LFF: Power to the people

The 64th BFI London Film Festival kicked off today with a flurry of sold-out screenings around the country for Steve McQueen's film Mangrove. I tried to get a cinema ticket, but they were gone within minutes, which meant I watched the film in an online virtual press screening, the way I'll see all of the festival's movies. Which kind of removes even the slightest sense of this being a festival. There's also no printed programme, no press credential, no parties. Basically it's a two week web-based movie glut. But these are some of the best films of the year, so it's worth the effort. Here are some highlights...

Mangrove
dir Steve McQueen; with Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes 20/UK *****
This British drama recounts the first legal case that acknowledged racial bias in the London police force. With his fine artistic eye, Steve McQueen assembles this in period style, taking an everyday kitchen-sink approach that feels like a vintage soap opera, complete with flashes of sharp wit and dark emotion. This story is urgent and involving, moving at a quick pace as it follows engaging people through a jaw-dropping trial... FULL REVIEW >

Kajillionaire
dir-scr Miranda July; with Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez 20/US ***.
Another absurdly offbeat comedy from Miranda July, this wilfully wacky movie centres on a family of dysfunctional crooks who pull one tiny hustle after another. The plot defiantly refuses to travel in expected directions. And amid the nuttiness, this becomes a remarkably sensitive coming-of-age for a 26-year-old who is only just beginning to understand who she might actually be. This is a bold, bonkers movie with a warm, beating heart... FULL REVIEW >

Honeymood
dir-scr Talya Lavie; Avigail Harari, Ran Danker 20/Isr ***.

Set over one long night, this Israeli romantic-comedy superbly navigates a range of earthy emotions as a couple faces the first hours of their marriage. It's an entertaining, surprising film, shifting from funny to thoughtful as it explores issues of relationships and interconnections from a variety of resonant angles. The plot meanders and is sometimes a bit too pointed, but it's both engaging and provocative.

NB. My anchor page for the LFF is HERE and reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries.

Screen: Autumn TV Roundup

Even with all the movies I'm watching, I still have a bit more time than usual to catch episodes of series television, mainly because I don't have the normal travel time getting into town for physical screenings. The challenge is finding shows that are a tonic after a heavy film - most series at the moment seem to be so serious! So the rare comedy is hugely welcome. This is what I've been watching over the past couple of months...

Ted Lasso 
The premise for this sitcom looks lame: earnest American football coach is hired to manage a cynical English football (ie, soccer) team. But it stars Jason Sudeikis and several under-the-radar British comedy assassins (Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham, Nick Mohammed), so I decided to take a look. And this is the best surprise so far this year, one of the smartest, funniest shows out there, subverting expectations at every moment with characters who are a lot more than the usual types. It's also a rare show that takes a positive approach to life in general, making you feel empowered even as you laugh at a wicked joke. (Apple) 

Ratched 
A rather unconnected prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this series is beautifully designed, with a fierce cast. It takes awhile to get going, but the story tightens over these eight episodes, as the eponymous nurse (Sarah Paulson) goes on a deeply personal mission and becomes embroiled in several other nasty events. Performances are terrific, particularly from iconic divas Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and Sharon Stone. But the main thing here is the production design, soaked in primary colours, arch architecture and horrific grisliness. The themes feel rather pushy, but it's enjoyably nasty. (Netflix)

A Suitable Boy 
Vikram Seth's acclaimed novel gets the period-epic BBC treatment, directed by the terrific Mira Nair, who always brings a blast of colourful energy to her depictions of Indian culture. Set in the early 1950s shortly after independence, the series recounts a series of interwoven romantic storylines that connect four families, complicated by the fallout from the nation's partition. As usual, Tabu steals the show as a singer of ill repute who falls for a young man played by the magnetic Ishaan Khattar. But the entire cast is frankly gorgeous, beautifully dressed in vivid costumes and bursting with emotion and energy. (BBC)

I Hate Suzie
This provocative British black comedy plays with a number of real-life elements while unflinchingly exploring a tricky issue. Billie Piper stars as a singer-actress whose intimate photos are hacked from her phone, causing mayhem in her personal and professional life. But her reactions often make things worse, which gives her character a startlingly complexity, a famous person who is deeply flawed yet has a public persona to maintain. The approach is inventively stylised, with writing that never takes the usual route for a TV show. And what it says about both society and the industry is astonishing. (Sky)

Hitmen 
The terrific comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins put their snappy chemistry into a goofy sitcom, and the fact that they're playing assassins keeps the humour very black indeed. The writing is random and generally hilarious, although the show is awkwardly directed and edited to flatten some of the more outrageous gags. Still, Mel & Sue are so funny that they keep us watching, and their interaction with a range of side characters, from each episode's target hit to their riotous nemeses/cohorts Charles and Liz (Asim Chaudhry and Tonya Cornelisse) leaves us looking forward to a second season. (Sky)

Five Bedrooms
This Australian comedy-drama centres on five young people on the singles table at a wedding, each of whom is at a different point in his or her life, and they decide to buy a big house together. What follows is pretty ridiculous, really, as episodes progress from one carefully scripted catastrophe to the next, including farcical romance, surprise revelations, bankruptcy and even cancer. What makes it addictive is the cast, who manage to make these neurotic people very likeable, even as they continually sabotage their own lives. The question is whether they'll survive a second season of disasters. (Peacock)

Insatiable: series 2 
Full-on and deliberately over-the-top, this lurid comedy continues to centre more on murder than sex, which is odd considering that it's about the obsessive people who participate in beauty pageants. But even if the snaky plot continually takes the more obvious, often less interesting direction, the relentless pile-up of soapy twists and turns is riotous and often downright hilarious. And the wildly out-of-control characters are oddly endearing, sharply played by the likes of Dallas Roberts, Debby Ryan, Alyssa Milano and Christopher Gorham. It's not smart enough to be a classic, but it's a lot of messy fun. (Netflix)

The New Legends of Monkey: series 2
This insanely cheesy adventure series is oddly addictive, the definition of a guilty pleasure. It's not even particularly well-made, with its cheap sets and costumes, plus actors who never quite seem like they're taking their roles with even a grain of seriousness. But the goofiness is a lot of fun, and there are some sharply witty moments along the way, including genuinely hilarious dialog and plot points, throwaway one-liners and amusing mistakes. The plot is also so freewheeling that literally anything can happen at any moment. So it's impossible to predict what kind of idiocy is coming next. (Netflix)

PLAYING CATCH-UP

The Neighbor (El Vecino)
From Spain, this goofy comedy has a Green Lantern-like plot about the hapless Javier (Quim Gutierrez) who is given superpowers and a whizzy suit and charged with protecting the galaxy. And his dorky neighbour Jose (Adrian Pino) tries to help him become a better superhero. The joke is that everyone in Javier's life would make a better hero than him, and indeed he's a bit too self-involved, so it's no wonder that his relationship with unambitious journalist Lola (Clara Lago) collapses. But watching his transformation is fun. And the show's low-fi special effects make it even more charming. (Netflix)

Chewing Gum: series 1-2
After I May Destroy You, I realised that I had missed Michaela Coel's previous series, an equally complex and clever comedy about a young woman trying to escape her fiercely religious upbringing and explore the previously forbidden real world. It's all a bit broad and sometimes downright manic, but Coel is terrific as the hapless late bloomer Tracey, making witty comments to-camera as she barrels through a series of madcap experiences. And as the series continues, the side roles become better defined, which makes them both funnier and more emotionally involving. (BBC)

Lucifer: series 1-3
I've inched my way through this show, a terrific tonic when I need something mindless. The concept is witty (the devil fights crime in Los Angeles!), and the comical tone keeps it vacuously enjoyable. The preposterous murder-of-the-week plots, on the other hand, are essentially reworked from old episodes of Hart to Hart. It's also one of those shows that pretends to be sexy and raunchy while shying away from anything remotely realistic. But the characters are vivid enough to hold the attention, and their twisted inter-relationships make the show consistently watchable. Let's hope it finds some edge as it moves to Netflix. (Fox)

Eastsiders: series 1-4
This show was recommended for its writing, and it's well worth catching up with because the scripts are unusually strong. Over four seasons, the show focusses on a group of people who live in a queer L.A. bubble (no native Angeleno would ever think of Silverlake as "east"). The characters are siblings, neighbours and couples, many are gay, and all are dealing with the usual crises. But this is written and played with remarkable insight. Not only are the actors honest and messily real, but the dialog pops with lines like: "Let people be who they are, and then they will do for you the same favour." (Netflix)

I GIVE UP

Away: With this talented cast, it's shocking how bad the writing is, a cliched soap full of improbable melodrama. There's no way Nasa would send this bickering crew to Mars, complete with Russian and Chinese disruptors, facing a silly calamity each week. I made it through the second episode before giving up. (Netflix)

Muppets Now: The Muppets are back once again in another format that seems carefully concocted for the times: namely a computer screen. Some segments are amusing, especially offhanded moments with the starry guests. But it's trying too hard, and the writing fails to make anything of these iconic characters. (Disney)

NOW WATCHING: The Boys (2), Fargo (4), Lovecraft Country, The Third Day, The Duchess, The Comey Rule, We Are Who We Are, Long Way Up.

LOOKING FORWARD: The Mandalorian (2), The Crown (4), Star Trek: Discovery (3), Adult Material, NeXt, The Undoing.

Critical week: The artistic process

As Britain begins to lock down again to weaken a second wave, I had one in-cinema screening this week, and also one live (outdoor) theatre performance. Otherwise, my life continues to be online. There were two special press screenings on Netflix sponsored by the American Film Institute, with added Q&As after the films. Over the Moon (pictured) is an animated adventure with a Chinese setting, gorgeously designed and unusually imaginative. The Q&A featured director Glen Keane and actors Ken Jeong and Cathy Ang. The Boys in the Band is a remake based on the landmark 1968 play, a superbly observed black comedy set in the New York gay subculture with an excellent all-star cast, all of whom participated in an unusually raucous Q&A, including Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Boys in the Band • The Glorias
Summer of 85 • Eternal Beauty
FULL REVIEWS >

This week's other big-name movie was Julie Taymor's insightful and bracingly original biopic The Glorias, starring Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander (and two others) as Gloria Steinem at two points in her life. Sally Hawkins stars in Eternal Beauty, an offbeat drama about life trauma that's cleverly written and directed by actor Craig Roberts. And my one real press screening was for the Irish drama Herself, which features a superb central performance by cowriter Clare Dunne as a single mother pressured from all sides.

There were two funny-creepy independent black comedies: Scare Me, in which the terrific Aya Cash (see the current season of The Boys) and actor-filmmaker Josh Ruben try to terrify each other, and Say Your Prayers, in which two hapless religious siblings botch a hit on an atheist. And there were also two docs: the insightful I Am Greta offers a remarkably detailed portrait of climate activist Greta Thunberg, while The Painter and the Thief beautifully chronicles the unusual relationship between an artist and the junkie who stole her paintings.

Films this coming week include Robert De Niro in The War With Grandpa, as well as Making Tracks, From the Vine, The Wanderings of Ivan and Song Lang. And virtual press screenings begin for the London Film Festival as well, so I already have several in the diary, including the opening film, Steve McQueen's Mangrove, plus Riz Ahmed in Mogul Mowgli, Evan Rachel Wood in Kajillionaire, the horror hit Relic, Honeymood, Siberia and I Am Samuel.

Critical Week: Mommie dearest

I had two press screenings this past week, as well as two open-air events: a screening and a stage play. So it felt like another step in the right direction, especially as it was accompanied by great weather. But then new restrictions came in, so here we are. The biggest film of the past week was a streaming release, Enola Holmes. Millie Bobby Brown stars as the younger sleuthing sister of Sherlock and Mycroft (Henry Cavill and Sam Clafin, having a lot of fun), with Helena Bonham Carter (above with Brown) as their mum. It's a rambunctious franchise-launcher. And then there was Janelle Monae in the freak-out drama Antebellum, which has too little energy to be a classic but shows plenty of invention and passion. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Little Girl • Monsoon
PERHAPS AVOID:
Ava
FULL REVIEWS >

More independent films included 23 Walks, a gentle late-in-life romance with the reliable Alison Steadman and Dave Johns; Becky, a violent thriller about a plucky teen taking on a malevolent Kevin James; Miss Juneteeth, an extremely low-key mother-daughter drama with Nicole Beharie; and Shortcut, a decent thriller about five teens trapped in tunnels with a slimy monster. There were also three French films: Francois Ozon's Summer of 85 is a complex and intimate teen drama. Two of Us is a provocative, involving romance between two 70-year-old women. And Little Girl is a seriously gorgeous doc about a mother fighting for her 8-year-old's right to be herself.

Coming up this next week are virtual screenings of the all-star remake of The Boys in the Band, Julianne Moore in The Glorias, Sally Hawkins in Eternal Beauty, Aya Cash in Scare Me, Harry Melling in Say Your Prayers, Aunjanue Ellis in Miss Virginia, the Danish drama A Perfectly Normal Family and the Turkish horror-thriller The Antenna.

Stage: A comedy of reinvention

Renaissance
by Charles Ward
dir Emma Butler
with James Corrigan, Akshay Sharan, Nicholas Limm, Bethan Cullinane, Hadyn Gwynne, Hannah Morrish
Stephens House and Gardens, Finchley • 17-20.Sep.20

A world premiere comedy redesigned for pandemic restrictions, this production reunites four actors who were working together at the National Theatre when lockdown came into force. It's based on a brief period in 1502 when Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli were living in the court of notorious Prince Cesare Borgia. Playwright Charles Ward has come up with a wildly entertaining farce in rhyming couplets, as each of the characters uses a disguise to obscure their identity and ends up reinventing themselves in the process.

The story opens as Borgia (Corrigan) asks the little-known politician Machiavelli (Limm) to take his place as the prince, to give him a break from ruling his turbulent kingdom. Then Da Vinci (Sharan) arrives posing as a politician in an effort to escape from the pressures of being an artist. This is further complicated when Borgia decides to pretend that he's a painter. Enter neighbouring ruler Caterina Sforza (Cullinane), defying Borgia's military and stirring unexpected reactions from the wrong men: anger from Machiavelli's faux Borgia and romance from the incognito Borgia. Then Borgia's sister Lucrezia turns up, instantly knowing something is amiss even as she hides her identity by posing as a man. And finally there's the grand dame Isabella d'Este (Gwynne), a straight-talking, well-connected art collector.

Corrigan and Gwynne

Watching these people dance around each other in ever-complicated circles of misunderstanding is hilarious, especially with their witty rhyming dialog, which includes razor-sharp Fleabag-style asides to the audience. Each actor is excellent, and each has moments both big and small in which they can shine. The standout is Corrigan, whose Borgia amusingly gets into his role as a camp artist. Limm is superb as the over-thinking Machiavelli, haplessly preying on everyone he meets, while Gwynne gets the most viciously astute insults. 

Performed in the gardens at Stephens House on a small round stage circled with lights, the production is simple but very cleverly designed and directed to bring out the characters and their twisted interaction. And Ward's smart, playful script gives each of these people a moment of illumination that's properly resonant.  Aside from inspiring Machiavelli to write his iconic treatise The Prince, there's no historical record of how these real people actually interacted, only that they were all together at one particularly messy time. The way Ward weaves politics and religion into the story is notably pointed, and remarkably timely in a period when we feel just as divisive and isolated. 

18.Sep.20 

Critical Week: Take a stand

The world seems to be falling further apart by the day, with insane chaos within the governments of both the UK and the US (which has the added nightmare of an imminent election). So it's been nice to have a tiny bit of normality return with more press screenings, including the international premiere of The Eight Hundred, China's biggest blockbuster ever, which looks awesome on the Imax screen. It's a thrilling battle epic on a jaw-dropping scale. The other big movie this week was The Devil All the Time, an epic backwoods morality tale featuring formidable performances from Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson and Riley Keough.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 
Spiral • Rocks • I Used to Go Here 
For They Know Not What They Do
FULL REVIEWS >>

Other films this week included the collection of to-camera monologs in Coastal Elites, which is a bit preachy for its own good; David Cross on an intrepid and rather charmingly hapless true-life wilderness adventure in The Dark Divide; Ciaran Hinds traversing France in the quirky and almost silent comical road movie The Man in the Hat; and the stylish and rather nutty The Wall of Mexico, a nicely blurred satire about culture and ethnicity.

This coming week's films include Millie Bobbie Brown in Enola Holmes, Kevin James goes villainous in Becky, Alison Steadman in 23 Walks, Nicole Beharie in Miss Juneteenth, Francois Ozon's Summer of 85, the teen adventure Shortcut, the romantic drama Two of Us and two documentaries: Little Girl and The Painter and the Thief. I also have my first theatre press night - review coming soon.

Critical Week: Feeling blue

After a few big movies recently, this was a rather offbeat week at the movies for me. All but one were watched on screening links, which is also how I attended the programme launch for the 64th London Film Festival (which runs 7-18 Oct) - at which much of the festival and all press screenings will be virtual. But there's definitely a sense that the industry continues to slowly wake up.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Buoyancy • The Roads Not Taken
The Painted Bird • Lucid
PERHAPS AVOID:
Up on the Glass • The Lost Husband
FULL REVIEWS >>

Probably the biggest film I saw this week was the brain-bending horror thriller Possessor, starring Andrea Riseborough as a body-invading assassin and Christopher Abbott (pictured above with Tuppence Middleton) as a host who fights back. It's violent and downright stunning. Charlie Kaufman's new brain-bender I'm Thinking of Ending Things is also pretty stunning, with its existential surrealism expertly played by Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons. By contrast, the sappy romantic comedy Love Guaranteed is relentlessly cute and annoyingly likeable.

The other films I saw this past week were a random grab bag: Spiral is a queer horror movie that has a powerful thematic sting in its tail; the scruffy British indie Rocks carries a proper kick in its realistic depiction of a teen trying to solve problems on her own; the kaleidoscopic drama Residue is elusive but pointed as a filmmaker tries to go home again; the broad comedy Teenage Badass follows a young guy who joins a riotously silly, but also rather talented, band; Up on the Glass is an awkward thriller with some intriguing emotions; Buoyancy is a gorgeously well made odyssey about a young Cambodian sold into slavery on a Thai fishing trawler; The Acrobat is a darkly explicit French-Canadian drama about two men starting a tough relationship; and Ixcanul is a gorgeously well-made drama from Guatemala about an indigenous family living on a volcano.

Movies coming up in another busy week include Tom Holland in the thriller The Devil All the Time, Dan Levy in the pandemic comedy Coastal Elites, Ciaran Hinds in the comedy The Man in the Hat, David Cross in the adventure The Dark Divide, the topical comedy-drama The Wall of Mexico, the British indie Hurt by Paradise, and two actual screenings: Francois Ozon's Summer of '85 and the Chinese blockbuster The Eight Hundred.