DVD OF THE WEEK
Halfway through The Visit an old lady asks a young girl to clean an oven by climbing inside it, and you think, uhoh, Hansel and Gretel are alive and well – but maybe not for much longer… The girl in question is Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge), and she and her brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are spending a week away from home so that Mom (Kathryn Hahn) can get some quality time with her boyfriend. But are their grandparents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) even crazier than Mom let on? Since The Visit is the work of M Night Shyamalan, he of The Sixth Sense, there are no prizes for guessing. Indeed, though the new movie comes complete with one of his characteristic killer twists, I’m afraid this one’s not that fatal. Yet The Visit is worth sticking with for the performances and some genuinely spooky moments. Children in US movies can be as tiresome as toothache, but DeJonge is so spunky you can’t not warm to her. As for Oxenbould, I could have done without his witless rapping to his videophone. Still, nobody could wish on him what he is obliged to suffer at the movie’s climax. Getting anywhere near isn’t good enough for the heroes of Everest. They want to reach the top – or die trying. And since Baltasar Kormákur’s movie is based on a terrifying true story, there is once again no trouble predicting what will come to pass. But for all its soppy, Great Escapestyle heroism, Everest ends up moving you. This is because its characters are never merely types. With his insistence on climbing oxygen-free, for instance, Scott Fischer ought to be a bore. As played by Jake Gyllenhaal, he’s one of those roguish charmers you’d follow to the end of, well, the end. I found the much-fêted 45 Years a lot less persuasive. This account of marital fallout in the week leading up to a massive anniversary party is beautifully played (Charlotte Rampling on icy form; Tom Courtenay unforgivingly blank). But I’m afraid the narrative set-up is so unconvincing the picture falls flat.