SUNDANCE LONDON 2013 - Day 2 - THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE

The reason people like me go to festivals is for that occasional flash of wonder when a programmer selects a film that would ordinarily have slipped beneath your radar and it rocks your world. That's how I feel about George Tillman Junior's THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER & PETE - a movie that made me laugh, cry, despair and marvel in equal measure.

The premise is simple. The two young kids of the title are abandoned by their crack whore mothers during a hot summer in New York. Forced to forage and steal for food, to protect themselves from the cops who would put them into care and the neighbourhood thugs who would do them harm, they forge an unlikely if utterly credible friendship and alliance. The remarkably talented Skylan Brooks plays Mister, the older and more worldly wise of the two. A young kid who looks like he's never had a good night's sleep - a kid of such wisdom and strength and pride that he inspires the grudging respect of the local drug dealer (Anthony Mackie). A kid so fierce that when he finally breaks down it moved me to tears. Mister's sidekick is a young, guileless ridonkulously cute Korean kid called Pete (Ethan Dizon). A kid who desperately needs a protector and mediator.

I could happily spend another two hours in the company of Mister and Pete. I totally believed in their friendship, shared their occasional joys and felt their many setbacks deeply. Kudos to Tillman Jr for finding them and coaxing such wonderful performances out of them. Kudos as well for managing to stay just the right side of manipulative sentimentality. The film never descends into Poor Joe the Crossingsweeper territory, neither does it pile melodrama onto melodrama as PRECIOUS did. The result is a beautifully shot, intimate, high stakes drama that is genuinely felt and totally unforgettable. You need to see it.

THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER AND PETE has a running time of 118 minutes. The film played Sundance 2013 but does not yet have a commercial release date.

SPARKLE

SPARKLE will be remembered as the last film Whitney Houston shot before her untimely death.  And its only redeeming feature is her care-worn, slightly bloated but forever poised and authentic presence as the religious, reformed mother of three talented daughters. At around half way through the film, Houston goes back to her roots in gospel and sings a rendition of His Eyes Are On The Sparrow that is so full of meaning and pain and power that we are transfixed.  That song is worth the price of entry alone.  And throughout the rest of the film we are ever alert at the resonances between her character, and the advice she gives her daughter Sister (Carmen Ejogo) - a beautiful talented woman who falls for an abusive, addicted man. As the mother chastises the daughter for failing to use her life as a cautionary tale, we wonder how self-aware Houston was in saying those lines.  

That morbid curiosity is about as much interest as there is in this rather trite remake of the Joel Schumacher musical.  It reads as a pale echo of the critically acclaimed DREAMGIRLS, with hackneyed dialogue, banal performances and pat answers.  Set in the late 60s, the story sees three sisters form a girl group in the manner of The Supremes, playing local clubs in search of a recording contract.  The eldest sister, Sister, falls prey to a rich husband who abuses her and feeds her cocaine to the point where she ruins herself and the band .  The second sister gets an afro, gets empowered and leaves to become a doctor.  That leaves Sparkle (American Idol winner Jordin Sparks), to write her songs and get enough confidence to actually sing them for the all important record company executive.

As tales of empowerment go, it's not very convincing.  Sister has by far the most interesting story in the manner of Ike and Tina until she is rather summarily sent to the sidelines.  Dolores seems to have been born a fully formed activist and leaves the film before she can do much of anything.  And Sparkle is just about as bland as Jordin Sparks wide smile.  The only faint interest is in the treatment of Satin (Mike Epps) - a comedian who plays to white audiences.  There's still a shudder at the language he provokes and the material he uses.

SPARKLE was released earlier this year in the USA, Canada, Argentina and Italy. It opens this weekend in the UK and Ireland; on October 11th in Germany; on October 25th in Australia and New Zealand; on November 16th in Bulgaria; on November 23rd in Norway; and on November 29th in Portugal. 

SPARKLE has a running time of 116 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA.