for this week’s TRIBUNE : ‘Lakeview Terrace’ [2/10]; ‘Summer’ [7/10]
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Lakeview Terrace
USA 2008
Starring : Samuel L Jackson, Patrick Wilson
Director : Neil LaBute
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Summer
UK 2008
Starring : Robert Carlyle, Steve Evets
Director : Kenneth Glenaan
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THERE are few odder or more frustrating careers in current American cinema than that of Neil LaBute – the ex-Mormon playwright whose brilliantly cynical 1997 big-screen debut In the Company of Men seemed to announce the sudden arrival of an outsize new talent. But while the intervening decade has seen his theatrical status hold relatively steady – he seems to have one or two high-profile new works in (or near) the West End every season – he's plotted a bafflingly wayward course through movies. Working with his own material he's done OK (2003's underrated The Shape of Things). Directing scripts by others (Nurse Betty) or adapting existing material (Possession; The Wicker Man) has seen middling-at-best results. And now, with the slick but disastrous Lakeview Terrace, he's reached a creative nadir so low one hopes he'll forsake celluloid altogether in future.
A thuddingly opportunistic, crudely heavy-handed melodrama/thriller about contemporary race-relations in upper-middle-class suburban California, the plot 'borrows' from the 1992 Ray Liotta / Kurt Russell vehicle Unlawful Entry – except this time, instead of a security-guard protecting/menacing a nice, yuppie-ish young couple, it's a member of the LAPD. Samuel L Jackson, who can now play this sort of stuff in his sleep, is bad-ass veteran cop Abel Turner, a recently-divorced single dad taking an unusual interest in young marrieds Chris (Wilson) and Lisa (Kerry Washington) when they move in next door. What really seems to get Abel's goat is that Lisa, who's black, has chosen to marry 'outside her race' – and he wastes no opportunity to make his views on the matter eminently clear. Trouble quickly ensues – and, even more quickly, escalates, to the point of absurdity.
Indeed, Lakeview Terrace's1 whole 'nasty neighbour' angle is only inches away from comedy – there's a scene involving a chainsaw that's played almost as farce. And one wishes that LaBute and/or the scriptwriters (David Loughery2, Howard Korder) had gone the extra distance and pushed over into raucous satire. Instead, they try to make various dubious points on blazingly hot-button issues using a decidedly ropey, contrived, 'serious' narrative framework. It would be dismayingly easy to come away from the results with the impression that (a) mixed-race marriages are more trouble than they're worth and (b) blacks and whites shouldn't share the same garden fences – because of blacks' insecurities: Love Thy Neighbour in reverse, if you like. Which presumably wasn't LaBute's intention.
THIS isn't exactly the most fruitful period of the year in terms of cinematic releases – both in terms of multiplexes and arthouses – so do try to seek out Summer if it's playing on a screen near you. Though no masterpiece, it's a rock-solid example of socially-conscious, character-based British cinema which has experienced a revival in the last couple of years partially thanks to the work of Shane Meadows (Dead Man's Shoes; This Is England; Somers Town). Geographically and thematically, Bolsover-set Summer treads similar terrain to Meadows' films – but there's a different kind of maturity and lyricism here which the 36-year-old writer-director, for all his many gifts, hasn't quite yet developed.
It's the third feature by Scots actor/director Kenny Glenaan, whose prescient terrorism-themed drama Gas Attack – originally made for Channel 4 – won the prestigious Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Film at the 2001 Edinburgh Film Festival. This year Summer was beaten to the same prize – by Somers Town, as it happens – but star Robert Carlyle was named inaugural winner of the award for Best Performance in A British Film. Carlyle is quietly intense and moving as Shaun, a Scot who's lived in the Midlands since he was a kid (he's always retained his strong accent, somewhat implausibly – handily for Carlyle).
Now in his 40s, he's become live-in carer to his life-long best mate Daz (Evets), paraplegic since an accident in his teenage years, and whose heavy drinking has become chronic, terminal alcoholism. For both Shaun and Daz, genuine happiness was something fleetingly glimpsed decades before – during the sun-dappled season of their youth which provides the picture with its (bland) title, and when they formed two corners of a short-lived youthful love-triangle…
While nobody's idea of carefree, escapist entertainment, Summer is nothing if not timely given the current financial situation: Glenaan and scripwriter Hugh Ellis (his first big-screen credit after seven episodes of The Bill) are careful to position Daz and Steve within a specific socio-economic setting – their lives blighted by the grim prospects prevalent in (ex-)mining areas as the 1970s gave way to the 1980s. Sensitively handled, engagingly to look at and fluently edited as the story ranges over three distinct time-frames, Summer is an unashamedly serious film about guilt, regret and wasted opportunities – its fundamental sadness crucially leavened by the salty humour of its ever-credible dialogue.
Neil Young
25th November, 2008
written for 3.Dec. edition of Tribune magazine
1Come to think of it, the film doesn't even take place on 'Lakeview Terrace' – the street in question is clearly identified, more than once, as 'Lakeview Circle.'
2Yes, Loughery – not, sadly, Lochary…
LAKEVIEW TERRACE : [2/10] : USA 2008 : Neil LaBUTE : 111m (BBFC) : seen 2nd October 2008, Vue Leicester (press show – CinemaDays event)
SUMMER : [7/10] : UK 2008 : Kenneth GLENAAN : 83m (BBFC) : seen 24th June 2008, Filmhouse Edinburgh (public show – Edinburgh International Film Festival - paid £6.40) – original review