My Week with Marilyn (UK-US, 2011)

Michelle Williams is superb as Marilyn Monroe, as she was when shooting The Prince and the Showgirl (UK-US, 1957); Kenneth Branagh is no slouch as the director-star Laurence Olivier either. The only thing that Williams lacks, as Monroe, is the voluptuous curves; other than that, it is an entirely convincing portrayal. She’s particularly good at [...]

A Dangerous Method (UK-Ger-Can-Switz, 2011)

It would be churlish to complain that a film about the parents of psychoanalysis was too talky, so I won’t. The film’s built around the possible, as I understand it, sexual relationship between Carl Jung and one of his patients, Sabine Spielrein, superbly played by Keira Knightley. Jung’s infidelity was prompted by Otto Gross, a [...]

The Iron Lady (UK-France, 2011)

Nothing was going to get to me to see this film because Thatcher is one of the few people I’ve truly hated in my life (I still do). However, it dawned on me that as I’m teaching a topic called ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ (Mona Lisa, 1986, and Riff Raff, 1991) I needed to go. My reluctance [...]

The Father of My Children (Le père de mes enfants, Germany-France)

This interesting film (hmm – damning with faint praise) meanders along until a shocking moment and then meanders to the end; a bit like life really (though shocking moments might be optional). It’s an interesting mix of realism and melodrama; realism because narrative strands are left dangling without resolution, melodrama because it deals with family [...]

Me and Orson Welles (UK-US, 2008)

Another biopic (see Nowhere Boy from last week) and this film also avoids the genre’s pitfalls by focusing on moments before the protagonist was recognised as ‘great’. Me and Orson Welles goes further and makes the protagonist 17 year old Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) who gets to spend a week in the shadow of Welles. [...]

Nowhere Boy (UK-Canada, 2009)

Biopics are a difficult genre as packing a life into a brief narrative is ludicrously difficult. Focusing on a couple of years, however, is a good compromise but when those years include the formation of The Beatles, then the baggage accrued is immense. Nowhere Boy deftly finesses most of the problems; knowingly in the moment [...]

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (L’instinct de mort, France-Canada-Italy, 2008)

I’m not a fan of biopics, the narrative necessarily skips through highlights making the film like some ‘greatest hits’ compilation. If you don’t know the life, then the film can be even worse. However, when your life is scumbag Jacques Mesrine, encompassing the Algerian war against France and Quebec separatists, then the subject’s worth doing. [...]

Walk the Line (US, 2005)

I’m not a Cash, or Carter, fan but that didn’t hinder appreciation of the fabulous performances by Phoenix & Witherspoon. Great sound too (and not just the songs; watch/listen to the opening). Musicals aren’t exactly making a comeback in Hollywood but this follows successfully in Ray’s (US, 2004) footsteps. (DVD). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358273/