THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY

It feels as though the German occupation of the Channel Islands is rather under-represented in the output of British films about World War Two. Maybe it's because it doesn't fit in with the narrative of a the last bastion of resistance, the last nation unsullied by Nazis in Europe.  At any rate, here we are, with an adaptation of the tremendously popular book of the same name by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  I read it a few years ago, found it modestly interesting, a little too obviously attempting to move me, but still rather touching.  I could say much the same of this more or less faithful adaptation.  There's nothing too nasty or shocking or cry-making - just a generally benevolent feeling of decent people doing the decent thing.

The novel and film open after the war with a successful author (Lily James - DOWNTON ABBEY) intrigued by letters from a man in Guernsey, enquiring after a book, describing the lack of them in Guernsey after years of oppressive Nazi rule.  She eventually travels to the island to learn more about the disparate group of friends who created the society as an excuse to break curfew.  Slowly the author uncovers the tale of the enigmatic founder of the society (Jessica Brown Findlay - also DOWNTON ABBEY) and the darker side of the war.  In doing so, she falls in love with island, and the handsome man who wrote to her. 

The problem with this film is that it's so obvious. It tries to make too much of the story of what really happened to the founder, when it's actually pretty simple, if no less tragic for that.  The romance story - in both book and film - is also rather forced, and made no more credible by casting an actor who is patently not British (Michiel Huisman).  One also has a feeling of waste - insofar as good, and sometimes great actors aren't given much to do.  Jessica Brown Findlay reprises her Downton Abbey role as a feisty, rebellious but good and earnest girl.  Lily James reprises her role from almost everything she's been in, of being charming and kind.  Michiel Huisman does his usual eye candy thing.  Penelope Wilton, also Downton, also decent again... And poor Tom Courtenay is wasted. 

The upshot is that this film is a harmless way to pass the time, but very predictable, occasionally frightfully stagey and soppy.

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY has a running time of 124 minutes. The movie is available to rent and own in the UK and is on Netflix elsewhere. 

London Film Fest 2012 Day 12 - GREAT EXPECTATIONS (2012)

Charles Dickens' superlative novel, Great Expectations, has been adapted many times for the small and large screen.  The first theatrical outing was in 1917, the most recent TV adaptation last year, with a notable contemporary version by Alfonso Cuaron starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Estella and Anne Bancroft as the Miss Havisham character. My personal favourite is the TV movie from 1999 directed by Julian Jarrold (BRIDESHEAD REVISITED), with Ioan Gruffud as Pip, Justine Waddell as Estella, and an absolutely definitive Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham.  Given the rich canon of work, a high bar should be set for any new production.  One should ask what this particular interpretation is going to do anything that is new and insightful.  Surely it isn't enough just to create another film simply because it has been five years since the last one, and there's a nice commercial tie-in with the Dickens bicentenary.  Sadly, I suspect that's exactly the motivation for Mike Newell's new version of the novel. And I can't say it surprises me.  His career looks very much like one of a moderately talented director for hire, without any clear over-riding style or thematic consistency.  How else dos one explain credits that vary from DONNIE BRASCO to HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE to PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME?

That said, a cursory look at the production notes suggested a movie that could be something very special indeed. Given her personal Gothic style and amazing talent, one might have thought Helena Bonham Carter born to play Miss Havisham - the rich, capricious, vengeful woman who raises her adopted Estella to be a cold-hearted temptress and so have her revenge on men. Holliday Grainger, so impressive as Lucrezia in TV's The Borgias, would not have far to go in depicting the tragically emotionally blighted Estella. Jeremy Irvine, the likeable boy at the heart of WAR HORSE, would make a touching Pip - the young working class lad whose head is turned by an inheritance and his love for Estella.  And the rest of the cast is a who's who of British talent, starting with Ralph Fiennes - so sinister as Heathcliff - as Magwitch, the convict whose life is entwined with that of Pip - Robbie Coltrane as the ruthless lawyer Jaggers and Jason Flemyng as the kind-hearted blacksmith Joe Gargery.  I was quite ready to believe that a half faithful script and half decent production design would allow these actors to create a GREAT EXPECTATIONS that was both Gothic and sinister as well as heartbreaking: the tale of a young boy corrupted by wealth and redeemed by love, and of the corrosive impact of secrets.

On one level, the movie is a success.  The story of Magwitch and his unlikely friendship with Pip - his life mangled by the Justice system, and redeemed by his recognition of a kindly act - is given almost half of the screentime, and Ralph Fiennes really is marvellous.  I'm not sure that Jeremy Irvine matches him, but that would be a tall order indeed.  The story of Pip and his friend Joe, so bound up in the start and end of the story, is also given room to breathe, and I believe that this role is Jason Flemyng's finest and that he is also the best Joe Gargery I've seen on screen.  The problem is with the Satis House storyline.  I'm not quite sure why but Helena Bonham Carter's performance just falls flat. She is neither sinister nor tragic.  Poor Estella gets very little screentime indeed, and her marriage to the brutal Bentley Drummle is rather thrown away.  Does the audience unfamiliar with the novel realise that he has beaten her into submission? Poor Herbert Pocket gets very little screentime, although both Olly Alexander as older Herbert, and Charlie Callaghan as Young Herbert are scene stealers.

Overall, then, a rather flat, imbalanced movie in which the Magwitch storyline is creditably done and Satis House isn't. And as Satis House is what this novel is ultimately remembered for, that is a fatal flaw indeed.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS played Toronto 2012 and will be released in the UK and Ireland on November 30th 2012.  It opens in Germany on December 6th; in Russia on January 24th 2013 and in New Zealand on March 7th.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME

PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME is a movie that is easy to mock. It's based on a video game; features a bunch of Western actors bronzed up to play medieval Persian warlords; is full of hoky CGI and time-travel; and basically is about as credible as Ed Balls candidature for the Labour leadership. Think ALADDIN on steroids. But I have to say that it's not entirely unwatchable.

A newly buff Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a street urchin (the very need to use such a ridiculous word as urchin should clue you into the basic nonsense-level here) plucked from poverty to become a Prince by the kindly king. Years later and Dastan is framed for the murder of his father, leaving two genuinely princely brothers and uncle rule in his stead. The rest of the film sees him try to find out who was really out to power-grab, although the casting of Ben Kingsley as the moustache-twirling Uncle is a give-away. The task is made easier by the fact that he's found a mysterious Macguffin whose sand can turn back time. Handily, this plot device comes complete with stuck-up but beautiful Princess-guardian, as played by Gemma Arterton.

Essentially, this is all hokum but enlivened by some really odd casting. Toby Kebbell turns up as a royal brother, for instance, and Alfred Molina is hillarious as an ostrich-race-running medieval gangsta. And what on earth is Mike Newell, of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL fame, doing directing this thing? Anyway, I have nothing to say in my defence. This movie is rubbish, but I enjoyed it, albeit fast forwarding through the action scenes. There's something almost touching about how earnestly Gyllenhaal et al play their scenes, and Alfred Molina is worth the price of the DVD rental alone.

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME was released in May 2010 and is now available on DVD and on iTunes.

Additional tags: John Seale, Harry Gregson-Williams, Boaz Yaking, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard, Jordan Mechner, Steve Toussaint, Richard Coyle, Ronald Picckup, Reece Ritchie

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA - killed by conventional direction

This lavish adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' classic novel is, tragically, a failure. Tragic, because it has a high quality script from Ronald Harwood; a top-class cast including Javier Bardem as Florentino and an impressive Benjamin Bratt as Urbino; and lush location work in Colombia. The production design and costumes drip with authenticity and beauty. The problem is that this movie sticks so closely to the bare bones plot of the book that it looses the magic, the whimsy, the poetry of it. In short, the movie becomes a typically plodding costume drama in which boy meets girl, love strikes, girl marries posh bloke, posh bloke dies decades later, and boy and girl finally consummate their love. Director Mike Newell lacks the daring of, say, a Julian Schnabel, and while he respects the book that isn't enough. With this film he confirms himself as a director for hire rather than an auteur, gliding between genres - (Rom-com: FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, kids-action: HARRY POTTER...)

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA was released in 2007 and 2008 and is available on DVD.

HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE - a lesser movie than the sum of its parts

The new HARRY POTTER movie is a decent enough 2 and a half hour version of the novel and if you like the novel no doubt there is some charm in seeing it up on screen. It is fun to see Harry nervously asking out Cho Chang and to finally catch a glipse of evil Lord Voldemort. But if you are not a fan of the books you will probably be bored by the unrelenting gloom of the surroundings and the uncomfortable mix of a corny high school romance and a far darker gothic thriller. This strange mix of the cute and innocent and the far grittier core story is, of course, evident in the book itself. But over a sprawling mass of 600 odd pages each strand has a bit more room to breathe and the contradictions are not so evident. In the movie, the mood swings jar. Most notably, in the penultimate scene we have the long-awaited clash between Voldemort and Harry. Nasty things happen and they are shot with authenticity and acted with conviction. When Harry emerges from this harrowing encounter we feel that he has been through something that is literally terrible. But he emerges into the cute Olde Worlde Hogwarts, with cute friends, kindly wizards and floppy scarves. This return to Enid-Blyton-land subverts the preceeding emotional intensity.

Overall, this is a good movie in its parts. It is well acted, well shot and while I found it over-long it is hard to see where the editor and screen-writer could have cut it down without losing key plot points. But put together I find the tension between the two story strands untenable. Presumably this tension will only get worse in the next two movies as the body count increases. This raises the key question of how suitable and indeed enoyable a movie this will be for kids. The classic horror movie tropes are all in evidence, and as the kids get stuck in a vicious maze at the end, I half expected Jack Nicholson to come bounding out with an axe. More practically, 2 and a half hours is a long time for kids to sit still. The movie has been given a 12A certificate which puts the responsibility with parents to decide if their under-12s are up to it. I would advise extreme caution.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE went on global release yesterday.