Paddington 2

seen on 29 December 2017

This sequel to Paddington (released in 2014) re-unites many of the original cast in a new story about the experiences of the ever-optimistic Paddington Bear in London. Michael Bond's creation has been faithfully served by the cast and technical team directed by Paul King. Paddington himself is once again voiced with superb charm by Ben Whishaw, while Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins provide sterling performances as Mr and Mrs Brown. But the limelight also goes to new friends and enemies.

Paddington's aspiration to send his Aunt Lucy a book about London inspires him to get a job first as a barber's assistant (disastrous) and then as a window cleaner - cue several amusing scenes of a bear cleaning windows. When a particularly valuable pop-up book he has his eyes on is stolen, he tries to catch the thief in a great chase along the Regents Canal, but when the thief vanishes he is himself arrested and an unsympathetic judge sends him to prison. In a ridiculously implausible but beguiling sequence, his ability to make marmalade sandwiches saves him from the rigours of prison life, turns the curmudgeonly prison chef Mr Nuckels (Brendan Gleeson) into a softie, and transforms the prison cafeteria into a sugar-rush heaven. Meanwhile the dastardly Phoenix Buchanan (an excellent Hugh Grant) must be foiled ...

Once again the atmosphere is resolutely safe, so that the perils are real but not insuperable - though an underwater sequence lasts far too long without breaths being taken, stretching the limits even of a story like this - and the cast excel at having fun without condescending to the children in the audience, while peppering the scenes with sophisticated jokes and allusions for the accompanying adults. It's a great Christmas treat.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

seen on 18 December 2017

Rian Johnson directs Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Domhnall Gleeson and many others in his own screenplay for the latest episode in the Star Wars saga.

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away ... " Well - almost 40 years ago, and, somewhat incongruously, in Florence on a rainy February afternoon in 1978, my travelling companion and I, overloaded with the Renaissance glories of the Uffizi Gallary, the Pitti Palace and the Palazzo della Signoria, decided to go to a cinema to see the latest American blockbuster "Guerre Stellari". It was raining, and the queue stretched along the street outside the cinema, hardly moving as the time approached for the afternoon screening. Eventually, we were inside the foyer, but the screening must surely have started by the time we bought our tickets. Indeed it had - we entered an overcrowded auditorium to find the film well under way. My companion searched for a seat downstairs, while I went upstairs and found myself kneeling in front of the front row of the balcony, watching Alec Guinness dressed as a desert monk, and listening - to Italian dialogue. By the end, I thought I knew what had happened, but when we met again after the credits, we agreed that we should delay returning to the rainy streets outside. Instead, we found comfortable seats and prepared to watch the start of the film. When we got to the point where we had first come in, we just looked at each other, nodded, and watched it all again.

My Italian was less than rudimentary, but I grasped the story easily, and a later viewing in London confirmed that I had not missed very much (except, unsurprisingly, the caustic cynicism of Harrison Ford's Han Solo). Whether such easy comprehension could be gleaned from a dubbed version of the new Star Wars film, episode VIII, is very doubtful. The issues are more complex and the story more nuanced, not least in proposing that derring-do is not always the best approach to winning a gruelling struggle, even though it does at times have its place. Also, the whole issue of 'the Force' and its relationship to heroism is put under scrutiny, and the comfortable notion of appealing to traditional saviours, to representatives of a family line of heroes, to solve current problems is dismissed as lazy and inappropriate.

Though the political lessons are thus more subtle, the new film maintains the tradition of exciting set-piece battles (the derring-do is still shown, even as it is shown not always to work), classic confrontations between good and evil, unsurprising revelations of the moral bankruptcy of profit-seekers, and teasing cliffhangers about the true loyalties of key characters. There is much to enjoy in the hi-jinks even as the story develops in interesting ways and leaves several enticing trails into future episodes.

Loving Vincent

seen on 25 November 2017

Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman direct Douglas Booth, Saiorse Ronan, Chris O'Dowd, Eleanor Tomlinson, John Sessions, Helen McCrory, Aidan Turner and Robert Gulaczyk in an extraordinary film about the circumstances surrounding the death of Vincent van Gogh in 1890.

The most extraordinary thing about the film is that every frame is painted - it took dozens of artists over seven years to complete it. The scenes were shot with the actors in costume, but what is presented to the audience is a shimmering view of the world rendered in van Gogh's mature painting style - indeed many of his genuine paintings form the starting point for scenes in the film, and the characters are dressed as van Gogh painted them. Flashbacks and reminiscences are presented in a sober black and white, but as young Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), the son of the postmaster (Chris O'Dowd) responsible for dealing with Vincent's voluminous correspondence, attempts to discover what happened in July 1890 he is constantly presented in a world of vivid colour in which surfaces seem to blend into background.

The question posed by the narrative of the film is whether Vincent in fact shot himself, or whether he was covering up an accidental shooting by a supposed friend. His cryptic words that 'no-one is to blame' could refer to either possibility; those who knew him have only their own impressions of his situation and his relations with others in the town as a basis to draw conclusions, and Armand discovers that there can be no definitive answer - different people have very different and even contradictory ideas of what was happening. The film is very clever in raising the questions but leaving them unresolved, while at the same time giving poignant expression to the difficulties of the painter's mental disposition, the great-heartedness of his emotional responses, and the waste of a life cut short.

Curious to hear the unvarnished regional accents of the actors emerging (as it were) from the very French van Gogh portraits; curious to watch an entire film of pastiche painted images in motion; mesmerising to see those familiar solid paint strokes flicker into movement as if the light is always flickering and shimmering in the sky and on the fields and buildings of Provence and the clothes and faces of the characters. Somehow, against all expectation, it works.

The film's website http://lovingvincent.com has details of the cast, the crew and the process.

Blade Runner 2049

seen on 13 October 2017

Denis Villeneuve directs Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford in this long awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner.

The original film had an extraordinary visual aesthetic, one of the last science-fiction films to have its special effects created without digital technology. It also had a story which, though leaving some important matters ambiguous, seemed impossible to follow without denigrating its effectiveness. Curiously, the film was set in an imagined 2019, and so the close approach of this year, without the developments foreseen by the film, also made a sequel problematic.

God's Own Country

seen on 2 September 2017

Francis Lee wrote and directed this, his first feature film, with Josh O'Connor as Johnny Saxby, Alec Secareanu as Gheorghe Ionescu, Ian Hart s Martin Saxby (Johnny's father) and Gemma Jones as Deirdre Saxby (Johnny's grandmother).

Johnny, not entirely willing to take on the onerous responsibility of the Yorkshire farm run by his now ailing father, is a young man who drowns his sorrows in the pub and takes advantage of brief impersonal sexual encounters with men where he can. The arrival of Gheorghe, a Romanian farm worker, to help with the lambing season at first increases the young man's resentment, though the newcomer is determined to make the best of the less than welcoming environment. His evident capability earns him a wary respect, but when the two young men are sent up to the high fields to repair a drystone wall and look after a small flock of sheep, Johnny's latent aggression soon turns to his typical almost incoherent desire for sexual release. After their first frantic encounter Gheorghe expects a more tender response - in short, a proper relationship rather than mere animal passion. Johnny obviously has a good deal of growing up to do.

The power of this film lies in its excellent performances and in Lee's insight into the unremitting hard work of farm life on a Yorkshire smallholding (he grew up on just such a farm). The weather is bleak, the tasks cannot be safely delayed, the prospects are poor. Johnny cannot prosper while he is filled with resentment and it all shows in his hunched shoulders and miserable expression. Only when Gheorghe shows a more patient and committed approach to the work at hand does he begin to see a more hopeful side to his life - a rare smile breaks out as he watches Gheorghe skin a dead lamb in order to cover an orphaned one with the pelt and thus encourage the mother ewe to accept the stranger.

The Saxbys are taciturn folk, and the father and grandmother apparently unsparing in their criticisms of Johnny, though as he finally takes some responsibility willingly his father shows small signs of approval. Gheorghe is quiet, but determined. Much of the narrative is therefore conveyed by gestures and facial expressions, and by the close observation of the young men at work; the cinematography (Joshua James Richards) is superb at bringing out the rugged nature of the environment without sentimentalising it in any way. Tenderness and responsiveness are thus seen to be vital not only in personal relationships but also in relation to the natural world even in its (semi-)tamed farming guise. 

It's a beautifully crafted film with a powerful sense of place and a story well worth telling.

Dunkirk

seen on 9 August 2017

Christopher Nolan directs Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy and many others in a film about the evacuation of 300,000 members of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

The soldiers were encircled by the German Army, while the Luftwaffe strafed he beaches and the destroyers attempting the seemingly hopeless task of transporting the men to England. Many small boats from the southern ports of England sailed across the Channel to help with the rescue, principally by ferrying men from the exposed beaches and piers to deeper waters where larger boats could accept them; but many also took men all the way back to England.

My Cousin Rachel

seen on 10 June 2017

Roger Michell directs Rachel Weisz as Rachel and Sam Claflin as Philip (and his uncle Ambrose) with support from Iain Glen, Holliday Grainger, Pierfrancesco Favino and Simon Russell Beale in this (second) adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel.

The film is beautifully shot and composed, but is perhaps a little too conscious of its period splendour to generate the required degree of tension (both in narrative terms and in sexual chemistry). Rachel Weisz is suitably poised and enigmatic as the eponymous cousin - and more significantly widow - of Philip's uncle Ambrose, while Sam Claflin is believably at first boorish and then besotted as the young man who becomes completely infatuated with his mysterious cousin.

The enigma remains to the end - was Rachel a fortune hunter and poisoner, or a spirited woman determined to take what little advantage was available at that time to preserve her independence? It is easy enough to be carried away by Philip's puppyish devotion, and then to be suspicious with him of her behaviour; but her own defence when challenged also seems plausible. The viewer is left to decide; but for me the film was more a pleasant afternoon's entertainment than a truly probing investigation of an ambiguous situation.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men tell No Tales

seen on 28 May 2017

Johnny Depp stars as Captain Jack Sparrow in the fifth instalment of the Pirates franchise, with support from Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem, Kaya Scodelario, Brandon Thwaites and David Wenham, and cameo appearances by Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Paul McCartney.

It's good fun with competent special effects, a ridiculous but entertaining story line and the usual over the top performance from Depp. Interesting that for the first half hour of the film, Jack Sparrow slurs his already extraordinary accent as he is clearly inebriated - but it is evidently OK with flowing locks and a pirate costume, where it would have been an appalling role model in modern dress.

There is some need to know what happened in the earlier films, but I haven't seen the fourth, and it is years since I saw the others so my memory of the details is poor, and I did not feel too disadvantaged.

Frantz

seen on 8 May 2017

François Ozon directs Pierre Niney as Adrien and Paula Berry as Anna in a film loosely based by him on Ernst Lubitsch's 1931 film Broken Lullaby. 

The film begins in the Saxon town of Quedlinburg in 1919, where Anna is living with the parents of her fiancé Frantz who was killed in France during the War. Adrien, a tormented and fragile Frenchman, arrives and puts flowers on Frantz's grave, and makes himself known to the family. Where Lubitsch, adapting a play by Maurice Rostand, told the story from the Frenchman's point of view, Ozon is more interested in exploring Anna's experience, and he has re-arranged the revelations in the film accordingly, and pursued the story further.

A Quiet Passion

seen on 4 May 2017

Terence Davies directs Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson, Jennifer Ehle as her sister Vinny, Keith Carradine as her father Edward, Joanna Bacon as her mother (also Emily) and Duncan Duff as her brother Austin in an extraordinarily intense film about the poet's life; Davies also wrote the screenplay. 

Emily Dickinson was famously reclusive and unconventional in the eyes of 19th century Boston society - her steeliness is shown in the first scene when she does not move to the right of her headmistress amongst those who have accepted Jesus, nor to the left with those who hope to; she is then castigated as a 'no-hoper' and her father and siblings soon arrive to bring her home. After that, the film barely moves from the house where she spent the rest of her life writing and, increasingly, refusing to meet visitors. 

The Sense of an Ending

seen on 23 April 2017

Jim Broadbent s Tony Webster, Harriet Walter as his divorced wife Margaret and Charlotte Rampling as Veronica (once his girlfriend) star Nick Payne's adaptation of Julian Barnes's 2011 novel, directed by Ritesh Batra. Billy Howle plays the young Tony, Freya Mavor the young Veronica, Emily Mortimer her mother Sarah, and Michelle Dockery plays Tony and Margaret's daughter Susie.

I've not read the book, but a glance at it shows that some changes have (inevitably) been made. However, regarding it simply as a film, it is not perfectly realised, and the sense of an ending is not really achieved at all. The crux of the matter is the revelation of an episode from Tony Webster's past as filtered through his current recollections. This is triggered by the news that he has been left a diary and some money by the mother of an ex-girlfriend, and by the further fact that Veronica, who is administering her mother's estate, is withholding the diary.

Handsome Devil

seen at the London Flare Festival on 1 April 2017

John Butler directs Fionn O'Shea as Ned Roche and Nicholas Galitzine as Conor Masters, with Adnrew Scott as the English teacher Dan Sherry. 

Ned and Conor are boarders at a rugby-fixated Irish school - another closed community (compare Heartstone), another interaction between gay teenagers (compare Die Mitte der Welt or Quand on a 17 ans). But here, with a mischievous Irish wit, Ned narrates a far less flamboyant tale than Phil does in Die Mitte der Welt - he is gay, but in his school environment there is no place for easy tolerance, though mercifully for him there is little outright violence until a crisis precipitates a mild punch-up. And Conor, unlike the beguiling Nicholas of the German film, is keeping a prudential low profile about his sexuality, hoping to fit in at his new school after a mysterious exit from the previous one 'for fighting too much'.

O Ornitólogo (The Ornithologist)

seen at the London Flare Festival on 26 March 2017

Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues has created an intriguing variation of a medieval hagiography relating to St Anthony of Padua, in which Fernando, an ornithologist (Paul Hamy), gradually becomes an avatar of the saint in modern times after a boating accident on the Douro river.

The opening sequences of the film are beautifully shot as Fernando swims in the river then sits beside a small campfire on the river bank and takes out his binoculars to follow the bird life. However, the next morning when he is kayaking downstream, he is again completely distracted by his bird-watching and he is overturned in the rapids.

Quand on a 17 ans (Being Seventeen)

seen at the London Flare Festival on 24 March 2017

André Téchiné directs Kacey Mottet-Klein as Damien, Corentin Fila as Thomas, and Sandrine Kiberlain and Alexis Loret as Damien's parents, in a film covering nine months in the lives of the two seventeen-year-olds, coinciding with the difficult pregnancy of Thomas's adoptive mother.

Die Mitte der Welt

seen at the London Flare Festival on 21 March 2017

Louis Hofmann as Phil and Jannik Schümann as Nicholas star in Jakob M. Erwa's adaptation of the celebrated German coming of age novel by Andreas Steinhöfel, given Centre of My World as its English title.

Phil and his twin sister Dianne (Ada Philine Stappenbeck) live with their mother Glass (Sabine Timoteo) in a grand house called Visible, never having known their father. Phil returns from a summer camp to find the always volatile household even more tense than usual, though neither his sister or mother will explain why. In the meantime he falls head over heels in love with Nicholas, a new boy in his class at school, whom he thinks he may have met in the street once many years before. The two boys embark on a passionate physical relationship even though Phil is constantly aware that Nicholas may not reciprocate his own level of devotion.

There are several strands to the film; Phil's story is obviously the most important, but both Glass and Dianne have interesting stories as well, and the film has been criticised for failing to adapt successfully the multi-stranded narrative form of the novel. Without having read the book, it is not really possible for me to comment on this, except to say that there is quite a weight of narrative for the film to bear. (One critic suggested a mini-series would have been a more appropriate vehicle to develop all the narrative threads.)

Given the somewhat eccentric family situation - both in psychological terms, and in its physical setting in a very grand old-fashioned house - and the wealth of back story, and Phil's voiceover narrative and the occasional filmic tricks to register his heightened emotions using slow motion sequences and unexpected colour filters, the film succeeds an an interesting and at times very poignant coming of age story. Everyone is completely matter of fact about Phil's sexuality, so that on that front his only real problem, and the hard lesson he has to learn, is the nature of commitment and the often frustrating enigma of another person. However, the residual family problems also prove very demanding and contribute to the crisis in his young life

The two leads are very personable and very well able to carry the attention given to them (in particular Louis Hofmann whose viewpoint we almost always share), and Sabine Timoteo is excellent in the difficult role of Glass, a vexatious mother for teenagers who do not always relish her refusal to conform.

Hjartasteinn (Heartstone)

seen at the London Flare Festival on 20 March 2017

Gudmudur Arnar Gudmundsson directs Baldur Einarson as Þór (Thor), Blær Hinriksson as Kristján (Christian), Diljá Valsdóttir as Beta and Katla Njálsdóttir as Hanna in this Icelandic/Danish co-production set in rural Iceland during the long summer days.

Thor and Christian are close friends just emerging into adolescence in a small community which is at one level very safe, but at another very constricting and self-righteous. Thor's parents are separated (if not divorced) and we never see his father, who is Reykjavik; Thor lives with his mother and two older sisters, one of whom has artistic aspirations while the other is a spectacularly angry teenager. Christian is apparently an only child living with quarrelling parents - his father is obviously violent.

While Thor has a crush on Hanna and begins to negotiate the tricky business of engaging with the opposite sex, not particularly helped by the typically snide comments of his peer group and his sisters, Christian finds himself at complete odds with this suffocating milieu as he realsies he has ever stronger feelings for Thor, a situation which seriously imperils their friendship. Only a catastrophe helps to re-establish a fragile bond between them.

The sense of a small self-reliant community is very strong, set in the bare and austerely beautiful Icelandic countryside in summer. There's a strong contrast between the liberating possibilities of inhabiting the natural world - fishing, riding, camping, helping with farm work - and the impending pressures and compromises of adulthood. Thor's mother is criticised by her three very different children in staggeringly judgemental terms when she tries to build a relationship with an older farmer; it's all too easy to see that moral conservatism is bred very early in rural communities, leaving little room for any flexibility or the acceptance of any behaviour beyond the pale of strict norms. No wonder Christian becomes so desperate.

It's a beautifully shot film, with excellent performances from all the young actors, supported by the older generation whose characters are all too plausibly ground down by life's difficulties.

Taekwondo

seen at the London Flare Festival on 20 March 2017

Marco Berger and Martín Farina direct Gabriel Epstein as Germán and Lucas Papa as Fernando in this Argentinian about a group of male friends who spend a customary vacation together chewing the fat about their relationships with girlfriends and other women, and joshing with each other in the way of long established and mostly affectionate friendship.

The location for this holiday is an extensive villa owned by Fernando's family, endowed with pool, spa, tennis court and many bedrooms, so Fernando is nominally the host. Germán is the newcomer, a friend Fernando has made at his taekwondo class, and invited by him to join the crowd when his own vacation plans have fallen through. The complication is that Germán is gay and quite attracted to Fernando, but he is unsure of Fernando's attitude to him and very aware that the rest of the crowd is determinedly straight. The casual bragging, joking and occasional serious discussion of problems with women, and the unselfconscious ease with nudity both leave Germán non-plussed.

The film is an attractive study in homo-social camaraderie and its subtle difference from gay sensibilities. The blithe sexism, the long-standing joke that one of their number is probably gay, the extent to which the men feel sex-starved by the absence of women for even a few days, are all lightly drawn in the sunny atmosphere of hedonism, while Germán's confusion about Fernando and his natural reticence provide an amusing contrast. At least two of Fernando's friends guess Germán's interest, leading one to a quite poisonous attempt to destabilise things, and the other to ask Fernando a good-humoured but completely open-ended question about him. The resolution of his own uncertainties is left tantalisingly until the last moments of the film

It's a delightful and attractive piece, filmed often in extreme close-up and from unusual angles emphasising the sheer physicality of young men relaxing together (there is virtually no indication of how they usually spend their time or earn their living) - essentially an amusing and sunny social comedy.

After Louie

seen at the London Flare Festival on 17 March 2017

Vincent Gagliostro directs Alan Cumming and Zachary Booth in a film about an artist whose work has been blocked for some twenty years by his loss of many friends during the AIDS crisis in New York. He is preparing a video project about one lover in particular, the poet William Wilson, even though his agent and many friends feel that his time would be better spent on painting.

One night Sam (Cumming) takes up with the much younger Braeden (Booth), but creates a barrier between them by paying him for his 'services'. However, the two continue to meet, and the film broadens out in interesting ways to encompass Braeden's relations with his boyfriend, and also to examine Sam's interactions with some of his longstanding friends and his now very elderly arts teacher.

Moonlight

seen on 6 March 2017

This film won the Best Picture Academy Award over the favoured La La Land, which I (and many others) think is the correct choice. Directed by Barry Jenkins and co-written by him with Tarell Alvin McCraney based on the latter's play, it examines questions of identity, family, friendship and loyalty through three episodes in the life of Chiron, played by Alex Hibbert as a child, Ashton Sanders as a teenager and Trevante Rhodes as a young man. Naomi Harris plays his mother Paula, Mahershala Ali plays his mentor Juan, Janelle Monáe Juan's partner Teresa, and Chiron's friend Kevin is played by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome and André Holland in the three respective ages.

It's an extraordinary film, both impressionistic and deeply engaging. At times the sound fades away, or is out of synch with the visuals, in moments of acute stress, as if the impact on Chiron is too overwhelming to take in. His predicament as a solitary child with his mother gradually succumbing to drug addiction and his awareness of being gay sapping his confidence even further is reflected in the excellent performances of the two younger players, the boy already uncommunicative and the teenager obviously deeply troubled. Juan, his accidental mentor in the first episode of the film, provides a source of strength and wisdom, but is also compromised in the child's eyes through selling drugs. However, as an adult Chiron is evidently emulating Juan not only as a dealer, but also in the accessories - flash car, metal tooth guards and tough exterior. 

The situation, though fraught with the pain of admitting to difficult emotional allegiances, especially perhaps for African-American men, does allow for the possibility of connection, acceptance and honesty in some moving scenes between the adult Chiron and his damaged mother, and between him and his closest friend Kevin. These interactions are the more believable for being understated and difficult, rather than melodramatically emotional, and provide a cautious but powerful note of optimism in a beautifully crafted film. 

Hidden Figures

seen on 25 February 2017

Theodore Melfi directs Taraji P Henson as Katherine Goble (later Johnson), Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson and Kevin Kostner as Al Harrison (a fictional part) in this account of how three African-American women mathematicians were instrumental in contributing to the successful launch of astronaut John Glenn (played by Glen Powell). The film deals with the crisis in NASA following the Sputnik launches by the USSR, followed by Yuri Gagarin's space-flight, and also shows how the women's presence and obvious (not to say essential) competence played a part in breaking down the segregationist colour barrier still largely in operation in the state of Virginia in the early 1960s.

The film focuses on three engaging intelligent women who have to negotiate both racism and misogyny in their workplace and in their aspirations. The two are entangled, of course, and the visual clues of racism are all too uncomfortably present - separate entrances to public buildings, separate drinking fountains in the street, separate bathrooms in the NASA complex, to say nothing of the unpleasant looks from many white people and well-meaning but still insulting condescension from others. 

Lion

seen on 21 February 2017

Garth Davis directs this movie which is based on the true story of Saroo, a young Indian boy who accidentally becomes lost through being transported across the sub-continent to Calcutta when he falls asleep in a train carriage. After some months as a streetchild, he is placed in an orphanage and then adopted by a Tasmanian couple, Sue and John Brierley. The adult Saroo becomes fixated on finding his birthplace, and is eventually able to use Google Earth in his quest to be reunited with his birth mother. Nicole Kidman and David Wenham play the Brierleys while Dev Patel plays the adult Saroo and Sunny Pawar plays Saroo from the ages of 5 to 7.

Manchester by the Sea

seen on 24 January 2017

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, this deeply affecting film stars Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, Michelle Williams as his estranged wife Randi, Kyle Chandler as his brother Joe and Lucas Hedges as his nephew Patrick.

Lee, emotionally and socially shut off from his world, is a janitor taking care of several apartment blocks in Boston. The film opens with scenes of his work (generally quite thankless, though he does overhear one tactless resident confessing on the phone to a friend that she is in love with her janitor), intercut with flashbacks of a boat trip with his brother and young nephew in the town of Manchester by the Sea. 

In the middle of winter he receives news that his brother Joe has suffered a cardiac arrest, but by the time he reaches Manchester by the Sea, Joe has died, and it is up to Lee to tell his now 16-year-old nephew the news. It transpires that Joe has appointed Lee as Patrick's guardian, a position that Lee is most unwilling to take on.

The situation could have been melodramatic; the interaction between uncle and nephew could have been one of those sentimental affairs in which talking and emoting bring about resolution and 'growth'. The film does not take these paths. Instead, Lee and Patrick have flashes of rapport and periods of intense unease, neither able to deal with the grief and confusion in their lives. The reasons for Lee's deeper alienation are revealed through memories that are so painful that they can only leave lasting damage. Life might indeed go on, but it is by no means easy.

The performances are excellent. Casey Affleck often seems to be unreadable, but his is a masterful portrayal of an inarticulate and profoundly hurt man, wonderfully rendered in his shifting uneasy expression, his occasional outbursts of temper, and his sheer doggedness. It is also very astute that in the flashback scenes, before the catastrophe that has shaped his life, although he is more cheerful, he is believably the same man. Michelle Williams gives a wrenching performance as his estranged wife Randi; the final scene between them is almost too painful to witness. The young actor Lucas Hedges portrays an adolescent's self-centredness and uncertainty with complete conviction; again the moments when he does become aware of his uncle's distress are understated but powerful, catching exactly the transience of a teenager's empathy for an adult.

It's one of the best films I've seen for years.

Jackie

seen on 21 January 2017

Directed by Pablo Larrain and starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy, Greta Gerwig as Nancy Tuckerman and Billy Crudup as the Interviewer, this film examines the devastating effect of John F Kennedy's assassination on his widow. 

There are flashbacks to the creation of the documentary in which Jackie Kennedy guided a film crew through the White House after her extensive (and expensive) restorations in 1961, but most of the film is concerned with the immediate aftermath of the assassination, days in which Jackie is often overpowered by grief, but is also resolutely planning and insisting on a grand state funeral emulating that of Abraham Lincoln's almost a century earlier. There are, finally, scenes set in Hyannis Port, the Kennedy enclave in Massachusetts, some time later, in which a journalist is interviewing Jackie, who proves at times vulnerable and at times filled with steely resolution.

The structure of the film is intriguing, because these elements are not presented chronologically. Instead, they are interleaved and overlapped, both emphasising the extremes of Jackie's experience and at the same time keeping us at some remove from her. This tactic preserves something of the historical character's enigmatic public persona. Her appearance in the White House documentary shows the gaucheness of an inexperienced media presence (a sign of the times as much as anything else: nowadays, one assumes, public figures spend more time learning to be at ease in front of the cameras). But in the crisis of preparing for the state funeral, she is determined and in control. Even when she momentarily falters in her plan to have all the attendees walk behind the cortege, this looks like a strong prudential decision. When she reverts to the original plan, the idea that she is vacillating hardly gains ground as she neatly if provocatively makes prudence look like cowardice.

Natalie Portman's performance is entirely plausible, catching Jackie's mannerisms without succumbing to mere imitation, and easily commanding the film. The supporting cast is also very strong. The political crisis is not the focus of the film, so the tension between the Kennedy administration and the incoming Johnson team is barely hinted at, but this is appropriate given the principal area of interest, Jackie Kennedy's own (presumed) experience. She several times mentions the Johnsons' "kindness" in a way that may indicate that this is a polite fiction, but the extreme awkwardness of having to vacate the White House in an emergency rather than as the result of the normal democratic process is here almost a distraction from her sense of her larger responsibility.

The occasional recourse to documentary footage is discreetly handled and underlines the skill with which the period and the events have been recreated by the director and his team.

Fascinating.

La La Land

seen on 13 January 2017

This film is an affectionate tribute to the Hollywood musical film, directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, with music by Justin Hurwitz. It's filmed in Cinemascope with the bright primary colours associated with Technicolor, but also features complex tracking shots that would have been extremely difficult to compose in the glory days of backlot production. Nonetheless, reality is not the name of the game. The opening number is set in a freeway traffic jam, but the sky is inordinately bright and clear; not even in the distance is there a hint of smog.

The songs are, in fact, not particularly memorable, that is to say, not catchy in the way of the classics of the genre, though they do set the required tone - optimism, energy, romance, bittersweet recognition of lost opportunity. There are many visual references to older movies, from a swing around a lamppost (though not in the rain) to a drive up to a location used in Rebel Without a Cause, to say nothing of pointing out the window on the Warners lot used in a Paris scene from Casablanca.