It played Berlin 2024 and was released in the USA and UK in November.

JUROR #2****

I am not exactly sure why JUROR #2 slipped from view and made poor returns but it is a good old-fashioned, handsomely made, twisty courtroom drama. 

Nicholas Hoult (NOSFERATU) stars as Justin - a recovering alcoholic with a heavily pregnant wife.  Early into a criminal trial for murder Justin realises that the man on the stand is innocent of brutally bludgeoning his partner because it was actually Justin who was returning from a bar, having nearly relapsed, and thought he had hit a deer. He did get out of the car to investigate, but not finding anything, drove off.

So what should he do? Should he confess, knowing his history of DUIs will make his testimony unreliable? Should he agitate in the jury room for a mistrial?  And what of the prosecutor (Toni Colette), who needs a conviction for her re-election campaign?

The film works as a backward-induced whodunnit. Is the jury going to figure out what really happened?  It also works as case study of moral code, much as SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE will. How far has Justin truly reformed? 

As I said, there's nothing particularly new or inventive here, but the script was clever and tight, the performances solid, and I was thoroughly engaged throughout. It's kind of amazing that nonagenarian Clint Eastwood can still churn these things out.  It feels like a film that we used to make in the 80s - intelligent smart thrillers for adults. Maybe that's why it couldn't find its place at the Box Office.

JUROR #2 is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 114 minutes. It was released last month.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM**

Director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost In The Shell)'s THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a mediocre animated film set in Middle Earth that has too little story for its running time, despite having about seven screenwriters credited to it. Apparently the film was rushed out so that New Line could keep the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and if so that might also explain the rather average animation. I suspect there is a tighter, more compelling 90 minute film within this baggy two hour plus running time, and that a 90 minute film may have allowed for a more detailed and inventive animation style.

The story is crafted to speak directly to the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, much as the TV series Rings of Power does. This means that musical themes are repeated as are character tropes: the proud but outmatched King, the rejected but loyal nephew, the daughter who is underestimated but proves herself a hero. At its worst, lines are lifted straight from LOTR, such as when Hera says that all eyes will be fixed on her. 

The story begins with Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox - Succession), proud ruler of Rohan, refusing to marry his daughter Hera (nepo baby Gaia Wise) to Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), the son of a Dunlander. This starts a massive feud, resulting in Wulf later attacking Edoras and forcing Hera to lead her people into what will become Helm's Deep. Battles ensue.

To be clear, I did quite enjoy the film but just wish it had been tighter and meatier and less beholden to LOTR callbacks. There's something really moving about seeing Helm's end and then hearing that funeral song. But it just isn't enough to sustain the running time.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 134 minutes.

RUMOURS***

Co-directors Guy Madden (MY WINNIPEG) and Evan and Galen Johnson have created arguably the most absurd, whimsical and batshit crazy film of 2024 in their political satire RUMOURS.  

The movie starts with the G7 leaders meeting at German country estate to draft some kind of vapid communique about an unnamed crisis. Night falls, their phones stop working, fog rolls in, a giant brain appears (!), and the leaders start stumbling through the forest without a clue.  Evidently this is an extended metaphor for the now G-Zero world that we live in, with global leaders incapable of speaking honestly about, let alone solving, the existential crises facing our planet.  How far you find it overstays its welcome and wears on your nerves depends on your tolerance for its bonkers style.  

There are some brilliant set pieces. Cate Blanchett in an appalling German accent asks the Canadian PM if he wants a neck massage like a cheapo seduction scene.  The Canadian and Japanese PMs attempting to sail to help to a faux-moving Enya song. Charles Dance singularly failing to even attempt an American accent for his role as US President. Alicia Vikander in an hilarious cameo as the European Commission President in deep communion with the Brain. And for my money, the funniest of all is the cynical and pragmatic British PM, played by Nikki Amuka-Bird - the audience's way into this nuts story.  

I felt like the story outstayed its welcome but I liked its audacity and tone.  The more extreme the concept, the shorter the running time should be.

RUMOURS is rated R and has a running time of 104 minutes. It played Cannes 2024 and opened in October in the USA and earlier this month in the UK.

THE RETURN**

THE RETURN is an earnest but overly attenuated retelling of the closing act of the Greek myth Odysseus. A fully shredded Ralph Fiennes stars as the king who abandoned his people for a decade long siege of Troy and then an epic years-long sea voyage home.  When we meet him he is washed up naked on his home island, hiding his true identity through shame that he returned when so many of his soldiers died.   Meanwhile his wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) is being harassed to take another husband among the many foreign raiders who are pillaging her lands.

We do not see the spousal reunion until around 45 minutes into the film and it's an acting tour de force.  Odysseus refuses to reveal his identity but Penelope has figured it out and asks searching questions of him - why did he abandon his family? Why did he take so long to come home? War? What Is It Good For? etc.  We then spend an hour derping around the island as their son is on the run from the raiders, before the climactic bow and arrow scene in which Aragorn, sorry Odysseus, reclaims his bride, and goes Full Tonto on his rivals.

That one deeply moving reunion scene aside, this film is desperately slow. Thanks to some pretty pedestrian direction from Uberto Pasolini (STILL LIFE), it feels as though each scene is wading through molasses, and Odysseus stringing his bow seems to take an age.  I feel like there is a really good 60 minute cut of this film that is more engrossing and less repetitive. I mean, how many times do we really need to be told that Penelope is being forced to take a husband? I couldn't shake the feeling that this was all just an excuse for Ralph Fiennes to get buff, naked, and drenched in blood.  Maybe he longs for a role in Vikings?

THE RETURN is rated R and has a running time of 116 minutes. It was released on Prime Video earlier this month.

CARRY-ON**

With CARRY-ON, director Jaume Collet-Serra (BLACK ADAM) delivers a po-faced, humourless, holiday-themed action thriller that is competent but never thrilling.  Taron Egerton (KINGSMAN) plays an aimless loser TSA agent co-opted by a mercenary (Jason Bateman - Arrested Development) who wants to smuggle a nerve agent onto a plane on Christmas Eve. Cue confused looks from co-workers and pregnant girlfriend/colleague as our hero starts muttering to himself and acting weird.  Luckily a sparky black policewoman (Danielle Deadwyler - TILL) - following our recent trend from WICKED LITTLE LETTERS and VENGEANCE MOST FOWL - realises something is up.  No prizes for guessing how it resolves.

I give it two stars from some genuinely good banter between Bateman and Egerton in the first act, with Bateman needling Egerton's TSA agent for his lack of ambition. But where's the warmth?  This film probably suffers from the fact that I recently rewatched the original DIE HARD. In that film we had jokes, we had catchphrases, we had actual relationship peril between our working class guy and his business executive wife.  We had a properly iconic villain.  This film lives in DIE HARD's shadow with its basic plot beats and concept, but feels so much more drab.

CARRY-ON is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 119 minutes. It was released on Netflix earlier this month.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE*

The original 1984 GHOSTBUSTERS was a thing of perfection - inventive, hilarious, perilous, epic, buddy-bromance intimate. For decades, people have been trying and failing to resurrect its unique magic, not least SATURDAY NIGHT's Jason Reitman - son of the guy who directed the original.

Unfortunately, FROZEN EMPIRE is no exception to the sucky sequel rule.  It's a bloated film, both in terms of characters and running time, with disappointingly few moments of levity and no actual jump scares. 

In this contemporary retelling Egon Spengler's daughter (Carrie Coon - The Gilded Age) has taken over the family business with her two kids and partner (Paul Rudd).  There's a plot line about how hard it is to be a bonus dad and how the teenage daughter's only pal is a ghost in what may or may not be a queer relationship.  Meanwhile, a MacGuffin owned by some guy played by Kumail Nanjiani is about to unleash hell on earth and only the old school ghostbusters can stop it.  Ray (Dan Ackroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) - now conveniently rich - do most of the heavy lifting here. We get a cameo from Bill Murray as Venkman and that's literally the only scene that's actually funny. Kumail Nanjiani tries, but he can't carry a film this bloated on his own.

Enough already.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released in March 2024.

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS**

Watching WICKED LITTLE LETTERS right after Wolf Hall, it's hard not to conclude that Timothy Spall is in his villain era.  In this film, he plays a dyspeptic religious zealot holding his outwardly meek daughter Edith (The Crown's Olivia Colman) in abusive thrall.  She comes across as earnest and morally upright, and when a small 1920s English town is terrorised by filthy anonymous letters, everyone believes her when she fingers the local Irish working-class woman Rose (Jessie Buckley). And then, in a setup entirely mirroring that of the far superior WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL, it's the young Indian female police officer (Anjana Vasan) who actually has the intelligence to bring the true criminal to justice, in the face of her white male superiors' condescension.

The problem with this film - apparently based on true events - is that it is not what it was advertised to be. Rather than a ribald rural lark it's actually a serious drama about domestic abuse and bigotry. Which is also fine. But the direction from Thea Sharrock (ME BEFORE YOU) and script from writer Jonny Sweet do not inject any sense of peril or suspense. I didn't care for any of these characters, they didn't feel real, and I always knew whodunnit. I also found it weird that - as much as I love colour-blind casting - everyone was making a big deal about the policewoman being a woman, but no-one at all was making a big deal about her being a woman of colour. So the film moves along fairly predictably in a sort of mediocre and competent way and at the end of it one wonders what was the point.

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R. It was released in the UK in February 2024.

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL*****

It's hard to believe that Wallace & Gromit have been entertaining us for over 35 years. They have become veritable national treasures, along with their inventor and animator Nick Park.  And this latest instalment of their adventures, given a prime-time slot of Christmas Day in the UK, is an absolute delight!  The films remain as wonderfully funny, heat-warming, cine-literate, and genuinely pleasing to all ages as the rest of the franchise. We were guffawing, spell-bound and heartily pleased.

Park is joined by co-director Merlin Crossingham, on debut, in VENGEANCE MOST FOWL.  We begin with our beloved inventor Wallace, now voiced by Ben Whitehead, creating a household helper called Norbot to help with his long-suffering sidekick Gromit's daily tasks. Of course, the mute dog Gromit can never voice his scepticism at the ruthless efficiency of Norbot, but his expressively animated face tells us that he is not the least bit surprised when Norbot is hacked and placed in Evil mode, spawning a whole series of nefarious droids.  And who has hacked them? None other than our duos nemesis, Feathers McGraw!  Currently incarcerated in a zoo thanks to Wallace & Gromit's past crime-fighting capers, McGraw is out to re-steal the Blue Diamond, with the help of his minion-Norbots. Can our trusty duo save the day?!

This film has everything you might hope for in a Wallace & Gromit spectacular. Lovingly hand-crafted clay-mation. Tons of visual gags and cinema references, particularly to break-out films and heist movies.  And some wonderful voice cast cameos - not least Diane Morgan aka Philomena Cunk as Onya Doorstep, a local news reporter.  In the main cast, I loved Reece Sheersmith (Inside No.9) as Norbot and newcomer Lauren Patel as PC Mukherjee.  

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL is rated PG and has a running time of 79 minutes. It was released on BBC One in the UK on Christmas Day and will be released on Netflix on January 3rd.

BEATLES '64****

Producer Martin Scorsese and director David Tedeschi (THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT) have created something rather wonderful in this slice of history carefully contextualised and constructed.  They begin with archive footage from the legendary Maysles brothers who were present at the peak of Beatlemania when the lads landed in JFK and played The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. We see them at press conferences, and follow them into their hotel suite, hostages to the screaming fans outside.  We follow them to a US Embassy reception where John is pissed off by the snobbery.  And we see the contemporary fans interviewed in all their teenage hysteria, or casual indifference as is the case of some jazz loving black teenagers in Harlem. 

It's fascinating to see how the surviving Beatles interpret the footage that the Maysles took. McCartney claims that America needed to let off steam and have some fun in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. That sounds about right. But when he claims that they didn't give a proverbial about the embassy snobbery, that sounds like defensiveness, and the archive insult closer to the truth.

We also get valuable context from eminent interviewees - whether the Ronnettes, Smokey Robinson or David Lynch. Robinson is particularly fascinating as he speaks to the racial politics of the time, and the balance between the Beatles appropriating black rock'n'roll but also crediting it - something no other white artists had bothered to do.

But perhaps the most fascinating part of the documentary is pairing contemporary footage of hysterical teens with their now middle-aged selves looking back on their feelings and actions in 1964.  They still seem passionate about the Beatles, and pairing both sets of interviews take us somewhat closer to understanding the nature of pop-culture mania. 

Overall, this is a surprisingly moving and immersive film-watching experience. I felt that had lived through this weird little bubble in pop culture history - its teenagers not distant relics but revivified as excited, hopeful, giddy.  This is documentary-making at its best.

BEATLES '64 has a running time of 105 minutes and was released on Disney+ last month.

ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 2

I was desperately disappointed by this new documentary by the iconic R J Cutler (BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD'S A LITTLE BLURRY) and Elton's husband David Furnish. The framing device is Elton preparing for his final American gig at Dodger Stadium, which then allows Elton to take us back to the height of his fame and his epic 1975 Dodger Stadium gigs. Don't get me wrong. Elton is an astoundingly good musician and performer and so charmingly candid about his life that he makes for an interesting subject. The problem is that there wasn't anything here that hadn't already been explored in the wonderfully entertaining and deeply moving ROCKETMAN. In that film we get the suburban childhood and gigging, the rebellion into rock and roll, the insecurity over appearance, the confusion over sexuality, the drug addiction and domestic abuse. I guess what we get here is the framing device - the miraculous recovery and fulfilled family life - but unfortunately that's not where the focus really is.  The balance is far more to the looking back to the career. As a result, this doc just felt a bit redundant.

ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE is rated PG-13. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released on November 15th on Disney plus.

JOY**

Director Ben Taylor (Sex Education) and writer Jack Thorne (ENOLA HOLMES) deliver a rather earnest but tepid biopic about the scientists who developed IVF.  Maybe earnestness is what this topic requires, but it does rather strain the two-hour running time.

The cast is, however, mostly great.  James Norton plays biologist Robert Edwards, fizzing with excitement and energy and impatient with barriers.  He teams up with near-retirement obstetrician Dr Patrick Steptoe (an understated and moving Bill Nighy) whose ability to delicately extract the candidates' eggs allows Edwards to attempt to fertilise them in vitro. Tanya Moodie is wonderfully stern and pragmatic as the fictional NHS Nurse who has to manage the patients and the ward.  The only weak link is Thomasin McKenzie as the real-life research nurse who project managed the entire affair, Jean Purdy.  There is something in her line delivery that I found unconvincing. 

My suspicion is that there is a far more interesting film to be made about the opposition to the research - whether religious (represented here by Purdy's mother - an always excellent Joanna Scanlan) - scientific - or simply bureaucratic. We get some of that here but it is rather lightly skated over. I also feel that the film would have been more interesting if it had focussed on why Jean Purdy was not given due recognition for decades and despite Edwards' campaigning.  Basically I wanted something grittier and more nuanced than the rather Keep Calm and Carry On plain vanilla approach taken here.

JOY has a running time of 115 minutes, is rated PG-13, and was released on Netflix last month.

THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA*

Writer-director Matt Winn doesn't know what his film THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA is meant to be. Scabrous social satire on the superficial and selfish metropolitan elite? Deeply felt drama about a fragile woman barely mourned by her so-called friend? Caper comedy?  What we end up with is a little of all three and none of it satisfying.

For the most part, this film reads like a stage-play in a single location, with more or less unlikeable characters dealing with a contrived set-up.  That set-up is that Tom and Sarah (Alan Tudyk and Shirley Henderson) need to sell their beautifully appointed home fast to avoid bankruptcy. They announce this while hosting their good friends Richard and Beth (Rufus Sewell and Olivia Williams) as well as their unwanted surprise guest Jessica (Indira Varma).  Jessica proceeds to flirt with both men, decry the success of her new book, criticise both women for leading superficial pathetic lives, before committing suicide in the back garden. Obviously the remaining four adults should call the police. But what if that skewers the sale of the house?

At this point the film could have gone very dark and very funny, and the jaunty jazzy score makes us think it might. Sewell threatens to go full Armando Iannucci with comedy swearing but then the film reins him in, and inserts some moral qualms, and then limply concludes its brief running time.  I might have given it another star for a lovely cameo from Anne Reid as a nosy neighbour but had to dock it a star for being so condescending to its audience as to use flashbacks.

THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA has a running time of 89 minutes and was released in the UK in April 2024.

THE UNDERDOGGS****

Snoop Dogg continues his journey toward National Treasure with this hilarious self-consciously genre-respecting underdog sports comedy. The dude even reveals that he literally has sponsored sports outreach for poor kids for the past decade.  Could we love him more?

Snoop plays a not-even-remotely-thinly-veiled version of himself called Jaycen "Two Js" Jennings. He is a washed-up sports-star who longs for a lucrative commentating gig, and decides that coaching a bunch of foul-mouthed poor kids will look great on social media, and help him win back his childhood sweetheart. He does this with the help of his drug-dealer side-kick Kareem (stand-up comedian Mike Epps) and soon discovers his inner good guy. Naturally there's a climactic sports match in which our hero has to choose between being with his team OR debuting on Fox Sports. No prizes for guessing the ending.

What I love about this film is that it is - much like Snoop - unabashedly what it wants to be. It even references THE MIGHTY DUCKS in an opening and closing scene. The screenwriters aren't trying to do anything too clever with the genre.  They aren't reinventing it. The only nod to modernity is putting in a discussion about consent. Otherwise the kids remain foul-mouthed, hilarious, and utterly loveable, to the end.

THE UNDERDOGS is rated R, has a running time of 96 minutes, and was released on Prime Video in January 2024.

MOTHER'S INSTINCT*

Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme turns director in this woefully mediocre "thriller" apparently based on a Belgian film, and a novel before that.  It's basically a two-hander between Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, both great actresses ill-served by a script and direction that fail to ratchet up suspense, fear or paranoia.  Chastain's Alice and Hathaway's Celine start as best friends in early 60s suburbia. Celine's son Max dies in an accident and she then develops an unhealthy obsession with Alice's similarly aged son Theo.  At this point we are meant to get into a paranoid thriller where Alice questions her own sanity as Celine gaslights her. The problem is there isn't much plot, and what there is is very predictable.  Worst of all, the thematics - claustrophobic, judgmental suburbia - misogynistic husbands - are  briefly touched upon but never developed. I was expecting either Hitchcockian darkness and frights or Sirkian melodrama. I got neither. What a waste of my time and the leading ladies' talent!

MOTHER'S INSTINCT was released back in March 2024, has a running time of 94 minutes, and is rated R.

PIECE BY PIECE**** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Closing Night Gala

Multi-talented musician, rapper, producer, fashionista and all around creative genius Pharrell tells his life story in a documentary wherein it was shot conventionally and then over-drawn in Lego animation. I guess this is a thing now.  After all, we are getting Robbie Wiliams played by a chimp this week. Why? I dunno. Why not? The result is colourful, creative, imaginative and delightful. Who doesn't work to see Snoop Dogg as a minifig?  And by the way, making this film also made Lego become even more inclusive by radically increasing their range of skin colours and textured hair in the minifig range.

The problem with the technique is that it is distancing - and I think this may be why Pharrell chose it. He gets to completely control the narrative to the point of not revealing his or any of the interviewees' facial reactions to the questions being asked. As a result, I feel like acclaimed documentary director Morgan Neville (20 FEET FROM STARDOM) was stymied from the start.  The doc is therefore as fascinating and well constructed as we might expect from Neville. But Pharrell's falling out with Neptunes band mate is elided over, as just one example, and we get nothing about the Blurred Lines controversy, as another. The resulting film feels like hagiography. And I am a Pharrell fan. But I feel there was some grittier stuff we needed to get into.

PIECE BY PIECE is rated PG and has a running time of 93 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released in October.

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024

Johan Grimonprez’s documentary is one of the most unique, compelling, kinetic and insightful documentaries I have ever seen.  It is audacious in its scope and speed, assuming its audience can keep up with what is both a detailed micro description of events in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 - but also a wider discourse on racism, decolonisation and political activism in America.

Basically, we have Patrice Lumumba desperately agitating for democracy and self-determination in the DRC at a time when African states were exploited by each side of the Cold War.  At a time pre-dating the full-blown US civil rights struggle, we already have black musicians in the USA agitating for change too. We get the provocative contrast of the State Department exploiting iconic musicians like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie - sending them on goodwill tours of Africa - with Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crashing the UN Security Council in protest at Lumumba's murder. 

Why does the State Department give a shit? Because the DNC happens to sit on massive uranium reserves!  Amazingly, I had studied this period for A-Level history, complete with Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the desk at the UN. But I had never realised at which debate this was happening. Turns out, the Soviet premier was protesting the Cold War power grab in the DNC.

These strands and many more and interwoven into a dizzying, immersive and impressive film. It's a testament to its dynamic soundtrack and clarity of narrative construction that I never lost pace and could grasp its subtle arguments. Bravo to all involved.

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT has a running time of 150 minutes.

INSIDE OUT 2***

INSIDE OUT 2 was released this summer and has made just shy of USD1.7bn and counting on a USD200m budget. So two things are certain. 1) No-one needs another review of this film because everyone has already seen it.  2) Bob Iger is for sure gonna greenlight a threequel.

I found the film to be charming and spot on about the perils of puberty but basically blah. Maybe I am spoiled - the stunning animation and creativity are literally something I have seen before. The novelty and sheer heart of the first instalment got me all choked up in the threatre. This one, I admired, but it didn't hit me emotionally. Plus, I am hardly the target demographic.

Our protagonist Riley is now a 13 year old good kid dealing with increased anxiety and envy at the onset of puberty. She is sent to a sports camp with her two childhood best friends and faces the twin evils of wanting to hang with the cool kids, and doubting she is good enough to make the team. But of course, as we know she's a good kid, so no actual peril there.

Meanwhile, inside her head, the emotions we have come to know and love are joined by new puberty-laden baggage, and we get a new concept - the Sense of Self.  The message here is that it's damaging to try and only use good memories and feelings to create a Sense of Self. You have to let the bad stuff in too, and deal with it, and grow from it, and love it. So enough with the helicopter parenting parents!

Yep, Amy Poehler's Joy is very much the target of all those books I have been reading by NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt about the dangers of molly coddling kids in the real world, but letting them run wild in the virtual world. So as much as this film is aimed at kids, parents take note!

INSIDE OUT 2 has a running time of 96 minutes and is rated PG.

WICKED: PART I***

I came to WICKED: PART I cold. I had not seen the musical, heard any of the songs, and was unspoiled as to plot.  Here is what I discovered:

The movie is Act One of a two act musical that serves as a prequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ.  It begins with the death of the Wicked Witch of the West as announced by the Glinda the Good Witch and then takes us back to their teenage friendship at the unfortunately named Shiz University.  

We learn that the Wicked Witch was actually a thoughtful, earnest, sensitive girl called Elphaba who had been spurned by society because of her green skin and her frighteningly uncontrollable actual magic powers. She dreamed of meeting the Wizard of Oz so that he could grant her a wish.  As Galinda soon realises, that wish is to get rid of her green skin, because as much as Elphaba pretends not to care what people think about her, of course she does.  Thanks to a mix-up, the two teenagers become best friends.  Galinda begins to discover her conscience just as Elphaba discovers that she has a crush on Galinda's dashing and apparently superficial boyfriend Fiyero. They bond over their shared horror at the persecution of animals, who have hitherto lived side-by-side with humans in a Bojack Horseman style world. The film culminates in the girls finally arriving in the Emerald City to meet the Wizard and asking for her heart's desire....

Let's start with the negatives. First of all, the music is not to my taste. The vast majority is derivative, mediocre and eminently skippable. The exceptions are the songs Popular and Defying Gravity, but that's thin gruel for a two hour, forty minute running time. Second of all, the themes of the musical are obvious, ham-fisted and trite.  I feel that I have seen a bazillion movies about how the uniquely talented but superficially different people are excluded and mocked only to use their power for vengeance. X-MEN anyone?  And oh the delicious irony of a film so very inclusive that refuses to cast even one little person as a munchkin.  Third, the plot is just so blatantly obvious. I guessed the plot twist concerning the Wizard and the plot twist concerning Fiyero while watching Act One, and googled post-film to confirm my guesses.

Still, there's a lot to love too, and on the whole I did enjoy watching the film.  The production and costume design are exceptionally good, and I loved the steampunk aesthetic of the world.  Ariana Grande is hilarious as Galinda and Cynthia Erivo (HARRIET) is heartbreaking as Elphaba, and on the rare occasions when they sing together it's just so perfectly harmonious it's joyous. The two actresses evidently fell in love with each other during filming and that reads on screen. When they share a moment on a dance floor it brings tears to our eyes.  They are the reason why the running time flies by so fast and why - despite the largely mediocre score and unsubtle politics - the film is memorable.

WICKED: PART I is rated PG and has a running time of 160 minutes. It is on global release.

GLADIATOR II****

GLADIATOR II is glorious trash. I can't see it winning any Oscars, but the two hour plus running time flies by.  There's a ridiculous gladiatorial battle featuring a rhino an hour after it starts, and an even more ridiculous one featuring sharks an hour before it finishes.  There's a serviceable plot, lots of fan service from the original, and a juicy performance from Denzel Washington.  I don't think it will do for Paul Mescal what it did for Russell Crowe. He has precious little to say.  But I was, indeed, entertained.

The movie opens with an epic naval assault on a north African town led by Pedro Pascal's war weary Roman general Acacius.  It results in Paul Mescal's warrior Hanno being taken prisoner and his wife being killed. (Note in this version of Rome, women can be warriors too - but they still can't have meaningful impact on the plot.) Back in Rome, Hanno manages to impress Denzel Washington's political mover and shaker and Gladiatorial sponsor Macrinus. Hanno does this by fighting of a ludicrously CGI'd warrior monkey - the only duff note in the whole film. For me, the joy of these films is that they scrupulously bring dusty, vital, chaotic Rome to life.  I hate anything that brings me out of that.

And so the plot moves into gear.  Hanno wants revenge on Acacius, little realising that Acacius is as disenchanted with the corruption of Rome as he is.  Acacius has a loyal legion based in Ostia ready to launch a coup and install his wife, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) as Marcus Aurelius' literal and philosophical heir.   

The corruption of Rome is represented by the young, feckless twin Emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger) and a largely supine Senate represented by the bankrupt Senator Thrax (Tim McInnerny).

Somewhere between the two factions lies Macrinus, a power broker who bankrupts Thrax and gains the ear of the Emperors.  Is he on the side of Aurelius or opposed? Will he help Hanno or betray him?  

The resulting film is full of amazing visual spectacle and kinetic fight scenes. I loved John Mathieson's cinematography and the CGI rendering of ancient Rome is I found it curiously chaste for an R-rated movie though. We barely see Acacius and Lucilla kiss. Macrinus hints as his bisexuality but apparently a male-on-male kissing scene was edited out.  The twin emperors wear heavy make-up and one is meant to be gay, but it's all rather milquetoast. Still, I suppose sex scenes aren't the point in a sword-and-sandal epic. 

GLADIATOR has a running time of 148 minutes and is rated R. It is on release in the UK and opens on November 22nd in the USA.

Spoilers follow:  it's hard not to watch this film in light of the US election and to see clear parallels with the corruption of Rome and the newly installed kakocracy in America.  One could argue that Caracalla's appointment of Dondas is equivalent to Trump's nomination of Gaetz. And that the pure power philosophy of Macrinus, so Nietzschean, is that of Trump. And there's something tragic and true in Macrinus calling bullshit on the Dream of Rome.  Aurelius may have wanted to restore power to the Senate and People of Rome, but he wasn't about to end slavery.  Macrinus' nihilism actually makes more sense than all the Hollywood schmalz, especially if you know anything about Roman history.

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 11

The anticipation of iconic writer-director Almodovar's first ever English language film starring two exceptional talented actresses in Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore was high. I am sad to report that while the film is handsomely produced and surface-glossy, it lacks any real depth. And without any crunchiness in the writing the actresses have little to do but be .... nice.  The result is a rather vanilla, unbrave film that skirts over the profound issue that it is tackling.

The film is based on a Spanish book and I wonder if the source material has more conflict within it.  In Almodovar's version all the big questions have been decided and all debate is shut down.  Tilda Swinton plays a war correspondent called Martha who has incurable cancer and decides to commit suicide.  She procures a tablet on the dark web and asks her friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore) to be in the room next door when she dies. That's it. That's the plot. (Although it's padded out with unnecessary flashbacks to her ex-partner's death). 

The decision has been made and Martha will not allow Ingrid to try and persuade her out of it.  And we are not going to see any of the unpleasantness and pain of actually killing yourself in this way. Don't get me wrong - I am in favour of euthanasia - but this film situates it in a beautifully designed house with a beautiful woman in a beautiful outfit lying on a deckchair in a beautiful garden with elegant pink snow failing. I find that rather disingenuous.

The real problem with this highly stylised depiction of the friendship and the decision is that there is no conflict and no depth to the conversations between the two friends, other than maybe a discussion about career vs motherhood that never really convinced me. Compare and contrast with Swinton's own discourse on this subject in WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.  People have praised the performance - heck this film won the Golden Lion at Venice - but I really struggled to see what the fuss about.

I would suggest that if you are actually interested in this topic that you watch documentarian Ondi Timoner's desperately moving film LAST FLIGHT HOME.

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR has a running time of 110 minutes. It played Venice, Toronto and London 2024. It goes on release in the UK on October 25th and in the USA on December 20th.

NICKEL BOYS*** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 11

It is hard to believe that NICKEL BOYS is  the debut feature film from director RaMell Ross given its technical audacity and accomplishment. That Ross' major technical choice did not work for me is a shame but does not detract from the fact that we are witnessing a powerful and impressive new directorial voice. I understood the reasoning behind his decision and admire its bravery.  I will watch whatever he does next with interest.

The film is based on a deceptively short but searing novel by Colson Whitehead.  I read it on a flight from Munich to London and was deeply affected by it. It tells the fictionalised story of a brutal reform school in Florida where the black boys inside are abused, exploited and many of the murdered.  We see its horrors through the eyes of Elwood, an intelligent young man set for higher education whose path is diverted by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He scrupulously documents the abuses at the school and hopes to expose them, much to the horror of his best friend Turner, who is far more cynical and world-weary.  Decades later, the murders at the school are exposed and Elwood can finally give his testimony.

RaMell Ross begins his film with half an hour of context that shows the world in which the Nickel Academy exists.  Elwood is being raised by his beloved Nana (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in the standout performance of the film).  He benefits from a kind and politically active teacher who encourages him to study. Ross chooses to tell the story by showing Elwood point of view.  As a result, his face is withheld for quite some time.  In a bravura shot, we see Elwood reflected in the back and forth of his Nana's iron.  

We then transfer to the Academy, run by the corrupt Spencer (Hamish Linklater - THE BIG SHORT) and our POVs increase to include that of Elwood's friend Turner. So at least we can see the boys in each other's points of view. I understand why RaMell Ross chooses the immediacy of this style, especially considering the plot reveal in the contemporary timeline. But it distanced me from the subject matter and the characters. It brought me out of the film rather than immersing me in it.  I also think that it maybe wasn't executed as well as it could have been done, balancing the hand-held constant motion with the needs of the viewer. I felt like I had motion sickness at the end of the film.

That said, I still think this is a film to be admired. Unfortunately the POV style gives the actors little to do, but Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor gives a deeply affecting performance.  The sound design and score are superb. And the final epilogue that gives us a montage of artefacts and revelations is stunning.  When the film ended and the credits rolled you could feel the shock and silence of the audience as they struggled to digest what they had witnessed. It was powerful stuff.

NICKEL BOYS has a running time of 140 minutes and is rated PG-13. It played Telluride and London 2024. It goes on limited release in New York on Dec 13th and in LA on Dec 20th and in the UK on January 3rd 2025.

MARIA***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 10

Pablo Larrain's MARIA is a stunning film about iconic opera singer Maria Callas featuring a central performance by Angelina Jolie of such fragility and bravery that it destroyed me. It's a cinematic achievement at least on par with Larrain's Jackie Kennedy biopic, and arguably surpasses it. Every aspect is perfection.

The film focuses on the final week of Callas' life, sequestered in a grand Parisian apartment with her faithful housekeeper and butler (Alba Rohrwacher - HUNGRY HEARTS and Pierfrancesco Favino - WORLD WAR Z). Callas is dying of liver failure, ligament failure and is addicted to a variety of drugs.  Illness, dramatic weight loss, over-singing in her youth - whatever the reason - her voice has also failed her.  Publicly she claims that she will never perform again, but she is secretly rehearsing, with pitiful results. Added to the loss of her voice, we also know that she is suffering from heartbreak. Her big sister (Valerie Golina - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE - in a deeply moving cameo) tells Maria to look forward but this entire film is of a woman trapped in her past.  Her mother pimped her out as a singer in Nazi occupied Athens and maybe more. Her first husband robbed her blind (though this is not shown here).  Her beloved Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer - The Turkish Detective) stopped her from singing, maybe made her have a forced abortion, and then left her for Jackie Kennedy.  Only her paid employees show her any love or concern for her health.

Robbed of love and health and finally her voice, Maria retreats into a drug-induced journey through her past.  Her drug Mandrax is personified by Kodi Smit-McPhee (Disclaimer) as a young interviewer. As befits a woman who has been a public persona her entire life, Maria chooses what to withhold, and what narrative to spin. She is deliberately enigmatic and mysterious. But this is a kind of defence mechanism and an act of desperation, and her spin is unsuccessful, not least in the way she discusses her maybe pregnancy.

Angelina Jolie is magnificent and fearless in this role.  Her final aria sung in a nightdress to an empty apartment (and a crowd outside, unknown to her) had me in tears. We believe in every ounce of lifelong heartbreak.  She is a diva and she is desperate. She is vulnerable and commanding all at once. Kudos to the technical team who found a way to blend Jolie's own singing with Callas' iconic recordings, particularly in her final week, where her voice is unsteady and uneven. I always believed that Angelina was singing, and this is no mean feat. We see her lips and vocal chords and body tremble and convey emotion.  It absolutely makes the film credible and moving.

Kudos also to cinematographer Ed Lachman (CAROL) for so beautifully capturing sunlit 1970s Paris, but also the crisp black and white flashbacks to Callas at her peak, and the grainy dreamed interviews with Mandrax.  This is a film whose technical brilliance is completely at the service of the narrative. And what a narrative.  Steven Knight - of Peaky Blinders fame - creates a script that in a short time gives us a lifetime of pain and hurt. And that uses music, always Callas' own music - to express her feelings and propel the narrative. For those of us who know these aria by heart, the lyrics, the knowledge of Callas' life, and Jolie's performance, blend into something transcendent.  

My only question is whether the film will work as well for those not familiar with Callas' work, given Pablo Larrain's refusal to give subtitles and translations of the opera. He explained before the screening that he tried to avoid surtitles when watching opera as a child and wanted to relate purely to the performance. I kind of agree, but feel this may be a barrier to some audience members.

MARIA has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice and London 2024. It will have a limited theatrical release on November 27th and then will be released on Netflix on December 11th.

QUEER** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 10

This is a long film for little plot or interiority.  It proceeds as follows:  ageing disheveled junkie called Lee hooks up with younger man called Eugene who may or may not actually be queer in 1950s Mexico.  They travel to a tropical jungle to take ayahuasca, have a trippy experience, then part. Decades later the older guy is apparently still in love with the boy. And even this overdoes the level of narrative propulsion which is basically nil. I never felt as though I had a handle on whether Lee was actually in love or in lust until the final five minutes of the film. I didn't feel invested in the relationship or the intricacies of whether Lee was a trick or a love interest for Eugene.  There's a limit to how far you can watch Daniel Craig drink tequila in a linen suit.

Still, there are a few redeeming features to this film.  The needle drops featuring Nirvana and Prince are anachronistic but effective.  There's a wonderfully unexpected and bonkers and against type cameo from Lesley Manville (Disclaimer).  Director Luca Guadagnino and his leads, Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, are admirably brave in depicting gay sex. And as I said before, the final five minutes were genuinely moving. But boy there was a lot of self-indulgent, handsomely produced, but utterly dull chaff to wade through to get to the grain.

QUEER has a running time of 135 minutes. It played Venice, Toronto and London 2024. It goes on release in the USA on November 27th and in the UK on December 13th.

WE LIVE IN TIME* - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 10

WE LIVE IN TIME is a sub-Richard Curtis attempt at a tragicomic romance from director John Crowley (BROOKLYN) and writer Nick Payne (A SENSE OF AN ENDING). The film is so mannered and meet-cute and interior designed to within an inch of its life that I was utterly alienated from it. Its utter lack of authenticity robbed me of emotional engagement with what should’ve been a deeply emotional film.

Andrew Garfield (THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE) gurns his way through the film as the nerdy and conventional Tobias (oh yes!) who is run over by the 2024 version of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl played by Florence Pugh (DUNE: PART TWO).  Pugh’s Almut Bruehl (oh yes!) is a cool, unconventional, highly competitive, bisexual hipster chef. They fall in love, break up over whether to have children, she gets cancer, they have a kid, she gets cancer again, wins a cooking competition and dies.  That’s literally it.  

There’s no emotional growth or even emotional tension beyond a small spat at the start when the man asks the woman if she wants kids.  The excruciatingly embarrassing and improbable meet-cute is trumped by an even more excruciating and improbable birth-cute?  Worst of all, there’s no dramatic tension because the film has a non-linear structure.  

What a waste of a fine actress.

WE LIVE IN TIME is rated R and has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2024. It was released in the USA on October 11th and will be released in the UK on Jan 1st 2025.