Lesley Manville

Back to Black

18/04/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Advance reviews for Back to Black have been mostly underwhelming, writers mostly castigating the film for not finding anything that hasn’t already been covered in Asif Kapadia’s (admittedly brilliant) 2015 documentary, Amy. (https://bouquetsbrickbatsreviews.com/2015/07/04/amy/)

Those in the know have also muttered darkly that certain players in the story have been let off a little too lightly for comfort. While it’s certainly true that Sam Taylor-Johnson’s biopic resolutely refuses to apportion any blame for what happened to Amy Winehouse, it doesn’t detract from the fact that this film is both eminently watchable and genuinely, heart-breakingly tragic.

We first encounter Amy (Marisa Abela) as a teenager in Camden, already a talented performer, inspired by her beloved Nan, Cynthia (Lesley Manville), a jazz singer back in the day. She’s also encouraged by her taxi-driver dad, Mitch (Eddie Marsan), who isn’t shy of indulging in a bit of crooning himself. If Matt Greenhalgh’s screenplay features an overload of exposition in the opening scenes, it soon settles down enough to allow viewers to enjoy the ride.

A&R man Nick (Sam Buchanan) hears Amy’s demo tape and is keen to sign her up to the Simon Fuller agency, but she’s quick to point out to him that her idea of ‘girl power’ is Sarah Vaughan and that she ‘ain’t no fuckin’ Spice Girl.’ Success, it seems, must come on her terms or not at all. But of course, she rises like a meteor and, almost before you can say ‘Go Amy!,’ she has an album out, a residency at a local pub and a rapidly-growing legion of fans.

But Amy’s world is turned upside down when she encounters Blake (Jack O’ Connell), a Camden Jack-the-Lad with a nice line in deadpan patter and a coke habit that’s already getting him into trouble. Despite the fact that Amy hates drugs and Blake doesn’t care for booze, the two of them become lovers. What can possibly go wrong?

Of course, what happens after that is a steadily mounting disaster played out under the baleful glare of the paparazzi (who, I suspect, are the ones who should really shoulder some of the blame for what happened) and the result is much like watching a slow-motion car crash. I cannot look away. Abela is astonishing in the lead role, playing Amy with absolute conviction, alternately hard as nails and fragile as cut glass. She also supplies her own vocals. I’m no Winehouse aficionado, but to me it sounds spot on. O’Connell, an undervalued performer, is also terrific, encompassing Blake’s strengths and failings perfectly. The scene where Amy and Blake first meet is beautifully handled and it’s clear from the outset why they become so besotted with each other, so utterly incapable of extricating themselves from the ensuing carnage.

In the finest biopic tradition, there are recreations of famous performances, which once again capture the look and feel of the period, and it would be a hard-hearted soul indeed who doesn’t shed a tear in the scene where Amy performs a heartfelt rendition of Love is a Losing Game, after hearing that Blake has, once again, turned his back on her.

Of course, it’s always difficult to depict something so familiar and find new horizons within it, but I can’t help feeling that Taylor-Johnson has been unfairly maligned on this one. Back to Black offers us a compelling insight into Amy’s character, and it never flags. Abela is a revelation and, provided she can successfully avoid the spectre of typecasting, she really should have a bright future ahead of her.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

30/09/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I am poorly when I see the 1992 teleplay, Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris, nursing a cold. I am lying on my sofa with the TV on, drifting in and out of sleep. At one point, I wake up, and there are Angela Lansbury, Diana Rigg, and, wait, is that Fred from Corrie? Is this a fever dream? I find myself engaging with the story, and watching through to the end. On occasion, I mention it to friends, but nobody has ever heard of it. They look at me sceptically. I let it go…

So I’m weirdly excited about this latest iteration of the tale, which I now know is based on a novel by Paul Gallico. Lesley Manville stars as the titular Mrs Harris (her ‘H’ restored), with Isabelle Huppert and Jason Isaacs as the big name support.

It’s London, 1957. Ada Harris knows in her heart that she’s a war widow, but she’s been waiting years for Eddie’s death to be confirmed. In the meantime, she’s working as a charwoman, cleaning up after a succession of indolent rich folk. She’s not unhappy exactly: she has a busy social life, drinking, dancing and ‘going to the dogs’ with her friends, Violet (Ellen Thomas) and Archie (Isaacs). But something is missing and, when Ada catches a glimpse of an exquisite couture gown in Lady Dant (Anna Chancellor)’s bedroom, she realises exactly what that missing something is…

A posh frock from Paris is beyond Mrs Harris’s slender means, but she’s a determined woman, and sets to with admirable grit, making savings wherever she can. Take the bus to work? No, not when she can walk. And what does she need with evenings out? Better to spend the time altering and repairing people’s clothes, bringing in a few extra shillings. Despite her hard work, however, that Dior dress is still way out of reach.

Until a series of fortunate events occurs, and – of course – she’s off to Paris! (Come on, that’s hardly a spoiler; it’s literally in the title.) The streets of the French capital appear to be paved with litter (there’s a bin strike, which we citizens of Edinburgh can certainly relate to), but Ada rises easily above the stink. She’s having the time of her life, and – with the help of André (Lucas Bravo), Natasha (Alba Baptista) and the dashing Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson) – she’s rediscovering her mojo. Sure, Mme Colbert (Huppert) is a bit sneery, and Mme Avallon (Guilaine Londez) seems to view her as an enemy, but so what? A couture gown is on its way; what could possibly go wrong?

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is essentially a fairytale, although it’s not very grim. It’s a frothy concoction, signifying little, but it’s eminently watchable, with warm, engaging characters, and a satisfying (if predictable) story arc. Under Anthony Fabian’s direction, this primarily Hungarian production (no, I don’t know why either) is beautifully shot, and Felix Wiedemann’s cinematography really captures the ethereal beauty of the clothes, so vital to the tale. It’s refreshing to see a love story that doesn’t patronise an older woman, and I’m pleased that the ‘fish out of water’ stuff is played down. Ada is independent: she has lived alone through a war and is used to city life, and she mixes with all kinds. It’s no surprise that she can hold her own in a Parisian restaurant, nor that she’s unfazed by the unfamiliar etiquette of a Dior fashion show. Perhaps the most important theme is one of societal change: just as the political elite in Paris have to accept that the workers won’t settle for poverty wages any more, neither will Ada continue to put up with late payments and disrespect from her employers. The war was a real turning point, and its longterm implications are starting to be felt.

I don’t really know how this compares to the teleplay, because I wasn’t fully compos mentis when I was watching that, but I do know that it’s more enjoyable to see Mrs Harris finding her dream dress when I’m not in a Lemsip fug. And at the cinema too, which is always better (true fact, no counter-arguments accepted).

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Ordinary Love

16/12/19

Written by Owen McCafferty and directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn, Ordinary Love is a poignant, heartfelt film, detailing the extraordinary ordinariness of dealing with a serious illness. Joan (Lesley Manville) and Tom (Liam Neeson) are the ‘normal people’ of the original title, a middle-aged couple who’ve been together all their adult lives. It’s a decade since their daughter died, and they’re coping, kind of, although they seem to have retreated into their dark, quiet, Northern Irish coastal home. They’re on auto-pilot really, muddling through and getting on.

But then Joan is diagnosed with breast cancer, and everything looks different – and yet somehow just the same. Life goes on: there’s still the supermarket shop to do, the gentle bickering about how much beer is too much beer, the nightly walks to feed the Fitbit. It’s just that, now, there are chemotherapy appointments too – and hair loss and existential fear. Their loneliness is cleverly revealed: ‘We’re both suffering,’ insists Tom, anguished, but Joan’s the one who can’t stop vomiting. ‘No, we’re not! This is happening to ME.’

Neeson is terrific in this role. He plays alpha-male ‘revenge dads’ so often that it’s easy to overlook his ability to inhabit subtler, more nuanced characters. His pain is palpable, his reserve convincing. Manville is less of a surprise – she’s superb, as you’d expect. I like the brittle, chin-up attitude she conveys, the doubt and terror just discernible. The supporting cast do a good job too, particularly David Wilmot as Peter, the primary school teacher with a terminal diagnosis, in whom Joan finds a confidante.

The movie is a timely reminder, too, of how much we need the NHS. A cancer diagnosis is stressful enough; grumbling half-heartedly about having to pay for hospital car parking ‘even when you’re a patient’ is the extent of the financial worries that add to Tom and Joan’s burden.

In the end though, it’s the mundanity that makes this film so heartbreaking. There’s no big cathartic moment, no dramatic revelation. But there is hope and there is love. Of the extraordinary, ordinary kind.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Phantom Thread

03/02/18

Phantom Thread comes to our screens burdened with promise. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There will Be Blood), it abandons his usual Californian locations for 1950s UK, and stars Daniel Day Lewis in what is purported to be his final role. Little wonder it has received so many Oscar nominations.

Unsurprising then, that there is plenty here to admire, even if there is very little to actually like. As a character study, it’s cleverly done and the acting is sublime. Day Lewis’s personification of spoiled and finicky fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock is as detailed and compelling as we’ve come to expect; Lesley Manville’s portrayal of his sister Cyril an object lesson in understated acerbity. Newcomer Vicky Krieps is an enigmatic delight, breathing warmth and freshness into the role of Alma, the young waitress who catches Reynolds’ eye. It’s great to see Julia Davis revelling in the depiction of arch gossip Lady Baltimore, and there’s a host of supporting actors doing cracking stuff on screen. And it all looks wonderful, of course: from the gorgeous fashions to the sumptuous decor; from the washed-out lighting to the grandeur of their homes.

And yet…

It’s the plot, I think, that bothers me. I don’t have the obvious concerns (rich, successful man with an overwhelming sense of entitlement meets poor foreign waitress with no understanding of her own potential – and proceeds to change her life) because I think these are successfully subverted by the way that Alma is portrayed; she has agency from the beginning, and makes her own desire as clear as his. She and Reynolds talk as equals; she is not quashed by him, even as she stands submissively allowing him to dress her. The set-up itself is fine: his unreasonable demands are shown for what they are; Cyril’s role as mediator between her brother and the world is clearly a necessary one. He’s a genius, and a successful one; allowances must be made, because he tends to tire of his girlfriends quickly, and treats them with evident contempt. But Alma is different. She challenges his behaviour, won’t allow him to dispose of her.

Some critics have suggested that this skews the power dynamic in her favour, or puts the couple on an even footing, but I find myself squirming at this suggestion. Because (minor spoiler alert!) Alma’s only power, in the end, is negative.  She doesn’t become stronger, she just weakens him. If mimicking the behaviour of Munchausens-by-proxy is the only means to sustain a relationship, then I’d argue the relationship is very toxic indeed. And it’s not that I’m suggesting that a film cannot portray a toxic relationship. Of course it can. Neither is it that I expect morals from my movies. It’s just… the story arc suggests this is a happy ending, of sorts, and the reviews I’ve read don’t even hint that this resolution is at least problematic for the characters involved. Misogyny is not challenged by feminine wiles and culinary arts, it’s merely reinforced. And, to my mind, this is a fatal wound from which Phantom Thread never quite recovers.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Hampstead

25/06/17

Well, we can’t say we haven’t been warned. Reviewers of Hampstead are mostly unimpressed by this based-on-real-life wannabe rom-com, which tells the tale of Donald Horner (Brendan Gleeson), a vagrant who builds a shack on Hampstead Heath, and his unlikely relationship with Emily Walker (Diane Keaton), an American widow in financial straits. Indeed, Wendy Ide, writing for The Guardian, goes so far as to call it “a ghastly faux-mance,” while Peter Bradshaw, in the same newspaper, notes ruefully that “Richard Curtis’s style of comedy drama is very difficult to imitate.” But it’s The Telegraph’s Robbie Collins who really skewers the movie with a one-star review and the acerbic observation that “Donald’s tumbledown cabin has its own well-stocked lake and an immaculate kitchen garden – when Emily pops around for a cosy diner à deux, there’s fresh salad served in a wooden bowl, grilled fish, and wine served in elegant stemware – while his vagrant’s beard is so well-conditioned it could win a prize at Crufts.” And, while my socialist leanings mean I never thought I’d side with anyone writing for this particular Tory rag, I find I just can’t argue with him.

Okay, I can argue a bit. I think the single star is a little unfair. The acting is, for the most part, really very good (Keaton and Gleeson are both extremely engaging, while Lesley Manville somehow manages to transcend her role, which is, it seems, ‘under-developed cypher, with a bit of secretly-tragic rich bitch thrown in’). The plot is nicely stitched together, holding our attention throughout. But… oh dear. This is very much an outsider’s view of poverty, a romanticised vision of the ‘authenticity’ that being poor provides. What it reminds me of most is the Noel Streatfeild novels I read as a child, which I both loved and derided, amused as I was by their privileged depiction of what it meant to be poor. “They’ve got no money,” I’d tell my mum, raising my seven-year-old eyebrows. “So they’re down to just a couple of servants, a nanny and a cook and some woman who comes in from the village now and again. And they’ve got to take in lodgers, because they’ve got this massive house. So there’re a couple of university professors and an opera singer all sharing the space. They can’t afford their places at ballet school, so they have to get scholarships.” And then we’d laugh, putting on ‘posh’ voices, and braying, “How on earth are we supposed to manage, dahling, with just a nanny and a cook?” Well, we found it funny anyway. Maybe you had to be there.

I understand the comparisons to Richard Curtis, but I think they miss something important. It’s not just that he’s better at it (funnier, more charming), but that he doesn’t pretend to be making a social point. His films are unabashedly about those who have it all: they’re frothy, unrealistic depictions of a London that doesn’t really exist, but they don’t claim to be anything else. Hampstead has pretentions toward social commentary, but it doesn’t understand its own material.

It’s not just the improbably delightful home that Donald has constructed from old windows and planks of wood, it’s Emily’s so-called money worries that make me pause for breath. “After I’ve sold the flat and paid off all the debts,” she sobs, “I’ll be left with a little bit, not much, but enough to get me something small outside London, maybe.” Enough, it turns out, to buy a sizeable beamed cottage next to a river on the outskirts of a picturesque Cotswolds village. Ah, that kind of ‘little bit.’ Poor Emily. And after all the hard work she’s never done and the jobs she’s never had. Surely she deserves more than this? (Actually, she does seem to have travelled back in time to the 1960s – well, it is outside London, so what do I expect? – maybe the property prices hark back to that time too?)

In the end, sadly, Hampstead is just a load of ill-informed nonsense, and there’s not much to be said in its defence. The true story it’s based on must have been much grimier and more interesting, and it’s a real shame we can’t get to the nub of it. The rose-tinted worldview we are presented with here is far too shallow to convey the important truths that are hinted at but never properly explored.

2.4 stars

Susan Singfield