Nic shows he’s game for a laugh
MATTHEW BOND
The Unbearable Weight Of
Massive Talent
Cert 15, 1hr 47mins ★★★
Happening
Cert 15, 1hr 40mins ★★★★
Firebird
Cert 15, 1hr 47mins ★★
Nicolas Cage is Hollywood royalty, famous for being... well, Nic Cage, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and for making at least as many bad films as good ones. This scatter-gun approach is often explained by dark mutterings about him needing money to pay off debts or fund his latest divorce.
So it makes sense that The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent – one of those allegedly highconcept comedies that sees the real-life Cage (right) playing not only a fictional version of himself, but also his younger alter ego, Nicky Cage – begins with him chasing a part in a new film. And when he fails to get it, reluctantly accepting $1 million to make a personal appearance at a billionaire’s party.
So far so reasonably clever for a film that could easily have been titled Being Nicolas Cage if Being John Malkovich hadn’t got there first. Cage is engagingly game for a spot of self-parody, and the screenplay from director Tom Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten does have some funny lines, especially if you’re familiar with Cage’s extensive body of work. Face/Off, The Rock and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin all get early mentions.
The Mandalorian star, Pedro Pascal, is well cast as a wealthy but dangerous arms dealer who happens to have written a screenplay, but Gormican does have trouble maintaining the pace as the mood switches from clever satire to violent action, and the fictional Cage finds himself under pressure to start working for the CIA.
Tiffany Haddish and Sharon Horgan do their best to keep the rather one-note joke running for as long as possible. Which, unfortunately, is some time before the actual end.
Happening is a wellmade French film about a difficult subject (with Sandrine Bonnaire and Anamaria Vartolomei, right) which makes it easy to admire but hard to recommend. Set in France in the 1960s, it’s the story of a student who finds herself pregnant at a time when abortion was strictly illegal. Firebird tells the story of the gay love affair between a Russian army private (Tom Prior) who dreams of being an actor and a handsome air force pilot in the Sovietoccupied Estonia of 1977.
The fact that it plays out in heavily accented English is just one of the reasons it never really convinces.