MAN UP

MAN UP is an adorable, funny, moving, smart romantic comedy starring Simon Pegg and Lake Bell, with an impeccable British accent. The required goofy set-up is that Jack (Pegg) mistakes Nancy (Bell) for his blind date, and because she has been hectored by her sister to man up and "put herself out there",  she runs with it.  The date goes surprisingly well, taking in a pop up bar, a cantina and a bowling alley, until Nancy's high school stalker Sean (Rory Kinnear) turns up and reveals the truth. At this point we need another improbable twist to keep the date going into Act Two - the couple need to return to an earlier bar to pick up some lost property and they happen to run into Jack's ex.  Cue our couple pretending to be an actual couple and a genuine moment of emotional connection in, rather improbably, a toilet.  We then roll into a third act that understands the cliches of the romantic comedy genre and satisfies them with authentic emotion, while also winking at the audience. A clever trick to pull off.

That the movie works is down to a well-written script that deals honestly with dating in one's thirties, and the genuine likability of, and chemistry between, the lead actors.  I've long thought Lake Bell a hidden gem of Hollywood - her IN A WORLD... was one of the best films of 2013.  The added bonus is Rory Kinnear as the creepy friend Sean. He's genuinely laugh-out-loud funny and his character adds a bit of spikiness to what would other be just a gently funny, sweet film. 

MAN UP has a running time of 88 minutes and is rated 15 for strong language and sex references.   MAN UP played Tribeca 2015 and is currently on release in the UK, Ireland and Lithuania. It will be released in the Netherlands and Singapore on June 4th, in New Zealand on June 18th and in Germany on July 30th.

MADAME BOVARY - LFF14 - Day Six

Sophie Barthes (COLD SOULS) retelling of Flaubert’s iconic novel Madame Bovary is faithful to the period and the plot and mostly well executed if undermined by some rather quirky casting, pronunciation and accent choices. 

Set in nineteenth century provincial France the novel tells the tail of a naive convent-educated girl married young to the country doctor, Monsieur Bovary, in a era when country doctors were hardly at the forefront of science and small villages were rather deadening places full of superficial propriety and repeated conversations. Young Emma is a Romantic and fatally so - open to anyone and anything that she believes will give her an escape from her dull life. This may be lovers - from the callow young legal clerk to the dashing Marquis - or in a move that was absolutely modern at the time - consumerism. For Emma falls into the hands of the flattering local shopkeeper who is all to willing to extend her credit to fill her house with beautiful furnishings and her wardrobe with beautiful clothes. Emma must, I suppose, be innocent at first of the debts she is taking on but both novel and film become far more interesting and tragic when we see her understanding, desperation and sense of betrayal.

As I said, Barthes' new film is faithful to period and location. The costumes are stunning, as is Andrej Parekh’s gorgeous photography of Rouen and its neighbouring villages. One feels the damp gloom or provincial life - the drizzle, mud and limited options soak through to the bone. As expected, Mia Wasikowska is utterly convincing as Emma and suitably young - sometimes I feel the role is cast too old. We don’t believe she’s a bad woman - just a misguided and self-delusional one. I also thought Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Logan Marshal-Green as her husband and the Marquis were absolutely spot on in their characterisations. Indeed the only casting mis-step is that of Ezra Miller as the young legal clerk. He doesn’t seem able to modify his gait or annunciation to fit the period and brought me right out of the film. That said, the way in which the language is handled is altogether problematic. We have Rhys Ifans as Monsieur Lheureux doing a thick French accent. We have Mia Wasikowska and Ezra Miller in American accents. Lloyd-Hughes and Marshal Green are doing English accents. And none of them, except perhaps Lloyd-Hughes as Charles Bovary seem naturalistic in how they speak. Contrast this with the way in which Mike Leigh makes the antiquated language come alive and seem utterly natural in MR TURNER.

Otherwise, the fault of this film is its lack of ambition but I suppose one can hardly criticise it for what it is not. We live today with the consequences of a massive consumer-driven debt crisis - where aspirational shopping on credit is abetted by reality TV shows that show shopping as a virtue. Wouldn’t it have been fun to transpose Madame Bovary to the modern age and see the results?

MADAME BOVARY played Toronto and London 2014. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

UNRELATED - so good I'm tempted to tag it "pantheon"

UNRELATED seemed much longer than its run-time and that's a good thing. It feels long because it's intense, and because you feel you have come to know and sympathise with a group of complicated, interesting people in an almost unbearable situation. It's been a while since I've seen a movie featuring actors that look real - middle-aged women with crow's feet - and act real - making wrong choices that aren't movie-cute or contrived. And it's certainly been a while since I've seen a movie where I was so on edge, desperate to know how it was going to develop.

Anna is a middle-aged, middle-class woman. She arrives at a Tuscan villa at night. It's so dark you can't see her face. A group of teenagers, rich with the arrogance of youth, wonder who she is. She tries to sleep despite their loud talking. The following morning she meets their parents - her friends - but she's equally awkward with them.

Perhaps it's boredom that leads the kids to adopt her as a token member of their group. Soon Anna is flirting with "Oakley" and he flirts back. It's excruciating to watch her watching him. Eventually, when she pushes the moment, he backs off and she has to go through the indignity of being an outsider again. The situation becomes even worse when a big family row proves how far she has no place with them and, as far as we know at that point, no place with her husband back in England. Finally, Anna comes full circle. She is back at the villa at night, but instead of partying with the kids in a desperate act of recapturing her youth, she's annoyed by the loud talking. She's an adult again, dealing head on with her emotions.

Kathryn Worth is outstanding as Anna and she is supported by a note-perfect cast. Mary Roscoe is utterly convincing as her stalwart best friend and David Rintoul has a rather chilling role as the other "old" George. Among the kids, Tom Hiddleston is quite brilliant as "Oakley" - the charming young man who is quite aware of his impact on Anna but equally just wants to boff the girl in the villa next door.

UNRELATED is testament to the fact that big budgets, flashy effects and saccharine endings aside, cinema can be powerful and insightful and intelligent. That it is a debut feature is even more impressive. I can't wait to see what Joanna Hogg does next.

UNRELATED played London 2007 where Joanna Hogg won the Fipresci prize. It is currently on release in the UK.