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JUST FOR LAUGHS
One person’s side-splitting comedy can leave another cold. But there were some gems in the festival that should work their magic on almost anyone – with many of them female-centric.
Hovering towards the top of the heap is Kiwi movie, The Breaker Upperers (above), from the makers of Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Defiantly non-PC, the director-writer-actor dynamic duo Madeline Sami and Jackie van Beek play a couple of women (Jean and Mel) who start an agency that promises to break up couples. Their conscious uncouplings of relationships is hilariously explained in the pre-title sequence, and we see them going about their morally dubious work with only the occasional bump in the road, until one job suddenly gets very messy. While their difficulties pile up, and the fallout from their actions is striking, this film is really about love and friendship. The plot is well-structured and the jokes nicely set up, and you simply must linger to watch the end titles, when several strands of the narrative are neatly wrapped up.
Woman At War is Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson’s excellent eco-comedy drama – or ecomedy – about an analogue environmental protester in a digital world. It looks stunning throughout, as it’s set across beautiful, wild Icelandic landscapes, focusing on mild-mannered choir leader Halla, who takes direct action against any industries threatening her beloved country. Topically featuring drones, which try to track Halla and take her down, this could have veered into conspiracy thriller territory as she accelerates her sabotage, but Erlingsson manages to make a serious point while always keeping the mood light. Amidst the startling eco themes are running sight gags that Mel Brooks would be proud of, featuring stirring soundtrack music, which the camera slowly pulls back to reveal is being performed by musicians right next to the action – again and again. And there’s a classic twist at the end. Recommended.
You’ll immediately recognise the star of new Scandi-com, That Time Of Year, Paprika Steen, who has featured in everything from Festen to Modus, and also directs this festive Danish confection. Co-starring The Killing’s Sofie Grabol as a mealy-mouthed priest with bad hair, plus Borgen’s Lars Knutzon and many more Nordic faves, it’s the first film written by theatre playwright Jakob Weis – and probably the first of many. Perhaps it’s best seen in a double bill, with festival darling Ben Wheatley’s darkly comic drama, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, (review follows) as both feature an uninvited guest at the feast – the black sheep of the family – and a family gathering with ladles of sibling rivalry. The Christmas celebrations and customs on show are very specific, yet universal, and the film is very nostalgic, yet never sentimental. Lovely stuff.
Broader humour, but with dark undercurrents, comes from writer-director Andrew Bujalski’s workplace comedy-drama Support The Girls. Set in a Hooters-like ‘breast-aurant’ diner called Double Whammies, where customers are indulged and servers are objectified, this shows the gulf between the glamorous exterior and the hard-scrabble reality of the place. Cameos from the likes of Orange Is The New Black star Lea DeLaria and country singer Jana Kramer add to the texture, but this movie really belongs to Regina Hall as the hard exterior/soft centre general manager Lisa, who nurtures all her girls and somehow maintains her own dignity.
Expanded from his original short of the same name, writer-director-star Jim Cummings’ Thunder Road takes its title from the Bruce Springsteen song, and has Cummings’ own character constantly teetering on the thin line between comedy and tragedy. He plays a cop who cannot cope at his mother’s funeral (when he performs the song), and is pulled off duty when it’s obvious he’s not in control of his emotions. Messed up, yet trying to make a fresh start, he goes into meltdown as he seeks custody of his young daughter. This multi-faceted portrait of a misfit in his own home town constantly pushes at the edges of expectations, asks as many questions as it answers, and is a hugely engrossing watch.
ON SONG
There was much for the self-respecting music lover at 2018’s festival, including North London romance, Been So Long (above), now on Netflix, so you can watch the starry, star-crossed duo, Michaela Cole and Arinze Kene make eyes at each other in pubs and cafes around Camden, aided and abetted by George Mackay and Luke Norris. This started life as a play by Che Walker at the Royal Court, and springs to life on the big (and small) screen, thanks to Tinge Krishnan’s taut direction, Arthur Darvill’s songs, and a superb black British supporting cast.
Similarly, Dublin Oldschool started life as a theatrical production, and the film notably features Emmet Kirwan (who also wrote the play) as Jason, plus the brilliant Seana Kerslake of Mad Mary fame as his ex, and is directed by Dave Tynan. There are echoes of Trainspotting and an extraordinarily playful use of language, continually undercut by whipsharp humour, and the knowledge that Jason’s brother is living on the street as an addict, a cautionary tale for Jason as he steams around Dublin on his Joycean journey.
Another fast-rising, homegrown star, Jessie Buckley, who turned our heads with her 2017 debut film Beast, now shows the other string to her bow, playing ex-jailbird and would-be country music star Rose-Lynn in Wild Rose (above), directed by Tom Harper. With co-stars including Julie Walters and Sophie Okonedo, plus real-life Nashville stars Ashley McBryde and Kacey Musgraves, and a script by country aficionado Nicole Taylor, this is nevertheless entirely Buckley’s film, as she hits inevitable highs and frustrating lows on her road to Tennessee and back. Plus she isn’t afraid to show the engaging, funny, yet also vulnerable sides of her character. She’s on her way.
In Ethan Hawke’s passion project, Blaze, Ben Dickey plays folk-country singer Blaze Foley, and Charlie Sexton is Townes Van Zandt, while Hawke fills the roles of producer, co-writer and director. And as Hawke pulled in some favours, we get to enjoy cameos from his pals Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn and Richard Linklater – plus Kris Kristofferson, but the main thrust of the narrative shows Foley beset by self-destructive demons, and a roving eye exacerbated by alcohol. Terrific soundtrack.
How best to describe the Bros documentary, After The Screaming Stops? It’s not clear whether directors Joe Pearlman and David Soutar, who focused on the brothers’ recent reunion, were inspired by Spinal Tap or something more reverent, like Amy. Matt Goss now plays the Vegas circuit, while Luke is a Hollywood actor, and they both take themselves very, very seriously, so there’s much inadvertent humour amidst this revealing study of sibling rifts and rivalry.
MAIN COMPETITION
Sudabeh Mortezai’s film, Joy, about European sex trafficking, deservedly won the main prize at the London Film Festival, unflinchingly telling its grim story, and showing how prostitution continues to be a global business. Families give up their daughters or sisters for their own benefit, pimps control them, and the men who pay for their services all fuel the system. Is there any escape for women like Joy, or are they fated to become part of it? We might perhaps want to look away, but this film shows we shouldn’t.
The rest of the contenders for the big prize showcased the festival’s variety. Karyn Kusama’s much-praised, twisting thriller Destroyer (above) adds to the critical acclaim for its deliberately de-glamourised star Nicole Kidman, who has new fans since her excellent work in Big Little Lies. On the surface, this feels like a procedural, but Kidman’s character is tough as nails, with scores to settle, messy addiction problems and a wayward daughter. Flipping around in chronology, we witness a bank job gone awry, old grievances returning, with great sound increasing the tension right to the bitter end.
Not quite the sum of its parts, The Old Man And The Gun, from writer-director David Lowery, stars the still-charming man Robert Redford, opposite the charmed Sissy Spacek, with Casey Affleck as the cop on Redford’s tail. It’s a real-life story of an over-the-hill crime gang, their escapades and escapes, with gentle romance between the ageing stars, plus strong secondary roles for Danny Glover and Tom Waits as fellow OAP criminals. But it’s hard to care too much.
Ben Wheatley’s latest, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (above), however, makes us care about a really motley bunch of family members, including Bill Paterson, Charles Dance and Hayley Squires, who gather on neutral territory to see in the new year, but mainly end up airing all their dirty linen and grievances. Like Scandi-com That Time Of Year (see above), the plot takes a dramatic swerve with the arrival of a black sheep, here Sam Riley. Remarkably, it was all shot in under two weeks, and it’s all held together by the character of Colin, expertly played by Neil Maskell, with bemusement, then growing frustration.
Another glossy contender was Zhang Yimou’s Shadow. Best known for making Hero, Yimou makes this look just as ravishing, in black and white throughout, except for the characters’ faces and hands, and a bamboo forest in colour. The prince and pauper/trading places set-up that happens in jail between a nobleman and a servant (who becomes his ‘shadow’), includes faking a major wound, and inevitably leads to much conflict, with epic duels, an army of fighting women, and spectacular use of umbrellas as weapons. House Of Flying Brollies, perhaps?
Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazzarro looks ancient, but is actually set in 1990s Italy, where rural traditions and seasons dominate, and innocents like young Lazzarro are taken advantage of and teased mercilessly. Rohrwacher perfectly conveys a world of feral, cruel superstitions with modernity around the edges, pushing in.
From Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, who made Embrace of the Serpent, comes new feature Birds Of Passage, set in Colombia from the late 1960s, but again with a timeless feel. Rites of passage for young women, ceremonial dancing, a necessary dowry, superstitions and traditions all seem quaint, until trading coffee beans turns into selling weed… and greed and enmity spin out of control. The bloody feud that leads to a cycle of violence has echoes of ancient Greek tales, with beauty and violence, tradition and modernity, and shunned family members all tied into the narrative.
In Part 2 of our round-up we’ll look at debut directors, plus dramas and thrillers, and there’s also documentaries, and our 2018 DVD Fever Awards to come… including many films that are dope, and a few that are ‘nope’!