BFI Flare: Live it up

This is a busy week at the 40th BFI Flare with a flurry of premieres, including the world premiere of the flambuoyant British biopic Madfabulous, with much of the cast and crew in attendance. I've enjoyed watching shorts and features every day, and now we're heading into the final weekend (epic party incoming!). Here are five more highlights from the festival, and Critical Week is down below...

Madfabulous
dir Celyn Jones; with Callum Scott Howells, Ruby Stokes 26/UK ***.
An outrageous figure from the British aristocracy gets the lively biopic treatment here. Wrestling his unruly story into a movie structure weakens the momentum in the second half, but this is a superb depiction of how difficult it is to be yourself within the constrains of polite society. Director Celyn Jones creates several superb sequences, augmented by particularly magnificent costumes. And the performances have a lovely depth.

Big Girls Don't Cry
dir-scr Paloma Schneideman; with Ani Palmer, Noah Taylor 26/NZ ****
From New Zealand, this introspective drama follows a teen girl on a journey of discovery that's involving, moving and sometimes disturbing. Writer-director Paloma Schneideman evokes her perspective beautifully, complete with contradictions and misconceptions. So the film continually finds inventive ways to challenge the audience to understand the messiness of navigating a desire that doesn't fit with everything you've been taught. 

On the Sea
dir-scr Helen Walsh; with Barry Ward, Lorne MacFadyen 25/UK ****
Earthy and realistic, this understated drama set in North Wales quietly explores masculinity with characters ranging from 15 to 70. It's an observational film that gets under the skin with layers of interaction that's dryly humorous, and a central storyline about a man taking an unexpected journey into his own sexuality. Writer-director Helen Walsh has a terrific eye for complex family dynamics and deeper personal feelings.

To Dance Is to Resist
dir Julian Lautenbacher; with Jay LeReve, Vol'demar Kabus 26/Ukr ****
Spanning four years in Kyiv from Russia's February 2022 invasion right up to the present, this documentary centres on two young men who demonstrate their resilience through performance art. The film vibrates with a rave-style vibe, blending rehearsals and shows with fly-on-the wall scenes of everyday life, all under the constant threat of bombs. It's an engaging, evocative expression of personal freedom and, yes, resistance.

Mickey & Richard
dir Ryan A White, AP Pickle; with Richard Bernstein 26/US ***.
Shot in black and white with full-colour clips, this documentary tells the story of Richard Bernstein, better known as the beefy 1980s pornstar Mickey Squires. Narrated by Richard, this is a frank and openhanded walk through the life of a man who simply took advantage of everything that came along and enjoyed every moment of the ride. And filmmakers Ryan A White and AP Pickle allow his warm sense of humour to shine.

Full reviews will be linked to the SHADOWS @ BFI FLARE page.

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

Party alert! There were three festive screenings this week that inspired special posts on my Instagram: Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page star in the corny but entertaining romcom You, Me & Tuscany; Zazie Beetz leads the charge in the nutty horror comedy They Will Kill You; and Riz Ahmed premiered his hilariously sharp new TV series Bait. I also caught up with Judy Davis, Miriam Margolyes and Jacki Weaver as sassy nuns in the charming New Zealand road movie Holy Days, plus lots of movies at BFI Flare. There was also a live performance of Where There Is No Time at Seven Dials Theatre

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Adam Scott in Hokum, horror thriller Undertone, Laszlo Nemes' new film Orphan, and a special screening of the Marilyn Monroe/Clark Gable classic The Misfits, plus many more films at BFI Flare.

Critical Week: A family affair

It's been a rather thin week for screenings, or maybe I'm just out of the loop because I've been pre-occupied with organising the Critics' Circle Film Awards. The biggest movie I saw was The Odyssey, the French biopic about Jacques Cousteau starring Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney and Audrey Tautou. It's beautifully filmed and acted, but lacks narrative coherence. The others were independent British oddities: Mindhorn is a somewhat uneven pastiche thriller about an actor asked to re-inhabit his 1980s TV cop character to solve a real murder. It has a terrific cast including Julian Barratt, Russell Tovey, Steve Coogan and Kenneth Branagh. And Spaceship is a swirly arthouse drama about a teen who may have been abducted by aliens, although the plot never quite makes any sense. And then there was a four-hour thriller released next week on DVD in the UK...

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Deep Water
dir Shawn Seet
scr Kym Goldsworthy
with Noah Taylor, Yael Stone, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Craig McLachlan, Danielle Cormack, Ben Oxenbould
16/Aus SBS 3h40 ***.
This four-part Australian TV series may feel somewhat melodramatic, but it taps into some darkly relevant themes. When a Muslim man is found murdered in his flat overlooking Bondi Beach, detective Tori (Orange Is the New Black's Yael Stone) and her partner Nick (Noah Taylor) begin to discover inexplicable links to a series of unsolved murders from the late 1980s. But these were hate crimes involving gay victims, and the officials simply turned a blind eye at the time. The show is assembled with a soapy emotional flair that kind of ignores authenticity in lieu of flashy plot points, hot potato themes and shifty suspects. This makes it feel like a rather standard television procedural, complete with far too many characters to keep straight and lots of shocking revelations. But the underlying issues are solidly engaging, touching on things in society that perhaps haven't improved as much as we'd like to think they have in the past 25 years. And it's strikingly well shot, with engaging performances from the skilled cast.

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This coming week we have screenings of another rather thin, offbeat collection of movies, including the British boxing drama Jawbone, Cristian Mungiu's award-winning Graduation and the doc All This Panic.