Not a dry eye in the house
CRITIC’S CHOICE X+Y 12A cert, 112 mins This debut feature from Morgan Matthews looks like a film it very happily is not. It has been sold as can-do inspirational fluff about a troubled, autistic teen (Asa Butterfield) who happens to be a whizz at algebra. He gets a kindly, lonely mentor at school (Rafe Spall), who is living with MS and enrols the boy in a maths Olympiad, which looks like his yellow brick road to fulfilment. The film’s magic, then, is how it steps away from cliché scene by scene. Nathan’s overwhelming desire to fit in is poignant and palpable. But it’s the mother-son relationship that won’t leave a dry eye in the house. Sally Hawkins is at her peerlessly warm best as Julie, a dogged tryer, endlessly underappreciated, and very patient on her good days. Their beautifully handled relationship is like a provisional answer being scratched out on an exam paper: a work in progress. Tim Robey ALSO IN CINEMAS Run All Night 15 cert, 114 mins The first Albanian dies 22 minutes into the new Liam Neeson film, and you know he won’t be the last. By then, it’s abundantly clear that Run All Night won’t be straying far from the Neeson actionmovie template set out seven years ago, in Taken: a middleaged father, gnawed by regret, will draw on skills learnt in some murky previous line of work to save a member of his family from an array of goons. But while this particular bandwagon is fast running out of road, Run All Night shows there’s mileage in it yet. The film’s secret isn’t much of a secret at all. It just remembers why Neeson was such an oddly inspired choice for a grimy revenge thriller back in 2008 and does its best to repeat the trick. Robbie Collin
IFar from the Madding Crowd U cert, 168 mins An all-new Far from the Madding Crowd, starring Carey Mulligan, calls upon us in May; by way of a refresher – or spoiler – this week sees MGM’s 1967 adaptation, starring Julie Christie and Terence Stamp, reissued had my first riding lesson in Iceland back in 1997. It might have been the middle of the night, but it was still broad daylight when the pub closed. Someone said: “Now we ride up the mountain.” And then passed out. The rest of us walked out of the bar, found the ponies, caught them, hopped on bareback and went pellmell, right over the horizon clinging on to their manes. in a new print. From the opening 360-degree pan over a desolate hillside, cinematographer Nic Roeg transforms Hardy’s Wessex into a landscape both tangible and mystical, its vistas encompassing both abject desolation and stirring fecundity. Mike McCahill It was actually fantastic, galloping over soft grass alongside mountain streams in bright sunshine at two o’clock in the morning – but probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I only got to know Claire properly because she’d fallen off a horse. I was recording an album in the street next to hers. She was off work for a month with a totally mangled arm. I still Suite Française 15 cert, 107 mins Irène Némirovsky’s famous, long-unpublished novel about love and betrayal in the occupied town of Bussy, east of Paris, reaches the screen as a handsome, romanticised yarn – all furtive yearning and Harvey Weinsteinapproved good taste. Michelle Williams’s unhappy provincial wife and Matthias Schoenaerts’s cultured Nazi gear up for grand passion, as Kristin Scott Thomas’s severe matron glares in their general direction. Sadly, the script coughs up nothing for everyone’s favourite withering grande dame to do in the second half. More disappointingly, this is only inches away from being Chocolat (2000). And it really ought to have been something more than high-quality confectionery. TR have to massage her right shoulder whenever we’re watching television. She was a keen rider when I met her but has been pregnant more or less continuously ever since and has only just got back in the saddle – and she’s loving it. I do like to ride, occasionally. The last time was with all the neighbours on Christmas Eve: an enormous shire horse called Billy. The only hat we could find that fitted was a motorbike helmet. I’ve tried to sell Claire on both this ad hoc-type approach and bareback semi-wild Icelandic pony style, but it’s not working. I’ve thought long and hard about building stables for her on the farm but every way that I look at it, it comes out like buying a pub to save money on beer – and there’s apparently no limit to what you can spend. It has been a big week for horse Tom Scudamore wins at Cheltenham racing. You can always tell it’s the Cheltenham Festival just from the number of helicopters that fly over the house, and even though we’re right on the other side of the Cotswolds, all the good pubs and b&bs are packed with revellers. There’s even a massive stack of Racing Posts right next to the till at the post office in the village. Still, I love the races. Win or lose it’s a great day out in the countryside. Helicopter gridlock, horses worth more than football players, tweed and frocks, smiles and springtime. Two weeks today the Prince’s Countryside Fund Raceday takes place at Ascot racecourse. As well as the races there’s a slew of other countryside activities for the whole family – with the proceeds all going to support the work of the fund. I’ll be there. These days I’m much happier watching horses than sitting on them.