THE CONSTANT GARDENER - Above average political thriller

QUICK REVIEW: Intelligent thriller about a British diplomat who, in investigating the death of his wife, stumbles on a conspiracy by big-pharma to test dangerous drugs on poor Africans.

LONG REVIEW: I should first lay out my stall. I love John le Carre. He is, to my mind, one of the finest novelists of the twentieth century and has extended his analysis of the miserable, unglamorous, morally cloudy, world of Cold War intelligence to the similarly dark underbelly of multi-national corporations. His novel The Constant Gardener, tells the story of a radical young woman called Tessa who marries a low-level diplomat called Justin, based in Nairobi, Kenya. The first scenes show her husband react to the news of her murder. The story then tells, in a combination of flashback and normal narrative, how in investigating her murder he comes to understand his wife and truly fall in love with her.

Rachel Weisz (most famous as the chick from “The Mummy” and one of Hugh Grant’s many squeezes in “About a Boy”) plays Tessa with just the right mixture of good intentions and a slightly annoying gung-ho, selfish attitude. Her character is not meant to be a paragon but a real woman who means well and tries to do right even if using odd tactics. It is refreshing to see such a multi-dimensional portrait brought to the screen. Her husband is played by Ralph Fiennes, who I think is immensely good. His character is a nice, slightly unsure diplomat, unwilling to rock the boat, but fundamentally decent. When faced by matters of global import he does not turn into James Bond, but his integrity carries him through. The penultimate scene of the movie, where he fully comes to terms with his predicament and what his wife’s life was, is outstanding.

The movie also has a decent cast of supporting actors although it is slightly irksome to see the Brit, Pete Postlethwaite, play a South African with an appallingly bad attempt at the accent. Moreover, Danny Huston, a Yank who went to school in the UK, somewhat fumbles his attempt at a Brit accent for the role of the ambassador. However, all this is offset by the scene-stealing performance by Bill Nighy (“Love, Actually”) as the man from Whitehall. His casual cruelty is unnerving precisely because he is so charming. A true villain for the age of bureaucracy.

The movie is directed by Fernando Meirelles, who had such success with “City of God” and is shot with the same saturated colours and crazy hand—held camera-work. I find it a little over-done in this context, and it is worth contrasting his hyper-active video-game style with Michael Haneke’s still, long takes in the more successful thriller, Hidden. But there is no doubt that Meirelles makes Kenya’s northern regions look stunningly beautiful. For that reason, it is worth trying to see this in the big screen rather than on DVD. Overall, while there may be one or two slightly better movies out there – notably Hidden and “A History of Violence”, this movie stands head and shoulders above most of the dross currently showing. I think the rumours of Oscars are over-done, but you could do a lot worse.

THE CONSTANT GARDENER was released in August in the US. It goes on release in the UK on the 11th November, in France on the 28th December, and in Germany on the 12th January 2006.

Early review of PROOF – When formulae fail

You can just see the Weinstein boys and their monkeys at Miramax huddled round an excel file plugging in known variables: Oscar-nominated director (John Madden), check; Oscar-winning actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), check; Oscar-winning actor (Anthony Hopkins), check; cool Sundance-award-winning screenwriter (Rebecca Miller), check; plot point similarity to multi-Oscar winning movie, (“A beautiful mind”), check. With the tried and tested formula for a high-grossing award-winning movie in place, what can go wrong?!

Nearly everything. This is a movie based on a play by David Auburn, and reunites director John Madden and actress Gwyneth Paltrow from their recent success on the West End stage and in “Shakespeare in Love”. Paltrow is Catherine, a Math whiz from Chicago who gives up her own grad-work to care for her mentally-ill father, Robert. Robert, played by Anthony Hopkins (best-known as Hannibal Lecter), was a genius who transformed numerous fields of Mathematics in his youth. When Robert dies, his former student, Hal, played by Jake Gyllenhaal (“Donnie Darko”) discovers a ground-breaking new proof among his papers. The second half of the movie hinges on whether Robert or Catherine wrote it.

First off, there is a lot of stuff that, if not “right”, is “not wrong” with PROOF. The acting, editing, photography, set design etc. are all workman-like and the script is funny in unexpected places and touching where it should be. Better still, there is not that obvious tugging of the heart strings that you get with all sentimental Ron Howard movies, notably “A beautiful mind” and “Cinderella Man”.

But I found it very had to care either way who wrote the proof, or to empathise with Catherine’s fear that she, too, is going mad. I think the problem is one of authenticity. In films like “A beautiful mind” and Hustle and Flow it is essential that we believe that the protagonist could have authored the product around which the plot turns, and that we believe that the product is of sufficiently high quality to warrant the hoop-la. So, in “A beautiful mind” we have a nice little explanation of, at a very simple level, Nash equilibria, and we see their importance to a variety of different fields. In a very different film, Hustle and Flow, we hear D-Jay write and perform rap songs and these songs are really really good. We believe that he could have a career as a recording artist. The problem here is that we do not really buy into the idea that either Hopkins or Paltrow are gifted mathematicians, or have a sense of Hopkins greatness. And without that, it all seems like so much shouting about not much in particular.

PROOF was released in September in the US and opens on 24th February 2006 in the UK.

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED - Well, not quite

What’s not to love about a film where there is a running joke taking the piss out of vegetarians and one of the lead characters is a Ukrainian Ali G? (Apologies, Veronika and Katya.)

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is based on the best-selling book by Jonathan Safran Foer - a book which I have admittedly not read. Writer/director Liev Schreiber focuses on one strand of the novel and tells the story of young Jewish geek called Jonathan Safran Foer (genius!) who goes to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his recently deceased grandfather from the Holocaust. Jonathan is played by Elijah Wood (that’s The Hobbit, to you) in a serviceable performance, but in truth he has little to do but be a cipher, wear ridiculous glasses and occasionally put things in Ziploc bags.

Jonathan has three Ukrainian guides: Alex Perchov – the Ali G of Odessa; his grandfather, who affects blindness and anti-semitism; and the grandfather’s “seeing-eye Bitch” Sammy Davis Junior Junior. Alex is a fantastic comic creation and is brought to life superbly by relative newcomer Eugene Hutz. His slight mis-steps with the English language are hilarious as is his wannabe B-boy pose: “All the ladies are wanting to get carnal with me because of my premium dance moves.” As a result, the first 45 minutes of this movie move along quickly with lots of laughs and more than a little debt to the shooting and cutting techniques that Guy Ritchie used in “Snatch”.

However, half way through, this movie flips into something altogether more ponderous, and in my view, less successful. It becomes clear that the real protagonist is not Jonathan but the grandfather, who must confront what happened to him during the war. The movie becomes very earnest indeed, and rather than letting the audience draw its own conclusions as to the weightiness of the subject matter, the Director hits us over the head with over-long close ups, and a Lord of the Rings style never-ending ending.

Overall, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is a decent film – especially the first half - but is let down by the turgid pacing of the final scenes. The direction, photography, sound, editing are all fine but nothing amazing, and I was astonished to see that Liev Schreiber won the Laterna Magica at the Venice Film Festival this year for this, his directorial debut. It’s worth checking out, but you could happily wait for the DVD.

EVERTHING IS ILLUMINATED is already on release in the US and goes on nationwide release in the UK on the 25th November. I am not aware of the European release dates.

LONESOME JIM – Why oh why oh why oh why?

What is it with successful Hollywood actors and directors that they feel the need to go back to small towns and make deathly dull earnest movies of charming small town folk who look terrible, say nothing witty, do nothing of consequence and then die? We know life sucks. That is why we go to the movies. We want guns, fast cars, and hot chicks in Santa outfits. Enough with the white man’s version of keeping it real. Let’s keep it fake. That’s why God invested plastic.
You think I’m kidding? Lonesome Jim (Casey Affleck – and yes, he is related to Ben) is a 27 year old guy from Indiana who moved to New York and ended up walking dogs for a living. He comes home to have a nervous breakdown, is mean to his mum, ignores his dad (Seymour Cassel), depresses his elder brother so much he attempts suicide, improbably shags Liv Tyler (the chick who marries Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) and nearly messes that up too. Don’t get me wrong. All these people give great acting performances, but they have little to work with.
The movie is shot with a digital camera (the Panasonic AG-DVX100 for all you camera geeks) and the resulting print looks grainy and washed out. This is not (I think, I hope) a deliberately cultivated aesthetic. Some other random facts and assertions…..Apparently it cost $500,000 to make. I assume this is Taiwanese dollars not US dollars. LONESOME JIM was also nominated for the Grand Jury prize at Sundance back in January, but didn’t win. 40% of people who rated this on IMDB gave it ten out of ten. I am willing to bet that 100% of these people attended film school.

LONESOME JIM premiered at Sundance back in January 2005 but only goes on limited US release from 10th March 2006. There is currently no European release date, thank God. For once, I think the distributors have this down. Apart from some film geek gawpers who would turn up to see Buscemi sneeze, who is really going to shell out ten squid to see this?

THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES - traum-cinema

THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES is a stunnigly beautiful mood-piece from the imaginations of the Quay Brothers. Turning from their beloved puppet animation they have created a live action feature that is a rare treat of visual style and evocation. It is quite simply unique. The story revolves around a mysterious Doctor Emmanuel Droz (Gottfried John) who lives on a sort of Prospero's island populated by disarmingly life-like automata and his house-keeper, Assumpta (Assumpta Serna - veteran of early Almodovar.) Droz has taken a beautiful dead opera singer to his island. In life, he haunted her performances, phantom-like and in death he summons a piano-tuner, who looks mysteriously like the singer's fiancee to his island...

This is no ordinary film. It feels like watching an old silent movie, where events unravel at a leisurely pace and the landscape is full of surrealist imagery. It is about longing, sexual desire and the power of dreams and fantasy. It is certainly not for everyone and at all times - I suspect you have to be in the right mood for it - but I was lucky and found it utterly bewitching.

THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES was shown at the London Film Festival. It opens in the UK in February 2006, in Germany in August, in France in September, and in the US in November 2006.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM – Napoleonic Ghostbusters

In this movie, the Brothers Grimm are con artists who ride around rural French-occupied Germany faking witches and goblins to scare superstitious German peasants and then vanquishing with the help of shiny armour, explosives and catapults, all for a big fat fee. Heath Ledger (10 Things I Hate About You, Monster’s Ball) gives a very enjoyable performance as geek, scholar and believer in magic, Jakob Grimm. Half the time he is channelling Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys – all rapid-fire dialogue and facial ticks. The other half of the time he is channelling Steve Coogan as Alan Patridge. The performance is not quite the sum of its parts, but is enjoyable nonetheless. Matt Damon plays William Grimm, who emphatically does not believe in magic but in making money by exploiting the dumb-ass peasants. A worthy aim indeed.

Everything is ticking over nicely until they are sent by the Napoleonic head honcho to Marbaden to rescue the little girls who have gone missing in the words and are respectively excited and horrified to discover that there really is something in the woodshed – namely Monica Bellucci (Matrix, The Passion of the Christ) as a five hundred year old witch trapped in a mirror.

There are significant flaws with this movie. The French general, Delattombe, and his Italian sidekick, Cavaldi, are played by Jonathan Pryce (Evita, Brazil) and Peter Stormare (The Big Lebowski) as caricatures – absurd costumes and accents. What passed for humour in 1980s sitcoms like “’Allo, ‘Allo” and “Fawlty Towers” just isn’t funny anymore - it’s lazy.

But there is a lot to like. At its heart, there is a serious discussion about how much native culture was lost when the Christians took over Europe, and of the Enligtenment battle between faith and reason. There are many obvious and subtle references to fairy tales, all beautifully re-created with a seamless blending of CGI and old school cinematographic techniques. The whole thing is a visual feast with a few good one-liners thrown in.

Like any Terry Gilliam film, this was beset by funding difficulties. MGM pulled out at the last minute and the Weinsteins took over production. They vetoed Samantha Morton as the female lead, fired the Director of Photography, Nicola Pecorini for going to slowly and generally ticked Gilliam off. Finally, the release was pushed back to allow Miramax’s movie The 40 year old virgin to retain its number one spot in the US box office. The film was likewise mistreated by the US critics who, to a man, called it a rambling mess – albeit visually stunning. On the upside, the film was finished, unlike the ill-fated "Don Quixote", and was released, and it is not a mess. It is highly enjoyable, pure entertainment. One last thing, if you are going to see this movie you should try to make it to a cinema rather than waiting for the DVD to get the full benefit of the production design.

The Brothers Grimm has been on release in the US since the 26th August, in France and Germany since the 5th October and finally goes on Nationwide release in the UK on the 4th November.