Powerful and sensitive drama
FILM OF THE WEEK: BEN IS BACK ★★★★✩ (15, 103 mins) drama/romance. Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Kathryn Newton, Courtney B Vance, Jakari Fraser. Director: Peter Hedges.
The return of a recovering drug addict to the fold throws festive preparations into disarray i-n Academy Award-nomi nated writer-director Peter Hedges’ sensitively observed drama. Anchored by powerhouse performances from Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges, Ben Is Back explores the devastation wrought by addiction on various members of a fractured New York family, w-ho are divided about whether to sup port a wayward teenager after a litany of painful relapses and mistakes.
The film’s emotional heartbeat is the seemingly unbreakable bond between a fiercely protective mother and her 19-year-old son, who repeatedly pushes away his biggest supporter for fear of letting her down. Again.
“If you really knew me, you’d be done with me,” Lucas Hedges’ conflicted child tells Roberts’ lioness during a night-time j-ourney of self-discovery, which occa sionally strains credibility as Peter Hedges’ picture glides towards its tearful final reckoning.
A nicely calibrated script doesn’t short-change the two leads including a -stand-out sequencequence at an addiction sup port group meeting, where Ben publicly apologises for the pain he has inflicted on his loved ones while his mother sits silently behind him, tears welling in her eyes. Ben Is Back traverses similar rocky territory to Beautiful Boy, albeit without graphic scenes of drug-taking.
Holly Burns-beeby (Roberts) returns from Christmas shopping with her levelheaded daughter Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and six-year-old son Liam (Jakari Fraser) to find her oldest child Ben (Hedges) standing awkwardly in the driveway.
He has come home for Christmas, a-pparently with the blessing of his spon sor from the sober living house where he h-as been receiving treatment and sup port for addiction.
While Holly is delighted by the unexpected family reunion, Ivy fears Ben will fall from grace and she telephones her stepfather Neal (Courtney B Vance), who races home to remonstrate with his wife.
She agrees to personally take charge of
her boy for Christmas.
“You do not leave my sight because, for the next 24 hours, you are mine,” Holly warns Ben.
Tensions inside the tinsel-laden Burns-beeby home detonate when the family returns from Midnight Mass to find someone has broken into the house and taken the family’s dog.
Neal lays the blame squarely on Ben’s shoulders and the young man heads into the night flanked by Holly to make amends.
Ben Is Back is an actors’ showcase and Roberts and Lucas Hedges excel in fraught exchanges.
T-he mystery of the dognapping pro vides a loose framework for writer-director Peter Hedges to explore dynamics between family members and test their resolve to breaking point.
VERDICT
Peter Hedges has a sharp ear for snappy dialogue and gives the impressive ensemble cast the time and space they need to convincingly plumb the depths of their characters’ inner turmoil. FISHERMAN’S FRIENDS
(12A, 112 mins)
A true-life story of musical success against the odds inspires director Chris Foggin’s feelgood fish-out-of-water drama comedy.
Scripted by Nick Moorcroft, Meg Leonard and Piers Ashworth, Fisherman’s Friends takes considerable artistic licence with the remarkable rise of eight men from Port Isaac in Cornwall, who signed a record deal in 2010 and became the first traditional folk act to land a top 10 album in the UK charts.
The group subsequently performed for the Queen at the 2012 jubilee celebrations and brought their haunting sea shanties to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
Foggin’s film trawls for the essence of the crabs-to-riches fairy tale and delivers a decent haul of laughter and sentiment interspersed with foot-stomping musical performances.
Some of the cast’s Cornish accents are, frankly, lost at sea and a lukewarm central romance across the cultural divide is hastily engineered to provide the film with one female voice to counter the macho posturing.
London-based music executive Danny (Daniel Mays) heads to Cornwall on a boozy stag weekend with his boss Troy (Noel Clarke), colleague Driss (Vahid Gold) and boorish groom-to-be Henry (Christian Brassington).
Their drunken antics on paddle boards lead to a lifeboat rescue manned by local fisherman Jim (James Purefoy) and his pals.
Ronce“you cross the (iver) Tamar, you’re not in England any more. We’re land apart,” explains Jim, who is fiercely proud of his Cornish heritage.
During their time in Port Isaac, the stag party witness locals singing sea shanties in the harbour and Troy jokingly suggests Danny should offer the swarthy fishermen a record deal because their repertoire is “copyright-free songs”.
Danny falls hook, line and sinker for Troy’s prank and records Jim, Jago (David Hayman), Rowan (Sam Swainsbury), Leadville (Dave Johns) and the rest of the group in a local church, where acoustics are perfect.
As Danny spends quality time in the close-knit village, he nurtures a crush on Jtim’s daughter Alwyn ( uppence Middleton), whose primary concern is her daughter Tamsyn (Meadow Nobrega).
The jaded executive cannot remain in Cornwall forever.
When the time comes to court record labels, the fishermen don sunglasses to rresemble “eservoir Sea Dogs” and accompany Danny to the bright lights of London.
Fisherman’s Friends hauls up a familiar catch of friendship, betrayal, redemption and self-analysis, shot on location in picturesque Cornwall.
Mays brings a likeability to his worldweary corporate lackey, who is gifted a new lease of life through personal ties to a band that values community and tradition before celebrity and fortune. Supporting characters are sketched in broad strokes, diminishing the emotional impact of one scene that brings the villagers together in a time of sombre reflection.