LOVING HIGHSMITH*** - BFI Flare 2023

LOVING HIGHSMITH is a fascinating but ultimately frustrating documentary about the enigmatic and spiky American author Patricia Highsmith.  I have long loved Highsmith's books and the various film adaptations they have spawned. There's something curiously liberating and absurdly funny about her amoral criminal protagonists, not least the charismatic psychopath Tom Ripley.  Set against these dark, disturbing crime novels, we then had the subversive romance of Carol, or The Price of Salt, in which a rich 1950s housewife finds a fulfilling happy ending with a young shopgirl. They don't suffer, they don't regret, they don't die. They live happily.  One struggles to reconcile the two novelists and the many Patricia's.  Is she a courageous and admirable figure - an undeniably important writer - the life of the party - fearless in her love life?  Or is she a mean, alcoholic, anti-semitic misanthropist?

Vitija approaches Highsmith through her family and love life. We meet some of her family living in contemporary Texas, who speak of the buttoned up nature of life in the South of the 1950s.  It seems incomprehensible that this literary woman grew  up in the family of a rodeo-announcer!  But what a fucked up childhood she had.  Her mother divorced her father before she was born and apparently tried to abort her by drinking terps.  Young Patricia was so aghast at being gay that she tried to sleep with men and conversion therapy.  Per her lover and fellow author Marijane Meaker, everyone did, because of the endemic bigotry of the times.

Of all the interviews it is Meaker who is the most astute, and the most fascinating, depicting the lesbian underground scene in New York and the many reasons why Highsmith would've written The Price of Salt under a pseudonym. This is interspersed with archival footage of Patricia as well as Gwendolyn Christie reading excerpts from her diary, further explaining how career-ending writing a "gay book" might've been.

In addition to Meaker, we meet some of Patricia's lovers from her self-imposed European exile.  Tabe Blumeschein and Monique Buffet are fascinating for the insight they show on life in 1970s and 1980s queer Europe, but I just didn't feel like I was getting at the core of who Patricia was. Maybe one cannot without really immersing oneself in her voluminous diaries. And maybe even then you would come against a kind of wall of subterfuge and unwillingness to allow emotion and vulnerability to penetrate. My abiding feeling finishing this documentary was one of a supreme artist but also of an emotionally thwarted life. They really do fuck you up, your mum and dad. 

LOVING HIGHSMITH has a running time of 83 minutes. It was released in the USA last year and is playing BFI Flare 2023. 

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Opening Night

Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Dickens' beloved autobiographical bildungsroman is a complete triumph.  Thanks to a wonderful adaptation by Simon Blackwell; effervescent and imaginative visuals; and a wonderful set of performances, this really is one of my all-time favourite versions of the tale.  I think it's because of the wonderful way in which it captures the love within the novel - the wonderful spirit of acceptance, love and compassion contained in the Peggotties assembled family - or Aunt Betsy Trotwood's care of Mr Dick - or David Copperfield's eventual reconciliation with Mr Micawber.  The film also captures Dickens' wonderful humour - whether in his sharp-eyed satiric portraits of the villains, or in the linguistic wonders of Micawber and Yarmouth. The film is also a really good portrayal of the author as a cipher for Dickens, and places the act of writing and imagining and rewriting at the front of its visual style.  Those of us familiar with the fate of Dora in the novel will find a quite elegant, more concise, and yet somehow similarly moving resolution here. But the movie never shies away from the darkness in Dickens' portrayal of violent, oppressive marriages - cruel poverty - social snobbery - and fallen women.  Most of all, it's a beautifully nuanced portrait of mental illness - whether Mr Dick's fixation on Charles I, Steerforth's suicidal depression or even Micawber's self-delusions.

In front of the camera, Dev Patel really is the most beautifully cast David Copperfield - all gangly wide-eyed love and optimism even in the worst of circumstances. But his David is never a patsy, even when falling for the dippy Dora.  He shows his anger, often physically, and fights and works for his future.   Patel handles everything from slapstick to righteous anger to compassionate frustration with the best of good humour. He's one of those actors that it's simply a pleasure spending time with.

In the supporting roles, I was struck by Rosalind Eleazer as Agnes - showing real love, strength, smarts.  An actress I would hope to see so much more of.   Daisy May Cooper is just heart-meltingly lovely as Peggotty, and Tilda Swinton - who starts off as just another Tilda Swinton eccentric - shows real depth of emotion and care as Aunt Betsy.  But perhaps the most surprising turn was from Hugh Laurie as Mr Dick. Every big cast drama has its Papageno, and with Copperfield it's usually Micawber. And Peter Capaldi is just find as Micawber. But there's something so quietly funny, moving, whip-smart about Laurie's Mr Dick that steals every scene that he's in, and must surely be a contender for Best Supporting Actor awards.

I really can't fault this film. And it's worth noting that Mr007 has never read the book and loved it as much as I did.  And that's a rare feat - to condense an epic novel but lose none of its essence, and to also please the casual viewer. Kudos to all involved. 


THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD has a running time of 119 minutes. It has played Toronto and London 2019 and opens in the UK on January 10th 2020.

IN FABRIC - BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Day Ten - Official Competition

Karl Marx famously wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.  Much the same could be said of Peter Strickland's IN FABRIC.

As with his marvellous slippery, sensory, sinister, sexy BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO and THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY, IN FABRIC creates a world that feels a little like a pastiche of 70s schlock, and straddles a tightrope between drama, horror and comedy.  In all of these films Strickland shows us that he has a unique and particular style of cinema that is unmistakably his, although at the end of this film, I was wondering if it was becoming rather samey.

In this film, Strickland creates a 1970s world dominated by a sinister department store complete with macabre owner - weirdly Victorian gothic sales assistants - its own florid, bizarre language - and apparently - a killer dress. That's right! The protagonist of this film is a malevolent red dress - colour: Arsenic red.  In the first hour of the film it's sold to a bank teller (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who has started dating again after a divorce. She struggles at home to deal with her feckless son's pretentious girlfriend (Gwendolyn Christie) and at work to deal with her intrusive bosses (Steve Oram and Julian Barratt).  The story we see is one of moments of extreme comedy, but also genuine concern for our sympathetic heroine, and real fear for her safety. It's a triumph.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Spoilers)

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is the second instalment in the new trilogy of films, that sees the aftermath of the Rebellion's defeat of The Empire in the original trilogy.  In THE FORCE AWAKENS we saw a weakened Republic under attack by the newly resurgent remains of the old Empire, named The First Order.   The Emperor was replaced by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), with General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) as his military leader, Starkiller Base as his Death Star, Coruscant as its target, and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) aka Ben Solo as his Vader.  

In response, Republican Senator Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) was running a covert militarised Resistance starring a dashing pilot called Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his droid BB8.  The droid happened upon a young girl called Rey (Daisy Ridley), abandoned on the desert planet Jakku, waiting for her parents, and an instinctive force user. They in turn happened upon a stormtrooper defector called Finn (John Boyega) who seemed to exist mostly for comic effect, but also to have an antagonistic relationship with his former boss Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie). A largely redundant but popular side character was cantina owner Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyongo) who served to give Rey Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber.

The main questions set up by the film were whether Ben Solo would or could be turned by Rey to the Light Side of the Force having killed his father Han (Harrison Ford) in a test of loyalty to Snoke; who Rey's parents were, thus explaining her exceptional Force strength; and whether Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), living as a hermit, would be willing to train Rey to that task having failed in training Ben. Ancillary questions were how the First Order has amassed such tech and power so quickly (largely answered in the EU); and who Snoke was (which wasn't.)

And so we get to The Last Jedi, familiar with the grammar of Star Wars movies and the role of the middle chapter in a trilogy as a bridge of sorts, and eager to see if director Rian Johnson (BRICK, LOOPER) could move beyond the excessive fan service that was the only serious flaw that JJ Abrams (STAR TREK) made in his otherwise flawless and joyous The Force Awakens. Additionally, if we read the EU, we might have thought we would see some serious character development for Phasma (given the standalone book).

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE

I had such a bad time watching the AB-FAB movie I couldn't bring myself to review. The 1990s sitcom was so joyous - so well acted and written - so scabrous in its ridicule of drunken, free-loading PRs and the insecurities of middle-aged women - and the movie was so, so awful.  But I was finally moved to write by a story on twitter proclaiming this to be the most lucrative British opening weekend since SPECTRE.  Of course! I cried in dismay. It's because of people like me!  We all went to see this film on a wave of nostalgia and were bitterly disappointed by the results. The back-slapping will no doubt end when a precipitous decline in weekly ticket sales is reported on the back of abysmal word of mouth.

So as you all know, AB-FAB the TV show featured PR exec Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and her ex-model/stylist sidekick Patsy (Joanna Lumley).  In the old days they used to lurch around London, shopping at Harvey Nicks, swilling champagne they hadn't paid for and putting two fingers up to Eddy's sensible daughter (Julia Sawalha).  In a world obsessed with youth, where women over a certain age can't act a certain way, it was a delight to see these two behaving so very badly. And yes, there was the occasional moment of piercing insecurity and self-doubt, but that only made the jokes better.