Home Alone

Oh. What. Fun.

15/12/25

Amazon Prime Video

Honestly, we’re not the target audience for Michael Showalter’s Oh. What. Fun. There are lots of lovely people out there who just revel in a Christmas movie – but we’re not them. Still, as reviewers, it falls to us to watch as wide a range as possible, and – as it’s charting well on Amazon Prime – we feel we really ought to give this one a go. Also, Chloë Grace Moretz is in it, and we’ve liked everything else she’s done. So that’s how we find ourselves snuggled up under a blanket watching a festive film on a Monday afternoon, the very model of the cosy winter aesthetic we usually reject (because summer and sunshine are just better, right?).

Anyway. This is basically Home Alone in reverse. Every year, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) puts vast amounts of effort into creating the perfect middle-class American Christmas for her husband, Nick (Denis Leary), and their grown-up family. The trouble is, her kids (Felicity Jones, Dominic Sessa and Moretz respectively) kind of resent the pressure she puts on them: they don’t want to feel obliged to come ‘home’ every year, exaggerating their appreciation for all those extra, unasked-for flourishes Claire insists on. It’s the opposite of relaxing, the antithesis of fun.

Needy Claire isn’t happy either. She desperately wants one of her kids to nominate her as a ‘Zazzy Tims Christmas Mom’ so that she can win a ticket to a recording of her favourite TV show, hosted by her role model, Zazzy (Eva Longoria). But of course, Channing (Jones), Sammy (Sessa) and Taylor (Moretz) fail to respond to her many hints, so it seems a trip to California is not on the cards…

…until Christmas Eve, when Claire’s entire family – husband, kids, partners, grandkids – fail to notice that she’s not with them at the theatre for the So You Think You Can Dance tour, which she arranged (and paid for) as an extra surprise. Alone and forgotten in an empty house, Claire decides it’s time to do something for herself. And off she heads to Hollywood.

If it’s nuance you’re after, this is not the film for you. There’s no subtlety at all: everything is laid on with the proverbial trowel, from Taylor’s over-the-top rudeness towards Channing’s well-meaning husband, Doug (Jason Schwartzman), to the unfiltered bitchiness of Claire’s ‘perfect’ neighbour, Jeanne (Joan Chen). What’s more, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for Claire, with her massive McMansion and basically decent kin. There’s never any real jeopardy or heartbreak here.

Oh. What. Fun. hasn’t changed my feelings about Christmas films, but it’s not a bad movie. In fact, it’s very watchable. So why not pour yourself a glass of mulled wine, switch on the fairy lights and enjoy a bit of lighthearted… well… fun.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

The Running Man

15/11/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

A new Edgar Wright movie is generally a cause for celebration, even if The Running Man falls some way short of the dizzy heights he attained with films like Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho. And it certainly goes a long way to erase the memory of the shonky 1987 version of this story, which featured characters running around in multi-coloured jumpsuits and prompted author Stephen King to have his name removed from the credits. This adaptation, it turns out, comes with the author’s seal of approval.

The original novella is famously set in 2025: America has become a dystopian authoritarian police state, where the poverty-stricken working classes are ruled by corporate media networks, who keep them hooked on an endless diet of brutal reality-TV game shows. This used to feel like a big stretch but, with recent political developments in the USA, it seems an all-too credible premise.

Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a blue-collar worker, currently black-listed because of his tendency to voice his feelings about the rotten state of his day-to-day existence. His wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), works at a hostess bar in Co-Op City and the couple are desperately trying to scrape together enough money to buy medicine for their sick infant daughter. Ben tells Sheila that he’s seriously thinking of signing up as a contestant on one of those hazardous game shows, but promises her that he won’t try his luck on the one with the biggest payout: The Running Man.

But of course, it’s hardly a surprise that the show’s producer – the smarmy, toothy, super-positive Mike Killian (Josh Brolin) – thinks Ben will make an ideal player for the titular game and that he could be the very first person in the show’s history to walk away with the billion-dollar prize money. It’s a tempting proposition…

This is a big, brash, blockbuster of a film with enough world-building to make Co-Op City (a heavily disguised Glasgow) look queasily realistic. With the help of his old friend, Molie (an underused William H Macy), Ben manages to start off his run aided by a couple of fairly convincing disguises and some forged paperwork – but the odds are stacked and there’s a team of professional hunters hot on his trail. They know all the angles and it’s only a matter of time before they begin to close in. The result is a super-propulsive chase movie, which swings expertly from one action-packed sequence to the next, with Ben escaping death by a hair’s breadth at every turn. It’s thrilling enough to keep me on the edge of my seat for the film’s first half.

A later section where Ben ends up seeking refuge in the home of rebel Elton Parrakis (Michael Cera) is, for me, the film’s weakest hand. Parrakis has rigged his home with boobytraps and a long sequence where a group of hunters attempt to enter it plays out like Home Alone on steroids. While it’s undeniably fun, it serves to dilute the air of menace that the director and his co-writer, Michael Bacall, have worked so hard to create.

Furthermore, the film has no credible roles for its female characters. Sheila is only really present in the film’s early scenes and an attempt in the final third to introduce Amelia (Emilia Jones), a civilian whom Ben is obliged to take as his hostage, offers her too little to do and not enough reason for actually being there, right up the point where she is – quite literally – parachuted out of the story.

Nevertheless, this is eminently watchable stuff. It’s perhaps unfortunate that another of King’s ‘Richard Bachman’ books, The Long Walk, hit the screens only a couple of months ago and arguably made a better fist of adapting what is a very similar – if somewhat more sedate – concept.

But those who book tickets for The Running Man will surely find plenty here to enjoy. Sharp-eyed viewers may even spot a familiar face gracing America’s one-hundred dollar bills…

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Railway Children Return

15/07/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

As a child, I loved Edith Nesbit’s books. I read and re-read the Bastables’ treasure-seeking adventures, and was totally immersed in the magical world of Five Children and It (although, because I borrowed them from our small village library, I never managed to read any of the series in the correct order). But it was The Railway Children that really stole my heart, and I know I’m not alone. It’s a lovely book, and Lionel Jeffries’ 1970 film adaptation really captured its essence. Both book and film deserve their classic status.

Sequels, though, are tricky things. Sometimes they spill out, one after another, quickly diluting the potency of the original (Home Alone, I’m looking at you). And sometimes it’s fifty-two years before one shows its face. Is it worth the wait?

In the main, I’d say the answer’s ‘yes’. Although The Railway Children Return will never match its progenitor, it’s nonetheless a charming tale, and remains true to the spirit of Nesbit’s novel.

Time has marched on since a trio of young children first arrived at Three Chimneys, reeling from their father’s sudden absence and their resulting change in circumstance. But, hey – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It’s 1944 and, although Bobbie (Jenny Agutter) is a grandma now, history is about to repeat itself. Lily (Beau Gadson), Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and Ted (Zac Cudby) are evacuees from Manchester – and Bobbie can’t help but empathise. Her daughter (Sheridan Smith) was only planning to accept one child; she’s very busy, after all, as headteacher of the local school, and how is she supposed to feed three hungry mouths? But she acquiesces; of course she does. Her son, Thomas (Austin Haynes), is a sweet-natured boy, and quickly befriends them all. If it weren’t for the constant background rumble of the war and their separation from their real family, this would be an idyll. But the real world keeps intruding: bombs fall; fathers die. And one day, whilst playing Hide and Seek in the railway station, the children make a startling discovery: an American soldier on a secret mission. Can they help Abe (Kenneth Aikens) achieve his goal?

The Railway Children Returns is a lot earthier than the original: Lily, Pattie and Ted are tough, working-class, city kids (although Danny Brocklehurst’s script avoids any obvious Goodnight, Mr Tom-style clichés), very different from the privileged Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter, for whom Three Chimneys – with its single, not even live-in servant – was quite the comedown. These kids scrap and tell mucky jokes, and they don’t mind lying to protect themselves. “You can’t kid a kidder,” says Lily.

Politically, the issues are different, but the tone is similarly liberal and progressive. In The Railway Children, Mrs Waterbury empathises with Russian dissidents, and takes in a refugee. In this sequel, the focus is on racism, particularly among the US troops, improbably stationed in the village. Abe is black, and has suffered horribly at the hands of his fellow officers. The message is a good one (‘racism is bad’), but it’s all very superficial, and it’s more than a little disingenuous to suggest that only the Americans are prejudiced, while the local British community refuses, as one, to accept such bigotry. I know it’s a children’s tale, but children aren’t stupid, and they can deal with more nuance than this.

For the most part, though, director Morgan Matthews competently straddles the line between the bucolic dream and the wider-world nightmare, with moments of genuine sadness piercing the children’s fun. This, at least, feels very believable. It’s a shame, though, that Agutter isn’t given more to do.

Gadson’s Lily is the perfect successor to Bobbie: she has the same lively, attractive nature; the same determination and chutzpah. I think Beau Gadson is a name we’ll hear again. Who knows, maybe she’ll even appear as a granny in The Railway Children 3: Full Steam Ahead, coming to a cinema near you in 2074.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield