Month: September 2023

The Old Oak

28/09/23

The Cameo, Edinburgh

It feels like the end of an era. The Old Oak is the fourteenth feature film directed by Ken Loach and written by Paul Laverty. Their partnership began with Carla’s Song in 1986 but Loach, of course, has been around a lot longer than that (he directed his first feature, Poor Cow in 1967!). Now in his eighties, he’s decreed that this film will be his swan song.

From the opening scenes, we know we’re watching a Ken Loach film. All the familiar tropes are there: a cast of largely non-professional actors; the everyday struggles of working-class characters; the indifference of the powers that be; utterly realistic settings – and a socialist polemic that demonstrates how completely the people of Britain have been betrayed since the rise of Margaret Thatcher.

This story is set in a village just outside of Durham, a once vibrant community ravaged by the closing of the coal mines and now a crumbling vestige of its former self. When Syrian refugees are unceremoniously unloaded into the villages’s vacant properties, it’s hardly surprising that some of the people who’ve lived here all their lives react with suspicion and sometimes outright hostility to their new neighbours. Resources are already in short supply; there’s nothing left to share.

TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) is the landlord of the titular pub, which is now the one place where the local community can congregate, but even that is a shadow of what it once was. In a closed-down back room, photographs from the days of the miners’ strike, taken by TJ’s late father, decorate the walls. He shows them to Yara (Ebla Mari), a young Syrian woman, who is herself a keen amateur photographer. Her precious camera was broken by a local yob when she was stepping off the bus that brought her here and TJ helps her to get it repaired.

And when she comes up with the idea of reopening that back room and using it as a community space to offer free meals to everyone that needs one, TJ steps up to the challenge. But he has underestimated the jealousy and anger this will trigger from his neighbours…

While The Old Oak may not be Loach and Laverty’s finest achievement, these two cinema stalwarts have nonetheless created an entirely credible and sometimes heartbreaking story, one that serves as a fitting tribute to everything they’ve achieved over the years. It’s particularly satisfying to have Laverty himself onstage after the screening to answer questions about the film and the process of writing the screenplay.

If this really is to be a final collaboration, then The Old Oak provides a rousing sendoff. And I love the uncompromising way in which the film ends, with no pat solution to the problems – just a village slowly learning to become a community.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

2:22 A Ghost Story

27/09/23

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Written by Danny Robins and directed by Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr, 2:22 A Ghost Story is remarkable, not least because it manages to feel like a traditional gothic tale at the same time as subverting many of the tropes. Screams in the night? Check – but that’s just the foxes in the garden, isn’t it? Flickering lights? Check – although the security sensors give us an instant explanation. Old creepy house? Well, kind of… except that this one has been renovated, so it’s light and bright – with a kitchen island and a window wall. But still, Jenny (Louisa Lytton) knows that something is wrong…

Jenny has been home alone with baby Phoebe, while her astronomer husband, Sam (Nathaniel Curtis), has been in Sark, studying its famous dark skies. He’s returned home just in time for a dinner party with Laura (Charlene Boyd), his best friend from university, and her new boyfriend, Ben (Joe Absolom). There is a lot of tension in the air: the antipathy between Sam (middle-class and pompous) and Ben (working-class and contemptuous) is open, while Jenny and Laura are polite on the surface, but clearly wary of one another. Jenny’s angry with Sam too: she keeps hearing spooky footsteps at the same time every night, but he isn’t taking her concerns seriously. And then Jenny suggests they all stay up until 2:22am, just to see…

As much a comedy of manners as it is a ghost story, 2:22 uses jump scares effectively and sparingly. Indeed, we find ourselves so caught up in the relationship dynamics that we almost forget about the supernatural element so that, when something spooky happens, it is genuinely shocking. An intimate four-hander, it’s to Dunster and Marr’s credit that it succeeds as a ‘big’ show, with no real sense of distancing, even from the back of the stalls in this two-thousand seater theatre. The set (by Anna Fleischle) helps: it’s got real depth, stretching back almost to the rear wall, so that the stage size seems to balance out the auditorium, as well as showcasing the understated opulence of Sam and Jenny’s abode. Of course, the size of the theatre means that the performances are a little heightened, but all four actors manage to make this work, never straying too far into the shouty or declamatory.

I do work out the much-touted twist before it’s revealed – but only because I know there is one and so spend a lot of time looking for it. It’s cleverly done, with lots of slippery diversions and sleights of hand.

A sprightly updating of one of my favourite genres, 2:22 A Ghost Story is a creepy delight.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

The Lesson

24/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Lesson is one of those films that’s hugely enjoyable while you’re watching it, but falls apart when you try to analyse it – a bit like the airport novels its antihero, JM Sinclair, so witheringly disparages.

Sinclair (Richard E Grant) is a novelist of some renown – indeed, he is the subject of Oxford graduate Liam (Daryl McCormack)’s PhD thesis – but it’s been five years since he published anything. Since the death of his elder son, Felix, JM has been struggling; he writes daily, late into the night, but he just can’t finish his latest book. Meanwhile, his wife, Hélène (Julie Delpy), is determined that their younger son, Bertie (Stephen McMillan), should get into Oxford to study English literature, a feat which – despite his expensive schooling and obvious intelligence – can apparently only be accomplished by hiring a private tutor.

Enter Liam.

At first, the job seems like a dream come true. The Sinclairs live in the lap of luxury, their large country home filled with impressive artwork and attentive staff. Liam lodges in the guest house, swims in the lake, eats dinner with his idol and gets on well with Bertie; he even has time to finish his own first novel. But JM turns out to be a bruising presence and the family bristles with unhappy secrets; it doesn’t take long for the idyll to sour.

McCormack is a mesmerising screen presence (he surely has a big career ahead of him) and Grant, of course, is never less than interesting. Delpy imbues Hélène with an unsettlingly dispassionate and watchful air, while McMillan plays the innocent very convincingly – so that, no matter what chicanery is exposed, there’s someone we want to see being saved.

Director Alice Troughton does a good job of building the suspense: there’s a genuine sense of threat and the character dynamics are nicely drawn. The script, by Alex MacKeith, has some excellent moments, but also throws up some problems, not least the improbability of Liam’s ability to remember every word he’s ever read, on which the plot hinges. What’s more, although there are some genuine surprises, the main reveal is obvious from very early on, and there are several other details that just don’t ring true.

All in all, although The Lesson has its moments, it doesn’t quite live up to the movie it could be.

3.1 stars

Susan Singfield

Dumb Money

23/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

How soon is too soon? The real life tale of the GameStop share crisis happened during lockdown, when most of us were more concerned about where we were going to get toilet paper from than in following the details of a story about share dealings, and – while it might have been a big deal across the water – it didn’t warrant much more than a passing mention in the British press.

Pitched as a sort of David and Goliath story, Dumb Money relates the tale of Keith Gill (the ever likeable Paul Dano), a small time, blue-collar share dealer, who advertises himself as ‘Roaring Kitty’ and who has a predilection for wearing T-shirts with pictures of cute cats on them. Gill has a regular spot on Reddit, where he recommends likely investments to a group of followers. He has recently decided that struggling bricks and mortar computer outlet GameStop is worth saving – so much so, he’s willing to gamble his life savings on it and to encourage his viewers to take a punt.

These include hospital worker, Jenny (America Ferrara), and actual GameStop employee Markus (Anthony Ramos). But as the company’s share price begins to rise, a lot of others decide they want to get in on the action and throw in everything they can spare. What was at first a steady rise suddenly goes up like a rocket. But several hedge fund companies – including Melvin Capital, led by Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogan) – have already invested millions into GameStop, in the confident belief that they will trigger a ‘short squeeze’ scenario. They fully expect the company to go bust and their hedge funds to make millions from its demise. Now, thanks to Gill, they stand to lose everything.

Director Craig Gillespie, who previously gave us the brilliant I, Tonya, does his best to make all this work, but to somebody like me, who has no knowledge (or indeed interest) in the subject of stocks and shares, it’s sometimes hard to understand exactly what’s going on here, or more importantly, why I should care. Perhaps Dumb Money ties in to the American infatuation with the idea of making something from nothing, of taking on the big players and equating money with success.

Every character that appears onscreen is accompanied by a credit informing viewers of their net worth, and the loveable maverick quality that Gill exhibits feels somewhat overstated when we learn that, as a result of all these shenanigans, he himself is now a millionaire.

Though it’s fitfully amusing and occasionally generates some genuine laughs, Dumb Money never really settles into its stride. When the big players rig the game so that small investors can no longer participate, we’re probably supposed to be angry at the fact that there’s no such thing as a level playing field – but the whole story takes place in a world that seems light years away from our experience.

Consequently, it’s hard to feel involved. And therein lies the problem. Those with an interest in such matters may have a much better time with Dumb Money than I do.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Ship Rats

19/09/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s the year 1880 and Jessie (Madeline Grieve) is in big trouble. She’s just murdered her husband and she’s covered in his blood. He’s the captain of the ship she’s currently aboard, a cruel tyrant who recently condemned an innocent cabin boy to fifty lashes for stealing a biscuit. He probably had it coming, but still, his crew are unlikely to be sympathetic.

To make matters worse, Jessie has sought refuge in the cabin of the ship’s Chinese cook, Jin Hai (Sebastian Lim-Seet), a man with probelms of his own. Shunned by the other members of the crew, he is planning a daring escape from the ship – but, try as he might, he cannot find the box of matches he needs in order to make his departure go with a bang.

When the inevitable hue and cry kicks off, Jessie and Jin Hai realise that they’ll have to ignore their respective differences and hide out together. In doing so, they begin to realise that they actually have quite a bit in common. Their conversation takes in a range of subjects: colonialism and Chinese medicine; murder and morning sickness; ginger and gunpowder.

Alice Clark’s spirited two-hander, a co-production between Òran Mór and the Traverse Theatre, is inspired by the adventures of the playwright’s own great-great-grandmother, a seafaring lass with a colourful backstory. The fact that the two protagonists in Ship Rats speak like contemporary Glaswegians out on the lash is initially jarring but, once I settle into the rhythm, it makes for a fun-filled fifty minutes, even if the tone is sometimes relentlessly frenetic.

Grieve offers a rollicking turn as the amusingly foulmouthed Jessie, while Lim-Seet makes an astute foil for her bawdy barrage of invective. If occasionally Jessie and Jin-Hai seem to possess the kind of insight that really only comes with the advantage of historical perspective, well that’s acceptable, given that this wants more than anything else to be a commentary on the toxic nature of Empire.

Director Laila Noble keeps the action propulsive enough to ensure that the pace never flags and Ship Rats has me entertained right up to the final scene.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Dead Man’s Shoes

16/09/23

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

Two men stride purposefully across a picturesque stretch of moorland near Matlock, Derbyshire. They are former soldier, Richard (Paddy Considine), and his younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell), who has learning disabilities. As they walk, gentle music plays and we’re given glimpses of them playing together as toddlers. But what we’re about to see is far from gentle. It’s a harsh and unremitting tale of revenge.

Anthony has been wronged and Richard has returned to his hometown to put things right.

Meadows shows us a run-down rural community that is dominated by local kingpin, Sonny (Gary Stretch), and his sorry henchmen, a bunch of hapless deadbeats who drive around in (of all things) a battered Citroen 2CV. They make easy money selling drugs to the hardscrabble locals and treat anyone who opposes them with contempt. They are the big fish in this tiny pond, simultaneously pathetic yet somehow powerful. It’s clear that Gary and his crew wouldn’t last five minutes in the city but here, they see themselves as players.

But Richard has them squarely in his sights. He begins by confronting them, telling them exactly what he thinks of them and they are instantly dismayed. Nobody ever talks to them like that! Richard knows what they have done to his brother and he will make them pay. As he tightens the screws, he begins to expose them for what they are and they begin to understand the true meaning of fear…

Originally released in 2004, Dead Man’s Shoes is a collaboration between writer/actor Considine and director Shane Meadows and it’s now making a welcome return to UK cinema screens.

Part crime-thriller, part horror story, Dead Man’s Shoes brilliantly utilises Meadows’ flair for eliciting naturalistic performances and improvised dialogue, while Considine displays the hard-edged acting chops that soon launched him into the mainstream. Six years later, he directed the extraordinary Tyrannosaur, which in turn provided Olivia Colman with a star-making vehicle. It’s fascinating to contemplate how much has changed since this film’s release. It seems like a world away.

If you haven’t seen Dead Man’s Shoes, here’s your opportunity to correct the situation. It’s an extraordinary, low-budget gem, that still shines brightly nearly twenty years after its first outing.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

A Haunting in Venice

15/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Kenneth Branagh’s third attempt to bring Agatha Christie’s most celebrated detective back to cinema stardom initially feels like every James Wan movie you’ve ever seen: a series of elaborate jump scares designed to unnerve viewers and open them up to the possibility of supernatural goings on.

But it isn’t long before we encounter Poirot, recently retired to – well, the clue’s in the title – and apparently finished with the world of sleuthing, happier to fill his spare time with gardening. He’s even hired ex-police officer, Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scarmacio), to act as his bodyguard, ensuring that anybody who comes looking for the services of a sleuth is treated to a quick push off the edge of a canal. But one person does manage to get through. She’s author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who thinks she’s responsible for Poirot’s fame in the first place by featuring a thinly-disguised version of him in one of her early novels. Now she wants to enlist him to investigate the notorious medium, Mrs Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), who – Oliver claims – seems to be ‘the real McCoy’.

Staunch non-believer Poirot agrees to go along to a Hallowe’en event in a crumbling palazzo, said to be haunted by the ghosts of many lost children. The current owner, Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), is keen to contact the ghost of her daughter, Alicia (Rowan Robinson), who committed suicide. Rowena has hired Mrs Reynolds to contact her and find out exactly why she did it.

Poirot is soon happily exposing Mrs Reynolds as a fraud but things take a nasty turn when the medium falls to her death from a high window (bet she didn’t see that coming). And naturally, the killings are not going to end there. A large group of mid-listers find themselves marooned by a violent storm in a building that – conveniently – can only be accessed by boat.

The main problem with A Haunting in Venice is that it’s neither fish nor fowl. The ghost story/horror elements fail to convince, while the plot (if I can call it that) is so risible and convoluted that it’s hard to take any of it seriously. Amidst a sea of familiar faces, the only ones that really connect are a re-teaming of Belfast father and son duo, Jamie Dornan, as a doctor haunted by his experiences in the Second World War and Jude Hill as his somewhat creepy son (who, unfortunately, is a dead ringer for a young Michael Gove). But sadly, they’re not enough to make this turkey fly.

In the latter reaches of the film, some of the sequences are so murky and labyrinthine that I’m occasionally left wondering what is happening to who and where. Screenwriter Michael Green (who has based this farrago on a 60s Christie novel entitled Hallowe’en Party), somehow manages to have his cake and eat it by suggesting that not every supernatural element has been faked. But the intellectual flexing required to solve the case suggests that, by its conclusion, Poirot is back in the game.

After suffering through A Haunting in Venice, I seriously doubt I’ll be back to see the next in the series.

2.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Past Lives

10/09/2

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s hard to believe that Past Lives is only the debut film of Korean-Canadian playwright, Celine Song. Here she has created a narrative so assured, so brilliantly handled, it’s little wonder that critics around the world have fallen for its charms. And I am swooning along with them.

When we first see the three main protagonists, they are chatting together in a bar, while a couple of unidentified voices speculate about what their relationship might be. We learn further down the line that they are playwright, Nora (Greta Lee), her novelist husband, Arthur (John Magaro), and Korean engineer, Jung Hae (Teo Yoo). Their relationship is complicated to say the very least, and the film takes its time unravelling an explanation. But relax, there’s no great hurry.

First we must backtrack twenty-six years to see young Nora (or Na-Young, as she was called then) and Jung Hae, at school together in Korea. They are already inseparable, so much so that their respective mothers take the two of them out on a first ‘date’. But huge changes are looming. Nora’s parents are keen to emigrate to Canada, so that their respective artistic careers can prosper. To help her adapt to her new home, Na-Young adopts the name ‘Nora,’ and is obliged to say goodbye to Jung Hae, but twelve years later, the two of them reconnect online and begin a series of soulful conversations.

Jung Hae tells Nora that he still thinks about her all the time. Sadly, work commitments get in the way and once again the two of them drift apart.

Then, at a writer’s retreat in Montauk, Nora meets Arthur and, almost before they know what’s happening, a decade or so has slipped by and the two of them are happily married and living in a tiny apartment in New York.

And then, Jung Hae travels thousands of miles to visit them…

In clumsier hands the stakes at this point. Nora and Jung-Hae would doubtless realise that they’ve always been meant for each other and Arthur merely an obstacle to be overcome, by force if necessary. But Song’s beautiful and lyrical approach to the story displays a generosity of spirit that takes in all those conflicting emotions and accepts that it’s okay for them to exist – that the three protagonists are all on the same journey through life and can co-exist, without recourse to anger or brutality. Song’s perceptive screenplay makes her characters act and talk like real people actually do.

Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography captures the cities of Seoul and New York in vivid detail and the plaintive music by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen is perfectly matched to the film’s languorous, sedate pacing. By the third act I am, quite frankly, spellbound by the story, which is sweet and yearning and deeply affecting, particularly when Jung Hae confesses to Nora that he didn’t realise that liking Arthur would cause him so much pain. The conclusion is so adeptly handled I want to applaud.

If this is Song’s debut, I can only wonder about what she might achieve further down the line. Meanwhile, Past Lives is truly impressive. Miss it and weep… or see it and weep. The choice is yours.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Keepers of the Light

08/09/23

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s not difficult to understand why the island is a popular symbol in literature. Separate by its very nature, an island always exists as a counterpoint to a known ‘main’ land, allowing a writer to remove their protagonists from their usual environs and – by means of a storm or a lost sea vessel – trap them in a mysterious and unfamiliar place. The dimensions help too: the island serves as both a microcosm and a pressure pot, illuminating and intensifying the characters’ concerns.

Little wonder then that the real-life mystery of three lighthouse keepers who went missing from the Flannan Isles in 1900 looms large in the public imagination. From Wilfred Wilson Gibson’s 1912 poem (still commonly taught in schools), to Kristoffer Nyholm’s 2018 film, The Vanishing, the story continues to intrigue – and Scottish playwright, Izzy Gray, is the latest to be thus inspired. Indeed, as an Orcadian, rooted in island culture, she has a special connection to the subject matter. Lighthouses are in her blood.

The Flannan Isles lighthouse had only been operational for a year when a terrible storm struck. The light went out, alerting the authorities to the fact that something was amiss, but – by the time a search party made it to the island – there was no trace of the three keepers.

In Keepers of the Light, Gray intersperses the tale of the three lost men, Donald, Tam and Jim (Rhys Anderson, Fraser Sivewright and Garry Stewart respectively), with the parallel narrative of their modern-day counterparts, Mac, Alec and Davie. The lighthouse no longer requires keepers – it’s been automated for more than fifty years – but it does need maintenance, and the three engineers are helicoptered in for what is supposed to be a couple of hours for a routine job. But destiny has other ideas, and the men find themselves stranded overnight with nothing to do but consider the fates of their predecessors…

Gray explores the enduring nature of the mystery, pointing out that the reason the story is so compelling is that there is no answer: all we have is conjecture and gossip, supposition and fantasy. This meta-telling is made explicit by the decision to bookend the play with Alec’s musings, as he contemplates the idea that people are drawn to fill in the gaps. If something is unknown, we make up our own solutions.

It’s not all plain sailing. At times, the dialogue feels a little forced and unnatural, and some of the jokes and themes are hammered home (Davie’s Tic Tac error, for example, is clear; it gets a laugh: we don’t need Mac to add, “No, you mean TikTok!”). The piece would benefit from leaving more unsaid, trusting the audience to infer the meaning from the context.

Another minor niggle: I don’t think the actors need to leave the performance space every time they switch characters. After the first couple of metamorphoses, it’s clear what is happening, and the exiting and re-entering just slows things down. At one point, they do begin to transform on stage, taking off their fleeces and putting on their twentieth-century characters’ hats, which works well, but then they exit anyway, before returning a few seconds (and some minor costume changes) later.

Nonetheless, Keepers of the Light – ahem! – keeps the light shining on this fascinating tale, boldly straddling fact and fiction.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

The Equalizer 3

03/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Denzel Washington famously resists doing sequels, but this is his third outing as everybody’s favourite vigilante, Robert McCall, and his fifth film with Antoine Fuqua, with whom he won his second Oscar for 2001’s Training Day. (If you’re wondering, the duo’s other collaboration is the much underrated remake of The Magnificent Seven. You’re welcome.)

TE3 takes McCall away from his familiar beat and sets him down in Italy, where he’s exacting his usual unflinching version of comeuppance to an elderly farmer, who is not quite the innocent he appears to be – though what he’s actually done to deserve such retribution is kept a secret until the end. On first appearance, McCall has an almost sepulchral look, as though his endless diet of shooting and punching bad people has taken a terrible toll on him.

On his way out, McCall makes an uncharacteristic mistake and winds up with a bullet in his back, but luck is with him and he winds up being taken care of by Enzo (Remo Girone), a charming small-town doctor who doesn’t ask too many questions and who offers McCall a place to lay his head. Filmed in the impossibly picturesque town of Amalfi, it’s hardly surprising that McCall soon starts thinking that he’s finally found himself a home.

But even impossibly picturesque Italian towns have their crosses to bear and here it’s in the form of Mafia thug Vincent Quaranta (Andrea Scarducio), who has his own heinous plans to transform the sleepy little harbour into a convenient place for shipping off regular consignments of illegal drugs. It soon becomes clear that McCall has some more trash to take out before he can happily retire…

Washington is a fabulous actor, with enough gravitas to elevate material like this and take it to another level – and Fuqua too is a skilled director, who never makes the mistake of allowing the violence in his films to look ‘cool’. The physical exchanges between McCall and those who are foolish enough to underestimate him are unflinchingly visceral and (quite literally) pull no punches.

You could argue that the people McCall comes up against are almost cartoonishly evil and that much of the pleasure in watching these films comes from seeing such creatures given the same rough treatment they’re happy to hand out. But I’d be the first to admit that I enjoy TE3 enormously and, on a giant IMAX screen, Washington’s performance looks even more towering than usual.

There’s also a labyrinthine quality to the plotting here, including a through-line that brings in Dakota Fanning as CIA operative Emma Collins as a key part of the story – and there are brief glimpses (blink and you’ll miss ’em) of characters from the previous instalments. Stay in your seat till the end and all will become clear.

Will there be a TE4? Probably not. It’s unusual for a franchise to make it to a third outing without jumping the shark, so maybe Washington and Fuqua should quit now, while they’re still ahead. Then again, Robert McCall does seem to have an uncanny knack of moving to locations that need his unequivocal style of rough justice. If one arrives, I’ll be there for it.

4 stars

Philip Caveney