SECONDSCREEN

Say When Cert: 15A Time: 1hr 40mins

The Skeleton Twins Cert: 15A Time: 1hr 33mins

Earlier this year, Keira Knightley was fabulous in the New York-based musical Begin Again, and she’s almost good enough again in Say When to make it worth watching. But not quite. For after the film seems to have recovered from its terribly ly dull opening, it serves up an ending so improbable that you wonder how anyone involved kept a straight face. What makes thishis doubly disappointing is that the film is directed by Lynn Shelton, whose Your Sister’s Sister was admired.

Knightley, pictured, plays Megan, a late-twentysomething from Seattle who is succumbing to a quarter-life crisis. She doesn’t have a proper job, her friends are all having babies and, while her devoted boyfriend is desperately trying to propose, she’s not sure she wants to marry him.

It’s on the first occasion that he gets down on one knee – prompting her to flee – that she bumps into Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), a teenager at highschool. But while it’s believable that Megan might be persuaded to buy alcohol for Annika, it stretches credibility to the limit when, on a subsequent occasion, Megan seeks sanctuary at Annika’s house. For the best part of a week.

Shelton is aiming for a quirky, indie-style comedy but with that ghastly ending looming, she misses the mark here.

The Skeleton Twins is similar in comic tone, although you wouldn’t guess that from an opening scene that sees both main protagonists attempting suicide. One is just plain unsuccessful while the other is interrupted by a phone call from the hospital.

And so it is that Milo (Bill Hader), who tried to cut his wrists after getting drunk, goes home to recover at the suburban New York home of his twin sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig).

Writer-director Craig Johnson initially delivers the sort of observational comedy that is all the better for being unshowy. And, though things get too contrived for this film to be a resounding success, it’s more hit than miss.