Edie

Seen at the Paramount Theatre, Maryborough VIC

Cecil says:  We went to see Edie because we quite fancied being transported over to the Scottish Highlands, which is where the film is largely set. And from that point of view, Edie was a great success, with much of it filmed in and around Lochinver, a place we know well and have fond memories of visiting in years gone by.

The idea of the story is also not bad: 83 year old woman, who was a bit of a wild child early in her life, but then lived through a controlling marriage and had to care for her not very nice sounding husband for some 30 years, is suddenly free when he dies one day.

This liberates Edie, very well played by Sheila Hancock by the way, to follow a dream of climbing a certain mountain up in the far NW of Scotland. So that basic premise is all very well, and could have made quite an interesting film, dotted through maybe with historical snippets of her wild youth with her Dad, and her subdued marriage.

But instead, we are taken through a rather implausible link-up with a young man who just keeps doing rather unlikely things. For starters, on Inverness railway station platform, he and his girlfriend knock Edie to the ground as they rush for their train, and that just felt very unbelievable knowing the width of those platforms and the small number of passengers on them…

But then, over and over, we have unlikely or caricatural scenes, like the night Edie gets taken to the local pub, and everyone is either really unfriendly, laughing at her, or even knocks her to the ground again as she is whirled across the dance floor. We have never ever been to a small Scottish town and found people behave like that, even at an incredibly busy New Years Eve ceilidh last year, in fact.

It made me wonder if the writer had ever actually spent much time in Scotland, so I looked for her name when the credits rolled at the end, and sure enough it Elizabeth O’Halloran is from the west coast of Ireland, not Scotland, and it made me wonder if her portrayal of small town Scotland was not actually more based on her knowledge of west coast Ireland (not that I know that area myself).

The relationship between Edie and Jonny doesn’t really work, and since this is central to the film itself, I’m afraid in that sense, the film itself doesn’t work.

Given how difficult the climb to the summit was, would he really have let an 83-year old go for it alone? When he did go up to find her after the rainstorm, mightn’t it have been more interesting to discuss why actually reaching the summit itself mattered so much, as the experience of even getting that far was achievement enough, wasn’t it?

The moment she gets there is backed by full orchestral soundtrack, presumably designed to overwhelm us with the emotions she must feel in that instant, but I found myself not being moved by this scene at all, and wondering why the tug of the heartstrings?

Oh and Jonny’s own relationship with his girlfriend just came across as false. I mean, so he wants to go up a hill to spend time with an old lady? Why should that matter? Would the entrepreneurial girlfriend really have been so upset at his ‘disloyalty’? It just came across as a mountain out of a molehill.

So, great scenery, some nice filming, and basic idea OK, but the plot and the dialogue pretty average, I’m afraid.

**.5, but ***.5 for the setting

Bea says: Great concept, beautifully filmed, but not well written.

On paper, this film really works, and on screen it gets a 2/3 - the idea is really good, and in our times of an increasing aged population surely very resonant too?  Cecil has summarised the plot, so I won't, but suffice to say this must be a very common experience for older women now; to have spent quite some years caring for an ill and/or disabled partner, coming out of a marriage that may or may not have been particularly fulfilling, and still with relative health and fitness.  

The idea of a journey of independence, of discovery, of tying up loose ends, is really workable.  However, perhaps it might have been better to get someone to write the script who had at least some insight into this situation, or who could place themselves in it, and/or who had some knowledge of Scottish culture. 

I am not Scottish, but have worked and lived there, and I winced a bit at the portrayal, as Scots are generally more friendly and much more thoughtful of others than the characters were portrayed.  On the way home, I said to Cecil that it felt like a first draft, but later Cecil did some research and told me it was at least the fourth or fifth draft of the script....It had potential, but needed a good editorial steer away from cliché and towards depth.

The filming was beautiful.  The Scottish Highlands tend to play themselves in any film they feature in, and this was no exception, but I particularly liked the sequence when Edie is walking and the quietness, and sounds and sights of the natural world are emphasised.  It's rare to see that kind of still, quiet, slow filming in any feature film, and I was lost in it.  The filming made the experience of seeing this film worthwhile to me.  

Don't go expecting any good dialogue or characterisation - go for the views and the filming.

**.5

The Breaker Upperers

Seen at the Paramount Theatre, Maryborough, VIC

Cecil says: The distributors of The Breaker Upperers did a good job advertising this film. They knew how to pick the best bits for the trailer, which got us to go and see it, as – we hoped – a light entertainment film on a cold Sunday morning. I wish they hadn’t.

This was awful.

I don’t even want to waste too much time explaining what was awful about it. Dreadfully written; stilted; jokes that felt more like Benny Hill or a sixth form drama production at high school. No, I’m being nice: a fourth form production.

I can’t think of any redeeming features, really. As soon as I saw Celia Pacquola on the doorstep overdoing the tears, I realised how much I dislike her acting and ‘comic’ style (she vaguely works on Rosehaven, but only against the wooden estate agent sidekick there).

The concept might have worked if better written. But it was over-acted, cliched and painfully NOT funny. Oh, and what the dance scene towards the end was all about, I have no idea. It really made me wonder who the target audience was: if Millennials, why lead with main characters who are old enough to be their Mums? If not Millennials, wtf?

Come on, New Zealand cinema. I know you can do better than this.

*

Bea says: Yes, clearly a case of all the best jokes were in the trailer...it's rare that I don't find any redeeming features in a film, but this had very few.  There were a handful of funny lines (which we had seen before).  But otherwise, despite the concept being quite good (the Breaker-Upperers can be hired to break up with your partner on your behalf), it was so poorly written - a 6th form class could probably have done better.  In fact, I mused to Cecil afterwards, it might have been originally conceived of for TV, as it did occasionally feel like a series of episodes strung together (not particularly well).  

The comedy was infantile and heavy handed; as a result just not funny.  It needed a far lighter touch, and dare I say better delivery.  You need a very, very good comic actor to work well with poor writing, and sadly I just don't think the cast were up to it.  Shortly after seeing this however, I noticed a NZ friend posting about it on Facebook - and she loved it, describing it as quintessential NZ comedy...perhaps a cultural gap?

* for the 5-6 funny lines.

The Bookshop

Seen at the Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC

Cecil says: I had no idea what to expect from The Bookshop, except that I – correctly – assumed it would revolve around a book shop…

Funnily enough I realised as the voiceover began that I had been expecting a quaint American small town book shop and some story built around that. Just shows how ingrained our expectation of American culture is on our screens. But, no, The Bookshop is filmed mostly on location in Northern Ireland (we recognised some of the coastal scenes), and I was interested in how many of the credits rolling by at the end of the film seemed to be of Catalan origin (and sure enough, the film was written and directed by Isabel Coixet from Barcelona, and she involved lots of Catalan folk in the production – good for her, I say).

However, this says nothing about the film itself. The voiceover runs right through the film and I won’t do a spoiler on who the character turns out to be whose voice it is, but another surprise only a few seconds in was the appearance strolling into sight over the horizon of Bill Nighy. I had no idea he was in the film at all, but I knew Bea would be pleased, and if I was a betting man, I’d have a good chance of winnings if I bet on Bill Nighy appearing in pretty well every film we see these days.

The premise of the film: outsider comes into small village in (not totally clear what era – but since Lolita has just been published, it suggests 1950s) England with a desire to convert on old house into a bookshop. Against her is one of the local dignitaries, who has aspirations to have a local arts centre housed there; and at the first party the prospective bookshop owner attends, she gets fairly short shrift from most locals, who are either definitely in the Duchess’s camp or are clearly not interested in books.

So far it smacks a little of Vicar of Dibley. But there isn’t much humour here, and the pace is fairly slow. But the plot does develop nicely and relationship between Emily Mortimer (Florence Green) and Bill Nighy (Edmund Brundish) is rather nice to watch as it slowly develops, though never quite materialises, rather like in Remains of the Day.

Looking at the book industry today (not that I know much about it), it’s gratifying that there are still independent book shops doted around the place, and we always try to drop by on our travels. It can’t have been easy even in the 1950s to make a bookshop in a small village profitable, but it’s unimaginable now that such a bookshop – in a village that can’t have had that many inhabitants altogether – would take a gamble and order 200 copies of a new release like Lolita. Is there any book today which might sell like that?

***

Bea says: I am a life long book lover, and hence a bookshop lover, so any film that purports to be about either is onto a winner with me, and if it also has Bill Nighy in it – well even better.  You would think that would mean I would give this a 5 star rating, but actually the plot is a little slow, even for me and I am pretty tolerant of that, and I just didn’t feel I got enough inside the head of the main character to really embody the film – I watched the “action” (such as there was), rather than embodying it, so I felt a sense of distance.  I noted in the credits that it is adapted from a novel and I would now like to read the novel, to see if the sense of distance is the same.  I did like the neat ending, where we see the legacy of children being around books, bookshops and book lovers, and it did let me dream a little about running a small bookshop in a small town….

Overall recommended for book lovers everywhere, for a Sunday afternoon or cozy winters evening.

***1/2

All the Wild Hoirses

Seen at the Glasgow Film Theatre

Cecil says: We always try to get along to the GFT on visits to Glasgow and we had a free afternoon so chose this documentary about a 1,000km horserace in Mongolia as the best thing on the programme when we were free. Yes, it’s not an obvious choice and we probably wouldn’t have gone if we had lots of other options for good films at that time. But I’m glad we did.

So, the ‘horse race’ is basically an adventure holiday with a difference, only you need to be able to ride a (wild) horse to take part. It lasts about nine days, and every day each rider gets allotted a new horse to take them on the next leg through the wilds and the heat of Mongolia.

It’s beautifully filmed, though the focus is less on the Mongolian landscape and more on the characters who take part and how the challenge is approached differently by each rider’s different personality.

We have the driven lone Texan girl whose only goal is to win; there are the two Irish jump jockeys who want to win but also rather enjoy teaming up with a couple of the women riders; there’s the black South African horse whisperer, who is surely the favourite among all the film viewers for his magical patience with the more and more difficult rides he is given; and there are the cameo roles by the unfortunate Norwegian girl, the Dutch Alexander Technique teacher and various others who figured less prominently.

There’s heatstroke, broken bones, wolf attacks to battle against; and the nightly hospitality from local Mongolian families who house the riders at the end of each day.

It’s just a captivating insight into a kind of quirky adventure holiday (and surely good for business for the team who run the race each year), but also strangely compelling viewing. Funnily enough, I didn’t really care who won, and that I think is the point also; this is really an event where it’s the taking part that counts. Just pity the poor guy who broke his collar bone about 100m into the race on the first day…

***

Bea says: My sister joined us for this excursion to the GFT and, as we often do, we saw whatever was on at the time that suited us, rather than choosing a film and then going at that time.  There was a choice between this and one other, and we plumped for this, following lunch at the Willow Tea Rooms.  

My sister was sceptical, but in fact we all really enjoyed it.  It is documentary-style, and very absorbing.  Very quickly we were caught up in the logistical issues of organising such a race, the motivations of those taking part – from seasoned horsemen and women to people who just wanted to do something completely different to their usual daily grind – and the local Mongolians who hosted participants and provided the (often) challenging horses.  Following the key participants to the finish line (or not, in some cases) was great.

I was pleased to see the attention paid to horse welfare – which actually had quite an impact on finishing time – and the growth of collegiate bonding between the participants, as they helped each other through the challenges the terrain and conditions presented.  These were important details for me, which made the documentary much more human and intimate, making me really care about what happened to the people involved.

Lots of great views and scenes of traditional tents as well – if you love travel, this one is definitely recommended!

***1/2

Adrift

Seen at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, VIC

Cecil says: The opening scene of Adrift is so like Robert Redford’s All is Lost that you could be mistaken for thinking they nicked the idea. In fact, the whole concept of Adrift is pretty similar to the Redford survival film – boat gets holed out in the middle of the ocean; how the hell do you get out of that alive?

The Redford film is really only about survival, though; it really only has RR in it from scene 1 to the end; you feel the loneliness and marvel at his creative skills in managing to get him and his wrecked boat to safety.

Adrift is as much to do with the relationship between the two main protagonists: the couple who agree to sail the boat across the Pacific from Tahiti to San Diego. And the focus is really on the young woman who has to manage the situation once the boat has been damaged in a storm.

Well in the amazingly beautiful Sun Theatre in Yarraville, the audience was certainly largely female (maybe also to do with the matinee timing), and there was a whole row of young women in front of us who were perhaps the target audience for the makers of Adrift. I wonder how they empathised and identified with the young American (Tammy) who is trying to get the boat to a safe place and not die in the process.

The film is set in 1983 and we discover at the end that it is based on a true story (not sure why they held that back to the final credits, and I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the film). That got me realising that I had two memories of Tahiti myself: in 1968, so only 15 years before this film was set, my boat back from Australia docked outside Tahiti, and funnily enough we then went into the most terrifying tropical storm I can ever remember being in. The ship was pitched and rolled for hours and that was a big liner, so how a small yacht survived at all, I don’t know.

Then I flew in 1986 from Sydney to LA with a stop-off in Tahiti, and I can remember a guy next to me on the plane had plans to stop off and get work as crew on a boat, so that kind of thing did happen.

As a survival film, I preferred Redford’s. But as an observation on relationships, dreams, hallucinations even, as well as survival, Adrift was a good watch.

And wow the Sun Theatre is amazing.

***

Bea says: I really enjoyed this outing to the historic Sun theatre in Yarraville.  I found the film compelling, in that "what would I have done in her situation" kind of way that survival films have (I did not see the similar Robert Redford film with Cecil).  I very, very vaguely remembered the true story this film is based on from the early eighties (my memory was triggered by the footage of magazine and weekend supplement features at the end), but because my memory was vague the twist in the plot came as a complete surprise to me.

I did very much enjoy watching a film solely about a woman, with her experiences being completely central to the plot.  We so rarely see this.  And she was portrayed as strong and capable - I hoped the row of young millennial women in front of us would have found her inspiring - I did, and I was glad to read that she still sails regularly, in the closing summary of "what happened after".  The film is quite sad, and not entirely uplifting, but very absorbing and I would recommend it.

***

Phantom Thread

Seen at the Star Cinema, Eaglehawk

Cecil says: Phantom Thread is supposedly Daniel Day-Lewis's last film, so it felt like a time to reflect a bit on him as an actor. And what's funny is that, although he was amazingly good again in this film, where he's the control freakery tailor designing dresses for the uber rich of the 1950s, neither of us could remember other films we'd seen him in, except for Room with a View, where Cecil remains one of our most loved characters on film.

The thing about Day-Lewis is that he is a method actor, getting totally into role, living the life of his character before filming begins. I remember an article about him preparing to play the role of a boxer and sparring with a professional boxing champ to get into the experience. I never saw that film, and as I say I can't remember other films he's been in, but maybe that's because he becomes the character rather than staying in the mind as Daniel Day-Lewis. And if Cecil in Room with a View is the exception to that, maybe Cecil IS Daniel Day-Lewis, or vice-versa…I guess we'll never know.

So to Phantom Thread. This is all about the relationship between Reynolds (DDL) and Alma (Vicky Krieps, an actress I didn't know before, but who did a great job as counterweight to Reynolds) Neither character is especially likeable and both seem very driven, so it feels as if it can't possibly end well really, especially with Cyril (Lesley Manville), who I just learnt in writing this review is Reynolds' sister, gatekeeping and mentoring all in one.

The dress-making is superb, though the Society crowd they are designing for are an unattractive lot. And deep down, Reynolds cares nothing for them. His reaction to one monied lady who collapses drunk in one of his finest dresses is pretty horrible, though. As are many of his reactions to things Alma does and noises Alma makes etc. But then Alma too is somehow troubled and controlling. She works behind the scenes to get what she wants out of the relationship, even while saying to her confessor that she has given herself totally to Reynolds.

I'm glad we saw Phantom Thread before it left the cinema circuit. We watched it in the amazing Star Cinema in Eaglehawk, which is set up with sofas and armchairs only in an old town hall building. That set-up gives a real lounge room feel, which can work both ways, as the couple next to us at first clearly chatter their way through films at home, and continued to do so in the Star. We moved a few seats away to get ourselves out of earshot.

***

Bea says: Highly disturbing.  I like Day-Lewis, history, and I am a keen crafter, so thought I would love this period film about sewing and couture.  And I liked some aspects of it, but I didn’t like any of the characters very much, and that made it hard to invest in the film.  Reynolds is cold and controlling, Vicky is bordering on psychopathic, and Cyril is remote and unpredictable.  It was well done – beautifully made, exquisite costuming (although I thought I saw some puckers that wouldn’t be in such a bespoke garment?  Maybe I imagined them), fantastic performances and well written.  But it left me cold; cold, clinical and too perfect is how I would describe this film, to its detriment, unless that was the aim (and I suspect it was).

***1/2

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Seen at the Theatre Royal, Castlemaine

Cecil says: We didn’t know what to expect from Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. The last time we had seen a film with a British city in the title was Manchester by the Sea, and it was neither set in England nor very uplifting. Not that Film Stars is uplifting, but once we saw in the opening credits that it starred Julie Walters and Jamie Bell, we guessed it may well be set in northern England this time.

The opening scene has Annette Bening in her theatre dressing room, as Gloria Grahame, preparing to go on stage in The Glass Menagerie. We are quickly placed into context as she puts a cassette into the player (has to be 70s or 80s then) and Elton John’s Song for Guy starts to play, so that narrowed it down to post 1978.

More from the opening scenes set the stage: Gloria is preparing her makeup and hair ahead of the performance. We see her age, which is one of the key themes of the film (what does happen to ‘ageing’ film stars, though ageing is a relative thing since I am actually older than the Gloria Grahame portrayed, and Bening is superbly well-cast, as she is only a year younger than Grahame would have been at the time). And we see her collapse on the floor just after her five minute curtain call. Sickness is the other theme that runs through this: how we deal with it, how we hide it from loved ones, and how we prioritise things in our lives due to illness.

Bell and Walters are superb, teaming up in performances that echoed their fantastic time in Billy Elliot. Bell gets to do some more dancing, only this time with Bening, and there are scenes just like in Billy Elliot down narrow back alleys and in terraced streets, only this time time they are in Liverpool rather than Newcastle.

I loved how true to real life in 1979-81 this film felt. It made me aware of having lived through that time as a uni student, with some things very familiar (price of a pint, wallpaper patterns) and others less so (The lack of cars parked in the streets in those days when ownership was probably less than one car per household, compared to the multi-vehicle homes of today).

Seeing the posters of the Liverpool Labour Party back then (and how this pre-dates Derek Hatton) reminded me of my own early activist years, and for some reason I had a vivid memory of walking home from election night in Brighton, somehow conscious that Thatcher’s victory would change the world I lived in.

Bell and Bening’s romance is both believable and extraordinary at the same time. What would a 28 year old man be doing with a woman twice his age, but Bell carries it off well, as does Bening, as she copes with fading stardom and what she fears are fading looks.

But talking of ageing actresses, Vanessa Redgrave also pops up for one scene as Grahame’s Mum. And as she always seems to do, she just stood out for her fantastic voice in the few lines she had in this film.

The film is not uplifting, but it is fun in places. It is dark and it is light. It’s really as close to real life as you can get, I guess. And maybe that’s why I enjoyed it.

****

Bea says: I knew nothing at all of this film prior to seeing (something that usually pays off, I find) and I really enjoyed this bittersweet and unusual love story.  I liked that it was between an older woman and younger man (rarely addressed), and that it was based on truth.  I also enjoyed the settings of 1970s/80s Liverpool (particularly the scene where people just stood about on the street - no one does that now), and of LA and the incredible contrast it would have been to a young person from Liverpool at the time.  It is several weeks since we have seen it now, and many, many scenes have been returning to me; dinner in Gloria's little transportable house on the beach in LA, dancing in the Hampstead flat, reading Romeo and Juliet to an empty theatre but so meaningful.  Superbly written, never overdone or overplayed by the wonderful cast.  A pleasure, as good stories should be, even when they don't follow the usual formulas.

****