WHEN FLIRTING LOST OUT TO THE JOY OF TEXT
In this new age of dating apps, social media and instant messaging, the unwary or overenthusiastic can find themselves exchanging flirty texts and revealing photographs with someone they barely know.
It’s this murky world that Cat Person, based on a short story by Kristen Roupenian, impressively explores. And for those of us still missing Succession, there’s the added bonus of finding out what the Gregster – aka actor Nicholas Braun – did next.
When Margot, played by CODA star Emilia Jones, first lays eyes on Robert (Braun) she’s manning the popcorn stall at her local cinema and bored. She gently flirts with him but, strangely, he doesn’t flirt back. The misunderstandings and false assumptions have already begun.
It’s only on a second visit that he clumsily asks for her phone number and the mildly flirtatious texting begins. But just when we think we might be heading into clever romcom territory, the mood changes drastically. Some may find the abrupt change too dramatic but it remained all too plausible to me and, thanks to fine performances from Jones and Braun, and filmmaker Susanna Fogel’s well-judged pacing, it’s powerfully watchable too.
Some big directorial choices have been made with The Killer – not least to have much of the story told via a deep, dark and monotonously extended voiceover from Irish star Michael Fassbender. But big statements are what you expect when you hire a director of the calibre of David Fincher, whose past successes include Seven, Zodiac and The Social Network. This time around, however, his choices don’t quite work, and are not helped by a screenplay that is predictable and flat. Fassbender, alas, is almost too successful in his portrayal of the sort of assassin who disappears in plain sight by being entirely unremarkable and dull.
Obviously borrowing the basic plot of Speed is Retribution, which sees Liam Neeson employing his very particular set of skills to play Matt Turner. What Matt quickly discovers when he has to drive his children to school one morning is a bomb under the seat of his SUV. If he or his children get out of the car or fail to do exactly what they are told, the bomb will be detonated, a heavily disguised voice on the phone tells him. Formulaic and derivative but quite effective too.
In Doctor Jekyll, Eddie Izzard is unexpectedly restrained and rather good, in fact, as reclusive pharmaceutical magnate Nina Jekyll, but with little else to commend this, Izzard’s efforts are in vain.
Audrey (Monica Dolan) and her psychiatric nurse (Kelly Macdonald) are on a road trip in Typist Artist Pirate King though, sadly, they forget to take us along for the ride.