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My Aim Is True
Sometimes a true story is best tackled by dramatising it – and one of France’s finest filmmakers, François Ozon, has turned his hand to a story of abuse in the Catholic church. Even with Ozon’s cool, measured treatment, By the Grace of God (above) feels like a very personal film, delving deep into the suppressed memories of men who had their trust abused decades earlier, who are now horrified to discover that the priest who abused them is still working with young people. In order to move on, they must confront their own past, which brings great pain, especially when the statute of limitations and the time that’s elapsed means they must encourage more recent victims to step forward. Some can barely function, some have stayed faithful to their church, and some have abandoned all belief, as the priest has left an appalling trail of destruction. And this is a fine tribute to their courage in coming into the spotlight, when it might have been easier to stay in the shadows.
Agnieszka Holland has folded together intertwining narratives in Mr Jones, starring James Norton as real-life reporter Gareth Jones, investigating the true state of Stalin’s 1930s regime, but also bringing in George Orwell’s parallel writing of Animal Farm. Having interviewed Hitler, Jones aims to speak with Stalin, but finds himself thrown in at the deep end of the Moscow high life, which resembles Berlin at its most debauched (epitomised by Peter Sarsgaard’s character). Intrigue, propaganda and treachery swirl around his search for the truth, as he takes a train journey to discover what’s really going on in the impoverished Ukrainian countryside. No grain, in fact, no food is getting through to the starving locals, and Holland shoots many of these desperate scenes of famine with the colour entirely bleached out, and just one detail – like Jones’ peeled orange – jumping out. Screenwriter Andrea Chalupa bases much of the narrative on her own grandparents’ diaries; they lived in Donbass, and she grew up hearing their stories. And although we cannot know for certain whether Jones and Orwell did meet, it’s entirely plausible as they shared the same agent. Definitely a film which resonates with what’s happening right now, with journalists being suppressed and silenced not just in far-flung regimes, but also closer to home in places like Malta and Slovakia.
Ripped from the front pages of the newspapers, political thriller Official Secrets is sharply directed by Gavin Hood, and set just before the planned invasion of Iraq in 2003. Based on the story of courageous, conflicted whistleblower Katharine Gun, and the reporting of journalists Ed Vulliamy and Martin Bright – with their roles filled convincingly by Keira Knightley, Rhys Ifans and Matt Smith – it has all the tension and release of a conventional edge-of-the-seat thriller, with the added layer of knowing it’s all true.
More whistleblowers might have sped up the mammoth task for the investigators in Scott Z Burns’ film, The Report (above), another Adam Driver vehicle, with excellent support from the likes of Annette Bening (as Senator Dianne Feinstein) and Jon Hamm. Based on the ‘Torture Report‘, the story starts in 2003, and spans many years as the complexity of the cover-up unfolds. Much like Steven Soderbergh’s own film, The Laundromat – and he’s a producer on this one too – it’s a Russian Doll of revelations, as it shows the kind of torture that Errol Morris featured in his documentary Standard Operating Procedure, with CIA techniques like waterboarding waved through and normalised.
Bad Education initially feels like a broad high school comedy, and boasts Hugh Jackman as its lead, along with the always wonderful Allison Janney. But as it plays out, we soon realise that there’s corruption deep in the heart of the college they’re running – and this is another true story. Tonally, this might sound light years away from director Cory Finley’s breakthrough film, Thoroughbreds, but look a little deeper and you find the sudden shifts into darker territory, the twisted characters, and the extraordinary sound design are actually rather reminiscent of his fine debut. Set just two decades ago, it’s the story of widower Jackman’s power-driven school superintendent, who keeps the results high, the parents at his feet, and everyone seemingly happy. until some accounts don’t quite add up. He doubles down and covers his tracks by sacrificing a few colleagues to make it look like he’s squeaky clean, but can he keep up the pretence? And could his vanity and lust be his undoing? Lots of laughs, worth seeing for Janney alone, plus Finley is a genuine talent.
Back in the news again thanks to Elon Musk’s unfortunate tweets and his day in court, the rescue of the young Thai football team, the Wild Boars, is the subject of The Cave. Against the odds – in the actual circumstances and in the making of the drama – they’ve pulled it off, with the director Tom Waller deliberately using many of the real participants in his recreation of their skin-of-their-teeth escape from Tham Luang cave in monsoon season.
Funny Business
Comedy in Britain and beyond appears to be in rude health if the festival is a good barometer. Michael Winterbottom’s latest film, Greed (above), is a rollercoaster of laughs, mainly due to the the perfect casting of tan-tastic, teeth-whitened Steve Coogan as someone uncannily like Philip Green. All the vanity, hubris and narcissism of his character are in plain sight from minute one as the plot builds to his 60th birthday celebrations, while also giving us generous flashbacks of his upward trajectory and dodgy dealings. Will his purpose-built amphitheatre in Mykonos – just for his birthday – be his glorious signature piece or his downfall? He is shown with no taste, heart or boundaries, so the audience isn’t exactly rooting for him. An ace supporting cast includes David Mitchell as his unlikely, unwilling, but official biographer, plus Shirley Henderson and Tim Key. Meanwhile, the dense plot skewers constructed reality TV shows, reveals how much the fast fashion industry often relies on squeezing and abusing its workers, while constantly tugging at the threads of his empire to see if he’ll get his comeuppance. Kudos to Coogan and Winterbottom for creating an all-too-plausible monster.
Days of the Bagnold Summer is the directorial debut for Inbetweener Simon Bird, and his best move was to instantly sign up the simply superb Monica Dolan as a dowdy librarian at the heart of the story. She’s trying to get through the interminably long summer holidays in which her miserable, stroppy teenage misfit son, Daniel (Earl Cave) has to stay at home with her, when his father in Florida inevitably lets them down. There’s a sitcom vibe throughout, overlaid with a gorgeous Belle and Sebastian soundtrack, and we see her life measured not just in coffee spoons and library life, but in encounters with her not-exactly-supportive sister, Alice Lowe, hippy friend Tamsin Greig, and the odd awkward date with teacher, Rob Brydon. One of the best scenes involves a day out with Daniel, when they visit a fudge factory, with a priceless scene involving Tim Key as the overly friendly fudge-maker. It may all be a tad nostalgic, but there’s a nice edge of cynicism keeping it in check.
Having seen the stage musical based on the same 1998 novel, The Sopranos by Alan Warner, I was agog to see how Michael Caton-Jones’ movie would tackle the same characters and plot. Obviously, the main difference is shooting the story on location, with a larger cast and other actors taking major roles. But the incredible music (including Edwyn Collins’ Girl Like You), the cheeky humour, camaraderie, revelations and warmth are all still there. And the structure – leading up to the choir competition in Edinburgh – remains. But the characters do jump out even more, and even though the actors are perhaps just a few years too old to be playing school leavers, they somehow manage to be convincing.
On the surface, Dude In Me is just another classic body-swap comedy, much like Big or Freaky Friday. But this would be to ignore the fact that it’s a Korean take on the trope, with signature twists from director Kang Hyo-jin. Bigwig boss and one-time gang leader (Park Sung-woong) somehow manages to end up in the body of a bullied, nerdy teen (Jung Jin-youn) and vice versa, with the boss’ old love (Ra Mi-ran) coming into his life again to complicate matters, and his teen image undergoing something of a makeover. Played for laughs, the film shows the prevalence of bullying and corruption in businesses and schools, even as the boss rediscovers his moral compass.
In Competition
There’ll be more about the festival’s Main Competition winner, Monos, in Part Two of our round-up. Suffice to say it is not up our street. At all. Much better is Saint Maud, which also happens to be the debut of Rose Glass, and is approximately 85 per cent brilliant. There’s a slight lull – a dip in the middle – but apart from that it’s very strong and most promising. Starring the ubiquitous Morfydd Clark (as seen in two roles in David Copperfield) as Maud, the young carer for ailing ex-ballet star Amanda (a towering performance from Jennifer Ehle), this has a sustained, Gothic, Grey Gardens feel. Set in Wales, we see Amanda’s huge mansion on the hill overlooking a superficially glittering, washed-up seaside town. And there’s a religious fervour driving Maud, pushing her to the limit and hinting at the compulsive life of addiction she’s trying to leave behind – much as Amanda also wants to move beyond her own feted past. Lighting and sound design emphasise the gaps between what Maud wants, what she’s facing now, and what she’s careering towards. Naïve, possessive, even possessed, she wants a religious ecstasy, but there’s a heavy feeling of inevitability as the film builds to a huge climax. Keep an eye out for Rose Glass – and Morfydd Clark – definitely ones to watch.
Wadjda was Haifaa Al Mansour’s justly feted debut, made despite the restrictive film-making culture in Saudi Arabia, and she’s followed it up with a solid, documentary-like, political drama, The Perfect Candidate (above). Fed up of banging her head against a brick wall of misogyny and bad management in her everyday life as a hospital doctor, of being patronised and ignored at every turn, suddenly, almost by accident, Maryam finds herself standing in an upcoming election. She aims to fix everything, the potholes in the road next to the hospital, the attitude of male patients and colleagues, even her sceptical musician father. And Mila Alzahrani excels in the role, especially as she has to be behind the veil for much of the film, forcing her to act only with her eyes, gestures and voice. Her simple message is just to get elected, but nothing is easy on her journey.
Set just in a divided middle England in 1657, post-Civil War, when everything was up for grabs (making Brexit comparisons inevitable), Thomas Clay’s film Fanny Lye Deliver’d is mainly remarkable for the mighty Maxine Peake in the title role. Living in a muddy enclave of a home with an authoritarian husband, Charles Dance, and their not-too-bright son, Fanny seems the epitome of a devout and devoted wife. But when a fleeing couple (naughty Freddie Fox and Tanya Reynolds) descend upon them with their new fangled ideas about love, freedom and female emancipation, before darker forces threaten all their lives, Fanny is forced to reconsider what she really wants out of her own life.
Irish drama Rose Plays Julie, from joint directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, aka Desperate Optimists, starts off as a bit of a mystery. Rose (Ann Skelly, aka the Irish Jodie Comer) is studying as a vet, and wants to find her birth mother, Julie (the dependable Orla Brady), who gave her up for adoption. When pushing to find out what was behind Julie’s decision, Rose finds some unpleasant truths about her birth father (Aidan Gillen), and how she was conceived, and the plot gets altogether darker, echoed in some of the brutal, bloody scenes in her veterinarian school. Is confronting the past always a good idea? Is revenge on the cards – and if so, will Rose achieve her aim?
Lingua Franca (above) is Isabel Sandoval’s highly topical, well-made tale of a transwoman, Olivia, (played by Sandoval) living in Brooklyn, undocumented and afraid, yet still managing to carry out her care duties and look for love. She is anxious to sort out an arranged marriage to get the documentation to prevent her deportation, but she’s also highly romantic, and falls fast for the grandson of the woman she’s caring for. Above all, you are cheering for Olivia, as you see through her eyes how often she is let down. Political points are pretty obvious, as in the background we see crackdowns on immigrants post-Trump and hear of the hostile environment back home in her native Philippines. An uncomfortable, illuminating film.
Honey Boy is more fodder for Shia LaBeouf fans, and this one’s close to home, as it dramatises his own upbringing at the hands of an emotionally abusive father. Written by LaBeouf himself and directed by Alma Har’el, this drama has Noah Jupe playing the young LaBeouf, with Lucas Hedges taking up the role as a young man, while LaBeouf basically plays his own unreliable, sleazy father. A cautionary tale about child stars and their sometimes terrible parents, it somehow manages to be sentimental while showing some pretty dark episodes. Kind of a romanticised coming-of-age tale that’s messed up and toxic at its heart.
So, that’s our BFI 63rd London Film Festival Part 1 Review all done. In the second part of our round-up we’ll look at the debut directors, plus new dramas and thrillers. There are some fine documentaries too, plus what you’ve all being waiting for: our 2019 DVDfever Awards. including many films that fill us with optimism, and some that make us despair!
Also, check out the London Film Festival website.