The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
Scripted by Jonathan Kasdan and father Lawrence, co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, the second standalone anthology film after Rogue One sketches the formative years of Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) in comforting, broad strokes. Ron Howard captains the hulking ship after director duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were tossed into a sarlacc pit over “creative differences” a few months into production. Behind-the-scenes turmoil hasn’t manifested noticeably on screen. This gung-ho romp of double-crossing criminals is clinical, bookmarked by impressively staged set-pieces laden with pyrotechnics and special effects. Solo’s name is emboldened in the title but he’s the least interesting element and Alden Ehrenreich’s performance falls short of the smouldering, rascally delights of Harrison Ford. Instead, Londonborn actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge shines brightest through the digitally rendered gloom as a rebellious droid, who is hard-wired to demand equal rights for her mechanised kin.
SHOW DOGS (PG)
“NOBODY makes talking dog movies any more,” says a dog in this, er, talking dog movie. Young cinemagoers will be glad they did as the tale unfolds of no-nonsense New York police dog Max going undercover at a Las Vegas dog show to save a baby panda (it’s complicated). Modern technology means the mouthy mutts look far more convincing, and the screenplay gives them plenty of cute lines. The principal human, Will Arnett, he of Blades of Glory, gives it his all, ensuring adults won’t be too bored. Delightfully daft, it gets two opposable thumbs-up from me.
THE BREADWINNER (12A)
NORA Twomey’s stunning animated drama comes with some heavyweight backing in the form of Angelina Jolie as executive producer. Adapted from the novel by Deborah Ellis, it tells the story of Parvana (Saara Chaudry), a girl living in Kabul at the height of Taliban rule. Females are forbidden to have any life outside the home, but when her father is jailed and the family is going hungry, needs must. Twomey’s drama lost out to Coco at the Oscars (no shame in that). Twomey (The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea) has a style that blends the dreamy and the dramatic, resulting in a picture that appeals to head and heart. GFT: May 25-June 5; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, June 8-14
DEADPOOL 2 (15)
Directed by “one of the guys who killed the dog in John Wick”, Deadpool 2 is a rollicking, gleefully irreverent and potty-mouthed sequel, which proves you can have too much of a good thing. The weight of giddy expectation on David Leitch’s slam-bang follow-up compels returning screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to chase bigger laughs and outlandish thrills with tongue-in-cheek contributions to the script from leading man Ryan Reynolds. Consequently, these rumbustious two hours are crammed to bursting with pop culture references, droll one-liners and machine-gun profanities that try a smidgen too hard to push an envelope that had already been licked to absurdity. In a filthy-minded tug of war with the first film, Leitch’s sequel comes off a fitfully entertaining second best.
JEUNE FEMME (15)
Meet thirtysomething Paula. Her boyfriend has dumped her, her friends won’t take her in, ditto her mother. What else is there for her to do but roam Paris with a fluffy white cat for company? Leonor Serraille’s drama could have been just another charming yet slight tale of a young woman trying to find her way in the world, but it ends up so much more. A nicely paced screenplay allows Paula’s true character to emerge slowly from the ruins she has made of her life. It is the barnstorming performance of Laetitia Dosch as Paula, however, that raises Serraille’s drama to a cut above. A film and a heroine that refuse to settle for easy, straightforward answers.
ON CHESIL BEACH (15)
Skilfully adapted by Ian McEwan from his Booker Prize-nominated novella, On Chesil Beach is a heartbreaking portrait of doomed love that generates one sobering emotional crescendo after another, like waves crashing against a forlorn shore. Three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle are impeccably cast as trembling virginal newlyweds who are ill-equipped to navigate the minefields of each other’s insecurities and sensitively handled intimations of sexual abuse by one parent. There is a tragic inevitability to the trajectory of the couple’s fragile relationship, and a quiet devastation shared by us and the characters as awkwardness, shame and incomprehension press a self-destruct button, inflicting deep wounds that will never heal. “I am ... most terribly sorry...” whispers the young wife as she fumbles for the right words – no, any words – to soothe her spouse. Dominic Cooke’s film elegantly reveals the chinks of pain and regret in each stuttering syllable.
ENTEBBE (12A)
The real-life hijacking of an Air France flight in June 1976 by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and a subsequent rescue mission led by Israeli Defence Forces are terrific raw ingredients for an edge-of-seat geopolitical thriller. Director Jose Padilha would seem to be the perfect choice to mercilessly crank up tension as the fates of terrorists, hostages and commandos collide head-on at Entebbe airport in Uganda. But the most exciting element of Padilha’s underwhelming film is a contemporary performance piece that punctuates all of the turgid to-ing and fro-ing. Dancers are expressive and expertly choreographed, but the dramatisation that waltzes around them is flat-footed.
HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES (15)
Based on a short story by Neil Gaiman and set in Croydon at the height of punk, John Cameron Mitchell’s romantic comedy is “out there” in more ways than one. Alex Sharp plays teenager Enn, who rocks up one night with his friends at what turns out to be a gathering of aliens visiting Earth. To quote the Buzzcocks, one of their number, Zan (Elle Fanning), is someone Enn should not be falling in love with, but hey ho. After a strong start, Mitchell’s film starts to meander before delivering a barnstormer ending. There’s plenty to enjoy in the soundtrack and Nicole Kidman as a punk godmother.
BREAKING IN (15)
Home is where the heartbreak is in James McTeigue’s invasion thriller, which pits a grieving and resourceful mother (Gabrielle Union) against four criminals who have taken her daughter and son hostage inside her hi-tech childhood home. Stripped bare of extraneous plotting and characterisation, Breaking In swiftly establishes the tense stand-off between intruders and a family in crisis, then delights in turning the tables on the aggressors in sweat-drenched skirmishes. McTeigue’s picture may not be pretty, punctuated by flashes of mild violence, or original, but it is ruthlessly efficient, neatly contained with a 90-minute timeframe before the house’s compromised security system automatically alerts police to a burglary in progress.
REVENGE (18)
First-time French writer-director Coralie Fargeat seizes the exploitation horror subgenre by its privates and refuses to let go as she puts a feminist slant on the bloodthirsty battle of the sexes between a rape victim (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) and her attackers, to echo the fiery indignation of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements. Shot on location in Morocco, but set in an unspecified sun-baked wilderness, Revenge gleefully embraces gore-slathered visual excess including one whoop-inducing scene of the heroine forcibly removing a sliver of glass with trembling fingers from her eviscerated foot. The aptly titled Revenge serves up that courageous, ballsy retaliation with lashings of stylistic flair.
TULLY (15)
Mother doesn’t know best – she is teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown – in Jason Reitman’s beautifully crafted and bittersweet portrait of modern parenthood. The third collaboration between the Montreal-born director and screenwriter Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for her exemplary script for Juno, conceals poignant home truths behind trademark snappy dialogue and a mistimed sleight of hand that leaves a satisfying lump in the throat. There is undeniable pleasure in unravelling the many layers to Reitman’s delicately observed film and the flawed yet deeply sympathetic characters, who struggle to articulate their fears to each other and prefer to suffer in anguished silence. Charlize Theron is the picture’s steady emotional heartbeat.
I FEEL PRETTY (12A)
I feel many things about writer-directors Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn’s romantic comedy of female empowerment and body fascism, but none of them is particularly pretty. As someone who has struggled with weight issues since childhood and suffered fat-shaming, I’m acutely aware of the deep emotional and psychological wounds that can be inflicted every time you look in a mirror. I’m certain that I Feel Pretty doesn’t mean to offend. Lead actress Amy Schumer has brilliantly lampooned issues of self-esteem, femininity and suffocating convention in her TV sketch show and the hilarious 2015 film Trainwreck. Here she is at the mercy of Silverstein and Kohn’s script, which piles on misery and self-loathing in the opening hour until it becomes impossible to achieve redemption, even with Schumer.