Critical Week: Dress to impress

With another long weekend, it's been a shorter than usual week of screenings. But I still kept pretty busy. The biggest release screened to the press, barely before it opened, was The Hustle, a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. As a comedy it's rather weak, but has some funny moments all the way through. There were also two British period biopics. Tolkien is an impeccably produced look at the early life of JRR Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), although it's a bit dry since it takes place before he wrote anything. The Professor and the Madman follows the tenacious work of James Murray (Mel Gibson) to define the English language and produce the first Oxford English Dictionary, with the help of an in-patient at Broodmoor asylum (Sean Penn). Despite the troubled production, it's a fascinating story, strikingly well acted.

Further afield we had the moving, dark British indie drama Last Summer, about young teens in small-town Wales dealing with a wrenching community crisis. And the even darker American indie drama Just Say Goodbye takes on teen suicide with a perhaps too-provocative story about friendship and parenthood. We also caught the superb documentary XY Chelsea, which closely follows whistleblower Chelsea Manning between two incarcerations. It's involving and even inspiring, taking on those who label her a traitor. And since it's finally out for streaming/etc in the UK, here's a longer take on this doc I saw a few weeks back...

Fahrenheit 11/9
dir-scr Michael Moore; with Michael Moore, Timothy Snyder, Jenifer Lewis, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg 18/US 2h08 ****

Michael Moore was one of the only pundits who predicted the Trump presidency. So this long but watchable and important doc opens with the massive upset of election night 2016, from Clinton supporters' pre-voting revelry turning into gloom to the shocked faces of Team Trump, which clearly didn't expect to win. From here, Moore spins back to look at how Trump accidentally got into the race while trying to increase his profile in contract negotiations with NBC. His racist comments backfired (NBC fired him), but he touched a nerve with a segment of the American public. Masterfully manipulating the media, which was making a fortune from covering his antics, Trump had a long history with Russian mobsters and the media leaders taken down for abusing women. Moore also documents his overt racism and misogyny over many decades, all of which was public knowledge. Similarly, his treasonous behaviour since taking office has also been out in the open.

As usual, Moore connects this to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder (a Trump buddy) declared a fake emergency to essentially privatise the poor, black city, callously poisoning it then covering up the escalating disaster. This takes up a good chunk of the film, and rightly so. Back to the main topic, Moore's dissection of the US electorate is fascinating: the truth is that liberal '60s values reflect the average American today; the Republicans have only won the popular vote in one presidential election in the last 30 years ("You can't call it a democracy if the person who wins the most votes doesn't win"). Moore also covers the fraud among the Democrats, such as how anyone who breaks from the centrist line is suppressed (as was Bernie Sanders), and how in many ways Obama paved the way for Trump. So it was no wonder people were willing to break the system with a protest vote.

Finally, Moore dives into gun control in the wake of the Parkland shootings an teens who refused to sit quietly and accept "thoughts and prayers". The salient point here is that candidates are representing their donors, not the voters. And Moore's most powerful message is that we need to ignore attempts to divide us against each other, rise up and create the government we deserve. History tells us that the US is becoming less democratic and more despotic by the day. So this film's carefully documented conclusions should chill us to the bone.

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This coming week, we'll be watching Keanu Reeves in John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell and the documentaries Apollo 11, General Magic, The Lavender Scare and Nomad. Plus a couple of stage shows, just for a change of scenery.

FLARE 1: First steps

The 28th BFI Flare (previously known as the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) kicked off Thursday night with the European premiere of Lilting, the Ben Whishaw drama that won the cinematography award at Sundance in January. London writer-director Hong Khaou was on hand for a Q&A along with Whishaw and cast members Naomi Christie (pictured above with Whishaw and below with everyone after the screening), Andrew Leung, Peter Bowles and Morven Christie. And everyone went on to the kick-off party at Pulse.

There were more parties on Friday, with networking drinks for delegates followed by a fabulous disco in the Riverfront Bar. Also on Friday, I had a lively interview director Darren Stein and actor Michael Willett who are here with their comedy G.B.F., and I'm looking forward to seeing them again at the film's big party on Sunday. I'm not sure how many of these late nights I can endure before I collapse in a heap, but I'll give it a good go! Here are some programme highlights for Friday and Saturday...

Lilting
dir-scr Hong Khaou; with Ben Whishaw, Cheng Pei-pei 14/UK ****.
With the same delicate approach to character interaction as he showed in his shorts Summer and Spring, filmmaker Khaou creates a drama that skims right along that line between brittle denial and warm emotional catharsis. It's an astonishing drama that carries us deep into the situation, forcing us to think both about the details and the much bigger picture. At the centre are two people struggling to find a way to connect. After the sudden death of her son Kai (Andrew Leung in seamlessly lyrical flashbacks), Junn (Cheng) feels trapped in her nursing home, having never learned English during all her years living in London. Then Kai's boyfriend Richard (Whishaw) reaches out to her, hiring an interpreter (Naomi Christie) to help her communicate both with him and with a man (Peter Bowles) she's met in the home. But Kai had never come out to his mother, and Richard tries to respect that as long as he can. Both Whishaw and Cheng deliver staggeringly transparent performances that let us see their thoughts and feelings in every scene, even though they're incapable of expressing them. The film has an effortless lightness, with a beautiful sense of both photography and editing that gently carry us through the story using earthy humour and raw emotions that never get remotely sentimental. A real stunner.

G.B.F.
dir Darren Stein; with Michael J Willett, Paul Iacono 13/US ****
Like a special episode of Glee without the songs, this colourful and often very silly comedy takes on some big themes without getting heavy handed about them. Even the "what I learned" speech at the end is undermined in a way that makes it both resonant and meaningful... FULL REVIEW >

Last Summer
dir-scr Mark Thiedeman; with Samuel Pettit, Sean Rose 13/US *.
This nostalgic drama is achingly artful but so indulgent that it never lets us in. Filmmaker Thiedeman's camera floats over tanned young skin in ways that are never remotely sexy: it's like flicking through a book of pretty photos. There's a decent story here, but Thiedeman is more interested in moods and images than exploring human connections. Set in rural Arkansas, the film centres on unambitious teen Luke (Pettit), who's struggling just to graduate from high school while his brainy boyfriend Jonah (Rose) looks ahead to a bright university career. The idea of these lifelong partners being separated should spark some emotion, but Thiedeman pretentiously focuses instead on glistening leaves (echoes of Malick) and achingly long establishing shots (a la von Trier) that leave the film feeling like an extended A&F advert. So in the end they're just bodies without personalities.

Bridegroom
dir-scr Linda Bloodworth-Thomason; with Shane Bitney Crone, Tom Bridegroom 13/US ****
Hugely emotional from the very beginning as it chronicles the love story between two young men, this documentary begins as the moving but unremarkable narrative of a real tragedy then shifts into a staggeringly personal statement about a political reality. The pungent question is: why were these men never allowed to properly love each other? Filmmaker Bloodworth-Thomason keeps the pace brisk, with tight editing and a focus on the people and their emotional reactions to everything that happens. Shane is at the centre of the film, talking about the senseless accidental death of the love of his life, Tom Bridegroom. It's sad but hardly noteworthy, although the filmmaking draws us in long before events take the strongly topical turn that makes the film resonate in an almost overwhelming way. By the end, there isn't a dry eye in the house - yes, this doc carries a serious punch, as well as a hugely important statement about love and family. As Shane asks, "Why do the people who were supposed to love Tom the most fight so much against who he was."

BEST OF YEAR SCREENING:
Behind the Candelabra
dir Steven Soderbergh; with Michael Douglas, Matt Damon 13/US ****.

Much more than a biopic about Liberace, this expertly assembled film recounts a true love story in a way we rarely see on-screen: with honest humour, real feeling and startling insight. It also boasts quite possibly the most camp production design ever... FULL REVIEW >