A tasty treat well worth unearthing
The Truffle Hunters (12A) Verdict: Utterly delicious ★★★★☆ The Surrogate (15) Verdict: Sensitive and intelligent ★★★☆☆
THE Truffle Hunters is a real charmer of an Italian-language documentary about the old men in the forests of Piedmont who have spent their lives unearthing, with the help of their beloved dogs, the prized white Alba truffle.
Directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, and executive-produced by accomplished director Luca Guadagnino, the film is a cinematic love letter not so much to truffles, more to adorable codgers and their adorable hounds. Or maybe not so adorable in the case of one old boy, who looks like an Old Testament prophet and bashes out an angry treatise on an ancient typewriter, explaining why he wants to give up truffle-hunting, which he thinks has been invaded by people only in it for money, not for love.
He may have a point. There are folk willing to pay £3,870 a kilo — and we follow the supply chain all the way up, from scrabbling in the soil to sitting at the table.
It’s a sweet, altogether delightful film, and if you don’t fall for 88-year-old Carlo, who seeks assurance from his priest that he and his faithful mutt Titina will be able to carry on looking for truffles in the afterlife, you’re made of sterner stuff than me.
THE Surrogate is a more complex affair, to say the least, with enough issues to feed an entire year of EastEnders episodes.
Jasmine Batchelor plays Jess, who has agreed to be a surrogate mother for her gay best friends Josh (Chris Perfetti) and Aaron (Sullivan Jones). But the discovery that the baby she is carrying has Down’s syndrome throws the two men in particular into emotional turmoil.
As well as surrogacy and disability rights, debutant writer-director Jeremy Hersh chucks race, sexuality, careerism, abortion, eugenics, parenting and financial independence into his moral maze.
At times it’s a bit of a squeeze in there, but on the whole he delivers a sensitively written, well-acted, intelligent film. Both in cinemas from today.