Film

Anatomy of a Fall

11/11/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall is a sly and unconventional crime drama that steadfastly refuses to follow the familiar tropes of the whodunnit, preferring instead to explore the psychologies of its characters. It manages to sustain an air of mystery without ever offering viewers anything resembling a plausible solution – and yet, somehow, this only serves to make the story all the more intriguing.

In her remote chalet in the French Alps, novelist Sandra Voiter (Sandra Hüller) is attempting to conduct an interview with graduate student Zoé (Camille Rutherford). There’s an obvious attraction between the two – Sandra is openly bisexual – but up in the roof space, Sandra’s husband, Samuel (Alan Davies lookalike, Samuel Theis), is asserting his presence by doing some noisy manual work. He’s also playing music at an ear-shattering volume, which makes the planned interview impossible. It is soon abandoned and Zoé leaves. 

Shortly afterwards, Sandra and Samuel’s visually-impaired son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), takes his dog for a walk in the snow and, on his return, he (quite literally) stumbles upon the bloody corpse of his father, lying a short distance from the house. Samuel has fallen from the attic space, striking a shed on the way down.

But did he jump – or was he pushed?

Soon, an investigation is under way and Sandra is the only suspect. Her past actions are making her look ever-more unreliable, so her attorney (Swann Arlaud) is struggling to construct a credible defence – and it probably doesn’t help that he is attracted to her. Meanwhile, the prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) seems to have made it his personal mission to see her behind bars. 

The irony here is that the person with the clearest vision of what’s actually going on is a boy whose eyes don’t work…

Anatomy of a Fall is a strange beast indeed, a film that becomes increasingly compelling as it moves ever further away from anything approaching a straightforward resolution. The fact that the two main characters are writers of fiction – and the ways in which the narrative becomes increasingly more speculative as the case progresses – adds to the sense of intrigue. And then there’s a late-stage flashback, prompted by the discovery of an audiotape (recorded by Samuel), which sets everything spinning in an entirely different direction. Hüller offers a compelling performance in the lead role, but it’s young Machado Graner who makes the biggest impression, as the indefatigable Daniel, struggling to come to terms with the death of his father.

The nebulous nature of the plotting will doubtless have Agatha Christie spinning in her grave, but this feels like a fresh and unconventional approach to the crime genre and it’s easy to see why the film was chosen as the winner of one of cinema’s most coveted prizes. 

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney

The Royal Hotel / Hotel Coolgardie

04/11/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh / Amazon Prime

We watch The Royal Hotel in the cinema. It’s fascinating. We know it’s based on a documentary, but how much of it is true? We head straight home and seek out Hotel Coolgardie.

Wow.

Hotel Coolgardie centres on two Finnish backpackers, Lina and Steph. When their wallets are stolen in Perth, they need to work to earn some money. An agency finds them a job serving drinks in a remote mining town. “You have to be able to cope with male attention,” they are warned. They don’t seem to notice the flashing red light. (Or perhaps they just feel reassured by the mitigating presence of a filmmaker.)

The pub is run by an odious landlord, who proudly informs the agency that it’s okay if the girls are inexperienced so long as they’re good-looking, and then takes great delight in bellowing at them when they arrive, belittling them for not understanding the local dialect and for not instinctively grasping the idiosyncrasies of his business. His clientele are heavy drinkers, and lewd behaviour is encouraged. “My customers grow an extra leg when new girls come into town,” he leers, as he puts out a sign announcing their arrival. In the bar, the men discuss who’ll be the first to ‘bag’ one of them. They know they’re being filmed; clearly, they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.

Pete Gleeson’s documentary serves as a salutary lesson: when sexism and xenophobia are normalised, they thrive, especially within an isolated community. Coolgardie is not a safe place for Lina and Steph and, because they’re not willing to play along with the roles they’ve been assigned, they’re mocked and resented by the locals.

Writer-director Kitty Green seizes on the horror elements of this real-life set-up, highlighting the remoteness of the location as Canadian backpacking duo Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) make their arduous bus journey through the empty desert. The Royal Hotel is dirtier and dingier than its counterpart; its customers nastier and more deliberate. The score, by Jed Palmer, ramps up the disquietude, and tension mounts as first Liv begins to assimilate, and then their only ally, Carol (Ursula Yovich), departs, leaving Hanna to face her adversaries alone.

Somehow, Green’s amplification makes the story less menacing. Gleeson’s documentary shows a more nuanced view of the community: we see the men’s vulnerability as well as their defensiveness, the insecurities that fuel their misogyny. This doesn’t excuse them or diminish their threat; in fact, it makes them more frightening because, unlike the cartoonish bad guys in Green’s film, they’re all-too recognisable. In the Royal Hotel, the men are uniformly terrifying; in the Hotel Coolgardie, there is a scale. “Canman” John Joseph Lowe, for example, has a genuinely sweet side. Sure, he’s a rambling drunk who demands too much of the girls’ attention and creeps them out by showering them with unwanted gifts, but he also looks out for them, drives them where they want to go and truly wants to help. On the other hand, “Pikey” – reincarnated in The Royal Hotel as Dolly (Daniel Henshall) – is a terrifying man, spewing hatred towards all women because no one wants to sleep with him. “It’s because I haven’t got a driving licence,” he says. “That’s not the reason,” Lina tells him. Henshall’s Dolly is horrible, but nothing he does is as scary as Pikey’s quiet, all-consuming rage.

What’s more, while Hotel Coolgardie‘s bogeyman is sexism, The Royal Hotel‘s seems to be Australia. The difference is subtly drawn, but it’s there. In the documentary, we see the magnification of a bigoted culture, flourishing in this particular spot thanks to an enabling landlord. In the movie, the implication is that Canada is somehow different, that the problem is specifically Australian working-class men.

Still, I wish that Gleeson had acknowledged his presence in Hotel Coolgardie; there’s something disingenuous in the way the film suggests the women are in real danger, when we know that he’s always there with them, filming everything, reducing their risk. But I still prefer it to Green’s film, which undermines the truth of Hanna and Liv’s situation by allowing them to ‘win’. The coda at the end of The Royal Hotel is far more chilling.

It makes sense to view these two films as a pair. My dearest hope is that the job agency stops sending young women out to places like Coolgardie. It’s not enough to warn them that they have to be okay with male attention. They need to warn the landlords instead: our clients have human and employment rights.

The Royal Hotel – 3.4 stars

Hotel Coolgardie – 4 stars

Susan Singfield

Roald Dahl/Wes Anderson

29/10/23

Netflix

A new film by Wes Anderson is always an interesting proposition. Four new films – the longest of which has a running time of just thirty-seven minutes – is a downright intriguing one.

It must be said from the start that these are less motion pictures than illustrated stories (imagine, if you will, a kind of turbo-charged Jackanory and you’ll get the general idea). First up, there’s the aforementioned longest entry in the quartet, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which – to begin with – is told by Dahl himself (uncannily impersonated by Ralph Fiennes). The author begins to relate the story of the mysterious Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), a man who can see without using his eyes. Khan’s story is then picked up by two doctors (Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade) and they, in turn, transfer their attention to the titular character (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), a man who becomes obsessed with the notion of becoming an expert card cheat. (As you do.)

It’s all delivered as narration (at a breakneck pace) and, of course, the set dressing has the usual Anderson style: a series of exquisite puzzle-boxes, expertly linked together, opening and closing as the tale unravels. It’s beautiful to watch, but ultimately the story leaves me with a powerful sensation of so what?

The Swan (narrated by Rupert Friend) is, for me, the strongest narrative here, the distressing tale of a young boy called Peter (Asa Jennings), who is horribly bullied by a couple of local lads with access to a rifle (always a recipe for trouble) and which culminates in a poignant and rather distressing conclusion. The story is delivered by Friend as he wanders along a series of labyrinthine passageways and this is perhaps the most kinetic of the films.

The Rat Catcher features Fiennes as the central character, a rather creepy individual who visits a garage and offers his services to the proprietor (Friend again), while the tale is told by a narrator (Ayoade). The subtext of this one is rather less straightforward, as is the style. I can’t remember ever seeing an actor miming invisible objects in a film before! The rat catcher has assimilated all the qualities of the creatures he’s supposed to be eradicating and, when he fails in his attempts to locate them (in a haystack), he tries to make up for his failure in a demonstration of unpleasantness. Again, I feel that the story’s conclusion is rather underwhelming.

Finally there’s Poison, an account set in post-colonial India, in which Harry (Cumberbatch) lies in bed convinced that a krait (a venomous snake) is lying asleep on his chest and that the slightest move will cause it to bite him. A local police officer (Patel) and a doctor (Kingsley) are enlisted to resolve the situation and, to give them their fair due, they do their level best. The story culminates in a short and rather shocking demonstration of racism, which some viewers will find unsettling, but is surely the whole point of Dahl’s story – that former white rulers will always refuse to acknowledge their own failings. Strangely, Poison seems to have a similar theme to its predecessor.

With such brevity, it seems fairest to judge the four films as a whole – and indeed, Anderson has said that what attracted him to the idea is the notion that they comprise a kind of interlocking narrative. While this quartet is always visually compelling, I can’t help wishing that this inimitable director had settled on some better examples from Dahl’s extensive back catalogue. There are plenty to choose from.

If you have Netflix, they’re certainly worth clicking through. If nothing else, you’ll be charmed by their quirkiness and the uncompromising style that exemplifies Anderson’s approach to cinema.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Killers of the Flower Moon

22/10/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

A quick glance at IMDB informs me that I first watched a Martin Scorcese movie way back in 1976 – Taxi Driver – and that I have seen pretty much every film he’s directed since. So naturally I am eager to see Killers of the Flower Moon, though somewhat apprehensive at its prodigious running time of three hours and twenty-six minutes. 

Set in the early 1920s, it tells the story of the Osage tribe, native Americans who, after being shunted unceremoniously from their Kansas homeland to a reservation in the wilds of Oklahoma, subsequently discover that the land they have been allocated contains vast quantities of crude oil – and that they are now the richest people per capita in the USA.

Of course, this being America, it’s complicated. For one thing, the Osage can’t just be allowed to own their own money. The very idea! In most cases, they must have a white guarantor to enable them to have access to it. And naturally, there are plenty of unscrupulous people in the vicinity, who are eager to put their hands on that wealth – even if it means arranging for the regular liquidation of certain members of the tribe. Suspicious deaths among the Osage are all too common, and such crimes are rarely even investigated.

Chief among the white opportunists is rancher ‘King’ William Hale (Robert De Niro), who purports to be the tribe’s greatest friend and has even learned to speak their language, but who secretly wheels and deals to ensure that large amounts of Osage money keeps flowing in his general direction. When his nephew, First World War veteran Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), arrives looking to make a new start, Hale ensures that he crosses the path of Osage woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), telling Ernest that this will be an opportunity for both of them to make a killing…

There’s no doubt that this true story, based on the book by David Gran, makes for compelling viewing – and the film’s two-hundred-million dollar budget ensures that Scorcese’s evocation of the era is beautifully realised. Many of the great director’s touches are in evidence here: the matter-of-fact quality of the murders; the chilling depictions of everyday cruelty and avarice; and, as ever, there’s Scorcese’s uncanny ability to choose the perfect music to accompany any given scene.

There are also three extraordinary performances to savour. Di Caprio as the sullen, selfish and frankly not-very-bright Ernest may be a career-best display of acting. He plays the role as a kind of arrested adolescent with a constantly glum expression, as though he’s being admonished for something he’s done (or maybe hasn’t done). Old hand De Niro is horribly oleaginous as Hale, a man so utterly devious, it’s a wonder he can manage to walk in a straight line. And Gladstone is terrific as Mollie, managing to convey so much with a withering look, a shrug, a silence. Her calm presence is somehow this turbulent story’s anchor.

The film’s first and concluding thirds, the set-up and pay-off – when FBI man Tom White (Jesse Plemons) arrives to initiate a long-awaited investigation –  easily hold my attention, but that middle section feels decidedly baggy and and the constant stream of viewers nipping out for a judicious toilet break is really distracting. It prompts the inevitable question: does the film need to be so long? In my opinion, no. Trimmed back by an hour, this could have been even more satisfying. I can’t help but think wistfully back to the likes of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, epic films that always included an intermission around the halfway mark for this very reason.

That said, I love Killer’s ironic coda, which presents an account of what we have just seen as a soapy ‘true crime’ vintage radio recording, and which also features a cameo from Mr Scorcese himself. But the film fails to mention the fact (which I read about elsewhere) that the heinous conditions that the Osage tribe suffers in this film persist to this day. They are still being stiffed by the oil companies, who have brazenly commandeered the ‘black gold’ that continues to bubble up from beneath their reservation. And their demands for justice remain unheard.

Land of the free? Don’t make me laugh.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

I, Daniel Blake

17/10/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s a propitious time for this play to appear, following, as it does, close on the heels of Ken Loach’s ‘final’ film, The Old Oak. 2016’s I, Daniel Blake was one of the veteran director’s most palpable successes, a compelling and often heartbreaking study of working-class life in broken Britain, set in the North East of England and featurIng stand up comedian Dave Johns in the title role.

It’s Johns who has adapted the film for stage and, for the most part, he’s stuck pretty closely to Paul Laverty’s screenplay – a little too closely perhaps, because surely the whole  point of a theatrical adaptation is to open up the original to fresh perspectives. Suffice to say that all the key scenes from the movie are present and correct, and it’s a hard heart indeed that can resist the subsequent pummelling.

Daniel (David Nellist) is a widower, a carpenter by trade, recently stricken by a debilitating heart attack. His doctor has advised him that he cannot risk doing anything strenuous but, in order to qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance, he has to be able to demonstrate that he is actively looking for employment. At the job centre he encounters Katie (Bryony Corrigan) and her daughter, Daisy (Jodie Wild), recently rehoused from London and struggling to survive in an unfamiliar location. But Katie is a few minutes late for her meeting and is brusquely told that she is being sanctioned and will have to wait four weeks to get any money.

Daniel befriends the pair and does what he can to help them settle into their new home, while he goes about the thankless task of jumping through the various hoops that the DHSS keep throwing in his path. It’s clear that sooner or later, the merde is going to hit the fan…

The performances are exemplary (particularly Corrigan, who has to handle most of the heavy lifting), and there are some credible attempts to bring the piece up to date with recordings of the voices of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, demonstrating their complete lack of empathy for anyone who is less privileged than them. Rhys Jarman’s design makes good use of video projection, highlighting a series of meaningless adverts supposed to inspire confidence in the government’s approach to unemployment, while Mark Calvert handles the direction with an assured touch.

But not everything from the film translates effectively to the stage. There are perhaps a couple of heartless interviews too many and a lengthy scene that follows the infamous graffiti incident – a homeless guy delivering an attempt at a rabble-rousing oration –  feels uncomfortably tacked on.

Still, this is a credible and compelling play and the fervent applause from a packed audience makes it clear, that if anything has changed for the unemployed since 2016, it’s certainly not for the better.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Great Escaper

11/10/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

This poignant film, written by William Ivory and directed by Oliver Parker, relates the true story of pensioner Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine), who, when we first encounter him in 2014, is living a life of quiet desperation in a care home in Hove. He and his wife of many years, Rene (Glenda Jackson, in her final film role), have become used to the daily grind of meals and medication. Bernard is a veteran of World War 2 and like many others, he’s applied to go over to France to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of D Day, but is disappointed to be told that he’s left it too late.

Bernard and Rene have a heart-to-heart discussion about the situation. She’s not mobile enough to travel these days, but realises that Bernard has a long-held need to confront a particular ghost from his past. She advises him to go to France anyway, realising that this is something he really needs to do. He takes her at her word and slips away early one morning. When the care home staff finally start to notice his absence, Rene does an excellent job of stalling for time…

The Great Escaper is one of those stories that would seem ridiculously far-fetched if it weren’t true. Aboard the cross channel ferry, Bernard befriends Arthur, a former RAF officer (John Standing), who is haunted by his own tragic memories of the war; and he also encounters, Scott (Victor Oshin), a more recent veteran, who had the bad fortune to stand on a landmine in Helmand Province and is now struggling to adjust to his new life as an amputee.

These contemporary strands are punctuated by scenes of a young Bernard (Will Fletcher) and Irene (Laura Marcus), meeting during wartime and falling in love – and there are steadily unfolding sequences of the event that has haunted Bernard’s dreams for decades. The young actors who double for Caine and Jackson are perfectly cast in their roles.

This isn’t an epic film by any stretch of the imagination – it’s small and realistic and never afraid to show the darker side of ageing, the awful tragedy of it. Though the media interest in Bernard’s adventure actually happened, it’s never feels overblown; it’s measured and realistic. There’s also a refusal to glorify the bravery of the veterans.

The film’s strongest moment is the scene where a sobbing Bernard stands alone amidst a forest of white crosses in a military graveyard. ‘What a waste,’ he cries – and I’m pretty confident there’s not a soul in the audience that would disagree with him.

If eventually the film feels a little too sombre for its own good, there are still genuinely heartwarming performances from the two leads. Caine came out of retirement for the chance to work with Jackson again (they last appeared together in 1975’s The Romantic Englishwoman) and now, reunited for one final appearance, they make a winning team.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

A Little Life

08/10/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Beamed live from the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End, A Little Life has recently been the subject of some controversy – not least the fact that its star, James Norton, spends much of the three-hours-and forty-minute duration stark naked. As a gruelling depiction of sexual exploitation unfolds, Norton’s performance is extraordinary, a genuine tour de force.

But there are issues that override that performance.

Jude lives in New York’s trendy Tribeca district and we’re to believe he is a high-flying lawyer (although we are never shown anything of his professional life). He has a trio of equally high-flying friends (a movie star! an artist! an architect!) and is – weirdly, at the age of thirty – about to be adopted by Harold (Zubin Varla), a wealthy professor, who sees Jude as the son he’s never had.

If this sounds too good to be true, don’t be fooled – because most of what ensues is frankly too bad to be true. Jude, it turns out, has endured a childhood of unbelievable cruelty. Abandoned as a baby, he is put into the care of sadistic monk, Brother Luke (Elliott Cowan), who – in the finest Catholic tradition – farms him out as a child prostitute. And it doesn’t end there. He stumbles from one awful experience to the next, exploited at every turn by a string of monstrous abusers (all played by Cowan). Could anyone really be as unlucky as Jude?

But here in the present day, people are queuing up to worship him! Willem (Luke Thompson), the aforementioned movie star, is deeply in love with Jude and wants the two of them to become a couple. But, because of those childhood experiences, Jude cannot enjoy anything like a healthy relationship, preferring instead to spend his time slicing himself open with a razor (something we are repeatedly shown in sickening detail).

Adopted from her own novel by Hanya Hanigihara, with the assistance of Koen Tachelet and the play’s director, Ivo van Hove, A Little Life is, it has to be said, cleverly presented. All the characters are constantly onstage, slipping effortlessly between the various scenes while, on two walls, slow-motion tracking shots of New York offer a sense of place.

But the story feels increasingly like torture porn, a relentless slice of sheer misery. I’m sure the highbrow audiences watching this play would never lower themselves to watch a film like Saw, for instance, yet A Little Life displays the same kind of world view, a callous and prurient invitation to wallow in somebody else’s misery. It feels manipulative, a coldly contrived feel-bad experience, which ultimately adds up to not very much at all.

A section of the audience is seated onstage, behind the action, presumably so that we can see our own reactions reflected in theirs. However, while many are holding handkerchieves to their faces, I feel curiously unmoved because it all feels too callous for comfort. Norton is terrific, but the vehicle he’s starring in really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Creator

30/09/2

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Gareth Edwards made an impressive feature debut with Monsters in 2010, but followed it with a lacklustre Godzilla reboot and, in 2016, an underrated Star Wars standalone, Rogue One. The Creator marks a significant step up for him. This epic sci-fi adventure is set on a war-torn planet Earth in the year 2070 and its story – about the struggle between humans and AIs – could hardly be more topical, particularly as Edwards (who co-write the screenplay with Chris Weitz) takes it in an entirely unexpected direction. Who are the bad guys in this story? Wait and see.

Twenty-six years after a nuclear explosion has ravaged Los Angeles, Joshua (John David Washington) is an American Army operative, working under deep cover amidst AI forces, who are based in New Asia. He’s fallen in love with and is married to enemy scientist, Maya (Gemma Chan), which is complicated to say the very least, particularly as she’s now pregnant by him. But when the mission goes badly awry, Maya is caught in the crossfire and Joshua only just manages to escape with his life.

Some time later, he’s approached by Colonel Howell (Alison Janney), who has compelling evidence that Maya is still alive and wants Joshua to join a new mission to hunt her down. What’s more, she assures him, Maya is deeply involved in the creation of a new AI ‘super weapon’, something that American forces are desperate to eradicate. Sensing an opportunity to be reunited with his wife, Joshua agrees to the mission – but when he comes face to face with the new weapon, he is understandably bewildered. Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voiles) is a child, possibly the most adorable-looking creature in the universe – and she may even contain Joshua’s own DNA.

What ensues is a fabulous slice of world-building, a series of breathless action sequences set against majestic eastern landscapes. There may be a little too much gunplay here for some – and the 12A certificate means that punches are occasionally pulled to try and constrain all that violence – but it’s impossible not to be swept up in the steadily rising suspense, as Joshua desperately tries to get Alphie to safety.

The Creator looks like a big expensive project but Edwards has brought the film in for a comparatively miserly eighty million dollars (it sounds like a lot but is a third of what these sci-fi extravaganzas usually cost). What’s more, the story, which sounds like broad strokes on paper, is considerably more nuanced than most sci-fi adventures and I find myself constantly impressed by the film’s invention, the grubby reality of the AI creations that populate this imagined world. Edward’s script fearlessly challenges our expectations about America. The usual Hollywood message is completely subverted and the age-old macho-saviour complex revealed as a toxic sham.

John David Washington makes a compelling hero (and, after Tenet, he must be relieved to star in a film that viewers can actually understand), while Madeleine Yuna Voiles is quite simply mesmerising as Alphie. If you like action and you like sci-fi, chances are you’ll enjoy The Creator. And happily, you won’t have to pay fifty million dollars to see it.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

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

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