#2
Thursday 18th, 12.10am. 
   The walk from the hotel to the Filmhouse took exactly 30 minutes - exactly, to the nearest second. Amid much hubbub around the counters (nebulous queuing arrangements are a hallmark of this particular venue) I picked up my tickets, including one for AWAY WE GO [5/10] {USA 2009; Sam MENDES; 94m; Cineworld (public): paid £9.50}.
   The sold-out 10pm show turned out to be in the biggest of the CineWorld's screens, and was introduced by festival boss Hannah McGill, the film's director Sam Mendes, plus cast members John Krasinski and Carmen Ejogo. Female lead Maya Rudolph was absent, pregnant - this'll be her second child with none other than Paul Thomas Anderson, I just found out via IMDb. 
   I'd never really registered her before (she was apparently 'Molly' in A Prairie Home Companion) but Rudolph turns out to be by far the best thing about the enterprise - a  lukewarm indie-flavoured romantic comedy-drama about a quirky couple in their early thirties who for various borderline-unlikely reasons visit various friends and relatives in various corners of North America, as they look forward to the birth of their first child.
   The two-hander scenes with Krasinski and Rudolph, while talky and somewhat soppy, work just fine - especially when Mendes trains his camera on Rudolph's marvellously expressive features. Krasinski's role is more reactive than active, but he's likeable as ever as a man-child whose eccentricities fall narrowly the right side of goofily charming.
   Such a shame, then, that the sequences in which our lovebirds hang out with their kin/acquaintances fall so flat - too often the script relies on patronising caricature, broadly-played comedy, or heavy-handed tear-jerking. An array of capable actors (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Daniels, Paul Schneider) flit in and out, none of them getting the time or space to produce rounded three-dimensional characterisations. 
   In disappointing contrast to the sleek efficiency Mendes displayed with Revolutionary Road (the whole thing actually feels like an attempt to distance himself as far as possible from all that seething marital bile), he evinces little feel for the material here: his integration of the countless songs on the soundtrack (many of them twangling acoustica from Alexi Murdoch) isn't as smooth as it might have been, and the visuals have a flat, dunnish look (nearly all the interiors are backlit to the point of mistiness). The latter wasn't helped by the fact that the projection shown this evening was digital rather than celluloid - a slightly odd decision for the opening night of such a prestigious and long-running film festival.
   Going into the screening patrons were given an audience-award voting card - 'YOUR CHANCE TO BECOME A FILM CRITIC' - with four possible reactions. **** = Unmissable!, *** = Really good, ** = Enjoyed it or * = Not my thing. I ended up not voting, as my reaction to the picture was somewhere in that rather vast region that lies between "Enjoyed it" and "Not my thing". Probably closer to the latter than the former, but conversely I don't really think Away We Go, for all its deficiencies, deserves the lowest possible star-rating. I did laugh every now and again, and there were some moments that were quietly moving. Overall, however, I'm afraid this is something of a misfire from Mendes - let's just hope that Revolutionary Road doesn't turn out to be that most baffling of cinematic phenomena, the fluke masterpiece.
   And now it's 12.30am -- long day looming tomorrow, starting with the full Scottish breakfast I've requested for 7.30 (bending the rules somewhat - usually they don't start serving till eight.) A somewhat low-key opening night of EIFF for me - by the time I got to the Cineworld, about 8.30, there was no sign of the red carpet paraphernalia from only an hour before. 
   A little later, various august and/or glamorous-looking personages were visible queueing for the coaches that would take them to the opening night party - presumably in some fancy but relatively far-flung location. I did go to the party a couple of years ago when Hallam Foe was the opener and a couple of members of Franz Ferdinand did a short set on stage.
   And I suppose I could have wangled my way in again, even without my press-pass - maybe it would have been a more rewarding couple of hours than the Mendes picture afforded. Tomorrow I'll no doubt hear numerous reports from attendees, but at least I'm able to turn in at a relatively civilised hour, sober, virtuous and sensible. Hooray for Holyrood, as they say up here.
  
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#1
Wednesday 17th, 7.00pm. 
   Heading out shortly into what seems to be a relatively warm and sunny Edinburgh evening - total contrast to the cold, drenching rain when I set off from Sunderland this morning (called in at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea en route; total drive took about three hours.)
   Only one film on the schedule for tonight: festival opener Away We Go at the CineWorld multiplex, 10pm. There are several screenings of the picture today, and this is the last of the three public ones. I could have tried to talk my way into an "industry" screening which apparently kicked off about 15 minutes ago, but (a) I wanted to get settled into my digs, (b) there is likely to be all manner of off-putting red-carpet hoopla at the cinema just now, (c) I haven't picked up my press pass yet and (d) I fancy seeing the movie with a "live" audience as opposed to my fellow critics.
   Nearly all the reviews I have read so far have been lukewarm-to-negative, somewhat surprising given it's Sam Mendes' follow-up to the terrific Revolutionary Road (which only came out in the UK a couple of months ago), with a cast including John Krasinski (who displayed real movie-star potential in the otherwise so-so Leatherheads), Maggie Gyllenhaal (who is reportedly here with her husband, the ever-wonderful Peter Sarsgaard), Allison Janney and Jeff Daniels, and a script co-written by Dave (You Shall Know Our Velocity) Eggers.
   Still, lowered expectations can often lead to pleasantly surprising reactions, and I am rather in the mood for an undemanding indie-flavoured road-movie. Plan is to walk from here (my hotel) into the city centre, where I have to pick up various reserved tickets at the Filmhouse (walk should take about half an hour).
   Then I will head along to the Cineworld (another 15 minutes or so) where some of my colleagues from the Bradford Film Festival are watching the 6.45 screening as I type this entry. No prospect of a late night for me, as I have to be up bright and early to collect my press pass before the 9.05 screening of Follow the Master at the Filmhouse, with Exam almost straight after in the same cinema.
   Ten past seven now. Away I go.
  
Neil Young

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