LFF 5: Enjoy the high-life

Sienna Miller, Tom Hiddleston and Elisabeth Moss were on the red carpet last night at the London Film Festival for the opening of their new film High-Rise. Yes, the parade of filmmakers and stars continues at a fairly brisk clip. As always at the LFF, there are two events going on here: a festive party for VIPs and an intensive film season for everyone else, including the press. This is my 18th year covering the festival, and I have still never been invited to an official LFF party. For me it's about the films, and here are some more highlights...

Room
dir Lenny Abrahamson; with Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay 15/Ire *****
With goosebump-inducing skill, Lenny Abrahamson and novelist-turned-screenwriter Emma Donoghue dig deep beneath a notorious global headline. In the process they tell a story that actually changes the way we see the news. And the use of a young child's perspective gives it undeniable power, especially since every scene is so inventively directed and played


Black Mass
dir Scott Cooper; with Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton 15/US ***
Gritty and muscular, this is the true story of James "Whitey" Bulger played as a rather standard FBI/mob thriller. It's sharply well-made, capturing a strong sense of the period, but nothing about the film sets it apart from the pack. Without an original angle, it feels like the same story of criminal ambition, betrayal and violence that we've seen countless times before... MORE >

Queen of Earth
dir Alex Ross Perry; with Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston 15/US ****
After Listen Up Philip, Perry continues his wilfully arty approach to filmmaking with this florid drama how lifelong friendships flip and slip. Using complex editing and sound, plus a B-movie vibe that indulges in lingering emotive closeups, this observant, expressive film cleverly mixes raw feelings with brittle black humour... MORE >

The Assassin 
dir Hou Hsiao-Hsien; with Qi Shu, Chen Chang 15/Chn **.
Exquisitely crafted, this film features sumptuous cinematography, costumes and settings. So it's very frustrating that the story is so poorly told. While the basic outline of the plot becomes clear eventually, there's virtually no development to the characters, while the connections between them remain maddeningly vague. And the talky dialog is simply impenetrable, never conveying much meaning about the culture or situation.

Listen to Me Marlon
dir Stevan Riley; with Marlon Brando, Stella Adler 15/UK **** 
Expertly edited together from archival footage and never-released private material, this documentary offers a startlingly intimate look into the mind of an iconic actor. Marlon Brando reveals himself to be a fascinating character full of wit, passion and artistic insight. And defiantly unlike his public image.

Live From New York! 
dir Bao Nguyen; with Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase 15/US ***.
This documentary explores a show that has reflected and influenced American culture for more 40 years. The film takes a serious look at an iconically hilarious programme that's well-known for its political parody and brightly talented cast. It's a surprisingly balanced, in-depth documentary, although it's likely that only fans of the show will enjoy it.

Sundance London 3: Tales of deconstruction

The Sundance London Festival is winding down tonight, and it's been a rather crazy weekend at the O2 with films and filmmakers crawling all over the place. The public screenings are always a lot more fun than the press shows, as we get filmmaker intros and Q&As, plus of course lively audiences to watch the movies with. I'll have one last entry tomorrow; in the meantime, here are more highlights...

They Came Together
dir David Wain; with Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler 14/US ***.
A goofy spoof of romantic-comedies, this film sets itself a pretty tricky target, since rom-coms are pretty corny themselves. But cowriters David Wain and Michael Showalter and their up-for-it cast charge on regardless, wringing a lot of laughs from the material. Frustratingly, the hilarious rom-com they create isn't actually very involving. The story plays out in flashback as Joel and Molly (Russ and Poehler, above) recount their movie-like tale to friends (Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper) over dinner. And there isn't a single movie cliche left out, from various montage sequences to a series of best pals to various improbable breakups and reunions. With lesser actors, this could have turned out like a painful cross between Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abrams-Zucker, but Rudd and Poehler add the necessary zing to hold our interest and keep us laughing at the dense onslaught of visual and verbal gags. Not to mention a non-stop flow of hilarious starry cameos. But if the film itself was actually a charmer, that would have been something special.

Frank
dir Lenny Abrahamson; with Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender 14/Ire ****
Loosely based on the life of Chris Sievey (aka Frank Sidebottom), this offbeat comedy continually challenges us both with big ideas and narrative U-turns. It's a remarkably assured comedy with a warm centre underneath a prickly, sometimes maddeningly absurd surface... FULL REVIEW >

Kumiko the Treasure Hunter 
dir David Zellner; with Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube 14/US ***.
An offbeat riff on the Coen brothers' Fargo, this "true story" is packed with witty touches and knowing references, as well as a remarkably complex, surreal performance from Kikuchi. It's also a little bit frustrating in its refusal to let the audience in on the joke, if it is a joke. It opens in Japan with the surly but intriguingly cheeky Kumiko (Kikuchi) following a treasure map to a videotape buried in a seaside cave and a clue pointing to a specific moment in the film, indicating the spot a case of cash is buried in snowy Minnesota. Even though Fargo is clearly a fictional movie, Kumiko becomes obsessed with travelling to the wintry American Midwest to find that cash. The bare bones of the plot are so bonkers that the film has the ring of truth to it, although there's something squirm-inducing about being asked to sympathise with someone who is so delusional - and probably mentally ill. And director-cowriter-costar Zellner somehow manages to create a lightly comical tone while undermining every scene with horror movie touches. Clever, unsettling, unforgettable.

Sundance Shorts

I watched nine shorts at this year's festival, and the best was easily Yearbook, Bernardo Britto's animated tale about a man trying to distill human influence into the historical records before the planet is destroyed. It's a real stunner. Other highlights included Burger, the Iris-produced late-night comedy shot in Cardiff that's a blast of pure energy; The Last Days of Peter Bergmann, an Irish documentary about a man who managed to erase himself from the world; and Life's a Bitch, a staggeringly ambitious and utterly wonderful French short about the romantic entanglements one hapless guy gets into and out of over a year.

Critical Week: A song for Frank

London critics got a chance to catch up with this year's Sundance sensation, Lenny Abrahamson's Frank, starring Michael Fassbender wearing a giant papier-mache head. Yes, it's as offbeat and arty as it sounds, but also surprisingly warm and endearing, with terrific performances from Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Scoot McNairy. The other big movie was Hossein Amini's subtly involving and very twisty thriller  The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristin Dunst and Oscar Isaac, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel.

Only slightly further afield, C.O.G. is a dark, introspective drama starring Looking's Jonathan Goff as a guy trying to run from his own shadow. Khumba is an engaging, colourfully animated South African feature, with a somewhat compromised plot about a geeky zebra. Cheap Thrills is an escalating exercise in finding the audience's breaking point - a very clever, hard-to-watch black comedy. Awful Nice is an awkwardly written comedy with some telling observations. And The Punk Singer is a lively, insightful doc about feminist punk, centring on the iconic Kathleen Hanna.

The big films screening this coming week are the Marvel sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the TV show reunion Veronica Mars and the black comedy A Long Way Down. There are two Irish films - Brendan Gleeson in Calvary and Andrew Scott in The Stag; the Indonesian action-sequel The Raid 2; Chiwetel Ejiofor in Half of a Yellow Sun; the black comedy How to Be a Man; the animated adventure Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and something called Patema Inverted.

LFF 4: Take a bow

Quartet director Dustin Hoffman and his cast members Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Sheridan Smith are all in London today for their film's gala screening at the 56th BFI London Film Festival as the glamorous festivities continue around the city. Also doing the rounds today are Chris O'Dowd and his four songstress costars (Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman, Shari
Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell) in The Sapphires. Not that critics get to enjoy the glitz - most of us are stuck in early morning press screenings and overcrowded press conferences.

Quartet
dir Dustin Hoffman; with Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon 12/UK ***.
The subtle intelligence of Ronald Harwood's script undergirds what's otherwise a rather breezy-glowy drama. And the veteran cast members make the most of this subtext, while director Hoffman adds a spark of humour and a whiff of romantic comedy. It centres on an English retirement home for musicians, which is shaken by the arrival of an iconic soprano (Smith) who had a brief, messy marriage to another resident (Tom Courtenay). As the annual gala performance approaches, someone gets the idea to reunite the quartet from a famed performance of Verdi's Rigoletto, which Jean really isn't up for. The cast is, of course, having a ball - and it's warmly infectious to watch, with just enough spark that it avoids sentimentality and a continual stream of little moments that catch us off guard with earthy humour and raw emotion. In other words, it's a nicely made film that lets us just sit back and enjoy ourselves.

Midnight's Children
dir Deepa Mehta; with Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami 12/Can ***.
It's usually a risky proposition to let a novelists adapt their own work for the big screen, and this film is a case in point. It's packed with moments that are hugely involving, but Salman Rushdie's (right, on the LFF red carpet) script is badly over-written, filling in way too much detail while indulging in constant literary touches that are fascinating but distracting. In some ways, this is like an Indian Forrest Gump, as Bhaba's central character is born at the stroke of midnight as India gets its independence, then marks key moments of his life along with his country. Along the way we get a running history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh along with a very dramatic life story that relies on a heavy dose of magical realism. It's fascinating and beautifully shot and acted, but far too wordy for its own good.

The Sapphires
dir Wayne Blair; with Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman 12/Aus ****
Based on a true story, this crowd-pleasing comedy is packed with sparky characters and situations, plus powerfully dramatic moments that catch us by surprise. It also uses great music to keep our toes tapping all the way through... REVIEW >

What Richard Did
dir Lenny Abrahamson; with Jack Reynor, Roisin Murphy 12/Ire ****
Even before things take a turn in this beautifully shot and acted Irish drama, we know something is coming (the title's a hint too). Filmmaker Abrahamson is a master at subtle suggestion, taking scenes that feel happy and freewheeling and adding a gentle undercurrent of menace. So when the story gets much more darkly emotional, it's deeply unnerving. Reynor gives a superbly natural, understated performance as Richard, a golden-boy 18 year old with a group of rugby pals, a new girlfriend (Murphy) and very cool parents. But his actions at a drunken house party cut a swathe through his optimism, and as he struggles to deal with the situation, he feels like his whole life is unravelling. Loosely based on a real event, the film never turns into a melodrama despite the potential in the premise: it remains raw and edgy with a lively vein of humour that turns bleaker and bleaker as the story develops. A haunting gem.

Room 237
dir Rodney Ascher; with Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks 12/US ***.
Subtitled "Being an Inquiry Into The Shining in 9 Parts", movie geeks will love this documentary, which lets five of them expound their sometimes outlandish theories about a seriously confounding film. Not many of their theories hold water, but it's a terrific exploration of filmmaking as art. Stanley Kubrick was a genius filmmaker who never did something by accident, so the quirks and jarring background detail in The Shining must mean something, right? Some of these theories are observant and thought-provoking, while others are just bonkers. In the end, there aren't many ideas here that are terribly insightful (would you be shocked to know that Kubrick wove mythology and fairy tales into his work?), and frankly you could pretty much prove anything by deconstructing a movie frame by frame. But it's a thoroughly entertaining exploration of the extremes of fan culture. And a marvellous look at the repeated images and themes in Kubrick's work.