Robot Dreams is a an absolute charm

Dog is a lonely hound living on his own in a third-floor New York apartment in the 1980s. In the evenings, he plays Pong on his own. But one night, flicking through channels on TV while eating his usual meal of microwaved macaroni cheese for one, he spots an ad for a build-your-own-robot as a friend, and immediately orders one.

When he’s completed the build – hilariously watched by pigeons on his windowsill – and worked out how to activate his new buddy, their life together begins as they set out to explore the city.

Robot is fascinated and thrilled by everything, and passes on that zest for life to Dog. The pair roller-skate in Central Park, dance together, watch The Wizard of Oz together and, after Robot learns not to squeeze Dog’s paw too tightly, hold hands.

But on a trip to Long Beach at the end of summer, the pair are separated after too much enthusiastic play in the water from Robot. Try as he might, Dog can’t help his friend and, when he returns the following day with tools and manuals to do so, he finds that the beach is now locked until 1 June the following year.

How they cope without each other and learn to live again is the core of the film.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Who knows. But Robot certainly dreams – not of sheep, but of finding his way back to Dog; dreams that are worked and re-worked from his time-limited experience of life. One in particular is gorgeous – he finds himself in The Wizard of Oz, surrounded by tap-dancing flowers doing a routine straight out of Busby Berkeley, as New York shimmers in green – seen like the city of Oz – on the horizon.

Between the Oz references, the trope of the gay love of musicals – here, Oz (don’t forget ‘friends of Dorothy’) and the Berkeleyesque routine – plus the holding hands, it’s little wonder that there is online speculation that this is a subtle and tender gay love story.

To be clear, there’s no mention of the gender of either Dog or Robot, but female characters in this anthropomorphic New York are pretty easy to spot. And the beach scenes clearly show Dog is male – watch out for a very funny swimming costume change gag.

Robot Dreams is Pablo Berger’s first animated feature and is based on Sara Varon’s comic of the same name. Entirely hand-drawn in 2D style, it has won plenty of plaudits – and rightly so. It’s a sweet, charming story, which depends on the visual, as there is no dialogue. It also references Isaac Asimov’s collection of short stories – and specific short story – of the same name. There’s a lot going on here. It’s not remotely a ‘kid’s movie’.

Don’t be misled by the animation being ‘old-fashioned’. It is fabulously done and gorgeous to watch – 1980s New York itself has been so lovingly created, while the cast of thousands has been given such wonderful attention to detail. There are couple of scenes where Dog is on a scooter with another character, riding into the countryside, where the trees coming over the horizon is simply stunningly done.

And while the comedy is gentle rather than LOLZ, it is certainly there. There’s a lovely scene about photo booths that will take those of us of a certain vintage back!

The ending is perhaps not what you’d expect, but shows a nice sophistication. The ’80s soundtrack is great.

Robot Dreams is a gentle, charming, really well-paced joy. My only personal surprise (disappointment?) as I came out of the cinema was that so many reviews have said: ‘Bring tissues – you will cry as well as laugh’, yet I didn’t.

Given how easily I blub at films (though I hate it when I feel my tear ducts are being deliberately tweaked), I walked home wondering if the absence of even a pricking meant it was not quite of the calibre so many have stated. Writing this, thinking back over the film itself, I have realised that it not bringing forth an instant deluge does not mean it’s not very good indeed.

I took lots of tissues to The Zone of Interest, expecting to find that would set me off, but it didn’t, yet it is one of the best (and most important) films I’ve seen thus far this year.

Robot Dreams is a wonderful film that I suspect is going to stay in my mind for a long time. And of course it’s gay!

A sweet look at ageing, loneliness, friendship and more

Milton Robinson is nearing 80, a widower living on his own, with an estranged son, and a daughter who, worried that her father is starting on a dementia pathway is naggin him to see a doctor.

One night, a UFO crash lands in his garden and a small alien appears. After his initial terror, Milton takes the nonverbal and apparently unthreatening alien inside and treats him as a guest.

He tries to tell the authorities, his daughter, a shop assistant and a local council meeting that he regularly attends, but all assume he’s imagining it. But then an acquaintance, Sandy, drops by and sees the alien, then names them Jules.

This is a really interesting and subtle point. All the characters assume – without any side – that the extra-terrestrial is male (they can pilot a spaceship, for instance), but we never find out, while Jules as a name is gender neutral.

Sandy warns Milton not to tell anyone else – before another acquaintance, Joyce, spots them and demands to be in on the action, though possibly from nefarious motives.

However, secret services monitoring knows that something has fallen to earth in the vicinity of the small town and the hunt is on.

Billed as a science fiction comedy-drama, it’s fairly slender in terms of the comedy aspect, but there is gentle humour. Watch out for the ET nods in Milton’s speeches to the local council and a running t-shirt gag later on.

Written by Gavin Steckler and directed by Marc Turtletaub, it is gentle and heart-warming, with themes of loneliness, friendship, kindness and family rifts played out sensitively, and over a pleasingly tight 87 minutes.

Jules themselves is very well done in terms of leaving plenty to the imagination throughout, with Jade Quon helping create and maintain the mystery around the character.

But it also relies on an excellent central trio. Ben Kingsley does a really lovely and delicate job with Milton, while Harriet Sansom Harris as Sandy and Jane Curtin as Joyce are also in very fine form.

Finally, Zöe Winters as Denise, Milton’s daughter, lends good support.

All in all, Jules was never going to set the cinematic world on fire, but it’s a sweet film, full of heart. Currently streaming on Sky Cinema, it’s well worth an hour and a half of your time.

Macho or not? In & Out remains a charming gay comedy

The Frank Oz 1997 film In & Out has been described as being one of Hollywood’s first efforts at making a ‘comic gay movie’ – can somebody mention Blake Edwards’s 1982 Victor/Victoria please, so I don’t have to!

But to the point: Howard Brackett is an English teacher in a small Indiana town. He is due to marry colleague Emily Montgomery within days, but then the Academy Awards ceremony sees a former pupil of his not only laud him in a winning speech, but out him.

But Howard is not even remotely out to himself. The media descends on his small town and harasses him, while the entire community questions what he’s really like.

Very light, very funny – full of lots of truths (arguably tropes, but then they’re tropes because they’re often true, if you get my meaning). It also very nicely pokes fun at the idea of 'masculinity'.

And it’s a fab cast.

Kevin Kline is lovely in the central role of Howard; as is Oscar-nominated Joan Cusack as his finance. Debbie Reynolds and Wilfred Brimley as his parents are fab too. Then there’s Bob Newhart as the school principal – the expected joy.

In a way, the surprise here is Tom Selleck as gay TV reporter Peter, who helps Howard actually understand who he is. It’s a really good performance.

Here’s a fun little fact. At the end, all the characters – including Cusack’s Emily – dance to Macho Man by The Village People. She danced to the same song on film again in 1993, in Adams Family Values.

Genuinely charming and heart-warming.

Streaming on Sky Cinema and well worth a watch.

Wicked it might be, but it's also confused

Here is a real oddity: Wicked Little Letters is billed as a black comedy but, while it manages to be that, it also has something of an identity crisis.

Based on the true story of a poison pen scandal in the seaside town of Littlehampton that scandalised England in the 1920s, Thea Sharrock’s film tells the story of neighbours Edith Swan and Rose Gooding.

When the latter moves in, she soon becomes known for her rambunctious behaviour – not least boozing and swearing.

By contrast, Rose is the pious, stay-at-home daughter of Victoria and Edward, a domineering man with very firm ideas about ‘proper’ behaviour – particularly when it comes to women.

When a series of obscene letters being arriving for Edith, suspicion falls on Rose. As the situation escalates, police officer Gladys May decides to investigate, having concluded that the case isn’t quite as straightforward as almost everyone else believes.

There is much that is genuinely comic in Jonny Sweet’s screenplay, but the story has a very dark reality to it. The identity crisis is because of moments where there are instances of the comedy moving into mugging and slapstick. These are not a comfortable fit.

It’s a shame, because there’s much to enjoy here – not least in the performances. There’s delightful support from Joanna Scanlon, Lolly Adefope and Eileen Atkins as local women who help Moss. 

Gemma Jones gives as lovely turn as Victoria and Timothy Spall is excellent as the deeply unpleasant Edward.

Anjana Vasan has some really fine moments as Moss, but she’s one of the cast who has been directed to go over the top in a couple of scenes. Malachi Kirby, as Bill – Rose’s boyfriend – seems to have been faced with a very scant sketch of a character to work with.

But the central duo are a major reason to see this. Jessie Buckley as Rose brings wonderful vivacity and warmth to the role, but real emotion when it’s needed. Olivia Colman as Edith is delicious as the prissy wannabe saint, but every bit as good in the scenes where we discover the lived reality behind this public face.

Wicked Little Letters is good on showing just how women were expected to behave at the time – and how they were judged if they refused to conform (pressures that have notion away a century on). It also acts as a useful reminder that ‘trolling’ existed well before the internet and social media – and the damage that it can do.

Zone of Interest: A haunting look at casual barbarism

Jonathon Glazer’s acclaimed film, The Zone of Interest, is about the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, who lives right next door to the camp, where he and his wife Hedwig have built an idyllic family life.

Based loosely on Martin Amis’s novel of the same name, it creates an incredibly effective picture of the casual barbarism. On Höss’s birthday, for instance, he holds a meeting with engineers to discuss plans for more effective crematoria at the camp, before being toasted by his fellow officers and enjoying cake with his family later that day.

 

Hedwig is more than happy to receive clothes taken from camp inmates. We see her try on a fur coat and, finding a lipstick in one pocket, try that too.

 

Her visiting mother muses, almost jokingly, whether a Jewish woman she knew, and whose book events she attended, had been sent to Auschwitz. And in a throw-away comment, she notes that she was out-bid for the woman’s curtains in a street sale.

 

It is the normalisation of the dehumanisation that’s vital for genocide.

 

Repeatedly, the camera tracks a figure down one length of the vast garden, alongside the wall of the camp, with its buildings, chimneys and guard towers rising above.

 

Hedwig happily takes her youngest child around the magnificent garden, introducing her to flowers, while in the distance, we hear the sounds of the camp.

 

Glazer didn’t want to show the inside of Auschwitz – and he doesn’t have to for the film to convey a real sense of horror.

 

Sound designer Johnnie Burn put together a 600-page document in order to understand the camp layout and witness statements, together with a sound library that included the sounds of crematoria, machinery, historically correct gunfire, cries of pain and trains.

 

It is a soundscape that means however perfect the Höss family’s life looks, the viewer can never see it without being reminded that it happened within earshot of industrial mass murder – and that they all choose to ignore this.

 

And then there are the two central performances. Christian Friedel as Höss is so utterly engrossed in work that it is a mission – no matter the horrific reality of it, and Friedel portrays him as cold when on that mission, yet a dedicated and loving father. Sandra Hüller as his wife is also superb – little wonder that she has picked up a raft of award nominations – as a woman who is happy to bring up her children in such proximity to mass murder.

 

Łukasz Żal’s cinematography is deceptively simple – almost ‘flat’. Yet the look works incredibly well.

 

Glazer – who also wrote the film – has received nominations too. The film itself has already picked up awards, including the unique double of best British film and best film not in the English language at the recent Baftas.

 

Burn, together with Tarn Willers, have also been rewarded for the sound.

 

It is in many ways a very calm film, but most certainly not a comfortable one. It is, without doubt, an extraordinary piece of filmmaking that will not be easy to forget.

Beryl Reid kills it as a sadistic lesbian in '60s London

Robert Aldrich’s 1968 film, The Killing of Sister George, was based on a 1964 stage play of the same name, by Frank Marcus. That was a black comedy, but the movie was sold much more a as a “shocking drama” – 'melodrama' would be more accurate – with a far greater explicitness about the lesbian relationships that are a central feature than the original.

As a result, it struggled to get past the censors on both sides of the Atlantic, while some reviews were deeply critical, with at least one accusing Aldrich of ‘coarsening’ a subtle play.

It’s become more critically appreciated as time has passed – and it seems a fair bet that that’s largely a consequence of considerably greater acceptance of lesbianism within our society, but in 1968 – only a year after decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK (lesbianism had never been illegal) – the very blunt portrayal of a toxic lesbian relationship must have had a lot more power to shock that it does today.

Middle-aged actor June Buckridge plays ‘Sister George’, a lovable district nurse in a fictional, long-running BBC television soap opera, Applehurst. Off screen, she’s the opposite of her much-loved character – gobby and coars; a cigar-smoking heavy drinker; masculine in appearance and with a decidedly sadistic side to her.

We see that particularly in her relationship with her younger live-in lover, Alice. But if tensions in their relationship already exist, June’s problems are exacerbated by her fears that her character is going to be killed off – worries that are not helped by her own behaviour, including toward TV producer Mrs Croft, as she spirals out of control.

It’s a fascinating watch for all sorts of reasons. Joseph F Biroc’s cinemaphotography is very stagey in places, but at others, it’s quite exhilarating. The opening title shots, as June walks home along a series of streets, are really impressive.

There’s an interesting costume contrast here that illustrates the – apparent – power dynamics between June and Alice: the former in a heavy, brown tweed suit standing over the latter in pink baby doll pyjamas. It would be more than a bit of a cliché now, but was probably quite powerful at the time, as would have been the couple's appearance at a lesbian party in male drag.

But the film really relies on the three central performances. Coral Browne is in steely form as the apparently conventional Mrs Croft, while Susannah York as Alice is both believably childlike and vulnerable, but convincingly hard-nosed when required.

Having created the role on stage – and won a Tony when the play transferred to Broadway – Beryl Reid was no shoe-in for the screen version, with Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury both being offered it. I love both of them, but thank goodness Reid got it. It’s a barnstormer of a performance, not least in the convincing way she portrays not only June, but in the contrasting Sister George.

You can see why Aldrich wanted Davis, having worked with her on his 1962 camp classic, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? – and this film has a sense of the same macabre camp – but casting Reid was absolutely the right decision.

Well worth seeking it out if you haven’t seen it – and not least in LGBT+ History Month.

Blue Velvet: The dark underbelly of the American Dream

For the second day running, a birthday present from my niece gave me the opportunity to catch up on an iconic film that I’ve never quite got around to watching. In this case, David Lynch’s 1986 Blue Velvet – an “adult fairytale”, according to the BFI.

Why have I not seen it before? Largely, I think, because I’d wondered if I’d find it ‘too much’, such is its reputation and also, because inevitably, I’d seen fleeting clips of Dennis Hopper inhaling something that turns his character more psychotic and dangerous than ever.

Writer and director Lynch opens the film with surreal scenes of a sugar-sweet, small-town America; an immaculate white picket fence, red roses and a blue sky – redolent of the Stars and Stripes – and a fire truck moving down a street in slo-mo, with a fireman on the back waving directly toward the camera, a dalmatian sitting alongside him. Then a middle-aged man watering his lawn, while his wife inside the house watches a crime mystery on the TV.

So far, so good. But then the gardener has an accident with his hose (the implement seems almost to turn on him) and everything is spun on its head, as the film dives beneath the carefully manicured grass to find a churning mass of insects in the dark below.

The gardener is Tom Beaumont. Hospitalised, he’s visited by his son, Jeffrey, who has returned from college because of the accident. But on the way home after his visit, Jeffrey discovers a human ear in a field, which he takes to the police station, to a Detective John Williams, who’s also a family neighbour.

Later, after he’s called on Williams at home to see if there is any news, Sandy, the policeman’s daughter, stops him in the street to say she’s overheard that the ear somehow relates to a nightclub singer named Dorothy Vallens. Fascinated by the idea of a mystery, Jeffrey decides to investigate – and is drawn into the word of psychopathic gangster and drug dealer Frank Booth.

So the film moves from surrealism into noir. But this is no conventional noir. The hero, for instance, in no hard-boiled, cynical character – à la Bogart in The Big Sleep – but a boyish ingenu.

Likewise, neither the ‘good girl’ (Sandy; blonde) nor the ‘femme fatale’ (Dorothy; dark haired) fit simply into those cinematic cliches. Both are more complex.

And that’s before we get to Frank (left, with Dorothy), with all the suggestions that at least an element of his ultra-violence is down to self-loathing: is he straight, gay or bi?

It’s never a bigger question than in an extraordinary scene when Frank and his thugs have dragged Jeffrey and Dorothy to the den of fellow drug dealer Ben. There, the camp, made-up ‘Suave’ Ben lip-synchs to Roy Orbison’s In Dreams, right at Frank, as though in an act of seduction, moving him to tears of rage or something else.

Right after, before beating Jeffrey, Frank smears the young man’s lips with lipstick and savagely kisses him.

Is this about toxic masculinity and the pressures to conform to heteronormative stereotypes? It’s certainly about power relationships; Frank’s exercise of power over everyone in his orbit – except Ben, who seems to have the upper hand there – and Dorothy’s over Jeffery are both crucial, but there is also the question of who exercises the power in the relationship between Sandy and Jeffrey.

There are so many things to take in here. Sandy, in her blonde innocence, nods back to 1978’s Grease and the leading character of the same name. The naming of the ‘femme fatale’ begs the question: is Frank (who is obsessed with her) really a ‘friend of Dorothy’?

Then there’s the contrast between the darkness and violence of the film and the two big musical themes – Bobby Vinton’s cover of 1950 song Blue Velvet by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris, and Orbison’s 1963 In Dreams – as if they hark back nostalgically to a gentler time and their use by Lynch is a subversion of that ‘gentler time’ – a time that was suggested by the opening shots.

It was far from universally acclaimed when it came out, but Lynch’s film has more than stood the test of time and well deserves its status as a classic.

The central cast is excellent. Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy is strong and vulnerable at the same time. Kyle MacLachlan is suitably innocent as Jeffrey, finding himself out of his depth when drawn toward a stranger world than he had previously imagined possible. Laura Dern makes Sandy both plausibly girlish, yet also with a tough core.

But it’s Hopper who dominates the film as Frank, in a performance that is absolutely riveting; even when you want to flinch and look away, you cannot.

The supporting cast are largely sketches – with one exception. Dean Stockwell’s Ben (left) – albeit a one-scene turn – is simply exceptional.

Lynch wraps it up with a ‘happily ever after’ finale, which returns us to the surreal openings, but with the addition of an animatronic robin, which reiterates the message that all this is really just artifice and wishful thinking. Indeed, the film it culminates with a repeat of those very first sequences.

But by now, we are well aware of the dark underbelly of such an American Dream. Brilliant.

• Femme is a 2023 film takes a deeper dive into the theme of sexuality-driven self loathing. 

The BAFTA nominations are in – who's going to win?

It's 'that' time of the year, when the BAFTA nominations are unveiled – and in spite of the best efforts of the pandemic, I seem to have better knowledge of the main contenders than in any previous year.

So here are my provisional thoughts and predictions.

I can't comment on All Quiet on the Western Front, as I haven't seen this new version yet, but I am aware that the critical response has uniformly been one of acclaim. Of course, in a perverse twist of fate, to be released in a year when Europe saw conventional warfare within it again probably hightened awareness – though the horrors of war should never be forgotten.
In terms of the best film, I think that it will be between All Quiet and The Banshees of Inisherin (pictured above).
I doubt that bookies will take bets on British film of the year, which is almost certain to go to Aftersun, given that is gained far more acclaim than anything else on the list.

On leading female actor, I'd love Viola Davis to get it (left– and I said she should be in the running for awards), but I wouldn't object remotely if Michelle Yeoh won for what was a wonderful performance in the exhilarating Everything Everywhere All at Once.

On leading male actor, I want Bill Nighy to win for Living, because his performance is simply gorgeous, but I think it will also be considered 'too' Bill Nighy and Colin Farrell will get it for Banshees. And that will not remotely be a bad thing. Odd, though, that the lead in All Quiet isn't here.

On supporting female actor, either Kerry Condon (Banshees) or Jamie Lee-Curtis (Everything Everywhere) are, I think, the leading contenders, though Dolly de Leon in Triangle of Sadness could be a deserved surprise.

Supporting male actor – it's such a shame to pit Banshees actors Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan against each other: the former's role is a joint lead, and he gives a superb performance, while the latter's is a 'conventional' supporting role and the performance he gives is also superb.

Director? I suspect that Gina Prince-Bythewood is in with a good chance for The Woman King.

Outstanding British debut by a writer, producer or director – Aftersun.

Film not in English – All Quiet.

Documentary – no idea.

Animated film – has to be Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (left). Nothing else on that list comes close.
Cinematography – what? No Banshees here? No idea then.

Original screenplay – I suspect that this will go to Martin McDonagh for Banshees, possibly leaving All Quiet for best film.

Adapted screenplay – All Quiet.

Original score – Banshees. I love the work of Alexandre Desplat, who is nominated for del Toro's Pinocchio, but Carter Burwell's score for the former is better, in my opinion.

Casting – no idea. Possibly Everything Everywhere all at Once?

Costume design – Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (left), but then again, perhaps Amsterdam, which The Other Half and I really enjoyed.

Editing – no idea and don't have the knowledge to make a judgment.

Production design – del Toro's Pinocchio.

Rising star – Sheila Atim for Woman King – a very good performance.

I'm afraid I have no idea on last few, which are technical beyond my even really having an opinion.

I think that All Quiet will bag a number, but nowhere near the 14 nominations it's received, and that Banshees will bag some of the bigger ones, split with Everything Everywhere (left).

I could end up with metaphorical egg on face, of course ... only time will tell!

Taking a sledgehammer to the uber rich

Triangle of Sadness many not exactly be up there with Brecht in terms of being a subtle approach to class, but Swedish film maker Ruben Östlund’s English-language debut – a satirical black comedy about the excesses of the uber, uber rich – premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May, winning an eight-minute standing ovation and the Palme d’Or.

But then again, this is an unsubtle age (was there ever anything else?). There is nothing nuanced about the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Russian oligarchs or Instragram ‘influencers’, so perhaps a sledgehammer approach is the only possible one.

 

Set in three distinct ‘acts’, the film opens as group of young male models are being put through their paces at an audition. One of them, Carl, had been at the centre of a major, successful campaign a few years earlier, but has had nothing much since.

 

After watching his more successful girlfriend Yaya on the catwalk at a fashion show – she’s also a big Instagram influencer – the two dine in a posh restaurant, where a row breaks out over gender roles and equality, and who pays for the dinner.

 

Fast forward to act two, which takes place on a luxury yacht – the sort that needs armed guards on patrol and where a helicopter drops off a special delivery of Nutella to meet the whim of one of the guests. Carl and Yaya are there because of the latter’s status as an influencer.

 

The upper deck crew (mostly white) are preparing for their next cruise, being drilled by chief of staff Paula, who tells them that they must obey every demand of their guests, however cracked these might seem.

 

Below stairs (so to speak), the (mostly black) cleaners, engineers and kitchen staff are also prepping.

 

Then we meet some of the guests, including Dimitry, a Russian who has made a fortune “selling shit” (manure) and his wife Vera; elderly English couple Clementine and Winston (I said it wasn’t subtle) who made their dosh by selling arms to protect “democracies” and bemoan UN bans on landmines; Jarmo, a lonely tech millionaire; and Therese (and husband), who can only speak a single sentence in German – “in den Wolken” (“in the clouds”) – following a stroke.

 

The captain, meanwhile – American Marxist Thomas Smith – is nowhere to be seen, locked in his cabin with a shed load of booze. After a few days at sea, he is finally coaxed out to attend the captain’s dinner.

 

Unfortunately, this coincides with a very bad storm.

 

Act three takes us to a deserted island, where a small number of survivors have washed up. Several of the guests have made it, together with ship’s mechanic Nelson and toilet manager Abigail.

 

At which point, the question arises of just who among them knows how to ensure that they can survive, to build a fire or find food? And, therefore, who should be the leader among them?

 

At a whopping 149 minutes, it’s overlong. It doesn’t particularly lag, but it’s impossible not to feel that it couldn’t have been pruned some more. The storm section alone, which provides some brutally funny moments – yes, the rich really do vomit and shit like we mere mortals – lasts 15 minutes.

 

And while also funny, a scene where, in the middle of that storm, the captain and Dimitry sit locked in the former’s cabin, drunkenly trading quotes about capitalism versus Marxism/communism over the ship’s public address system, probably over-eggs the pudding.

 

The opening fashion industry sequences are very funny in their mocking of the ridiculousness of that world. The island scenes have some good takes on masculinity, power relationships, class, race and more.

 

By and large Östlund’s script and direction work. None of the characters are wholly ‘bad’, although all the privileged lack a self-awareness of their relationships with the rest of the world.

 

And the ending is smart, effectively forcing the viewer to make their own moral decisions.

 

It’s a really good ensemble cast, including Harris Dickinson as the comically naïve Carl and Charlbi Dean as Yaya – tragically her last role, before she died suddenly in August.

 

Woody Harrelson gives a fine short turn as the captain, while Zlatko Burić as Dimitry, Iris Berben as Therese, Viki Berlin as Paula, Oliver Ford Davis as Winston and Henrik Dorsin as Jarmo also provide in good performances.

 

But arguably the best of the lot comes from Dolly de Leon as Abigail. We don’t see her until the third act – unless we simply not been aware of her presence, given her lowly position? How apt a point that would be. But from then on, so much turns and rests on her.

 

All in all, Triangle of Sadness is an enjoyable exercise in punching up at extreme privilege. And it doesn’t lose anything in taking such a Rottweiler approach to its theme either.

 

• Triangle of Sadness opens in the UK tomorrow, 28 October, and is screening largely at independent cinemas.

See how they murder – a masterclass

It’s late 1952 and the cast and creatives of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap are celebrating reaching an incredible 100 performances. 

But behind the scenes, there is conflict about a contracted Hollywood film version – the author having decreed that not even filming should occur until at least six months after the original stage production has closed.

Then one of those involved is murdered and the game is afoot.

Enter, stage left (but not pursued by a bear), come world weary Inspector Stoppard and policing ingenue Constable Stalker to take on this celebrity murder case, shorn of other resources as a serial killer stalks London.

 

See How They Run is, on one level, a very clever conceit in terms of bringing the play to the screen – even while it still runs in London’s West End, given that Christie really did decree that that could never happen until it had closed its initial run, but it is also much more than that.

 

It's a gloriously arch look at the tropes of a certain type of crime entertainment. Incredibly clever – but not smugly so – there are countless little puzzles and references for the audience to solve and spot.

 

It won’t detract if you don’t get them, but as an example, Inspector Stoppard’s name might well reference playwright Tom Stoppard – not least when one character describes the murder victim as a woman-chasing “hound, Inspector”: see Stoppard’s one-act play, The Real Inspector Hound.

 

Equally, is Constable Stalker a reference to John Stalker, the late deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester? The film takes pot shots at what could, in effect, be called ‘policing for honours’ and, thereby, The Establishment as a whole.

 

All this pretty much guarantees that I will watch this again. And again. And possibly even again. A few hours after seeing it, my brain is on a kind of churn with all this and I suggest that it’s not simply a bit of ‘light entertainment’ to be dismissed easily.

 

It’s beautifully paced. Mark (My Life in Film and Flaked on TV) Chappell’s first film is witty, intelligent and very enjoyably twisty. Jamie D Ramsey’s cinematography is great and the editing – including the use of split screens – is so clever given the context.

 

All this should tell you  automatically that Tom George’s direction is pretty much nailed on.

 

In terms of performances, Sam Rockwell as Stoppard and Saoirse Ronan as Stalker are great – and their pairing works really well in creating a clumsy relationship. Adrien Brody is in top-notch form as the film producer. But the cast is good from top to bottom.

 

There are no weak links – and I commend Charlie Cooper for so wonderfully channelling Bill Nighy in one scene in particular.

 

See this if you can – it’s a joy on oh, so many levels.

Belfast – seeing The Troubles through a child’s eyes

Belfast, the semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, opens with what could be viewed as a rosy-tinted remembrance of life on a working-class terraced street in Northern Ireland’s capital in the late 1960s.

As nine-year-old Buddy returns home one summer evening, brandishing a wooden sword and a dustbin lid shield, playing at being the knight of his daydreams, the streets are full of children playing – ‘were there really so many children?’ you might think – while adults hang around chatting.

 

But just as you might be thinking that, a masked gang arrives to start a riot and things turn seriously nasty. They don’t care if children, women, the elderly – Protestant or Catholic – gets in the way.

 

Because this is August 1969, and the aim of the violence is really quite simple: to create a climate of fear that tells the Catholic residents on this mixed street that they must leave. Or terrorism, as we might call it.

 

The film shows a series of episodes in Buddy’s life at this time. His Pa (Jamie Dornan) is working in England as a joiner and can only visit every few weeks, so the family of Buddy (Jude Hill) and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) is held together by Ma (Caitríona Balfe), with help from grandparents Pop (Ciarán Hinds) and Granny (Judi Dench).

 

The character of Pa can feel like a bit of a type at times – he likes the horses to the detriment of the family finances, but he does also have greater complexity.

 

The family is Protestant but not particularly religious and gets along perfectly fine with its Catholic neighbours. However, as Pa continues to refuse the increasing threats of the local Protestant gang leader Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) to get involved in their sectarian ‘improvement’ of the area, the danger for the family, as to the community as a whole, grows.

 

And while it seems fanciful when Pa tries to suggest emigration to Australia or Canada to Ma, when he is offered permanent employment in England, with the prospect of better pay and better housing, the increasing threat moves them closer to a decision.

 

But for Ma – and for Buddy – the prospect of leaving their home, families, friends and much more is terrifying.

 

While Branagh’s film has already garnered awards and much praise, it has also been criticised in some quarters for being overly sentimental and for downplaying The Troubles.

 

I’m long enough in the tooth to remember reports from Northern Ireland – and of bombings in England. I remember bomb hoaxes at my girls’ grammar school on the outskirts of Manchester in the 1970s, when we would stand for ages in the cold while the fire brigade checked the building. Because you couldn’t afford to be casual.

 

I remember too, the revived IRA campaign – the bombs in the City of London, one of which rattled the windows of the flat that The Other Half and I shared, one evening when I was home alone. It was terrifying. And another on a morning when I looked out from our bedroom window and saw the cloud from the explosion rising around the Nat-West building, less than a mile away. The south-west of traditionally working-class Hackney is a stone’s throw from the City.

 

In other words, I most certainly would not play down the history of what happened.

 

But back to Branagh’s film specifically. It makes clear, for instance, that the British troops sent to Belfast to stop the violence seemed remarkably forgetful about who they were supposed to be protecting. It is full of the menace as it shows thugs taking over neighbourhoods and, tragically, dividing communities.

 

It nods to the role Protestant clergy played in the demonisation of their Catholic neighbours (and the hellfire-and-damnation sermon rings absolutely true for this daughter of an evangelical minister).

 

No, it is not some sort of Ken Loach take on Northern Ireland, but I suggest that, if it was, it would have fewer viewers overall, with the potential for less education of more general and less obviously politicised audiences. Perhaps some will actually go and read TA Jackson’s Ireland Her Own after seeing this?

 

Wikipedia describes it as a “comedy-drama”, but while there are some laughs, I think this completely downplays what Branagh has achieved. The Troubles are still raw – see Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement – and I think that this opens up the possibility for a wider audience to perhaps see it differently.

 

Plus, sectarianism and bigotry is as big a problem as ever, across the world. Just as Taika Waititi’s 2019 comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit viewed Nazism from a child’s perspective, and pointed up how children are taught – groomed – into intolerance, so this views the situation in Northern Ireland through a child’s eyes. Yet in avoiding adult sophistication, it makes similar points very clearly. And one could add that, for many English audiences in particular, it might be a slight surprise to see who the thugs are.

 

But back to this film. The cinematography from Haris Zambarloukos is wonderful. The use of music from Van Morrison works perfectly, the decisions on the use of occasional colour are interesting and Branagh’s use of pop cultural references works well.

 

On the performances, there is not a bad one to be seen, but perhaps the big plaudits go to Hill who is remarkable in the central role, and Balfe, who gives a powerhouse turn. Hinds and Dench offer the sort of support grounded in their vast experience and abilities that one would expect.

 

All in all, very much worth seeing.