A REAL PAIN***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 6

Jesse Eisenberg is such an accomplished writer, director and actor that he makes creating a laugh-out loud comedy that is also heartbreaking and profound seem effortless.  His tight 90 minute dramedy A REAL PAIN is one of the stand -out films of this year's festival: full of humanity, vulnerability, and centring a beautiful performance from Succession's Kieran Culkin.

Eisenberg and Culkin play two cousins, David and Benji, who travel to Poland to honour their recently deceased grandmother. David is clearly on edge - nervous around a cousin that he clearly loves but mortified by Benji's behaviour. It's a strange mix of envy at Benji's charisma and fear of what happens when he crashes. Culkin plays Benji as a larger than life, filterless, big kid who can be thoughtless and casually cruel but is obviously very fragile and loveable too. 

The cousins join a small private tour of Poland for Jews interested in the Holocaust. Their own grandmother was a survivor, and the tour group comprises people who also lost loved ones, as well as a new Jewish convert who himself survived the Rwandan genocide. As they journey to Lublin they see remnants of an old vibrant Jewish community with the concentration camp Madjanek clearly visible from the centre of town.

It is testament to Eisenberg's writing and direction that this topic is handled with due sensitivity but that this film is also absolutely hilarious. Best of all, it resists trite neat endings or emotional resolutions. It is a film that it is utterly confident about what it wants to say and gets the tone absolutely right in saying it. 

A REAL PAIN is rated R and has a running time of 90 minutes. It played Sundance where Eisenberg won the screenwriting award. It opens in the USA on November 1st and in the UK on January 10th 2025.

ANORA** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 7

Hhhmmmmm ANORA.  I think the problem is that it’s two films - an hilarious crime caper - and then a serious drama about a damaged woman who struggles to recognise love - but the first undercuts the second. So we get what is meant to be an emotional breakdown and breakthrough at the end. But we’ve had to slog through Wacky Races to get there.

The film stars Mikey Madison as Anora, a stripper living in the heavily ethnically Russian Brighton Beach area of New York. She picks up a feckless son of an Oligarch who pays her handsomely and then drunkenly decides to marry her so that he can avoid going back to Russia. Both Anora and Vanya are delusional.  She wants to think she isn’t a hooker and that it’s a real marriage so that she can escape her working class life. He knows full well his parents won’t let the marriage stand and frankly I am amazed they didn’t just shoot Anora and take him home.

Instead, what we get is a comedy caper in which Anora and Vanya’s family’s goons try to hunt down the errant boy so that they can get an annulment before the parents arrive from Russia. It’s full of genuinely funny physical comedy but goes on way too long. And then the aforementioned handbreak turn back into serious heartbreak. 

That final scene is what I wanted from ANORA - and what I never really got.  And it made me wonder if writer-director Sean Baker actually cared about the character.  Because she really is rather thinly drawn as a superficial, foul-mouthed desperate gold-digger for ninety percent of the film.  I was watching an actress who I knew could do more being constrained by the ditzy genre format.  And let’s be frank - all the women in this film are thinly drawn cliches - the bitch gangster wife, the bitch hooker, the bitch rival stripper.  Isn’t that just a tad misogynistic?

Which brings me to this year’s Cannes jury awarding this film the Palme D’Or and EMILIA PEREZ the Jury Prize. Both are superficially female-centred films but neither gives us a three-dimensional credible portrait of a woman.  Maybe we need more female writer-directors for that. 

ANORA is rated R and has a running time of 139 minutes.  It played Toronto, Telluride and London 2024. It opens in the USA on October 18th and in the UK on November 1st.

SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY**** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 6

For my generation, Christopher Reeve is the ultimate superhero - the dreamy, earnest Superman who flew through the skies with Lois Lane. (Sidebar - people think we only got strong female characters now, but I grew up with Princess Leia and Lois Lane, both massively professionally capable and far from blonde Barbies. What a time to be a kid!)  So when Superman was thrown from a horse and paralysed it was shocking and tragic.  He appeared once again at the Oscars making a moving and stirring speech, and then - at least for me - disappeared from view until his death ten years later.  This accomplished new documentary, from directors  Peter Ettedgui (MCQUEEN) and Ian Bonhote, fills in those gaps.

The Christopher Reeve that emerges from this film is an earnest theatre kid who makes it to Juilliard and rooms with his lifelong best friend Robin Williams.  He gets the break to be Superman and off-broadway co-star William Hurt cautions him against it.  Reeve finds international fame but also feels trapped in a certain kind of role, and people's impossible expectations of him as a perfect hero.

In fact he was a complex and flawed man, as we are all flawed. His father did a number on him, raising him in a type of toxic masculinity of hyper-competitiveness and impossible to meet expectations. Reeve was also surrounded by broken marriages and had trouble committing. He met a British woman filming SUPERMAN and had two children with her but didn't marry her and left her to go back to a single life in New York. Five months later he met the woman who would be by his side when the accident happened - Dana - and would actually marry her and have another son.

It's testament to Christopher's family, including his first partner, that they all agree to appear in this film and speak with honesty and vulnerability of what those broken relationships did to them. His elder two children argue that he was more of a present parent after the accident when hyper-competitive athletics were off the table. It's also testament to all three parents that the children seem so close and supportive of each other. I had no idea that the younger son Will lost his mother very soon after losing his father, and his big half-brother really stepped in to provide support. All three were at the London Film Festival screening and it was a privilege to watch this deeply moving film in their presence.

And what of Christopher post-accident?  He launched a foundation and became an activist for scientific research. Some in the disabled community bristled at his search for a cure, and Dana corrected that balance by focussing on care and quality of life. Both seem utterly admirable in their energy and commitment and courage. I was equally moved by the support given by his closest friends, not least Robin Williams. And it utterly broke me when Glenn Close, interviewed extensively here, says she thinks that Robin would still be with us if Christopher had not died.

I would recommend this film to those who loved Superman as children and still feel a thrill when they hear that score. It gives so much depth and insight to the man behind the cape and the extraordinary family who rose to the challenge of his catastrophic accident. I cried, but I was also uplifted. He is still my Superman.

SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY has a running time of 106 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released in the USA last month and will be released in the UK on November 1st.

EMILIA PEREZ*** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 6

EMILIA PEREZ is a deeply odd and sporadically successful film from French auteur Jacques Audiard (A PROPHET, DHEEPAN).  It comes to London having won the coveted Cannes Jury Prize and features a story and characters rarely centred on screen.  Some of the musical numbers are stunning. But I found myself over-stuffed, confused and adrift.

Despite the film's name, the protagonist is actually a lawyer called Rita played superbly by Zoe Saldana (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY).  When we meet her she is a poor but smart lawyer frustrated at the lack of opportunities her skin colour condemns her to.  The opening numbers as she writes a speech in a food market, and then discusses her options with some cleaners, are brilliantly rendered with powerful dynamic choreography. 

Rita's life is changed when a drug lord called Manitas (Karla Sofia Garcon) hires her to facilitate his gender reassignment surgery and to hide his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez - Only Murders In The Building) and their two young sons in Switzerland.  That should be the end of their relationship but four years later the now Emilia Perez asks Rita to facilitate her return to Mexico, and to also bring back her children and their mother who will live with their "Auntie".  

Once again, this should be the end of their relationship, but Emilia and Rita end up founding a charity to find the disappeared people of Mexico, victims of the drug war that Manitas was complicit in. Along the way, Emilia finds love with Epifania (Adriana Paz) and Jessi finds love with her ex-lover Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez).  It's only at this point that Emilia's control is upended and in fear of losing her children, Manitas' nasty language and manner break through Emilia's polished new persona. 

There's lots to love in this film. As I said the two opening numbers and Saldana's critique of Mexico's corrupt rich at a fund-raising gala are fantastic. It's rare and moving to see a trans story centred, and to see what Manitas has to sacrifice to live her authentic life.  We absolutely feel her pain at not being able to confess to being her son's father. I also admired the concise way in which the love story between Emilia and Epifania is told. Kudos to Karla Sofia Garcon for pulling of a layered and complex role. 

But there's a lot to criticise too.  First, Rita is a cipher not a protagonist.  After the prologue we never really understand her motives or see any kind of life outside of Emilia. She is just an observer.  I needed more time with her, or to see more layers to her in the contemporary storyline. The same goes for Jessi who is just a ditzy superficial floozy until basically the final five minutes of the film. What a waste of Selena Gomez' talent? And Epifania is similarly shortchanged. It's like a weird trans version of the Bechdel problem. In the most uncharitable reading, who are these women outside of Emilia except for people who she manipulates into satisfying her desires?

Finally, some plot holes. If it's so secret and dangerous that Manitas is having gender reassignment surgery, why does Rita fly the Israeli doctor over to Mexico?  And if Manitas' little boy realises Emilia smells like Papa, then why doesn't Jessi?  I know that in some ways she just think Emilia looks like her cousin Manitas but it's clear Emilia is a trans woman. Can she not figure it out? That she doesn't makes her character even more stupid and frankly unbelievable.

EMILIA PEREZ has a running time of 130 minutes and is rated R. It played Cannes where it won the Jury prize and the ensemble female cast won Best Actress. It will be released in the USA on November 1st in cinemas and then on November 13th on Netflix.

THE WILD ROBOT***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 5

THE WILD ROBOT is an utterly delightful film - visually stunning, occasionally funny, and deeply moving.  I haven't felt this invested in an animated film - or this awed by the visuals - in quite some time. Kudos to director Chris Sanders (LILO & STITCH): may this film earn him his well-deserved Oscar. 

The movie is based on a series of books by Peter Brown and tells the story of a robot called Roz (Lupita Nyongo) who learns to escape her programming and feel love.  In her crash landing and frenetic first day on the island Roz killed a gosling's family and becomes his adoptive mother. She assigns herself the task of raising him to eat, swim, and fly the winter migration.  But the cute little gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor), imprints himself on her and soon she is just another harassed, confused and loving mother to her adoptive son.  

Roz is helped in raising Brightbill by a wily but ultimately warm-hearted Fox called Fink (Pedro Pascal). But the other animals on the island look on in bewilderment and mockery. They are scared of the "monster" robot and of her predatory fox friend. And let's be clear: there's no LION KING style gentle allusion to death in this film - it is faced head on and suffuses every scene. These are animals whose fear is necessary to survival. But Roz teaches them that kindness is also an option, and that together they can survive a harsh winter.

The resulting film is one of carefully calibrated peril but also deep warmth and heart.  This is nowhere better exemplified in the character of Longbill (Bill Nighy), a wise, kind old goose who will lead the winter migration. We have never heard Nighy so warm and encouraging.  But all the voice cast are superb. Nyongo moves from a Siri-esque relentless optimism to something more real and modulated. Connor is just adorable as Brightbill. And Pascal is both funny and deeply vulnerable as Fink.

And last but assuredly not least, this movie looks stunning.  The rendering of the animals, the wilderness, and the night scenes in particular, was a feast for the imagination.  I felt utterly immersed in, and delighted by, the world. This movie is truly something special and I highly recommend it.

THE WILD ROBOT is rated PG and has a running time of 101 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released in the USA last month. It will be released in the UK on October 18th.

ENDURANCE***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 4

The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance is one of those tales that obsesses land-lubbers like me.  I have always been fascinated by explorers who push themselves beyond the limits of ordinary endurance and especially those tails of against-the-odds survival. I am a sucker for docs on Everest, or films like SOCIETY OF THE SNOW, and an armchair specialist on Shackleton. So I came to the new documentary with high expectations, made even higher knowing that it featured restored and colorised stills and moving images from expedition photographer Frank Hurley thanks to my beloved BFI National Archive.

The film tells two stories in tandem. The first is that of the original expedition over a hundred years ago. Through contemporary photos and films, and audio and film recordings of its members, we hear of their journey to Antartica aboard the Endurance. We see how the ship is caught in pack ice and had to be abandoned. We see the men make camp on the ice, and then have to take to boats and row to an island on which they cannot survive.  At which point Shackleton takes one of the boats and four other men and attempts to reach the whaling station on South Georgia - an improbably journey and an improbable rescue. The men had been away for years, while a World War was raging. Most immediately signed up for service.

The story captures the imagination because it's one of failure but also of improbable survival. And it's also the story of a man who was a rogue, financially incontinent, and made several bad choices, but who also had tremendous courage and did his best by his men. 

The second story in the film is that of a 2022 expedition to discover the shipwreck of the Endurance, led by an international team of scientists and the popular British historian Dan Snow. We feel their excitement at finally uncovering the wreck and wonder at the HD scan of the largely in tact ship. 

Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin (NYAD, FREE SOLO) and Natalie Hewit ably cut between the two stories and create a sense of excitement and tension even though we know the outcome of both stories. I particularly loved seeing the colourised archive footage which made the story seem vivid. And I also loved the way in which items in the wreckage were matched up to the iconic photos and movies at the end.  It made the whole thing feel real and contemporary rather than a tale of derring-do from the Edwardian era.

As I said before, I was primed to love this film and I was not disappointed. But I hope it will resonate with audiences less familiar with the Shackleton story.  Moreover, with its use of both archival footage and AI to recreate the expedition's voices, this feels like a documentary that shows mastery of how films can be created now and in the future. 

ENDURANCE has a running time of 103 minutes. It had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. It does not yet have a commercial release date.