Film

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

27/06/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Hmm.

I accept that ‘hmm’ isn’t the most promising of openings to a film review, but it’s the best I can muster for the inelegantly titled Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, directed by Sophie Hyde. It’s possibly the most mixed bag of a movie ever, with lots to admire – but lots to wince at too.

Emma Thompson, of course, falls into the former category. She’s a terrific actor. Here, she’s playing Nancy, a retired widow with a mission: to have an orgasm. A former RE teacher, Nancy has only ever had boring sex with her husband. Now he’s dead, but she’s still alive, and she’s determined not to waste the time she has left. The answer? A sex worker. Enter the titular Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), purveyor of fantasies at an hourly rate.

But can Nancy let go enough to, well… let herself go?

We find out via a series of encounters, all in the same bland hotel room, although the focus is usually on what happens around the sex – the conversations and revelations that occur as Nancy negotiates the minefield of paid-for physical contact.

Katy Brand’s script is agonisingly funny in places: she nails Nancy’s ‘oh so British’ embarrassment, her tendency to overthink out loud, to chatter her discomfort. Thompson clearly revels in these moments, and – as a character study – the film is a roaring success. It’s also bold in its addressing of an older woman’s sexuality. The tone is set early on, when Leo describes Nigella Lawson as “sexy”. Nancy waits for him to add the obligatory “for her age” but Leo demurs. “She’s empirically sexy,” he says. And, over time, Nancy learns to like her own body too, to stop apologising for her tummy and her saggy boobs, to accept herself the way she is.

McCormack is a relative newcomer, but it seems likely he’s a big career ahead. The camera loves him, and he embodies the role well, slowly revealing the steel behind the soft exterior. “I’m who you want me to be,” says Leo, perfectly fulfilling his contract – but his boundaries are clear, and he’s protective of his ‘real’ self.

There is some attempt to deal with ethical issues, but this feels a little glib. Nancy talks about the essay she used to set her students: ‘Should sex work be legalised?’ She mentions trafficking and violence against female sex workers. Leo tells her her enjoys his work, that he doesn’t want to be painted as a ‘poor little orphan’ to suit someone else’s conscience. They reach an uneasy consensus, agreeing that sex therapy should be available ‘from the council’ (though heaven knows what that would be like). And I know it’s a complex subject, that sex workers often object to being cast as victims, when many of them have agency and choice – and who am I to tell them that they’re wrong – but I don’t think this gives us carte blanche to ignore the exploitation and misery that undeniably exists as well. And Leo is so very clean-cut that the whole thing appears curiously unsexy, so wholesome that it seems to be in denial about the gritty physicality involved. This version of sex work is not so much glamourised as defanged.

So, ‘hmm’ it is. I enjoy watching Leo Grande but I’m unconvinced by it. And if you’re a teacher? Maybe don’t tell your ex-pupils about your sex life. It’s not empowering; it’s just weird.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Elvis

26/06/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Nobody ever goes to a Baz Luhrmann film expecting subtlety – and indeed, from its opening scene onwards, Elvis is a big, brash, noisy exploration of the late singer’s life and times. It’s also an excoriating account of the Faustian deal he made with his manager, the odious ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker, that would keep Presley effectively shackled to him throughout his career. But make no mistake, the ensuing events provide a thrilling cinematic journey that powers through two hours and thirty-nine minutes at an invigorating gallop, flinging out dazzling visual flourishes and exciting musical routines as it goes. Some reviewers have complained about the film’s lack of ‘authenticity,’ but they’re surely missing the point. This is as much about Elvis’s legend as it is about his life.

We start in 1997, at the hospital bed of Parker (Tom Hanks, looking very convincingly fleshed out), who assures us that he has played no part in the untimely death of his most famous client. We then flash back in time to see Parker’s first encounter with Presley (Austin Butler) at a Hayride event in 1955, where the young singer’s onstage gyrations drive the local teenage girls into hysterics. Parker, a long established fairground huckster, smells an opportunity to make money – and promptly signs Presley up to a punishing contract.

Soon enough, Presley is selling records by the millions and can move his beloved mother, Gladys (Helen Thompson), and his ineffectual father, Vernon (Richard Roxburgh), into the big house that will become Graceland. Super-stardom beckons but Parker is determined that whatever transpires must happen on his terms – and all that sexy hip swivelling is drawing too much criticism, as is Elvis’s habit of hanging out with black musicians and assimilating their music into his own routines. Parker is all for dialling down the unbridled sexuality that brought Elvis to the public’s attention in the first place and turning him into a ‘family’ entertainer, but Presley is understandably reluctant to lose his edge…

Elvis is built around two outstanding performances. Hanks is wonderfully slimy as the manipulative Colonel Tom, playing his snake-oil charm to the hilt, but it’s Butler who deserves most of the praise, taking on the near impossible task of personifying an icon and succeeding on just about every level. He may not look exactly like Presley, but he somehow manages to nail the man’s persona and this goes way beyond impersonation, so much so that footage of the real Presley can be slipped in toward’s the film’s conclusion without causing a ripple.

I fully expect an Oscar nomination in due course.

With the passage of time, it’s easy to forget just how repressed and racist America was in the 1950s and the cataclysmic effect that Presley’s arrival had on popular culture. This serves as an eloquent reminder, sweeping us up and dropping us headfirst into those exhilarating waters. It becomes an increasingly heartbreaking journey; nevertheless, Luhrmann’s film serves as a powerful tribute to its illustrious subject. I describe few films as ‘unmissable’ but this one definitely qualifies.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Black Phone

24/06/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

After stepping away from Marvel’s Dr Strange franchise, director Scott Derrickson turns his attention to something entirely different. The Black Phone is a smaller scale project, filmed during lockdown, and is all the more powerful for its tight focus. Derrickson’s screenplay is based on a short story by Joe Hill. Set in Colorado in the 1970s, the grubby, hardscrabble lifestyle of the community in which the story unfolds is convincingly evoked through Brett Jutkiewicz’s stylised cinematography. Be warned, this is a visceral, uncompromising tale that’s not for the faint-hearted.

Finney (Mason Thames) is a teenage boy, struggling to come to terms with a high school that’s dominated by punch-happy alpha males, while simultaneously suffering the brutal ministrations of his alcoholic father, Terrence (Jeremy Davis), who has never properly recovered from his wife’s suicide. Finney’s younger sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), also comes in for beatings from Terrence and is prone to having mysterious dreams, which seem to offer clues to the identity of ‘The Grabber,’ a local boogie man who has been kidnapping young boys from the area over a long period.

No trace of his victims has ever been found.

And then, inevitably, Finney himself falls prey to The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) and finds himself locked up in a dingy basement, awaiting an unknown fate. On the wall beside his mattress is the titular phone. It’s out of use, the wire cut through and yet it has an unnerving tendency to ring from time to time – and whenever he answers, Finney finds that the voices on the other end of the line are eerily familiar…

It would be impossible to relate more of the plot without giving away massive spoilers, but suffice to say this is a tale of survival, where Finney must pit his wits against his captor. Derrickson has the good sense to devote plenty of time to character development before the abduction occurs, which means I’m already rooting for Finney and Gwen by the time it happens – and it also helps that the two young leads are so appealing. Hawke submits an uncannily powerful performance as the villain, considering he spends most of the film half-hidden by a series of bizarre face masks. The sense of dread throughout the story is palpable. The jump-cut is a regular narrative device in this kind of film, but there are some here that are so impeccably timed they have me almost out of my seat on a couple of occasions.

The overall atmosphere is enhanced by a kicking 70s soundtrack and I’m particularly impressed by a lengthy sequence based around Pink Floyd’s On the Run – I suspect that Derrickson has been waiting a very long time for the opportunity to deploy it, but for me it’s one of the film’s high points.

This won’t be to everyone’s taste. Those who deplore screen violence will be sorely tested by many of the scenes unflinchingly depicted here, but if nothing else, The Black Phone offers an encouraging escape from the slice-and-dice mundanity that has dominated the horror genre for far too long.

My advice? Buckle in and give it a whirl.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Lightyear

21/06/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

After the recent disappointment of watching Pixar’s latest releases on the small screen, it’s great to see one back in its natural home – but my delight is somewhat dulled by the fact that this is a prequel to their super-successful Toy Story franchise. What’s more, what’s happened to the practice of showing a new short film before every feature? I hope that returns.

The film begins with a title card reminding us that, in the original story, Buzz Lightyear was an action-figure inspired by a movie, and we are about to watch that movie.

Here, Buzz (voiced by Chris Evans, replacing Tim Allen for no explicable reason) is a Space Ranger in Star Command, who, when we first encounter him, is exploring habitable planet T’kani Prime with his commander, Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) – but his miscalculation while trying to escape the hostile life-forms that live there leaves him marooned, along with the huge crew aboard his ship. The only possible method of escape requires Buzz to fly at hyperspeed, something he repeatedly tries to do, but each trip he makes means that, though he remains the same age, everybody else ages by years.

The film’s early stages are expertly piloted, alternating suspenseful skirmishes and cliffhangers with moments of real poignancy and, needless to say, the animation throughout is sumptuous. As ever there are some wonderful characterisations here. ‘Empathy feline robot’ Sox (Peter Sohn) is a particular delight, and the fact that Alisha is gay and that she and her partner have a child is so perfectly handled, I start to think that we’re on a perfect trajectory for another Pixar triumph.

But around the halfway stage, a mysterious villain called The Emporer Zurg (James Brolin) arrives on T’kani with battalions of Zyclops robots under his command, while Buzz finds himself reluctantly teaming up with Alisha’s daughter, Izzy (Keke Palmer). Suddenly everything starts to feel much more generic and, it must be said, far too complicated for its own good. If I struggle with the labyrinthine twists of the timey-wimey adventures that ensue, God only knows what the battalions of school kids occupying the front row seats make of them.

There’s an interesting reveal towards the film’s conclusion but, by this time, too much impetus has been lost to save the project. This is a shame, because that first half demonstrates that the team at Pixar can make the most inauspicious vehicle fly, even if – as in this case – they can’t make it stay the distance.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Fresh

17/06/22

Disney+

I have high hopes of this comedy-horror, where the feminist sub-text is right there on the surface. It promises to be a ‘fresh’ take on a well-worn trope, written and directed by two women (Lauryn Kahn and Mimi Cave respectively). So imagine my disappointment when I find myself watching an all-too familiar extended sequence: a beautiful young woman chained up in a cruel madman’s basement, crying and begging for her freedom. Surely I can’t be alone in thinking that it’s not enough to subvert the ending (spoiler: it’s not a man who saves the day)? That, actually, you can’t make a valid point about the exploitation of women by exploiting them further? Or that a film that lingers unironically on images of women’s suffering loses its claim to be a fucking comedy?

It starts off promisingly. Okay, so it’s not exactly subtle. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is single and sick of the dating scene. We see her out with a cartoonish man, all wafting scarf and pronouncements about how women just aren’t as feminine as they used to be. It’s mildly amusing: recognisably awful, but also (whisper) a bit hack. Later, she texts another guy, who immediately sends her a dick pic. Maybe love just isn’t for her, she tells her best pal, Mollie (Jojo T Gibbs). But then she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan), who seems too good to be true. He’s sweet, polite, engaging, kind.

And yeah, too good to be true. Because Steve is a cannibal, who butchers women. It’s an obvious metaphor for the romance meat market – and, sadly, the film’s charm wears off as quickly as Steve’s. The lengthy pre-credit sequence hints at something gentle and quirky; what follows is almost gore-by-numbers, albeit with some gorgeous cinematography (by Pawel Pogorzelski) and a banging 80s soundtrack.

Ach, I don’t know. It makes me weary. I hated rape-revenge movies The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Elle for the same reason: I don’t want to watch women being victimised, and then emerging, brutalised, to re-enact the same violence against men. That’s not redemption; it’s having your steak and eating it: a tone-deaf definition of a ‘strong woman’ – and we shouldn’t let the film-makers off the hook. Emerald Fennell nails feminist vengeance in Promising Young Woman, proving it can be done.

That’s not to say there’s nothing good about this film. The actors are all impressive, although Gibbs is criminally under-used as Mollie (of course she is, because Mollie is black and gay, only ever destined for a sidekick role alongside the straight, white heroine). I like the device of setting up Paul (Dayo Okeniyi) as a potential hero, and then deflating that hope. Stan is well-cast as the killer, plausibly likeable, so that his success in charming Noa seems credible enough. The initial meat-packing sequences are wonderfully stylised, hinting at the better movie this could have been.

In many ways, the whole thing works better as an analogy for farming, where animals live in captivity, and where ‘kindness’ only extends as far as keeping them warm and fed so that they’re tender and disease-free when we come to eat them. That’s not the intended message, but it’s the one I’m taking home.

This movie just doesn’t work for me: the ‘comedy’ never raises more than a small smile, and the ‘horror’ is nasty rather than scary. Sadly, in the end, Fresh is more than a little bit stale.

2.2 stars

Susan Singfield

All My Friends Hate Me

10/16/22

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

What do you do when a joke goes too far? When does humour turn to cruelty? And at what point do you need to speak out when your friends are making you unhappy? These questions are cleverly addressed in All My Friends Hate Me. Written by Tom Stourton and Tom Palmer, and directed by Andrew Gaynord, this dark comedy is a slippery exercise in steadily-mounting paranoia.

Pete (Stourton) is about to turn thirty-one and is proud of the work he’s been doing at an overseas refugee camp – and which he’s prone to mention at every opportunity. He’s also considering proposing to his partner, Sonia (Charlie Clive), but first there’s the little matter of an invitation he’s had from his old university chum, George (Joshua McGuire), to go to his swanky house in the country for a long weekend of celebration with the rest of the old uni crew. Sonia is tied up with work, but promises to follow him down later, so Pete gets into his car and sets off with high hopes for a memorable birthday.

Well, it’s certainly that, but for all the wrong reasons.

From the very beginning, things go wrong for him. He gets lost near to his destination and asks for directions from the creepy Norman (Christopher Fairbank, looking suitably sepulchral); he has a misadventure with a man sleeping rough in a car; and, when he finally reaches George’s house, he’s dismayed by what he finds.

His friends have invited a mysterious stranger along. Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns) is somebody they’ve ‘met in the pub,’ and he turns out to be quite obnoxious. As the weekend proceeds, Pete – who is socially anxious at the best of times – is subjected to a barrage of practical jokes, hurtful comments and mysterious encounters. Somebody seems to have stolen the herbal pills he takes to keep himself calm – and why does Harry keep writing down things in a little book?

Everything that happens is seen from Pete’s point of view – we share his discomfort every step of the way. One of the guests is Claire (Antonia Clarke), his old flame from college days, and people can’t seem to stop mentioning the fact. Pete hopes things will improve when Sonia finally shows up, but she dutifully arrives – and they don’t.

The ensuing misadventures are by turns toe-curling, darkly funny, deeply embarrassing and occasionally genuinely frightening. I love that the creators of this film steadfastly refuse to take things into the realms of the unbelievable. A Hollywood version of the same story would likely have ventured into bloodshed, mayhem and revenge, but this is all the stronger for avoiding that.

Astute, credible and – at times – even horribly familiar, All My Friends Hate Me keeps me hooked right up to its final unsettling moment. Those planning a birthday celebration away from home may want to wait until after they’ve returned before watching this. Because, well… just because people say they’re your friends, it doesn’t mean they really are.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Pistol

03/06/22

Disney +

Looking back, it’s hard to fully appreciate the full cataclysm delivered to the United Kingdom by the arrival of The Sex Pistols in 1975. Here were four working class lads who could barely play their instruments and who seemed more interested in causing controversy than producing hit records. They did manage the latter, even if the radio initially refused to play them. Now, with the Jubilee in full swing, it’s a really interesting time for this six part series to land – and, if the House of Mouse seems an unlikely home for it, Danny Boyle as director makes perfect sense.

Working alongside regular collaborator, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel, Boyle makes this much more than a standard rock biopic. The extended running time offers him the opportunity to explore a more diverse landscape. Co-written by guitarist Steve Jones (played here by Toby Wallace), and based on his auto-biography, this shows how the Pistols were a construct, created in the fevered brain of agent provocateur Malcolm McLaren (a wonderfully smarmy performance by Thomas Brodie-Sangster). His callous machinations are clearly displayed, as he edges out original bassist Glen Matlock (Christian Lees) – who he considers too straight and too musically accomplished – in favour of Sid Vicious (Louis Partridge), who can’t play a note but looks perfect.

Dod Mantel’s restless cameras capture everyone else in the vicinity. They include Chrissie Hynde (Sydney Chandler), who comes within a hair’s breadth of fronting the band; Vivienne Westwood (Talulah Riley), who creates the Pistols’ iconic look; and Jordan (Maisie Williams), who blazes a trail for women’s rights in her own fearless way. (Sadly, the real Jordan died only weeks before this series was released.)

Boyle liberally peppers the proceedings with contemporary newsreel footage, tabloid headlines and clips of established musicians touting their pompous productions: an extract from Rick Wakeman’s ‘King Arthur & The Knight’s of the Round Table – on Ice’ really ought to be a spoof, but sadly isn’t.

There are uncannily realistic recreations of true events, including the Pistols’ explosive appearance on the Bill Grundy TV show, their ill-fated tour around the north of England and their even more disastrous attempt to play a series of gigs in America. There’s an inevitable dip in episode seven as the heartbreaking relationship between Vicious and Nancy Spungen (Emma Appleton) reaches its inevitable conclusion, but Boyle could hardly have left it out – and, happily, the lost momentum is soon recovered.

It’s interesting to note that the actors perform their own music and vocals, so much respect is due to Anson Boon, who has the difficult task of portraying John Lydon and actually making us care about him. His performance is a particular triumph.

Eagle-eyed viewers may spot the fact that Boyle occasionally slips performance footage of the real band into the mix and it’s entirely to his credit that those moments are genuinely hard to spot. Poor advance reviews mean that I don’t expect to like it as much as I do – indeed, I find it so utterly compulsive, I watch all six episodes in two hugely enjoyable binges.

Never mind the bad buzz – this really is the bollocks!

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Men

01/06/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

What is it about writer/director Alex Garland? He’s a man who continually comes up with great ideas, but from his collected works, I’d be hard pressed to pick out one film that’s truly satisfying. Men is a good case in point. For a good two thirds of this atmospheric folk horror tale, I’m absolutely loving it.

But then…

Harper (Jessie Buckley) has recently been through a tough time. She’s mourning her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu), and is haunted by the idea that he’s committed suicide because she wanted to divorce him. Badly in need of respite, she heads off to a remote country guesthouse in the hope that a bit of solitude will help to heal her wounds. There, she is greeted by the owner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), a plummy, officious sort who playfully chides her for helping herself to an apple from his tree when she arrives. ‘Forbidden fruit and all that.’

Harper decides to take a walk in the countryside, (in a glorious extended sequence that really shows off the skills of cinematographer, Rob Hardy) and begins to think that she may be on the road to recovery. But then she has a spooky encounter in an abandoned railway tunnel and shortly thereafter, is terrorised by a naked man, who she thinks, may be stalking her.

As she encounters more of the local population (nearly all of them male), she begins to realise that this isn’t going to be the peaceful sojourn she’s been hoping for…

You’ll already have read that the film’s big conceit is that every male character (except for James) is played by Rory Kinnear – and played brilliantly, I might add, his creations ranging from a deliciously sinister local priest to a troubled teenage boy. Buckley too is terrific, in a challenging role where she is obliged to do most of her emoting in silence.

The film’s subtext would be perfectly clear even without the massive clue offered in its title. All of Kinnear’s characters are examples of toxic masculinity, the essence instilled from birth and manifested in different ways – in sarcasm, in outmoded chivalric beliefs and, sometimes, in outright violence. These men all stem from the same poisoned root. The idea is perfectly expressed in the film’s first two thirds and no viewer will be in any doubt about Garland’s intentions.

So why, I ask myself, does he decide, in the film’s final stretch, to double down on the message, presenting an extended body-horror climax that tells us pretty much what we already know. I feel as though I’m being bludgeoned repeatedly over the head with the same premise, as though I can’t be trusted to appreciate its meaning.

And then, there’s the final bit, which without any warning throws a handful of doubt into the mix, obfuscating that message and ensuring that I leave the cinema feeling confused.

At any rate, it’s a disappointing conclusion to a film that has me hooked from the start.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Top Gun: Maverick

25/05/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I wasn’t a big fan of the original Top Gun.

Reviewing it for City Life Magazine in 1986, I complained that the film felt like a glossy advertisement for the US Navy – and I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when the American military elected to instal enrolment booths in cinemas showing the film, so that pumped-up youngsters could walk straight out of a viewing and sign themselves up for active service.

This sequel had already been a long time coming before the pandemic obliged its release date to be pushed back several times. Finally, here it is, with Tom Cruise still looking perfectly serviceable in the hunky action man role and with Joseph Kosinski taking up the directorial reins on behalf of the late Tony Scott.

Years after the events depicted in the first movie, we meet Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, still a mere Captain, while most of his contemporaries are either dead or have risen through the ranks. He’s now working as a test pilot and is still more than ready to bend the rules when the powers-that-be threaten to close down his current project.

Close to facing a court martial, he’s ‘rescued’ by his former teammate Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky (Val Kilmer), who gets him assigned as instructor to an elite group of young pilots, training for a dangerous mission in Iran.

Mitchell soon discovers that one of his students is Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of his old wingman ‘Goose.’ Bradshaw blames Mitchell for the death of his father – and for the the fact that he chose to hold him back in his training for several years. Can Maverick somehow bury the hatchet with Rooster and, at the same time, teach him to become a valuable member of his young team?

Hey, does the Pope shit in the woods?

Maverick is, I’m glad to say, a major improvement on the original film. Yes, it’s still pumped full of testosterone and yes, there’s still (inevitably) some major dick-swinging on display, but this story is considerably more nuanced than its predecessor and at least here the female characters are allowed to be more than just compliant love interests. There is still some romance, of course: Maverick hooks up with an ex, Penelope Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), now conveniently divorced and running the local bar. It’s hardly a plot spoiler to say that, yes, old sparks are destined to fly.

As with the first movie, there are some extraordinary flight sequences here and they are given extra oomph when I remember that Cruise is doing it all for real, which is a mark of the man’s commitment to his craft. Unlike its perfectly honed lead, the film does get somewhat lumpen around the mid section, when a series of training sequences go into rather more detail than is necessary. It could do with a little less of that.

But things rally magnificently for a genuinely pulse-quickening final half hour and (yes, I admit it) a heartwarming conclusion. While you could argue that plot-wise it’s all faintly ridiculous (and you wouldn’t be wrong on that score), this is nonetheless a slice of highly polished entertainment that largely succeeds in taking its original premise to unexpected new heights.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Benediction

21/05/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Once thought of as the foremost chronicler of British working-class life, writer/director Terence Davies turns his attention to the more privileged world of the poet and novelist, Seigfried Sassoon, in a bleak but affecting account of his life. When we first meet Sassoon (Jack Lowden) he’s already a decorated war hero, who has publicly announced his hatred for the political machinations of the conflict and his refusal to have anything more to do with it.

He’s duly packed off to Craiglockheart, Scotland, to undergo ‘therapy’ and is issued with an armband which identifies him as suffering from mental health issues, rather than as a conscientious objector. The latter, of course, generally tended to end up in front of a firing squad.

At Craiglockheart, Sassoon finds himself under the sympathetic care of Dr Rivers (Ben Daniels), who – like Sassoon – is secretly homosexual; it’s also here that he meets young poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennysson), to whom he becomes a friend and a mentor – whilst wistfully observing that Owen is the greater talent. Owen, of course, is soon declared to be ‘cured’ and despatched back to the trenches, where he is destined to die at just twenty-five years old.

As the years roll by and the jazz age seems to offer the promise of a more permissive society, Sassoon moves through a series of relationships with unsuitable men. These include Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), depicted here as a thoroughly odious piece of work – and Stephen Tennent (Calam Lynch), who despises the very concept of fidelity. Davies captures the spirit of the age with great skill and the marvellously bitchy banter deployed by Sassoon’s acquaintances is endlessly entertaining. There’s also an uncomfortable scene where Sassoon is invited to recite a poem at a soirée and manages to destroy the evening with the literary equivalent of an articulated lorry smashing through a plate glass window.

Again the years roll by and another war ensues. In an ill-advised attempt to achieve outward respectability, Sassoon decides to marry Hester Gatty (Kate Philips), and it’s clear from the outset that their marriage is not going to end well. In later scenes, the poet has transformed into a bitter, guilt-wracked recluse – this version played by Peter Capaldi – struggling to connect with his son, George (Richard Goulding), and haunted by the fact that he has never found the acclaim he feels is his due. Capaldi looks nothing like Lowden, but perhaps that’s the point. Isolated in a world he no longer identifies with – a straight world of pop music and disposable trivia – Sassoon really does seem like an entirely different person.

Austere and elegiac, Benediction won’t be for everyone, but for poetry lovers there are readings of some of Sassoon’s finest works, often recited over harrowing black and white sequences from the First World War – the spectre that shaped his talent and from which he never really escaped. It’s perhaps ironic that the film’s moving climax is handed over to Wilfred Owen, whose shattering poem, Disabled, provides the soundtrack for Sassoon’s greatest moment of self-realisation.

Benediction is a fascinating piece – an evocation of a period that seemed to offer the possibility of sexual freedom, but somehow never truly delivered on that promise – and the life story of a man haunted by his own ghosts.

“Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.“

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney