Feminists creating a Miss World of trouble
MISBEHAVIOUR ★★★★✩
(Cert 12A, 106 mins)
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe Stars: Gugu Mbatha-raw, Keira Knightley, Keeley Hawes, Rhys Ifans
CALM WITH HORSES ★★★★✩
(Cert 15, 100 mins)
Director: Nick Rowland
Stars: Cosmo Jarvis, Ned Dennehy, Barry Keoghan, Niamh Algar, David Wilmot, Anthony Welsh
MY SPY ★★★✩✩
(Cert 12A, 99 mins)
Director: Peter Segal
Stars: Dave Bautista, Kristen Schaal, Ken Jeong, Chloe Coleman
MISBEHAVIOUR isn’t the first British film inspired by the very public collision between the 1970 Missworld contest and the fledglingwomen’s Liberation movement but it’s definitely the most even-handed.
Unlike 1973’s Carry On Girls, the film allows us to see the views of both world peace-craving models and furious feminists.yet as well as a sense of fair play, director Philippa Lowthorpe retains the very British love of the ridiculous.
Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley makes us root for Sally Alexander and Jo Robinson, two of the activists who interrupted the contest while it was being broadcast live to 27 million British homes.
Greg Kinnear raises laughs as Bob Hope, who lost his cool when his dated gags were met with a hail of flour bombs.
Gugu Mbatha-raw is Jennifer Hosten, the dignified Miss Grenada who hoped to present a different concept of female beauty to the world.
As Sally, a history student and single mother, falls in with Buckley’s ramshackle, almost Pythonesque band of feminists, Eric Morley (an enjoyably hammy Rhys Ifans) and loyal wife Julia (Keeley Hawes) prepare for the big event.
Lowthorpe has great fun taking us behind the scenes of the contest that was already beginning to show its age.
Morley, who also invented Come
Dancing (or early Strictly), is an amusing buffoon but he’s shown to be a victim of rapidly changing times.
After being told that her thesis on the women’s work in the industrial revolution is “a bit niche”, Sally decides to join the protest, much to the horror of her middle-class mother (Phyllis Logan).
Their conflict is convincing but the film’s best scene involves an encounter between Knightley’s feminist and Mbatha-raw’s beauty queen. Their different backgrounds put them on opposite sides but for a fleeting moment they manage to find common ground.
“We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry!” was the slogan. Still, this hugely entertaining drama makes the 1970s look like a more gentle and respectful age.
After countless taxdeductible, low budget British gangster films, Calm With Horses finally gave me a thug I could root for. Director Nick Rowland’s hugely impressive debut is set on Ireland’s west coast, a million miles from Essex Boy bouncers and cheeky Cockney killers.
An excellent Cosmo Jarvis brings soul to dim-witted man mountain Douglas “Arm” Armstrong, a disgraced boxer now working as a hired fist for a family of drug dealing scumbags.these are the Devers, headed by filthy Paudi (Ned Dennehy) and his marginally more presentable brother Hector (Davidwilmot).
Arm takes his orders from their weaselly young cousin Dympna (Barry Keoghan) who tasks him with beating a dirty old man (Liam Carney) accused of molesting a young Devers girl.
The opening beating is hard to watch but Rowland knows how to balance the violence with drama and black comedy.
Arm’s work has alienated him from his former partner Ursula (Niamh Algar) who is struggling to cope with their autistic son. But when Arm learns that his bosses want him to provide more permanent punishment, we see a flicker of humanity.
From here, this thoughtful drama begins to morph into something more pulpy. But star and director make sure it never tips into cliché.this thrilling film marks them as names to watch.
Before former wrestler Dave Bautista gets serious drama, Hollywood tradition dictates he will have to star in a family comedy. Hence My Spy. Here, like Schwarzenegger’s Kindergarten Cop and Dwayne Johnson’s Tooth Fairy, he is forced to take on a pint-sized partner.
After disgracing himself, CIA agent JJ is paired with geeky tech specialist Bobbi (Flight Of The Conchords’ Kristen Schaal).while their colleagues chase a supervillain, they are tasked with watching nurse Kate (Parisa Fitz-henley) and her bored nine-year-old daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman).
Kate was married to the villain’s now deceased brother, and Ken Jeong’s CIA boss thinks there’s a chance he may visit.
After bugging the apartment, it takes smart Sophie seconds to track the camera back to JJ and Bobbi’s hideout, and while her mum is at work, she decides to blackmail JJ into teaching her the spying game and acting as a surrogate dad.
It’s familiar but funny. Big Dave and little Chloe make a great double act and Schaal gets some sharp lines. “It looks like the wedding scene from Shrek,” she says while spying JJ’S very clumsy moves on a dancefloor.