David wins battle for hearts and minds
MAD TO BE NORMAL ★★★★ (Cert 15; 105mins)
CINEMA has rarely provided David Tennant with the meaty roles that his talent deserves. Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger! and St Trinian’s 2: The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold can’t hold a candle to Broadchurch or Doctor Who.
All that could change with Mad To Be Normal, in which Tennant is on commanding form as controversial, charismatic Swinging Sixties “high priest of anti-psychiatry” R D Laing.
Laing was a pioneering psychiatrist who opposed traditional practices such as locking patients up, treating them with electric shock therapy or drugging them to the point of insensibility.
Although his reputation has faded since his death in 1989, 50 years ago he was as famous as The Beatles or Bob Dylan and his early bestseller The Divided Self was read and revered around the world. In America he could fill lecture halls until they overflowed and effortlessly ruffled the feathers of staid authority.
Mad To Be Normal has been a labour of love for director Robert Mullan and charts a key period in Laing’s life when he established Kingsley Hall in East London.
Since he believed that conventional treatment was part of the problem, not the solution, Kingsley Hall was a medication-free community for those affected by schizophrenia where Laing practised a form of spiritual self-healing known as metanoia. Pilloried as a dangerous radical by some he appeared a bold pioneer to others.
Tennant offers a spot-on evocation of a mercurial figure. If you look at old interviews with Laing, you can see the dedication of Tennant’s performance as he captures the nasal drawl of the Glasgow-born doctor, the merciless gleam of his gaze and the haughty arrogance of his manner. This is a man who didn’t suffer fools or opposition. He could also be incredibly compassionate and charming and the strength of the film is the way it captures a sense of Laing’s contradictions. Ruthlessly certain about his professional life, he never made it easy for those who dared to get close to him.
Tennant is surrounded by a fantastic ensemble cast that includes a raw heartbreaker of a performance from Gabriel Byrne as volatile Kingsley Hall resident Jim, a touching Michael Gambon as lost soul Sidney and Elisabeth Moss as Angie Wood, an American student who becomes Laing’s long-suffering
lover and the greatest casualty of his self-absorption.
Mullan tries to pack a lot in and almost inevitably winds up simplifying and blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Mad To Be Normal feels rambling at times and is far from perfect. It doesn’t give Moss enough to do and ends abruptly rather than satisfyingly. However, Tennant is so commanding you can’t tear your eyes away from him.
It’s the kind of performance that deserves to be remembered come awards season in a film that will revive interest in the life and work of Laing.
And that can only be a good thing.
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO ★★★★★ (Cert 12A; 94mins)
I AM Not Your Negro was an Oscar contender back in February and is one of the most thought-provoking documentaries you will see this year.
Before his death in 1987, writer James Baldwin was working on a book that explored the issue of race in America through the lives and assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
He never finished the book but he left pages of notes and now director Raoul Peck has transformed them into a partial biography of Baldwin, a reflection on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and a sobering assertion of how little has changed since then.
Samuel L Jackson narrates a film filled with anger and despair that shows Baldwin to have been one of the most insightful and prescient figures of his generation.
GOING IN STYLE ★★★ (Cert 12A; 96mins)
DESPERATE times call for desperate measures in Going In Style, an amiable, undemanding remake of a George Burns comedy from the 1970s. This slick new version isn’t far removed from an episode of Last Of The Summer Wine but the cast of Oscar-winning veterans lends it a touch of class.
Willie (Morgan Freeman), Joe (Michael Caine) and Albert (Alan Arkin) worked in the same steel factory for years and have remained the best of friends. But when a foreign takeover swallows up their pension fund, they are all left feeling the pinch. Joe could lose his house and he decides a perfectly executed bank robbery could be the answer to all their problems.
Going In Style is entirely predictable but the cast helps bring a smile to the face. Arkin has most of the best lines as the grouchy old grump of the group and there is also a welcome appearance from Ann-Margret as a fellow senior determined to show Albert that romance is not yet dead.
AFTERMATH ★★ (Cert 15; 92mins)
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER turns 70 this summer and has become increasingly adventurous in his choice of film roles. Aftermath is a glum, plodding dramatisation of true events in which the only real surprise is a very subdued Schwarzenegger playing an anguished widower.
The wife and pregnant daughter of immigrant construction boss Roman Melnyk (Schwarzenegger) are flying to America to join him when he is informed of a fatal mid-air collision between two planes. There are no survivors.
One strand of the film depicts his grief and his determination to hold someone to account. The other focuses on guilty air traffic controller Jake (Scoot McNairy) and the combination of human errors that led to the tragedy.
Schwarzenegger gives a solid performance and you never question the film’s sincerity. However, it tends towards the underwhelming.
CITY OF TINY LIGHTS ★★ (Cert 15; 110mins)
CITY Of Tiny Lights has the bright idea of casting Riz Ahmed as a cynical private detective prowling the mean streets of multicultural London.
Unfortunately the inspiration ends there as his Tommy Akhtar becomes embroiled in a predictable tale of shadowy secret agents and radical extremists. It also connects to his past via long-lost love Michelle (Billie Piper) and childhood pal Haafiz (James Floyd). Ahmed is suitably jaded but he is let down by a lacklustre film.
TABLE 19 ★★ (Cert 12A; 87mins)
TABLE 19 is a dumping ground at the wedding reception from hell. Eloise (Anna Kendrick) finds herself seated at the dreaded spot after she is dumped by the bride’s brother and relegated from maid of honour to unwanted baggage.
Her reception companions include a bickering couple (Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson), an elderly nanny (June Squibb) and a creepy prisoner on day release (Stephen Merchant).
The mean-spirited comedy and bitter drama make for uncomfortable bedfellows before the descent towards sloppy sentimentality.
A QUIET PASSION ★★★★ (Cert 12A; 125mins)
SEX And The City’s Cynthia Nixon once again proves what a captivating performer she can be in A Quiet Passion, an elegantly crafted, deeply felt reflection on the life of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson.
Director Terence Davies captures a sensitive, independent mind at odds with an age when men dominated and women were expected to know their place.
The film is set almost entirely within the walls and grounds of the Dickinson family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, emphasising the limitations of her world and showing how important the simplest conversation or encounter could be. Writing poetry becomes her only solace as she becomes increasingly reclusive. A fine supporting cast includes Keith Carradine as Emily’s stern father Edward, Jennifer Ehle as her sister Lavinia and a sparkling Catherine Bailey as her friend Miss Buffan.
But it is Nixon’s performance as a rebellious artist that demands attention.