SCREEN
The Woman In Black
(12A) 105mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
As creaky, traditional and scary as a ghost train, The Woman In Black is watched impassively by its star, Daniel Radcliffe.
REVIEW
Arthur Kipps is having an awfully bad time. His wife has died in childbirth and, if he was looking for sympathy from his boss, forget it.
"This is not a charity," he says dispatching young Kipps off to the chilly North to wind up the Eel Marsh House estate.
And, if that wasn't enough then "this is your final chance" says Roger Allam via Jane Goldman's on the nose script.
No turning back then for fearless Kipps. Not only his boss but the locals are against him as he ventures along the causeway to the spit of land containing a house, a surfeit of graves and staring stone angels.
There is something off about the house. The stiff-collared solicitor sees and hears things and everyone in the village is dead keen that he grab his bags and head back to London before something terr... no, too late.
All those children disappearing, dying, some right in front of his eyes as though his lonely vigils in the house and their foreshortened tenure on earth were connected or something.
And if the children are dying what about his own child, following him up at the weekend?
The Woman In Black is a ghost train in a world full of snuff movies and no harm in that.
It is old school gothic with the thrills coming from the work of the sound engineer rather than the machinations of the blood caster and the offal keeper.
This is Hammer straight out of the '70s with rocking chairs rocking and pale faces at windows and Bagpuss nurseries gone to the dark side.
Daniel Radcliffe spends his time inching his way round sooty corridors with a candle, occasionally an axe but always with that fathomless expression, as though his algebra homework has received a C- when he thought he was a dead cert for a B.
We like Ciaran Hinds and his grief-raddled denial. We love Jane McTeer and her feverish madness. We get Shaun Dooley's fear and Mary Stockley's tears. We love the whole Amazing Mr Blunden vibe.
Not sure if we get Daniel though. Not convinced. He drifts through the ordeal, unperturbed and unmoved. We never fear for him because he never looks vulnerable. Or even involved.
Too harsh? Perhaps. But the point is moot because he plays second fiddle to the tricksy house and the vengeful dame who is, let's face it, stark raving bonkers in a wildly entertaining way.
So what's the hook in this Edwardian ghost fest? Here it is. Slow as a raking fingernail and sure as the gaze of a dead girl's ghoul, the story begins to get to work. To grip and intrigue the impassive heart. It is the story, the unearthing of disturbing histories and deft twists, that wins through.
The tension comes and goes, the shocks are telegraphed like an ascent of Everest but there's no escaping the pull of this well-constructed chiller.
Friday 10 February 2012
Film review: A Dangerous Method (15)
SCREEN
A Dangerous Method
(15) 100mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
An impeccable ensemble talk to each other in pretty rooms about sex and Keira gets spanked in David Cronenberg's drama of ideas.
REVIEW
There's an old joke that goes like this: Two doctors meet at a party. One says to the other: "You're fine. How am I?"
And there's something of that knowing-me-knowing-you sentiment going on here as the father of psychoanalysis, the suave Sigmund Freud and his starchy heir apparent Carl Jung swap dreams for each other's stimulation.
At the centre of this story is this fleeting, fractious but fascinating friendship between the two titans of breadbox-bothering and that is where the best of this film is to be found.
Their meaty discourse about the perils of the libido and the limits of the "talking cure" is good value, although rarely cinematic.
Based on a play by Christopher Hampton, the film betrays its stately and static roots as people talk and smoke in pretty rooms.
Added to the mix (in reality as well as on film) is Sabina Spielrein, the hysteric who became Jung's patient, lover and then his student.
It is Jung's guilt over his infidelity and his lies to his mentor that begin the schism between the two great thinkers. While Jung and Spielrein shed tears, the real bruised love of this story is that of Freud and Jung.
Gurning for Britain, Keira Knightley adopts a jutting jaw and an accent to bring to life the confused but spellbinding Russian who was abused by her father and who now finds herself aroused by spanking.
That Knightley manages to knit together straitened intellect and hee-hawing madness into one convincing character is much to her credit and she is the equal of Michael Fassbender as the wounded stalwart Jung and Viggo Mortensen as the increasingly prissy Freud in this impeccable ensemble.
Director David Cronenberg's shot choices are placid and reverential and he has drawn visual inspiration from Magritte to create a brave if dour drama that respects the great men and their ideas but often needs a kick up the Keira.
A Dangerous Method
(15) 100mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
An impeccable ensemble talk to each other in pretty rooms about sex and Keira gets spanked in David Cronenberg's drama of ideas.
REVIEW
There's an old joke that goes like this: Two doctors meet at a party. One says to the other: "You're fine. How am I?"
And there's something of that knowing-me-knowing-you sentiment going on here as the father of psychoanalysis, the suave Sigmund Freud and his starchy heir apparent Carl Jung swap dreams for each other's stimulation.
At the centre of this story is this fleeting, fractious but fascinating friendship between the two titans of breadbox-bothering and that is where the best of this film is to be found.
Their meaty discourse about the perils of the libido and the limits of the "talking cure" is good value, although rarely cinematic.
Based on a play by Christopher Hampton, the film betrays its stately and static roots as people talk and smoke in pretty rooms.
Added to the mix (in reality as well as on film) is Sabina Spielrein, the hysteric who became Jung's patient, lover and then his student.
It is Jung's guilt over his infidelity and his lies to his mentor that begin the schism between the two great thinkers. While Jung and Spielrein shed tears, the real bruised love of this story is that of Freud and Jung.
Gurning for Britain, Keira Knightley adopts a jutting jaw and an accent to bring to life the confused but spellbinding Russian who was abused by her father and who now finds herself aroused by spanking.
That Knightley manages to knit together straitened intellect and hee-hawing madness into one convincing character is much to her credit and she is the equal of Michael Fassbender as the wounded stalwart Jung and Viggo Mortensen as the increasingly prissy Freud in this impeccable ensemble.
Director David Cronenberg's shot choices are placid and reverential and he has drawn visual inspiration from Magritte to create a brave if dour drama that respects the great men and their ideas but often needs a kick up the Keira.
Sunday 5 February 2012
Film review: Man On A Ledge (15)
The route from ledge to ground is uncomplicated and usually ends brutally.
It appears these laws of entropy and potential energy are at the heart of the film-maker's thinking when compiling this movie.
Whereas endeavours with more self-involved ideals may have presented a melange of conflicted images and souls, this thriller fulfills the promise of the title within the first few minutes and never stops.
This feat is not to be scoffed at (as many critics have done) when the purpose of the movie is pure popcorn hokum.
I mention popcorn because a jumbo cola would be a bad idea. The condensation mixing with the inevitable sweat of your palms would make for an embarrassing lubricant.
But, unlike the movie, I digress. Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) is on a ledge, a cop trying to proclaim his innocence and expose the conspiracy that saw him jailed for nicking a tidy gem from magnate David Englander (a hardball Ed Harris).
Opposite the eponymous ledge is the vault in which said diamond, he claims, is still residing.
And while he brings New York to a standstill - and occupies the tender mercies of something-to-prove negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), bro Joey (Jamie Bell) and his feisty girl are breaking through Englander's fortress protection.
Any more revelation and the twists may untangle but it is sufficient to say this is a well done and swift thriller - corny as hell but never shortchanging on thrills.
The simple start explodes all over the place and the finale is pulsating and mad in equal measure, which is not a bad equation.
It appears these laws of entropy and potential energy are at the heart of the film-maker's thinking when compiling this movie.
Whereas endeavours with more self-involved ideals may have presented a melange of conflicted images and souls, this thriller fulfills the promise of the title within the first few minutes and never stops.
This feat is not to be scoffed at (as many critics have done) when the purpose of the movie is pure popcorn hokum.
I mention popcorn because a jumbo cola would be a bad idea. The condensation mixing with the inevitable sweat of your palms would make for an embarrassing lubricant.
But, unlike the movie, I digress. Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) is on a ledge, a cop trying to proclaim his innocence and expose the conspiracy that saw him jailed for nicking a tidy gem from magnate David Englander (a hardball Ed Harris).
Opposite the eponymous ledge is the vault in which said diamond, he claims, is still residing.
And while he brings New York to a standstill - and occupies the tender mercies of something-to-prove negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), bro Joey (Jamie Bell) and his feisty girl are breaking through Englander's fortress protection.
Any more revelation and the twists may untangle but it is sufficient to say this is a well done and swift thriller - corny as hell but never shortchanging on thrills.
The simple start explodes all over the place and the finale is pulsating and mad in equal measure, which is not a bad equation.
Film review: Martha Marcy May Marlene (15)
The title - a composite of the names that Martha is called or calls herself - gives a clue to the central theme of this film from first-time director Sean Durkin.
Who exactly is this girl and why is she skipping out on her bucolic haven in Upstate New York?
Martha can run away - to sweet sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) - but can she ever escape?
The memories of her time in the country glide in and out of her new reality, mesmerically conjured by Durkin. So she's swimming at Lucy's lake-side summerhouse but she's also with her faux-family, white limbs in black water, thrashing like an orgy.
Back in the cult, under the watchful eye of sly father-figure Patrick (a sinewy John Hawkes), misery is joy, privacy is the enemy and conscience is obtuse. Good and evil blur into one thing after another, unmeasured and unremarked, a potent, hazy mix that encourages mindlessness.
They all find serenity there, the girls, and make their subdued torment a featureless part of the pastoral idyll. Martha comes away imbued with its mantras - that to make something abnormal into something normal, it is first a rite and then a habit and then just a thing that happens.
Used to free love, she sidles into bed with Lucy and fractious hubby Ted (Hugh Dancy) as they have sex. She scorns their materialism but has no alternative except the fortune cookie philosophies of her charming abuser.
Elizabeth Olsen in her debut makes the fragmented film work. Open-faced yet hollow-eyed, she is bemused and bewildered, formless and muddled. She sweeps through, rarely emoting but always puzzling.
The dreamy, sinuous direction and the perverted sanctuaries of the farmhouse and summerhouse leaven the terror into its own kind of banality. Rarely does conflict break the glassy surface.
And therein lies a flaw in this otherwise consummate exercise in film-making. These mosaic pieces compile to make an exquisite character study but to not much end.
Martha needs to be filled with something new or different but she, nor the bizarrely incurious Lucy, know what that may be and no-one is in a hurry to find out.
As the final shot hangs, we are left lingering not with the possibilities of what might come for Martha but with the notion that her journey was not as interesting as the film would have us believe.
Who exactly is this girl and why is she skipping out on her bucolic haven in Upstate New York?
Martha can run away - to sweet sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) - but can she ever escape?
The memories of her time in the country glide in and out of her new reality, mesmerically conjured by Durkin. So she's swimming at Lucy's lake-side summerhouse but she's also with her faux-family, white limbs in black water, thrashing like an orgy.
Back in the cult, under the watchful eye of sly father-figure Patrick (a sinewy John Hawkes), misery is joy, privacy is the enemy and conscience is obtuse. Good and evil blur into one thing after another, unmeasured and unremarked, a potent, hazy mix that encourages mindlessness.
They all find serenity there, the girls, and make their subdued torment a featureless part of the pastoral idyll. Martha comes away imbued with its mantras - that to make something abnormal into something normal, it is first a rite and then a habit and then just a thing that happens.
Used to free love, she sidles into bed with Lucy and fractious hubby Ted (Hugh Dancy) as they have sex. She scorns their materialism but has no alternative except the fortune cookie philosophies of her charming abuser.
Elizabeth Olsen in her debut makes the fragmented film work. Open-faced yet hollow-eyed, she is bemused and bewildered, formless and muddled. She sweeps through, rarely emoting but always puzzling.
The dreamy, sinuous direction and the perverted sanctuaries of the farmhouse and summerhouse leaven the terror into its own kind of banality. Rarely does conflict break the glassy surface.
And therein lies a flaw in this otherwise consummate exercise in film-making. These mosaic pieces compile to make an exquisite character study but to not much end.
Martha needs to be filled with something new or different but she, nor the bizarrely incurious Lucy, know what that may be and no-one is in a hurry to find out.
As the final shot hangs, we are left lingering not with the possibilities of what might come for Martha but with the notion that her journey was not as interesting as the film would have us believe.
Saturday 4 February 2012
Film review: The Grey (15)
Welcome to ordeal by cinema. Pack a coat because it's going to get cold and best start with a light breakfast because there's plenty of blood to test a busy stomach.
This gruelling survivalist fare sees a handful of oil-rig roughnecks emerge from a plane crash into the forgotten wastes of Alaska.
If the snow and the savagery is not enough to finish off what the crash failed to achieve, then they are hounded, harried and occasionally eaten by a pack of rogue wolves with the monstrous Grey out front, as canny and mean as a velociraptor.
Keeping the survivors alive is Liam Neeson's John Ottway, perhaps never better as the haunted marksman who becomes the human pack's alpha determined to survive against the odds, despite earlier gnawing on his rifle over thoughts of a lost love.
So the threadbare trail to survival becomes a road to redemption for a bunch of tough-on-top headbangers who escaped to the rig to forget love and life.
But this is no calm reflection on the crisis of modern man. The howling, penetrating wind, the broken bodies, the visceral fight for life is stuck right there on the screen by director Joe Carnahan who gets down and dirty with some lo-fi, palm-sweating challenges for his shivering hunks.
The fireside reflections of times past become corny and portentous but the script is feisty with flashes of wit that captures the bickering and banter of lads with brave faces painted upon timorous souls. ("I'm much more of a cat person," says one after a foray by the pack).
The Grey is not for the faint-hearted but it will take you to another place and asks some tough questions. Like - how do you want to live and, more pertinently, how do you want to die?
This gruelling survivalist fare sees a handful of oil-rig roughnecks emerge from a plane crash into the forgotten wastes of Alaska.
If the snow and the savagery is not enough to finish off what the crash failed to achieve, then they are hounded, harried and occasionally eaten by a pack of rogue wolves with the monstrous Grey out front, as canny and mean as a velociraptor.
Keeping the survivors alive is Liam Neeson's John Ottway, perhaps never better as the haunted marksman who becomes the human pack's alpha determined to survive against the odds, despite earlier gnawing on his rifle over thoughts of a lost love.
So the threadbare trail to survival becomes a road to redemption for a bunch of tough-on-top headbangers who escaped to the rig to forget love and life.
But this is no calm reflection on the crisis of modern man. The howling, penetrating wind, the broken bodies, the visceral fight for life is stuck right there on the screen by director Joe Carnahan who gets down and dirty with some lo-fi, palm-sweating challenges for his shivering hunks.
The fireside reflections of times past become corny and portentous but the script is feisty with flashes of wit that captures the bickering and banter of lads with brave faces painted upon timorous souls. ("I'm much more of a cat person," says one after a foray by the pack).
The Grey is not for the faint-hearted but it will take you to another place and asks some tough questions. Like - how do you want to live and, more pertinently, how do you want to die?
Film review: The Descendants (15)
Expect not the George Clooney of smarm and circumstance. Although he has a plan, he is no Danny Ocean for the plan is vague and droll.
Although his eyes are bagged and heavy, he is no Michael Clayton either for Clayton had a handle on his predicament.
This George Clooney is Matt King, slapping around in sandals, "the back-up parent, the understudy" his life suddenly at a crossroads as his wife languishes in a coma.
His surroundings provide the clue. This is Hawaii but not the aquamarine Presley version. This is Hawaii as a mix of commuter-belt Surrey, drab downtown LA and Hastings if they planted palm trees and found sand.
The man, the islands and the story are downbeat and melancholy.
"My friends on the mainland think because I live in Hawaii, I live in paradise. Like a permanent vacation, we're all just out here drinking Mai Tais, shaking our hips and catching waves. Are they nuts?"
Matt King is loaded but not happy. As his wife shrivels in her hospital bed, King must make a decision on behalf of his extended family, (including a marvellously mellow Beau Bridges). As trustee of their inheritance - a parcel of pristine land - he alone can decide its fate.
Meanwhile his 10-year-old daughter Scottie is playing up and likely to follow in the path of rebellious older sibling Alexandra who has been sent away to sort out her attitude.
But the teenager's precocious strop has a cause. Before the accident, she discovered mum was having an affair - which is news to Matt and adds another dimension to his schlub crisis. He decides to track down the man but out of curiosity rather than fury, such is the low-key nature of his outlook.
The melancholy elements make for a slow, occasionally charmless drama from Alexander Payne, who has form with downbeat sad sacks (Sideways, About Schmidt).
However, the nuanced performances and relentless gloom is cut through with moments of maturity and humour (Clooney flip-flopping in a panic down the road like Embarrassing Dad is a sight).
Shailene Woodley, as the elder daughter, goes a sizeable way to stealing the movie from Clooney, who relishes deconstructing his Hollywood image but is probably miscast.
Amara Miller, the younger daughter, too is sufficiently real to be irritating and moving, often in the same scene.
The movie feels less than the sum of its parts but is still an assured and satisfying experience.
Although his eyes are bagged and heavy, he is no Michael Clayton either for Clayton had a handle on his predicament.
This George Clooney is Matt King, slapping around in sandals, "the back-up parent, the understudy" his life suddenly at a crossroads as his wife languishes in a coma.
His surroundings provide the clue. This is Hawaii but not the aquamarine Presley version. This is Hawaii as a mix of commuter-belt Surrey, drab downtown LA and Hastings if they planted palm trees and found sand.
The man, the islands and the story are downbeat and melancholy.
"My friends on the mainland think because I live in Hawaii, I live in paradise. Like a permanent vacation, we're all just out here drinking Mai Tais, shaking our hips and catching waves. Are they nuts?"
Matt King is loaded but not happy. As his wife shrivels in her hospital bed, King must make a decision on behalf of his extended family, (including a marvellously mellow Beau Bridges). As trustee of their inheritance - a parcel of pristine land - he alone can decide its fate.
Meanwhile his 10-year-old daughter Scottie is playing up and likely to follow in the path of rebellious older sibling Alexandra who has been sent away to sort out her attitude.
But the teenager's precocious strop has a cause. Before the accident, she discovered mum was having an affair - which is news to Matt and adds another dimension to his schlub crisis. He decides to track down the man but out of curiosity rather than fury, such is the low-key nature of his outlook.
The melancholy elements make for a slow, occasionally charmless drama from Alexander Payne, who has form with downbeat sad sacks (Sideways, About Schmidt).
However, the nuanced performances and relentless gloom is cut through with moments of maturity and humour (Clooney flip-flopping in a panic down the road like Embarrassing Dad is a sight).
Shailene Woodley, as the elder daughter, goes a sizeable way to stealing the movie from Clooney, who relishes deconstructing his Hollywood image but is probably miscast.
Amara Miller, the younger daughter, too is sufficiently real to be irritating and moving, often in the same scene.
The movie feels less than the sum of its parts but is still an assured and satisfying experience.
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