Neeson and Manville can’t save a hard old marriage slog
Ordinary Love 12A ★★
This is the story of a middle-aged couple whose long marriage comes under strain when the wife is diagnosed with cancer. Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson, left, are a classy combination that ordinarily I’d give a lot of money to see, but this is hard old slog, albeit a well-acted one. It’s hampered by our familiarity with the cancer story (disbelief, operation, chemo, hair-loss, scans, etc) and by the frustratingly under-explained revelation that this is not the first time their marriage has been tested by terrible events.
Lucy In The Sky 15 ★★
This shapes up nicely with Natalie Portman’s performance as Lucy, a star female astronaut who struggles to adapt to ordinary domestic life when she returns to Earth. But just when – with the help of co-star John Hamm – director Noah Hawley is beginning to say some quite interesting things about the damaging hormonal high potentially produced by space travel, the film falls apart – rather like the central character – and descends into near-endless melodramatic tedium.
Honey Boy 15A ★★
Shia LaBeouf was a child actor so is well placed to pen the screenplay for this film about Otis, an angry, alcoholic young actor (Lucas Hedges) entering rehab and looking back to his days as a
child actor when his underachieving, recovering alcoholic father, played by LaBeouf himself, served as his official chaperone. In other words, 12-year-old Otis – nicely played by Noah Jupe – was employing his own father. It has a handful of touching and funny moments but LaBeouf’s intense performance makes it hard work.
The Party’s Just Beginning 15 ★★
After the likes of Jumanji, former Doctor Who assistant Karen Gillan is now a Hollywood star.
But she returns to her Inverness roots with this modest offering – which she writes, directs and stars in – about a young woman whose life falls apart after her best friend’s suicide with hard drinking, casual sex and endless fish suppers.
The bottom line here is that this underdeveloped project wouldn’t be getting a release were it not for Gillan’s name being attached.