SUNDANCE LONDON 2013 - Day 4 - THE KINGS OF SUMMER

THE KINGS OF SUMMER is a marvellous, joyful coming-of-age movie that has shades of Wes Anderson in its whimsy and nostalgic evocation of summer and teenage romance but ultimately has it's own clear and unique tone.  Kudos to Jordan Vogt-Roberts on his feature directorial debut, and in particular to screenwriter Chris Galetta, who successfully combines larger-than-life quirky characters with real stakes to create a movie that's both funny and dramatic - that is both silly and contains profound truths about friendship and how children relate to their parents and each other.

The premise of the film may seem a little farfetched when written down but the movie is so strong you just go with it:  two high school friends, Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) are so disaffected by their parents in typical teen angst that they decide to build a kind of super-tree house in the forest outside their town and simply leave home.  Much to their annoyance they're joined by that kid we all knew at school - the one who's determined and weird and slightly creepy - Biaggio (Moises Arias).  As one would expect - it all starts of cool - they have fun and larks and subsist on farmer's market chicken but it all falls apart when the girl Joe likes goes off with Patrick, and Joe, in a fit of pique, rebels against Patrick's strict rules and ruthless nature intervenes.  To say more would give away an ending that contains genuine peril and the triumph of Biaggio in one of the most wonderful father-son pieces of dialogue in recent cinema.  

The wonderful thing about this film is that you genuinely care about the kids, and sympathise with their need to escape, while at the same time feeling for their parents. You simultaneously want them to succeed and to be found. It captures completely that feeling of teenage invincibility - that you can achieve anything - as well as the proud stupidity of those years.  There's a magic and wonder and behind that a naivety and risk - and this movie captures all of those facets in a deeply entertaining way. Not to be missed. 

THE KINGS OF SUMMER is rated R in the USA and has a running time of 93 minutes.  

THE KINGS OF SUMMER played Sundance and Sundance London 2013 and opens in the USA on May 31st. 

SUNDANCE LONDON 2013 - Day 3 - IN A WORLD...

You can listen to a podcast review of this film below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews podcast directly in iTunes here.

Remember those early 80s action thrillers starring the current cast of THE EXPENDABLES? They always had trailers with some deep-voiced uber-masculine bloke who sounded a bit like the Moviefone man - the trailers spoofed so brilliantly in TROPIC THUNDER. "In a world without hope, emerged a hero..." "In a time of sorrow, emerged a leader..." "In a land beyond the sea, came a man who would rise...." Well, in actress Lake Bell's first feature film, she creates a fascinating and hilarious depiction of the tight-knit micro-industry in Hollywood, where voice-over artists compete to be the "In a world..." guy, and where a girl doesn't really have a chance at all.

Bell stars a well as Carol Soloman, the somewhat flaky daughter of the legendary voice over artist Sam Soto (Frank Melamed), who as the movie opens is given her "Girls" moment and kicked out of his house to make way for his far far younger squeeze, Jamie (Alexandra Holden). Relegated by the industry, but more hurtfully by her father, to doing voice coaching, Carol gets a lucky break when the rising star Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) gets a cold. These leads to a new relationship with production assistant Louis (Demetri Martin), and the marital crisis of her sister, with whom Carol's forced to move in.

What I love about this film is that it does what all good movies do - it creates a fully realised and fascinating world that we didn't know existed before and populates it with characters that are interesting, engaging and have stylised but real relationships. I truly believed that Carol and her sister Dani loved each other - they are so easy in each other's physical space. And I truly believed in the easy camaraderie between Louis and his colleagues at the studio. Even the classic rom-com meet-cute montage date scene seemed casual and unforced. All this speaks to the wonderfully rich art design and the intimate warm-toned photography from Seamus Tierney (LIBERAL ARTS).

In front of the camera, we have a fine cast that are perfectly attuned to Bell's intelligently funny script. The verbal comedy - the play on accents - the deadpan quick responses - it's all really laugh out loud funny. Who's going to forget Bell's Russian Obe-Wan in a hurry? Or Carol's brother-in-law deadpanning that he put his diaphragm in? The little moments of physical comedy are also superb. There's an absolutely classic moment where Carol extricates herself from her partner the morning after the night before that involves a bra that's beautifully observed. And while the characters of Sam and Jamie are undoubtedly caricatures, the actors still inhabit them in such a way as to make us really care about his final emotional breakthrough, and to applaud the fact that she has more depth than we'd thought.

And this brings me to the greatest triumph of all - that Bell manages to craft a very funny rom-com that also has a serious message about women in business and how the way we speak affects how we're perceived, and the opportunities we're given. This makes it sound ponderous and earnest and a drag, but the elegance of the writing means that while it's always there, woven into the cloth, we never feel its weight. 

IN A WORLD... has a running time of 90 minutes. It played Sundance 2013, where Lake Bell won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and Sundance London 2013, but does not yet have a commercial release date.

Sundance London 2012 - SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

I guess it was a sure bet.  Any movie based on a cutesy internet meme (see above graphic) was gonna rub me up the wrong way.  SAFTEY NOT GUARANTEED is the kind of hipster, quirky, indulgent comedy that I hate.  In fact, even calling it a comedy is a stretch given that it peddles the gentlest of gentle comedy.  I only laughed out loud three times, so on that basis it fails the Wittertainment 5-Laughs rule.  I predict that this will end up like last year's lauded hit, LIKE CRAZY. That was another movie the indie community loved and I hated. It too ended up in a bidding war at Sundance only to fail at the box office.

The problem with the film is that everything about it is so contrived that goofy that there's nothing to relate to - no point of entry unless you're also a wannabe oddball hipster.  It also contains precious few proper jokes (as mentioned above), and uneven tone, as it skirts past various genres. I blame Derek Connolly's pretentious script and Colin Trevorrow's lacklustre direction.  Performances are mostly so-so.  Aubrey Plaza (PARKS AND RECREATION) does her snarky, moody thing, but predictably melts when she meets Mark Duplass' oddball paranoid wannabe time-traveller.  They meet up because she an intern at a magazine and her boss Jeff is faking interest in the madcap scheme so as to write a funny story on the guy.  Jake M Johnson provides the only real laughs as Jeff, nicely playing against the "nice Nick" character in THE NEW GIRL.  As for Karan Soni's Arnau, it's nice that we people of Indian origin are starting to get more airtime in movies, but does it always have to be a clichéd geeky hard-working student? I'm starting to get offended.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED played Sundance 2012 where Derek Connolly won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. It also played Sundance London. It will play SXSW 2012 and will be released in the USA on June 8th.