THEGAYUK

Tag: Film Review

All the latest film reviews for LGBT themed films and others.

  • FILM REVIEW | Man At Bath

    ★ | Man At Bath
    Emmanuel is a man of very few words, a hustler and the live-in lover of Omar.

    They live in an apartment in a tower block in Gennevilliers, a working-class suburb of Paris. When Omar announces that he is going to New York for a week to work on a film project, an angry Emmanuel punishes him by brutally sexually assaulting him. After that, as Omar goes to leave, he tells Emmanuel to move out of the apartment by the time he returns from his trip.

    Emmanuel wiles his way seemingly having sex with half of the men in his neighbourhood, some for money, and others just for the hell of it. It’s hard to tell as he is one very emotionless cold fish. He does have the idea of trying to contact Omar in New York but as he is so detached from real life, he somehow thinks that the only way to do this is by the defunct Telegram system.

    Omar, on the other hand, is traipsing around New York videoing his friend Chiara Mastrioniani (playing herself) promoting her latest movie. Along the way, he manages to pick up a skinny Canadian film student who becomes an obsession for both his sexual appetite and his camera too.

    Despite trying to desperately read between the lines trying to discover any deep or disguised existentialist meaning, that sadly is the total sum of it. The movie is the latest from French filmmaker Christophe Honoré whose somewhat indulgent output in recent years has gone from quite bizarre (Beloved) to downright bad (Let My People Go) and this one fits neatly in both camps.

    I’m not sure if the whole affair was meant to be a vehicle to ‘legitimise’ the gay porn star Francois Sagat’s move into mainstream films because if it was, it was a complete and utter failure. I kept thinking back to Manhola Dargis of The New York Times when she once wrote about Janet Jackson: ‘how can I put it gently? She is a woman of very limited facial expressions!’ Ms Dargis has evidently not seen Mr Sagat on the screen, as he has none!

    When the very short muscular Sagat strips his clothes off every other scene despite his erect penis he fails to imbue the act with any sexuality at all, which doesn’t make this even a half-decent piece of soft porn.

    Evidently, the whole project had been commissioned by the writer/director Olivier Assayas on behalf of the Theatre de Gennevilliers, and Honore took his own inspiration from a local Impressionist painting entitled Man at Bath. The end result is hardly something that would make me want to visit Gennevilliers, or even sit through another Honore movie in the near distant future.

  • FILM REVIEW | Happy Christmas

    Jeff and Kelly are trying are trying to do a balancing act juggling their freelance careers whilst bringing up their 2year old son Jude.

    It’s slightly off kilter right now as Jeff is managing to work on pre-production of his next movie, but Kelly has got writer’s block since she completed her first book so has settled for full-time homemaking for the time being. The couple is however quite happy and things are going along relatively smoothly until they get a holiday visit that shatters their peace and throws the household into disarray.

    The visitor is Jeff’s rather volatile sister Jenny who’s just had a bad breakup with her latest boyfriend and she flies into town for some much needed TLC, in return for helping them out with some childcare. It is soon apparent that self-absorbed Jenny is incapable of looking after herself let alone a small helpless baby. On her first night, she goes to a party with an old friend and gets so totally wasted and passes out that Jeff is forced to go collect her in the middle of the night.

    The next time Jenny gets totally drunk is when she is babysitting young Jude at home and this time she almost manages to burn the whole house down. It then takes a lot of persuading on Jeff’s part to convince his very sceptical wife to give her sister-in-law another chance. Kelly does eventually reluctantly agree and the two women very slowly start to bond. Jenny actually encourages her to her back to writing by telling her to set aside her planned second novel and instead write a sexually explicit trashy novel to make some fast ready money.

    Suddenly Jenny has a purpose too and she looks less likely to self-destruct and even grabs herself a new beau and starts to date the family babysitter (and pot dealer) Kevin and surprisingly looks that she might live happily ever after all. Possibly.

    This is the latest movie from prolific filmmaker Joe Swanberg who as usual directs, writes and stars in it too. I will confess that I am a fan as even when the plots are slight (as this one is) there is a cast of well-rounded characters whose interplay with each other as they cope (and enjoy) their daily existence makes for fascinating viewing. Swanberg injects it all with his own tempered sense of humour, and in this instance is aided by the presence of Lena Dunham playing Carson, Jenny’s best friend. But then he always shrewdly casts his movies with what appear to be his mates Melanie Lynskey as Kelly, Anna Kendrick as Jenny and Mark Webber as Kevin.

    I’m generally on the same page as Charles Laughton when it comes to children in movies, but even I could not help but be seduced by scene-stealing baby Jude played by Swanberg’s own son.

    After last year’s Drinking Buddies this is probably Swanberg’s second most accessible work to date and part of his continued evolving from a filmmaker once known as the king of mumblecore. Long may it continue.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Notorious Mr Bout

    ★★★★★ | The Notorious Mr Bout

    According to this new documentary from filmmakers Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin, it would seem that everybody has wildly exaggerated polarising ideas about who Viktor Anatolyevich Bout really is. None more so than Mr Bout himself who considers himself simply as a devoted family man and a highly successful international entrepreneur, and the D.E.A. who claim that his illegal arms trading and gun-running activities have rightly earned him the title of Merchant of Death. It seems that the truth may lie somewhere in the middle.

    After the fall of communism in his native Russia, Bout was determined to embrace the newly permitted capitalist society and so bravely entered the world of import/export. At first he traded in anything he could lay his hands upon, but then hit on the fact he could make even more money by buying up old Russian planes and starting a cargo service in the Third World. As well as shipping produce and home electronics he and his rather dubious partners included Bulgarian made arms in the consignments that they flew around some of the more troubled countries in Africa.

    Bout is undoubtedly a larger-than-life colourful character. One of his many excesses was his love of his video camera and whilst it made for some very intimate and extraordinary footage for this film, he also shot footage when he was cavorting with several warlords and some very shady despots, and that provided damning evidence when the authorities decided to go after him. The D.E.A. set up a covert sting operation in Bangkok where it was alleged that the shipment of arms he was selling were intended to be used to kill Americans, so he was arrested and extradited to the US where he was made an example of, by being given an excessively long jail sentence.

    According to investigative journalists who had met Bout out in the field, he was really very small fry in the world of arms trading and he did not in anyway justify either the reasoning or the ferocity of the way that he was pursued. The D.E.A. could have felt that they had been taunted by the brazen way he carried out his activities, which frankly were fueled by both his love of the limelight and his sheer naivete.

    Bout’s loyal wife Alla is a constant presence throughout the film (the very dated archival footage of their wedding is particularly wonderful) and she dutifully plays along as his supportive partner. As she deals with her husband’s trial she also proclaims her innocence too, but whilst she may not have been explicitly involved, it is hard to believe that she didn’t know what her husband was up too.

    At the end of this excellent and compelling documentary it’s clear that the ‘notoriety’ in the title really split between Bout’s activities but also with the questionable motives of the D.E.A. At Bout’s trial, the Judge made a point of mentioning that prior to the entrapment operation that the D.E.A. had set up, there was no evidence at all that Bout had broken any American laws.

    It seems that they wanted to make a scapegoat/example of someone and so they chose Viktor Anatolyevich Bout. This is a distraction from the main picture as just before the credits role, someone makes the point that most arms trafficking in the world is done by Governments trying to help their friends, and this is rarely considered illegal.

    Highly recommended

  • FILM: A Man, His Lover and His Mother

    Lorenz Meran is a successful middle-aged gay writer who is struggling with writer’s block when he gets called back home after his elderly mother has a stroke.

    Rosie is a feisty old bird and unlike Lorenz and his perpetually unhappy sibling Sophie, she seems to be the one member of this family who likes to have some fun. A little too much now given the fragile state of her health but whatever happens, she is determined not to give up chain smoking or even admit to the fact that she is an alcoholic.

    The parental home is a small town in eastern Switzerland, a far cry from Lorenz’s hedonistic life in Berlin of one-night stands that he chronicles in his novels, but as his mother’s health declines he very reluctantly finds himself back in the house he never thought he would ever have to live in again. He does, however, have a diversion one night when he has an ‘encounter’ with Mario a grandson of his mother’s friend, but as he dresses and prepares to leave the next morning he discovers that the boy had actually been a big fan of his work for some time. So without discussing it at all, Lorenz panics and hastily dashes off telling a startled Mario that he would never have had sex with him if he had known he was just a groupie.

    The plot unravels slowly as the family are hesitantly drawn together by their mother’s decline, and Sophie has to finally deal with her own failing marriage, and both siblings make the startling discovery that it wasn’t in fact their mother who had been having ‘affairs’ when they were young as they had always suspected, but it had been their overbearing and distant father, now long dead. And all his lovers were in fact men.

    Jaded Lorenz’s humor never seems to lighten as he tries to deal with his impatient Literary Agent from afar, and with sullen Chantal a young neighbor of his mother’s who he suspects is supplying Rosie with alcohol. If that is not enough, at his mother’s insistence, Mario turns up to help doing oddjobs about the house.

    And then just when you are about to despair about this family, Rosie reluctantly but with her usual style, decides to make a go of living in the Seniors home that they forced her into, Sophie gets back with her estranged husband for another reconciliation, and Lorenz stops being angry and suspicious of the world just in time to realise that the long term love of his life that he has always wanted is actually there on his doorstep in the shape of Mario. And to top it all, his writer’s block disappears as he sets about writing his latest novel based on Rosie, and the ‘triangle’ he discovered when he explored his father’s past.

    The movie is the latest work of Swiss gay filmmaker Marcel Gisler (who like Lorenz was born in Altstätten and works in Berlin, however I could not establish if this is an autobiographical piece). Gisler’s movie output is infrequent at best… the last one was 14 years ago… his usual fare are more explicitly gay and complicated, and this one is definitely his most refined and subtlest. Lorenz’s long struggle for happiness is finally determined by resolving the questions that arise from the troubling nightmares he still has about his father, and from being able to accept and enjoy the love of his family simply for what it is.

    It all works… albeit a little drawn out… not just because of the script with its scattered passages of dark humour, but also because of the two excellent central performances. The veteran Swiss Actress Sibylle Brunner, in her first ever leading role, is rightly picking up awards for her devastatingly wonderful turn as Rosie, and Swiss actor Fabian Krüger is pitch perfect as the dour faced Lorenz who waits until the last reel to smile.

    This movie is being hailed in some quarters as New Swiss Cinema and worthy of a world audience. I’m not sure if I really knew much about ‘Old Swiss Cinema ‘to make any comment, other than to say it definitely is well-worth seeing.

    A Man, His Lover And His Mother is Available to buy on DVD from Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas

    ★★ | Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas

    When the movie opens Earlene is sitting on a wall in Venice Beach swigging from a bottle secreted in a brown paper bag and she very dramatically utters to a total stranger, ‘Experience is the name we give our mistakes. Which one are you?’ and I cannot help but cringe.

    It sadly will not be the last time I feel like that, whilst watching this well-meaning micro-budget indie movie, that is all heart but ends up being an undisciplined convoluted mishmash of a film.

    Earlene like every other character in this story has her ‘issues’ although in her case the reason for her mood swings is not clear until near the end. Her new androgynous Australian friend Bruno, that she immediately latches on to at their first encounter is sexually confused, and so she adopts his well-being and happiness as her own crusade. Bruno has a dream of visiting Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, which is obviously out of the question as neither of them have any money, so his new friend Earlene promises to take him on a road trip to see the next best thing i.e. a full-size replica in Las Vegas.

    En route and a chance meeting with Billy, a good-looking cocky gay drifter takes them off course and they stumble upon a very small forgotten town in the middle of the Nevada desert. It’s inhabited by an odd bunch of misfits straight out of Central Casting that includes a Cher look-alike Sheriff, a tap-dancing drag queen, and a couple of Scottish male strippers. They are all kindred spirits who have found this remote bolt-hole where they can escape the outside world that none of them remotely fit in.

    This debut feature from British writer/director/producer Simon Savory bravely tackles issues of gender and sexual identity and friendship, and at times is close to succeeding. It’s valiant effort, however, is hampered by a heavy-handed script with a smattering of pompous sounding epithets which made the dialogue somewhat stilted. Ashleigh Simpson the lead actress could have taken her performance down a notch or too as she overplayed the part of Earlene to the point of being annoying.

    On the other hand, Savory’s choice to shoot this British production on location was very wise and really paid off with some excellent cinematography of the beautiful desert setting.

    P.S. It’s tough being a filmmaker with such a minute budget and the biggest disadvantage of assuming all the major functions yourself, as in this case is that you lack the benefit of another independent set of ears and eyes which may have spotted some of the issues, which stopped it being the movie it was obviously meant to be.

    Due for release on the 15th September.

  • FILM REVIEW | Pride

    ★★★★★ | Pride

    A film that includes Wales, miners, politics, gays and an ’80’s soundtrack, ticks all my boxes! Pride is one of those films that will do well, a mix of topics, a “people” film, part tear-jerker, part bio-pic (based on true events, with real characters), part comedy, think Billie Elliot, Kinky Boots or Calendar Girls.

    The story is simple, set in 1984 in the midst of the Miner’s strike, the Unions versus Thatcher’s government and its hard stance, and a politicised London gay boy suddenly gets the idea to raise funds for the miners, having heard how they are being intimidated back to work.

    He forms the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners Group (LGSM) and starts fund-raising for them. However, after their first round of bucket rattling, it becomes apparent that the Unions aren’t keen on taking their money. So they go direct, and find a South Wales mining community who will take their cash and donations. And this is the start of the bonding of two disparate communities.

    The majority of the film deals with how the two communities grow to know each other, how the London group gets to grips with a small community and its prejudices (or in some cases, lack of them) and the Welsh group and their education in to the world of “the gays”!

    The film provides so much repeatable fodder, I guarantee that you will be quoting this film next month! My favourite is still Imelda’s line from the preview: ‘We’re off to Swansea now for a missive lez off!’

    My recommendation, go see it, go get your cockles warmed, sing-along-a-bronski-beat and watch some of the smoothest disco moves on the silver screen courtesy of the amazing Dominic West!

    The cast is incredible, including the lovely Andrew Scott (Moriarty from Sherlock) gives a hell of a performance as part of the “older” gay couple paired with Dominic West as his partner, Imelda Staunton as the kind of Welsh matriarch I know and love, Bill Nighy gives one of his best subtlest performances, but it’s the ones I’m not that familiar with that really set the stage for this film. George MacKay is amazing as a then underage closeted young man on a journey, Joseph Gilgun gives a great performance as one half of a platonic political couple with Ben Schnetzer who plays Mark, the driving force and sometimes eloquent spokesperson behind the LGSM. Watch out for a cameo from the lovely Russell Tovey too.

    Matthew Warchus and Stephen Beresford have given us a true slice of early ’80’s nostalgia, wrapped up in a slice of political and social history and some of the most comic scenes you’ll ever see.

    I’d give this film 6 stars out of 5 is I could, but I’ll make do with 5 for now!

    In Cinemas 12th September

  • FILM REVIEW | Lilting Reeks of good intentions but never really takes off.

    Junn is a rather disgruntled 60-something year old Chinese woman who has been co-coerced against her will into moving into a care facility for Seniors by Kai her son. The opening scenes of this wee British drama see the unhappy mother berating her only child for her present predicament, which is, exasperated by the fact that although she has lived in London for decades she has never learned to speak English. ★ ★

    It is soon revealed that Kai had recently died under mysterious circumstances and what we are watching now are in fact her memories. Richard who was Kai’s boyfriend for the past few years feels it’s his duty to take over from his late lover and starts to regularly visit Junn in his place. The trouble is Junn never knew her son was gay (or refused to admit it anyway) and really loathes Richard who she felt usurped her place in Kai’s life. And to make matters worse as Richard cannot speak Mandarin, the two of them have no way to communicate.

    When Junn gets hit on by the home’s resident lothario, Richard seeing a glimmer of hope of some happiness for the perpetually melancholic Junn, hires a translator to help the lovebird’s potential courtship. It also serves as a means for him to start a dialogue with the old woman too, which is no easy task, as she seemingly has no concept of the fact that Richard is grieving for his loss too.

    It’s a very slight story and as it is essentially about these strained relationships between different cultures and generations, a lot of the emotions literally get lost in the translating. Richard seems to spend much of his time in tears whilst on the other hand Junn just sits and stares with he big wide eyes.

    This debut movie from filmmaker Hong Khaou reeks of good intentions but never really takes off. He had the good fortune to cast veteran Chinese acting legend Pei Pei Cheng as Junn, and had managed to snare Ben Whishaw to play Richard. Most indie films would kill to get stars like this, but in this case, Whishaw’s uneven performance seemed to unsettle the balance between him and the other actors, particularly Andrew Leung, who played his on screen boyfriend Kai.

  • FILM REVIEW | Boyhood

    ★★★★★ | Boyhood

    This engrossing story of Mason Jnr. growing up from a kid to a young man starts when he is just 6 years old.

    He lives with his older sister Samantha and their mother Olivia in an ordinary suburban home that they simply cannot afford. His rather immature father Mason Snr. who acts like a big kid himself at times, roars into his life occasionally and apart from trying to play the role of Dad for a whole 12 hours at a time, contributes little else to help the family survive. So Olivia decides it’s time to make what will turn out to be the first of many moves as she continually struggles with both paying bills and leaving the drunks that she, unfortunately, marries along the way.

    This initial move is to Houston to be near the children’s Grandmother and to enable Olivia to study for the first of the degrees she will earn, and also juggle holding down a full-time job. Along the way, she marries her professor who has a son Mason’s age and a daughter too, and for a few years, they all get to play happy families. When the Professor’s alcoholism manifests into bullying Mason and the other children and physically abusing Olivia, she walks out of the house taking Mason and Samantha with literally only the clothes on their backs.

    For shy and somewhat introverted Mason this needs to start all over again in a strange school without any friends is tough. Samantha is more outspoken and angry with her mother about it, but she at least has the outgoing personality to adapt more easily to their new environment.

    Complete with her Degree and now studying for her Masters, Olivia has moved the family again so that she can start teaching in a small town outside of Austin. One of her mature students becomes both her next husband and the next alcoholic who tries to manipulate her and the children. Mason by now is a troubled teenager struggling with his adolescence and about to graduate high school. His father has remarried and with a new baby in tow and has become the respectable adult that Olivia had wanted him to be 16 years ago, so he can at least help his confused son move forward to deal with whatever new challenges college life will have in store for him.

    This remarkable film made over 12 consecutive years sees this tender and profound story unfold in real time as we witness this cast of actors playing the family grow up and grow old in front of our very eyes.

    There is such a fluidity to the whole piece that it’s hard to even consider the notion that when the Richard Linklater the director/writer started this project in the summer of 2002 that he knew exactly how this extraordinary movie of his would pan out. To see a family mature together and somehow pull through a whole series of near-catastrophic scenarios like this and come out stronger and intact at the end is nothing less than astonishing. At the end when Olivia is single again and just about to watch Mason finally leave her to go to college she has a small meltdown as she looks back at the past 18 years and cries out ‘I just wish it could have been better.’ But even she could not deny that what she had enabled them all to achieve was incredible.

    In this epic masterpiece of a flawless movie, Linklater’s attention to every single detail paid off so handsomely. Starting with the cast of Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as Olivia and Mason Snr but more especially the unknown young Ellar Coltrane with a superb breakthrough performance as Mason Jnr that was totally pitch perfect and wonderfully fresh as too was Linklater’s own daughter Lorelei who played Samantha. He needed actors of this calibre for as the years rolled on, each of the characters developed in a much deeper and profound way than one would have initially have imagined, especially Mason Snr. who we were ready to write off as lightweight in the beginning.

    Linklater’s attention to every aspect got personal too as he owns the GTO that Mason Snr. drove as his pride and joy as it somehow made him feel like the rock star he never was.

    This audacious experiment that has resulted with such a brilliant and compelling cinematic treat will undoubtedly end up on many ‘best movie lists of 2014’, including mine.

    P.S. This concept of making a movie in real time seems so brilliant now that it’s a surprise that more filmmakers haven’t tried it before. Acclaimed Brit. director Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Everyday’ released in 2012 was filmed over 5 years but with a very little plot this very tedious drama turned out to be his worst movie to date. The nearest equivalent is Micheal Apted’s award-winning documentary TV series ‘7 Up’ that has revisited a group of ‘children’ every 7 years for 5 decades now.

    Is in cinemas Nationwide

  • FILM REVIEW | Blackwood

    ★★★★ | Blackwood

    If you had just recovered from a shattering emotional breakdown, it might seem like a good idea to relocate with your wife and son to a lonely old house in the middle of a remote wood. Or so you might think. Wrong. The house, it seems, is harbouring a dark secret and Ben Marshall (Ed Stoppard) is determined to get to the bottom of it.

    Blackwood is a modern ghost story cum psychological thriller in the tradition of period pieces like The Woman in Black. According to director Adam Wimpenny and writer J.S. Hill, the team gleaned inspiration from Nicolas Roeg’s darkly atmospheric Don’t Look Now and Joseph Losey’s bleak character-led drama Accident. I’m not sure this move is on the same level of inspiration as either of those two masterpieces, but it is consistently gripping, gradually building the suspense and keeping you guessing till the end when suddenly, and tragically, everything falls into place. I do abhor those thrillers which leave you somehow hanging in mid-air at the end. This one definitely gives you a finale.

    The film looks good too with great cinematography from Dale McCready, and Adam Wimpenny has got some great performances from his cast. The name best known to most of us will be Russell Tovey, fresh from his performance in HBO drama Looking, though here in a supporting role, convincingly playing against type as the sinisterly troubled war veteran Jack and looking pretty buff too. Ed Stoppard plays a highly strung Ben, a man desperately trying to hang on to control but gradually unravelling as the film progresses. As his wife Rachel, Sophia Myles is warmly feminine, concerned for her husband and fiercely protective of her son Harry (a really nice unaffected performance from young Isaac Andrews). Completing the cast is Greg Wise as Ben’s womanising best friend and colleague Dominic, and Paul Kaye as the enigmatic local priest Father Patrick.

    With a little more depth of character than we often get in thrillers or ghost stories, it is an eminently watchable movie, sure to give you the odd start.

    Blackwood opened in cinemas across the UK on August 1st

  • FILM REVIEW | I Am Happiness On Earth

    ★★★★★ |  I Am Happiness On Earth

    Mexican filmmaker Julián Hernández’s latest cinematic treat is essentially a film within a film.

    Its protagonist Emiliano is an openly gay director whose current movie that we see in progress on screen involves filming real-life dancer Gloria Conterras and some of her students. It soon becomes apparent that Emiliano’s interests in the dancers go way beyond this project as he lusts after all the cute male ones, and soon becomes the lover of one of their number.

    For the seemingly emotionless Emiliano having a handsome lover like Octavio is simply not enough to satisfy him even though it is obvious that the young dancer is hopelessly in love with him. Monogamy equals monotony in the director’s eyes, but even with a succession of hot rent boys who are willing to satisfy his every desire, Emiliano is never happy. But then again it’s hard to know what will. He is very handsome, has a successful career that has given him both fame and fortune and seeks solace in some casual drug and alcohol but still feels completely empty.

    The movie with its sparse dialogue and its emphasis on aesthetics of these handsome Latino men and little attempt to include a conventional plot, makes this a typical Hernández movie. And one that is possibly better than A Thousand Peace Clouds Encircle the Sky and Raging Sun, Raging Sky that won him his two prestigious Teddy Awards from the Berlinale. He has this remarkable ability to photograph his men in the most seductive and sublime manner that when naked they seem so erotic and sensual that make the scenes of intimacy seem so natural and totally beautiful without ever appearing to be remotely just basically explicit or crude in any.

    There are, as always, more than a few questions when certain (of the few) strands of the story seemed to go off-kilter… such as the abandoned Octavio seeking comfort with making out with two girls as if he had now suddenly embraced bisexuality. But then again Hernández never even attempts to make our jobs easy with his lyrical style of filmmaking that focuses more on a vision that encourages us to stretch our imagination a tad more than usual.

    He is helped to this end with a heart-beating cast led by the stunning Hugo Catalán who made such an impact in ‘Clandestinos’ a few years ago, and newbie actor Alan Ramirez as the beautiful dancer Octavio.

    If you like a conventional start, middle and end to your movies, then this is certainly not one for you. However, if you are up for a very intricate piece that is shot almost like a ballet with its seemingly choreographed moves and against an exhilarating soundtrack (composed by Arturo Villela) that is steeped in both passion and pain (with sex too), then you will revel in this extraordinary new movie.

    When Emiliano says ‘I love you’ (as he often did), he means it for that moment. The trouble is that it is followed by a lot more moments. It’s doubtful if he ever will truly find happiness on earth.

  • FILM REVIEW | Begin Again

    ★★ | Begin Again

    When I sat watching writer/director John Carney’s latest movie that was hoping to follow on with the surprise success of his last hit…

    Instead of being enthralled by the warbling tones of singer/songwriter Gretta on screen, I just couldn’t get a certain Sondheim lyric out of my head. ‘Once, yes, once for a lark, Twice, though, loses the spark’ which so summed up my feelings about the sickly sweet story unravelling in front of me.

    Like his first movie ‘Once’ (which spawned the Tony Award winning Musical of the same name) this is the tale of a troubadour. In this instance Gretta who had accompanied Dave her budding rock star boyfriend to New York where he was being treated like royalty as he recorded his first album. Up to this point they had written songs together but the record company just wanted his music and they gave him anything and everything he wanted to ensure he produced a hit. It included a pretty assistant who stepped into his bed when Dave went off to LA without Gretta.

    When she discovers this she storms off in a huff and lands on the doorstep of Steve a fellow Brit and ex-college mate from Bristol, whilst she plans to fly back home to the UK. He’s also a musician, a pretty bad one though, and he persuades her to accompany him to an open mic night at a small local bar. He forces her to perform and her wispy willowy lament goes down like a lead balloon except in the ears and eyes of Dan a drunk recently-fired record company executive who thinks she is a star in the making.

    However no-one else does and as he cannot get her signed up with a record label, Dan sets out to make an album with her to prove that they are all wrong. As he is penniless and cannot shell out for a studio he hits on the idea of recording it all live on different locations on the streets of the city with the help of a few other hippie musicians willing to work for free. It makes for a pretty travelogue for the some of the scenic and hip places of New York that actually end up with a starring role in the movie.

    As this unlikely pair of singer and manager/producer make music Gretta has to deal with the fact that Dave is getting famous but wants her back, whilst Dan is trying to re-connect to both his teenage daughter and his ex-wife whom he is estranged from. Hence the title of the movie, although only one of the two chooses to go it alone whilst the other decides to begin again by re-visiting their past.

    The essential ingredients of making a movie about a singer/songwriter are that you need someone with a good voice and give them some good material to sing. This sadly has neither. The irritating and somewhat awkward Gretta as played by the oh-so-British Keira Knightly can limp through her songs but they sadly lack the energy and lasting power of the ones in ‘Once’. Mark Ruffalo energetically throws himself into the role of music genius Dan but there is the uncomfortable frisson between him and his protege who are never sure if they should have a romantic connection as well. I’m glad they don’t as they are so worlds apart that it would almost seem creepy.

    Kudos though to young Hailee Steinfeld who was perfect as Dan’s daughter Violet, and also to handsome Adam Levine (ex Lead Singer of Maroon 5) making his acting debut as Dave for at least giving some real musicality to the piece.

    I’m sure that despite all that it lacks it will still find an audience especially amongst aficionados of all those TV talent shows. I however can simply summarise it up with the same word that I counted Gretta used at least four time in the movie: it’s just cheesy.

    Begin Again is in cinemas now.