Picturehouse

Lollipop

17/06/25

The Cameo, Edinburgh

Lollipop is writer-director Daisy-May Hudson’s debut feature film – and what a promising start this is. Sure, she’s treading in the footsteps of working-class champions such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but – if this fiercely female and decidedly 2020s tale is anything to go by – Hudson is also forging her own path.

‘Lollipop’ is Molly (Posy Sterling)’s childhood nickname, but she’s come a long way since those innocent days. She’s just spent four months in prison – for an unspecified crime – and is looking forward to getting out and being reunited with her kids, Ava (Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads) and Leo (Luke Howitt). But things have gone awry while she’s been away: not only has she had to give up her flat, but her flaky mum, Sylvie (TerriAnn Cousins), who was supposed to be looking after the children, has handed them over to social services instead. “Don’t start,” she says, when Molly confronts her, aghast. “I can’t cope with you starting.”

Of course, once they’re in the system, the children can’t just be handed back. There are teams of people tasked with ensuring their welfare. How can they return Ava and Leo to Molly’s care when she’s homeless, pitching her tent illicitly in the park, washing in a public loo? But it’s Catch 22: Molly isn’t a priority for housing because she hasn’t got her kids with her. She’s going round in circles, and that’s not helping her already fragile mental health. However caring the individual professionals are – and they are decent, compassionate women, on the whole – the process seems designed to deny her any possibility of making good.

A chance encounter with an old school friend, Amina (Idil Ahmed), offers a glimmer of hope. Amina has her own problems: she’s separated from her husband, and living in a hostel with her daughter, Mya (Aliyah Abdi). But Amina is a natural optimist with an abundance of energy, spreading joy in the simplest of ways. She hosts a daily ‘party’, where she and Mya dance to their favourite tunes, while a disco ball transforms their dismal walls with colour and light. When Molly reaches breaking point, afraid she’s going to lose her kids forever, it’s Amina who breaks her fall…

It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with the second series of Jimmy McGovern’s acclaimed TV series, Time, which saw Jodie Whittaker’s Orla facing a similar situation, fighting against a failing and underfunded system that not only hurts people but also encourages recidivism. This doesn’t detract from Lollipop‘s power; sadly, it only serves to highlight the ordinariness of this extraordinary horror.

Sterling imbues the central role with so much heart that I defy anyone not to cry when they see Molly lose the plot at a resource centre, not to hold their breath while they wait for the court’s verdict. Newcomer Ahmed is also perfectly cast, lighting up the screen with her ebullience, although Amina also experiences great pain. Cousins infuriates as the selfish Sylvie, letting Molly down at every turn, but somehow still evoking our pity, and young Rhoads is heartbreakingly convincing as a little girl negotiating adult trauma before she’s even hit puberty.

Lollipop is a devastating but beautifully-realised film, as vital and engaging as Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (with which it shares some DNA). It’s the sort of potent story that ought to be the catalyst for change. Let’s hope.

4.5 stars

Susan Singfield

The End

30/03/25

The Cameo, Edinburgh

Joshua Oppenheimer might not be the most prolific of directors, but he’s certainly one of the most original. The documentary-maker’s first foray into fiction is a case in point: who else would offer us an unsettling post-apocalyptic… musical?

The setting is an oligarch’s nuclear bunker. There’s been some kind of climate disaster, precipitated by the billionaire’s fossil fuel company. Most of humanity is dead, but – decades after the fallout, far below the earth – a chosen few still live in luxury, albeit in the confines of some eerie salt mines.

Father (Michael Shannon) is the oligarch, Mother (Tilda Swinton) his wife and Son (George McKay) their twenty-year-old child, born underground. He has never seen the sky, never met anyone outwith their small circle – and never questioned his parents’ tales about their former lives. Instead, he immerses himself in building an intricate model of all the outside places he’s only ever heard about.

The bunker has three more occupants: Friend (Bronagh Gallagher), Butler (Tim McInnerny) and Doctor (Lennie James). The trio are touted as “part of the family” but it’s pretty clear they’re here to serve, to take care of the cooking, the cleaning and the rich people’s health. Father spends his time working on a self-aggrandising autobiography, resisting Son’s attempts to offer editorial advice, while Mother fusses endlessly over the exact positioning of the priceless artworks on the walls. Life ticks by, one day much like another, an opulence-clad monotony that fulfils none of them.

And then Girl (Moses Ingram) turns up. She’s the first outsider Son has ever met, and he’s smitten. But she’s had to leave her family behind, and her survivor’s guilt opens up new avenues of thought for Son. Why has his family been chosen, out of everyone, to inhabit this haven? And why, when the place is vast, are there so few of them? Once he starts to ask questions, everything changes…

Mikhail Krichman’s cinematography is sumptuous: the scenes in the salt mines are particularly beautiful, but every shot is a work of art, as meticulously framed as the Renoirs and Monets decorating the bunker.

The film is billed as a musical but, despite the lengthy spoken sections, it feels more like an opera, with its formality of tone and portentousness. The music by Marius De Vries and Josh Schmidt amplifies the heightened emotions, but the vocal parts are sensibly kept simple, which suits the non-singers in the cast (such as Swinton). Ingram, Gallagher and McKay are more accomplished, and they are given the most to do.

Despite its bloated running time, The End is a thought-provoking and startlingly unconventional movie, quite unlike anything else on the big screen. It’s not one you’ll find at a multiplex, but it’s definitely worth the price of a ticket at your local indie (or Picturehouse) cinema.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Sing Sing

31/08/24

The Cameo, Edinburgh

It’s National Cinema Day and picture houses across the country are offering tickets for a mere £4. The Cameo is packed to the rafters. Does this mean that cinemas could sell out regularly if they lowered their prices, or is the mass turnout down to the sense of a special occasion?

The programming is important too, of course. Sing Sing deserves to draw the crowds, even at full price. It’s a weighty, life-affirming piece of work, humanising the inmates of the titular maximum security prison. It’s also a timely reminder of why the arts are so important.

Based on John H. Richardson’s book, The Sing Sing Follies, Greg Kwedar’s movie is all about the RTA programme (Rehabilitation Through the Arts), which provides customised curricula of theatre, dance, music, etc. in prisons across the USA. Each jail has its own steering committee of prisoners, and external facilitators to help them explore their ideas. The benefits to both inmates and wider society are clear: by offering troubled people hope, allowing them the chance to explore their feelings and develop skills, to improve their self-esteem, the severity of infractions within prisons is reduced – and so is recidivism. The urge to punish, to make correctional facilities as unpleasant as possible, is perhaps understandable but it’s self-defeating. If we want a better world for everyone, we have to accept the evidence and give incarcerated people as many opportunities as possible to improve their circumstances.

Colman Domingo makes a thoughtful, impressive John “Divine G” Whitfield, a central member of Sing Sing’s RTA group. Divine G – who has a cameo appearance – writes plays as well as performing in them, and also works tirelessly to support other inmates with their appeals. Apart from Paul Raci as volunteer drama leader Brent Buell, the rest of the cast comprises ex-prisoners playing themselves. Co-lead Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin is especially affecting: his transformative journey from bullish gang member to esteemed performer might be predictable but it’s absolutely compelling.

We shouldn’t need reminding that theatre matters: we’ve known it forever. Thomas Keneally’s The Playmaker and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good both immortalise the real-life production of The Recruiting Officer performed by convicts deported to Australia in 1789. Margaret Atwood’s fictional account, Hag-Seed, doesn’t just illuminate The Tempest for a contemporary audience, it also advocates for arts in jail. Bertolt Brecht’s Lehrstücke (1920s and 30s) were created precisely to focus on the process of creating drama and the impact it has on actors. Here, in Clint Bentley’s gentle, often funny screenplay, we see again exactly how life-changing theatre can be.

Kwedar wisely steers clear of the violence we are accustomed to in prison movies: the menace is there, but it’s in the wings. Instead, we get to see the men at their best, when they’re engaged in something they really care about. As Sean “Dino” Johnson points out, “We get to be human in this room.”

And human they are. As a teacher of creative drama (albeit with children, not criminals), I’m not at all fazed by Buell’s bonkers-sounding playscript, Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, which incorporates everyone’s ideas, including time travel, Freddy Krueger, ancient Egypt and, um, a couple of Hamlet’s soliloquies. That sounds just fine to me! It’s heart-warming to see how much it matters to the men, how seriously they take the acting exercises and the director’s notes, how much fun they have when they’re finally on stage.

Sing Sing is an important film, but it’s a highly entertaining one too. Beautifully crafted, with cinematography by Pat Scola, you’re guaranteed to leave the cinema with a smile on your face and a sense of hope for the future.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield

Perfect Days

25/02/24

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

‘It’s about this guy who cleans toilets for a living.’

Yes, I know. On paper, Perfect Days doesn’t sound like the most promising scenario I’ve ever heard but, in the hands of veteran director, Wim Wenders, it’s so much more than I might have expected. Wenders is somebody who I used to love back in the day. Paris Texas (1984), is the movie I remember him best for, but, since Wings of Desire in 1987, I have lost track of his output. This latest offering is a charming, affectionate study of a man’s everyday working life and the various people he encounters along the way. 

Perfect Days picked up a couple of prestigious prizes at Cannes in 2023 and more recently was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. It’s easy to see the qualities that enchanted the judges.

The aforementioned toilet cleaner is Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), a quiet and reserved character who has very little to say for himself but who appears to have an almost zen-like appreciation of the world about him. He’s a man who is absolutely committed to his routine and, from the opening scene onward, we share it with him. He wakes in the early hours of the morning in his small but immaculately neat apartment and we travel with him in his van as he listens to a series of vintage songs on his cassette player – The Animals, Van Morrison and (perhaps not surprisingly given the title of the film) Lou Reed.

We work alongside him as he journeys from public toilet to public toilet, ranging from simple-but-functional cubicles to state-of-the-art superloos, sharing his brief interactions with the people he encounters along the way. Not all of them are strangers to him. There’s his feckless young colleague Takashi (Tokio Emoto), endlessly chasing after a woman called Aya (Aoi Yamada) and trying to find ways to earn enough money to go out with her. There’s Hirayama’s teenage niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), who turns up unannounced at his door one evening after running away from home. And there’s Hirayama’s estranged sister, Keiko (Yumi Aso), who comes to collect her daughter and who cannot understand why her brother is ‘wasting his life’ in such a thankless occupation.

But as the story progresses, we begin to understand that Hirayama isn’t wasting his life. Far from it, he is carrying out important work to the best of his ability, with quiet dignity and determination. Of course, a life so based on routine only needs the slightest glitch to throw everything into turmoil, which happens when Takashi fails to show up one day, leaving Hirayama to do the work of two people…

As Perfect Days unfolds in its calm, understated way, it exerts an increasingly powerful grip on the viewer, gradually revealing more about its central character but always leaving us wanting to know a little more. It’s also true to say that the city of Tokyo is one of the most important characters in the film. Wenders unveils its various charms in so many different lights, from dawn to dusk, from sundown to sunrise. Franz Lustig’s cinematography depicts its back alleys and sidestreets, stares up at its neon lit skylines in a sort of swooning wonder. 

Yakusho’s performance is also a delight, his character saying little but revealing every emotion through his range of expressions, dour and perplexed one moment, on the verge of helpless laughter the next. It all culminates in an extended shot of him driving his van home as Nina Simone’s Feeling Good blasts from the tape deck, Hirayama’s face registering the sheer unadulterated joy of every line.

Some will claim that there’s not enough content here to sustain a two-hour running time, but I would respectfully disagree. This is a little gem of a film and a reminder if ever it were needed that, at the age of 78, Wenders is still a creative force to be reckoned with.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney