This site will share with you hundreds of book and film reviews written since 2009. Also a chance to discuss these reviews together with some of my creative writing to be added.
Penniless American Mathias Gold, whose baggage is largely that of understandable neuroses, travels to the upmarket Parisian apartment left to him by his estranged father. He is shocked to find that the flat was purchased cheaply on a “viager” or life annuity basis, which means that he has inherited the obligation to pay the previous owner and long-term resident Mathilde a substantial monthly fee for the rest of her natural life. Although aged ninety-two, she seems robust enough to live for quite a few more years. Mathias’s attempts to find the money for the payments in the short run and solve the problem in the long-term, obstructed by Mathilde’s spiky daughter Chloé, form the theme of this bitter-sweet comedy, which turns quite dark at times as Mathias discovers more about his past.
Although this is not a great film, and I was left at the end confused over some aspects of the chronology of past events, it is well acted as one would expect from such luminaries as Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott-Thomas and Kevin Kline. There are some amusing scenes, poignant moments and picturesque shots conveying the ambience of the district of Le Marais au bord de la Seine. For me, this was sufficient to compensate for some of the corny aspects.
The lukewarm reviews lowered my expectations for a film which proved to be moving, over and above the poignancy of knowing the fate in a Nazi concentration camp that awaited the Jewish author Irène Némirovsky. She lived long enough to see the humiliation of the rapid French defeat in 1940, the brutal German bombardment of the helpless refugees toiling along the main roads out of Paris and the exposure of true character under pressure – some hoarding their wealth, others risking their lives to give what little they had to help others.
The film dramatises "Dolce", the second of the two parts to be completed out of the five intended for "Suite Française". Unlike Part 1, "Tempête en juin", which follows the fortunes of several very different sets of people fleeing the capital, "Dolce" has a tighter storyline. Lucille has led a quiet life, dominated by her mother-in-law, Madame Angellier (a spiky Kristen Scott-Thomas), as she waits for news from the Front of the husband she was pressured into marrying "for security". When the country town of Bussy is overwhelmed by the arrival of the victorious German occupiers, even Mme Angellier cannot refuse to billet an officer. Inevitably, Lucille is caught in the dilemma of being drawn to an "enemy" she has been instructed to cold shoulder, yet feeling obliged to help a neighbour whose stand against an abusive German has put his life in jeopardy.
Many characters may be stereotypes, but we see how the contrasting reactions of resistance, collaboration and passive acceptance are fed by social divisions: the arrogant local Viscountess, who hates the peasants enough to shop one of them to the Germans, with devastating results; the tenant's daughter driven to abject poverty by the rent-grabbing Madame Angellier, who sleeps with an enemy soldier for the material gain it may bring; the townspeople who seize the opportunity to spit at Lucille when they think she is doing the same thing.
The film-makers seem to have found the original climax of the book too subtle, and so spiced it up with a final chain of events which did do not quite "ring true" yet it is overall a thought-provoking, well-acted and atmospheric film which captures a strong sense of the times.
Alice is a highly regarded academic at Columbia University, celebrated for her publications, who has managed to find time to raise three children with her similarly talented husband. Her obsession with playing word games on her phone and her conspicuous inability to find a vital word during an important lecture are the first hints of the onset of “early stage Alzheimers”, all the more devastating since she is barely fifty and unusually ambitious and driven in what she still wants to achieve. The supreme irony is that her specialism is linguistics, her fascination with words and communication.
Julianne Moore deserves her Oscar in showing Alice in a succession of emotions from disbelief and rising anxiety, through fear and frustration to a kind of ultimate acceptance. The film is realistic in showing the differing reactions of her children, both to her and each other as regards how best to treat her. Her changing relationship with her husband is also convincing: he promises to be there for her, but to what extent can he be expected to give up his own intellectual activities and career prospects as she finds herself not only unable to work, but incapable of concentrating on anything – wanting only to spend her last months of lucidity with him on the beach where they enjoyed their first romance thirty years before.
This often unbearably moving film considers subtly the question of the point at which we cease to be ourselves and may reasonably have our lives organised by others to suit their priorities. The drama ends on as positive a note as can be hoped. Perhaps some of our sadness in watching it is the knowledge that some similar fate may lie in store for us, but with less loving support.
Henry Vlll's reign is one of the most intriguing periods in popular history but to appreciate Hilary Mantel's work requires a good understanding of the issues involved. The director Kosminsky has maintained her approach in providing little by way of explanation, and does not make clear the roles, let alone the names (which at least you get in the books), of many of the minor characters. The likely resultant confusion may well be more of a reason for viewers to turn off than the difficulty of identifying charaters in the flickering candlelight.
Kosminsky has managed to compress two quite hefty novels into six one hour episodes yet still maintain a slow pace because the books consist largely of description and Cromwell's internal reflections rather than action. The director has replaced descriptions with the use of authentic sets in Elizabethan dwellings like Montacute combined with painstaking attention to period detail – perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the series. Cromwell's thoughts have been handled with short flashbacks and the watchful, miss-nothing stares and glances of which Mark Rylance is a past master. Perhaps the puzzle as to what he is really thinking is part of the drama. Is he sizing Jane Seymour up as a malleable and hopefully fertile substitute for Anne Boleyn, or as a wife for himself, so that Henry's interest in the girl comes as a blow? Brilliant though he is, Rylance seems just too wiry, playful and sensitive to play the beefy, calculating fixer we see emerging from the shadowy background of the famous Holbein portrait, but no doubt this is legitimate dramatic licence.
In a perhaps intentionally "stagy" film production, Kosminsky has been true to Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell, if anything developing some of the characters more clearly through his tighter format. So, we see Henry becoming a capricious tyrant, although his sense of vulnerability over the lack of a son evokes our sympathy, surrounded as he is by scheming nobles. Similarly, Anne Boleyn's vicious bitchiness is ever more obviously a cloak for her own insecurity and growing sense of panic with each miscarriage, and at the end she goes to her death with a dignity that commands respect. Cromwell himself appears more ruthless as the plot progresses, prepared to twist and fabricate evidence and showing vengeance in making victims of men against whom he has a grudge, such as the young noblemen who mocked his former master Wolsey so cruelly in a masked play. But he too has become trapped in his role as the King's fixer, with no real choice other than to do Henry's bidding. It was an unpleasant surprise to find Thomas More, the saintly "man for all seasons", portrayed as a cruel bigot in Mantel's book. If anything, Kosminsky makes him rather more sympathetic, greatly reducing the trial scene which forms the climax of the book, to focus more on the interplay between More and Cromwell: the former wearily unable to sacrifice his beliefs, even to regain his freedom and home comforts, the latter giving vent to a rare burst of real feeling to express his anger over More's own persecution of reformers, yet still privately regretting the demise of someone he has admired from his poverty-stricken boyhood, although the privileged More does not admit to remembering him from then at all.
I understand why the series has been so highly praised, but feel it would have made more of an impact in a feature-length film, or a two-parter, like the recent stage play. For me, Wolf Hall as a book has a contrived quality, a hollow heart, which is inevitably reflected in this filmed version.
"Wild" opens with Cheryl Strayed hiking the arduous 1100 mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada with a monstrous backpack, feet bloodied by ill-fitting boots, never knowing whether the next incident will be a mishap or encounter with an act of kindness or passing friendship. The film is based on the best-selling real-life memoir of a woman who embarked on this challenge as a way of "saving herself" after a failed marriage, destroyed by her descent into drug addiction and promiscuity. The reasons for this decline – although she comes to regard it as part of the process of developing -, in particular the sudden loss of the person she loves most, are gradually revealed. We learn about her past in a series of flashbacks, some so fleeting as to be almost subliminal. Despite abandoning college, Cheryl has a deep love and knowledge of poetry and literature, some of which she cannot bear to discard to lighten her pack. The literary messages she leaves in the books stored en route – intended to keep track of walkers – make a deep impression on other hikers even the rowdy threesome of boys she meets towards the end. Apart from the mixture of poignancy and humour, the scenery is remarkable, with dramatic changes of both topography, from mountain and crater lake to grassy plains, and climate – hot sun, drenching rain and snow. I was also struck by the emptiness of the wilderness, as Cheryl seemed to hike without seeing another soul for days on end, only to have the odd sudden intimate encounter, sometimes uplifting, occasionally a menacing reminder of her vulnerability.
Reese Witherspoon puts in an excellent performance as Cheryl – despite being in her late thirties, she retains a youthful, girlish quality. Laura Dern is also very effective as her inspirational mother with an indestructible love of each new day of life.
My only reservation is that, in changing the facts of Cheryl's past life a little perhaps to make the plot tighter, sadder and more dramatic, some areas of confusion have been introduced unnecessarily, which I found annoying.
Well-acted, with a cast who often uncannily "look the part" and sound it in the case of David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, this is a powerful and moving reconstruction of the charismatic preacher's 1965 campaign in the Alabama town of Selma to obtain the right for Negroes to register for the vote. A focused approach is probably more effective than a lengthy "Lincoln"-style biopic of his complex life which might have overloaded the viewer and either exaggerated him as a saint or demeaned him by an overemphasis on his Achilles heel of womanising – the sin he could neither refrain from nor admit to publicly.
Dedicated to non-violence, King apparently saw Selma as an ideal place for a march to the capital of Montgomery via the Edmund Pettis Bridge. He knew that the Selma Police Chief was a "pitbull" and that Governor George Wallace's refusal to allow the march would not be overridden legally. In other words, King was creating the scene of possible carnage which, viewed on States-wide television would provoke outrage and gain vital support for his cause. Yet, although a shrewd politician and inspiring orator, he also suffered periods of personal doubt, particularly when faced by the brutal murder of his supporters.
Some scenes would have benefitted from sharper editing, and they require a good deal of prior knowledge. A younger viewer might be confused by the brief appearance of Malcolm X – who was hostile to King's pacifism, calling him an "Uncle Tom" – or about the politics of the time, with crusty Democrat Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) absorbed by Vietnam, and resting on the laurels of introducing the Civil Rights Act without worrying too much about the details of its implementation: with Alabama still segregated, he asks King, how can he expect the right for Negroes to vote there?
Many scenes are strong. On a small scale, we see Orpah Winfrey as a determined black nurse trying to jump the hurdles against registering for the vote: she even knows there are 67 local councillors, but falls at the impossible barrier of naming them. Then we see King, using his Nobel status to gain access to the White House, progressing from respectful petitioning to fearless exhortation that Johnson should use his authority as President to force the issue. Johnson may be shown in an unfairly poor light for much of the film but it makes good drama, as does sinister Governor Wallace (played by yet another Brit, Tim Roth), whose concern for the poor is marred by an obsessive racism.
The scenes of violence, such as the break-up of the Selma march, are shot with painful realism, evoking a sense of shame over the injustice suffered by black Americans in what has been called the world's greatest democracy. King's speeches, in particular outside the Montgomery Capitol are also very moving, although they are paraphrasing of the originals for which it seems the film rights have been sold to Spielberg for a film yet to be made: one can only hope the money has been used on a good cause. The skilful insertion of a few moments of real film footage demonstrate the accuracy of the dramatised version.
A further menacing touch is the continual appearance on-screen of terse reports on King's movements, obtained from the bugging ordered by J Edgar Hoover – also, the attempts to drive a wedge between King and his longsuffering wife Coretta (excellent performance from Carmen Ejogo).
It is preferable to have seen the previous four series to get the most out of this one, that is, to appreciate the past relationships between the characters and how they have developed. This will also mean that certain plotlines and twists become familiar to a degree that may make some watchers feel somewhat blasé if not uneasy, particularly if French: criminals tend to be immigrants living on the soul-destroying graffiti-scarred tower-blocks of the Parisian outer suburbs – when they are not key players in dubious companies, living in the height of luxury. The police are corrupt to the core, particularly in the upper echelons, those putting their lives on the line regularly break the rules, overstep the mark in roughing up suspects and are predictably incompetent – in any attempt to corner a blackmailer or robber, you can bet the suspects will get away.
The familiar key characters remain central: the trio of driven Captain Laure Berthaud with sidekicks in the form of once upright and conscientious but now stressed failed family man Tintin, and rough diamond with a heart Gilou; the silver-tongued temptress, ambitious lawyer Josephine, her amorality held in check by the suave Pierre, and the complex, persistent and independent-minded Juge Roban, who recently seems to have lost his sense of proportion. The Machiavellian Prosecutor Marchard and charming if arrogant head of Crime Squad Brémont also continue to make the odd appearance.
In some ways this series is less good than the earlier ones in which there were more minor cases running in parallel to the main crime, conveying a more realistic sense of the complexity and stress of police work, whilst the whole process of detection has perhaps become a little too repetitive and familiar. For this reason, my interest began to flag a little in the second half but the final episode, despite its deliberate loose ends pending the next, possibly last, Series (although there is no guarantee they will all be addressed) is sufficiently action-packed to provide a resounding finale.
Overall, despite its gratuitous violence, occasional unresolved incidents en route and implausibilities which come to mind when you have time to stop and think about the plot, this fast-moving drama remains gripping not merely because it requires total concentration to grasp what is afoot but also for its sharp dialogue, not least in court scenes, and moments of humour, pathos and irony which set it apart from a run-of-the-mill police thriller.
It is probably an advantage not to have read Vera Brittain's celebrated First World War autobiography on which this film is based, since it means one can come to it without inflated expectations. Born into a prosperous Edwardian household, strong-minded Vera battles to be allowed to apply for Oxford where, in 1914, women are permitted to attend lectures but still not take degrees. Despite her intention to avoid the conventional path of marriage she falls for one of her brother Edward's friends, Roland Leighton who like her has ambitions to write, in his case as a poet. When war is declared, all the young men of her acquaintance who are fit for service feel honour-bound to enlist. Since Edward has supported her case for Oxford, she returns the favour by arguing fiercely for her father to let him join up, finding the clincher she may live to regret, "Let him be a man". A stint as a nurse on the Front opens her eyes to the chaos and waste of war.
Seen mainly from Vera's viewpoint, the course of events is saved from intolerable sadness by moments of humour and fascinating touches of period detail. There are telling situations such as Roland's behaviour when he returns on leave, masking his preoccupation with the horror of war behind a mixture of bravado and moodiness. Many moving scenes compensate for others which seem a little wooden, but perhaps the latter reflect accurately the "stiff upper lip" restraint of the period. Also, in keeping closely to Vera Brittain's text, the film may have become too restricted as a drama.
Since "Testament of Youth" was an early exposé of the futility of war, it is perhaps surprising that it was not made into a feature film long ago. Its power has been somewhat diminished by our familiarity with the facts, but there is still particular poignancy in Vera's experience of World War One, and it is an effective introduction for anyone finding out about it for the first time.
Despite or perhaps because of my admiration for Steven Hawking's brilliance and the courageous determination shared with his former wife, now Jane Wilde, I was ambivalent about watching a film which I feared would be harrowing and intrusive as regards some of the more intimate aspects of motor neurone disease. In fact, it is a sensitive and moving portrayal of their lives from their first meeting when he was embarking on a PhD and about to be hit with the unexpected diagnosis of MND with two years to live.
The film is based on Jane Wilde's book, and in a radio interview I heard her approval of the production with particular praise for Felicity Jones's brilliant imitation of her own gestures and voice, including her clipped diction from a 1950s upbringing in an academic household. Eddie Redmayne also manages to assume with remarkable skill the appearance of Hawking as seen on television. It does not trouble me that he is not a genuinely disabled actor and I would think it hard to employ one since Hawking has to be shown in steady decline from the apparently healthy only slightly clumsy young man at the outset.
Since this is a commercial film, it touches fairly superficially on Hawking's mind-bending scientific theories and the grimmer details of managing his physical decline. The pain of the latter is shown in subtle ways as when, struggling to get him to co-operate over the use of a grossly inadequate letter-board to communicate after it has been necessary to give him a tracheotomy, Jane dissolves into silent tears. So, it becomes in essence the story of his relationship with his wife, with her part in the drama equal to his. Tragically, neither can fully express themselves, he because of his disability and she out of love, a sense of duty and her unusually reserved and self-controlled personality.
The tragedy is highlighted by the fact that, perhaps in particular if one is a woman, one tends to identify mostly with Jane's exhaustion as she struggles to care for him, bring up their three children, and produce her own PhD in odd disrupted moments at the kitchen table. Having insisted on caring for a man only predicted to have two years to live, it is ironically her support which played a major part in keeping him alive. When asked in an interview how matters could have been improved, she stated that it would have helped if Hawking had been prepared to discuss his illness with her, if she had received a great deal more assistance in caring for him, and if the nurses eventually hired had been more carefully vetted. The film is faithful to the truth in making all this clear, yet manages to do so with frequent touches of wry humour.
Although Hawking probably had to be selfish and take his wife for granted to survive, the film made me wonder whether his decision to divorce her to marry his nurse was in fact an act of generosity, in freeing Jane to marry the supportive family friend whom she had come to love. There are other interpretations, of course. Posing such questions feels prurient, but this is the inevitable result of making those who are still very much alive the subject of a mainstream film.
We are introduced to Mr Turner as a middle-aged man, with only hints of his past life as the talented son of a Cockney barber, or his rise to fame as a painter entertained by aristocrats and displayed at the Royal Academy. Nor is there any clear explanation of his messy personal life, with inconvenient visits from a shrewish ex-mistress, justifiably angry over his neglect of her and their two daughters, one now with a child of her own.
Timothy Spall portrays Turner as eccentric and boorish, yet capable of deep affection as shown to the jolly old father who mixes his paints and makes up picture frames, in between shopping for a pig's head in the local market. Perhaps Turner's misogyny, also suggested by the casual sexual exploitation of his downtrodden and doting servant Hannah, stems from the trauma of having a schizophrenic mother carted off to Bedlam when he was a small boy. However, painting is not the sole channel of his sensitivity and vision: he can be moved to tears by Dido's Lament, and, admittedly in a drunken haze, shows empathy for poor Effie, the oppressed wife of Ruskin, portrayed here as a ghastly prig whom Turner delights us by taking down a peg or two.
Although we are shown Turner ageing, pained to hear the public turning against his later more abstract works, and finding solace in a secretive relationship with the Widow Booth, this film is a series of scenes which combine to form a vivid impression not only of Turner as a man but also of early nineteenth century life. The film's attention to period detail is impressive with the inclusion of a myriad of characters who may appear only in passing. It is like being a fly on the wall, or bird in flight, observing Turner silhouetted against the kind of sunset light which endlessly fascinated him, leaning on the rail of a ferry bound for Margate, weaving his way along narrow crowded quays to Mrs Booths' lodging, greeting other great painters at the Royal Academy or being rowed towards the Temeraire as friends joke over the likelihood of his painting it: "I shall cogitate upon it," he drawls.
We see Turner's insatiable curiosity as when he visits a photographer for the first time, quizzing the supercilious man who mistakes him initially for an ignoramus. Or when, showing a respect for women when they demonstrate talent, he invites a natural philosopher home to demonstrate how nails may be magnetized by the colours of the spectrum – at the forefront of scientific thinking at the time.
Most scenes are low-key, often quirky yet revealing, such as Turner being pestered for money by an unsuccessful painter, or the pails set round his domestic display room to catch the drips of rainwater through the ceiling. There are also some powerful dramatic scenes, as when Turner rejects a wealthy businessman's offer to buy up his works for a vast sum, since he has resolved to leave them to the nation to be viewed "gratis". Sadly, they were not to be retained in one place as he had hoped.
On reflection, I decided this is an outstanding film which makes one think about Turner as a man, flawed and complex, and want to find out more about him and his times. Yet, the massive hyping made me expect to be impressed, so that some of the earlier scenes, such as the improbably atrocious music at an aristocratic soirée were a disappointment.
Antenna Reviews 