Film

The Courier

19/08/21

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Courier is a spy movie, so we know what to expect, right? Gun fights, car chases, heart-stopping stunts…

Well no, because this ‘based on a true story’ tale, set in the cinematically-neglected Cold War era, plays it straight and, for the most part, sticks pretty closely to the facts. It’s 1960 and America and the Soviet Union are engaged in the arms race, the two super powers moving inexorably nearer and nearer to nuclear conflict.

High-ranking Soviet intelligence officer Oleg Penskovsky (Merab Ninidze) can see the disaster that lies ahead. He contacts a couple of American tourists and asks them to take a message to the American Embassy, offering to supply the CIA with inside information in exchange for safe passage to the USA for him and his family.

Some time later, CIA agent Emily Donavan (Rachel Brosnahan) approaches MI6, asking if they can suggest somebody who might act as a go-between for them. Agent Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) thinks he may have chanced upon the perfect recruit, innocuous businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), who spends most of his time travelling the world, wining and dining potential clients for his various business interests. Wynne would surely be above suspicion? So they ask him if he will be their inside man. At first Wynne is non-plussed, if perhaps a little flattered by their invitation, but, after some prevarication, he accepts their offer. Shortly thereafter, he finds himself making contact with Penskovsky in Moscow and carrying various secret messages back and forth between Russia and Great Britain.

But, of course, while this all might look dreadfully routine on the surface, the dangers of being discovered are just as nerve-wracking and the consequences every bit as deadly.

Director Dominic Cooke ensures that The Courier is strong on period setting: the drab, chain-smoking world of the early 60s is accurately depicted in every shot. Both Cumberbatch and Ninidze nail their roles with aplomb and Tom O’Connor’s script focuses on the developing friendship between the two men, making Wynne’s ultimate actions totally believable. Jessie Buckley takes a thankless role as Wynne’s buttoned-up wife, Sheila, and wrings every ounce of possibility out of it, proving once again what a consummate actor she is.

While the film might be short on action tropes, it never lacks suspense and, as Wynne’s deception begins to unravel, the stakes are increasingly cranked up for maximum tension. Also, this is a film that doesn’t back away from depicting the horrors of Wynn’s subsequent incarceration. (Next time I dine out, I think I’ll skip the soup course.)

Some heroes, it seems, are less showy than the Bonds and the Bournes – and here’s the proof that a spy movie can be thrilling without regular recourse to flashy sports cars and semi-automatic weapons.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Stillwater

12/08/21

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Tom McCarthy’s film is a slower, subtler version of the “vigilante-let-down-by-the-system-so-has-to-go-it-alone” genre, and it’s this considered approach that makes the piece both watchable and heartbreaking. Bill Baker (Matt Damon) is a flawed hero, with neither super-strength nor driving passion to propel him forwards. He’s just a guy in a difficult situation, trying his best to put things right. And, a lot of the time, failing.

Bill’s daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin) is in prison in Marseilles. She’s been found guilty of murdering her girlfriend, fellow uni-student Lina, and has already been incarcerated for five years. Back in Oklahoma, Bill takes on all the casual labouring work he can find, and spends the proceeds making regular visits to France. He hasn’t always been the best dad – he has a history of drug and alcohol abuse – but he’s determined to be there for Alli now.

When the film opens, this is already routine. Bill’s prison visiting card is half-full of stamps; the staff at his hotel in Marseilles know him. This is just the way things are. But then Alli gives him a letter for her lawyer: a key witness, missing from her trial, has been heard bragging about getting away with murder, and Alli wants him found. But the lawyer sorrowfully dismisses her claim: it’s hearsay; it’s too late. So Bill is left with little choice but to investigate alone…

Well, not quite alone. He doesn’t speak French, so he needs an interpreter. He only has a few acquaintances in France, but Virginie (Camille Cottin), an erstwhile fellow hotel guest, seems friendly, and she owes him a favour for looking after her daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud). The trouble is, she was only at the hotel for a couple of nights, while repairs were being done on her apartment, so first he has to track her down… Luckily for Bill, the hotel staff aren’t exactly big on protecting their guests’ privacy, and anyway, Virginie doesn’t mind. She collects causes and campaigns, and she’s only too pleased to help. In fact, she offers him a room. He babysits and, well, fixes things (taps, toilets, sockets), because that’s what he does, while she reads everything she can and talks to potential witnesses.

If this all sounds familiar, don’t be fooled: McCarthy shies away from the tried-and-tested path. Bill and Virginie face real obstacles, and there isn’t always a way around them. Dogged determination doesn’t always win the day, and anyway, the last thing Alli wants is for Bill to get involved…

It’s great to see Cottin in a big-screen role. Obviously, she has an illustrious career behind her, but we’ve only recently become aware of her, via the rather marvellous TV series, Call My Agent (Netflix). She has a real presence here, inhabiting her character completely, and oozing charisma. But she’s not the only one: Siauvaud is a delight, and, of course, Breslin and Damon both have real acting chops too. Damon’s depiction of the monosyllabic, fish-out-of-water American is wonderfully understated: he’s inarticulate, humble, quietly resolved – a million miles away from the brash confidence of a typical ‘hero.’

This is a very realistic film, and cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi shows us a realistic vision of Marseilles too. We see the gorgeous white cliffs and blue waters of the Mediterranean; the romantic rooftop view from Virginie’s apartment; the glorious tumble of shuttered Provençal streets. But we also see the seamier districts – the seedy bars and no-go areas – and they’re properly integrated: we are shown the whole city, in all its vibrant contradictions.

There are echoes here of Amanda Knox’s story, but only echoes. Stillwater draws on that narrative, but it’s very much its own tale – of love and redemption and imperfect endings.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield

Limbo

09/08/21

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

The opening scene of Limbo is wonderfully absurd. Helga (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and her partner, Boris (Kenneth Collard), are dancing to It Started With a Kiss, watched by a bemused group of young men. It’s all part of the refugees’ training on how they should comport themselves, if their bids for political asylum are successful. As the song heats up, so the dancing becomes ever more frenetic, ever more ridiculous.

In the front row of the audience sits the impassive Omar (Amir El-Masry), who has recently fled from Syria and is now living alongside three other asylum-seekers in a little house on a remote Scottish island. Omar carries an Oud with him everywhere he goes – a stringed instrument rather like a large mandolin. He is, we’re told, a gifted musician, but hasn’t attempted to play since arriving in Scotland.

He claims, the instrument doesn’t sound the same as it used to.

One of Omar’s housemates, Farhad (Vikash Bhai), keeps urging him to play again, even offering to be his agent/manager, to promote a concert in the local community hall. Farhad has recently left Afghanistan and longs to live and work in London. He wants to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Freddie Mercury, with whom he shares a moustache and a religion – if not any talent. The other two housemates are ‘brothers’ Wasef (Ola Orebiyi) and Abedi (Kwabena Ansah), who seem to be constantly arguing. Wasef wants to play football for Chelsea, while Abedi’s ambitions are much more realistic. He’ll be happy to find work as a cleaner.

All four men – and the other refugees they encounter at the community centre – are lost in a kind of limbo. Unable to work, unable to leave, they can only wander aimlessly around the bleak island locations, and occasionally – in scenes that feel like a homage to Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero – use the local phone box to make calls to their loved ones. Omar regularly talks to his parents, who now live in Istanbul. They always mention Omar’s brother Nabil, the ‘hero’ who stayed in Syria to defend his homeland. They ask Omar for money, but he has none to send them, and they repeatedly ask him if he’s playing his Oud…

Director Ben Sharrock has created a mesmerising, slow burn of a story, the bleakness cleverly undercut by moments of humour and genuine poignancy. When Omar is approached by four joy-riding teenagers, I fear the worst, especially when they ask him if he’s a terrorist. But the result is curiously heartwarming – Limbo is a constant surprise, confident enough to take its own sweet time unfolding its story.

Again and again, the camera leaves the action to gaze wistfully along a seemingly endless road leading into the distance, an ambiguous image: does it offer the possibility of escape, or is it just a highway to nowhere?

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Suicide Squad

03/08/21

Cineworld

DC’s increasingly desperate attempts to rival the success of The Marvel Universe seem to be exemplified by this muddled and over-inflated offering from James Gunn. Not to be confused with David Ayers Suicide Squad, this is The Suicide Squad, but, much like its predecessor, it suffers from a bad case of #toomanysuperheroes. While it’s surely a more successful attempt to put those titular antiheroes onscreen, it still feels overlong, overcomplicated and, quite possibly, just over.

It starts well enough with the ruthless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, playing it straight) recruiting convicted hitman Savant (Michael Rooker) for a dangerous mission. She offers him an opportunity to reduce his prison sentence if he manages to survive, but adds the pesky complication that, if he tries to bail, a device in his head will explode. We then meet the rest of the team, one of whom we know from the first film and the rest of whom seem expendable. The familiar face belongs to Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and it soon becomes clear that his team only exists to serve as a distraction, while the real squad, led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba), gets on with the actual mission. He’s joined by another character we’ve met before, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and by some very odd newbies, including Peacemaker (John Cena), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), King Shark (a man with a shark’s head voiced by Sylvester Stallone) and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) who… well, suffice to say if you suffer from a fear of rodents, this film may not be for you.

There follow two hours and twelve minutes of fights, explosions, stunts and some explicitly bloody dismemberment, sailing very close to the wind considering the film’s 15 certificate. We’re treated to several shots of King Shark eating his opponents, which is probably meant to be comical, but is way too graphic for comfort. There’s also a sort of plot here, though it’s frankly bananas. The squad are sent to a South American country, where – in a ‘secret’ laboratory – scientists, under the supervision of Thinker (Peter Capaldi), are rearing a… giant starfish called Starro the Conqueror… yes, I know, at times it feels like a hyperactive six-year-old wrote the screenplay.

Like many of these big budget spectaculars, it’s a game of diminishing returns. There are too many punch ups, too many silly one-liners and too long a running time. Around the hour and a half mark, I’m starting to glance at my watch. Robbie’s Harley Quinn is by the far the best character, and she gets the film’s finest moment, an extended sequence where she escapes from prison to the tune of Just a Gigalo, the copious blood spatter replaced by flurries of animated flowers. It’s delightful and, if the rest of it were up to this standard, this would be a more positive review.

As it stands, it’s hard to be enthusiastic. A post-credits sequence which appears to offer a spin-off featuring one of the story’s less likeable characters is hardly an alluring prospect. Maybe I’ll give that one a miss.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Sparks Brothers

02/08/21

Cameo Cinema

Picture this. It’s 1973 and I’m sitting at home watching Top of the Pops, which, when I think about it, is pretty much all I ever did in 1973. And then, quite without warning, up pops a band called Sparks and they’re really, REALLY weird. The keyboard player is a mop-headed energetic hunk, while his older brother sits motionlessly at a keyboard looking like a villain from a Buster Keaton movie. The song, of course, is This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, and it isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard before. The next time I see my mates (we’re in a band, obviously), we’re all like, ‘Did you see those guys on TOTP? What the fuck was that?’

And from there, Sparks pretty much disappeared off my radar. I assumed that they’d packed it in, called it a day, broken up because of ‘musical differences.’ But, as it turned out, they hadn’t.

Over a fifty year career, they kept right on going, creating their idiosyncratic music and releasing new records every so often, some of which were acclaimed, others perceived as abject failures. Though their backing musicians changed, the core duo of Ron and Russell Mael remained intact. Over those years, it turns out, they picked up a legion of fans, many of them musicians themselves and one of whom was the film director Edgar Wright. When Wright asked, ‘Why has there never been a film about Ron and Russell Mael?’ he repeatedly met with a baffled silence. So, eventually, he decided to make one himself.

And here’s the result: a forensic (and, it has to be said, lengthy) study of the Sparks phenomenon, featuring interviews with a whole horde of musicians, writers, comedians and movie makers, all of whom, unlike me, kept watching and listening to Sparks, and many of whom are all too ready to admit that they were greatly influenced by the band. (One of them, Todd Rundgren, who produced their first album when they were known as Half Nelson, is surely a man who deserves this kind of documentary treatment all to himself, but I digress.)

The Sparks Brothers is fascinating in many ways. For one thing, it pretty much eschews the main thrust of your average rock doc, which is to get under the skin of its subject and break down any enigma that might have been there. Somehow, Ron and Russell emerge from this film every bit as enigmatic as they were before. All we really learn about them is that they are workaholics. Wright deals with every single album release over two-hours-and-twenty minutes, and we get to see the two men age as their story unfolds, but Wright’s magpie-like approach (using documentary and newsreel footage, stop frame animation, montage and interviews) means that the film never overstays its welcome. The sad truth about the Maels seems to be that they steadfastly refused to stand still. If they’d made slight variations on their successful third album, Kimono My House, they’d doubtless have been filling stadiums worldwide. But, as Oscar Wilde observed, versatility is a curse, and it is their very need to keep reinventing themselves that has ultimately limited their appeal. But it’s not just about keeping their fans happy. As many musicians admit here, they were a massive influence on their peers, Ron’s synth-based riffs being ‘borrowed’ from everyone from Erasure to Duran Duran.

It seems like an auspicious time to bring the Maels back into the limelight, with their Leos Carax-directed musical Annette due to arrive in cinemas sometime soon – and promising to be every bit as eccentric as the Maels themselves. Until then, The Sparks Brothers is well worth your time.

Of course it will help if you’re already a fan, but really, you don’t have to be.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Old

27/07/21

Cineworld

M. Night Shymalan. There, I’ve uttered the forbidden name.

Mister Night Shymalan is something of an enigma to me. Most people know of his trajectory, making a spectacular debut in 1999 with The Sixth Sense and then working his way steadily downwards ever since. There have been a lot of films over the intervening years, from the halfway-decent to the downright unwatchable. Lady in the Water? The Happening? After Earth? I had reached the point where I vowed I’d never watch another one.

And then I started hearing good things about Old. ‘A surprising return to form.’ That kind of thing. Hmm. Could that be right? So, inevitably, here I am, back at the cinema, giving him one more chance to surprise me.

To be fair this is one of his better efforts, though a five star review in the Guardian seems wildly over-enthusiastic. This sub-Twilight Zone story is all about a bunch of people experiencing the holiday from hell. (We’ve all been there.) Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his wife Prisca (Vicky Krips) have been going through a bad patch, possibly because she’s discovered she has an inoperable tumour, so they’ve gathered up their kids and headed off to a fancy beach resort in search of a little quality time. The resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) tells the family about a ‘special’ beach they might like to visit, a place where they won’t feel so crowded, so the following day they climb aboard a mini bus and head for it. (Sadly they fail to notice that the bus is being driven by M. Night Shymalan, which should perhaps have been a warning.)

They arrive to find that there are quite a few other holidaymakers there, all of whom seem to be suffering from one kind of malady or other. A dead woman is found floating in the water. And then Guy and Prisca notice that their two kids appear to be ageing very rapidly…

The Shymalanisms dutifully ensue in mind-bending fashion. There are deaths and a birth, transformations and deteriorations. Charles, a doctor (Rufus Sewell), loses his marbles and runs amok with a knife. Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) has an epileptic fit. People bleed and contort and drown. This film is not short on incident.

And yet… and yet… many of the old problems are still here. Shymalan’s script (based on a graphic novel by Pierre-Oscar Lévy) is clunky, while his characters often speak and act like no human beings on the planet ever would. And then there’s the inevitable ‘twist’ ending where Shymalan tries to explain what’s been going on, but I still cling to my theory that, no matter how weird the goings-on, the internal logic of any story should remain rock solid – and here it really doesn’t. Plus… call me old fashioned but is it really wise in the midst of a global pandemic to point the finger of blame at the devious nature of scientists? I think not.

Maybe the problem is mine. Maybe I just don’t get M. Night Shymalan. But as I said, while this is one of his better efforts, that really isn’t saying very much.

Sorry – and maybe cancel that holiday booking, before it’s too late!

3.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Deerskin

26/07/21

Cameo

Shot in 2019 and the winner of several prestigious awards, Quentin Dupieux’s Deerskin is a self-consciously weird film about a middle-aged man’s nervous breakdown and his attempts to reinvent himself as a ‘film maker.’

Bleakly surreal and sometimes just plain bonkers, it seems to be trying to make a point about the filmmaking process itself but, if that’s true, it’s one that virtually drips with a massive dose of self-loathing. To follow Dupieux’s logic, filmmaking is a sham, a perfect hiding place for the untalented. There are always financiers eager to horn in on somebody else’s efforts and the general public are happy to do just about anything so long as there’s a camera pointed at them. Which is all pretty dispiriting when you think about it.

Georges (Jean Dujardin) runs out on his marriage, puts his sports jacket down the nearest toilet and buys himself a fringed deerskin affair for what seems a ludicrous amount of money. The seller of the jacket (probably feeling guilty) gifts him a digital video camera. Georges then drives to a remote, mountainous location somewhere in France and checks into a dingy hotel, where he sets about trying to achieve a very unusual obsession.

He wants to be the only person in the world allowed to wear a jacket.

He also decides to film himself while he’s attempting to make that odd ambition a reality. His wife (quite sensibly) decides to block his bank account, so Georges talks receptive local barmaid, Denise (Adèle Haenel, last seen by B & B in the mesmerising Portrait of a Lady on Fire), into financing his efforts and, when he learns she is also obsessed with editing, even takes her on as his partner/producer.

When Denise urges him to provide her with more raw footage, Georges’ film sequences become increasingly violent, but the ensuing carnage is as throwaway as the rest of what’s going on here, played pretty much for laughs – and the problem is that I feel distanced from what’s happening on the screen and I don’t really care about any of the two-dimensional characters.

Still, at one hour and seventeen minutes, Deerskin is slight enough to chug along to its underwhelming conclusion without losing too much steam. But with all those awards under its belt, I can’t help wondering if this isn’t a case of The Emperor’s New Fringed Jacket.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Black Widow

23/07/21

Cineworld

After the apocalyptic smorgasbord of the Avengers trilogy, Marvel Studios seem to be struggling to find their proper niche in the cinema.

Black Widow has been a conspicuous victim of the lockdown, its release delayed by almost two years. Finally, here it is, gamely attempting to make its presence felt under the restrictions of a 12A certificate, where the excessive violence feels somehow at odds with what the filmmakers are actually allowed to show. This seems an ill-advised move. Cartoon violence is one thing, but Black Widow appears to have all the smashing, bashing and limb-breaking of a more realistic depiction without any of the consequences. Director Cate Shortland has to employ a lot of shakey-cam, so we don’t linger on injury detail. Protagonists emerge from bruising combat with a discreet smear of blood at the corner of the mouth. It’s unconvincing to say the least.

Maybe a 15 certificate would have been a better option?

The film is, by necessity, a prequel. It begins in 1995 in Ohio, where Russian super-soldier Alexie Shostakov (David Harbour) and his ‘wife,’ Melina (Rachel Weisz), are posing as a happy family, with their two ‘daughters,’ Natasha and Yelena in tow. But when evil forces close in on them, they are forced into running for their lives. Yelena winds up being a ‘widow,’ a genetically engineered soldier, for the ruthless Dreykov (Ray Winstone), while Natasha defects to the West. She grows up to be an Avenger and, of course, in time, Scarlett Johansson.

In 2016, Natasha finds herself on the run once again, this time from her American employers, and it isn’t long before she reconnects with her sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh). After first attempting to beat the crap out of each other – as you do – they team up and go in search of their ‘parents.’ Alexie’s in a penitentiary and first needs to be sprung, while Melina is hard at work in a remote outpost teaching pigs to stop breathing (that’s not a misprint BTW). Subsequently, the family decide to team up in order to take down Dreykov and what has now become a massive army of widows, all of them turned into mindless servants by the liberal application of er… pheromones.

Much bloodless punching and kicking dutifully ensues – at times, this feels decidedly like Marvel’s take on the Jason Bourne movies, only with added Spandex – before everything culminates in one of those big action set-pieces which takes place aboard Draykov’s sky-station.

The screenwriters make a valiant effort to establish a feminist statement amongst all this Sturm und Drang, but the effect is horribly overdone, the proverbial sledgehammer/nut scenario played out at maximum volume with minimal coherence. While we should definitely be pleased that a mainstream superhero franchise is finally trying to get in step with female empowerment, it needs to be done in a less ham-fisted manner than this. Once again, here’s a clear case of what is essentially an animated comic strip getting ideas above its station.

Johansson and Pugh are both good in their roles – indeed the film’s best moments are rooted in their bickering, competitive sisterhood – while Harbour is assigned the role of comic relief, a blundering Russian oaf addicted to shots of vodka. Overweight and out of practice, he can still put up a decent fight when he needs to. Weisz seems criminally short-changed in her thankless role as mother/scientist/all-round ass-kicker.

Marvel aficionados will know to hang around for the inevitable post-credits sequence, but I feel so underwhelmed by Black Widow, I really can’t be bothered to wait. Another helping? No thanks, I’ll pass.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Another Round

11/07/21

Cameo Cinema

Alcohol. It’s a curse, right? So many people depend upon it, so many have their lives completely destroyed by it – and yet it still gets bought by the gallon on a daily basis…

It would have been so easy for Thomas Vinterberg to produce a dour, finger-wagging condemnation of his chosen subject, but happily, Another Round is much more nuanced that that. This is a film that also highlights the powerful allure of alcohol, a film that makes you understand why so many of us can’t help but dance to its tune. Furthermore, it’s a story about male friendship that manages to avoid the usual clichés to deliver something genuinely heartfelt and realistic.

Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is a history teacher at a Danish high school. He’s been in his job for years, he’s happily married to Anika (Maria Bonnevie) and he has two teenage sons. But somewhere along the way he’s lost his drive and now finds himself teaching on auto pilot, making evident mistakes as his students look on in dismay. His sons seem to be hardly aware of him and Anika, a nurse, is permanently on the night shift. In short, he’s looking for something to inspire him.

On a night out with fellow teachers, PE instructor,Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), chemistry teacher, Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), and music teacher, Peter (Lars Ranthe), Martin picks up on something that Nikolaj mentions over a boozy dinner – a theory put forward by psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, namely that maintaining a constant blood alcohol level of 0.05% will make a person more relaxed and creative.

Martin decides to put it to the test, only to find that it actually appears to work. His pupils are reinvigorated by the ‘new’ Martin. In class he’s assured, slick, entertaining, and, as his alcohol level rises, so does his students’ enthusiasm for his teaching. It isn’t long before his three friends want to get in on the act, with sometimes hilarious – but ultimately tragic – consequences.

Another Round steadfastly refuses to be maudlin, ensuring that many of the alcohol-fuelled antics are positive ones and pointing out that the consequences of being drunk vary from person to person. Indeed, a climactic scene where Martin – a jazz ballet dancer in his teens – is inspired to strut his moves again, once he’s suitably fuelled with champagne, is a joyful, exuberant celebration of being ‘under the influence.’

Little wonder that, after viewing this intoxicating film, we headed straight for the bar to discuss it in an appropriate setting…

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Violet Evergarden

10/07/21

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

First, a positive: Violet Evergarden is beautifully animated. The artwork is glorious, each frame a delight. The landscapes are remarkably rendered: the countryside lush and verdant, the rain almost palpable. The setting is a peculiar mash-up: the costumes are sort of Victorian; the locations are vaguely European; the Eiffel Tower looms improbably over a pretty, coastal town. The effect is dreamy and ethereal; we are somewhere, nowhere, anywhere. It’s the past (because telephones are new-fangled, a threat to Violet’s job), but it doesn’t matter when. This is all about human nature, and there are close-ups a-plenty to showcase the intensity of the characters’ emotions: clenched fists, tear-filled eyes and shifting feet.

Second, a caveat: Taichi Ishidate’s film is based on a prize-winning illustrated novel by Kana Akatsuki and Akiko Takase, which has already spawned an acclaimed TV series, also by Kyoto Animation. I have neither read the book nor seen the programme. For those who have, Violet Evergarden: The Movie might well be a welcome addition to the pantheon. However, as a stand-alone, it doesn’t work.

It’s such a shame. I want to like this film. I’m so excited to be back in my favourite cinema, watching on the big screen, but the artwork deserves a better story than this. The script (by Reiko Yoshida) is an incoherent mess. An Auto Memory Doll would have done a better job.

That’s what Violet is – an Auto Memory Doll. We’re introduced to this idea by virtue of a convoluted sub-plot that is never resolved. Daisy’s grandmother has just died and, after the funeral, Daisy (Sumire Morohoshi) takes a brief break from castigating her mum (but not her dad) for being busy at work, and finds a series of letters sent posthumously from her great-grandmother to her daughter. They’ve been written, she learns, by an Auto Memory Doll, or ghost writer. Still, despite a long, expositional scene all about Daisy’s emotional connection to her family, we don’t need to worry about her. She barely features again.

Instead, we pick up the story of a famous Doll, the eponymous Violet (Yui Ishikawa). Her backstory is detailed at breakneck speed, so I can barely keep up. There’s a war. She’s orphaned (I think); she meets a naval officer, Dietfried (Hidenobu Kiuchi), who then gives her to his soldier brother, Gilbert (Daisuke Namikawa), who’s supposed to train her to become a weapon. Instead he teaches her to read and write. There’s a bomb. She loses her arms. Gilbert feels bad. She gets prosthetic arms and becomes a writer. Her writing is exquisite. Everyone wants her to write for them, including a famous playwright! She’s a whizz at expressing others’ emotions. But she can’t say ‘I love you’ in her own right. Yup, it really is that trite.

From thereon-in, it’s all soaring strings and melodrama. It’s clearly meant to be profound, but I feel like I’m looking for depth in a pebbly puddle. Violet comes across as such a drip, it’s hard to believe she ever fought in a war. She’s vapid and weepy and painfully submissive. The endless subplots (the dying child, the random playwright who cries for reasons never explained) are muddled and dull. Even her writing is hack: the letters she writes for Yurith’s family would have been better left to the viewers’ imagination, because the banality of the messages belies the story’s entire premise.

In short, this is a film for those already enamoured of the tale. For the uninitiated, it’s a ponderous bore. I spend the last hour just waiting for it to be over.

2.6 stars

Susan Singfield