Tilda and daughter team up (again) for a middle-class treat
BRITISH director Joanna Hogg has made two autobiographical features about a formative period in her own life, when she was learning her craft at film school in London in the 1980s.
The first of them, 2019’s The Souvenir, was a curiously absorbing picture, fashioned around a slightly uneasy yet somehow riveting performance by Honor Swinton Byrne, making her big-screen debut as Julie, Hogg’s alter ego.
The follow-up, The Souvenir Part II (★★★★I, 15, 107 mins), continues the story where the first film ended, with Julie grieving the death of her heroin-addict ex-boyfriend.
Happily for us, if not for her, Julie does her mourning at the grand country home of her ineffably posh parents, meaning more screen time for the glorious Tilda
Swinton, Byrne’s real-life mother, and the quietly excellent James Spencer Ashworth. Some of their scenes together are very funny.
Better still, we also get more Richard Ayoade this time, having a blast as an arrogant fellow student of Julie’s. But commendably, Hogg hasn’t just dished up more of what went down well first time round. This is a far more ambitious film, inventively blurring the distinction between what is real and what is make-believe. Hogg’s pictures, with their frightfully middle-class themes, aren’t always my cup of Earl Grey. But this one is splendidly original.
I also liked Jockey (★★★☆☆, 15, 94 mins), a touching drama sensitively directed and co-written by first-timer Clint Bentley. It is set mostly in Phoenix, Arizona, where Jackson (Clifton Collins Jr) is a jockey grudgingly coming to terms with the ageing process.
Alarmingly, he increasingly feels numb in his right side, and doesn’t want to let on to his supportive employer, Ruth (Molly Parker), especially as she has found a promising horse for him to ride. But on the upside, he also has a new protégé, a young jockey, Gabriel (Moises Arias), who claims to be his son.
It’s a beautifully shot film and nicely acted, although it also uses real people from that world of small-track horse-racing, giving it a strong whiff of authenticity.