Dickens, food & racing cars
CINEMAS ARE BACK SO, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS, THERE IS A BATCH OF NEW MOVIES TO ENJOY ON THE BIG SCREEN
With a majority of cinemas reopening their doors as of this week, there is a deluge of new releases for avid movie fans to wade through. Here’s a considered critical view of the first crop of fresh titles to be delivered to the box-office in more than three months ...
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD (PG)
GENERAL RELEASE, 119 MIN
★★★k
Should you slowly strip back the conventional costume drama facade here, you will soon find one of the more unusual adaptations of a Charles Dickens novel to hit the screen. This take on David Copperfield (the eighth, by most counts) begins and ends with an all-grown-up Dave (played by Lion’s Dev Patel) recounting his life story to a theatre audience of the late 1800s.
The movie, however, is far from a one-man show. As the title character genially guides us from one flashback to the next, a colourful collection of supporting players (including Peter Capaldi as that bounder Mister Micawber, Tilda Swinton as an adorably dotty Betsey Trotwood) and Ben Whishaw as the conniving Uriah Heep) keep a busy story moving in the right direction.
While this lavish period production both looks and sounds the part, writer-director Armando Iannucci (creator of influential TV comedies Veep and The Thick of It) delivers many more laughs than most will expect.
LOVE SARAH (M)
GENERAL RELEASE, 98 MIN
★★
This bland British confection spreads itself too thinly in a desperate attempt to cover all audience bases.
As a drama, it rarely gets you involved. As a comedy, it barely raises more than a random chuckle. As a romance, it squarely lacks heart. As a film for foodies, well, it will be a matter of individual taste. The yarn straining to hold all of this together concerns the running of an artisan bakery in a posh London borough. The original owner and chef carked it before the business could properly open. So it is left to her emotionally distant mum (Celia Imrie), creatively unsatisfied daughter (Shannon Tarbet) and constantly stressed best friend (Shelley Conn) to band together to honour their dear departed’s dream of flogging fancy cakes at high prices.
The arrival of a hunky, Michelin-starred dessert designer (Rupert Penry-Jones) compels all to get their respective acts together, both personally and professionally.
THE ASSISTANT (M)
SELECTED CINEMAS, 85 MIN ★★★★
This is a monster movie where you never actually get a direct line of sight on the belligerent beast. In this case, you do not need to. The unseen, unnamed creature in question is disgraced studio boss and serial sex abuser Harvey Weinstein.
In a faintly fictionalised and unapologetically blunt manner, writer-director Kitty Green trains her focus on those who enabled the likes of Weinstein to exploit a staggering number of women. In particular, it is a female production assistant named Jane (a mesmerising performance from Julia Garner) that we see reluctantly, yet relentlessly covering the tracks of her pathological philanderer of a boss.
A movie that unfolds in a chilling ethical vacuum that says more about the #MeToo movement than you wish to know. Just as unsettling is the tough question posed to people such as Jane — can those who spend their days looking the other way still look at themselves in the mirror when those days are done?
ROMANTIC ROAD (PG)
SELECTED CINEMAS, 81 MIN
★★★
The stakes might be low in this pleasant little documentary. Nevertheless, interest levels remain high throughout. This is all because of a unique married couple that allowed cameras to film what most people would call the trip of a lifetime.
Both in their mid-sixties, British husband and wife Rupert and Jan Grey thought it might be a lark to take a scenic route across India in order to attend a famous festival in Bangladesh. To make it really fun, the pair decided the 8000km trek would be best chronicled from inside the family car, a thoroughly beat-up 1936 Rolls Royce.
Though the trip is not without its share of close scrapes with misfortune, the irresistible charm of the doco can only be put down to the obvious, many and sincere eccentricities of its subjects.
BELLBIRD (M)
SELECTED CINEMAS, 96 MIN
★★k
A laid-back slice-of-life affair from rural New Zealand drifts amiably from low-key to no-key and back again throughout.
Marshall Napier stars as Ross, a gruff, self-starter of a dairy farmer stopped in his tracks by the sudden death of his wife.
Ross gets to thinking it might be time to pass on his accumulated wisdom of the ways of the land to his only son, Bruce (Cohen Holloway). To say that Bruce is not the most likely candidate to become a cow cocky is an understatement. Then again, this is very much a movie where understatement is the overwhelming mode of expression.
While the chemistry within the ensemble case is effective and the portrayal of country life is honest, a niggling feeling never quite goes away that this could have amounted to so much more.
BROCK: OVER THE TOP (PG)
LIMITED RELEASE, 95 MIN ★★★k
Very well assembled but never slick, this quality Australian sports documentary is a ripping watch from beginning to end.
The subject is the late, great Australian race driver Peter Brock, a towering figure on the touring car circuit who racked up an astonishing nine wins of the Bathurst 1000 across a recordbreaking career.
Where the documentary really gets its hooks into you is the ease with which it charts the complicated life journey taken by Brock when not at the wheel of one of his beloved Holdens. A fascinating portrait of a man who craved fame while not equipped to adequately deal with it.
While vivid contributions from friends, family and arch rivals are rightly to the fore, the daring, skill and rebellious streak of the man himself linger longest in the memory afterwards. Oh, and if you can’t find a cinema screening this, it is available to rent as a digital download from tomorrow (Friday).
THE CURRENT WAR (M)
GENERAL RELEASE, 108 MIN ★★★
A plush historical drama about the early days of electricity. Beware energy levels can swiftly surge, and just as suddenly drop to a faint throb. Between these extremes is the fascinating true story of a great personal rivalry that hastened the everyday use of electric power.
On one side of an everwidening divide in the late 1800s is renowned inventor Thomas Alva Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch). He believes his direct-current (DC) system will connect the American public to a bright and shining future. The only hitch? Every home must be within range of a big, ugly power station. Wealthy industrialist George Westinghouse
thinks his alternate-current (AC) system will end the technological ice age.
Its advantage is an ability for its energy to travel vast distances by cable.
Both big dreamers with huge egos, Edison and Westinghouse keep raising the stakes to prove their points. Not quite the hardline history lesson it reads on paper, with shrewd performance choices and exquisite camera work serving as potent circuit breakers.