DOWNSIZING - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Day 10

DOWNSIZING is a deeply patronising movie that pulls of the remarkable feat of being both annoying liberal and socially conscious AND offensively racist. There's probably a decent 45 minute episode of Black Mirror in there somewhere, but the surrounding 90 minutes of meandering, indulgent padding renders the whole work frustrating and meaningless.

The big concept of the film is that a bunch of Norwegian scientists have invented a way to miniaturise humans to 5 inches tall. And if humans can do this, they can leave a much lighter environmental impact, as well as use their current net wealth to live a deeply luxurious life. After all, you may not be able to afford a 10,000 sq ft mansion but you can probably afford one the size of a shoebox. This range of motives for "downsizing" reflects a parody of the cultures that DOWNSIZING deals with. So the liberal touchy feely hippie Scandies downsize to save the world and their mini-colony looks like The Shire. By contrast, Americans downsize to afford a luxury retirement in Disney like gated communities. 

Of course, this being (a piss-poor attempt at) sci-fi, none of the actual world-building makes sense. The downsized wouldn't survive rain or insects and there's an irony in the amount of energy being created in the downsizing probably making climate change worse. None of this would matter if the story was captivating and you cared about the characters. But the story is all over the place. Is this about an everyman recreating his life once his wife leaves him? Is it about finding yourself on a gap year trip to Norway? It is a piece of propaganda about climate change? Or is an undercover expose about illegal immigrant working conditions? It's like writer-director Alexander Payne through Big Ideas in the air like so much confetti and the result is a baggy, poorly scripted and edited mess that outstays its welcome. Worst of all, much of its comedy in the latter half of the film lies in taking the piss out of a Vietnamese woman's strong accent. In 2017. This is just flabbergastingly offensive on a Jar Jar Binks level. 

DOWNSIZING has a running time of 135 minutes. The film is rated 15 for strong language, drug misuse and sex references.  The movie played Venice, Toronto and London 2017 and will go on release in Spain and the USA on Dec 22nd, in Australia, New Zealand and France on Dec 26th, in Norway and Turkey on Jan 5th, in Argentina and Bulgaria on Jan 11th, and in the UK, Germany and Sweden on Jan 18th.

WILSON

To quote the back of Daniel Clowes' darkly brilliant graphic novel, "Wilson is a big-hearted slob, a lonesome bachelor, a devoted father and husband, an idiot, a sociopath, a delusional blowhard, a delicate flower, 100% Wilsonesque!"  In this new movie from director Craig Johnson (THE SKELETON TWINS), Clowes adapts his own work faithfully to give us a film that is funny, melancholy and sometimes plain crazy.  Woody Harrelson plays the protagonist as a shambolic man with no sense of proper behaviour.  Spurred by the death of his father he tracks down his ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern - CERTAIN WOMEN), who's now a recovering addict. She tells him she had the child he thought she aborted, and put her up for adoption.   Much of the rest of the film concerns this deeply dislikable and yet somehow charming man trying to forge a relationship with the girl (Isabella Amara - SPIDERMAN THE HOMECOMING) and navigate the wild twists that life throws at him.  To say more would be to spoil the surprise. 

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is a histrionic family melodrama of little merit in which the performances are so extreme they verge on parody. Oh look, there's Meryl Streep which all her trademark physical ticks being a drunken, mean old cancer-ridden harridan, haranguing her family so cruelly that her alcoholic husband (Sam Shepard) tops himself.  It's hard to know whether it's the character who's so repulsive or Streep's "turn it up to eleven" performance, but for whatever reason seeing the old witch harassing her children made me want to leave the cinema.  And what of her children? Julia Roberts is doing some proper acting. We know this because she has generously allowed us to see her grey roots as she portrays a tired middle-aged mother struggling with her unhappy marriage in a haze of self-righteous anger.  Juliette Lewis is cast against type as the fragile, man-dependent, delusional ditz, and it's utterly unconvincing. Finally, we get some actress called Julianne Nicholson playing a shy wallflower quite implausibly attracted to her cousin Little Charles - played by the typically marvellous Benedict Cumberbatch only two notches shy of Simple Jack.   

This sack of unsympathetic, uninspired characters gather at the old witch's house for the funeral of her husband, as we would expect, all the seething resentments and nasty secrets come out.  I found the whole thing shouty and dull. The only real emotional truth came from a confrontation between Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper as the witch's sister and brother in law, arguing over their treatment of Simple Jack, sorry Little Charles.   The acting is otherwise over-done. The direction, from John Wells, plodding. The cinematography, by Adriano Goldman, often just technically bad. 

What's the problem here? We've had two marvellous movies recently based on plays by Tracy Letts - BUG and KILLER JOE. In both cases, the characters were outlandish and the plotting crazy but it somehow worked and seemed real in the context of the gonzo worlds the director, Billy Friedkin, had created.  Here, the director seems to rooted to a naturalistic setting, in which his characters seem like circus freaks.  There's a disconnect - are we meant to be taking this seriously? Are we meant to be laughing? It's disconcerting, but not in the way the play is meant to be disconcerting. What a waste of the on-screen talent!

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY played Toronto, Austin and AFI 2013 and was released last year in the USA, Israel and Brazil. It was released this month in Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Canada, Spain, Hungary and Kuwait. The movie was released this weekend in Singapore, the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. It opens on January 30th in Italy and Macedonia; on February 5th in the Faroe Islands, Argentina and Denmark; on February 13th in Belgium; on February 26th in France, Hong Kong, Portugal, Finland and Sweden; on March 6th in Germany; on March 20th in the Netherlands and on April 18th in Japan.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY has a running time of 121 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK for strong language. 

MANAGEMENT- Finally!

Finally! After what seems like endless twee, smug, in-love-with-their-own-kookiness hipster rom-coms, with about as much authentic emotion as a Barbie doll, along comes a quiet little independent movie called MANAGEMENT. Part bittersweet relationship drama, part broad comedy, the movie is hard to define (and presumably hard to market). Sometimes characters do crazy cute things that only really happen in rom-coms. Some characters are so exaggerated they couldn't possibly exist in the real world. But for every purely funny scene, there's a scene of real emotional warmth and truth.

Jennifer Aniston plays Sue Clauson - a really nice woman who's somehow still single and fills up her life with worthy causes. On a business trip she meets a guy called Mike, another lonely, nice person, stuck working in his parents; motel. The two hook up and so it should end, but Mike rather fantastically, and immaturely, starts following Sue across the country, finally parachuting into her pool and serenading her. She's stuck between being flattered by this insane "rom-com" behaviour and being creeped out by his semi-stalkerish immature antics. What I love about the film is that there is no quick Hollywood ending but actual personal growth. Jennifer Aniston in particular turns in a convincing, modulated performance, while Woody Harrelson and James Liao are very funny indeed.

MANAGEMENT played Toronto 2008 and was released earlier this year in the US, Israel, Iceland, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Singapore and the Philippines. It opens today in the UK and on October 29th in South Korea.

ORPHAN – Who thinks this shit up?

Orphan isn’t a horror movie. It isn’t scary. It tries to be, it tries desperately.

I’m not saying Orphan is a bad film – it passes the time and keeps the audience engaged and vaguely interested. The characters aren’t wholly unbelievable, the script is decent, it’s not gratuitous or unnecessarily gory. But it’s not scary – and that leaves you asking: what is it then?

Is it a psychological thriller? The character development isn’t strong enough for that. Is it an examination of paranoia and fear in a dysfunctional marriage? It’s not deep enough for that.

No, this film is a hodge-podge. It’s a kinda original but ultimately failed attempt by Jaume Collet-Serra, in his first major directorial release, to combine the two major plot-lines of all good horror films: the evil child and the usurping, jealous female intruder. It’s sort of “Children of the Corn” meets “Hand that rocks the cradle” – it tries to play into the two most basic fears of womanhood – your children being in danger, and your husband being stolen.

Sadly the combination is ultimately ridiculous – you find yourself actually laughing at the climactic scenes – the resolution is ultimately unsatisfying because you just don’t believe anyone would think of making a plot that silly.

In some ways, it’s a big missed opportunity. Had the film firmly opted for psychological thriller rather than falling between stools – it could have been strong. The themes of marital infidelity, suspicion, alcoholism, child neglect, paranoia, paedophilia, and personality disorders are genuinely dark and deeply disturbing. But the film doesn’t have the balls to take a chance on these and run with them – and ultimately cops out and becomes yet another 2-dimensional shock-flick.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fun – I did. It passed the time, and was mildly entertaining. Just don’t get your hopes up for a fright or for intellectual satisfaction. It delivers neither.

ORPHAN is on release in the US, UK, Canada, the Philippines, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Ireland, Panama, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and South Africa. It opens in September in Malaysia, Serbia, Brazil, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, India, Argentina, Greece, Slovakia, Poland and Japan. It opens in October in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Russia, Iceland, Spain, Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Portugal. It opens in November in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and in December in Belgium.

HANNAH MONTANTA - THE MOVIE: way better than it ought to be

The shameful truth is that the HANNAH MONTANA movie is a perfectly watchable, highly enjoyable teen rom-com even for people like me who aren't in the target demographic. It's well made, well written, funny when it should be funny, sweet when it should be sweet, and even though it stays within the constraints of the genre, it's at the top of its league. Essentially the film is a classic double-identity comedy in the manner of SHE'S THE MAN or, for people who were the right demographic in the 80s, THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS. Indeed, it's the same emotional core that powers superhero flicks like SPIDERMAN and SUPERMAN. Miley Cyrus plays a character based on herself - a Tennessee teen who has found fame as a pop-star called Hannah Montana. Her father (real life dad Billy-Ray Cyrus) and her family are in on the secret but back home, everyone just knows her as Miley. Drunk on success and the Hollywood lifestyle, dad takes Miley/Hannah back to Tennessee where she falls for the local farmboy (PRINCESS BRIDE fans!) and dad falls for someone too. Problem is, both relationships are compromised by the lies and craziness around protecting Hannah Montana's real identity when she comes to town to play a concert that will save some local land for evil developers. I rather like the idea that a Disney movie can confront the Hannah fans with the inherent weirdness of teen stardom and the dual (if not triple) identity on which the successful franchise rests. No surprises that the resolution is no resolution at all: home-town values may be best; honesty may be best; but the fans still need a product, and Miley still needs to sing.

HANNAH MONTANA - THE MOVIE was released in April 2009. It is currently on release in Argentina, New Zealand, Romania, Belgium, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is released on July 30th in Portugal, on August 19th in the Netherlands and on August 28th in Venezuela.

Overlooked DVD of the month - ROCKET SCIENCE

ROCKET SCIENCE is an alpha-gamma movie. Or rather, it's a gamma-alpha movie. The opening sequence was a blatant rip-off of Wes Anderson. A Max Fisher-style character, complete with bow-tie and preppie confidence, is speaking at a school debate. This is over-laid with a self-conscious, portentious narration by an actor called Dan Cashman who sounds just like Alec Baldwin in the opening sequence of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. As we moved onto the meat of the movie, I still felt wary about the movie's derivative feel. The sound-track, shooting style, dead-pan comedy and focus on eccentricity and quirk all had me bewailing the pervasiveness and same-ness of modern American independent movies.

The good news is that once the movie settles down it becomes really rather wonderful. Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz paints a convincing picture, evidently drawing on his own experience, of a sweet, intelligent boy who can't express himself because of his stammer. Rather improbably, the school's star debater picks him to join the debating team. Our hero is thus forced to find his voice.

What I love about ROCKET SCIENCE is that the director doesn't make it a conventional triumphing-over-adversity movie. There's no magical denouement where our hero takes to the stage and, thanks to some little trick, becomes the most articulate and eloquent debater in the state. But he does find his voice in another sense: he becomes confident - active rather than passive - and while still puzzled about life and love ("it shouldn't be rocket science"), more engaged with it.

ROCKET SCIENCE played Sundance 2007, where Jeffrey Blitz won the Directing (Drama) Award. It went on limited release in the UK and US last autumn. It is now available on DVD.

I just don't get why everyone's raving about THE SAVAGES

Wendy and John Savage are self-involved middle-aged siblings, estranged from their father. When he's diagnosed with dementia, they put him in a nursing home. Wendy suffers from guilt and sentimentalises everything. John is more rational, on the surface at least.

This film was sold to me as bleakly comic, bravely unsentimental, insightful....as a showcase for two outstanding performances from Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Well, I found the script superficial, irritatingly earnest, dismally slow-paced and basically boring. Writer-director Tamara Jenkins' treatment of the impact of mental illness on close family is a very poor relation to Sarah Polley's infinitely superior AWAY FROM HER. Comedy? What comedy? Philip Seymour Hoffman in a neck brace? Please. Which brings me to Laura Linney's apparently Oscar-worthy performance. All I can say is that there was nothing exciting here. Nothing that moved me. Nothing that will stay with me. Even Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor to whom I ascribe generally god-like status, is lacklustre here. The production values are also terrible. Just look at the lighting and picture quality when they're filming scenes in ill-lit bedrooms or on motel balconies at dusk.

I just don't get what all the fuss is about.

THE SAVAGES played Sundance, Toronto and London 2007. It opened in the US in 2007 and is currently on release in Singapore and the UK. It opens in Sweden, Belgium, France and Spain in February. It opens in Norway in March and in Italy and Germany in April.

Crimes Against Cinema 2: WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is a deeply unfunny spoof of portentious rock-star biopics like WALK THE LINE, RAY and DREAMGIRLS. Instead of intelligently ridiculing the genre, it lazily re-creates key moments and relies on audience recognition to raise a chuckle. And if all else fails, why not resort to something as crude as full frontal male nudity? The only sketch that is remotely funny is when the Beatles, here played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman and Justin Long, have a punch up in the Maharishi's tent. Other than that, the sketches are pretty obvious and lame. How funny is it to hear Dewey's dad say "the wrong kid died" a million times? The only thing that saves this flick from the seventh circle of hell is the music. The lyrics are spot on and John C Reilly is absolutely brilliant in his pastiches of everyone from Cash to Dylan.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is currently playing in USA, South Korea and the UK. It opens in Australia later in January and in Iceland, Singapore and Germany in February. It opens in Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, Russia and Italy in March and in Norway, Argentina, Estonia and Finland in April.

WEDDING DAZE - stealth comedy

There's something about WEDDING DAZE that defies the ludicrous premise. The idea is that a grieving fiance, prompted by his best friend's pleas to start dating again, asks the next girl he meets to marry him. Ridiculously, she says yes. And so they set off for a wedding chapel in Atlantic City with some kooky best friends, a jailbird dad and some cops in tow. Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher are just so darned likeable as the goofy lovers that you can't help rooting for them. Michael Weston and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are so quietly funny as their respective best friends that you can't help chuckling. In fairness, the whole Jewish toy gag and Joe Pantoliano/jailbird storyline left me cold. But what's not to like about Edward Herrmann and Margot Martindale playing Biggs' sexually voracious parents?

I'm not pretending that I laughed myself silly, but anything that makes you smile at the end and chuckle more than a couple of times has its merits.

WEDDING DAZE aka THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY played Toronto 2006. It opens in the UK on June 1st, in the US on September 17th, in Belgium on September 19th and in the Netherlands on September 20th.