Critical Week: Fight fire with fire

Since I'm not in Cannes with many of my fellow critics, I'm still catching up on screenings of films opening in cinemas at the moment. At least we're having Cannes-like weather in London! This week we had a very late press screening (just the night before it opens) for Breaking In, the home-invasion thriller starring Gabrielle Union as a tough-minded mother who isn't about to let a gang of violent thieves harm her children. This gender flip is very cool, and sharply played too, even if the script is rather standard fare.

Also rather standard, the British comedy Swimming With Men echoes The Full Monty in its story of a group of middle-aged men dealing with their issues as they form a male synchronised swimming team. The cast is so good that it makes it worth a look. And the American comedy Dating My Mother is somewhat awkward, but has a refreshing honesty to it.

There were also three documentaries. The first two have a showbiz slant: Filmworker is that riveting story of a British actor who gave up his career to be Stanley Kubrick's assistant for 30 years, and Always at the Carlyle is a star-packed look at the iconically elegant New York hotel. The third doc was something altogether different: Path of Blood uses acquired footage of Saudi security services battling local al Qaeda cells, including video seized from them. It's shocking, heart-pounding, eye-opening and, even though it's hard to watch, utterly essential.

Coming up this next week, we have press screenings of Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2, Diane Keaton in Book Club, Sundance hit The Miseducation of Cameron Post, British thriller Welcome to Curiosity and the Mexican drama Boy Undone. I also plan to buy a ticket to see John Cameron Mitchell's How to Talk To Girls at Parties, as its distributor never let me know about screenings even though I asked. (Another distributor didn't screen Melissa McCarthy's Life of the Party for critics at all, but I don't feel the need to seek that one out.)

31st Flare: Make an opening move

The 31st edition of the British Film Institute's Flare: London LGBT Film Festival kicked off on Thursday night with the world premiere of the BBC drama Against the Law, produced to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. It's a powerfully cinematic movie that deserves to be seen on the big screen, as it includes documentary clips of men who lived through the events depicted from the 1950s, starring Richard Gadd and Daniel Mays (above).

Against the Law
dir Fergus O'Brien; with Daniel Mays, Richard Gadd 17/UK **** (world premiere)
An inventive blending of period drama and talking head documentary, this pointed film is beautifully edited to make the most of both strands. Each feeds into the other with a powerful sense of momentum, giving the final scenes a proper emotional kick. And there's also a sense of timeliness, as the story recounts events from 60 years ago that would change British law about homosexuality a decade later. And the events still resonate loudly today.

After Louie
dir Vincent Gagliostro; with Alan Cumming, Zachary Booth 17/US ***. (world premiere)
Big ideas circle around this earthy drama set among New York artists. The characters are bright and engaging, even as they are deeply flawed, and the talky script takes an unexpectedly honest approach to hot potato topics, exploring how nostalgia for the gay rights movement of the 1990s might not be the healthiest way to move forward. It's perhaps too deliberately provocative to be properly moving, but Alan Cumming delivers a beautifully complex central performance.

Taekwondo
dir-scr Marco Berger; with Gabriel Epstein, Lucas Papa 16/Arg ***. 
Essentially a mash-up of writer-director Marco Berger's Hawaii and producer-codirector Martin Farina's Fulboy, this film places nine athletic young men in an isolated house for a sweltering summer getaway and observes the physicality between them. There's a hint of a plot between two of the guys, and a few traits emerge here and there, but the movie is basically a tactile, tantalising tease that pays off only in the final moments... FULL REVIEW >

B E S T   O F   T H E   Y E A R

Moonlight
dir-scr Barry Jenkins; with Trevante Rhodes, Andre Holland 16/US ****.
With its intimate approach and deeply resonant themes, this film gets under the skin right from the start, putting us in the shoes of the lead character at three points in his life. His journey to self-discovery is difficult, partly because he is painfully withdrawn due to his tough life experiences. And what this movie has to say is so important that it deserves all the the attention and awards it gets... FULL REVIEW >

It's Only the End of the World
dir-scr Xavier Dolan; with Gaspard Ulliel, Vincent Cassel 16/Can *****
Few filmmakers are as bold as 27-year-old Canadian Xavier Dolan, who regularly takes on family relationships using bravura filmmaking that brings out unexpected, unfiltered emotions. This film, based on a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce, is a staggering dissection of the dynamic between parents, children and siblings. It's heightened to the point that it's often painful to watch, but it's also urgent, honest and essential... FULL REVIEW >

Critical Week: You shall not pass!

I took a break from screenings this past week, and the only one I attended was the massive Monday night 3D extravaganza of Warcraft, based on the videogaming universe. Alas, I'm not allowed to make any comments about the movie until next week! I'll try to do better at watching some of my backlog of screeners this weekend, although I have several projects to do around the flat.

I also saw three theatre pieces. Harold Pinter's The Caretaker was staged beautifully at the Old Vic, with razor sharp performances from Timothy Spall, George MacKay and Daniel Mays in a clever story about identity and social structure. Also at the Old Vic, Jekyll and Hyde is an astonishing dance-based thriller that tells a riveting story that's funny, sexy, violent and darkly emotional. It's stunningly choreographed, designed and performed. And The Chemsex Monologues at the King's Head tells its story through, yes, monologues from four characters as they trace a year on the drug-infused sex scene in London. It's bracingly honest, told from an intimate, engaging perspectives, and remarkably never preachy.

This coming week, I'll be watching the romance Me Before You, Anthony Hopkins in Misconduct, Billy Crudup in The Stanford Prison Experiment, Michel Gondry's Microbe and Gasoline, the indie British thriller Ghoul, and HBO's MLK/LBJ movie All the Way.