Phantom Thread

seen on 17 February 2018

Paul Thomas Anderson directs a film concerning Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis), a (fictional) 1950s fashion designer whose personality and intense concentration on his work exists in a world buttressed by the steely efficiency of his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville). Into this carefully managed terrain comes a new model, Alma (Vicky Krieps), whom Reynolds meets by chance in a country inn where she is waitressing, and who rapidly becomes his new and indispensable muse. The power plays and shifting attitudes of these three form the major interest of the film.

The Mercy

seen on 12 February 2018

James Marsh directs Colin Firth as Donald Crowhurst, Rachel Weisz as his wife Clare, David Thewlis as the press agent Rodney Hallworth and Ken Stott as the banker Stanley Best in a film written by Scott Z. Burns based on the ill-fated attempt of Crowhurst, an amateur sailor, to enter a round-the-world sailing race in 1968.

Crowhurst, running a small company inventing various navigation aids, and something of a romantic dreamer, decided to enter the race being sponsored by the Sunday Times, and found himself unable to back out even when it was plain that he was not ready for the challenge. He had commissioned a trimaran to be built to his own specifications, but it was almost entirely untested (at least in the version presented in this film) by the end of October 1968 by which time any contestant hoping to participate had to have started. Having signed away the deeds of his house as collateral should he not take part, and swayed by the blandishments of his press officer, he duly sailed out of Teignmouth Harbour on 31 October.

Wonder Wheel

seen on 4 February 2018

Woody Allen directs Jim Belushi (Humpty), Kate Winslett (Ginny), Juno Temple (Carolina) and Justin Timberlake (Mickey) in a film set in Coney Island in the early 1950s. The period is lovingly re-created - Allen is as always excellent at evoking New York life in earlier decades - and beautifully shot by Vittorio Storaro.

The story is narrated by Mickey, a handsome young man putting himself through college after war service in the Pacific and taking a summer job as a lifeguard. He introduces Carolina, a young woman returning unexpectedly to her father's and stepmother's home behind the Coney Island fairground as she is in hiding from the Mob after turning State's evidence against her husband. Humpty, her father, is initially furious but he takes her in and she begins working at the same clam restaurant as Ginny. The household has to withstand several resentments - Carolina has had to swallow some pride, Ginny is protective of her own young son from her first marriage (a boy with a worrying propensity to set fires), and Humty is trying to stay on the wagon and failing to cope with his stepson.