London Film Fest 2011 Day 12 - BERNIE

“It’s not as bad as people say; he only shot her four times, not five.”

Bernie Tiede was a good, god-fearing man, who went out of his way to please.  His patient, caring manner was an asset as a funeral director, and his willingness to throw himself into small-town life made him beloved by his fellow residents of Carthage, Texas.  So much so, that when it was revealed that Bernie had shot Marjorie Nugent four times in the back, none of the townsfolk believed him guilty. Oh, they knew he shot her dead, for sure.  But they figured that someone as mean-spirited as Marjorie must have incited Bernie to take leave of his senses for a moment.  Tragically for Bernie, prosecuting attorney Danny Buck knew full well that despite a full confession, four bullets in the back, and Bernie’s ample use of Marjorie’s money, he wasn’t going to get a conviction in Carthage. So he got the trial moved a mere 44 miles away to Saint Augustine, where Bernie's charismatic personality wouldn't get in the way of a fair verdict.

The wonderful thing about Richard Linklater’s new fictionalized retelling of Bernie’s true story is that he allows us to fall in love with Carthage, its quirky inhabitants, and with Bernie himself. By the end of the movie, we can’t quite believe that any humane jury would convict Bernie, and sit in fear that those no-good inbred St Augustinians won’t do him right.   Because this movie isn’t so much a character-driven crime drama as a Coen Brothers style love-letter to small-town Southern life.   We luxuriate in the broad accents, marvel at the cast-iron certainty of the town gossips as they declare that Bernie FOR A FACT was or wasn’t this or that, and laugh at their incomprehension of Austin hippies.  It’s hard to think of any recent use of faux-documentary talking heads that is as successful and hilarious as Linklater's use of  the Carthage townsfolk – narrating, commenting on, and judging the story at each twist and turn. 

Because I warmed so much to these people, and started to identify so strongly with them, the movie turned from what could’ve been a real downer into effectively a rather heart-warming experience. On one level this was a movie about really nasty aspects of human nature – a man so wanting to be liked that he wills himself into an emotional prison, and a woman delighting in his pain.  But rather than being brought down by the depiction of a bizarrely, horribly, sado-masochistic relationship (emotionally, not sexually, that is!), I left the cinema positively full of faith in humanity. Because Carthage was a small town where ordinary townsfolk knew just what was what, and a good guy was a good guy, even if blighted by a sudden act of rage.

All of which tells you that native East Texan, Richard Linklater, is pretty much in love with Carthage, and doesn’t really make much attempt to give a balanced view of Bernie. Or maybe he does, but the truth really is that Bernie was a good guy, despite the slightly suspect love of the high life to which Marjorie's money gave him access. By now, I’m so complicit in the “free Bernie” campaign I can’t even tell. All I know is that Linklater somehow managed to capture both the black humour and the tragedy at the core of Bernie’s need to please.  I laughed a lot, I was fascinated, and I won’t soon forget the tale. Massive praise also to all three leads.  Jack Black gives a more modulated performance than is typical in his mainstream films, as the gregarious, needy Bernie. Shirley Maclaine as mean old Marjorie is just an acting masterclass. Look at the scene where she listens to Bernie sing a duet in a theatrical rehearsal, imagining him singing a love song to her. Her face shows a cynical old woman melting.  And finally, you have to hand it to Matthew McConaughey, an actor who is brilliant in inverse proportion to his screentime.  Banality in mediocre rom-coms turns into piquant cameos – first in TROPIC THUNDER, and now as the fame-hungry prosecutor Danny Buckland. 

BERNIE played Los Angeles and London 2011.

VALENTINE'S DAY - not entirely unwatchable

VALENTINE’S DAY is a romantic comedy along the lines of LOVE ACTUALLY – in which we follow a number of characters, all loosely connected, living in contemporary LA on Valentine’s Day. We have everything from a teenager trying to lose her virginity (Emma Roberts); to a serving officer home on leave (Julia Roberts); from a cynical “player” sports journalist (Jamie Foxx) to an old-romantic florist (Ashton Kutcher) and many many more besides.

It is easy to deride VALENTINE’S DAY. It is a movie that has been so carefully constructed in the Excel sheets of Hollywood producers that is feels about as real and alive as a frozen turkey twizzler. Every actor has been chosen for their essentially good looks and winning smile. Every character is broadly delineated as being wholesome and good and thus deserving of True Love or as being superficial and duplicitous and therefore only worthy of being Alone. It’s the sort of movie that pats itself on the back for being so liberal as to have a gay character but doesn’t have the balls to show him making out. There is no plot development that cannot be predicted well in advance and no satire that hasn’t had its rough edges smoothed down. It’s a movie so shiny and brightly coloured in makes LOVE ACTUALLY - with its depiction of at least two “good characters” who end up unloved at the end of it – seem spiky and socially aware.

Nonetheless, I can’t deny that I had a passably good time watching the film, in the same way that a can of coke is predictable, tasty at the time, but offers no nutritional value. In a rising tide of blandness, Queen Latifah delivers one truly superb line, Taylor Swift was surprisingly willing to play dumb, and Anne Hathaway is always good at pulling off vulnerability. As for the rest of the cast, there’s nothing to write home about. The only thing that really pissed me off was the gaff in the writing that had Bradley Cooper’s character flying coach on a fourteen hour flight when he’s rich enough to have a chauffeur-driven limousine. Please. That guy would’ve been safely ensconsed in his personal sleeper seat in Business rather than propping up Julia Robert’s dozing head.

VALENTINE'S DAY is on global release.

London Film Fest Day 5 - CLOSING THE RING

CLOSING THE RING is an almost entirely piss-poor melodrama that one would expect to find on Channel Five one afternoon rather than at a decent film festival. That it is playing London 2007 is, one suspects, largely the result of Lord Attenborough's close links with the BFI and his general status as beloved old codger of British Film.

The movie inter-cuts three stories. The first is a truly execrable World War Two romance set in the provincial backwaters of the US. Mischa Barton of THE OC fame plays a girl called Ethel who is loved by three best friends. The one she marries, Teddy, gets blown up in Belfast and she is bequeathed by him to the second, Chuck. She marries Chuck but never loves him or their daughter. The second plot strand takes place in the 1980s. In the US, Ethel is now an old widow played by Shirley Maclaine. She wallows in grief for Teddy and is selfishly ignorant that the final friend, played by Christopher Plummer, is in love with her. The third plot strand also takes place in the 1980s but in Belfast. A charming young kid is being squeezed both by the Special Branch and the Republicans. He digs up Teddy's wedding ring and scampers off to the USA to give it back to Ethel, much to the consternation of her daughter (Neve Campbell) who didn't know she had been married before.

The WW2 plot strand is by far the weakest. The cast have been chosen for looks rather than acting ability, with Stephen Amell as Teddy Gordon (first lover) making Mischa Barton look out-standing by contrast. The script doesn't help. The first love scene contains lines so excruciating to watch I can't imagine what it was like to act them. I also detest the idea of Teddy bequeathing Ethel to Chuck. The concept that women have to be protected from bad news feels very out-dated to modern ears and eyes. The modern day American strand is slightly better acted but no better scripted. Old Ethel just comes across as insufferably selfish. One can't imagine why anyone, let alone three men, would have been in love with her. By far the best of the plot strands is the Belfast strand. Attenborough captures the barbarity of it, and is helped by exceptionally good casting in the form of Brenda Fricker, Pete Postlethwaite and Martin McCann who steals every scene as young, naive Jimmy Reilly.

Overall, we get a transparently manipulative tear-jerker that, rather embarassingly, fails to jerk any tears. I couldn't have cared less about any of these characters, except for plucky young Reilly. The conceit upon with the movie hangs seems unrealistic and if realistic then unsympathetic. One final criticism is that in his pre-screening introduction, Attenborough claimed, in a superior tone of voice, that the movie was free of gratuitous sex and violence. That's not true. We're not twenty minutes in before Barton has to get her tits out and there's a violent scene towards the end that exists not to make a wider political or philosophical point but merely to get two aged lovers together.

CLOSING THE RING played Toronto and London 2007.

RUMOUR HAS IT - enough with the Unfunny

What did I do when I wasn't laughing at this movie? I wondered why, if the movie is set in 1997, Jennifer Aniston is carrying a 2005 Cruise collection Gucci handbag. It turns out that I am not the only one not to be feeling the love for this movie. Costner apparently had the original director fired half-way through shooting. That director was replaced by Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner directed THIS IS SPINAL TAP, perhaps the funniest movie ever made. How are the mighty fallen.

RUMOUR HAS IT is on global release.

BEWITCHED - just not funny

I am not the first to say it and I won't be the last. There is only thing wrong with the re-make of the classic TV comedy, BEWITCHED: It's not funny. Everything else is fabulous: costumes, photography, Rat-pack soundtrack. The writer/director is Nora Ephron who wrote When Harry Met Sally. It stars comedy heavyweights, Will Ferrel and Shirley Maclaine as well as Nicole Kidman. It has cameos from the wonderful Jason Schwartzman, Steve Carrell and Michael Caine......

BEWITCHED is available on DVD, replete with extras, but still isn't funny.

IN HER SHOES – mis-marketed but remarkably good

IN HER SHOES is one of the most mis-marketed movies I have ever come across. The PR seems to imply that it is going to be your usual air-head chick flick. Cute girl falls for wrong guy but nice guy is waiting in the wings or variations thereupon. Some laughs, some tears, then we all go home and forget about it. And I suppose, that one plot strand of IN HER SHOES confirms to this pattern. However, there is a lot more to the film. Indeed, IN HER SHOES is a thoughtful and perceptive drama about family. It focuses on the relationship between two sisters. The elder, Rose, is a successful lawyer who has always perceived herself to be less attractive than her younger sister. The younger sister, Maggie, is a ditzy blonde who can’t hold down a job. Although Rose’ life work has been looking out for her sister, one day Maggie does something unforgivable leading to a huge rift and some serious self-examination for each of them. Rose is brought back to life by a wonderful man; Maggie by a shrewd grandmother.

The movie is directed by Curtis Hanson, the man who brought us L.A. Confidential and 8 Mile. Hanson is a director I really admire, but in retrospect. What I mean by that is that I don’t immediately recognise a film as one of his. There is no obvious visual style or thematic tic. However, he does seem to have a talent for taking apparently straightforward genre movies and making them seem fresh and credible. If you don’t believe me, compare the taught and compelling dramatic arc of 8 MILE with the ludicrous hagiography of GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’. Hanson manages to work that magic again with IN HER SHOES. He keeps all the insights of the novel and brings them to the screen at a pace wherein the transformation of the central characters seems neither forced nor unrealistic. He brings a lightness of touch to some very profound and difficult subject matter – mental illness, learning difficulties, sexual politics in the workplace – ultimately reconciliation with oneself and one’s family. In this endeavour, we have to thank the screenwriter but especially three very strong central performances from Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley Maclaine. I have to say here, that I reject the criticism from some viewers that Toni Collette is too pretty to play Rose. I agree that Toni is very attractive but the point is that she is also, to my mind, highly successful in portraying someone who perceives themselves as being unattractive.

So, I strongly recommend IN HER SHOES to all of you, especially the girls. But this isn’t a disposable chick flick or date movie: it is a well-crafted drama and deserves respect as such.

IN HER SHOES is on release in the US, Germany, Austria and the UK and hits France next week.