Come on, Eileen, this plot takes a weird turn!
Eileen Cert: 15A, 1hr 37mins
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There’s Something In The Barn
Cert: 15, 1hr 40mins HHHHH Candy Cane Lane
Cert: 12, 1hr 57mins Available on Amazon
HHHHH Fallen Leaves
Cert: 12A, 1hr 21mins
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A‘McKenzie plays a woman who drives to beaches to watch couples kissing’
‘It’s shrill, particularly American and something of a Yuletide mess’
lthoughshe’sbeen working for over 10 years, most of us only started to notice the young New Zealand actress, Thomasin McKenzie, when she more than held her own opposite Ben Foster in Leave No Trace. This breakthrough moment in 2018 was followed by eye-catching performances in Jojo Rabbit and Last Night In Soho.
Now she’s even better in William Oldroyd’s Eileen, despite sharing much of her screen time with on-form A-lister Anne Hathaway, a former teen star herself of course.
McKenzie plays the title role, a strange young American who drives to lonely beaches to watch couples kissing and fantasises about some of the inmates at the young offenders prison where she works. But when her head is turned by the prison’s new psychiatrist, the beautiful Rebecca (Hathaway), it seems Eileen’s sexual preferences may be fluid.
Adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Oldroyd’s stylish psychological thriller is at its best when the two leads share the screen. But it takes a strange turn late-on that left me disappointed and feeling that much of that early promise had been wasted. There’s Something In The Barn is a Norwegian comedy Christmas horror (yes, really) that uses the simple device of an American family inheriting a Norwegian farm to play out its seasonal silliness, in box-officeboosting English.
As a fiery opening suggests and the family’s young son finds out for himself, there is indeed something in the barn. Which turns out to be a Norwegian barn elf. Treat them nicely and they will take care of your entire farm, apparently, but treat them badly…
It’s a decent premise and amusingly delivered at times, but elves bent on seasonal mischief would have had broader appeal than elves set on murder and mutilation.
Mind you, it’s a work of genius compared to Eddie Murphy’s new Christmas comedy, Candy Cane Lane, which sees Murphy playing a newly out of work family man determined to win the $100,000 prize for the house with the best outside Christmas decorations, only to fall foul of a scheming elf who’s parted company with Santa. It’s shrill, particularly American and something of a Yuletide mess.
Fans of Aki Kaurismaki’s famously deadpan Finnish ‘comedies’ will find much to enjoy in Fallen Leaves, which sees two lonely people liking the look of each other but having to overcome all sorts of obstacles on the path to love. She fails to tell him her name, he loses her phone number… and then there’s the minor matter of his alcoholism. Finnish comedy, eh? Loved the acting, the industrial settings and the dog, though.