(John Carney, 2016)
I was brought up in 1980s Dublin. I went to a Christian Brothers all-boys Secondary school in a rough area. I loved music; as an escape, as a release.
Sing Street, then, spoke to me in a way few films do. The story of a 15 year old middle class boy transferred from his posh school (the way the Christian Brothers contemptuously refer to "Jesuits" gets across something hilarious and profound about Irish culture in two syllables) to a much rougher one nearby and escapes the brutality and bleakness of life in '80s Dublin through pop music is joyous and funny throughout, but in a very Irish way, it is never blind to the realities of the world it portrays.
That means that Carney shows how Dublin - perhaps the poorest capital city in Europe in the '80s - was subject to deprivation and social issues.
The background to the story is filled with absent parents; alcoholism, heroin addiction, mental health issues. Shot on location around Dublin's working class inner city, Carney sets much of the story in the council estates that ring the city centre. Here they are full of graffiti and litter; crumbling and in undeniable disrepair. But the story seems all set in summer - sunshine fills this film until the last scene, and the day-glo '80s fashions both accentuate this lightness and positivity and are given a strange context by the daylight; velvet suits and goth make-up look beautifully ridiculous in a street in afternoon sunlight.
Our lead is Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), whose parents (Aidan Gillen and Maria Doyle-Kennedy) are enduring a crumbling marriage and reduced economic circumstances. He moves to Synge Street Christian Brothers school, where he is bullied both by students and staff (the film subtly acknowledges the abuse that was still a feature of such schools in that era) and is only saved when he sees Raphina (Lucy Boynton) on the steps of the Girls Home opposite the school. To impress her, he invents a band on the spot and invites her to star in their video. So then he has to recruit band members, write a song and make a demo.
Things snowball from there, as the band (Sing Street) improve and bond, while Conor and Raphina develop a connection. All the while Conor is guided by his stoner dropout of an older brother (Jack Reynor).
Just as in his breakthrough Once, Carney is perhaps most at home with the scenes of musical discovery - the bits here where Conor and his bandmate Eamonn write songs together are full of a sense of excitement and potential - and Conor's love of music runs parallel with his love of Raphina. The romance works even if both leads are slightly miscast. Boynton is suitably beautiful - she is meant to stand out in '80s Dublin, and she does - but her accent wavers all over the place. Walsh-Peelo never has the charisma or complexity of a lead. Indeed, Reynor blows him off screen in their shared scenes. But he does well with the musical scenes and much of the comedy, a lot of which is carried by the supporting characters.
The richly detailed world here is what makes the film work so well. Each character has an inner life, every detail makes sense. The music is lovely, and the cut from Hall & Oates' "Maneater" to the boy's rip-off is a brilliant moment. The ending is feel-good in the best way, and the themes of brotherhood and creativity are nicely developed throughout.
Plus: it is really funny.
Showing posts with label coming of age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coming of age. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 April 2016
Monday, 17 August 2015
THEEB
(Naji Abu Nowar, 2014)
Theeb is the name of our protagonist here. A young boy, living with a Bedouin tribe somewhere in the Arabian desert, we first encounter him playing with his older brother, learning how to shoot a rifle, and watching the men as they chat and play games. Then an English soldier arrives at their camp in the dead of night, accompanied by a native guide, and we realise that it is some time during WW1 and the tribe exists somewhere on the outskirts of the Ottoman Empire.
The Englishman needs a guide to a well across the desert, and Theeb's brother Hussein is chosen. Theeb, intrigued by this blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigner (played by Jack Fox with more than a touch of T.E. Lawrence to him) and a bit bored with life, follows even though the trail is known for its raiders.
When some raiders are encountered in a brutal sequence of violence and suspense, Theeb learns much about the world, survival and himself.
Theeb feels like it could have been made at any point over the last four decades - it is a classic, timeless adventure story with old-fashioned virtues. The story-telling is clear and attentive to texture and sensual details; what it feels like to drink at a well after hours trekking across the desert, how it feels to know there is someone approaching in the darkness beyond a campfire, what rifle fire pinging off rock over your head is like. Because it is told from the perspective of a young boy, the plot moves in spurts - Theeb never understands why events occur or what they mean. The Englishman's reason for being there only becomes evident in the last scene, and the boy clings to the narrative with grim determination as events envelop him. Nowar makes sure that the story is always involving, and if the gripping material only kicks in during certain passages, his way with atmosphere and landscape are impressive for a debutant director.
Indeed, he is able to combine such a simple, exciting story with rich thematic ground - the film is really about the death of tradition at the hands of modernity, as one of its final shots makes clear, with Theeb riding a camel as a steam-train cuts across the desert ahead of him.
Theeb is the name of our protagonist here. A young boy, living with a Bedouin tribe somewhere in the Arabian desert, we first encounter him playing with his older brother, learning how to shoot a rifle, and watching the men as they chat and play games. Then an English soldier arrives at their camp in the dead of night, accompanied by a native guide, and we realise that it is some time during WW1 and the tribe exists somewhere on the outskirts of the Ottoman Empire.
The Englishman needs a guide to a well across the desert, and Theeb's brother Hussein is chosen. Theeb, intrigued by this blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigner (played by Jack Fox with more than a touch of T.E. Lawrence to him) and a bit bored with life, follows even though the trail is known for its raiders.
When some raiders are encountered in a brutal sequence of violence and suspense, Theeb learns much about the world, survival and himself.
Theeb feels like it could have been made at any point over the last four decades - it is a classic, timeless adventure story with old-fashioned virtues. The story-telling is clear and attentive to texture and sensual details; what it feels like to drink at a well after hours trekking across the desert, how it feels to know there is someone approaching in the darkness beyond a campfire, what rifle fire pinging off rock over your head is like. Because it is told from the perspective of a young boy, the plot moves in spurts - Theeb never understands why events occur or what they mean. The Englishman's reason for being there only becomes evident in the last scene, and the boy clings to the narrative with grim determination as events envelop him. Nowar makes sure that the story is always involving, and if the gripping material only kicks in during certain passages, his way with atmosphere and landscape are impressive for a debutant director.
Indeed, he is able to combine such a simple, exciting story with rich thematic ground - the film is really about the death of tradition at the hands of modernity, as one of its final shots makes clear, with Theeb riding a camel as a steam-train cuts across the desert ahead of him.
Monday, 3 August 2015
INSIDE OUT
(Pete Docter, 2015)
Pixar returns with the first Pixar film to feel like the way we used to see Pixar films in an age. That is to say that Inside Out is beautiful, and incredibly cleverly-conceived and moving without ever once becoming cloying. Its a Pixar film, in other words.
It explores some profound ideas with an incredibly light touch, and manages to remain a fun and colourful adventure through the beautifully-realised landscape of a little girls mind while also addressing the importance of sadness to growth, the way we process the end of childhood, the difficulty of abstract concepts like "bittersweet" and "nostalgia" and what elements actually constitute our personality and how and when they change.
It is lovely; sweet, imaginative, touching, full of great ideas, brilliant gags and nicely-executed drama.
Pixar returns with the first Pixar film to feel like the way we used to see Pixar films in an age. That is to say that Inside Out is beautiful, and incredibly cleverly-conceived and moving without ever once becoming cloying. Its a Pixar film, in other words.
It explores some profound ideas with an incredibly light touch, and manages to remain a fun and colourful adventure through the beautifully-realised landscape of a little girls mind while also addressing the importance of sadness to growth, the way we process the end of childhood, the difficulty of abstract concepts like "bittersweet" and "nostalgia" and what elements actually constitute our personality and how and when they change.
It is lovely; sweet, imaginative, touching, full of great ideas, brilliant gags and nicely-executed drama.
Monday, 15 June 2015
THE MAZE RUNNER
(Wes Ball, 2014)
For the first two acts, this is quite a taut and brutal little genre film. That is if you can forgive the way it fulfils every Y.A. consideration to an almost parodic degree, and the way its violence is toned down to allow its target audience to see it on a big screen.
Teenagers forced to play a bloody game, a chosen one protagonist who doesn't really understand what is going on, enemies and allies among his peer group that echo nothing so much as high school, mysterious, cruel adults; a hint of romance, nature vs technology as a motif, a young innocent sacrificed...it's all there, ticked off. But those first two acts are quite pacy, embed the exposition well, and feature a few decently effective spills and thrills.
This is more solidly a sci-fi action film than the likes of The Hunger Games and Divergent (it may be relevant that this film, with its hero rather than heroine, is aimed squarely at a boy rather than girl demographic), and it has moments of horror in the scenes of the Greavers, genetically engineered cyborg-spiders that patrol the maze. It is nice to look at, the effects are fine, and the young cast do quite well with the material.
But then the final act begins to solve some of the mysteries, and it all gets quite tedious and wearyingly predictable, from who dies to how to that final ambiguous scene. And the promise of the sequel just ruins everything.
For the first two acts, this is quite a taut and brutal little genre film. That is if you can forgive the way it fulfils every Y.A. consideration to an almost parodic degree, and the way its violence is toned down to allow its target audience to see it on a big screen.
Teenagers forced to play a bloody game, a chosen one protagonist who doesn't really understand what is going on, enemies and allies among his peer group that echo nothing so much as high school, mysterious, cruel adults; a hint of romance, nature vs technology as a motif, a young innocent sacrificed...it's all there, ticked off. But those first two acts are quite pacy, embed the exposition well, and feature a few decently effective spills and thrills.
This is more solidly a sci-fi action film than the likes of The Hunger Games and Divergent (it may be relevant that this film, with its hero rather than heroine, is aimed squarely at a boy rather than girl demographic), and it has moments of horror in the scenes of the Greavers, genetically engineered cyborg-spiders that patrol the maze. It is nice to look at, the effects are fine, and the young cast do quite well with the material.
But then the final act begins to solve some of the mysteries, and it all gets quite tedious and wearyingly predictable, from who dies to how to that final ambiguous scene. And the promise of the sequel just ruins everything.
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
THE INBETWEENERS 2
(Damon Beesley, Iain Morris, 2014)
What made the television show The Inbetweeners so good - apart from the fact that it was genuinely funny - was that the four teenage boys at its centre were instantly recognisable as authentic, realistic teenage boys. Not the heightened, glamourised versions we usually get in tv and (especially) cinema, no; these boys were pathetic, confused, socially awkward, bitter, ignorant, sexually frustrated and generally horrible to one another. The writers and creators - Beesley and Morris, who here take over the direction too - placed these figures in some recognisable situations too, adding just a touch of comedic exaggeration and letting them loose. The result was a show that usually reduced me to tears of laughter at least once an episode, while always retaining its truthfulness in the form of the four boys at its heart.
This sequel to the original 2011 cinematic spin-off from the series finds those boys just on the cusp of manhood. Will (Simon Bird) and Simon (Joe Thomas) are at university, while Neil (Blake Harrison) works in a bank and Jay (James Buckley) is on a Gap Year in Australia. His email home to Neil, full of lies and fantasies, convinces the others to visit him for a two week holiday, but there tensions surface between a resentful Will and the others.
Where this is less successful than the tv show or even the first film is in it's story; there is a little too much obvious invention here, too much that feels like the silly imaginings of screenwriters trying desperately to find funny situations for their heroes. The pretentions and ridiculousness of British backpackers is surgically skewered here (competitive conversations about "amazing experiences", people playing guitar badly by campfires, white rastas etc) but it never has teh universality of the best story lines from the tv series. But even then, it is consistently funny, and one of the big comic set-pieces is brilliantly managed despite it's awesomely crude, broad humour.
It never really looks like a movie, but what really makes it work is what always made the tv show so good: it might just be the truest, most believable portrayal of teenage boys and friendship I've ever seen. That is partly down to the four leads, and mostly to the writing. These boys are always at each other, never letting anything go, always competing and bickering, their insults reliably bitter and hurtful. If that sounds unpleasant, then it ignores the warmth in the characterisation, the fondness for these boys and the dynamic between them, one that the film itself explicitly acknowledges.
What made the television show The Inbetweeners so good - apart from the fact that it was genuinely funny - was that the four teenage boys at its centre were instantly recognisable as authentic, realistic teenage boys. Not the heightened, glamourised versions we usually get in tv and (especially) cinema, no; these boys were pathetic, confused, socially awkward, bitter, ignorant, sexually frustrated and generally horrible to one another. The writers and creators - Beesley and Morris, who here take over the direction too - placed these figures in some recognisable situations too, adding just a touch of comedic exaggeration and letting them loose. The result was a show that usually reduced me to tears of laughter at least once an episode, while always retaining its truthfulness in the form of the four boys at its heart.
This sequel to the original 2011 cinematic spin-off from the series finds those boys just on the cusp of manhood. Will (Simon Bird) and Simon (Joe Thomas) are at university, while Neil (Blake Harrison) works in a bank and Jay (James Buckley) is on a Gap Year in Australia. His email home to Neil, full of lies and fantasies, convinces the others to visit him for a two week holiday, but there tensions surface between a resentful Will and the others.
Where this is less successful than the tv show or even the first film is in it's story; there is a little too much obvious invention here, too much that feels like the silly imaginings of screenwriters trying desperately to find funny situations for their heroes. The pretentions and ridiculousness of British backpackers is surgically skewered here (competitive conversations about "amazing experiences", people playing guitar badly by campfires, white rastas etc) but it never has teh universality of the best story lines from the tv series. But even then, it is consistently funny, and one of the big comic set-pieces is brilliantly managed despite it's awesomely crude, broad humour.
It never really looks like a movie, but what really makes it work is what always made the tv show so good: it might just be the truest, most believable portrayal of teenage boys and friendship I've ever seen. That is partly down to the four leads, and mostly to the writing. These boys are always at each other, never letting anything go, always competing and bickering, their insults reliably bitter and hurtful. If that sounds unpleasant, then it ignores the warmth in the characterisation, the fondness for these boys and the dynamic between them, one that the film itself explicitly acknowledges.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
BOYHOOD
(Richard Linklater, 2014)
So much cinema is about so little. Filmmakers manufacture conflict, finesse character arcs and shape story lines, all to bow down to the great God of "story". That is obviously not a bad thing in every case. But when that story is about nothing, amounts to nothing, says nothing, provokes nothing; when real life and humanity and thought is more or less absent from a work of "art", it can be hard not to ask yourself what is the point of it.
Richard Linklater generally makes films about life. That sounds like a simple, small, obvious thing. But in modern American cinema it is precious and actually quite rare. And Boyhood may be his best conceived and most fully articulated work; a film about the magic of everyday life and how difficult that is to appreciate, a film about time and the way it slowly steals our lives from us, minute by minute, day by day.
The process is the aspect of this production most of the promotional material focuses upon; shot for a short period with the same cast annually for twelve years, we watch young Texan Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grow up as his life and circumstances change around him. His mother (Patricia Arquette) grows from a stressed young single Mom into a College Professor, mourning the loss of her life as her youngest child prepares to leave the nest, acquiring and shedding a couple of husbands along the way. His father (Ethan Hawke) goes from an irresponsible but fun free spirit to a "boring old fart" with a mini-van and a new young family, consistently giving Mason heartfelt advice based on his own mistakes and revelations.
His sister (Lorelai Linklater) and he move house several times, change schools and stepdads, by turns stoic and petulant. All of these characters are complicated and believable, their complexities and quirks revealed incrementally over the years. Mason himself is a quiet, watchful presence for most of the first half of the film; we hear other people's opinions of him more than we hear his own. And then puberty hits, shockingly, and he is suddenly a pretty, moody teen, and a conversation with his father on a camping trip is followed later by a long reveal of his sensitivity and distinctive view of the world in a romantic chat with his first love. Suddenly this young man comes into focus, a product of all the influences we have glimpsed, and more fascinating for that.
There is something so casually profound in this it is almost impossible to process on a first viewing. Like in life, scenes just pass by, people change, circumstances alter. This prosaic quality is a big part of what makes the film so profound. This could be any life, every life. Linklater refuses the easy dramatic option on so many occasions it cannot help but underline this universality. The one real passage of melodrama - his mother marries an alcoholic at one point, and his abusive, violent nature doesn't take too long to reveal itself - is shocking because it is so different from the rest of the film. It is also brilliantly written and acted, and, like everything else here, beautifully naturalistic. The cast are all excellent - so much falls upon Coltrane's shoulders and he carries that effortlessly, with a quiet, mysterious charisma that is intensely watchable. Arquette reveals her character's strength best in desperate times, and her final moment of emotion as her son leaves may be the most moving moment in the film, and Hawke has perhaps the showiest role and really, evidently enjoys that and the many speeches he gets to make about women and politics and the Beatles and the meaning of life.
While Boyhood is fundamentally a coming of age story, it is so many other things besides. It is a story of family, of how we need and rely on support networks, of how parenthood changes people. It subtly portrays the way technology has changed our lives over the last decade. It's soundtrack is perhaps a tad too on-the-nose at times in its use of so much indie to track Mason's movement through the Noughties.
It contains lovely little moments and juxtapositions like the one where we see him shyly walking and talking with a female schoolfriend who informs him her friend has a crush on him, then witness him and his friends acting experienced and knowing about females with the older brother of a friend.
It offers a telling, poetic portrayal of young love and its inevitable dissolution. And miraculously it ends on a lovely moment of promise, potential and excitement.
It runs for almost three hours; yet flies by, and I didn't want it to end. It is magnificent.
So much cinema is about so little. Filmmakers manufacture conflict, finesse character arcs and shape story lines, all to bow down to the great God of "story". That is obviously not a bad thing in every case. But when that story is about nothing, amounts to nothing, says nothing, provokes nothing; when real life and humanity and thought is more or less absent from a work of "art", it can be hard not to ask yourself what is the point of it.
Richard Linklater generally makes films about life. That sounds like a simple, small, obvious thing. But in modern American cinema it is precious and actually quite rare. And Boyhood may be his best conceived and most fully articulated work; a film about the magic of everyday life and how difficult that is to appreciate, a film about time and the way it slowly steals our lives from us, minute by minute, day by day.
The process is the aspect of this production most of the promotional material focuses upon; shot for a short period with the same cast annually for twelve years, we watch young Texan Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grow up as his life and circumstances change around him. His mother (Patricia Arquette) grows from a stressed young single Mom into a College Professor, mourning the loss of her life as her youngest child prepares to leave the nest, acquiring and shedding a couple of husbands along the way. His father (Ethan Hawke) goes from an irresponsible but fun free spirit to a "boring old fart" with a mini-van and a new young family, consistently giving Mason heartfelt advice based on his own mistakes and revelations.
His sister (Lorelai Linklater) and he move house several times, change schools and stepdads, by turns stoic and petulant. All of these characters are complicated and believable, their complexities and quirks revealed incrementally over the years. Mason himself is a quiet, watchful presence for most of the first half of the film; we hear other people's opinions of him more than we hear his own. And then puberty hits, shockingly, and he is suddenly a pretty, moody teen, and a conversation with his father on a camping trip is followed later by a long reveal of his sensitivity and distinctive view of the world in a romantic chat with his first love. Suddenly this young man comes into focus, a product of all the influences we have glimpsed, and more fascinating for that.
There is something so casually profound in this it is almost impossible to process on a first viewing. Like in life, scenes just pass by, people change, circumstances alter. This prosaic quality is a big part of what makes the film so profound. This could be any life, every life. Linklater refuses the easy dramatic option on so many occasions it cannot help but underline this universality. The one real passage of melodrama - his mother marries an alcoholic at one point, and his abusive, violent nature doesn't take too long to reveal itself - is shocking because it is so different from the rest of the film. It is also brilliantly written and acted, and, like everything else here, beautifully naturalistic. The cast are all excellent - so much falls upon Coltrane's shoulders and he carries that effortlessly, with a quiet, mysterious charisma that is intensely watchable. Arquette reveals her character's strength best in desperate times, and her final moment of emotion as her son leaves may be the most moving moment in the film, and Hawke has perhaps the showiest role and really, evidently enjoys that and the many speeches he gets to make about women and politics and the Beatles and the meaning of life.
While Boyhood is fundamentally a coming of age story, it is so many other things besides. It is a story of family, of how we need and rely on support networks, of how parenthood changes people. It subtly portrays the way technology has changed our lives over the last decade. It's soundtrack is perhaps a tad too on-the-nose at times in its use of so much indie to track Mason's movement through the Noughties.
It contains lovely little moments and juxtapositions like the one where we see him shyly walking and talking with a female schoolfriend who informs him her friend has a crush on him, then witness him and his friends acting experienced and knowing about females with the older brother of a friend.
It offers a telling, poetic portrayal of young love and its inevitable dissolution. And miraculously it ends on a lovely moment of promise, potential and excitement.
It runs for almost three hours; yet flies by, and I didn't want it to end. It is magnificent.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
HOW I LIVE NOW
(Kevin MacDonald, 2013)
How I Live Now presents WWIII from a single viewpoint. That viewpoint belongs to Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), an annoying American teen spending a summer in rural England with her cousins. Daisy has issues - ignored by her father who has remarried and is enjoying a new baby, she mourns the mother who died giving birth to her, and we overhear the white noise of her thoughts, a stream of unfocused anger and self-help tips. But her cousins are joyously unsupervised (their mother is tellingly absent working on some "peace process") and Daisy is soon won over by their chaotic, fun lifestyle. She also falls in love with the eldest, the intense, moony Edmund (George MacKay), as the world appears to open up to her. MacDonald shoots all this to best emphasise the picturesque beauty of rural England; sunlight through trees, streams twisting alongside fields, children skipping across meadow. These scenes of rural idyll are scored to the likes of the Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, and the beauty of it all makes it unsurprising - unavoidable, perhaps - that Edmund and Daisy should fall so hard for each other.
And then the bomb falls. One scene is interrupted by a sudden rush of wind, a distant whomp, and then a rain of ash. The children freeze, the quiet horror of what has happened evident even to them. London has been bombed, the war begun. Soon the power will be gone, the food run out.
After that the army will come, separating girls and boys. Daisy and her young cousin Piper wind up on a work farm, but Daisy has told Edmund she will return to the house, and driven by her love for him, she and Piper desperately attempt to gain their freedom.
The last act of the film is harrowing and unbelievably dark for what is otherwise a teenage coming of age romance. The scenes of war, when they do come, are beautifully effective for being limited to one viewpoint. Daisy barely has any idea of what is going on - tv and radio speak of terrorists, poisoned water supplies, and the countryside is transformed into a sinister landscape like something from a 1970s UK television show (Survivors, most obviously) - grimly pretty, filled with threatening strangers, burning houses, eerily abandoned towns and clapped out land rovers. The glimpses we get of the enemy are frightening but vague; we don't know who they are or where they're from, but they kill young men, rape women and burn villages down.
Through this world Daisy and Piper trek; driven remorselessly by Daisy's need to see Edmond again. The all-consuming nature of her passion for him is skillfully evoked by MacDonald and his trio of screenwriters, but more specifically by Ronan and MacKay, whose mute physical chemistry is aided by her charisma and his introspective charm. The link they forge early on carries the emotional load through the ordeal of the third act, making the climax surprisingly emotionally charged and moving.
Daisy's character arc feels hard-won and true, not mandated by screenwriting rules, a rarity in a film based on a young adult novel.
Ronan's commitment plays a big part in that, but it is MacDonald's direction that makes the film feel so gritty, its textures so vivid and distinctive. He includes one too many montages, but How I Live Now is beautiful, tough, and strange. He has had an odd, schizophrenic career, from his many high-quality documentaries (Touching the Void, most impressively) to his somewhat anonymous but generally decent feature films, which makes him seem like an exceptionally capable craftsman without much of an individual voice. There are worse things for a director to be.
How I Live Now presents WWIII from a single viewpoint. That viewpoint belongs to Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), an annoying American teen spending a summer in rural England with her cousins. Daisy has issues - ignored by her father who has remarried and is enjoying a new baby, she mourns the mother who died giving birth to her, and we overhear the white noise of her thoughts, a stream of unfocused anger and self-help tips. But her cousins are joyously unsupervised (their mother is tellingly absent working on some "peace process") and Daisy is soon won over by their chaotic, fun lifestyle. She also falls in love with the eldest, the intense, moony Edmund (George MacKay), as the world appears to open up to her. MacDonald shoots all this to best emphasise the picturesque beauty of rural England; sunlight through trees, streams twisting alongside fields, children skipping across meadow. These scenes of rural idyll are scored to the likes of the Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, and the beauty of it all makes it unsurprising - unavoidable, perhaps - that Edmund and Daisy should fall so hard for each other.
And then the bomb falls. One scene is interrupted by a sudden rush of wind, a distant whomp, and then a rain of ash. The children freeze, the quiet horror of what has happened evident even to them. London has been bombed, the war begun. Soon the power will be gone, the food run out.
After that the army will come, separating girls and boys. Daisy and her young cousin Piper wind up on a work farm, but Daisy has told Edmund she will return to the house, and driven by her love for him, she and Piper desperately attempt to gain their freedom.
The last act of the film is harrowing and unbelievably dark for what is otherwise a teenage coming of age romance. The scenes of war, when they do come, are beautifully effective for being limited to one viewpoint. Daisy barely has any idea of what is going on - tv and radio speak of terrorists, poisoned water supplies, and the countryside is transformed into a sinister landscape like something from a 1970s UK television show (Survivors, most obviously) - grimly pretty, filled with threatening strangers, burning houses, eerily abandoned towns and clapped out land rovers. The glimpses we get of the enemy are frightening but vague; we don't know who they are or where they're from, but they kill young men, rape women and burn villages down.
Through this world Daisy and Piper trek; driven remorselessly by Daisy's need to see Edmond again. The all-consuming nature of her passion for him is skillfully evoked by MacDonald and his trio of screenwriters, but more specifically by Ronan and MacKay, whose mute physical chemistry is aided by her charisma and his introspective charm. The link they forge early on carries the emotional load through the ordeal of the third act, making the climax surprisingly emotionally charged and moving.
Daisy's character arc feels hard-won and true, not mandated by screenwriting rules, a rarity in a film based on a young adult novel.
Ronan's commitment plays a big part in that, but it is MacDonald's direction that makes the film feel so gritty, its textures so vivid and distinctive. He includes one too many montages, but How I Live Now is beautiful, tough, and strange. He has had an odd, schizophrenic career, from his many high-quality documentaries (Touching the Void, most impressively) to his somewhat anonymous but generally decent feature films, which makes him seem like an exceptionally capable craftsman without much of an individual voice. There are worse things for a director to be.
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
KINGS OF SUMMER
(Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2013)
Take your typical American Independent movie from the '00s, if there is such a thing. You know what I mean - made by people who know and love Wes Anderson, and have some of that off-kilter wit, but also love early David Gordon Green, maybe even a bit of Terrence Malick, and some awareness of poetic realism in general - picture that kind of movie. The kind of movie that gets shown at Sundance and maybe wins an audience award, because, despite all that quirkiness, its basically a crowd-pleaser with a heart of gold. Picture it, if you can.
Now, picture that movie out on it's own, minding its business, and suddenly - Boom - it has a meet-cute with your classic American coming of age teen movie. We're talking a movie that has seen American Pie and American Graffiti, Dazed & Confused and every John Hughes joint. A movie with all those movies in its DNA. A movie in love with the conventions of the classic teen movie.
So, they meet-cute. Snappy dialogue, awkward tangents and strained silences because our '00s indie kid is so afraid of screwing this up. But he doesn't. He and Miss Classic Teen movie have an amazing night of passion, and 9 months later, a beautiful little baby enters the world. That baby - half inis, half teen classic - is Kings of Summer.
Only it's better than that. It's hilarious, for one thing, the biggest laughs supplied by Nick Offerman as the grumpy father of Joe (Nick Robinson) a 15-year old who is sick of life at home with Dad since his Mom died, and yearns to escape. He enlists the help of his best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso), suffocated by his parent's micro-management of his daily life, and they are joined by the bizarre Biagio (Moises Arias) as they set about constructing a house from scrap and stolen items in woods outside their town. All this will be complicated by Kelly, Joe's longterm crush, and the fact that the police, media and their parents are searching for them.
Most of the biggest laughs come from the vivid, cartoonish supporting characters here, from Offerman's deadpan aggression, to Megan Mulally as Patrick's cheesy Mom, a pair of intense smalltown cops, and, most consistently, from Arias' Biagio, an inspired loon, whether dancing on a pipe, speaking Italian to a snake, declaring himself gay because his lungs fill up with fluid or sneaking up on his two friends.
The problem is the sheer quantity of cliches the plot includes - that teen movie DNA is undeniable, and it compromises much of what is great about the film through its ordinariness.
The main plot - the friendship of Joe and Patrick, its rise and fall, is well-observed, and even a little touching in its resolution, but the beats feel slightly mechanical, plot designed to carry characters from a to b. Vogt-Roberts direction is fine, if sometimes a little sitcom-esque in its determination to forge off on offbeat comic tangents.
Balancing that is the terrific photography - with many stunning shots of the sunny woodland this looks unlike just about any other teen movie - the laugh-per-minute rate, which is surprisingly high, and the soundtrack. Any movie that starts with "The Cowboy song" by Thin Lizzy is doing something right, after all...
Take your typical American Independent movie from the '00s, if there is such a thing. You know what I mean - made by people who know and love Wes Anderson, and have some of that off-kilter wit, but also love early David Gordon Green, maybe even a bit of Terrence Malick, and some awareness of poetic realism in general - picture that kind of movie. The kind of movie that gets shown at Sundance and maybe wins an audience award, because, despite all that quirkiness, its basically a crowd-pleaser with a heart of gold. Picture it, if you can.
Now, picture that movie out on it's own, minding its business, and suddenly - Boom - it has a meet-cute with your classic American coming of age teen movie. We're talking a movie that has seen American Pie and American Graffiti, Dazed & Confused and every John Hughes joint. A movie with all those movies in its DNA. A movie in love with the conventions of the classic teen movie.
So, they meet-cute. Snappy dialogue, awkward tangents and strained silences because our '00s indie kid is so afraid of screwing this up. But he doesn't. He and Miss Classic Teen movie have an amazing night of passion, and 9 months later, a beautiful little baby enters the world. That baby - half inis, half teen classic - is Kings of Summer.
Only it's better than that. It's hilarious, for one thing, the biggest laughs supplied by Nick Offerman as the grumpy father of Joe (Nick Robinson) a 15-year old who is sick of life at home with Dad since his Mom died, and yearns to escape. He enlists the help of his best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso), suffocated by his parent's micro-management of his daily life, and they are joined by the bizarre Biagio (Moises Arias) as they set about constructing a house from scrap and stolen items in woods outside their town. All this will be complicated by Kelly, Joe's longterm crush, and the fact that the police, media and their parents are searching for them.
Most of the biggest laughs come from the vivid, cartoonish supporting characters here, from Offerman's deadpan aggression, to Megan Mulally as Patrick's cheesy Mom, a pair of intense smalltown cops, and, most consistently, from Arias' Biagio, an inspired loon, whether dancing on a pipe, speaking Italian to a snake, declaring himself gay because his lungs fill up with fluid or sneaking up on his two friends.
The problem is the sheer quantity of cliches the plot includes - that teen movie DNA is undeniable, and it compromises much of what is great about the film through its ordinariness.
The main plot - the friendship of Joe and Patrick, its rise and fall, is well-observed, and even a little touching in its resolution, but the beats feel slightly mechanical, plot designed to carry characters from a to b. Vogt-Roberts direction is fine, if sometimes a little sitcom-esque in its determination to forge off on offbeat comic tangents.
Balancing that is the terrific photography - with many stunning shots of the sunny woodland this looks unlike just about any other teen movie - the laugh-per-minute rate, which is surprisingly high, and the soundtrack. Any movie that starts with "The Cowboy song" by Thin Lizzy is doing something right, after all...
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
aka APRÈS MAI
(Olivier Assayas, 2012)
I like how Assayas has followed his "International trilogy" - three films intent on our newly digital world, on technology and the way it has altered the very spaces around us - by, amongst other things, reaffirming an interest in the analogue world in his last three films. Something In the Air is set mainly in France, but with a few excursions across Europe and into Asia in the year or so following the student riots in Paris in May 1968. And though it is undeniably interested in the revolutionary politics of that period - there are plenty of scenes here where characters debate Trotskyism and the petit bourgeoisie - it is more of a rambling stroll across a young man's life at a certain specific point.
The element of autobiography is pronounced here; Gilles (Clement Metayer, slightly blank in a pretty way) is a young man from a comfortable background, who wants to be a painter or filmmaker. His father is involved in the production of adaptations of Simenon's Maigret novels (Assayas' father worked in tv) and when he gets sick, Gilles is torn between helping him, his own desire to be an artist, and his friends' political engagement.
Assayas chronicles all of this in ellipses, and what this film captures beautifully is the slow tumble of the events and people that form a life, the way figures disappear and follow their own threads, the way they come back, and the way some attachments are lasting. Assayas observes his young middle class characters as they become impassioned about the "struggle", but none of them ever really risk much through their graffiti and firebombing - they have nice homes and families, they still go to school and university, they travel seemingly casually. And yet the filmmaker avoids the easy satire of the situation.
More dangerous are their romantic relationships - Gilles loves his ex, Laure, throughout the film, even while he is with Christine (Lola Creton, whose neutral beauty matches Metayer's), and his friend Alain falls for an American girl at an Italian commune. Assayas shows us the peaks and dips in these affairs, all casual cruelties and youthful lust, but never ignores the way logistics and choices interfere with emotions - his people criss cross one another as their lives take them away and return them as each tries to decide what they want.
The film is excellent on the details - what it feels like to listen to Syd Barrett on vinyl in a bedroom-cum-studio. What it feels like to lie in the grass with a girlfriend in the hills outside Florence. The books people read, places they stayed, conversations they had; it all feels convincing and lived, and Assayas has always had a gift for atmosphere; Something In the Air is vividly evocative. If the acting is a little uneven, the technique on display is fabulous, and a terrific soundtrack helps enormously.
It is still somewhat unsatisfying. Assayas is telling a story about false starts, missteps and hesitations, and so his film seems purposely formless; for all that some moments are genuinely moving or poetic, the overall effect is odd. Compelling, but distant.
(Olivier Assayas, 2012)
I like how Assayas has followed his "International trilogy" - three films intent on our newly digital world, on technology and the way it has altered the very spaces around us - by, amongst other things, reaffirming an interest in the analogue world in his last three films. Something In the Air is set mainly in France, but with a few excursions across Europe and into Asia in the year or so following the student riots in Paris in May 1968. And though it is undeniably interested in the revolutionary politics of that period - there are plenty of scenes here where characters debate Trotskyism and the petit bourgeoisie - it is more of a rambling stroll across a young man's life at a certain specific point.
The element of autobiography is pronounced here; Gilles (Clement Metayer, slightly blank in a pretty way) is a young man from a comfortable background, who wants to be a painter or filmmaker. His father is involved in the production of adaptations of Simenon's Maigret novels (Assayas' father worked in tv) and when he gets sick, Gilles is torn between helping him, his own desire to be an artist, and his friends' political engagement.
Assayas chronicles all of this in ellipses, and what this film captures beautifully is the slow tumble of the events and people that form a life, the way figures disappear and follow their own threads, the way they come back, and the way some attachments are lasting. Assayas observes his young middle class characters as they become impassioned about the "struggle", but none of them ever really risk much through their graffiti and firebombing - they have nice homes and families, they still go to school and university, they travel seemingly casually. And yet the filmmaker avoids the easy satire of the situation.
More dangerous are their romantic relationships - Gilles loves his ex, Laure, throughout the film, even while he is with Christine (Lola Creton, whose neutral beauty matches Metayer's), and his friend Alain falls for an American girl at an Italian commune. Assayas shows us the peaks and dips in these affairs, all casual cruelties and youthful lust, but never ignores the way logistics and choices interfere with emotions - his people criss cross one another as their lives take them away and return them as each tries to decide what they want.
The film is excellent on the details - what it feels like to listen to Syd Barrett on vinyl in a bedroom-cum-studio. What it feels like to lie in the grass with a girlfriend in the hills outside Florence. The books people read, places they stayed, conversations they had; it all feels convincing and lived, and Assayas has always had a gift for atmosphere; Something In the Air is vividly evocative. If the acting is a little uneven, the technique on display is fabulous, and a terrific soundtrack helps enormously.
It is still somewhat unsatisfying. Assayas is telling a story about false starts, missteps and hesitations, and so his film seems purposely formless; for all that some moments are genuinely moving or poetic, the overall effect is odd. Compelling, but distant.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
MUD
(Jeff Nichols, 2012)
Mud feels like an instant classic.
Nichols' third film gets so much right, and so little wrong, and it also presents a side to him not particularly evident in his first two movies; he now appears one of the leading talents in American cinema, with a fantastically broad range and formidable storytelling skills.
Those are easy to see in the first few scenes of Mud, especially in the effortless way he paints in this world. Here is the American South presented as a vivid, real place, in the form of a small town with all its drag strip bars and chain restaurants, contrasted with the life of the river which has an almost mythic presence within the film. Nichols is good on the subtle and obvious differences between the two. Our 14 year old hero, Ellis (Tye Sheridan, outstanding) lives and works on that river with his mother (Sarah Paulson) and fisherman father. Nichols uses the family to express the conflict between town and country. Parental marriage breakdown centres around Mom's desire to give life in town a try, while Ellis ("I ain't no townie!") wants to stay on the river and work with his dad, despite the attractions of the many girls in town.
The main plot revolves around a discovery Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) make on a small island in the river. There's a boat hanging suspended in a tree, deposited there by a storm. And a man living in it. His name is Mud, and as played by Matthew McConaughey he is a silver-tongued charmer with a love of tall tails and a gospel delivery. He wears crosses on his boot heels, a pistol in his waistband, and is hiding after the murder of a man. He claims to be waiting to meet his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and persuades the boys to bring him supplies, and, eventually, ferry messages to her. But there are sinister, armed men in town looking for him, State troopers setting up roadblocks in order to trap him, and his old friend and neighbour of Ellis (Sam Shepherd) says he's not to be trusted and the boys should stay away. But by then, of course, its already too late...
As a naturalistic portrait of adolescent male friendship, Mud is terrific; sensitive to the subtle nuances and unspoken bonds, never forced in the way it traces the quiet refusal of emotion boys specialise in. And it uses the mysterious forces driving adult lives to cast so much light on the world of Ellis and Neckbone; Ellis is a romantic, yearning for a girl in town, hopeful his parents will rediscover their love for one another despite his father's cynicism, and the story Mud tells him appeals to him because of its old-fashioned certainty about true love. Then we learn the truth about Mud and Juniper, and Ellis' heartbreak is shattering and almost visceral. Meanwhile Neckbone seems more pragmatic, guided by his loving but relaxed Uncle (Michael Shannon), until we realise that he will do more or less anything his friend asks of him.
Nichols has a nice eye and a superb gift for tone and place, but here those gifts appear to have been internalised. Instead, he realises to what extent this story is about faces, and he keeps his lens close to his cast throughout.
Despite the feeling of intense mounting suspense, then, there is enough time to delve into Mud as a character. Mud is a liar, yes, but his fantasising is always pointed and intriguing, and the audience feels as attracted to him as the two boys are.
Mud feels like an instant classic.
Nichols' third film gets so much right, and so little wrong, and it also presents a side to him not particularly evident in his first two movies; he now appears one of the leading talents in American cinema, with a fantastically broad range and formidable storytelling skills.
Those are easy to see in the first few scenes of Mud, especially in the effortless way he paints in this world. Here is the American South presented as a vivid, real place, in the form of a small town with all its drag strip bars and chain restaurants, contrasted with the life of the river which has an almost mythic presence within the film. Nichols is good on the subtle and obvious differences between the two. Our 14 year old hero, Ellis (Tye Sheridan, outstanding) lives and works on that river with his mother (Sarah Paulson) and fisherman father. Nichols uses the family to express the conflict between town and country. Parental marriage breakdown centres around Mom's desire to give life in town a try, while Ellis ("I ain't no townie!") wants to stay on the river and work with his dad, despite the attractions of the many girls in town.
The main plot revolves around a discovery Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) make on a small island in the river. There's a boat hanging suspended in a tree, deposited there by a storm. And a man living in it. His name is Mud, and as played by Matthew McConaughey he is a silver-tongued charmer with a love of tall tails and a gospel delivery. He wears crosses on his boot heels, a pistol in his waistband, and is hiding after the murder of a man. He claims to be waiting to meet his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and persuades the boys to bring him supplies, and, eventually, ferry messages to her. But there are sinister, armed men in town looking for him, State troopers setting up roadblocks in order to trap him, and his old friend and neighbour of Ellis (Sam Shepherd) says he's not to be trusted and the boys should stay away. But by then, of course, its already too late...
As a naturalistic portrait of adolescent male friendship, Mud is terrific; sensitive to the subtle nuances and unspoken bonds, never forced in the way it traces the quiet refusal of emotion boys specialise in. And it uses the mysterious forces driving adult lives to cast so much light on the world of Ellis and Neckbone; Ellis is a romantic, yearning for a girl in town, hopeful his parents will rediscover their love for one another despite his father's cynicism, and the story Mud tells him appeals to him because of its old-fashioned certainty about true love. Then we learn the truth about Mud and Juniper, and Ellis' heartbreak is shattering and almost visceral. Meanwhile Neckbone seems more pragmatic, guided by his loving but relaxed Uncle (Michael Shannon), until we realise that he will do more or less anything his friend asks of him.
Nichols has a nice eye and a superb gift for tone and place, but here those gifts appear to have been internalised. Instead, he realises to what extent this story is about faces, and he keeps his lens close to his cast throughout.
Despite the feeling of intense mounting suspense, then, there is enough time to delve into Mud as a character. Mud is a liar, yes, but his fantasising is always pointed and intriguing, and the audience feels as attracted to him as the two boys are.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
NOT FADE AWAY
(David Chase, 2012)
On the surface, Not Fade Away might seem like quite a safe, even banal little coming of age drama set in the era-defining tumult of the US in the late 1960s. But that would be to underestimate the ambition and skill of writer-director David Chase. Rarely, in fact, has a filmmaker made a first film which is so perfectly honed, balancing a truly personal sense of artistic expression with accessible, populist storytelling. But then, while this may be Chase's debut feature, he was the creator and guiding force behind almost a decade of HBO's The Sopranos, and the sensibility evident in that show - the lyricism and incisive portrayal of characters in just a few brief scenes - is again on display here.
It tells the seemingly autobiographical story of Douglas (John Magaro), a teenager growing up in New Jersey in the '60s, who forms a band with some of his high school friends. Along the way, he also clashes with his conservative Italian father (James Gandolfini) and begins a relationship with the ethereal middle class goddess he worshipped through his school years, Grace (Bella Heathcote).
Again, that all sounds a bit like the kind of mid-budget studio films that proliferated in the '90s, heavy on the period detail, with a soundtrack filled with obvious, nostalgia-inducing '60s hits, perhaps featuring Alec Baldwin and an unmistakeable suggestion of The Wonder Years.
But Chase is too refined as a storyteller for that. His film is elliptical, skipping through years and crucial plot points, ensuring the audience has to be attuned to gesture and nuance to understand his characters. These bandmates are a credible, breathing portrayal of late teens and the tensions and dynamics crackling between them - a complex, often uneasy stew of loyalty, affection and jealousy, with different goals and needs compromising what begins as a shared dream. Douglas is a painfully true character; pretentious and a little conceited, only half-aware of how important music and film - art! Chase is unafraid of declaring - will be in his life. His clashes with his old-fashioned father are, again, beautifully shaded; with paternal frustration and love mingling in some bitter arguments as the two men grope for empathy and understanding.
The arc of the band's development runs parallel with Douglas' relationship with Grace. Early on their competence and the excitement of the music - a lot of pumped-up blues covers, influenced mainly by the Rolling Stones, a comparison underlined by the audacious opening scene where we see a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet on a London train, then hear our narrator, Douglas' little sister, compare that meeting to his founding of his own band - wins them fans and Chase show us triumphant early gigs at house parties and raw jamming sessions. Meanwhile he and Grace are slowly falling in love, little telling moments in conversation assuming massive importance, just as they do in life. Then the band cuts a demo, Douglas becomes singer and things are going well, just as Grace and he are a steady, loving couple.
Later everything gets messy, and the story shifts gears in the final act after a few small personal tragedies have rocked their young lives. Through all this, Chase is intent on the reality of experience. Mundane scenes in suburban kitchens and bickering relatives jostle with Douglas' important discoveries of Antonioni, Orson Welles and Leadbelly. His own relationship with blues music is cast in an uncomfortable light by a black co-workers love of Tony Bennett. The final scene is a breathtakingly bold move towards abstraction, and it finally suggests Chase's true goal here - to make a film about a young man's journey towards his calling, his discovery that art is what is truly important to him. The ending leaves a relationship in an ambiguous place - just as The Sopranos did - but thematically Chase has made himself clear.
What helps make this such a great little film are the details. All of the performances are good, and the period trappings feel authentic without ever splurging over into overstatement. The soundtrack is, predictably, superb, and Eigil Bryld's cinematography is richly atmospheric. But its the casual mastery of Chase that lingers. Like a great pop song, Not Fade Away is short and simple, yet somehow complex and even quietly profound.
On the surface, Not Fade Away might seem like quite a safe, even banal little coming of age drama set in the era-defining tumult of the US in the late 1960s. But that would be to underestimate the ambition and skill of writer-director David Chase. Rarely, in fact, has a filmmaker made a first film which is so perfectly honed, balancing a truly personal sense of artistic expression with accessible, populist storytelling. But then, while this may be Chase's debut feature, he was the creator and guiding force behind almost a decade of HBO's The Sopranos, and the sensibility evident in that show - the lyricism and incisive portrayal of characters in just a few brief scenes - is again on display here.
It tells the seemingly autobiographical story of Douglas (John Magaro), a teenager growing up in New Jersey in the '60s, who forms a band with some of his high school friends. Along the way, he also clashes with his conservative Italian father (James Gandolfini) and begins a relationship with the ethereal middle class goddess he worshipped through his school years, Grace (Bella Heathcote).
Again, that all sounds a bit like the kind of mid-budget studio films that proliferated in the '90s, heavy on the period detail, with a soundtrack filled with obvious, nostalgia-inducing '60s hits, perhaps featuring Alec Baldwin and an unmistakeable suggestion of The Wonder Years.
But Chase is too refined as a storyteller for that. His film is elliptical, skipping through years and crucial plot points, ensuring the audience has to be attuned to gesture and nuance to understand his characters. These bandmates are a credible, breathing portrayal of late teens and the tensions and dynamics crackling between them - a complex, often uneasy stew of loyalty, affection and jealousy, with different goals and needs compromising what begins as a shared dream. Douglas is a painfully true character; pretentious and a little conceited, only half-aware of how important music and film - art! Chase is unafraid of declaring - will be in his life. His clashes with his old-fashioned father are, again, beautifully shaded; with paternal frustration and love mingling in some bitter arguments as the two men grope for empathy and understanding.
The arc of the band's development runs parallel with Douglas' relationship with Grace. Early on their competence and the excitement of the music - a lot of pumped-up blues covers, influenced mainly by the Rolling Stones, a comparison underlined by the audacious opening scene where we see a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet on a London train, then hear our narrator, Douglas' little sister, compare that meeting to his founding of his own band - wins them fans and Chase show us triumphant early gigs at house parties and raw jamming sessions. Meanwhile he and Grace are slowly falling in love, little telling moments in conversation assuming massive importance, just as they do in life. Then the band cuts a demo, Douglas becomes singer and things are going well, just as Grace and he are a steady, loving couple.
Later everything gets messy, and the story shifts gears in the final act after a few small personal tragedies have rocked their young lives. Through all this, Chase is intent on the reality of experience. Mundane scenes in suburban kitchens and bickering relatives jostle with Douglas' important discoveries of Antonioni, Orson Welles and Leadbelly. His own relationship with blues music is cast in an uncomfortable light by a black co-workers love of Tony Bennett. The final scene is a breathtakingly bold move towards abstraction, and it finally suggests Chase's true goal here - to make a film about a young man's journey towards his calling, his discovery that art is what is truly important to him. The ending leaves a relationship in an ambiguous place - just as The Sopranos did - but thematically Chase has made himself clear.
What helps make this such a great little film are the details. All of the performances are good, and the period trappings feel authentic without ever splurging over into overstatement. The soundtrack is, predictably, superb, and Eigil Bryld's cinematography is richly atmospheric. But its the casual mastery of Chase that lingers. Like a great pop song, Not Fade Away is short and simple, yet somehow complex and even quietly profound.
Monday, 17 October 2011
CEMETERY JUNCTION
(Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant, 2010)
A glossily warm coming-of-age comedy-drama set in a 1973 New Town suburb of Reading and therefore, presumably semi-autobiographical to some extent, Cemetery Junction never quite works.
The premise is classically familiar; three friends, stuck in dead end jobs, plan to escape, to travel, to live exciting lives elsewhere. They are near generic, stereotypical character types: the handsome, funny dreamer, the brawling bad boy from a broken home, and the oddball comic relief. Over the course of the simple narrative, each learns a lesson and grows as a person. It's that kind of film, deliberate, derivative of many better films, and possessing an almost painted-by-numbers quality in it's determination to hit each one of the expected narrative and emotional beats of the smalltown Bildungsroman.
Thats not to say it's without its pleasures; as one would expect of the creators of the sublime UK version of The Office and Extras on tv, there are some spiky character moments here, some finely observed instances of social tension, a few acutely textured scenes which feel true and real. While the three boys can be funny together in a laddish way, the best comic moments are provided by Gervais himself as the factory-worker father of one, casually racist, xenophobic and ignorant, squabbling with his mother over his own success while sermonising to his son from the dinner table. Ralph Fiennes is effortlessly fine as a quietly loathsome working class boy made good, Emily Watson does an awful lot with very little in perhaps five short scenes, and there are a few big laughs.
But the dissonances created by the style and approach are a massive distraction. Gervais has claimed that Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" was the single greatest influence on the film, and that sense of a mythic American angle on memory, youth and backwater lives fits oddly against the time and place depicted. Britain in the 70s was a troubled, grim place, and cinema generally portrays it as such. But here there is a warm glow of nostalgia, and despite the few gags mocking the assumptions and attitudes of the time, this is an unequivocally fond portrayal of the era.
It all ends with a mad dash to catch a train, a will-they-won't-they resolved, and great use of Led Zeppelins "The Rain Song".
Indeed, the brilliant soundtrack of 70s hits is perhaps the best aspect of the whole film; more movies should use "Crazy Horses" by the Osmonds.
A glossily warm coming-of-age comedy-drama set in a 1973 New Town suburb of Reading and therefore, presumably semi-autobiographical to some extent, Cemetery Junction never quite works.
The premise is classically familiar; three friends, stuck in dead end jobs, plan to escape, to travel, to live exciting lives elsewhere. They are near generic, stereotypical character types: the handsome, funny dreamer, the brawling bad boy from a broken home, and the oddball comic relief. Over the course of the simple narrative, each learns a lesson and grows as a person. It's that kind of film, deliberate, derivative of many better films, and possessing an almost painted-by-numbers quality in it's determination to hit each one of the expected narrative and emotional beats of the smalltown Bildungsroman.
Thats not to say it's without its pleasures; as one would expect of the creators of the sublime UK version of The Office and Extras on tv, there are some spiky character moments here, some finely observed instances of social tension, a few acutely textured scenes which feel true and real. While the three boys can be funny together in a laddish way, the best comic moments are provided by Gervais himself as the factory-worker father of one, casually racist, xenophobic and ignorant, squabbling with his mother over his own success while sermonising to his son from the dinner table. Ralph Fiennes is effortlessly fine as a quietly loathsome working class boy made good, Emily Watson does an awful lot with very little in perhaps five short scenes, and there are a few big laughs.
But the dissonances created by the style and approach are a massive distraction. Gervais has claimed that Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" was the single greatest influence on the film, and that sense of a mythic American angle on memory, youth and backwater lives fits oddly against the time and place depicted. Britain in the 70s was a troubled, grim place, and cinema generally portrays it as such. But here there is a warm glow of nostalgia, and despite the few gags mocking the assumptions and attitudes of the time, this is an unequivocally fond portrayal of the era.
It all ends with a mad dash to catch a train, a will-they-won't-they resolved, and great use of Led Zeppelins "The Rain Song".
Indeed, the brilliant soundtrack of 70s hits is perhaps the best aspect of the whole film; more movies should use "Crazy Horses" by the Osmonds.
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