WICKED LITTLE LETTERS**

Watching WICKED LITTLE LETTERS right after Wolf Hall, it's hard not to conclude that Timothy Spall is in his villain era.  In this film, he plays a dyspeptic religious zealot holding his outwardly meek daughter Edith (The Crown's Olivia Colman) in abusive thrall.  She comes across as earnest and morally upright, and when a small 1920s English town is terrorised by filthy anonymous letters, everyone believes her when she fingers the local Irish working-class woman Rose (Jessie Buckley). And then, in a setup entirely mirroring that of the far superior WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL, it's the young Indian female police officer (Anjana Vasan) who actually has the intelligence to bring the true criminal to justice, in the face of her white male superiors' condescension.

The problem with this film - apparently based on true events - is that it is not what it was advertised to be. Rather than a ribald rural lark it's actually a serious drama about domestic abuse and bigotry. Which is also fine. But the direction from Thea Sharrock (ME BEFORE YOU) and script from writer Jonny Sweet do not inject any sense of peril or suspense. I didn't care for any of these characters, they didn't feel real, and I always knew whodunnit. I also found it weird that - as much as I love colour-blind casting - everyone was making a big deal about the policewoman being a woman, but no-one at all was making a big deal about her being a woman of colour. So the film moves along fairly predictably in a sort of mediocre and competent way and at the end of it one wonders what was the point.

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R. It was released in the UK in February 2024.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPEN**** - BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Day 8

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPEN is the latest in a long line of heart-warming but slightly cheesy British comedies set in the post industrial decline of Britain in the 1970s and 1980s - think BRASSED OFF and THE FULL MONTY. In each one, a factory or a mine or a shipbuilding yard is undergoing mass redundancies or full on closures leaving its working class men out of jobs and searching for something to rebuild their self-esteem.

This film features Mark Rylance as the real life Maurice Flitcroft, who decides to take up golf when redundancy looms.  He can't afford the clothes or clubs so his best mate nicks them for him. And he can't afford the membership fees for the golf course so sons raise money by, I kid you not, disco-dancing. And when the snobs at the local club still won't let him in, he practises in local parks, local beaches, and even on the golf course, breaking in at night. Finally, he enters the British Open. Of course, he isn't good enough, so his supportive wife just ticks the box that says "professional".  When Flitcroft predictably fails, he gets a lot of media attention which embarrasses the tournament's officials, but is absolutely undeterred. And that's what makes this film so funny and so cheering. As Flitcroft explains to Seve Ballesteros - failure is just something to learn from! And "practice is the road to perfection".

There's something contagious and irresistible about Mark Rylance's cheerfulness and Sally Hawkins loving support.  Everyone loves an underdog, and seeing Flitcroft's sons pop into dance moves on the 18th hole is just joyous. And yes, there might be moments of doubt and embarrassment, but in the end this is simply a story of good decent people having a but of fun and poking the eye of the snobs. I laughed out loud throughout the film, and even shed at a tear at a well-earned emotional payoff. There's nothing not to love about it. 

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPEN has a running time of 102 minutes. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

EMMA. (2020)

Autumn de Wilde's directorial debut is a handsomely made new version of Jane Austen's iconic romantic comedy, Emma. Except here it's cast as "Emma." with a full stop after it because the director wants us to know it's a period drama.  The film reflects some of this heavy handed and just bizarre gesturing. Why, for instance, do Harriet's schoolmates need to march around the village in red cloaks like something out of The Handmaid's Tale?  There's also lots of plain bad judgment.  Why does Mr Knightley have to be shown arse-bare? I blame Andrew Davies.  Why is Harriet's school bedroom more lavish than a country house?  Why do we need to see Mr Knightley petulantly throwing a fit when his initial attempt to propose to Emma is interrupted - and yes, dear reader, that is not a scene from the novel.

Still, one can forgive this EMMA.(!) its occasional lapses, and indeed its lack of ambition relative to - say - Greta Gerwig's superb meta-textual LITTLE WOMEN. This EMMA. is a movie for our strange times - and thanks to our strange times, available to stream at home. It is very pretty, very soothing, very funny, and very romantic. And indeed, apart from the lapses cited above, comfortingly faithful to the original text. 

It tells the tale of a spoiled young rich girl called Emma who takes pity on an illegitimate schoolgirl, much her social inferior, called Harriet. Rather than marry a solid, decent farmer, Emma persuades Harriet to aim socially higher, for the oleaginous reverend Mr Elton. Meanwhile Emma has her head turned by the similarly charming but nasty Mr Churchill, becoming nasty under his influence, until a third act redemption, with the social order being restored.  

I very much liked Anya Taylor-Joy (THE WITCH) as Emma. She gets that Emma really is a frightfully selfish snob at the start of the book with a nastiness that Gwyneth Paltrow simply wasn't willing to explore in her screen version of the heroine.  I also rather like Billy Nighy playing himself / Emma's hypochondriac father.  Whoever decided that his heavily brocaded jackets should camouflage themselves into his armchair and screens is a genius - and I like how the added comedy of the screens allows for a declaration of love later.  I even liked Johnny Flynn as a less than austere Mr Knightley and Mia Goth as Harriet Smith.

But the stars of the show are always in the smaller parts - with Miranda Hart heart-breaking as Miss Bates - and Tanya Reynolds of SEX EDUCATION simply brilliant as the odious Mrs Elton.   On the other hand, Amber Anderson was deeply anonymous as Jane Fairfax.

Overall, this really is a very charming, light, uplifting and wonderful piece of escapism. 

EMMA. is rated PG and has a running time of 124 minutes. The film is available on streaming services. 

VITA & VIRGINIA

VITA & VIRGINIA is a beautifully crafted film about the love affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West that inspired the former's wonderful fictionalised fantastical biography Orlando, and the stunning film that launched Tilda Swinton's career. Indeed for many people, including myself, that film and the book may be our only knowledge of Vita, making this film a fascinating and unusual tale.  

The first thing to say about the film is that the script, based on her own stage play, by Eileen Atkins, is very good, and serves to describe why Vita was so fascinating and larger-than-life, and just how dangerous and transformative that love affair was to someone as mentally fragile and hyper-sensitive as Virginia. The film implies that the married Virginia was hitherto frigid and that the pansexual promiscuous Vita was her first successful lover.  They truly loved each other. But Vita simply does not have it in her to be in love with one person at a time, and this revelation ruins but then liberates Virginia.

The second thing to say is that the film looks marvellous, despite its presumably slim budget. Shooting on location at Knowle House helps, but so does the dreamy cinematography, the stunning wardrobe - particularly for Vita and her mother - contrasted with Isobel Waller-Bridge's anachronistic score. I loved just looking and hearing this film. I also loved director Chanya Button's attempts to lightly use CGI to take us inside Virginia's imaginative world.

What I didn't love - and what ultimately drew me out of the picture - was the way in which Elizabeth Debicki and Gemma Arterton as Virginia and Vita respectively used very arch period English accents for their roles. It felt so studied and performative and rehearsed that maybe a more naturalistic upper class English accent might have been less intrusive.  Given that the director went for a radical use of music I was surprised she didn't give her actresses notes to be more naturalistic here too.

The result of feeling somewhat alienated from my lead actresses is that I was far more drawn to the other characters. Isabella Rossellini is absolutely magnificent as Vita's society matron mother - conveying with a withering look more contempt than a screen can hold!  More seriously, I found the two cuckolded husbands far more fascinating than their wives.  Peter Ferdinando (HIGH RISE) was just unbelievably sympathetic as Leonard Woolf - the  marvellously supportive husband who just wants to keep Virginia safe - from herself as well as Vita - to enable her writing - and to make her happy.  And the most fascinating character of all is Rupert Penry-Jones' Harold Nicolson - the bisexual diplomat who loved his wife enough to give her her sexual freedom (as he also demanded) so long as she only loved him. It's an absolutely tragic portrait of a modern relationship in which love is not conditional on sexual but emotional fidelity. 

VITA & VIRGINIA has a running time of 110 minutes and is rated 12A for modest sex, sex references and nudity. It played Toronto 2018 and opened the BFI FLARE Film Festival 2019. It opens in the UK and Ireland on July 12th.