THEGAYUK

Tag: Five Star Film Review

The latest Five-star film review from THEGAYUK.

  • FILM REVIEW | Do I Sound Gay?

    When journalist David Thorpe found himself single again in his mid-forties he started to angst as to what could possibly be so wrong with him that he should be dumped so unceremoniously. His immediate thought was that the problem must be his voice, that he had always hated, and how it must now be a turn off for other men too. It propelled him into jettisoning his job working for a non-profit housing association and embarking on a journey to ask the world at large the question that had been nagging him for years… do I sound gay?

    ★★★★★

    Thorpe’s somewhat light-hearted investigation starts with him accepting that he dislikes gay-sounding voices, especially his own and he wonders if with professional help it can in fact be changed. A very pushy speech therapist has him working on his ‘nasality’ and long vowels to get a ‘go-too’ voice whatever that maybe. She, thank goodness, is not the only figure that Thorpe seeks advice from and his interviews with some legendary gay figures make both sound, and also hilarious, contributions to his quest.

    Satirist David Sedaris admits that his own remarkably effeminate sounding voice means that he is regularly mistaken on the phone as a woman. Disarmingly frank Sedaris confesses that he actually feels good when a stranger tells him that he doesn’t ‘sound gay’ even though he had believed himself to be ‘beyond all that’. Project Runway’s Tim Gunn says he was appalled when he first heard his voice, but has learned to live with it and love it even. ‘If people hear my voice and call me gay, I’ll say thank you. I’m proud of it’.

    Sex columnist Dan Savage adds a touch of seriousness to the topic by commenting that ‘hating your voice is the last vestige of internalised homophobia.’ On the other hand actor Jeff Hiller handles the reality of the roles that his ‘gay voice’ will limit him too with remarkable good humour and a healthy dashing of some wicked wit. ‘If the gay role is a meaty part, they will always cast a straight actor. If the part is a gay guy with a hot body then I obviously cannot play that. So I just play the sad self-hating bitter queens’, he says roaring with laughter and adding ‘ I’ll take those ugly girl roles because at least I get to work.’

    Thorpe sprinkles his immensely watchable documentary with some lively vox populi, and also his own friends are on hand to lend their voices too even though they do not share his concern that the subject matter is really that important. When at the end he pushes them to give an opinion of his newly trained voice they all tell him that they cannot notice any difference in how he sounds at all. However what they (and we) perceive by now is that his voice didn’t change, but he did.

    As his most entertaining journey draws to a conclusion Thorpe realised that there was nothing wrong with sounding like he does, and equally there is nothing wrong with being a gay man having a gay voice. He was very content to have taken on his quest summing it up his reasoning of ‘if you cannot handle the answer then it’s a question you’ve got to ask.’ We’re glad he did.

  • FILM REVIEW | Out In The Dark

    ★★★★★ |  Out In The Dark

    Nimr is in Tel Aviv to visit his old friend Mustafa in a gay bar where he works since moving from Ramallah. Once there he meets Roy a very flirtatious your lawyer who gently puts the moves on equally handsome Nimr who is quickly smitten and is soon ready to make a night of it. However, he is offered a ride for the daunting journey home so they reluctantly say their goodnights. Nimr promises to call, but the chances of that are slim, as he is a Palestinian and is there illegally, and Roy is an Israeli Jew.

    However back home psychology student Nimr is offered a place on a special course in Tel Aviv and along with that comes a permit to enter Israel at any time he wants. It’s something that his militant older brother hates, but on the other hand, something that a very surprised and delighted Roy loves. As the young couple gets to spend time together, within a short time it is clearly not the only thing Roy loves, and the feeling is obviously mutual.

    Whilst Nimr must remain totally closeted to all his family back home in Ramallah for fear of his own life, in Tel Aviv, Roy takes him to formally meet his liberal parents who don’t actually welcome their son’s Arab boyfriend with open arms as he expected them too.

    And then suddenly the two men’s somewhat precarious lives together now becomes outright dangerous especially after the Israeli authorities deport the very flamboyant Mustafa. Once home he is beaten to death for the dishonour his (very open) homosexuality has brought on his family. Soon after the Israeli Authorities suspect Nimr’s brother of terrorist activities and having his own arsenal of weapons, they then take Nimr’s travel permit away unless he will agree to spy for them.

    He refuses and so they ensure that the elder brother knows of his gayness which is, just cause, for the family to at once disown him and beat him to death. In the only act of compassion, we see towards any gay person in this film, the brother allows him to escape back to Israel where it looks like the Authorities may even finish the job for him.

    This heart string tugging story of forbidden love from LA based Israeli newbie director/writer Michael Mayer follows in the well-trodden footsteps of filmmaker Eyton Fox (Yossi & Jaeger, The Bubble) with this story of how being gay just adds yet one more obstacle to living in this troubled region. Mayer’s convincingly real love story between these educated young men works really well because of the chemistry between his two talented lead actors Nicholas Jacob & Michael Aloni.

    What makes it even more interesting is the fact that whilst its the deeply entrenched extreme politics that are the main cause of the couple’s problems, the story never focuses on their own beliefs but purely on the disastrous effects it has on them. And to my knowledge, it’s also one of the very few gay films that have ever dealt with barbarous ‘honour’ killings.

    It is nigh on impossible to find an Israeli or Arab movie with a gay romance that doesn’t involve a great deal of danger and death (Fox’s recent sequel ‘Yossi ‘was a rare exception). It’s all the remarkable then after the horrors that Nimir and Roy went through that the overwhelming feeling that one came away with from this movie is the fact there is hope. It’s probably one of the reasons why it’s picked up almost a dozen Awards in Festivals worldwide already. Many of them as Audience Favourite.

    Be warned, as well as having you reach for the Kleenex, this movie will in parts, make you very angry/horrified too. It is, however, a definite ‘must see’.

     

  • FILM REVIEW| Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb Vs. Gravity

    Elizabeth Streb is an American performer, teacher and celebrated modern dance choreographer who is never happy until she pushes everybody beyond the edge and way out of their comfort zone. ★★★★★

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  • FILM REVIEW | Heartbeats

    ★★★★★ | Heartbeats

    If you have ever had an unrequited love, especially one in your (distant) youth then this wonderfully witty tongue-in-cheek movie from the remarkable multi-talented filmmaker Xavier Dolan will really appeal to you.

    The story is of a love triangle. Twenty-year-old best friends Marie and Francis spot Nicolas, a stunning Adonis, at a dinner party, and they both fall for him big time. Nicolas adores attention so encourages them to the point where they destroy their close friendship and become bitter rivals to win his heart. Nicolas is very self-absorbed and affected and it is impossible to tell if his androgynous personification will eventually reveal whether he is gay or straight. The three of them have sleepovers in Francis’s bed but nothing at all happens, and then one day they ago away to the country for the weekend, and after this life, for them, all will never be the same.

    As the story progresses Mr Dolan edits in some hilarious anecdotes in interview form from strangers whose love lives also fell part. The man definitely has a way with words.

    There is something totally entrancing about this second feature from Canada’s wunderkind filmmaker and as much as one can pick holes with annoying (and almost clichéd) touches like some of the slow motion scenes, you really sense that this is no ordinary movie from any ordinary director. Mr Dolan’s first movie I Killed My Mother a totally stunning and hilarious semi-autobiographic piece won 3 Awards at the Cannes Film Festival (and another 23 other Awards around the World) in 2009 when he was a mere 19-years-old.

    Sadly the US Distributor went into financial difficulties and the movie, trapped in legal no-mans-land, has never been seen beyond the Festival Circuit to date. Now at the ripe old age of 22, he has written, directed, starred, co-produced, edited, and designed the sets and the costumes for Heartbeats, which also picked up an Award at Cannes last year. He is an enormous precocious talent and I think this, his early work, shows that he is going to be one of THE most important filmmakers of the future.

    You would be a fool to miss this one.

  • FILM REVIEW | Mommy

    ★★★★★ | Mommy

    When Diana ‘Die’ Despres reacts quite violently after she crashes her car on the way to collect Steve her troubled teenage son from the special care facility after he set fire to the cafeteria, it’s initially not clear who is the craziest one out of the pair of them. However, life with Steve will be no picnic for his widowed mother after the two of them traipses back on the bus to the latest rental apartment in the suburbs that they now call home.

    Steve may look like an angel with his blond hair and blue eyes but he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which gives him extreme mood swings. They include many violent angry outbursts which then, without warning, suddenly change into some almost inappropriate ‘kiss and makeup’ sessions with his mother. Die seems to spend most of her time pleading and cajoling with her son who she is obviously very afraid of, but then again she too can be pretty frightening in her own right. Despite their traumatic daily life together she clings to her son even though she craves her freedom and so when a neighbour flirts with her she is reluctant to take it one step further in case it antagonises Steve more.

    They do however let someone else into their lives in the shape of their rather mousy neighbour Kyle. She has plenty of her own issues to deal, with most of which manifest in her rather mysterious stutter that greatly inhibits her ability to express herself. Kyle, an ex-school teacher, takes on the thankless task of trying to tutor Steve, and both he and his mother are desperate to make her their only friend which at first is something that she seems to welcome too.

    With one unpredictable scene after another, it soon becomes clear that no matter how strong and fiercely independent Die is, she is simply overwhelmed with trying to deal with this petulant head-strong unbalanced teenager. Love is just simply not enough.

    This remarkable and deeply disturbing film is the fifth from 25-year-old Canadian Wunderkind filmmaker Xavier Dolan and in a way he is revisiting a theme of his debut movie I Killed My Mother. This time however instead of it being about a son who felt completely misunderstood by his mother, the lack of misunderstanding seems to go both ways. It’s extremely raw, very heartbreaking, completely original and deeply personal as it simply has to be another of Dolan’s semi-autobiographical stories. What is especially effective is that despite all the melodrama he infuses it with some brilliant touches of humour which don’t just lighten the pace but make it really quite funny at times.

    It reunites him with his movie mother the dynamic Canadian actress Anne Dorval who, as the lynch pin for this intense drama, is manically mesmerising. She like Suzanne Clement who plays Kyle are stellar regulars of Dolan’s films and their performances (like the movies themselves) keep getting better every time around. Young Antoine-Olivier Pilon inhabits the often uncomfortable skin of the deeply disturbed Steve quite brilliantly too.

    The consummate Dolan’s hands, as usual, are not just restricted to writing and directing but are all over the movie from the editing to the soundtrack. He truly is a renaissance filmmaker and one that is seemingly maturing along with his movies which frankly get better and better. Multi-award winners … this one picked up a Jury Award at The Cannes Film Festival and then a César Award (French Oscar) for Best Foreign Film, but despite all this acclaim, Dolan’s movies have yet to make any significant breakthrough at the Box Office. This, however, may just be the one to give him the success that his movies so deserve.

  • FILM REVIEW | Dior And I

    ★★★★★ | Dior And I

    Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LMVH took a year to decide on whom to appoint as the new Creative Director of DIOR after the unceremonious firing of John Galliano for his alleged very public display of anti-Semitism.

    The interim in-house designer’s collection had been very poorly received so Arnault knew that he had to think outside of the box to save the reputation of the House. His unexpected choice was the Belgian Designer Raf Simons who had made a name for himself with his sublime minimalist collections for the Jil Sander label. Even though Simons had never designed an Haute Couture collection, Arnault threw him into deep end making this his first task and giving him just two short months to do it.

    The company also gave filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng what initially seemed like carte blanche to film the whole process from the time that Simons was first introduced to his new team right through to the Runway Show itself. Tcheng was a wise choice as he had been part of the team who had made the Diane Vreeland documentary The Eye Must Travel and the equally excellent ‘Valentino The Last Emperor’. This time, however, he was to be the sole director.

    Simons is a quiet reserved man which is the total opposite of his predecessor and relies completely on his right hand man Pieter Muller, who is more open and approachable, to execute a great deal of the work. Simons, who insists on doing away with the traditional formality of the House and been called Raf by one and all, creates in a very democratic manner. A very visual man who never actually sketches, he compiles extensive ‘mood boards’ of the ‘looks’ that he wants to constitute his debut collection that has to be good enough to lift Dior out of its current doldrums.

    He is not only fortunate enough to have a design team who are both eager and very capable of interpreting his concepts into reality, he has two workrooms who have for decades been lovingly hand-making all the couture clothes up in the attic floors of the building. Managed by two Ateliers (one for tailoring, the other for dresses) they are staffed by a dedicated bunch of seamstresses who at times seemed to show far more passion about the actual collection than their new Creative Director.

    Simons can, and does get anything he wants to help make this collection even if it means his fabric buyer must beg and plead with her printers, or if the seamstresses work into the early hours of the morning. Tcheng gives us a fascinating fly-on-the-wall look at how it all comes together, but apart from one incident when an Atelier is in New York doing a fitting for a customer ratter than toiling away upstairs in the Workroom, the whole process is presented as being totally drama free which is so completely unrealistic. There is one very real and funny moment when Simons wants a new white jacket made in black, and so to see what it would like, Muller just takes a can of spray paint and the offending white is covered over.

    Tcheng gets full marks for the innovative way that he incorporates part of the legacy of Mr Dior himself by imagery and narrating parts of the Couturier’s own biography. Simons is also aware of what he has inherited by stepping into the legendary Designers shoes (although he is the 7th one to date to have done so). Whilst he looks through the House’s archives as part of his research, he makes a point of stating ‘the past is not romantic to me: it’s the future that is romantic.’

    For a venue for the Show itself they find an empty very grand house in the centre of Paris and whilst walking around its many floors with his team, Simons says that what he would like to do is take the concept of Jeff Koon’s Puppy (outside Guggenheim in Bilbao) and cover the interior with walls of flowers. What Simons wants Simons gets, although when Arnault comes in to see a test run of the walls he takes the PR Director away from the prying camera when he asks ‘how much is this going to cost?’ Whatever the answer was he still stumps up for it and come show day and Simons is walking Anna Wintour into the venue to face this stunning beautiful sight, she takes off her dark glasses for one quick moment to mutter “No budget restrictions then?” with a smirk on her face.

    When the show begins in front of a star-studded audience and seemingly the entire world’s press, we finally get to see in full what we have only glimpsed at in part up to now i.e. the clothes themselves. They are nothing short of stunning, something that will be born out by the clamour of congratulatory hugging afterwards, and to be followed by rave reviews in the media the next day. But now as the skinny models glide from room to room whilst everyone is looking in awe, we finally see the emotional side of Simons as breaks down and quietly weeps and has to be comforted by Muller.

    The lack of real drama was not the only surprise it was the fact that Belgian Simons couldn’t speak French that was quite a shocker, which was hardly something that Tcheng could change. What however he was responsible was the total absence of Galliano’s name at all as if he never ever existed. Despite this unforgivable omission I was still completely enamoured by this otherwise enchanting record of this very talented man and his team creating these works of art that would be admired by so many and worn by so few.

  • FILM REVIEW | 54, The Director’s Cut

    ★★★★★ | 54, The Director’s Cut

    The movie opens with a very hunky bare-chested young man in a New York street late at night trying to cover up and keep warm. You can hear him start to explain. “I’m not going to bulls*** you, it was the greatest party in the history of the world. My boss said the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Maybe it did. One thing for sure it was the ultimate escape from a f***ed up city in a f***ed up time. But like any great escape, it never lasts”

    He’s talking of course about the infamous Studio 54 which was THE dance club in Manhattan, that for a few short years in the late 1970s was where all the celebrities hung out and partied whilst all the desperate would-be’s were kept outside behind the velvet ropes begging Steve Rubell the co-owner and ringmaster to be let in. Their efforts were all in vain as you had to have either a certain look or a gorgeous body for him to relent and admit you in to mingle with the stars. Shane a rather gormless New Jersey boy who was as cute as hell was in the latter group. This is his story, which started off when Rubell told him to remove his shirt and after he stripped to his waist he got invited into more than just the Club, and he stayed until the party ended.

    What naïve Shane encounters inside the Club quickly blows his mind. Hedonistic excess and debauchery with people openly having sex whilst bare-chested glitter-painted waiters nimbly passed around the packed dance floor with silver trays carrying drinks laced with phials of coke. There are bodies everywhere and all of them behaving badly. Hesitant at first he soon joins in and as he discovers that he loves being the centre of attention he learns to parlay that into getting what he wants. He is very soon a regular fixture and asking a somewhat besotted Rubell for a job. He starts at the bottom as a lowly barboy but literally f***s his way to becoming the next new hottest bartender which is one of the most coveted jobs in the place.

    Rubell’s self-indulgent rapacious greedy lust for money and power knows no bounds and the seemingly unstoppable raging success of the club means endless drug-fuelled sleepless days and nights as he lures Shane and his other young staff into satisfying his sexual needs with the promise of promotion or a handful of cash. His creepy persona (a startlingly wonderful dramatic performance from Mike Myers) influences the once innocent straight Shane who readily now jumps in bed with older celebrities of both sexes as he earns a reputation of being able to literally screw them unconscious. His now insatiable appetite has him also making passes at both his married best friends who are also his roommates.

    For Shane, it’s simply a case of rags to riches story and when the IRS finally takes heed of Rubell’s public boasting of tax-avoidance and raids the Club, it’s back to rags again. He’s had his trip to the dark side and now it’s time get back into a light that is not just from the reflection of a disco glitter ball.

    Written and directed by Mark Christopher, this new Director’s Cut fulfils an ambition he has held since the original movie was released some 17 years ago. He’s added some 36 sparkling minutes, which makes a great deal more sense of Shane’s story, and it also reinstates all the sex and the morally ambivalent characters that frightened the distributors way back then. All’s well that ends well and Christopher’s love letter to the heady days of the New York disco scene is now a sheer joy.

    With the exception of Myers, the cast was relatively unknown. Newcomer Ryan Philippe, whose experience prior to this had been playing a gay teenager on Days Of Our Life (the first gay character on US daytime TV), played Shane so passionately. He not only looks the part … be prepared to swoon like Rubell when he first takes off his shirt to reveal THAT chest … but he imbues his role so perfectly with such convincing innocence. Playing alongside him were a very young Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell, and almost totally un spottable in his very first movie role Mark Ruffalo. Christopher has scattered quite a few celebrities playing themselves as regular habitués of the Club, some of whom you may not even recognise until the credits role at the end.

    As Shane so adroitly summed up the whole scene “one moment it is all around you and the next it’s gone forever”. Very true, but now thanks to this excellent entertaining movie we can relieve part of it again for at least 90 minutes.

  • FILM REVIEW | Fairytale Of Kathmandu: Highly Emotive and Compelling

    ★★★★★ | Fairytale Of Kathmandu

    Not every Fairy Tale has a happy ending especially this one desperately sad but true one from 2007.

    Director Neass Ni Chianain first encountered legendary Irish Poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh as a student in awe of him. Years later, the two are now friends and the poet invites her to accompany him on his annual three-month visit to Nepal, which he considers his spiritual home. Ó Searcaigh, a middle-aged openly gay man, was keen to share his life in the capital city of Kathmandu, and show all his charitable work supporting a whole legion of young Nepalese boys.

    The documentary starts out simply as a tribute to this seemingly altruistic generous man that villagers treat as some sort of a deity, turns into a totally different story.

    Admiration turns to dismay and anger, fuelled by Ó Searcaigh’s denials when confronted with the discoveries, and ultimately it is he that claims betrayal and not the boys or the filmmaker.

    Sensitively shot, this superb documentary with its totally unexpected curve is highly emotional, and even blood-curdling at times. Whatever one’s opinion of Ó Searcaigh is, his story is totally compelling, completely riveting and makes fascinating viewing that shouldn’t be missed. Ultimately, we are reminded of what we’ve always known: not every fairytale has a happily-ever –after ending.

  • FILM REVIEW | Geography Club, Wonderfully fresh look at gay teens coming of age

    ★★★★★ | Geography Club, Wonderfully fresh look at gay teens coming of age

    In this wonderful fresh look at the world of gay teens, the one thing the members of this Club definitely don’t talk about is Geography.

    They are a group of closeted gay high school students who don’t want anyone to know the true purpose of their meetings. There are only three members to start but when Min, a rather bossy bi-sexual, inadvertently catches her friend Russell kissing football jock Kevin, she invites him to join them and that triggers a whole series of events that will eventually force them to ‘out’ themselves to the whole school.

    Oddly enough Kevin is the deepest into the closet even though his father is actually very proud of his out gay brother. Kevin encourages Russell to join the football team in order so they can at least hang out together, and although by accepting the offer it doesn’t mean that the boys actually get any closer, apart from the rare make out session, but it results in Russell getting roped into bullying another gay classmate just to keep his own cover.

    Russell’s plump best friend Gunnar pressures him to go on a double-date as that is the only way that Kimberly will go out with him. When Trish her friend makes the moves on a petrified Russell, his panicky reactions cause Kimberly to call him a ‘fag’; a fact that she ensures is common knowledge to the entire school the very next day. Now totally exposed there are only two ways that this can play out for Russell, and he chooses the bravest and most honest option with the support of his real friends.

    Based on Brent Hartinger’s very successful young adult novel, the movie is directed by 28-year-old actor Gary Entin from a script by his twin brother actor Edmund Entin (both known for The Seeker: The Dark is Rising). It is an extremely impressive and professional debut from these two and is a wonderfully fresh look at young teens coming to terms with their sexuality. They score high points for their enlightened approach to an emotive subject, especially for avoiding all the usual clichéd stereotypes. The fact that not all the main players redeemed themselves at the end, added another credible touch of realism.

    Great cast of young experienced actors; Cameron Deane Stewart (‘Pitch Perfect’) played Russell; Andrew Caldwell (Transformers) was Gunnar, Ally Maki (Step Up 3D) as Min, Justin Deeley (Couples Retreat) as Kevin, Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray) as Min’s girlfriend Theresa and Alex Newell (Glee) as Ike a club member. And the wonderful Ana Gustier (ex-Saturday Night Live) was hilarious as the hippy teacher ‘who cared’.

    Several publishers rejected the book itself before Harper Collins picked it up. To their delight they had three reprints within the first three months, proving that there is both a market and real need for books like this, I think there is also a demand for the movies that evolve from them, especially when they are of this high calibre.

  • FILM REVIEW | Whiplash

    ★★★★★ | Whiplash

    19-year-old Andrew Neyman wants to be the next Buddy Rich.

    This aspiring young drummer who is completely obsessed with his burning ambition has managed to get himself enrolled at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory of Music in Manhattan, which is ranked No. 1 in the country. Now he is desperate to be recruited into the School’s band led by its legendary leader Terrence Fletcher. Even after he catches Fletcher’s attention one day and is invited to become the Band’s alternate drummer, he is never sure if he will succeed and achieve his dream especially when Fletcher’s initial charming approach soon dissipates to reveal his true nature.

    The bald-headed Fletcher is nothing short than a sadistic bully akin to the worse kind of Army Drill Sergeant who insists on insulting, terrorising and abusing his talented charges. However, Andrew is not only willing but even eager to take all the public humiliation Fletcher dishes out since it forces him to suffer for a cause he chooses to believe will be worth it. After all his other idol Charlie Parker only went from good to great after a traumatic incident that induced him to sacrifice a year to intensive practice.

    During the Band’s rehearsals for some upcoming crucial Competitions Fletcher deliberately demands the near impossible, berating any of the frightened players who make a mistake and even those who don’t. He promotes Andrew from page-turner to featured drummer and then quickly demotes him back again after screaming more abuse at him and making him cry in the process. There are times he pushes Andrew to practice so hard that his hands actually bleed, and then still not content he hurls a cymbal across the room at him.

    Out of school, Andrew is very much a loner, and when he does eventually pluck up the courage to ask a girl out and start dating her, he very quickly dumps her because he feels she maybe a distraction from all the practice he needs to do to appease Fletcher in the hope of eventually becoming the lead drummer. He is also afraid of emulating the failure of his father who’s writing career never took off and he ended up be resigned to settling with just being a schoolteacher instead.

    This exhilarating indie movie was the opening gala of the Sundance 2014 Film Festival having started life however as a three-sequence film that won the US short film jury prize at Sundance the previous year. It stars the immensely talented Miles Teller (‘The Spectacular Now’) as young Andrew struggling to maximise his artistic talent regardless of the intense physical and mental pressures. It is however the subliminal career-defining performance from veteran character actor J K Simmons that ignites the screen as Fletcher a profane and seemingly unstoppable villain that has propelled this wee movie on to a much wider audience than it would normally have expected to reach. It has won a strew of well-deserved Awards culminating in a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.

    The music throughout is also quite electric and wonderfully adds tension to some of the more frenetic scenes. This very personal second film from writer-director Damien Chazelle, ended up with an unprecedented 3 Academy Awards (Film Editing and Sound Editing) which certainly also makes him a talent to look out for too.

    Fletcher cuttingly remarks at one point that the lamest two words in the English language are ‘good job’ so we will carefully note that this is not good, but an excellent one.

  • FILM REVIEW | Still Alice

    ★★★★★ | Still Alice

    Beautiful, pitch-perfect, Sublime

    Life is seemingly idyllic for 50-year-old Alice Howland a renowned Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University who is happily married with three grown up children.

    Then suddenly out of the blue she forgets a word or two midway in a tutorial, and then cannot remember the occasional appointment although this hardly registers with her at all. That is until one day out on her usual run around the campus Alice suddenly realises that she doesn’t recognise where she is even though she is literally standing outside her own office building. A subsequent trip to a Neurologist rules out a brain tumour or stroke which had been her worst fears, but further investigation reveals something that she had never even considered: early-onset Alzheimer’s. If that is not bad enough for Alice as she comes to terms with the fact that she will eventually be unable to recognise her own children, she then learns that her disease is hereditary and she may inadvertently pass it on to them too.

    Alice takes a reasoned and logical approach to her situation even though filled with rage that she will lose all that she has worked for and achieved in the past 50 years in probably just a matter of months. Whilst still very much aware of her situation in these early stages Alice makes plans for her uncertain future by visiting Special Care Facilities and making contingency plans for when she can no longer answer a series of personal questions about her life, which have now become part of her daily routine. She desperately tries coming to terms with the fact that life, as it had previously existed, is now over and so insists on continuing teaching, until that is she tells all to her Department Head who promptly dismisses from her position. Having a lack of a daily purpose seems to help speed up her degeneration, and being left at home all with just a carer to look after her is difficult for this once extremely active workaholic to come to terms with. Her husband John, a fellow academic is very understanding and completely supportive of all her needs but nevertheless still refuses to take a sabbatical year off to share what will be her last few months of coherence, and he is, in fact, planning to accept a new important job in another State.

    The story based on a novel by neuroscientist Lisa Genova unusually tells the tale from Alice’s point of view instead of solely focusing on the effects her illness has on family and friends. The fact, in this case, it was initially harder to diagnose was, as her doctors point out, due to the fact that intelligent people like Alice are capable of devising elaborate ways to work around their initial symptoms that mask the problem. Whilst writer/directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland have not shied away from showing the sheer sadness in watching Alice’s life disintegrate in front of her own very eyes, they have rather brilliantly avoided the temptation to milk the situation and let this turn into a weepy melodrama. In fact there are some tender touches of humor that never let us forget that before Alice became a victim, she was a very articulate and witty woman.

    The sublime Julianne Moore imbues Alice with a powerful voice in a beautiful pitch-perfect low-key performance that makes it all feel so real. She makes us appreciate that life is simple, not fair, and that you have to appreciate it whilst you are able too. It deservedly won her a long overdue Best Actress Oscar. It was very much her picture, but nevertheless kudos to her fine supporting cast that included Alec Baldwin who delivered a subtle understated performance as her husband John, and Kristen Stewart as her youngest daughter Lydia who refused to give up her own dreaming of acting, but nevertheless became the one family member who would really be there for her all the way.

    The story has particular resonance with married couple Westmoreland and Glatzer as the latter has his own debilitating disease after being diagnosed with ALS. The fact that he has chosen to write and direct this exceptionally beautiful movie with his husband shows that he certainly hasn’t given up, a message that is also very important to Alice who refuses to just give in.