Art, nature and a worthy rom-com
Smart, relatable romantic comedy Man Upis nimbly scripted by British screenwriter Tess Morris with engaging leads Lake Bell, working a credible Brit accent as commitmentshy recluse Nancy, and Simon Pegg as freshly divorced Jack.
Taking place over 24 hours after Nancy stumbles into a mistakenidentity date with Jack while en route to her parents’ 40th wedding anniversary do, she impulsively decides to keep up the lie and just go with it. Chemistry grows as they move from bars to bowling. Conversations spark with cynicism and wit, especially when Nancy comes clean on her deception. But Jack hasn’t been entirely truthful either.
Sure-handed direction from Ben Palmer (and some solid camerawork) allows London-set Man Up to succeed where similarly themed movies often stumble. Aside from the silly title and disappointingly pat ending, even the rom-com-averse will find something to love about Man Up. Linda Barnard
> HOWELL WILL RETURN
Peter Howell’s regular column will return next week.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland follows her affectionate documentary ode to fashion magazine editor Diana Vree
land: The Eye Has to Travel with a profile of eccentric art collector, influencer, curator and patron Peggy Guggenheim, who bought pieces from future superstars of contemporary art for a song and exhibited them with passion.
The first to showcase artists including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, when it came to modern American art, “I was the midwife,” Guggenheim rightly crows in recently unearthed audio recordings made with her biographer not long before her 1979 death. Possessing great “sexual energy,” as artist Marina Abramovic describes her, and a sublimely offbeat bohemian, Guggenheim knew the greatest artists of the age intimately. Her affairs were legendary. And she saved great artworks from the Nazis when the Louvre doubted modern paintings were worth protecting.
The paintings, sculpture (and those marvellous Edward Melcarth batwing sunglasses) on display will thrill art lovers even if the documentary occasionally veers toward the plodding in execution. Linda Barnard As one interviewee notes, the island archipelago off the coast of British Columbia may be “a microcosm of what the world could be.”
Produced and directed by Charles Wilkinson, this documentary — awarded best Canadian feature documentary at this year’s Hot Docs film festival — looks at the struggles of the people to reclaim their land from the depredations of logging and overfishing. It’s a work in progress.
But there’s more to the film than the serenity and beauty of the land and seascape it depicts. It’s instructive, never strident and ultimately hopeful, a lesson to all about how to live and thrive in concert with our natural environment. Bruce DeMara