In no mad Rush to finish artist’s masterpiece
(Cert 15; 90mins)
IS GENIUS a curse or a blessing? In Final Portrait, Swiss painter Giacometti regards his talent as a burden. Every canvas is an enemy, every brush stroke has the potential for disaster. He is in constant agony and Geoffrey Rush makes the most of an eccentric personality forever swaying between despair and defiance. His rich performance adds spice to the film but the calm authority of co-star Armie Hammer is no less impressive in what is very close in scope and scale to being a theatrical two-hander.
Written and directed by Stanley Tucci, Final Portrait is based on a memoir by writer James Lord (Hammer).
Set in 1964, it follows the gentlemanly Lord as he is invited to sit for a portrait by Giacometti in his studio in Paris. Flattered by the offer, he is told that the sittings will not take long, a few hours at most.
But the process becomes a marathon. Flights home are cancelled and plans put on hold as Lord becomes a prisoner of his commitment. Bursts of creativity are followed by the desire to destroy everything and start over. Self-doubt means that nothing is ever to Giacometti’s satisfaction. “What better breeding ground for doubt than success?” he demands.
Unfolding mostly in the artist’s dusty, cluttered Paris studio, Final Portrait is an enjoyable skirmish between painter and subject as Lord suddenly finds himself at the centre of Giacometti’s world.
It is a chaotic existence shared with Giacometti’s long-suffering wife Annette (Sylvie Testud), his brother Diego (Tony Shalhoub) and neurotic mistress/muse Caroline (Clémence Poésy). Portrait sessions take place at the whim of Giacometti and are vulnerable to interruption as he heads to the nearest bar or strolls through a nearby cemetery.
He is a force of nature who cannot be denied. He is also acutely critical of peers and rivals alike with his deepest scorn reserved for Picasso, who is accused of stealing other people’s good ideas.
Elegantly attired and impeccably mannered, Lord is not the type to express his frustration but a heavy sigh or a raised eyebrow allows Armie Hammer to speaks volumes. He is the quiet calm to Giacometti’s raging storm and Rush is also on fine form as a man whose every whim is tolerated because the end so frequently justifies his means. Wreathed in shaggy grey hair, stooped and often looking like an unmade bed, he buzzes with energy and always acts on impulse.
Final Portrait grows repetitive and feels claustrophobic, as if filmed in studios rather than on location. But it is entertaining and there is ultimately a poignancy in an artist addicted to perfectionism.
“The more one works on a picture, the more impossible it becomes to finish it” could stand as his epitaph. Giacometti never completed another portrait after his sessions with Lord and died just two years later.
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (Cert PG; 98mins)
FORMER Vice-President Al Gore has been a man on a mission for the best part of 40 years, working tirelessly to alert the world to the threat from man-made climate change.
Ten years after his Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power mixes triumph and despair as Gore continues campaigning around the world.
In many respects the situation is even worse now with more extreme weather conditions, droughts, melting ice-caps and low-lying islands in danger of disappearing under rising seas.
The documentary captures a sense of a defining moment as world leaders gather in Paris for a climate conference that would secure universal agreement.
The sting in the tale is the election of President Donald Trump, whose disdain for climate change is just one more challenge for a man who has never faltered in his determination to make a difference.
THE DARK TOWER (Cert 12A; 95mins)
STEPHEN King is 70 next month but a dull, cheap-looking adaptation of his fantasy novel series The Dark Tower is probably not the birthday gift he would have chosen.
New York youngster Jake (Tom Taylor) has been plagued by nightmare visions. He finds his dreams are part of a reality in which a tower at the centre of the universe keeps evil at bay.
But dastardly Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey), known as the Man In Black, is out to destroy the tower by using the powers of psychic children like Jake. Padick’s arch-nemesis gunslinger Roland (Idris Elba) is on hand to mentor Jake, help him travel between different realms and thwart Padick’s plan.
But there is so much plot to cover here that there is little time left to engage with the characters. And while Idris Elba makes a steely Western hero, Matthew McConaughey goes into pantomime mode as the whispering villain of the piece.
THE UNTAMED (Cert 18; 98mins)
THERE is a bracing originality to The Untamed, a surreal mixture of science fiction and sexually charged kitchen sink drama from cult Mexican director Amat Escalante. But it is definitely not for all tastes.
Alejandra (Ruth Ramos) is trapped in a violent, loveless marriage to the brutish Angel (Jesús Meza).Her brother Fabian (Edén Villavicencio) has his own relationship problems.
The mysterious Veronica (Simone Bucio) could be the answer to all their desires in a film that has some of the hypnotic otherworldly intensity of Scarlett Johansson feature Under The Skin.
DARK NIGHT (Cert 12A; 85mins)
INSPIRED by the mass shooting during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, Dark Night is a chilly, low-key portrait of alienation and disillusionment.
Set the day before a similar incident, it follows a group of people going about their lives.
An Iraq veteran attends counselling, a man loses his job after arguing with his boss and a teenager admits to a crime.
All of them seem isolated and unable to connect to the wider world.
One of them will arm himself and head to a cinema.
A film that brings little insight to a troubling issue.
THE ODYSSEY (Cert PG; 120mins)
EVERYONE remembers Jacques Cousteau as the David Attenborough of the ocean. Cousteau was a pioneer in underwater exploration, an early conservationist forever on our television screens and The Odyssey is a handsome biography that struggles to chart his hectic life fully.
It begins in 1979 and unfolds in flashback from the marriage of Cousteau (Lambert Wilson) to Simone (Audrey Tautou) through the early voyages of his research vessel and his seemingly unstoppable desire to build a global brand.
Everything is viewed through his relationship with his favourite son Philippe (Pierre Niney) but the boy’s childhood worship turns to adult resentment of a man seemingly insensitive to the needs of his nearest and dearest.
The seas sparkle, the skies shimmer but the script refuses to shine as it soon becomes bogged down in family dramas and soap opera clichés.