Only about six weeks now until Christmas, so I probably shouldn't be complaining about it clogging up the TV schedules. In truth, it's not the programming that bothers me so much as the advertisements, and the way they've become televisual events to the point where they get trailers in their own right. Is the shopping really the only thing that matters? I don't know, but what I do know is that a movie blog isn't the place for rants about consumerism, no matter how crass it might be.
Mostly, I just noticed this weekend that the usual glut of bad family movies had suddenly acquired a touch of festive sparkle. I did toy with writing about Santa With Muscles, but that would have contravened my rule about shooting fish in a barrel, as well as necessitating watching it.
The Polar Express is one of these films that I've only ever seen piecemeal, as something vaguely visually distracting whilst I was waiting for something more interesting to show up on TV. I knew, however, that it was based on a picture book by author Chris Van Allsburg, and I knew it used motion-capture animation to allow Tom Hanks to play several of the major roles, including the unnamed Hero Boy (luckily, he allowed Spy Kids' Daryl Sabara to take on voice acting duties for this one.) I knew we first met our hero one Christmas Eve when he was starting to have his doubts about Santa Claus and the magic of the festive season, and I knew it was about how he got invited aboard a mysterious train bound for the North Pole and the trip he took.
I also knew Mr. Beaupepys flat-out refused to watch it on grounds of excessive creepiness, and from the snatches I'd previously seen I was inclined to think he had a point. Still, part of the reason I'm writing this thing is to take a good hard look at popular prejudices, which means that every now and then I should probably put my own under the magnifying glass, too.
The good
The visual style is really, umm, distinctive? Faint praise, I know, but the backgrounds in particular occasionally display a genuine beauty, even if it is of the very loneliest variety, like that of a windswept moor or a ghost town. Sometimes the composition of a shot will look almost painterly, as with the glowing lights of the train as it ascends a spiral mountain. It is at those points, I think, that The Polar Express comes closest to finding a sense of genuine wonder. The rest of the time, well, the motion capture animation is really clever, I suppose?
The thing I liked the most about the movie, though - well, admired, because I can't honestly say I felt a genuine warmth towards any aspect of it - was Hero Girl, a young African American girl who joins the hero boy on his journey and precipitates most of the action with her bravery and compassion. Her belief in the Christmas spirit is unquenchable, and I would have loved to have seen her as our main heroine. That's not how the book works, however; Hero Boy isn't sure he believes, and there's more rejoicing over one sinner who repents, etc, etc - it's unsurprising if vaguely depressing that (spoilers) he's the one selected for the honour of receiving the first Christmas gift from Santa.
The bad
Believe it or not, I don't enjoy eviscerating movies. I particularly don't enjoy eviscerating kids' films, and I most especially don't enjoy eviscerating the Christmassy ones. I find myself feeling obliged to pre-emptively defend myself by pointing out that I get up at 5am every Christmas morning to watch favourites like Olive the Other Reindeer, and that if I ever were to miss The Snowman or Muppet Christmas Carol I'd feel as though Christmas hadn't really happened at all.
So... not a Scrooge, okay?
It's just that The Polar Express is so unrelentingly bloody bleak and chilly that I find myself wondering whether Zemeckis didn't do the majority of his work on it whilst channeling the childlike wonder and warm humanitarian soul of Christopher Nolan. Oh, and just so we're absolutely clear, 1) that was sarcasm and 2) this is my second attempt at writing a sentence featuring both those names because 3) the first one conjured up the sort of unpleasant images that I, unlike Zemeckis, wouldn't want to burn into your brain.
Let's deal with the animation first. Yes, the characters do undeniably look creepy. I don't think it's the visuals themselves so much as hyperrealistic motion animation married to artwork intended to resemble Allsburg's illustrations. We're deep into Uncanny Valley here, and it's worsened by the mental image of Tom Hanks underneath, wearing a blue suit covered with ping pong balls and pretending with all his might to be a small child experiencing wonders and horrors untold.
This actually wasn't my biggest problem with the film, though; no, that one's reserved for the narrative. I haven't managed to lay my hands on a copy of the original picture book and so I'm not sure who gets the blame for this one, but my God, a lot of dangerous stuff happens in this movie. Scarcely five minutes pass without our young heroes falling prey to some sort of unspeakable danger - this usually involves falling, either from a great height, at a great speed or, frequently, both. There's also the ghost hobo who generally provides a last-minute rescue but whose identity and motives are never entirely clear, and who himself apparently meets various terrible fates at various points during the 100-minute running time.
Under the circumstances, my usual pet peeve of an overly heavy-handed soundtrack hardly even registers. Yes, though, there is one, and yes, it does grate. Similarly annoying is the film's single named female character, and the relentless middle-classness of the whole affair; anybody not obviously at least comfortably off is treated either as a figure of pity (Lonely Boy) or of fun (the engineers). This isn't a terribly inclusive Christmas we're looking at, and nor, despite Hero Girl's best efforts, is it a particularly compassionate one. As far as I can tell, the only morals of the story seems to be that all the best stuff is reserved for those who believe unquestioningly, and that adulthood is a tragedy because it robs us of the capacity for unquestioning trust.
Yeah, if you dig beneath the surface there's some really worrying stuff going on here.
The verdict
I know a lot of people really love this one, but I'd no more show it to a young kid than I would Inception - as with Inception, some stunning visual trickery can't compensate for worrying messages and a complete lack of a human heart.
We all remember Jackanory, don't we? Don't we? I get the horrible feeling that recent revival notwithstanding, it's one of those things that died out decades ago and thus marks me out as an old person. Oh, and a British person; there's probably any number of people in other countries who don't remember it and plenty of them probably don't even have TV sets, or didn't at the time. Heck, I don't really remember it myself, I mostly just remember it was a thing. So yeah, a small minority of us remember Jackanory.
Anyhow, for those who don't, the concept isn't hard to grasp: it features a person sitting in a chair reading a story, with rudimentary live action or animated segments as illustrations. Nice TV for kids, and possibly even for harrassed parents. Soothing.
When, therefore, I heard that UK TV channel Dave was introducing something similar aimed at adults and calling it Crackanory, yeah, I had to give it a go. Was I impressed? Not particularly. The stories (all black comedies) are mostly a bit obvious, and the presenters are almost invariably a lot self-satisfied. Still, I continue to watch, because, well, it's sort of soothing.
I was catching up on Crackanory yesterday when I noticed that one of the live action sections starred Steve Oram and Alice Lowe. Awesome! I thought, They were both in Sightseers! ... ... ...Why on earth haven't I written about Sightseers?
Luckily, it's not too late.
Sightseers is a deliciously dark little comedy directed by Ben Wheatley - he's done Kill List and A Field In England, both of which you also probably haven't seen (don't worry, neither have I). It's written by its two stars, the aforementioned Oram and Lowe, although I believe there was also a heavy improvisational element. It tells the story of Tina and Chris, a couple of societal misfits taking their first holiday together in a mobile caravan in the north of England. Are the consequences hilarious? For the viewer, maybe, but not necessarily for the people they meet on their travels.
The good
In theory, I love the British film scene - it's fresh, it's ours and it provides a bunch of interesting alternatives to the immaculately-buffed turds produced by the Hollywood blockbuster machine. In practice, though? Experience shows that the ratio of hits to misses is about the same. For every hidden gem I manage to locate, I land up sitting through a bunch of faux-gritty crime dramas and self-consciously quirky sci-fi that makes me long for the kind of budget that doesn't even have to run to decent effects, just the services of a proper scriptwriter.
Luckily, Sightseers is one of the gems. A blood-slicked, petty little gem, maybe, but that's half the fun of it. It's a thoroughly bleak little piece without an ounce of respect for anybody, especially not our two protagonists. But then, life's never shown much respect to Chris or Tina either, which is why he's grown intolerant of even the smallest of life's irritations and her mind is altogether too open to any sort of new experience. She offers him unquestioning adoration and he offers her guidance, at least at first - it's the gradual shift in their roles that makes this film such an utter joy.
Oram and Lowe are both standups, so it's probably not surprising that the script is full of quotable one-liners - they generally keep these for themselves, but as Tina's mother, Eileen Davies also gets some absolute doozies. It was an accident, Tina whines about the death of the family dog. So were you, retorts her mother, without missing a beat.
The soundtrack, too, is fantastic, consisting of patient, winding piano interspersed with various rock tracks and, in one particularly memorable segment, a spoken-word rendition of part of Jerusalem. It's smart, in an unobtrusive sort of a way, and I particularly liked the way different versions of the same songs were used to illustrate the shifting power balance within Chris and Tina's relationship.
For those concerned about these sorts of things, the gore level is relatively low. The sound engineering, however, fills in the gaps that the visuals leave blank, so people with vivid imaginations will probably find themselves cringing regardless.
The bad
Only a few minor niggles here, to be honest; this is a very, very nice little film indeed.
The cinematography is solid rather than spectacular; it tells the story well enough but with the Yorkshire landscape practically a character in its own right, I would have appreciated a greater sense of place. Perhaps the narrow focus was a stylistic choice, but I do feel as though the bleak landscapes would have really complemented the exceptionally bleak narrative.
There isn't much else to complain about; the film does possibly sag in the middle a little, but at 88 minutes, you have to ask what would have been left if all the slack had been cut away.
The verdict
Bleakly funny and as British as complaining about the weather - it's a crime this one hasn't received the attention it rightfully deserves.
So, after a month of movies, I thought it might be nice to close things off with a bit of an awards ceremony - after all, what's the point in watching a bunch of films if you don't compare them with one another?
Without further ado, therefore, allow me to present to you:
THE INDEFENSIBLES!
Best Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: Alan Arkin (The Return of Captain Invincible) Rinko Kikuchi ( The Brothers Bloom) Billy Zane (The Phantom)
Winner: Alan Arkin, with a performance of dazzling sincerity that cut through a campy script and turned it into something genuinely moving.
Worst Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: Diego Boneta (Rock of Ages), Julianne Hough (Rock of Ages), Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern)
Winner: Diego Boneta, purely because I forgot his surname and was forced to check it on imdb and remember the damned film all over again.
Best Movie
Nominees: Black Sheep, A Life Less Ordinary, The Return of Captain Invincible
Winner: Black Sheep, for nuanced performances, great pacing and proving that low-budget creature flicks don't always crawl out of the kitsch abyss.
Worst Movie
Nominees: The Green Lantern, Ishtar, Rock of Ages
Winner: Rock of Ages. Anybody can make a mess of a complex concept, but it takes something truly special to fuck up boy-meets-girl to the point of unwatchability.
Best Soundtrack
Nominees: Kicks, The Phantom of the Paradise, The Return of Captain Invincible
Winner: The Return of Captain Invincible, because the performers clearly enjoyed it most and you can't get a higher recommendation than that.
Worst Soundtrack
Nominees: Rock of Ages, Tooth Fairy, Xanadu
Winner: Rock of Ages, for taking some of my favourite 80s rock tracks and gleefully castrating them with a rusty teaspoon. Not my favourite film in the world, all things considered.
Best Visuals
Nominees: A Life Less Ordinary, Dune, Speed Racer
Winner: Speed Racer. So beautiful it breaks your heart even while it's burning your eyes.
Worst Visuals
Nominees: Green Lantern, Space Jam, Tooth Fairy
Winner: Green Lantern. It's just really, really ugly, okay?
Pleasantest Surprise
Nominees: Footloose, The Phantom, Pret-A-Porter
Winner: The Phantom. A genuine slice of old-fashioned adventure. Why hasn't Billy Zane played more superheroes since?
Biggest Disappointment
Nominees: The Brothers Bloom, Hudson Hawk, Ishtar
Winner: The Brothers Bloom, for making a caper movie without the caper. For shame!
Guiltiest Pleasure
Nominees: Biggles: Adventures in Time, G-Force, Phantom of the Paradise
Winner: Phantom of the Paradise. Morally reprehensible, but the music, visuals and general mood are harder to resist than I'd like.
Greatest Waste of a Cool Concept
Nominees: Hudson Hawk, Ishtar, Life After Beth
Winner: Life After Beth. How could this not have been laugh out loud funny?
Greatest Waste of Actorly Talent
Nominees: Bryan Cranston (Rock of Ages), Dustin Hoffman (Ishtar), Aubrey Plaza (Life After Beth)
Winner: Bryan Cranston. Was it the lure of the easy paycheck, or the thrill of being spanked on camera? Sadly, we may never find out.
Most Misunderstood Work of Genius
Nominees: Dune, A Life Less Ordinary, Speed Racer, Pret A Porter
Winner: Dune, for not being half as impenetrable as most people seem to think.
Happiest Ending
Nominees: A Life Less Ordinary, Footloose, Magicians
Winner: Magicians. A perfect buildup to one of the most flat-out heartwarming scenes in cinematic history. Spoilers forbid me from offering further details, so you'll just have to watch it for yourself and see.
This concludes the 2014 Indefensible Awards. Please return next year for more of the same. Alternatively, check back every Monday and Friday for more of me talking about films I like and loathe.
I made it!
It's been a long slog and sometimes a hard one, but I've done what I said I would and written about a different film every day throughout October. What better way to celebrate on the 31st, therefore, than with a good old-fashioned campfire myth?
Ghost Rider was one of the films I had in mind when I first created this blog; everybody seemed to dislike it and I could kind of see why, but that hasn't stopped me returning to it again and again over the years, nor from feeling a quick shiver of happiness whenever I notice Channel 5 are showing it on TV of an evening. A quick poll of my comic-book-movie-loving friends suggests that hardly any of them have even seen it, so if you like, you can view this particular entry as my explanation to them of why they've been missing out.
The Ghost Rider character has actually been going for a long time, on and off, first appearing in 1949 in a series of horror-themed Western tales for short-lived and abysmally-named comics house Magazine Enterprises. Back then, he was a spectral figure on the proverbial pale horse, a thousand miles away from the motorcycling, chain-wielding skeleton modern audiences know. Both versions of the character are visually beguiling, and so the movie tries to unite them in a single origin story.
The prologue explains, in live action and animation, how the Ghost Riders were the Mephistopheles' bounty hunters, and how one rider rebelled and ran away with one particular contract, believing it to be to powerful to fall into the Devil's hands. Flash forward 150 years or so, meanwhile, and we're at a carnival in Texas, watching the Amazin' Blazin' Motorcycle Stunt Show. Barton Blaze and his teenage son, Johnny, are talented performers, but Johnny's heart doesn't seem to be quite in it - his focus is firmly on pretty local girl, Roxanne. We find out subsequently that Roxanne's father is planning on sending her away, and the pair of them make plans to elope the following day.
When Johnny returns to the trailer he shares with his father, however, he finds him asleep in his recliner, and the nearby bin contains a crumpled letter informing Barton that his cancer has spread. Grief-stricken, Johnny heads out to the tent where the motorcycles are kept, and there he meets with a sinister figure who makes him an offer he can't refuse.
The good
In the early stages, at least, Ghost Rider is a proper myth - a simple story simply told that you can't help but want to believe in. I was hooked from the second Sam Elliott read the prologue, and the eventual segue into the carnival segment provides a delicious slow burn. Something awful but also sort of awesome is clearly going to happen, but the movie takes its time and lets you savour every second. There's a beautiful spookiness to it, and it suffuses pretty much the entire first half of the movie.
The performances are pretty good, too, in general. Nic Cage lends the title role a real depth and sweetness - his Johnny Blaze is a lunkhead, yes, but also a philosopher, and a showman, and a romantic. It is his love for Roxanne that drives the action, and it's easy to see why she can never entirely resist him even when his behaviour grows increasingly erratic. As Roxanne, meanwhile, Eva Mendez doesn't have that much to do but be alternately spunky and sympathetic, tasks that she pulls off with more or less equal aplomb. Also deserving of credit is Sam Elliott as the Caretaker, whose voice lends the story much of its flavour.
Of course, it's impossible to discuss a film like this without at least mentioning the visual effects. Different people are always going to have different ideas of what looks fake, but for the most part, everything seemed pretty real to me to me. I often have a problem with artificial-looking CGI fire, but nothing here looked obviously animated to the point where I was unable to suspend my disbelief. Probably the best effect, however, was the Australian landscape that stood in for Texas. It lends an aching majesty to what has to be the film's most beautiful scene, where the Rider and his nineteenth-century predecessor race through the desert, slicing it in two with a trail of red-gold flame.
The bad
A common problem with superhero movies is that the villains are more interesting than the heroes - Batman franchise, I'm looking at you here. It's a problem because within the superhero genre at least, an audience that roots for the bad guy is an audience that's going to ultimately go away disappointed. That said, without a charismatic antagonist, a hero might as well be fighting against, I don't know, a snowdrift or something.
As Mephistopheles, Peter Fonda does his best - an initial act of dazzling cruelty sets the tone promisingly enough - but around halfway through, we're thrown a curveball and he becomes more of a sort of gentleman thief. His replacement, Blackheart (Wes Bentley) has some nifty henchmen, but he doesn't have the charisma or the moves to offer any real sense of menace. From the moment he makes his first appearance, the movie slowly starts to sag around the seams. Two hours is a fairly substantial running time for a film like this, and the final payoff just isn't quite spectacular enough to compensate for the gradually diminishing returns.
The verdict
In the end, your enjoyment of Ghost Rider is likely to hinge on two key factors: firstly, your tolerance for Nic Cage in the sort of role he's famous for, and secondly, whether or not you think things (vehicles, people, household objects, scenery) look awesome when they're on fire. I can offer you no further guidance; it's just something you're gonna have to work out for yourselves.
This concludes my participation in the 31 days challenge, but rest assured, the blog will go on. Join me on Monday for a look back at what we've all learned.
As the 31 Days Challenge has drawn on, I'm ashamed to admit I've become increasingly cavalier in my attitude to finding material to cover. I started out with a whole week planned out, and spent ages tracking down just the right films to fulfil my self-imposed restrictions. By this point? If it's on TV before 10pm and draws less than about a seven on the IMDB, it's probably fair game.
That said, when I saw Footloose on the TV schedules yesterday I initially discounted it. I mean, everybody loves Footloose, don't they? Not me, admittedly, because I'd never actually seen it, but it's one of those movies that seems to have woven itself into the fabric of history, not exactly in a cult movie sort of way, but by becoming part of a shared cultural idiom. Everybody remembers it's set in a town where rock and roll is banned, everybody knows that it's about Kevin Bacon's dancing teenager versus John Lithgow's uptight preacher, and everybody recognises the opening sequence with the tapping feet. I, on the other hand, knew of it, knew it would annoy me, and knew, without looking, that it was one of those films like the original Star Wars trilogy that had an inexplicably high IMDB rating because all the people rating it were clearly idiots.
Pickings were slim, though, so I went and looked anyway. 6.4? Damn, nope, couldn't dismiss it on grounds of unwarranted popularity, particularly given that the critic reviews seemed to be equally lukewarm. I gritted my teeth, apologised to my other half and settled in for what I was sure would be another long hard slog.
The good
All my life I've loved films, and all my life I've loved to read about them. What I'm less fond of, however, is surprises, so before I watch a movie I tend to do my research, even if said movie is decades old and showing on a relatively obscure Freeview channel. It's fairly rare, therefore, for a film to confound my expectations.
Footloose, though? Blindsided me almost entirely. I was expecting annoying teenagers, heavy-handed moralising, casual sexism and John Lithgow hamming it up in the same way he would a year later in Santa Claus: The Movie. What I got, on the other hand, was a surprisingly even-handed drama that only occasionally slipped into cheap sensationalism. Granted, the teenagers were sometimes annoying, but isn't that what teenagers are for?
As Ren, Bacon makes for an engaging hero, not so much a rebel as a vaguely baffled advocate for his peers. Oh, and he really does have all the moves. Lithgow, meanwhile, delivers a far more measured performance than I had been expecting, making the Rev. Shaw Moore a surprisingly nuanced and even sympathetic antagonist. The supporting players are generally solid, too, with Chris Penn and a young Sarah Jessica Parker utterly delightful as best friends to the male and female lead respectively. Lori Singer, meanwhile, playing the Reverend's daughter Ariel, provides us with a complex, brave heroine.
Of course, the main thing you want from a film like this is big dance sequences and a happy ending. Beneath its flash, however, Footloose hides some surprisingly sound political credentials - an early scene, for instance, sees Ren challenging a rival not for calling him a pansy, but for the use of the word itself. This isn't a film where the female characters are treated as quota fillers or fashion accessories, either; both Ariel and her mother struggle with their own dreams and regrets, and it is this that lends the story its momentum. My only real complaint in this respect is that it does all look a tiny bit Aryan - no non-white faces here, and nobody who looks less than cover-model pretty.
The bad
There's not that much here to dislike, so I won't dwell. That said, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the film could actually have stood to be just a tiny bit shallower.
The problem is that the central premise - a town in the 1980s where music and dancing are banned - is such a ridiculous straw man, that it really requires backup by a proper pantomime villain. Shaw Moore fails to cut it not only because he's clearly crippled by grief and remorse, but, critically, because he's so quick to listen to reason when it comes from the people he loves. I know I'm quite vocal about films that revel in sadistic comeuppances, but by the end of Footloose I was actively rooting for Moore to find happiness. This is something I'd actually praise in a serious drama, but in a teenage dance flick? Convention demands the filthy killjoy bastard lands up spluttering in well-deserved humiliation, preferably whilst covered in something likely to incur a hefty dry-cleaning bill.
So, just so we're clear, careful with this one; it contains real, three-dimensional characters and traces of genuine sensitivity have been detected. You have been warned.
The verdict...
...Will be delivered once I've finished wiping the egg from my face. Footloose is far from perfect, but it has charm, a good heart and a few absolutely great dance sequences. Leave Dirty Dancing in the corner (it's toxic, trust me on this) and bring this one back with you instead.
I love caper movies. Watching the best ones feels like watching the creation of an elaborate origami flower - you can see each individual fold being put into place and while it's all clearly very clever, it's not easy to work out what everything means. As the flower grows, there's ruses and red herrings to theorise about, and an assemblage of charismatic characters to root for. The real joy, however, comes in the anticipation of that very last moment, where the flower blossoms and everything suddenly resolves itself into delicate perfection.
I love movies with Mark Ruffalo in them. Or do I? Certainly, I can't recall ever watching him play a character that didn't make me swoon like a Mills and Boon heroine. It's his voice, I think, and the way he moves, simultaneously diffident and driven. It melts my resistance like a blowtorch, but damned if it doesn't invariably make me feel slightly soiled after the fact. I may rave, therefore, about Avengers Assemble and Now You See Me, but I rarely get the desire to watch them again.
I digress, though. Whilst checking my facts for yesterday's film, I happened to read about The Brothers Bloom. It's a caper movie that stars Mark Ruffalo as well as Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz, both capable and engaging performers with real acting chops. IMDB users rated it 6.9, which is probably at the lower end of average if you look at it in dim lighting with your eyes scrunched up, so I decided it was probably worth a punt.
Bloom tells the story of brothers Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody), who learn to grift as kids while being bounced from foster home to foster home. Bloom, a sensitive soul, is too shy to speak to girls, so Stephen starts devising increasingly elaborate con tricks that allow him to play any role he chooses, including that of the dashing romantic lead. The perfect con, Stephen maintains, is one where all parties receive exactly what they want.
To say much more about the plot would be to risk spoilers. I don't think it's revealing too much, however, to say it revolves around Weisz' wealthy heiress and, inevitably, that one last con.
The good
This is usually the part where I say that the day's film looks gorgeous, and yes, Bloom certainly does. Director Rian Johnson doesn't seem anxious to tie the setting to any particular time period, borrowing visual idiom from film noir and European fairytales as well as modern crime thrillers. It's quirky, yes, but then so's everything else in the film, from the rhyming prologue to the heiress' hobby of collecting hobbies.
Performances? What did you really expect? Johnson's script is in safe hands here. Brody really gets the chance to use his physicality as the lovelorn Bloom, while Weisz' Penelope is as winsome a heroine as you could hope for. Star prize, however, has to go to Rinko Kikuchi as Bang Bang, the boys' assistant, who has maybe a dozen lines in the entire movie but steals entire scenes with a single roll of her eyes. If there is a weak link here (and I'm not saying there was) it would have to be Ruffalo, who doesn't seem entirely at home in a role that fails to capitalise on his trademark intensity.
The bad
Damn, but Johnson wants people to love this film. Most especially, I think, he wants Wes Anderson fans to love it. What the viewer gets, therefore, is a lot of Andersonesque stylings in the costumes and the mannered dialogue, and the rambling plot that never really matters as much as the character quirks.
Except that, well, Bloom is a film about a con, so plot matters. Or is a film about a con that turns out not to be much of a con the biggest con of all? Personally, deprived of that one final fold to bring the flower into focus, I felt as though I'd been conned myself. Sure, the movie is witty and charming, but is it truly intelligent? Probably not. Half an hour after viewing I was left with that same old Ruffalo hangover; the nasty, slimy feeling I get when a film temporarily engages my heart without actually getting anywhere near my brain.
The verdict
The Brothers Bloom is one of the cutest pieces of filmmaking I've seen in a very long time, with engaging characters and a truly intriguing setup. It's a shame, therefore, that after a delightful first hour Johnson goes for sentiment over substance, leading to a conclusion that fails to pack either intellectual or emotional punch.
Today finds me looking at a low-budget, arthouse Britflick - ask me why, and I'll tell you it's because it was one of only a couple of colour films available on iPlayer. I don't have anything against black and white, but I just don't have the knowledge base to be able to provide any sort of coherent frame of reference.
Unfortunately, skimming the IMDB reviews for Kicks, I'm not sure I'll be able to do this one justice, either - it seems to be the sort of film that invites serious, in-depth critique from a bunch of serious, in-depth people, not the sort of people who'd, say, be typing abstractedly at 5.55am with their minds firmly and sulkily on Marvel's latest casting announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, we should not be giving Benedict Cumberbatch acting work because this will only encourage him to act, and then where shall we be? Up to our eyeballs in the twentysomething equivalent of the Directioners, that's where.
...You get my point, I'm sure. Existing reviews of Kicks tend towards the intelligent and knowledgeable, and at this time of morning I don't think I can necessarily offer either. Still, college try, and all that.
Kicks is Lindy Heymann's second feature, and it tells the story of two very different teenage girls with one shared obsession. Nicole (Kerrie Hayes) is from a deprived background; with mostly-absent parents and little in the way of prospects, she seeks solace by dreaming of the players of her local Liverpool football club. Jasmine (Nichola Burley), meanwhile, slightly older and more sophisticated, longs for the glamorous lifestyle of the WAGs - the wives and girlfriends of the millionaire footballers, with their endless cycle of shopping and parties and beauty treatments.
The pair of them bond whilst waiting for player Lee Cassidy to emerge from a training session. Their friendship develops in scenes reminiscent of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, with Jasmine offering Nicole a glimpse into another world and making it seem almost attainable. Nicole, meanwhile, provides a hideout for them in the form of a static caravan abandoned by her older brother, a serving soldier.
Together, they pursue Cassidy, desperate for any chance of contact with their idol. When chance throws him into their laps, however, what will they do?
The good
This is a beautiful piece of filmmaking that shows Liverpool at its moody best - bleak and dreamlike at once. Long, slow shots of the city seem to turn it into the girls' entire universe. It's a claustrophobic world, though, and the persistently dim lighting acts as a visual manifestation of the protagonists' aching yearning for something brighter.
The soundtrack, too, is pure Liverpool, coming from locals Ladytron. Shimmeringly sinister and suffocatingly oppressive, it forms the film's pounding heartbeat, at times fading almost into nothing before slipping insidiously forth to dominate Kicks' numerous nightclub scenes. Importantly, music is mostly used organically here; while it does cover a couple of montages, I don't recall the it being particularly audible at any other point when it wouldn't have been playing anyway.
Performances are mostly good, with particular credit to Kerrie Hayes - her Nicole is a complex character, but never an incomprehensible one. In the slightly less sympathetic role of Jasmine, Nichola Burley offers solid support. As Lee Cassidy, Jamie Doyle is never entirely convincing, but then, his role is little more than an extended cameo - his function is the same of that of any pop culture idol, a mood board onto which the fans can pin their own fantasies and insecurities.
The bad
What we clearly have here, then, is a fantastic character piece. Does it stand up to closer scrutiny, though? Unfortunately, I'm inclined to say not. Maybe I've watched too much multiplex fodder lately, but I found myself frustrated with Kicks' tonal inconsistencies - it just couldn't decide which damned genre box it wanted to tick. As a thriller, the pacing is simply too slow, while it lets itself down as a drama with a slightly histrionic last act.
The problem is that there's at least three or four interesting stories here, but the film can't decide which it wants to tell and so has a stab at all of them at once. Is it a coming of age drama? Is it a cautionary tale about our obsession with celebrity culture? Is it Kes, or Hard Candy? I'm not suggesting that every film has to fit neatly into its own genre box, but the storytelling here is deeply muddled and not in a deliberate, bait-and-switch sort of way. I genuinely couldn't work out what Heymann was trying to say, leaving me with a final feeling of nagging dissatisfaction.
The verdict
I'm honestly not sure about this one. I started watching hoping for either an interesting drama or a gripping thriller, and ended up feeling as though I'd received neither. My overriding instinct is that this will be one to come back to once Kerrie Hayes has made it big; on the strength of her performance here, I'm sure she will.
