ALSO SHOWING
The Zookeeper’s Wife
Cert 15A; Now showing
QUIET heroism often goes unnoticed and Niki Caro’s film, based on Diane Ackerman’s book of the same name, aims to correct that.
Based on the true story of Antonina Zabinska (Jessica Chastain) and her husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) it looks at several years of extraordinary bravery that saved many lives.
Well-intentioned and interesting, it doesn’t blast home the horrors of the Holocaust — but is effective in its understatement, offering a film about the goodness that can be evident in wartime more than about the evil.
The Zabinskas and their son Ryszard, all deeply involved with the animals, are living in the grounds of Warsaw Zoo when Germany invades Poland in 1939.
Antonina has attracted the attention of Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl), the man who will become head of Hitler’s selective breeding programme and he offers to take their best stock to Berlin, saving it from the war.
He also enlists Antonina to help him attempt to rebreed an extinct Germanic ox.
It means a constant Nazi presence and frequent visits from Heck, factors which make the Zabinskas’s decision to aid and shelter Jews fleeing from the Warsaw Ghetto all the more remarkable.
The horrors of the time are insinuated rather than graphically portrayed.
Although not as emotionally involving as it could have been, Chastain is as wonderful as ever as the plot revolves around her.
AINE O'CONNOR
Rules Don’t Apply
Cert 12A; Now showing
WARREN Beatty doesn’t make films very often — but when he does, he does it all. Recently turned 80 he wrote, produced, directed and stars in Rules Don’t Apply, which, while it doesn’t work on every level, is very enjoyable. And Beatty’s performance is the best thing about it.
The film opens in 1963, a TV broadcast is waiting for a call from reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes (Beatty) to disprove claims that he has dementia. While it looks like Hughes will not make the call, the film returns to 1958 when devout Christian Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins) arrives in Hollywood with her mother (Annette Bening) to be one of Hughes’s starlets. Set up in a nice house in the hills, with a driver to take care of her every need, Marla takes classes with the other starlets but never actually meets him, something which increasingly agitates her already worried mother.
One of her drivers, Levar (Matthew Broderick) is older and a bit pervy, the younger one, Frank (Alden Ehrenreich) is all handsome virtue, but is engaged. Their attraction is thus thwarted by several factors, and one more is about to happen.
Hughes’s strange collection of young women is clear but sugar-coated and Beatty writes and plays him as a sympathetic figure, one who overshadows the slightly insipid romance. It’s too long but there is a light touch to this often funny look back to old Hollywood. Fans of nice, gentle entertainment should enjoy it.
AINE O’CONNOR
Handsome Devil
Cert 15A; Now showing
WRITER and director John Butler’s “emotionally autobiographical” second film is rather different from his first, The Stag. Set in an Irish rugbyobsessed boys’ boarding school, it’s a local version of stories that have been told before, unlikely friendships, bullies and belonging and inspirational teachers. Butler wants people to think about young men’s place in society and make them laugh, and with the help of some great performances, two leads and excellent support, he achieves that, gently prodding gay stereotypes along the way.
Ned (Fionn O’Shea) hates the boarding school he attends since his father and stepmother (Ardal O’Hanlon and Amy Huberman) moved to Dubai.
Ned is bullied by the rugby team (whose coach is a great Moe Dunford) over his sexuality, so is not best pleased to get the team’s new star, Conor (Nicholas Galitzine doing a flawless Dublin accent) as a roommate. But their English teacher (an excellent Andrew Scott) demands individuality and honesty. Unashamedly feelgood, it makes its point lightly and really enjoyably.
AINE O’CONNOR