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Woody Harrelson’s capital misadventure, in real time.
Woody Harrelson’s directorial debut begins with a coterie of Hollywood pals telling him he’s making a huge mistake. His plan? To shoot a single-take comedy on the streets of London, loosely based on an incident in 2002 when he was arrested for breaking an ashtray in a black cab.
Upping the ante, Harrelson decides to forgo a safety net, simultaneously streaming the film to more than 500 cinemas in the US. One take, one camera, one chance to get it right: no wonder Jennifer Lawrence tells him it’s the worst idea he’s ever had. “Don’t do it,” she warns.
But Harrelson did – and, remarkably, pulled it off. An opening caption revealing that “too much of this is true…” is typical of the selfdeprecating humour that makes this more than just an audacious experiment. As Harrelson stumbles from one disaster to the next, his script pokes fun at his fading looks and the lowlights of his back catalogue, while a chance encounter with Owen Wilson – playing a vainglorious version of himself – is a joy, as the pair trade insults (“You got out-acted by a dog in Marley & Me”) and then blows.
Two years on, it loses the tightropewalk tension of seeing it live. But this frank, funny and fearless debut suggests that a man who has consistently made bold choices in front of the camera has an equally exciting future behind it. Chris Schilling