THE BOOK OF CLARENCE* - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 9

AD 33; Jerusalem. The apostle Thomas has a twin brother called Clarence who believes in knowledge, not faith, sells weed, and is deeply in debt to the local gangster. In yet another cockamamie scheme, Clarence thinks he will become an apostle too, to gain their protection, but they soon see through his schemes, with Thomas pouring scorn upon him. So Clarence decides to become a "new" messiah, replicating Jesus' "tricks" and raising the money from his believers to pay off his debts. Problem is, this newfound praise and money affords Clarence the opportunity to do something even more radical: to be good.  

Jeymes Samuel (THE HARDER THEY FALL) may well be the most frustrating writer-director currently working. I had hoped his sophomore film, THE BOOK OF CLARENCE, would exhibit more tonal consistency and discipline than his debut feature, but my word this film is just as indulgent.  All of which is disappointing because Samuel is clearly highly cine-literate, with a penchant for the excesses of spaghetti westerns and biblical epics.  He clearly has a good imagination and no shortage of big ideas.  But this film is neither consistently funny, nor ideologically radical.  I was hoping for something funny and zany and gonzo - something approaching the dangerous dark satire of THE LIFE OF BRIAN. Instead, I got a film that was surprisingly straightforwardly pro-religion.  What’s even worse is that in its serious moments, in the final half hour, we get some actually rather earnest and good acting from LaKeith Stanfield and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. But all of that is wasted when Jeymes Samuel can’t help inserting cheap gags. Dear lord this man needs a good producer, or editor, or mentor or something.  Something to pin him down and get the best out of him.

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE has a running time of 136 minutes. It played London 2023 and will be released in the USA on January 12th.

 

BURNT

Director John Wells (AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY) returns to our screens with a slight and predictable romantic drama that had the capability to be so much more. BURNT stars Bradley Cooper as a michelin star chef called Adam who is a recovering addict.  He returns after a two year hiatus to open a new restaurant to prove all the critics wrong, win a third star, and poke two fingers in the eye of his rival Reece (Matthew Rhys).  On one hand, this movie wants to be a light romantic drama about a difficult person finding love and emotional balance. So naturally when Adam meets a feisty chef called Helene (Sienna Miller) and they have a massive ding-dong battle, we know they are going to end up falling in love. She even has a super-cute kid with which Adam can bond.  And when the first act of the movie sets up Adam as a dinosaur who refuses to cook sous-vide, we assume she's also going to give him a water-bath and some plastic bags and lead him joyously into the food revolution to wow the critics.  

But then the movie thinks about taking a slightly different turn into a much more complicated and fascinating world and we think - yes - this is why Brad Cooper has agreed to do what seems on the surface like quite schlocky fare.  We realise that within his kitchen he's dealing with the consequences of his addiction - the colleagues he hurt and the maitre d' he'd let down. And throughout the film we have the shadowy French figures who are after him from drug debts.  We see him struggle with his addiction and think, finally some meat for Cooper to sink his teeth into. But in the end it's too late in the final twenty minutes of the run-time to drag the film back into profundity and it wants its perfect romantic ending too badly. This is a tremendous shame, and a waste of a supporting cast that includes Emma Thompson, Alicia Vikander, Omar Sy and Daniel Bruehl.

BURNT is rated R and has a running time of 101 minutes.  The movie is on release in the USA, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Portugal, Bulgaria, Iceland, Poland, Kuwait, Serbia, Singapore, Canada, Turkey, France, the Philippines, South Korea, the UK, Ireland and Sweden. It opens on November 12th in Russia and Estonia; on November 20th in Lithuania and Norway; on November 26th in Italy and the Netherlands; on December 3rd in Germany and Finland; on December 10th in Brazil, Denmark, Hong Kong; on January 21st in Chile; and on January 28th in Argentina and Thailand. 

JURASSIC WORLD

I'm not entirely sure what the producer's saw in Colin Trevorrow's indie comedy SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED that made them think, "this director has what it takes to direct a big budget effects-heavy action film" but boy, he can! JURASSIC WORLD is the best film in the franchise since the original, and while not entirely without its problems, it's a handsome way to spend a couple of hours in the cinema. 

The movie picks up as if the events of the second and third film hadn't happened.  We are twenty years on from the "teething problems" on Isla Nubar and arrogant money-hungry humans have learned nothing.  Jurassic World is now a successful theme park, but in order to keep the customers happy, park manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) has sanctioned the genetic modification of dinosaurs to create a new attraction - the Indominus Rex. Oh, and by the way, those insanely violent Velociraptors are still in the park because some idiot wants to use them for military purposes. Naturally, the Indominus escapes its enclosure and we soon learn that a) it's not socialised and b) it can plan complex strategic attacks.  All of which the wrangler Owen (Chris Pratt) had warned them of. And this being a Spielberg film, into the mix we throw two kids - brothers Zach and Gray (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) and a T-Rex.

Everything about the dinosaurs, action, soundtrack and sense of awe and wonder is perfect in this film. It's less scary than the original, which I rewatched recently, but it's going for a younger audience.  The problems start when we look at the characters and the relationship between Claire and Owen in particular.  Dear Hollywood, does every successful businesswoman need to be emotionally frigid?  Does every powerful really woman really just need a hunky old-fashioned man's man to sort her out?  And it's not like Chris Pratt has it any better as Owen - shorn of the humour that made GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY such a hit, he's essentially just an objectified beef-cake.  And where the two kids in the original movie had a really lovely mixture of vulnerability and moxie, here they're essentially just Macguffins for the adults to protect. 

Still, for all that, I do like this film. It has all the cynicism about human nature that infected Michael Crichton's book. And where that dark element was only channelled by Jeff Goldblum in the original film (I HATED the transformation of the park owner into a cuddly wide-eyed grandpa) at least in this version Irrfhan Khan has the evil charisma of a true DNA-meddling entrepreneur.

JURASSIC WORLD has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated PG-13. The movie went on global release the weekend of June 11th and finally rolls into Japan on August 5th.

MOOD INDIGO aka L'ECUME DES JOURS

The movies of Michel Gondry have a kind of whimsical joy in making and doing - a kind of home-made gonzo cut out and paste feel that belies their deeply felt emotions and philosophical musings.  And MOOD INDIGO, his latest movie, is very much in that tradition of surreal, tragicomic, visually inventive joyousness - a movie that could only ever unmistakably have come from his imagination - that echoes all that is glorious in THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP.

Based on the French cult novel by Boris Vivan, the movie begins as a magical surreal love story with the earnest, generous and lovely Colin (Romain Duris - MOLIERE) wooing and winning the equally adorable Chloe (Audrey Tautou - COCO BEFORE CHANEL). At the same time, the apparently independently wealthy Colin lives a life of crazy cocktails, dance crazes and eccentric friends. He has apparently hired a high-powered lawyer (Omar Sy) as his chef and he's bankrolling his best friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh) as he wooes his sweetheart Alise (Aïssa Maïga - BAMAKO). But as the movie progresses, the colour literally drains from this fairytale world of wind-up toys and stop-motion bubble-car chases.  Poor Chloe inhales a waterlilly seed that grows on her lungs and threatens her life. We start to see the sci-fi dystopian reality at the edges of this picture-postcard world. Some kind of strange war or maybe an environmental disaster overlaid with a wasting of money and dark addiction. 

The resulting film is hard to categorise, and I would imagine, hard to sell. Is it a light romantic comedy complete with its own trademark dance craze? Or is it a deeply depressing dirge? Can it be both whimsical music-box and profound comment on inner corruption?  Yes - triumphantly yes!  It's like Gilliam and Disney and Jean-Pierre Jeunet mixed together in a delightful, provocative confection - a film that is genuinely unique - and my film of the year to date. 

MOOD INDIGO has a running time of 131 minutes but the version I saw had a running time of 94 minutes and is rated 12A for moderate violence and nudity.

MOOD INDIGO was released earlier this year in Belgium and France. It opens this weekend in Hungary and the Netherlands. It opens on June 27th in Russia, on June 28th in Brazil, on July 5th in Poland, on July 18th in the Ukraine, on August 1st in Hong Kong, on August 2nd in Lithuania, on September 6th in Taiwan, on September 12th in Australia and Italy, on September 27th in Spain, on October 3rd in Germany, on October 5th in Japan, on October 24th in Greece, on October 25th in Finland, on November 7th in Denmark, on December 19th in Singapore, on December 20th in Sweden, on January 2nd 2015 in Portugal, on January 17th in Mexico, and on July 18th in the USA.

UNTOUCHABLE aka THE INTOUCHABLES

I was dreading UNTOUCHABLE. I thought it was going to be an earnest soupy French Driving Miss Daisy with questionable racial politics, dripping in sentiment. I couldn't have been further from the mark. It's a film that is full of life, energy, humour - whose central characters are captivating and charismatic.  I laughed my way through the movie, desperate not to leave its company, and would be more than happy to watch it again.  It is undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen this year.

The movie stars  Francois Cluzet (LITTLE WHITE LIES) as paraplegic millionaire Philippe, bored and frustrated by the endless parade of earnest, highly qualified, pitying carers.  On a whim, he hires a petty criminal immigrant and self-confessed ladies man, Driss (Omar Sy) - who apparently also take the job on a whim - to acquire a bathroom all to himself! 

The wonder of the movie is that their odd-couple friendship never feels like a cliché.  They feel no pity for each other, genuinely care, and have that kind of open deep friendship where one can be utterly honest.  A movie like this stands or falls on the chemistry between the leads - and here, it definitely works.  I also love the fact that the co-directors and writers Oliver Najache and Eric Toledano (TELLEMENT PROCHES) wear their social commentary with a very light touch.  There's no preachy politics contrasting Philippe's privileged life with Driss' over-crowded apartment in the banlieu - and although there is a powerful moment where Philippe sets Driss free to take care of his errant brother, the evident danger and limited opportunity of the banlieu is lightly sketched rather than dogmatically discussed.

Overall, a tremendous movie - superbly funny - never sentimental - with two of the most memorable characters of 2012. Not to be missed.

THE INTOUCHABLES aka UNTOUCHABLE played San Sebastian and Tokyo 2011 and was released in 2011 in Belgium, France and Hungary.  It was released earlier in 2012 in Germany, Italy, Spain, Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Greece, Portugal, Taiwan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Turkey, Serbia, Estonia, the USA, Canada, Iceland, Cambodia, Kuwait, India, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil. It is currently on release in Japan, Hong Kong, Colombia, Sweden and the UK. It opens next weekend in Australia and New Zealand. It opens on November 9th in Norway; on November 22nd in Denmark and on November 30th in Finland.