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Full disclosure means I must reveal that many scenes of the Coen Brothers’ INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS were filmed in my Greenwich Village friend’s apartment block – it seems those steep stairs and narrow corridors haven’t changed in five decades. For this drama ploughs the same musical furrow as The Mighty Wind did through comedy, tapping into the almost-beyond-parody world of folk performers in Sixties New York City and beyond. Our dysfunctional hero is Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), an amalgam of all the freewheeling sub-Dylan troubadours who frequented the clubs and coffee houses, couch-surfing long before the term was invented.
Rubbish songs rub shoulders with catchy ones, as Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan play Davis’ fellow singers, and Mr Mulligan (aka Marcus Mumford) collaborates with T-Bone Burnett on the mixed soundtrack. Mulligan herself delivers the best line, summing up Davis thus: “Everything you touch turns to shit – like King Midas’ idiot brother.” And making his customary Coen cameo is John Goodman sporting an epic toupee, which really deserves its own credit. Close, but no cigar.
Based on Joyce Maynard’s novel, LABOR DAY is a gripping romantic thriller about Adele (Kate Winslet), an anxious single mom with a protective teenage son, Henry (Gattlin Griffith) who has a vivid imagination. One day their home and lives are invaded by an escaped felon, Frank (Josh Brolin), who coerces them into helping him. From their initial fear and mistrust spring a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, when Frank proves to be an indispensable handyman and excellent cook, with their collective baking of a peach cobbler beautifully fetishised. It’s to Winslet’s immense credit that under Jason (Juno) Reitman’s direction you completely believe that she’s a middle American housewife, struggling with her tight, constantly replayed loop of memories. Brolin is equally fine, but it’s young Griffith who steals the show. Warning: you will require hankies to watch this.
img src=”https://dvd-fever.co.uk/dvd-fever/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/hjlff13part1d.jpg” alt=”hjlff13part1d” width=”180″ height=”245″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-23989″ />Alexander Payne’s NEBRASKA is quite the best thing he’s made; much better than Sideways or The Descendants. Shot in gorgeous black and white, it uses a cast of largely unknown faces, with the exception of Bruce Dern as the ageing Woody, and Stacy Keach as his old nemesis, and is all the more credible for it. When Woody receives some junk mail telling him he’s won a million bucks, he stubbornly insists on travelling from Montana to Nebraska to collect his winnings, no matter how often he’s informed that it’s a scam. His son David (Will Forte) succumbs to the constant entreaties and drives them there, via Woody’s old hometown, which is where the key scenes take place. Word gets around, and old friends and greedy relatives line up for ‘their’ share of the booty. But Woody’s hard-nosed, straight-talking wife, brilliantly played by June Squibb (give her a Supporting Actress Award!), pours cold water on all their claims. Charming, yet cussed, full of home truths and gnarly old characters, this feels almost like a documentary in its unflinching portrait of smalltown life, and every frame is like a painting. Highly recommended.
Despite yet another role for Alexander Payne’s Sideways star Paul Giamatti, PARKLAND is not quite the sum of its parts. Or rather there are too many parts, with no real focus. This is Peter Landesman’s film of the day when JFK was shot, the people who witnessed it (Giamatti), those medics who tried to save him (Zac Efron and Marcia Gay Harden), and its aftermath. Plus, as Tom Hanks is one of the producers, his son Colin also features. But instead of adding something new to the assassination story, this seems more like forensic fetishism, with completely inconsequential incidents and characters awkwardly juxtaposed with the core narrative. It’s almost like the amateur footage taken by Giamatti’s character, Zapruder: unedited, raw, but only partially illuminating.
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