TALE OF TALES

Matteo Garrone hangs a sharp right from quasi-docu-realist Mafia dramas into seventeenth century Italian fantasy horror with his new portmanteau film TALE OF TALES.  The movie is based on three tales collected by Giambattista Basile - tales that went on to inspire the Grimms and Hans Christian Anderson two centuries later.  But rather than give us the familiar precursors to Cinderella or Puss In Boots we get three tales of weird unfamiliarity and satisfyingly gruesome meaning.

In the first, Salma Hayek plays a queen desperate to bear a child no matter what the cost of trusting a malevolent wizard.  The poster art of this film shows one of its most memorable visuals - Hayek eating a giant bloody sea-monster's heart in a stunningly ornate white room.  But this story is full of arresting visuals - from John C Reilly's king in a diving suit battling the monster, to two albino twins escaping under that same sea.  For the Queen never truly realises what the wizard tells her - that every life and every action is bought at a price, and that the closer one tries to force love, the further it slips away.

VERSUS: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF KEN LOACH

I got quite depressed when Ken Loach's latest and perhaps final feature, I, DANIEL BLAKE, won the Palme D'Or a few weeks ago.  Not because it's a bad film - I haven't seen it yet and it sounds amazing - but because it felt like he was the only film director daring to tackle the big social issues of our time.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Ever since the Global Financial Crisis, and more specifically the Tory response to it, the UK has been living through a period of deep fiscal austerity. But the artistic response seems to have been rather meagre. I contrast that to the angry, loud and multifarious response to the social upheavals wrought by Thatcher in the early 80s. Where's the protest music?  Where are the angry plays like GBH and Boys From The Blackstuff?  Where are the new Ken Loaches, Alexei Sayles, Billy Braggs, Communards?  Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that Loach is still working and able to tackle the issue of people struggling to survive in poverty and Britain - the sheer human tragedy and inexcusable horror of men and women in a developed nation going to food banks.  But shouldn't there be young angry film-makers tackling this stuff too?  The other thing that depresses me about this sort of film-making (or the lack thereof) is its efficacy.  I'd almost class some Ken Loach films in that category of agitprop documentary that preaches to the converted.  In other words, the majority of political film-making attracts an audience that already thinks the issues are important.  How many right-wing Fox-news watching people actually pay to watch a film like AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, for instance.

All of which preamble brings us to Louise Osmond's new documentary about Loach's work (ignore the title - the life's only in there insofar as it sets up the work).  It's a nicely constructed retrospective with interviews from key collaborators.  We get the social context of Loach's iconic works, such as KES, CATHY COME HOME and LADYBIRD,  and something of the public conversation they caused.  I think CATHY COME HOME may the one of the few examples of a feature that does what I claimed most agit-prop doesn't - it broke out of the arthouse and into national conversation, changing attitudes.  One certainly hopes the same will be true of I, DANIEL BLAKE.  But what could have easily turned into a piece of hagiography dares to make some bold statements.  Several people refer to Loach's ruthlessness in getting the shot or telling the story he wants to.  (The famous scene where little boys are caned in KES is case in point). Another interview refers to his child-like narcissism which is certainly enabled by being a director. However, I feel the doc. could have explored key controversial incidents more.  In particular, Loach was involved in a production of a play that was pulled because it was deemed anti-semitic.  The way it's told here (and I'm not unsympathetic with that view) is that this was a mistake and that Loach was righteously angry.  But given his record of boycotting festivals and films with Israeli funding one might have wanted to interrogate those highly controversial and potentially offensive views further.

VERSUS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF KEN LOACH has a running time of 94 minutes and is rated 12A.  It is currently on limited release (schedule here) and is available on several streaming services.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP

Jane Austen's novel Lady Susan is an odd fowl - full of the same sparkling wit as her more well-known novels, but with none of their moral conservatism. After all, Austen's best-loved heroines are those that go on journeys of self-awareness and humbling. Emma, Lizzie and Marianne misjudge their love interests, and though, clever, must be humbled before ending up married under the benevolent guidance of their rich older husbands.  In her later novels, it is the men who must do the learning, but nonetheless the novels are conservative in their final choices.  Both Fanny Price and Anne Elliot are ultimately rewarded for their quiet virtue when flashier rivals have been undone.  

By contrast, Austen's Lady Susan is a quite radical novel, and one utterly in contrast with the novels published either in or shortly after her lifetime.  The eponymous heroine has all the sparkling brilliance and beauty of a Lizzie or Emma, but also something of the hard-hearted cynicism and slippery morality of a Becky Sharp.  As a result, the novel and indeed this wonderful new film adaptation, feel rather more like Oscar Wilde than a more staid costume drama.  And this feeling of brilliance mischief is only enhanced by Whit Stillman's superb feeling for comic timing and framing.

Lady Susan is a beautiful, clever but impoverished widow in the late eighteenth century. She's conducting an affair with the divine but married Lord Manwaring, but must simultaneously find both herself and her daughter good husbands. She begins by flirting with her brother-in-law, Reginald de Courcy who is closer in age to her meek daughter Frederica, while trying to foist Frederica on the dull-witted Sir James Martin.  Meanwhile the de Courcy family would of course far prefer the virtuous Frederica for a daughter-in-law, and Lady Susan would rather like to have her cake and eat it.

In Whit Stillman's retelling of this story we move through the various flirtations and marriage plots at a brisk pace and with crackling wit. In a sense, we are in familiar territory to Stillman's DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. For Kate Beckinsale's Lady Susan is very much like Greta Gerwig's Violet - tremendously self-assured and clever and yet brutally bossy and unaware of how absurd half of her pronouncements are.   The best thing you can say about the casting is that you're simultaneously enchanted by Susan and horrified by her.  Indeed, I left the film with a profound regret that Beckinsale has been shoe-horned into schlock B-roles in Hollywood when she could've become a fine dramatic or comedic actress, and certainly someone I would've loved to see play Becky Sharp.

The supporting cast is brilliant although it's the unknown names that shine. Indeed, Chloe Sevigny and Stephen Fry are rather wasted in the smaller roles of Mr and Mrs Johnson - a sly joke being that she will be punished by being taken back to Connecticut ("My dear, you might be scalped!")  There's far more fun to be had watching Tom Bennett as Sir James - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that he almost steals the movie.  And Justin Edwards is superbly funny in a smaller role as Charles Vernon.

The resulting film is laugh out loud funny and satisfyingly cocks-a-snoop at all the predictable morality of classic costume drama.  All the women are clever, even the ones who initially look meek, and all the men are puppets whose emotions and fortunes are directed by them.  To that end, I suspect this might tempt fans of writers such as Thackery and Trollope as well as the Austen fans out there. The only slightly bizarre thing is why Whit Stillman decided to rename Lady Susan as LOVE & FRIENDSHIP unless poking fun at a movie that might have easily been called SEX & MONEY?

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP has a running time of 92 minutes and is rated U.  The movie played Sundance 2016 and is currently on release in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Kuwait and Canada. It opens in Norway on June 17th, in France on June 22nd, in Poland on June 24th, in Portugal on June 30th, in Australia on July 31st, in Denmark on August 11th, in Taiwan on September 2nd, in Sweden on September 23rd and in Brazil on October 27th.

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR is a spy thriller directed by Susanna White (PARADE'S END) and adapted by Hossein Amini (THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY) from a novel by John le Carre.  It stars Ewan McGregor as a feckless cheating academic who tries to redeem himself in his own and his wife's eyes by carrying a message from a Russian mafia money launderer to MI6.  Problem is, aforementioned gangster (Stellan Skarsgaard) doesn't trust the British government to get his family to safety and demands that the husband and wife (Naomie Harris) take part in the negotiations as a vouchsafe.  This is a wise move, as the British spy making the negotiations (Damian Lewis) is in the midst of some backroom politics orchestrated by a corrupt politician (Jeremy Northam).  The result is a thriller than attempts to work on two levels - will the couple and the spies get both the mafiosi and his family out of harm's way?  And will his information expose the corruption at the heart of the City of London?

Sadly, the film fails on all counts. Skarsgaard is horribly mis-cast as the mafioso, Dima.  He makes no attempt at a Russian accent and just acts bigger and louder.  He doesn't come across as a successful financier at all.  McGregor is good as the feckless spy but poor Naomie Harris has very little to do. And Damian Lewis is over-styled and over-broad in his performance - playing a kind of caricature of the over-confident British spy - as if auditioning for some kind of 1970s spy film, or that godawful recent movie remake of TINKER TAILOR.  Behind the camera lens, director Susanna White has no idea how to create a sense of tension in directing action. Scenes in a French sports club are almost laughably absurd as spies and mafiosi dip in and out of steamy saunas and massage rooms.  And the very conceit that somehow an ordinary couple could double up and help out MI6 in extraditing a source is just patent nonsense.  Finally, the film (and arguably the book's) heavy-handed political agenda is just too obvious and lacking in nuance to be interesting.  

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR has a running time of 108 minutes and is rated R. The movie is on release in Italy, Finland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Denmark, Croatia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Serbia, Russia, Estonia, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Kuwait, Bulgaria, Sweden and Lithuania.  It opens in June in Israel, the Netherlands, Ukraine, the Philippines, Belgium and France; in July in the USA, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Singapore, Australia, Greece and Brazil; on August 4th in Thailand; on August 18th in New Zealand; on October 21st in Japan and on November 18th in Spain.

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS

Florence Foster Jenkins was an American heiress whose prodigious career as a concert pianist was cut off cruelly short when she contracted syphilis from her husband and it affected her nervous system. She became a generous patron to the arts, taking starring acting roles in tableaux vivant she had paid to stage for private societies.  Events took a turn, however, when she aspired to become an opera singer, hiring pianist Cosme McMoon as her accompanist.  This dream was abetted by her common-law husband St. Clair Bayfield, who loved her, knew she couldn't sing, and kept the audience limited to friends or critics he could pay off.  Nonetheless, when Jenkins aspired to play Carnegie Hill, even Bayfield couldn't prevent the uninstructed audience booing her off-pitch singing, or particularly snide reviews in the press.

This latest retelling of the story is handsomely directed and acted and provides two hours of great fun, stunning costumes but also, unexpectedly, real pathos.  Hugh Grant excels as the charismatic, fun-filled husband: we understand that he truly loves this eccentric woman even while being in a long-term relationship with another woman.  Meryl Streep is similarly charismatic as Jenkins, and it's quite a feat that two characters who might have been off-putting - the enabling scrounger and the narcissistic wannabe singer - are actually desperately likeable.  Moreover, the skill involved in singing badly is quite astounding and the facial expressions she gives to every phrase are masterclass in comic acting and a  delight to watch.  Rounding out the principle trio, we have THE BIG BANG THEORY's Simon Helberg, who plays pianist Cosme McMoon, the audience surrogate who expresses our surprise that no-one has thought to tell Jenkins that her singing sucks.

Nicholas Martin's script takes the view that Jenkins didn't know how bad her singing was: that when she sang she heard a tuneful voice, and that perhaps the syphilis had affected her hearing.  This is a not uncontroversial view.  But then this film is in the business of giving us a tragic love story which hues broadly to the truth but omits some key facts to burnish the reputations of its lead characters, most obviously that Bayfield married his lover once Jenkins died.  Ultimately, this airbrushing of history is irrelevant. We get to the poignant truth of Jenkins and Bayfield's love - her generous patronage of the arts - and the hilarity and exuberance of their life together.  This could we be one of the finest of director Stephen Frears' (THE PROGRAM) recent films.

FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS has a running time of 111 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The movie is on release in the UK, Ireland and Australia. It opens later in May in Israel and Taiwan; in June in Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece; in July in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and France; in August in Canada, Lithuania, the USA, Poland, Philippines, Denmark and Sweden; in September in Portugal, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Croatia and Macedonia; in November in Norway, Germany and Austria and in December in Japan.

I SAW THE LIGHT

Marc Abraham - long time producer but first time writer-director - has created a duffer of a film in this godawful Hank Williams biopic. And that's no fault of Etonian Brit Tom Hiddleston, cast against type as the 1940s/50s country musician who died at age 29 after a prolific career and prolific alcohol abuse.  The problem is a script and an approach to the life which reveals nothing and lumbers along at a snails-pace.  Abraham decides to pick up Williams' life when he's already a misanthropic drunk, already a talented and well-rehearsed musician, and marrying his talentless wife.  We get no insight into what made him an alcoholic, what attracted him to the wife, or how he learned and formed his craft.  Fine.  At least that clears the way for his career, you might say.  But we get no real insight into how he writes his music, or any context about the music industry at the time.  There might have been a narrative drive from his desire to play the Opry but it never pays off. And there's no context to the music scene at the time, the influences on Williams or the people he played with and influenced. All we have is one scene after another of him pissing off his wife and turning up late for band practice or a recording gig. It's just dull. And then the inevitable happens and he dies.  Worst of all, the director interrupts this "action" with even more cack-handed fake black-and-white vintage footage of Hank's manager commenting on the action in a not particularly illuminating manner.  Avoid.

I SAW THE LIGHT is rated R and is rated 123 minutes. The movie played Toronto 2015.  It was released earlier this year in the USA ad Canada. It is currently on release in the UK and Ireland.  It opens on June 23rd in Denmark and on October 1st in Japan.