| UK NEW, 26 JAN : 'Bobby' [6/10]; 'Old Joy' [6/10]; 'Them' [6/10]; 'Venus' [5/10] |
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| Monday, 22 January 2007 | |
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written for the next issue of Tribune magazine (all films are released in the UK on January 26th)  FIERCE TEARS, AND THE DYING OF THE LIGHT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bobby [6/10] USA 2006 Starring : Sharon Stone, William H Macy Director : Emilio Estevez ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Old Joy [6/10] USA 2006 Starring : Daniel London, Will Oldham Director : Kelly Reichardt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Them [6/10] France 2006 Starring : Olivia Bonamy, Michael Cohen Director : David Moreau & Xavier Palud ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venus [5/10] UK 2006 Starring : Peter O'Toole, Jodie Whittaker Director : Roger Michell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ONE of the many marvellous sequences in the late Robert Altman's masterpiece Nashville is a two-hander between Geraldine Chaplin (as supposed 'BBC journalist' Opal) and Barbara Baxley (as middle-aged southern-belle Lady Pearl). The largely-improvised scene involved Lady Pearl recounting her experiences working for the "Kennedy boys" during their electoral campaigns - experiences which were very much Baxley's own. Unbeknownst to Baxley, Altman had instructed Chaplin to repeatedly interrupt the monologue, pointing out that neither JFK nor RFK were quite the heroic saints of Lady Pearl's tearful memories. But when the cameras rolled, Chaplin was so bowled over by the sheer force of Baxley's devotion for her "boys" that just she couldn't open her mouth. Watching Bobby, actor-director-writer Estevez's two-hour paean to Robert Kennedy, you know exactly how Chaplin felt. It's a flawed film by any objective standard - sentimental, repetitive, over-earnest, over-ambitious, etc etc etc... But by the time the credits roll, you might just find yourself won over against your better judgement. Imagining what might have taken place in and around Los Angeles' ritzy Ambassador Hotel on 5th June, 1968 - the place and date of Robert Kennedy's assassination - Bobby is a sprawling 'crisscrosser' of a melodrama which takes as its templates not only Nashville and Altman's own Short Cuts, but also the Altman-influenced Boogie Nights and Magnolia, plus the more venerable likes of Grand Hotel and The Towering Inferno: we're introduced to a dizzyingly wide range of staff, guests and hangers-on, nearly all of them played by familiar faces (including Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Demi Moore, Elijah Wood and Altman-approved starlet Lindsay Lohan). The real star of the show, however, is Kennedy himself. He isn't "played" on screen as such (arguably a missed-trick, considering the eerie likenessof Steven Culp's performance in 1999's Cuban-missile drama Thirteen Days), but instead is a regularly-recurring, blazingly-charismatic presence on TV and newsreel footage. And Estevez's trump card is to devote the closing minutes of his film to a lengthy extract from one of RFK's rousingly idealistic speeches - enough, perhaps, to make a Lady Pearl out of the most scabrously skeptical of Opals. THE polar opposite to Bobby - apart from the fact that both films are American and recognisably "of the left" - meditative two-hander Old Joy isn't at all easy to describe: it's a Sideways without the wine (or the sex); a Deliverance without the rednecks. A surprise entrant on several Stateside critics' top-tens of 2006, this film explores absences and silences; lacks and wants; abandoned things lost things, missing things. Some viewers may feel that Reichardt (adapting Jonathan Raymond's hippyish, photo-illustrated novella) has also dispensed with anything resembling a "plot": not very much 'happens' over these 73 minutes, at least not on the (limpid) surface(s). Two old, thirtysomething pals go on a weekend road-trip to Oregon's Cascade mountains, where they eventually enjoy the calming, secluded delights of Bagby Hot Springs. Along the way, the pair - bearded, scruffy Kurt (Oldham) and Mark (London), who's 'settled down' into a relationship and is about to become a father for the first time - ponder a fast-changing world, one where their favourite record-shop has turned into a health-drink bar named 'Rejuicenation'... Dialogue is sparse, making every exchange freighted with meaning: when Kurt announces "I miss you, Mark" as the pair sit in front of a camp-fire, this counts as a major emotional statement. We're given scraps of information which we may or may not wish to build into a back-story: were the pair once lovers? Is Kurt 'still' gay? Is he now homeless? The presence of alt-country superstar Oldham (the preacher boy in John Sayles' Matewan), and that of Todd Haynes (executive producer) behind the scenes, meanwhile, suggest there's some kind of social/political statement being made here - likewise the opening radio-debate on Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights, and the Democrats' 'Southern Strategy.' What does it all add up to? Does a film actually have to "add up to" anything? Old Joy is content to remain as inscrutably self-contained and subjective a haiku, its merits very much a matter of subjective interpretation. It's rather like a glass of water: refreshing, cooling, and stimulating - but imparting no intrinsic nutritional value, leaving little trace-memory behind. VIA a fluke of scheduling, Old Joy isn't this week's only 70-odd-minute two-hander. But whereas Reichardt's outdoorsy, ruminative picture is very much in the art-for-art's-sake tradition of experimental, film-festival-oriented cinema, the claustrophobic, DV-shot French chiller-thriller Them (Ils) aims for much more visceral responses. And writer-directors Moreau and Palud often succeed in their intentions: for much of its brisk running-time, this French production, set and filmed in and around the Romanian capital Bucharest - is an impressively tense, tightly focussed, technically accomplished nerve-jangler. After an extended prologue in which a mother and daughter experience stark terror at a windswept nocturnal roadside, the story proper gets under way: teacher Clementine (Bonamy) and writer Lucas (Cohen) are twentysomething French couple residing in a crumbling mansion on the city's bosky outskirts. One dark night, the pair are disturbed by mysterious noises coming from outside - and inside - the house. Investigating, Clementine and Lucas quickly realise they're under attack from intruders who may or may not be be supernatural in origin, but seem decidedly homicidal in intent... The central 'home invasion' section of Them is a mini-masterclass in suspenseful economy and a John Carpenterishly expert use of the cinema-frame. But having built us up to a state of genuine edge-of-the-seat tension, Moreau and Palud don't really know where to go next. The film starts to lose momentum when the besieged protagonists flee their house, and the big climactic 'reveal', while undeniably disturbing, raises more questions than it answers. Despite echoes of Michael Haneke's Funny Games (and even Cache), what we end up with is naggingly reminiscent of Eli Roth's deliriously down-and-dirty exploitation-fest Hostel. Just as Roth delivered a stern (albeit tongue-in-cheek) warning to American tourists about the perils of small-town Slovakia, Them can be interpreted as a cautionary (and deadly-serious) parable aimed at any 'western' Europeans who might be considering relocating to one of those 'exotic' new EU member-states. And it's even dodgier if/when you discover how the film ("inspired by true events") diverges from the facts of the actual 'case.' As an old-fashioned audience-harrower, however, Them works just fine: don't think, just panic. THOUGH it's really no more than so-so as a movie, no-one will be too upset if low-key romantic-drama Venus wins Peter O'Toole his first Best Actor Oscar after no less than seven previous nominations. The Galway-born 74-year-old made his own ambitions in this regard abundantly clear when semi-reluctantly picking up his Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy in 2003. And there's no shortage of precedents: P.Newman for The Color of Money and J.Wayne for True Grit to name but two. And it would be typical for the Academy to bestow honour on a minor enterprise like Venus when O'Toole has been so much better in so many more award-worthy pictures. He's perfectly fine here, playing a less-successful version himself as septuagenarian thesp Maurice Russell ("gifted actor known for his wit, charm and good looks" - Guardian), now reduced to demeaning roles such as a terminally-ill patient in a TV medical-drama. Maurice's gentle slide into rueful senescence and decrepitude is surprisingly halted - perhaps even reversed - when he gets to know Jessie (Whittaker), a mouthy northern teenager who arrives in London to 'look after' her aged great-uncle Ian (Leslie Phillips), who happens to be Maurice's best chum. Jessie proves worse than useless as 'home help,' but an invigorating new friend for the bewitched Maurice - who naughtily, and perhaps ill-advisedly, allows himself a little platonic amour fou... There's a great tradition of films specifically made to 'send off' beloved veterans - but Venus is arthritic indeed alongside, say, Targets (1969), Peter Bogdanovich's rousing tribute to Boris Karloff. Venus's story-arc is predictable and sentimental; Hanif Kureishi struggles awkwardly to come up with realistic-sounding dialogue for Jessie's cheeky young gob; the whole dingily-lit enterprise is all too aware of its special, morbid significance. Kureishi's script is on much safer ground with the old folks, however, and Michell sensibly allows O'Toole and co to get on with things: Richard Griffiths and Vanessa Redgrave make the most of (disappointingly) limited screen-time, but it's the 82-years-young Phillips who shamelessly, entertainingly, and poignantly steals the show - in truly BAFTA-worthy style - from his "junior" co-star. Neil Young 15th January, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ BOBBY : [6/10] : USA 2006 : Emilio ESTEVEZ : 116 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Odeon West End cinema, London (UK), 26th November 2006 - press show (London Film Festival) original review OLD JOY : [6/10] : USA 2006 : Kelly REICHARDT : 73 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Cinerama cinema, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 30th January 2006 - press show (Rotterdam Film Festival) original review THEM : [6/10] : France 2006 : David MOREAU & Xavier PALUD : 77 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Empire cinema, Bromsgrove (UK), 7th October 2006 - press show (CinemaDays event) VENUS : [5/10] : UK 2006 : Roger MICHELL : 95 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Empire cinema, Bromsgrove (UK), 7th October 2006 - press show (CinemaDays event) |
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