Month: April 2024

Robot Dreams

09/04/24

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

After the blistering onslaught of Monkey Man, I find myself hankering after something a little more sedate and I’ve heard promising things about Robot Dreams, even if cinematic showings are proving elusive. So I’m delighted to discover that there’s an afternoon screening at The Cameo at a time when I’m available to see it. Written and directed by Pablo Berger, based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon, this wordless animation, set in New York some time in the 1980s, is the very epitome of charm – yet its deceptively simple premise also manages to make room for some perceptive observations about the nature of relationships.

Dog lives in an apartment in the heart of the city and tries to keep himself occupied by playing the latest video game – Pong – and cooking up nightly feasts of microwave meals for one. But he is increasingly aware that he has nobody to share his life with. When he sees a TV advert for a robot companion, he eagerly sends off for one and it arrives as a flatpack all ready to be assembled. Dog is quite handy with a tool kit and soon puts Robot together. It isn’t long before the two of them are out on the town, visiting a series of beautifully-rendered locations and learning how to function as a duo.

It all goes swimmingly until, ironically, they visit the beach together and Robot learns to his cost that a metal body and sea water do not make a winning team. Rusted into immobility, he’s unable to do anything to help himself and Dog doesn’t have the strength to move him from his place on the sand, so he heads off to look for help. But it’s the last day of the season and, when he returns, the beach is all locked up and off limits until June…

It’s hard to convey how utterly charming this film is and how its various twists and turns have the power to exert a grip on my emotions. As I watch, I find myself thinking back to situations in my own past, times when things have moved beyond my control. I love its inventiveness: the constant attention to detail; the fact that pretty much every frame holds a tiny item that references something else. The dreams of the title refer to a series of visions that Robot has while he lies in the sand waiting for rescue, but Dog has them too – and unlike most animated movies, Robot Dreams has the courage to resist offering us the usual glib resolution.

The rumours are correct: this is a delightful cinematic experience which absolutely deserves its recent Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. And you’ll believe that dogs and robots can roller skate to the music of Earth, Wind and Fire.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Monkey Man

07/04/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Dev Patel’s debut film as a director is an ultra-violent revenge thriller set in an Indian city called Yatana that looks very much like Mumbai. Patel plays Kid, a man entirely motivated by the need to find the corrupt Police Chief, Rana (Sikandar Kher), who is responsible for the brutal murder of Kid’s mother back when he actually was a, well, kid. Why it’s taken him so long to get around to this is never explained.

Kid currently earns a buck by taking part in a series of no-holds-barred fights, hosted by sleazy MC, Tiger (Sharlto Copley), and attended by baying crowds. He hides his identity behind a realistic monkey mask – inspired by the Indian god, Hanuman – but he doesn’t win his bouts, preferring instead to make easy money by taking dives. Meanwhile, he finds a way of procuring work as a barman at the swish city nightclub where he knows Rana likes to spend his spare time. His sole ambition is to get to Rana and kill him.

While Monkey Man has a distinctive look (largely thanks to cinematographer Sharon Weir) and occasionally hints at the more interesting film it could have been, it feels hampered by its reductive plot and an evident desire to be a kind of Asian John Wick. Those films are actually mentioned by one character early on and, in the final extended punch-up, where Kid fights his way from the basement of the hotel to the VIP room at the top, it’s hard not to think of Gareth Evans’ The Raid – though these films feel almost restrained compared to the levels of bone-snapping, blood-drenched violence on offer here. That 18 certificate is there for a reason.

Patel’s character dominates the film to the extent that none of the other actors gets much of a look in. An early attempt to introduce perky sidekick, Alphonso (Pitobash), is disappointingly abandoned, and Kid’s brief interplay with a sympathetic sex worker, Sita (Sobita Dhulipala), is never allowed to develop into anything more substantial.

Occasionally Patel – who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee – tries to usher in more original elements. There are references to Indian folklore, pastoral flashbacks to Kid’s rural childhood and there are some astute observations about bogus spiritual leaders, who exploit the poverty of their followers, but these themes are repeatedly punched and kicked into submission by a seemingly endless succession of extended fight scenes. The first one, set largely in a kitchen (with a varied supply of potential weapons), is brilliantly choreographed and has me flinching and gasping in all the right places. But it’s followed by another fight and then another one and the repetitiveness of them begins to work against the material.

Eventually, I start to feel bludgeoned and bored, which I’m pretty sure is not the effect Patel was looking for.

In the chaos of flying fists and breaking bones, I also find myself asking questions. If Kid simply wants revenge on a single man, why not wait until he’s alone, rather than surrounded by hundreds of bodyguards? What’s the point is maiming all those people who are simply carrying out their duties? (Mind you, I’d be the first to admit that wouldn’t make for a particularly memorable film, either.)

Action junkies will doubtless tell me that I’m wrong about Monkey Man, that it’s a kick-ass, adrenalin-fuelled marvel, but the occasional flashes of brilliance it does contain merely enforce my view that this film could so easily have been an absolute knockout, instead of the long and messy brawl that it is.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

The Trouble with Jessica

06/04/24

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

The Trouble With Jessica is at the Cameo tonight, and so are director Matt Winn and lead actor Shirley Henderson, here for a Q&A. The place is bustling. Indeed, the only seats we can find are in the very front row, but that’s okay. We settle down in the comfy velvet chairs and stretch our legs out, making the most of the space.

TTWJ is essentially a comedy of manners, drawing on elements of farce. It goes to some dark places – including suicide, depression and rape – but always (trust me) with humour, eliciting belly laughs from tonight’s audience. Winn treads that precarious line well.

Sarah (Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) have invited their best friends over for what Sarah dramatically announces will be the last dinner party they’ll host in this house. Tom’s latest architectural project has flopped, and they need to sell their beloved home to save themselves from going under. But Beth (Olivia Williams) and Richard (Rufus Sewell) have brought along an extra guest, a mutual ‘friend’ called Jessica (Indira Varma), whose recent memoir has become a bestseller. Sarah is not pleased. She’s no fan of Jessica’s and, as soon as the titular character begins to speak, it’s easy to see why. She’s awful.

And then she kills herself in Sarah and Tom’s garden.

Sarah is furious. The house sale might be jeopardised! Her kids might have to go to state schools! They might have to live in a rubbish part of London! There’s nothing for it. They’ll have to move the body, pretend the suicide occurred elsewhere…

Through all the deliciously heightened nonsense that follows, the only thing I find hard to believe is that Sarah and Beth would keep up their friendship with Jessica. She doesn’t seem to have any redeeming features. She’s slept with two of Beth’s boyfriends and flirts incessantly with Tom. She’s rude and demanding and I don’t know anyone who’d put up with her.

That aside, I enjoy this film.

There is a charming cameo from Anne Reid as a nosey neighbour, and a wonderfully sinister series of scenes with Sylvester Groth as the potential house buyer. Jonathan Livingstone and David Schaal are very funny as PCs Terry and Paul, working-class foils to all the hoity-toity hogwash (although PC Paul recognises a decent clafoutis when he sees one).

It’s a stylish movie. The camera often lingers on the loveliness of the house, like an estate agent’s puff piece, reminding us of what’s at stake. Yes, Sarah and Tom are very privileged and it’s easy to mock their first world problems – but no one wants to lose what they have accrued; no one wants to fail, to have to step backwards. Of course they’d probably be fine if it all went tits up – but it’s no surprise they don’t want to put that theory to the test. It’s more relatable than its milieu might make it sound.

I like the title cards that act as introductions to the various ‘chapters’, each beginning The Trouble With… Tension mounts as the quartet struggle to come to terms with what they’re doing, as well as to manage the practicalities. Henderson in particular is riveting, her brittle capriciousness a delight to watch.

The Q&A is interesting too; it’s good to find out a little more about the process – especially Winn’s composition of the score – and it’s always a thrill to be in the same room as the people you’ve just been watching on the screen.

Once home, I find myself googling clafoutis recipes. Guess what we’re having for pudding tonight?

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Scoop

06/04/24

Netflix

What is the purpose of dramatising recent news events unless it’s to shine a different light on them? Scoop, directed by Philip Martin, doesn’t do that. Instead, it’s a pretty straightforward retelling of something we can all remember: Prince Andrew’s 2018 car-crash interview on BBC’s Newsnight.

Although it’s very watchable, the only fresh thing we’re actually offered here is a little look at some behind-the-scenes admin, and – frankly – that’s not enough. Based on Samantha McAlister’s memoir, her role as the ‘booker’ is almost laughably prominent. I’m sure she was very good at her job, but I don’t really care. “Person does the work they’re paid to do” isn’t much of a revelation. Nobody’s watching this because they’re interested in a “brilliant” TV producer. Self-aggrandising Sam (Billie Piper) gets the bus to work, eats kebabs and relies on her mum for childcare. Am I supposed to take something away from this?

We don’t get any original insights into Prince Andrew’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein; we don’t learn anything new about his sexual exploitation of trafficked women. (I’m not calling him a paedophile because that’s not what he is. ‘Sexual predator’ and ‘rapist’ are the correct words. Abuse of women is bad enough; we don’t have to call it something else.) We don’t glimpse his reaction to the fall-out. We do see how attached he is to his teddy bears, which is amusing but hardly illuminating. The only vaguely unexplored territory covered is the impact on Prince Andrew’s aide, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), who is portrayed here as a naïve and trusting woman, believing both Andrew’s assertions of innocence and McAlister’s assurances that this interview will be good for him. A brief moment with Andrew’s daughter, Beatrice (Charity Wakefield), also offers a little much-needed emotion, her lip quivering as she counters her father’s dismissal of Twitter (“I don’t look at that”) with a muted, sad-eyed, “I do.”

Rufus Sewell’s and Gillian Anderson’s impersonations of the key players are spot-on, although credit for that must be shared by the costume and make-up designers (Matthew Price and Kirstin Chalmers). The likenesses are uncanny. I just don’t know what they’re for.

I can’t help feeling that this is a pointless exercise. The actual interview – in all its startling horror – is available for anyone to see, so why bother watching a facsimile of it?

2.8 stars

Susan Singfield

This is Memorial Device

05/04/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

A band does not become a cult all on its own – it takes devoted followers to propel it into those glorious realms, and music critic Ross Raymond (Paul Higgins) is one such follower. We’ve been summoned to a cluttered storage room in Airdrie, wherein he has assembled all the mementos of his youth, the time when he fell head over heels in love with the titular band, the greatest musicians you’ve never heard of. And he so desperately wants to spread the love, to show us exactly why they are legendary, it’s almost embarrassing.

This is Memorial Device, produced in association with The Lyceum Theatre and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, is based upon the acclaimed novel by David Keenan. Graham Eatough’s adaptation is essentially a monologue, though it’s augmented by filmed contributions from four other actors – Julie Wilson Nimmo, Mary Gapinski, Sanjeev Kohli and Gabriel Quigley – all of whom have their own respective ‘memories’ to share. And there are, of course, the four showroom dummies, who stand in for the members of the band, lovingly assembled by Raymond as the story unfolds.

He proudly shows us the various bits and pieces he has curated over the years – the scrapbooks, the vinyls, the cassettes and the T-shirts, the various scribblings and doodles in which he perceives some kind of hidden meaning. His fervour is evident, his wild-eyed enthusiasm utterly compelling as he darts back and forth across the stage, attempting to demonstrate the qualities that first drew him in to the band’s orbit, that first made him want to give them his allegiance.

Higgins submits an extraordinary performance and there’s enough detail here to convince us that this band actually existed. The music by Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson completes the illusion and the production hits a fevered peak as Raymond attempts to lead us in a chant hidden within the music that (sadly) only he can hear. If you’ve ever fallen for the charms of an obscure rock band, purchased all their music and followed them from gig to gig with their name proudly emblazoned on a T-shirt, then you’ll identify with what’s happening here.

A hit at this year’s Fringe, This is Memorial Device is back for a short run at The Traverse. If, like us, you missed it, here’s your chance to rectify the situation and become a believer.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

03/05/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I am in the unusual position of having seen a Godzilla film recently and in the even more unusual position of having actually enjoyed it (Godzilla Minus One, thanks for asking). Today I am at something of a loose end, so I think, why not check out Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire? After all, it’s just opened to impressive box office returns and hey, how bad can it be? The answer to that question is ‘very bad indeed’ and I seriously doubt that anybody who has shelled out to see this incomprehensible twaddle has left the screening thinking, ‘well, that was entertaining.’

Kong is currently living in Hollow Earth, where life seems to consist of fighting the various weird creatures that live down there and occasionally eating them. He’s also suffering from a very bad toothache. His antics are being closely monitored by Scientist Dr Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall, looking vaguely embarrassed and doubtless wistfully thinking about the serious acting career she previously enjoyed). Meanwhile, Godzilla is up on the planet’s surface, occasionally letting off steam by wrecking whichever city happens to get in his way and taking the occasional nap in the Coliseum in Rome. For some inexplicable reason, the earth’s inhabitants seem to approve of him, despite the fact that he must be inadvertently killing hundreds of them every time he knocks down a block of flats. Go figure.

Andrews enlists a veterinarian, Trapper (Dan Stevens), to take care of Kong’s bad tooth and a podcaster, Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), for no apparent reason other than to occupy the position of comic relief, while she wanders from location to location in true Basil Exposition style, explaining what’s going on. As the plot is needlessly complicated, these skills are in demand. Inexplicable happenings include her adopted daughter, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the only surviving member of a Hollow Earth tribe, picking up what appear to be distress signals from deep underground; the presence of an (admittedly cute) baby Kong; and a tribe of giant apes in the underworld who are being ruled by a cruel dictator called The Scar King. In one scene, Dr Andrews looks at some carvings on a wall and is able to extrapolate an entire story from them in a matter of moments. Ah, the benefits of an education!

None of this makes any sense but it doesn’t actually matter, because what the film mostly boils down to is a series of extended ape vs reptile punch-ups that go on for just about forever. Weta studios have produced some brilliant CGI creations here, there’s no doubt about that, but if any member of their team has ever heard the adage that ‘less is more,’ there’s no evidence of it. The fight sequences (and there are a lot of them) are interminable, the screen filled with roaring, bellowing close ups of either Mr Kong or Mr Godzilla (though it should be said that the latter has much less to do than his simian adversary). Sometimes they fight each other, other times they fight as a kind of tag team as they take on Scar King and his followers. If roaring and bellowing is your go-to, then this could just be the perfect film for you. If not, then maybe give it a swerve. I wish I had.

I can’t stop thinking that this truly dreadful farrago must have cost millions of dollars to produce and that half a dozen low-budget films – with credible storylines – could have been produced in its place. For my money, Godzilla X Kong is just an empty exercise, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

1.5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Scaff

02/04/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

For someone who has always maintained a complete indifference to the game of football, I do seem to be watching a lot of plays about it lately, all of them at the Traverse. And the thing is, the standard has been incredibly high. First up, there was the five-star masterpiece that was Moorcroft. Then there was the wonderful Same Team, which also found a fresh approach to its chosen subject. Now here’s The Scaff, the final offering in the A Play, A Pie and A Pint spring season, which I approach with some trepidation.

Can the Traverse really hope to pull off a hat trick?

Happily, it turns out that they can. Written by Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith, this is an assured and acerbically funny play, centred around a school football team. Jamie (Bailey Newsome) and Frankie (Stuart Edgar) live and breathe for the game. They spend most of their time out on the pitch, helping the team’s star player, Coco (Craig McClean), to rack up the goals. They’re also friends with Liam (Benjamin Keachie), but one day Jamie overhears Coco referring to Liam as ‘a scaff’. And while there may be some truth in the accusation – Liam’s Mum does buy own-brand crisps and Liam is forced to play in Mitzuma football boots, for God’s sake – Jamie encourages Liam to take his revenge on Coco by unleashing a hard tackle in the next game.

Liam takes his friend’s advice with disastrous consequences. Coco’s resulting injury means that the team will be without their top scorer as they approach the school cup final. Liam is in disgrace – and can Jamie and Frankie even admit to being friends with a boy who is now little more than a pariah?

Of course, The Scaff is about so much more than football. It concentrates on the subject of friendship and the difficulties that life can throw into its path. It’s also about the the constant longing to be liked and the awful fear of thinking that you are hated for things you have no control over. And mostly, it’s about the difficulties of escaping from an identity that others have bestowed on you, a term that is as degrading as it is dismissive.

The performances of the four leads are strong, each actor convincing in his respective role. I particularly enjoy Keachie’s physicality as a boy almost crippled by anxiety, forever giving sidelong glances to his companions, beseeching them for support and also forgiveness. Director Jordan Blackwood handles the tricky problem of making a quartet of actors on a bare stage convince as team players, and the performers give it their best, leaping, twirling and launching savage kicks at an imaginary ball. They manage to pull off the illusion, with the audience reacting delightedly to each successive goal. I find myself yelling and clapping along with them, something that no actual football match has never managed to make me do.

It’s been another strong season for A Play, A Pie and A Pint, and The Scaff provides a winning finalé that scores on just about every level.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney