London Film Fest 2012 - Day 8 - THE SESSIONS

THE SESSIONS is a charming, witty, emotionally affecting movie about a man called Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes) who lived in Northern California in the late 80s.  He contracted polio as a child, and by then in his late 30s, was dependent for life on his iron lung and a series of attendants.  He suffers from muscle wastage and can't use his hands, but has the soul of a poet and superb comic timing. He is also fortunate in his friends - particularly a compassionate priest (William H Macy).  It is a testament to how charming John Hawkes is as O'Brien, that we utterly believe that he could win the love of three women, including the sex therapist (Helen Hunt) who teaches him about his body and how to make love.  It's also testament to this unique and riveting story that the topic never seems prurient, or voyeuristic, or crass.  Rather, director Ben Lewin tackles the issue head-on, with no embarrassment  and utter humanity.

The more I think about this film, the more I admire Helen Hunt for quite literally baring all and bringing integrity and sympathy to a challenging role.  But ultimately, this is John Hawkes' film.  When you consider how he came to our attention as a loveable loser in ME, YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, and then frightened us as a cult leader in MARTHA, MARCY, MAY, MARLENE. and has now transformed into a admirably self-aware flirt, you just have to stand back and admire John Hawkes range and talent.  Maybe this time he'll get the awards season recognition he deserves?

THE SESSIONS played Sundance where it won the Audience Award - Dramatic, and the Special Jury Prize - Dramatic for the Ensemble Cast. It also played Toronto and London 2012. The film will be released on 19th October in the USA, on 8th November in Australia and New Zealand; on 3rd January in Germany; on 9th January in France, Hong Kong and Spain; on January 17th in the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland and the UK; on 25th January in Norway; on February 14th in Italy and Brazil; on February 21st in the Czech Republic, Iceland and Sweden; on March 6th in Belgium and Denmark; and on March 28th in Argentina. The running time is 97 minutes.

THEN SHE FOUND ME - indigestible

THEN SHE FOUND ME is a very busy film - jampacked with tragic, dramatic events that somewhat overload what had the makings of an interesting, emotionally engaging adult drama. First-time director, and lead actress, Helen Hunt, handles all the material without missing a beat, but the resulting film is indigestable. The movie focuses on a mousy, middle-aged primary-school teacher called April, played by a suitably dowdy-looking Hunt. Within a week, her husband Matthew Broderick) leaves her, her adoptive mother dies, she meets a really lovely bloke (Colin Firth), but finds out she's actually pregnant with her ex-husband's child. And, by the way, her biological mother (Bette Midler), a talk-show host, turns up with lots of tall tales about how she gave April up. The impact of all this on the key players unfolds over the next hour, finishing up with a rather trite repetition of a proverb that was told at the start of the film. As well as the overly-dramatic plot, THEN SHE FOUND ME also contains some of the corniest dialogue this side of Mills and Boon and I pity Coln Firth having to play the stock bumbling, inarticulate Brit. 

THEN SHE FOUND ME played Toronto 2007 and opened earlier this year in the USA, Israel, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Poland. It is currently on release in the UK and opens in France on October 1st and in Argentina on November 13th. THEN SHE FOUND ME is available on Region 1 DVD.

Timely reminder 1 - BOB ROBERTS (1992)

We sit at the fag-end of a bitter Presidency: the US preaches liberal free-market democracy but is perceived to practice illiberality, protectionism and to award power by judicial fiat. We distrust our politicians and distrust big corporations and self-medicate with brain-benumbing reality TV. Many movies have chronicled our greasy slide into decrepitude. Some achieved acclaim upon release, and others feel like sadly overlooked markers in the sand.

BOB ROBERTS falls into the latter category. It's a razor-sharp satire on all that is most grasping and petty in politics. The anti-hero of the piece is a Republican gubernatorial candidate. Bob Roberts is a successful businessman, former Marine and passionate campaigner against drug use. He's also a popular singer who peddles easy answers to a catchy folk tune. Consider the following couplet from his hit song:

"Grandma felt guilty 'bout being so rich and it bothered her until the day she died. But I will take my inheritance and invest it with pride, yes invest it with pride."

And what about the opening lines to his song mocking the poor:

"Some people will have / Some simply will not / But they'll complain and complain and complain and complain and complain / Some people will work / Some never will / But they'll complain and complain and complain and complain and complain / Like this: / It's society's fault I don't have a job / It's society's fault I'm a slob / I'm a drunk, I don't have a brain / Give me a pamplet while I complain / Hey pal you're living in the land of the free No-one's gonna hand you opportunity."

In other words, Bob Robert is smug and rich and, by the way, implicated in an Iran-Contra style narcs-for-guns scandal.

Now, Tim Robbins' evidently doesn't go for a subtle approach here. Bob Roberts is a good old-fashioned screen villain, painted with a broad brush. And the whole side plot with a Spike Lee style angry independent film-maker trying to expose Roberts thinly-veiled fascist tendencies is more distracting than incisive. So why is this movie so great? First off, Robbins really captures the feel of a documentary with talking heads, hand-held camera footage and those little shots of people caught unawares. Second, the spoof songs are absolutely hysterical - not least the mock Bob Dylan and Robert Palmer promo videos. Third, Robbins takes Bob Roberts into territory so evil that it will stun even the most jaded of hacks. Fourth, the movie works as a sort of elegy for all those elder statesmen who really believed in public service and human decency. They are distilled here in Bob Roberts' opposition - a patrician incumbent of evident intelligent and mortal certitude. Time was....

So, if you like your comedy intelligent and your politics sharp, check BOB ROBERTS out. Robbins may have been looking back to Reagan, but this movie is a fair place to start as an indictment of Bush 43.

BOB ROBERTS was originally released in 1992 and is available on DVD.

BOBBY – a love letter to the America that no longer exists

The BOBBY of the title is Senator Robert Kennedy, the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate who was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Before the London film fest screening, writer-director (and for a whole generation, Young Gun) Emilio Estevez declared that BOBBY was his love letter to America. He noted that in test screenings in Europe, people told him that the movie reminded them of what they used to admire in America and how much we miss that America. He declared that “he misses it too.” The America he misses is the America that Kennedy referred to: the America of compassion and civil liberty – of redistributive social policies, the rule of law, environmental concern and peace. It is the America that embraces the poor and the ethnic minorities.

The main thing to say about BOBBY is that it is not an old-style Oliver-Stone-political thriller. Estevez does not spend his time delving into the murky under-world of big business, politics, spies and conspiracies. Indeed, we are never told who shot Bobby or why. Estevez is far more ambitious than that. What he is attempting to do is express the hopes and fears of liberal America in 1968 as his camera wanders round the Ambassador Hotel and homes in on different characters.

We have a young high-school graduate (Lindsay Lohan) who is marrying her class-mate (Elijah Wood) to keep him from being posted to Vietnam. We have the widowed ex-hotel manager (Anthony Hopkins) who lingers in the lobby because he has no home to go to, playing games of chess with his best friend – an African-American (Harry Belafonte.) We have the current hotel manager (William H Macy) who is cheating on his wife (Sharon Stone) with the operator (Heather Graham). We have the drunk lounge singer (Demi Moore) who is frightened at getting old commiserating with the hair-dresser (Stone). We have a sweet rich couple (Helen Hunt and Martin Sheen) re-discovering their love for each other. And in the kitchens, Christian Slater’s racist manager is making Freddie Rodriguez work a double shift and miss his baseball game. And finally, to leaven this mix of good people struggling through, we have a couple of campaign staff dropping acid with Ashton Kutcher’s hippie. This is a judicious piece of writing – at once showing the counter-culture of 1968 but also giving us some laughs amidst the pious politics.

As you can see from that little summary this movie is stuffed full of big name stars and none of them disappoint. Sharon Stone and Demi Moore in particular give nuanced performances and their scene together is the heart of the movie. In addition to being beautifully written and acted, the period costume design is also superb. I also want to draw attention to the brilliant directorial decision not to cast an actor as Bobby Kennedy but to let archive footage and selective framing take his place. The blending of the two is seamless.

My quibbles are minor. First, on occasion the movie straddles the fine line between the emotional and schmaltzy. And while Laurence Fishburne acts all bar Stone and Moore off the screen, his wise old man routine is a little grating to my cynical English ears. My only other quibble is in Estevez’ presumption that the audience is American. Estevez betrays this presumption in the opening titles, when he speaks of the hope that Bobby Kennedy brought to “our” country. This is a little alienating for European audiences,

For all that, BOBBY remains an astutely judged directorial effort for Estevez.

BOBBY played Venice, Toronto and London 2006. It opens in the US on November 17th 2006. It opens in Belgium and France in January 2007, the Netherlands in February 2007, Spain in March and Japan in May.

A GOOD WOMAN - just when I had given up all hope, a romantic comedy that is a) romantic and b) funny

A GOOD WOMAN is a well-made, beautfully shot, superbly acted, rip-roaring romantic comedy. And not before time. Still, we would hardly expect less from a movie based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan" and starring actors such as Helen Hunt, Tom Wilkinson and eye-candy in the form of Scarlett Johanson. The plot has Scarlett and her new husband honeymooning on the sun-drenched Amalfi coast in the 1930s. They stumble upon Mrs. Erlynne, a woman of "a certain age" who makes a living spongeing off rich lovers. The husband befriends Mrs. Erlynne, much to the young wife's consternation. She is almost tempted to run off with handsome young Lord Darlington. Meanwhile, Mrs Erlynne has a new admirer in the shape of another aristo, played by Tom Wilkinson. In case this sounds a little contrived and pretentious, let me reassure you that the director and screenwriter handle it all with a light touch. This may be a costume drama, but it moves along quickly and with charm and wit. The dialogue is fantastic and beneath the dazzling wit, we see a deep understanding of the vulnerabilities and frailties of a happy and enduring marriage.

A GOOD WOMAN premiered at Toronto in 2004 and went in Europe in Spring 2005. It went on limited release in the US on the 3rd February 2006 and is available on Region 2 DVD.