THE SALT PATH*

Theatre director Marianne Elliott has adapted Raynor Winn's best-selling but now controversial book about her and her husband's epic walk around the south-coast of England. Sadly I watched this after the controversy broke so I am not sure how far I was influenced by accusations that key elements of the biographical book were faked.  I hope I just watched the film on its own terms.  But boy this is a tedious film.

It opens with middle-aged husband and wife Raynor (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs) destitute, homeless and hiking around the pretty southern coast of England.  They both have regional accents, with Isaacs pulling his off better than Anderson.  They look rough, sun-burned and stressed. They have no money - are reduced to busking - and Moth has a degenerative illness. So the film starts in bleak dull tones and a reduced aspect ratio.  However, the apparently literally regenerative power of being one with nature and walking in beauty allows the film's colour scheme to become sunnier and the aspect ratio to widen. I cannot imagine a more on-the-nose directorial choice.  But I saw no real signs of enlightenment and I was not moved by the couple's plight. The pace was slow and nothing really happens beyond the odd stranger donating a pot of hot water or momentary stress at whether their kids are okay. Apparently there is some malarkey about being "salted" but I was unconvinced and unmoved. I also thought the landscape and seascape photography would be more impressive.

THE SALT PATH is rated 12, has a running time of 115 minutes and is on release in the UK. It played Toronto 2024.

HOT MILK** - Berlin Film Festival 2025

HOT MILK is the directorial debut from screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (IDA) based on a novel by Deborah Levy.  Fiona Shaw gives a characteristically superb performance as a narcissistic manipulative mother, Rose, who may or may not be faking her inability to walk to keep her only daughter, Sofia, captive.  Sofia is in her mid-20s and while mother and daughter do seem to have genuine affection for each other, the narrative arc of the film is seeing Sofia slowly embracing her suppressed anger at her mother's constant passive-aggressive criticism and unwillingness to embrace the very expensive medical treatment they have come to Spain for.  We are meant to read this journey to action as being mediated through Sofia's sexual awakening by Vicky Krieps' vulnerable but charismatic boutique owner. Sadly there isn't enough meat on the bones of the character development or plot in this 90 minute film that feels 120 minutes long.  In particular, the side-quest to Athens and a final dramatic showdown seem insufficiently explored or signalled.  I feel really sorry for the talented young actress Emma Mackay (Sex Education) who is let down by a film too thin for her talents, and within which the only real star turn goes to Fiona Shaw.  

HOT MILK is rated R and has a running time of 92 minutes. It had its world premiere at Berlin 2025.

SHE SAID - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 10

SHE SAID is a Tab A into Slot B journo-procedural that's basically a worthy TV movie.  It stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as the real-life New York Times investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal by convincing some of his victims to bravely go on the record.  This in turn helped trigger the Me Too movement.  Their story is clearly important, and this film straightforwardly shows the tenacity and courage - not to mention supportive husbands/fathers - needed expose a powerful rapist.

The question is whether a feature film is the right format to tell this story. Or whether THIS feature film made by this director and writer. My view is that Maria Schrader's direction is so workmanlike as to be banal, and uses a script from Rebecca Lenkiewicz that is faithful to the book, but is never gripping and doesn't move. In fact, the only truly moving part of the whole film is when they use actual real life audio of a very frightened young woman being goaded and harrassed by Harvey Weinstein into an entering a room with him even after he acknowledges that she feels uncomfortable that he touched her breast the day before. That is absolutely chilling and says more about this scandal than any re-enactment. Having seen it, I became convinced that this story would have been better told as a documentary.

As it is, we have a film that will educate those that did not read the original reporting or the book, and that has value I suppose. But this is NOT an award-worthy film except if virtue-signalling.  It's very much a made-for-TV film.

SHE SAID is rated R and has a running time of 128 minutes. It will be released in the USA on November 18th and in the UK on November 25th.

DISOBEDIENCE

Sebastian Lelio follows up his superb A FANTASTIC WOMAN with DISOBEDIENCE - a drama based on the novel by Naomi Alderman - set in London's Orthodox Jewish community.  It stars Rachel Weisz as a Ronit and Rachel McAdams as Esti - two girls who fell in love as teenagers and realised that they were gay.  Their reactions were, however, different. Ronit left the community, went to New York, and has become a successful photographer, although has never fallen in love with anyone else.  Esti stayed in the community and married their childhood friend Dovid (Alessandro Nivola).  She lives an apparently straight life, teaches in an Orthodox school, and is trying to make the best of things.

The movie opens with Ronit's father, a revered Rabbi, making his final sermon on the idea of free will and disobedience.  He collapses and dies, and Ronit returns for his funeral, setting the events of the film in motion.  Her character is difficult - at times I winced at her unwillingness to make nice just for the few days she's back - insisting talking about business at a sabbath meal even though she knows its offensive, or playing with wearing an orthodox wig.  But as I watched the film further I realised that this was exactly the point.  Ronit can't make nice - that's why she had to leave.  That's why she isn't Esti.  And yet as the film progressed I realised that Esti was actually the more interesting character, because while she appears to be compliant, she was actually the one who contacted Ronit and precipitated her return.  And so the discovered kiss at the centre of the film that triggers its second act crisis of conscience is not an unbelievable risk, and one that stretches credulity, but once again in Esti's character.  She wants to be discovered, triggered, and is in some sense using Ronit.

Which leads me, surprisingly, to the most fascinating character of all in the film - Dovid, played beautifully in a career-best performance by Alessandro Nivola.  In a film that is very respectful of the orthodox community, Dovid comes across as an intelligent man really trying his best to understand his wife's feelings, humble and empathetic.  He's the person in the community who is welcoming to Ronit despite their suspicion of her.  He's the person who really tries to understand how to do the right thing.  It's a truly moving depiction of a religious man without judgment or hypocrisy, and so rare to see on screen.

DISOBEDIENCE is rated R and has a running time of 114 minutes. It is available to screen on demand at Curzon Home Cinema and on limited release in cinemas.

IDA - LFF 2013 - Day Seven

Pawel Pawlikowski’s IDA is surely one of the most beautiful and most powerful movies at his year's festival.  It tells the tale of a young novice nun sent to visit her only living relative on the eve of her ordination.  This shy austere girl is confronted with her wonderfully direct, blowsy aunt, who immediately reveals her true heritage.  The novice Anna is really a jewess called Ida, her identity hidden in a 1960s Poland still struggling to confront its role in the Holocaust.  What then follows is a journey into the tragic past of Ida's parents - journey that begins with her denying that she is even Jewish and ends with her exploring who she really is, and how she really feels.

There's so much wisdom and insight in this film: about how we deal with pain and knowledge and the frailty of human nature.  And yet it's all wrapped in an almost austere, simple plot and deceptively beautiful visuals.  Cinematographer Lukasz Zal creates these wonderful black and white tableaux against which the two lead actresses emote with layers of nuance to every line. Sometimes a good movie really is just as simple as a unique and dramatic plot, two amazing actresses and a guy who knows how to bring poetry to the screen.

IDA has a running time of 80 minutes. 

IDA played Toronto 2013 where it won the FIPRESCI prize.  It also played London 2013. It will be released in Poland on October 25th.