THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Drama

All movie reviews for films in the Drama genre

  • FILM REVIEW | Starred Up

    Violent prison dramas with raw angry men desperately displaying their machismo just to survive the regime of brutality that pervades in jails always have an underlying tone of homo-eroticism in them. ‘Starred Up’ with a brilliant career-making performance from 23-year-old Jack O’Connell is one such movie especially as it has the near-obligatory shower scene that ends in a naked fight.

    ★★★★★

    O’Connell plays troublesome teenager Eric Love who has been moved from a juvenile detention facility as they cannot handle him any more. Unlike the other inmates banged up in this adult jail, he doesn’t want to get out, as the reason he has forced the authorities to send him to an adult prison, is that his father, who he barely knows, has been serving time there for the past 14 years.

    The back-story as to how these two ended up being incarcerated is vague to say the least but it’s not that important as its the attempt at reconciliation between father and son that is the focus of the story. He may only be 19, but Eric is a hardened criminal who knows how to work the system, which only serves to enrage the corrupt prison guards who are determined that they will not be beaten by this youth, even if it means actually having him killed. Their undisguised anger is matched by the determination of a do-gooder volunteer social worker who is insistent that he can cure Eric, and maybe even his father, by some simplistic anger-management.

    It gets a tad confusing on occasion when the men’s shouting matches become incoherent, but one doesn’t need subtitles to get the gist of the violent action most of the time. This is essentially Eric’s story and of the way that he has deliberately chosen to develop into manhood. We are never sure either because of the script, or O’Connell’s mesmerizing performance, if the boy actually loves his father or really wants him dead.

    Directed by David McKenzie (‘Young Adam’, ‘Hallam Foe’) from a script by Jonathan Asser based on his own experiences as a prison social work. Even with strong supporting performances from Ben Mendelsohn as the father and Rupert Friend as the social worker, this film, one of the very best prison dramas for a long time, completely belongs to Eric, thanks to O’Connell’s portrayal. We are bound to see a lot more of this actor as he destined for stardom.
    P.S. Starred Up is a term used in the UK to describe the early transfer of a criminal from a Young Offender Institution to an adult prison.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE4ziBfu0JA
    by Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | The Riot Club; Violent Morally Abhorrent, Immensley Watchable

    ★★★★ The Riot Club | The atrocious unsocial behaviour of a group of very wealthy privileged college-age offspring of England’s landed gentry whose utter contempt for the poor is matched by their assumed rights of trashing and vandalising other people’s properties, seems a odd topic for a movie.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Snails In The Rain, Four Stars

    Snails In The Rain | ★★★★

    Every day on his way to University, linguistics student Boaz stops at the Post Office to check his mailbox to see if there is a letter telling him he has been awarded a Scholarship to continue his studies in Jerusalem. One day however, inside the box he finds a letter he has not been expecting, is a note from a secret male admirer who says that watching Boaz from afar is the highlight of his day.

    The place is Tel Aviv and the year is 1989 when homosexuality was secretive and closeted and encounters only happened in the dark shadows of night. It was also the time before computers and emails when the mail was still the main way to communicate. Boaz has been happily living with Noa his adoring girlfriend for over a year now, and his life is seemingly as perfect as it can get. Now when these unsolicited letters start arriving he gets thrown off kilter and they suddenly reignite memories he had chosen to forget when he almost hadam intimate encounter with another man during his Military service.By the time the third letter has arrived, Boaz’s curiosity to the author’s identity has turned into paranoia, as he believes that every man he encounters in the street, on the bus, in the library is staring at him in a lustful manner. The fact that Boaz is played by Yoav Reuveni a rather stunning ex-international male model turned actor would make this a totally feasible assumption. It is however Noa, who suspicious of Boaz’s sudden change in attitude at home, who finds the letters and correctly puts two and two together to work out who the real writer is.

    Boaz is now desperately struggling with his sexual identity so much so that when the 4th letter arrives and demands that he agrees to a pre-arranged way of signaling if he is in fact interested in returning his admirers affection, that he gets in such a state that he is about to explode. Or do something to vent out his anger and confusion that he may somehow regret.

    This rather intriguing drama about repressed homosexual feelings and desire acutely brings back an era when lust was often hidden and unrequited. The movie was based on a short story by Yossi Avni Levy who is (most intriguingly) currently the Israeli Ambassador in Serbia. It was directed and written by Yariv Moser (who co-starred in it too) best known for his two excellent documents ‘My First War’ and ‘The Invisible Men’. Moser’s decision to cast first-time actors paid off well as Mr. Reuveni in particular turned in a pitch perfect turn as the perturbed Boaz.

    And knowing how to keep his audience completely glued to the screen Moser heightens the air of homoeroticism with having Boaz constantly take showers at the drop of a hat too.

    Highly recommended.

  • FILM REVIEW | Mood Indigo

    ★★★ | Mood Indigo

    Have you ever want to like something so much, looked forward to seeing something so much, eager with anticipation?

    And then it happens and its, umm, well, it’s, not quite what you thought or expected?

    A film that includes the inimitable Amelie actress Audrey Tautou and the quirky actor from Populaire, Romain Duris, and has a storyline that reads like a William Burroughs script, and I really expected something kooky, something off the wall?

    I’d read about it before it came out – in itself a long protracted event as it seemed to take forever to get a UK cinema release. Based on a popular French novel by Boris Vian, it takes place in a fantasy version of Paris, where cars fly, pianos make cocktails and people stretch whilst skating – and not just their muscles!

    I hate to spoil the stories when doing a review of a film or DVD, so I won’t go into details on this score apart from the well-publicised basics – boy meets girl, falls in love, marry and then girl becomes seriously ill as a flower starts to grow in her lung… as it does.

    The boy then has to use all available funds to buy a flower to help heal his girl and takes all sorts of odd jobs to fund this. The rest is available on the DVD for you to watch.

    One word used a lot in reviews and write ups on this film is “whimsy” and it’s a great word to sum this up – it is whimsical in the extreme but it lacks some of the finesse of either Amelie and Populaire – though both actors and the rest of the cast and crew give it their all and do a good job.

    The director is responsible for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind, Rewind and it kind of shows, the story takes all kind of twists and turns, but the special effects are not up to the expected level and seem amateurish and at times awkward. The story doesn’t follow the normal narrative trail but seems to waver as it moves towards its end.

    I didn’t hate this film, how could you? But I didn’t love it and ended feeling disappointed and a little let down. Whether this is down to me and my high expectations or the film and its production, I’m not sure… As always, I’d urge you to watch and decide for yourself. I do think its worth watching, but don’t expect the usual Tautou or Duris fair….

    I’d give it a 3 out of 5 stars, I wish it was more

  • FILM REVIEW | Bumblef**k USA

    ★★★★ | Bumblef**k USA

    Newbie filmmaker Aaron Douglas Johnson’s debut feature is an unsettling docu-drama hybrid that arose from a very personal tragedy in his life.

    Johnson was born in a small town in Iowa and as an only child he grew up very close to his cousin Matt. By all accounts, Matthew, a devout Catholic and a passionate Republican, was a very popular member of his high school soccer team. Matthew was also gay, and at the age of 24 committed suicide after coming out of the closet in his hometown. This film, however, is not a biopic but Johnson’s attempt to try and get a better understanding of what it must have been like for Matthew to struggle with his sexuality in this small town in Middle America.

    The film successfully mixes a fictional story about Alexa a young blond Dutch woman who had befriended Matt on a Course somewhere and she has flown to Iowa from Amsterdam to make a documentary about her friends passing. Amongst all the interviews she films (unscripted and with very actual local lesbians and gays) she goes on somewhat of her own roller-coaster ride as she also starts to discover her own true identity as well.

    Settling into a house where she has rented a room for the summer, Alexa is so caught up in her own world that she is unaware that Lukas her landlord, a lonely man in his 40s, is immediately attracted to her. In fact, we soon discover that she has an unfortunate manner taking all kindnesses for granted and happily using and promptly discarding everybody who takes any interest in her.

    After her first night in Iowa, this somewhat confused girl wakes up in a strange bed without much recollection on how she ended up there. Her bed partner is Jennifer a local bartender/artist and the two women could not be more opposite. Not just because this is Alexa’s first time with a woman, but the fact out and proud lesbian Jennifer is an edgy positive woman who knows exactly what she wants out of life. And that doesn’t include sleeping with ‘straight’ women who end up running back to their boyfriends, as she has done that already.

    Alexa’s voyage of discovery will start at that moment when she cannot wait to get dressed and get out of Jennifer’s apartment. She’ll be back on and off, but not before she has a romp in a cemetery (well with a male grave digger) who, when he has finished making out with her in her room, is then unceremoniously kicked out by the Landlord at her request. Lukas will eventually try his luck after he has seen Alex dispensing sexual favours liberally with others, and when she resists, he rapes her.

    Johnson’s intriguing and thought-provoking film is somewhat disturbing. Not simply as the talking heads so poignantly articulate their own strife dealing, and overcoming, with some of the negative consequences after acknowledging the truth about their sexuality, but using a thoughtless and self-absorbed protagonist in the fictional story made it nigh on impossible to sympathise with her at times. It was, however, a very clever and unusual formula for reinforcing his key message i.e. it’s still tough being out and gay in so many places even today.

    Johnson should be applauded for honouring his cousin’s memory in this manner, and if this movie succeeds in just saving one more life, then it was all definitely worthwhile.

  • FILM REVIEW | Palo Alto

    ★★★★ | Palo Alto

    The directorial debut of Gia Coppola, Palo Alto is an exploration of high school teenagers experimentations with sex, drugs, and alcohol, and it’s an impressive debut.

    Coppola, the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola and niece of Sofia Coppola and Nicholas Cage, turns James Franco’s book of the same name into a gritty yet honest movie of a bunch of teenagers in a Palo Alto, California High School. Franco’s book was a series of stories, and Coppola’s film links them up beautifully to create a film that flows, with characters who we could all relate to.

    April (an amazing Emma Roberts) is the class virgin. April’s popular amongst her peers and is a star soccer player. She is also being chased by her creepy soccer coach Mr B., whom she babysits for (Franco, in one of his best roles in years). But Mr B. just doesn’t like April, he also ‘likes’ other girls at the school – he’s a paedophile.

    Meanwhile, Teddy (Jack Kilmer), and Fred (Nat Wolff) are the best of friends, yet it’s Fred unpredictable behaviour that at times becomes explosive and dangerous. And Teddy has a huge crush on April, and he is unaware of her relationship with Mr B.

    Zoe Levin plays Emily. She’s basically the school slut and sleeps with Fred. Teddy, taking a page from Fred’s book, is caught drunk driving and has to perform community service, in a library where Fred visits and proceeds to deface a book. Throw in a mix of more parties and more romances and what you have is a teenage high school film that is made for grownups.

    Coppola gives us a film that is seen through the eyes of the teenagers; their angst, their anxiety, semi-innocence, boredom and excitement. It’s a movie that feels real, with performances to match. Roberts, the niece of Julia, was the perfect choice for the role of April. She’s 23 years old but in the film looks like she’s 16. Kilmer (son of actor Val Kilmer, who has a cameo in the film as a stoned-out stepfather), is also very good as Teddy, tight friends with Fred yet trying to win April’s affections. And Franco is perfect as the lecherous soccer coach – his guilty smile and glint in his eyes say it all – he’s very handsome yet very dangerous. Franco trusted his book to Coppola to turn it into a movie, and she does a fantastic job. Not bad for a first-timer. Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola should watch their back, another Coppola family member is on the way up.

  • FILM REVIEW | Tru Love

    ★★★★ | Tru Love

    When 60-year-old Alice comes to Toronto six months after becoming a widow, her daughter Suzanne a lawyer is too busy at work to be home to greet her mother.

    She asks her unemployed friend Tru to step in at the last minute to look after Alice but then is shocked when she later arrives home and find that the two women have very quickly bonded. When Suzanne goes back to the office again that night, Alice takes Tru out to dinner to thank her, and the conversation soon takes a very personal turn.

    Alice is fascinated to learn about 30-something-year-old Tru’s life as a commitment-phobic serial-bed-hopping lesbian’s seemingly carefree life. She admits to having similar feelings when she was young but confessed that back in those days one had either to get married or join a nunnery. This provokes Tru into joking that the latter would have been the same as being a lesbian. There is obviously an attraction between the two women, but both are afraid to act upon it.

    The relationship between Alice and Suzanne is, however, is tenuous, to say the least as if neither can deal with the other’s grief for the departed husband/father. When it is clear that Alice’s spirits are so lifted by just spending time with Tru, Suzanne steps in and meddles to try and ensure that she puts a stop to their budding relationship. It appears at first she is in denial that Alice could possibly be a lesbian, but it soon turns out that this lonely partnerless woman has another reason to resent Tru making her mother so happy.

    Tru on the other hand slowly realises that with this welcoming older woman she is capable of loving someone after all. Alice never doubts her feelings but in some wonderful scenes talking to her late husband (seen on screen) she does question if this invalidates her life to date as she has not been true to her own feelings.

    This very touching story is very much about the two women’s quite chaste love but also equally about Alice’s relationship with her own daughter which seems to have reached a very low point. It’s unexpected and sudden ending was not the best way to finish the story as it didn’t really seem to give closure to all of them, well, at least to the two younger women.

    It’s an entertaining spirited movie about a delightful May/December relationship. Shauna MacDonald who co-wrote and co-directed as well as playing Tru gave herself a part that could/should have done more, but she did at least enable Kate Trotter who superbly played Alice and was a sheer joy as so convincingly conveyed the spirit of a woman finally discovering herself.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Overnighters

    ★★★★ | The Overnighters

    After North Dakota introduced the controversial technology known as fracking in 2008 it suddenly became the nation’s second largest oil producing State.

    So as the economic recession started to kick in really hard over the next few years, thousands of unemployed men unable to find work in their part of the country flocked to the new oilfields hoping to secure jobs. Many ended up the city of Willaston which is located in the oil-rich region in the west of the state. Totally unprepared for job searching which could take some considerable time or at which they could fail as they were totally unqualified, many of these migrant workers ended up being homeless and destitute.

    Their one chance of surviving and making their dreams succeed lay in the hands of an extraordinary local Lutheran Pastor who mounted what turned out to be a one man band to help these men try and succeed and move on. Pastor Reinke knew that the City permitted people to sleep overnight in their own cars if they were parked legally, but for the people that had come by bus and train, he went one step further and opened up the church premises and allowed them to sleep on any floor space they could claim.

    This program called ‘the overnighters’ was started in the dead of winter and the church’s congregation went along with their leader’s plan assuming that when the spring came, the men would move out and on. But each day more and more men arrived seeking refuge and the trickle turned into a flood. The Pastor suggested that the men make a voluntary contribution towards their keep, but insisted on them submitting to a background check and also attending church.

    As this influx of cars and men impacted the neighbourhood and at the same, the crime rate also rose the local paper started to voice the concerns of the community and published a few damning pieces on the Pastor’s activities. In a badly thought out move he panicked and invited one of the men who had been a convicted sex offender to stay with his own family to take the heat off for a while… but when word got out, it was the start of the unravelling of the whole program and the Pastor’s own life.

    Director Jesse Moss was his own one-man crew when he filmed this in 2012/3 and he gets up close and personal in telling the intimate stories of some of the men that are passing through in the hope of a better life. And although their struggles simply to survive are a powerful indictment on the effects of the downturn of a global economy on ordinary working men, it is the Pastor’s own somewhat bewildering and incessant crusade that is the main focus here. Reinke is resolute in his sheer doggedness to offer these men shelter and hope despite the overwhelming objections of the City, and of his own congregation who are angry at being railroaded into giving their support to something they can no longer tolerate.

    The Pastor’s very blinkered approach to expecting all of his neighbours to act as he believes Christians too unfairly casts them as the devil’s advocate when the refuse to go along with all his plans, and he eventually pays the cost of pushing them all too hard. There is more than hint that he has his own troubled past and on one occasion when he sympathies with one of the men who is baring his tormented soul, he remarks that they have a lot more in common than the other man would think. There are also the tell-tale signs of sudden flares of anger when Reinke believes that anyone has betrayed his trust in him. And then when the chips are down at the end of the movie, Reinke shocks his placid wife (and us) with a surprising confession.

    Moss’s movie never steers shy from showing the sheer despair of these men, and even of their guardian angel too. This compelling feature length documentary is quite an eye opener, in every sense of the word.

    In UK Cinemas 31st October

  • FILM REVIEW | You And The Night

    The opening sequence of French writer/director Yann Gonzalez debut feature starts with confusion that never really eases up through this avant-garde art-house film. ★

    CREDIT: Les Rencontres D’Après Minuit
    CREDIT: Les Rencontres D’Après Minuit

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  • FILM REVIEW | The Way He Looks

    FILM REVIEW | The Way He Looks

    The lazy summer is over and Leo and his best friend Giovana are back in High School for the new term when curly headed new boy Gabriel joins the class for the first time.★★★★★

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  • FILM REVIEW | The Fault In Our Stars

    16 year old Hazel Graze is permanently attached to an oxygen tank that now keeps her alive after her most recent bouts of cancer. If knowing that her days on earth are severely limited isn’t bad enough, she has to cope with her well-meaning parents and their enforced sunny dispositions to just get through each day. It’s no wonder that this sweet teenager is so depressed as she is dragged from counsellor to group therapy because the adults in her life tell her this is what she needs.

    It isn’t of course, but as stoic and brave as she is, Hazel is not sure that anything beyond her favourite post-modern novel (about cancer), will ever remotely make her happy. That is until one day in the Youth Cancer Group she meets Augustus. A clever tall and handsome 18-year old whose potential career as a baseball player was cut short when cancer took his right leg. He’s a carefree optimistic soul with a very quick acerbic wit who takes an instant shine to Hazel and pursues with an energy and enthusiasm that totally throws her.

    He takes her out on a few very chaste dates, reads the novel that she is addicted too and starts courting her with long late night phone conversations and they gradually morph into a couple in love. A few weeks into this budding relationship Augustus springs a surprise. He’s fixed it with the ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ for the two of them to take a trip to Amsterdam where Hazel can meet Van Houten the author of the book she will not put down. The elusive writer never produced the sequel he promised and Hazel has always been desperate to know what happened next in this unfinished story.

    Meanwhile, before she can go she has another close call with death when she suddenly gets very sick again. It turns out that she will recover to fight another day only to realise that Augustus’s cancer has reappeared and this time there is going to be nothing to stop it being terminal, and soon.

    If that is not enough grief, Van Houten is a major disappointment and breaks her heart too, and just to ensure that we use up at least two boxes of Kleenex watching this high-octane tearjerker, when the young couple are in Amsterdam they visit the Anne Franck house, giving us another reason to sob out loud.

    However what makes this melodrama work and keep our sympathy remaining high throughout is a beautifully understated and mature performance by Shailene Woodley who so carefully avoids any temptation to milk the part and make Hazel a tragic figure. She imbues her with such a serenity and a dignity, makes her warm and funny and never once makes this poor dying teenager a pathetic figure. She is a sheer joy to watch. Ansel Elgot has a slightly easy task as Augustus and he does it exceedingly well demonstrating such great chemistry with his co-star.

    Based on the best-selling novel by John Green who used his past experiences as a chaplain in a children’s hospital for the groundwork of his story. Adapted for the screen by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, who previously wrote ‘The Spectacular Now’ together, and it is director Josh Boone’s sophomore feature.

    Highly recommended.