Conclave is top-class, grown-up entertainment

Conclave, adapted from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, is possibly not the sort of film I would usually think of watching – though I enjoyed The Two Popes when I streamed it in February. I might not have any faith left myself, but given my heavily religious background (very evangelical Methodist) I can still understand and appreciate Biblical debate, and almost inevitably find myself retaining an interest in religion in general.

I only really became aware of this film when seeing the trailer last week and, finding some of the rave reviews it’s been getting (including from the likes of Mark Kermode), decided to give it a go.

It opens with Cardinal-Dean Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) hurrying toward the Vatican to oversee arrangements after the pope has died. Aside from mourning his religiously progressive leader, it means that Lawrence will now have to organise and oversee the conclave of the world’s Catholic cardinals that elects the next pope.

The cardinals have been readying themselves for this – positioning themselves for possible election and campaigning among the rest of their number. The primary contenders are Aldo Cardinal Bellini, an American liberal (Stanley Tucci); Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, a Canadian moderate (John Lithgow); Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco, a right-wing Italian who wants the Mass to be said in Latin again (Sergio Castellitto); and Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a popular Nigerian candidate with conservative social views.

But on the eve of the conclave, one Vincent Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) arrives in the Vatican – a Mexican archbishop apparently appointed by the late pope without anyone else knowing – and working as the cardinal of Kabul in Afghanistan. Suspicions are raised.

There were already whispers about the pope’s last hours and final meeting, and Benitez’s presence only adds to the suggestions of conspiracy and dodgy doings.

The scheming between the candidates and their supporters is barely hidden – though it involves noir whispered talks in quiet corners and comments that only a cardinal that didn't want to be pope would be a suitable one. But who doesn't, at some level, harbour the ambition?

In terms of the performances, it is a wonderful ensemble cast – and that absolutely includes not only all the actors named above, but also Isabella Rossellini as senior nun Sister Agnes, who gets to deliver a truth bomb that is magnificent – and conclude it with a gesture that has seen audiences laughing at screenings (not just the one I attended).

Edward Berger’s film is pretty much perfect as a piece of grown-up entertainment. It’s intelligent. It’s quite easy to see that the world of the Catholic church presented here could also be the corporate or political worlds, so this is not ‘about’ religion. It’s about ambition, power and the gaining and use of that by human beings who, even at their best, are not perfect.

I’ve tended to avoid films of much over 90 minutes in the last year: this comes in at two hours, but Berger’s direction means this doesn’t feel close to that. The pacing is spot on for the tension. Peter Straughan’s screenplay from Harris’s novel is superb: dryly witty, never condescending. It feels so timely, given what the world is seeing today in terms of regressive politics.

Similarly, Volker Bertelmann’s soundtrack is spot on. Stéphane Fontaine’s cinematography is a joy. The mostly muted colours – creamy marble, greys and whites – set against cardinal red – are stark. Some scenes have a feeling of having been choregraphed to almost Busby Berkley levels – cardinals in the rain with their uniform white umbrellas, shot from above, is just one, while the ceremonial aspects and rituals are superb, treated with complete seriousness and respect, yet also revealing the performance and theatre at the centre of church life.

A little personal note here for context (well, I did start this post with one!).

Until I stopped attending church altogether in my mid-twenties, I had drifted away from evangelical Methodism and toward high Anglicanism. I appreciated the theatricality, performance and ritual of services. And I continue to very much appreciate religious music – not the Gospel songs of Billy Graham-style crusade rallies, which haunt me unpleasantly, but works such as the requiems of Mozart, Fauré and Britten.

But let's get back to the review.

If I have any slight complaint, it's that the character of Tedesco is perhaps made to be overly obviously awful. He stands in the refectory vaping, yet refuses to stand for prayers in the Sistine Chapel – just two shows of contempt for most of his brother cardinals, despite he himself being the one that wants 'tradition' brought back. But perhaps that's being over sensitive when we live in a world full of real pantomime villains who are actually very dangerous.

As Lawrence, Fiennes is outstanding. For all the very carefully played camp of the film in general (it's a balancing act Berger gets spot on), his is a stunningly subtle performance. Acting with the eyes, as it were, is an absolute art and he is as good at it as Anthony Hopkins. His own inner struggle so often needs no words to be crystal clear. If he isn’t in the Oscar noms next spring, there’ll be something wrong with the film world.

And the ending – true to the book – is done with real class, even though it may not be quite what some would expect, given its extraordinary topicality.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Seriously superior entertainment, with an actual ethical heart and message.

A sensitive exploration of what being queer means

Layla is the feature debut from non-binary British-Iraqi drag artist and film maker Amrou Al-Kadhi, and uses a deceptively traditional romantic story to explore the difficulties of navigating a life caught between queer and religious/ethic identities.

Layla (deadname Latif) is a non-binary drag queen from a Muslim family, who is living in London with three queer friends and has already become a star within their community.

 

However, they’re also trying to balance this with not being out to their family and, when they go back to visit, perform a conventional straight cis role. They are convinced that they cannot possibly be who they really are with their own family.

 

When they meet Max after a performance at a corporate London Pride do that goes spectacularly – and very funnily – wrong, the pair quickly start developing a romantic bond. But they’re also streets apart in terms of their lives. Max is from a well-to-do, white, middle-class family who are accepting of his rather beige gayness, but when Layla meets them, it’s clear that there are underlying issues around racism, Islamophobia and class.

 

And to add, Layla’s newly-married sister is moving to London with her husband.

 

This is a very sensitive film, while also being very frank. It is very unjudgmental and also helps to really explain what, for many LGBT+ people, ‘queer’ means.

 

Al-Kadhi’s direction and screenplay are excellent. Bilal Hasna as Layla is simply superb, while Louis Greatorex as Max is also very good. Indeed, It’s a very fine cast all around.

 

This was screened earlier this year at the BFI’s Flare festival and is now on more general release. It’s a very good addition to LGBTQI film.

A taste of brilliant cinema

A bit of catch-up cinema today, with a first viewing of A Taste of Honey, the 1961 film from director Tony Richardson from Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 play of the same name, which they jointly adapted.

An iconic piece of British New Wave – often described as kitchen sink drama – it opens as 17-year-old Jo is nearing the end of her time in school, desperate to escape both that and her self-absorbed, good-time mother Helen.

But even in her last few days at school, her mother hasn’t paid the rent, so the pair have to make a dash from their grubby lodgings to escape – not for the first time.

On the way to somewhere new to stay, Jo is helped with heavy suitcases by a young black man, Jimmy. Later, walking alongside the Manchester Ship Canal – she meets him again. He’s a cook on a ship that’s temporarily docked there. They begin a brief courtship.

Meanwhile, Helen has hooked up with a new boyfriend, Peter – clearly quite successful financially, but also rather seedy – who wants to make “an honest woman” of her. When a ‘family’ weekend trip to Blackpool goes wrong, Jo heads back to Manchester alone and bumps into Jimmy. They make love.

The inevitable happens, but she is supported by Geoffrey, a gay textile student, who moves into her grubby digs, does things up and generally looks after her.

However, Helen isn’t happy about that.

This is a very good film. From a personal perspective, it’s set in a part of the country I know – even if only some years later than the film was made – and has a resonance on that level.

It’s unflinching in terms of its approach to the post-war state of the country – children play on bomb sites and Jo is, more than once, disgusted to see children who are clearly not being looked after properly (a reflection of her own experience of growing up).

It’s not simplistic, though, never making the mistake of not understanding why we reach for moments of happiness, even if those can ultimately be costly.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Dora Bryan as Helen makes a mockery of any idea that she was ever ‘only’ a light comic actor. Robert Stephens is subtle in the role of the unpleasant, sexist Peter.

Both Paul Danquah as Jimmy and Murray Melvin as Geoffrey turn in nuanced performances that never fall into the trap of cliché.

To add, John Addison’s music is very effective – predominantly with the use of children singing, which reminds us of how young Jo in particular is.

Very much worth a watch.

Would you be a friend of Dorothy?

A hugely hygge weekend offered the opportunity for loads of reading. Having finished Bernadine Evaristo’s fabulous Mr Loverman on Saturday afternoon, I dived straight in to Sandi Toksvig’s new novel, Friends of Dorothy.

Police officer Stevie and paramedic Amber are not long married and they believe they’ve found the perfect home at 4 Grimaldi Square in London – albeit the square is generally rather run-down and with a nosy neighbour who’s shocked to discover she’s now living next door to married lesbians, and a nearly dead pub on one corner.

But when they go to move in, they find that Dorothy, the 80-year-old, foul-mouthed, straight-talking, wise-cracking woman they had bought the house from – has decided that she’s not moving out.

What follows draws in more local characters and develops into a sort of ‘caper’ book. I’ve heard the phrase ‘caper film’ more than once, but this really is the first time I can recall thinking of a book as a ‘caper book’. But I can’t think of it as anything else, given some of the scenes – and one late scene in particular.

Yet don’t let that con you. It is also remarkably subtle too. Toksvig uses her story to touch on class, race – and, of course, LGBTQ – issues, without being heavy-handed about it.

There are a number of interweaving stories here, all of which Toksvig uses to illustrate her central premise of “logical, not biological” families. The old saying is that ‘you can choose your friends but not your family’, yet some in the LGBT+ community are challenging that idea and what constitutes your family and how you organise/deal with such relationships.

It might sound ‘light’ – and it is, in many ways – but Toksvig is a really skilled storyteller and that’s why it never feels like you’re being lectured to. As a tiny example, while she never says whether Grimaldi Square is in north, south, east or west London, it felt so recognisable to me that I had a sense of ‘knowing’ that it was not far from where I live in east London.

It’s a funny story, but with real, real heart. A lovely, humane read. I got through its 350 pages in less than 24 hours, which should tell you something.

Kaos reigns – and long may it do so!

‘The all-powerful yet insecure god Zeus starts to fear his end of reign when he spots a wrinkle on his forehead. He becomes increasingly paranoid and vindictive toward his followers.

At the same time, three humans start to discover their connections with each other and grand conspiracies involving the residents of Mount Olympus.’

 

That’s a version of the precis from Wikipedia of the eight-part Netflix series Kaos.

 

It’s a black comedy from British writer Charlie Covell that takes the myths and puts them in a modern setting. It’s brilliantly realised, with an excellent script, great design and a superb use of music.

 

I’d always found the Greek/Roman myths un-interesting – until reading Colm Tóibín’s House of Names, a very serious re-working of the myths of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, which I hugely appreciated (I read it because I hugely appreciate Tóibín’s work). This is helping me enjoy the myths even more. Funnily enough, I bought Tony, my late partner, a signed copy of Stephen Fry’s Mythos a few years ago and might well read that now.

 

And then there’s the cast. Jeff Goldblum is an absolute hoot as Zeus – staying JUST the right side of completely OTT. But there’s also the fabulous Janet McTeer as his wife Hera, Aurora Perrineau as Eurydice, David Thewlis as Hades, Rakie Ayola as Persephone, Nabhaan Rizwan as Dionysis, Stephen Dillane as Prometheus (who gets to do a lot of breaking the fourth wall, brilliantly well), Misia Butler as Caeneus and Suzy/Eddie Izzard as Lachy, one of The Fates. And that’s just to mention a few of a superb ensemble!

 

I love the diversity of it – and I have spent time Googling various characters to see how accurate these new versions are. So for instance, in the series, Caeneus is a trans man. I looked it up – and yes, born Caenis, they were transformed by “Poseidon into an invulnerable man”.

 

I mostly watch films and sport on TV and rarely get excited over anything else (Picard season 3 last year was the last time), but this has just blown me away. It’s absolutely set up for a second season (though still awaiting Netflix announcement on that) but this was/is brilliant fun and I will be watching again!

The Man with the Answers is utterly charming

The Man with the Answers is writer and director Stelios Kammitsis’s quirky and charming 2021 film that combines being a gay romantic drama with a beautifully photographed road movie.

It opens in Greece, where Viktorias, a former champion diver, is now working in a furniture factory. His mother left Greece some years before to go and live with her new partner in Bavaria and, when her mother dies, she doesn’t bother to either return for or contribute to the funeral, leaving Viktorias to sell his diving medals to pay for the send-off for his beloved grandmother.
 
Grieving and depressed, he decides to take his mother’s abandoned Audi and drive to Germany to visit. On the ferry from Greece to Italy, he encounters Mathias, an eccentric German student who persuades Viktorias to let him join the trip – and from there, to guide him away from the motorways and into a more scenic route as they head north, in what becomes a much more enlightening trip.
 
It's a gentle film that uses its 80 minutes to delicately plot the development of the relationship between the two men, which is often fraught – and perhaps particularly the development of trust.
 
Vasilis Magouliotis and Anton Weil as Viktorias and Mathias respectively are thoroughly engaging and convincing. Stella Fyrogeni as Angeliki, Viktorias’s mother, gives a nice performance in the late stages of the film.
 
Antonis Kataris as the funeral director is worth a mention as for being quite effectively creepy at seeing the death as a way of mounting up the profit.

And Thodoros Mihopoulos’s cinematography is excellent.
Really enjoyable – and currently streaming on Sky.

Parallel – using sci-fi for a powerful take on grief

Described generally as a ‘science fiction thriller’, this year’s Parallel – a remake of the 2019 Chinese film Parallel Forest, and re-written by brothers Aldis and Edwin Hodge, together with Jonathon Keasey – is a seriously good film that seems to have picked up less attention than it should have when it appeared in UK cinemas earlier this year.

I was looking for something to watch this evening after work and noticed that it is currently available on Sky. My memory was jogged to remembering a trailer seen on cinema visits earlier this year. That trailer doesn't do it justice.

 

Vanessa is mourning the loss of her and her husband Alex’s son, Obi, who died a year previously in a car crash that was not the fault of either of them, though she seems confused over who was driving at the time.

 

They live in a very nice home, with Martel, Alex’s brother, effectively surrounded by forest and with a nearby lake and increasingly strange things start to happen. The men’s father had apparently thought the area ‘strange’, yet the film opens with only Vanessa seeming to experience such.

 

Although the couple have had counselling, she is withdrawing further and further from life. And then she finds herself facing herself in the forest, in a parallel universe.

 

It’s subtle and low-key for cinema sci-fi these days. In some ways very simply told, with no (discernible) special effects – and kudos to director Kourosh Ahari for that. But while it’s ‘sci-fi’, its core themes are loss, grief, and trauma, and they are very well and sensitively dealt with.

 

Very good cinematography from Pip White, and an equally good soundtrack from Josh Atchley and Denise Santos.

 

It is a three-hander, and the Hodge brothers play both the male roles (very well). But much here relies on Vanessa, and Danielle Deadwyler is excellent in the role, really catching the complexity of the emotional experience of loss, grief and guilt.

And the ending packs a surprising punch.

As I said – it's on Sky now and very much worth watching.

The Red Turtle – a confusing piece of fine animation

I was made aware of The Red Turtle, Michaël Dudok de Wit’s 2016’s award-winning animation co-production with Studio Ghibli and others, when binge watching Mark Kermode and Steve Mayo’s YouTube film reviews last week.

The general tone was one of a rave – and I instantly put it on my ‘must see’ list.

A man is washed up on an uninhabited island. He makes three attempts to escape on hand-built rafts, but at every turn, is thwarted by a giant turtle.

After the third attempt, he seeks revenge on the turtle, with unexpected results.

Well. I’ve seen it now and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s beautifully animated, but it took me two thirds in to it to really have a ‘feel’ for this fairytale. And that is what it is – a fairytale.

There are many things that work: as said, the animation itself is beautiful; 2D and 3D complimenting each other perfectly. The score from Laurent Perez del Mar is very good. It is essentially a non-verbal film, so no voice talent required.

Is it an eco-film, for instance? Not entirely sure.

I may have to watch it again, because I’m really not quite sure what to make of it, and yet ...

Kensuke's Kingdom is pitch-perfect film-making

Initially premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2023, before being seen at last October’s BFI London Film Festival, this film based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book – originally published in 1999 – has now made its way to a more general release.

It tells the story of Michael, an 11-year-old boy, who sets off with his parents and older sister on a sailing trip around the world, after Mum and Dad both lose their jobs.

But Michael is less than happy – not least as his beloved sheepdog, Stella, has had to stay at home, or so we are initially led to believe.

One night, as a storm rages, Michael and Stella are washed overboard, only to wake on an apparently uninhabited desert island.

However, they find help – albeit reluctantly – from Kensuke, an elderly Japanese man who was washed up on the island decades before. Gradually their relationship evolves, as Michael learns to respect and value the environment he finds himself in, together with its wildlife, which Kensuke helps to protect. And as we discover, there are varied reasons it needs protection.

It's an excellent screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who has changed aspects of the original novel, but which certainly make sense here. For instance, in the book, the two central protagonists learn to speak each other’s language. Here, they learn only each other’s name, with communication being based more on emotion and expression.

There is also a love of art that they share and helped them learn about each other.

And their art allows the animators to be incredibly creative, from Michael’s log-book drawings coming to life on an origami boat that moves around a map of the world, to an extraordinary sequence of Japanese-inspired ink works that give the audience an insight into Kensuke’s own past.

The animation is superb – hand-drawn and combining 2D and 3D styles, which hark back to early Disney: think the 1937 Snow White and Bambi, both with lush painted backgrounds and 2D characters. As touched on above, here, there is a melding of different approaches throughout and including some simply beautiful vistas.

Directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry and with a super score by Stuart Hancock, it comes in at a very pleasingly trim 85 minutes.

In terms of the voice cast, Sally Hawkins is Mum, Cillian Murphy is Dad, and Raffey Cassidy is Becky, Michael’s sister.

But the film rests firmly with Michael and Kensuke, and Aaron MacGregor and Ken Watanabe get it absolutely nailed on.

Kensuke’s Kingdom is a beautiful film – both to look at and in terms of its humanity, compassion, exploration of what family/community means, and its advocacy for the natural world.

Very, very much worth seeing.

Despicable Me 4 – thoroughly entertaining and silly fun

Gru and the crew are back again for a fourth Despicable Me outing – the sixth, in the case of Gru himself and the Minions – and it is as enjoyably silly as ever.
 
Set nine months after the last film, with the family having been joined by Gru Jnr, danger sets in when Gru helps the Anti-Villain League (AVL) capture a rival from his school days at the Lycée Pas Bon (roughly translated from the French as ‘Not Good High School’), Maxime Le Mal (‘Maxime the Evil’).
 
But when Le Mal escapes, having crossed himself with a cockroach to gain super powers, he vows revenge, and the AVL sends Gru and family to a safe house.
 
As I said, blessedly silly fun and does the ‘peril’ at the end really well. Written by Mike White and Ken Daurio, and directed by Chris Renaud – who also gives voice to Principal Übelschlecht of the Lycée Pas Bon.
 
While it’s a film aimed squarely at children and families, there is also plenty for adults without kids to enjoy – not least in trying to keep track of all the Easter eggs: that’s references to other works, for any non-geeks reading this.
 
Here, we’ve got Incredibles, Men in Black, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bram Stoker’s Dracula – the last one being a particularly geeky one I’m quite proud of spotting – among (I’m sure) many more.
 
As ever, the voice cast is great, the look of it is great and the humour descends delightfully into the realms of the juvenile. Though it’s interesting that the team are finding new way of doing this instead of just concentrating on laughing about farts.
 
It also manages a really funny and unexpected take on the Minions’ usual ‘banana!’ schtick.
 
I was going to say that there’s nothing subtle about this, but the Easter eggs are. Otherwise, just great fun and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

Hello, Dolly sees Imelda Staunton rocking it again

When Dolly Gallagher Levi finally puts her mourning black into a wardrobe and prepares to return to life, the matchmaker and all-round, self-declared meddler sets in motion the events that first appeared in various 19^th-century works and then in Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers (later rechristened The Matchmaker for a revised production at the Edinburgh Festival in 1954) and then as a musical from composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, with a book by Michael Stewart.

As the show opens, Dolly is currently employed to look to find a new wife for Horace Vandergelder, a well-known “half-a-millionaire” who runs a horse feed business, but she intends to marry him herself, while also overcoming Vandergelder’s objections to his hysterical niece wedding an artist.

Add into the mix Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, Vandergelder’s two woefully under-paid and over-worked clerks, who long for a day off and an adventure, together with New York milliner and widow Irene Molloy and her assistant, Minnie Fay,

This new production at the London Palladium has been long in the making, having been disrupted by COVID. Minor warning here – this review is going to involve more personal comment than I usually do – I hope it will be clear why.

I’m not even sure I’d seen the film at that stage, but in the mid 1980s, I was cast as Minnie Fay in what turned out to be a very expensive and ambitious – but very good – Morecambe Warblers’ production of the show. I loved it and apparently – thanks to a VERY good choreographer – I looked like I’d been dancing all my life!

I bought the cassette of the original, iconic Broadway production, with Carol Channing as Dolly. A few years ago, I shelled out for a very good vinyl copy of that soundtrack – which might convey something of how much this show means to me on a personal level.

When this production was originally touted, with Imelda Staunton in the lead, my reaction to the late Other Half was simply: ‘We’re going!’ Don’t get me wrong – there was no objection.

He’d seen and massively appreciated her in Gypsy and Follies.

But … the pandemic. When it was announced, late last year, that this would be going ahead, I had become, as Dolly and Irene, a widow. Like both of them, I am trying to work my way into creating a new life for myself.

I joined an email list just so that I could get priority booking (argh!). When booking opened, I spent a frankly daft sum of money on a ticket (I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that right now in my life).

Over the last week, on social media, I have even been doing the ‘x sleeps until’ – which I have never done before about anything. So I suspect that that is a big part of why, as the majority of the Palladium audience went wild this afternoon, I felt slightly underwhelmed. My expectations were far too high.

Director Dominic Cooke has made a point of emphasising the widowhood of both Dolly and Irene as serious and genuinely poignant – and that Herman did actually create shows about serious issues (any of us who are aware of Mack and Mabel know this). Since Hello, Dolly! is set at the turn of the 19/20th century, then we are also dealing with misogynistic attitudes and massive restrictions on women’s activities. Dolly and Irene work against those.

I think that my primary problem here is that Cooke’s decisions on giving it some genuine emotional heft are to be applauded, but it feels at odds with the level of slapstick farce so often evident. For me, it jarred. To be absolutely clear, the overwhelming majority of the audience was cheering and applauding throughout, at incredibly levels.

However, there were – even for me – serious goose-bumpy, fabulous moments: not least the opening of the overture, When the Parade Passes By and, of course, the title number, which does not disappoint.

But there is a question that arises as to how one melds the overt campness of the history of this fabulous show, with a more contemporary approach. Lest you don’t know – Danny La Rue played the lead in one British revival!

Just to note – Staunton is simply sensational as Dolly. And in one way, that’s part of the problem – because her character just has so much more nuance than any other.

I'd also add that Andy Nyman is very good as the utterly ridiculous Vandergelder, as is Jenna Russell as Irene. And they add to the nuance of Cooke's approach. The problem is, many of the other cast have been (presumably) directed in a very different way – un-nuanced slapstick – that feels like a massive conflict in approaches.

Oh – and the band is superb.

Hello, Dolly! is at the London Palladium until 14 September 2024

 

Crossing – a class piece of queer cinema

Lia, a retired teacher in a small Georgian town near the border with Turkey, is starting a search for her estranged niece, Tekla, who is trans. She had promised her dying sister that she would find her and bring her home.

Teaming up with Achi, the layabout brother of a former pupil, who claims to know that Tekla has gone to Istanbul and to have her address there, they cross the border into Turkey and take a coach along the Black Sea to that historic city.

 

There, they face dead end after dead end, but then they meet Evrim, a trans woman with a law degree who volunteers for trans rights group Pembe Hayat (Pink Life, a real organisation, founded in 2006), who agrees to help them.

 

The film also shows us children trying to eke out a living on the streets – in particular, Izzet and Gülpembe (Bünyamin Değer and Sema Sultan Elekci), with Evrim having to use her legal training when the former is arrested for alleged pickpocketing. This is important, in going against an idea that trans (and LGBT+ generally) activists are only interested in a single issue.

 

Crossing is Georgian-Swedish writer and director Levan Akin’s fourth feature. It premiered at this year’s Berlinale in February, winning the Teddy jury prize for best queer film in Berlin, before going on to pick up further awards at further festivals.

 

It’s very much character driven and, although it’s comfortably under two hours, it still takes the time to do this without rushing.

 

The title might seem obviously related to being trans, but it’s also about other forms of transition – and very much of growth. Lia and Achi both grow in ways that are unexpected – and delicately developed. It’s also worth noting that Akin’s portrayal of the small trans-female community in Istanbul is empathic, dignified and far from simplistic.

 

The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer Lisabi Fridell, showing us an Istanbul that pulses with life – largely working-class – including cats.

 

But ultimately, the success of the film rests on the performances of the three main characters.

 

Lucas Kankava is excellent as Achi: on the one hand, street wise, while on the other, naïve, and desperately lacking affection in his life.

 

Deniz Dumanlı as Evrim is also excellent, giving the character real complexity: full of positivity and without any sense of victimhood.

 

But at the heart of this is Lia, and Mzia Arabuli gives a performance that manages to be both incredibly understated and yet an absolute powerhouse of emotion.

All in all, a really good film – and definitely one that goes straight into the lists of important LGBT+ movies.

Supernova – an incredibly beautiful and sensitive film about dementia

Tusker and Sam have been a couple for years and are taking a campervan trip to the Lake District to revisit some of their favourite places and reconnect with family and friends.

After that, Sam – a classical pianist – is to give a recital that he insists will be his last, as he is determined to care for his partner, who has been diagnosed with early onset dementia.

But Tusker – a writer himself – has other plans which, as they head north, he hasn’t shared.

Written and directed by Harry Macqueen, this is an incredibly sensitive exploration of a couple facing not simply mortality, but the incremental nature of the mortality that dementia inflicts on people.

It is never mawkishly sentimental, but is intensely moving – not least in being an unflinching look at a relationship of length, with the joking and bickering as well as the tenderness.

The cinematography from Dick Pope is beautiful. I was born just to the east of the Lake District: my family moved to Bolton when I was three, but we visited regularly for a substantial part of my childhood and youth, staying with family friends who ran a corner shop in Tebay or those who had a fell farm not far away.

The latter stays in particular were some of the happiest days of that part of my life. Though I haven’t been back for many years, it all felt instantly familiar, and the lingering shots of the nature of the area are simply gorgeous.

While there’s a section of the film where there is a – very good – supporting cast, this is essentially a two-hander. And Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as Sam and Tusker respectively are both on absolutely superb form. Enormous subtlety and nuance from the pair.

The film originally premiered at the 68th San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2020, and then the following year in US and UK cinemas, Supernova is now streaming on Netflix.

It’s a difficult subject, but Macqueen and team have made a very, very fine film – and ultimately, an uplifting and grown-up one about love. Make sure you have tissues close by.

Evenings and Weekends: A brilliant debut novel about queer life from Oisín McKenna

London; 2019. As a beached whale lies beside the Thames, a sweltering summer is leaving the city’s residents with a sense that something – whatever that is – is going to happen, and when it does, it will be as explosive as a thunderstorm.

For Maggie, it’s about being pregnant and broke, and facing the prospect of returning to the hometown just beyond the city that she had fought so hard to escape; this time, with her partner Ed, who has his own demons.

Then there’s Phil, Maggie’s best friend, who is struggling to make sense of his own life as a gay man. His brother Callum is about to be married, but there are problems on that front too.

Oisín McKenna’s debut novel, Evenings and Weekends, begins on a Friday afternoon as the weekend approaches. Apart from a short coda, it essentially concludes at the end of that weekend. But don’t let that give you the impression that the 352 pages are in any way slow.

It’s a beautifully paced exploration of characters who are by no means unflawed, but feel completely authentic, as they try to work their way through particularly intense periods of their lives.

The central characters are all from working-class backgrounds and McKenna is excellent at weaving this into other aspects of their experiences – particularly in terms of sexuality and gender, but with ethnicity featuring too, via a strong backstory.

McKenna is a spoken-word artist, and this comes through in the musicality and rhythm of the language in the book, which is not only very effective, but joyful.

A gritty work, it’s sexually explicit in places, but always empathic, while never pretending that every relationship doesn’t have its difficult elements.

It’s also a love letter to London – particularly the east of the city – almost a walking tour of the Hackney I live in, really capturing, in detail, many places I know, together with introducing me to ones I will now check out!

The book came out early this month, but it’s taken me a while to feel that I’ve processed my thoughts together coherently enough to review it. It made me think of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway – particularly in terms of the timeframe of the story.

The book was recommended to me just before publication, by a friend who’s a friend of the author. I’ve been struggling with reading in recent months but am glad that I didn’t put off getting a copy. Indeed, I read it over three days – which in present circumstances, is a minor miracle.

Ultimately, I think that Oisín McKenna has given us a queer novel that it is not only brilliant, but links back to that iconic work by Woolf. The key difference here being its exploration of working as opposed to upper class, plus sexuality and gender, yet all within a similarly limited timeframe. And of course, the Bloomsbury Set, of which Woolf was a central figure, was sexually and gender diverse.

I cannot recommend this enough.

Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland: a stimulating exhibition

It might seem a strange idea to stage an exhibition of works by both Beryl Cook (1926-2008) and Touko Laaksonen, who was better known as Tom of Finland (1920-1991), but that’s what Studio Voltaire in Clapham has done. And it works a treat.

It’s a concise selection, but carefully chosen and with curator’s notes that avoid the pretentious and actually provide good context.

Cook is famous for her paintings of voluptuous women, predominantly working class. They’re often skimpily attired and seen with very high heels, drinks and/or fags in hand. Importantly, there is no sign of them being ashamed of their bodies – and they have the temerity to be having fun.

Victoria Wood described Cook’s paintings as being “like Rubens with jokes”.

She was self-taught and, entirely predictably, like LS Lowry, the British art establishment was sniffy. Even when she died, obituaries referred to her saucy seaside postcard as ‘naïve’. But she was – and continues to be – incredibly popular, while some major galleries now display paintings by her.

Tom’s works are more overtly and explicitly sexual. He took his name for the sake of anonymity, when by the late 1950s, he was an illustrator for US magazine Physique Pictorial, which portrayed muscled men in homoerotic activities that would just scrape past the censor.

Looking at his works of extremely muscled and well-hung hunks now, it’s easy to think of them as reflecting tropes of gay culture: the cowboy, the sailor, the leather man. All very Village People. But then that’s because Tom helped create such an incredibly influential aesthetic.

Like Cook, his figures are predominantly working class. The hyper-masculine nature of them was a direct challenge to the idea that gay men were effeminate. They are also clearly happy in their own bodies – and they’re having fun.

The styles of both artists are very different. But they’re instantly recognisable, beautifully executed and absolutely suit their subjects.

Of the works on display, there are several standouts. Cook’s 1976 painting The Lockyer Tavern (pictured at the top of this review), shows women drinking in a Plymouth gay pub – the artist was very much an ally – is iconic.

Personal Services

There’s also Personal Services from 1987, inspired by the life of famous madame and dominatrix, Cynthia Payne. It was used as a poster for the Terry Jones film about Payne, of the same title.

Ladies Night (Ivor Dickie) from 1981 portrays women surrounding a male pole dancer/stripper and laughing and straining to see as he pulls down his thong.

There’s also a display of some of the photos she took to help her work, which is illuminating.

Much of Tom’s work was graphite on paper – and untitled. I have selected three to include here, all of which showcase his skill and the points I’ve made above, but all of which are (just about!) ‘safe’ to see.

Studio Voltaire is a small exhibition space and this is a small exhibition. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer an experience that breaks away from mainstream exhibitions to represent and celebrate communities and groups in a way that is really welcome and thoroughly life-affirming.

Ladies Night (Ivor Dickie)

Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland is at Studio Voltaire until 25 August.

It includes explicit artistic representations of gay sex.