Rufus Sewell

The Trouble with Jessica

06/04/24

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

The Trouble With Jessica is at the Cameo tonight, and so are director Matt Winn and lead actor Shirley Henderson, here for a Q&A. The place is bustling. Indeed, the only seats we can find are in the very front row, but that’s okay. We settle down in the comfy velvet chairs and stretch our legs out, making the most of the space.

TTWJ is essentially a comedy of manners, drawing on elements of farce. It goes to some dark places – including suicide, depression and rape – but always (trust me) with humour, eliciting belly laughs from tonight’s audience. Winn treads that precarious line well.

Sarah (Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) have invited their best friends over for what Sarah dramatically announces will be the last dinner party they’ll host in this house. Tom’s latest architectural project has flopped, and they need to sell their beloved home to save themselves from going under. But Beth (Olivia Williams) and Richard (Rufus Sewell) have brought along an extra guest, a mutual ‘friend’ called Jessica (Indira Varma), whose recent memoir has become a bestseller. Sarah is not pleased. She’s no fan of Jessica’s and, as soon as the titular character begins to speak, it’s easy to see why. She’s awful.

And then she kills herself in Sarah and Tom’s garden.

Sarah is furious. The house sale might be jeopardised! Her kids might have to go to state schools! They might have to live in a rubbish part of London! There’s nothing for it. They’ll have to move the body, pretend the suicide occurred elsewhere…

Through all the deliciously heightened nonsense that follows, the only thing I find hard to believe is that Sarah and Beth would keep up their friendship with Jessica. She doesn’t seem to have any redeeming features. She’s slept with two of Beth’s boyfriends and flirts incessantly with Tom. She’s rude and demanding and I don’t know anyone who’d put up with her.

That aside, I enjoy this film.

There is a charming cameo from Anne Reid as a nosey neighbour, and a wonderfully sinister series of scenes with Sylvester Groth as the potential house buyer. Jonathan Livingstone and David Schaal are very funny as PCs Terry and Paul, working-class foils to all the hoity-toity hogwash (although PC Paul recognises a decent clafoutis when he sees one).

It’s a stylish movie. The camera often lingers on the loveliness of the house, like an estate agent’s puff piece, reminding us of what’s at stake. Yes, Sarah and Tom are very privileged and it’s easy to mock their first world problems – but no one wants to lose what they have accrued; no one wants to fail, to have to step backwards. Of course they’d probably be fine if it all went tits up – but it’s no surprise they don’t want to put that theory to the test. It’s more relatable than its milieu might make it sound.

I like the title cards that act as introductions to the various ‘chapters’, each beginning The Trouble With… Tension mounts as the quartet struggle to come to terms with what they’re doing, as well as to manage the practicalities. Henderson in particular is riveting, her brittle capriciousness a delight to watch.

The Q&A is interesting too; it’s good to find out a little more about the process – especially Winn’s composition of the score – and it’s always a thrill to be in the same room as the people you’ve just been watching on the screen.

Once home, I find myself googling clafoutis recipes. Guess what we’re having for pudding tonight?

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Scoop

06/04/24

Netflix

What is the purpose of dramatising recent news events unless it’s to shine a different light on them? Scoop, directed by Philip Martin, doesn’t do that. Instead, it’s a pretty straightforward retelling of something we can all remember: Prince Andrew’s 2018 car-crash interview on BBC’s Newsnight.

Although it’s very watchable, the only fresh thing we’re actually offered here is a little look at some behind-the-scenes admin, and – frankly – that’s not enough. Based on Samantha McAlister’s memoir, her role as the ‘booker’ is almost laughably prominent. I’m sure she was very good at her job, but I don’t really care. “Person does the work they’re paid to do” isn’t much of a revelation. Nobody’s watching this because they’re interested in a “brilliant” TV producer. Self-aggrandising Sam (Billie Piper) gets the bus to work, eats kebabs and relies on her mum for childcare. Am I supposed to take something away from this?

We don’t get any original insights into Prince Andrew’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein; we don’t learn anything new about his sexual exploitation of trafficked women. (I’m not calling him a paedophile because that’s not what he is. ‘Sexual predator’ and ‘rapist’ are the correct words. Abuse of women is bad enough; we don’t have to call it something else.) We don’t glimpse his reaction to the fall-out. We do see how attached he is to his teddy bears, which is amusing but hardly illuminating. The only vaguely unexplored territory covered is the impact on Prince Andrew’s aide, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), who is portrayed here as a naïve and trusting woman, believing both Andrew’s assertions of innocence and McAlister’s assurances that this interview will be good for him. A brief moment with Andrew’s daughter, Beatrice (Charity Wakefield), also offers a little much-needed emotion, her lip quivering as she counters her father’s dismissal of Twitter (“I don’t look at that”) with a muted, sad-eyed, “I do.”

Rufus Sewell’s and Gillian Anderson’s impersonations of the key players are spot-on, although credit for that must be shared by the costume and make-up designers (Matthew Price and Kirstin Chalmers). The likenesses are uncanny. I just don’t know what they’re for.

I can’t help feeling that this is a pointless exercise. The actual interview – in all its startling horror – is available for anyone to see, so why bother watching a facsimile of it?

2.8 stars

Susan Singfield

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

The Father

11/06/21

Cineworld

It’s been over a month since the 2021 Oscars, where The Father won awards for best male actor and best adapted screenplay, but somehow it seems I’ve been eagerly awaiting its arrival for much longer than that. It’s finally here, available to view on the big screen, where its powerful narrative pulses from every frame.

Anthony Hopkins is, it seems, the oldest recipient of the best actor award and we know, don’t we, that sometimes such honours are handed out because it’s late in an actor’s career and there might not be another chance to reward him? But make no mistake, his performance in the lead role is a genuine tour de force. As ‘Anthony,’ a widowed man enduring the terrifying, mind-scrambling rigours of Alzheimer’s, he pulls out all the stops, taking his character through a range of moods and manifestations – from grandstanding showoff to sly insinuator – before delivering a final, desperate scene that is absolutely devastating.

Those seeking a rollicking, sidesplitting comedy should be warned: this is not the film for you.

Anthony – when we first encounter him – is living alone in his spacious London apartment, where he’s receiving regular visits from his compassionate daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman). Anthony has recently dismissed his paid carer, claiming that she’s stolen his watch, and he’s adamant that he will not, under any circumstances, move out of the place that he has always regarded as home. But as the story progresses, the touchstones of his life crumble one by one as the familiar things around him begin to change at a terrifying rate. The place doesn’t look the same… items have been moved, rearranged. Anthony’s favourite painting is missing… and why does somebody by the name of Paul (Mark Gatiss) parade around saying that this is actually his apartment? Who is Paul exactly? Anne’s ex-husband? If so, who’s the other Paul (Rufus Sewell), and why does he act like he owns the place? And what’s all this nonsense about Anne moving to Paris?

Perhaps the new home help, Laura (Imogen Poots), might be able to put things in order, but why does she remind Anthony so much of his other daughter, Lucy, the one he seems to have lost touch with? And most bewildering of all, why is it that sometimes, even Anne appears to be a different person than she used to be?

Florian Zeller’s astonishing film, adapted from his stage play, unfolds almost like a psychological horror story, as Anthony struggles to take in what’s happening to him. While I expected this to be bleak, I’m not fully prepared for the power with which it hits me. There’s doubtless extra impact because, for the last ten years of her life, my own mother was afflicted by Alzheimer’s and I recognise many of the beats here as being absolutely authentic. Perhaps that’s why the tears are rolling so copiously down my face.

Despite being confined mostly to one set, The Father never feels stage bound, because so much of what I can see onscreen is in a constant state of flux and because, at times, I feel every bit as unsettled as Anthony does. I’m never entirely sure where a scene is taking place, when it it is set and who is present in it – and that’s not meant as a criticism, but as an observation about the story’s unsettling grip on me. While there was aways a danger of The Father being completely dominated by Hopkin’s extraordinary performance, Colman is as excellent as always, managing to kindle the audience’s sympathy with a mere glance. And Olivia Williams is also compelling as the film’s most enigmatic character.

I walk out of the cinema, bleary-eyed from crying and, if I still have a few unanswered questions, well, that feels exactly right. This is an assured film that handles its difficult subject with rare skill.

So, worth the wait? Most definitely. But maybe remember to take some hankies?

5 Stars

Philip Caveney

Judy

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03/10/19

The ‘Judy’ of the title is, of course, Judy Garland, and this rather downbeat film, directed by Rupert Goold and written by Tom Edge, concentrates not on the gloss and glitter of Hollywood, but on a less-celebrated period of her life: her five-week residency at London’s Talk of the Town, which proved to be – quite literally – the end of her career.

It’s 1969, long after her super-stardom and more than a decade after her cinematic comeback with A Star is Born. Judy (Renée Zellweger) is struggling to make ends meet. Addicted to barbiturates and hopelessly in debt to the IRS, she is virtually unemployable in her homeland, reduced to dragging her children, Lorna and Joey, onstage with her to perform song and dance routines for a hundred dollars a night. Judy’s ex-husband, Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell) is understandably concerned for the welfare of his kids, but Judy is determined to prove herself a good mother, despite never having had the luxury of a decent role model in her own childhood.

But then the offer from Bernard Delfont (Michael Gambon) rears its head and, sensing a way out of the corner she’s painted herself into, Judy heads off to England, reluctantly leaving her children in the care of their father. There are problems from the moment she arrives: she refuses to rehearse for the show and keeps complaining of ‘headaches’- but her no-nonsense PA, Rosalyn Wilder (Jessie Buckley), does at least manage to get her onstage for the opening night. Judy goes down a storm and things look promising… but of course, as history attests, from there, it’s anything but plain sailing.

The first thing to say about Judy is that Zellweger is totally convincing in the lead role, nailing Garland’s tragic self-doubt and vulnerability with aplomb and somehow even managing to look and sound uncannily like the real person. But a great performance doesn’t automatically make a great film. That, I’m afraid, is more of a mixed bag.

I like the flashbacks to the Hollywood years, where young Judy (Darci Shaw) does battle with the odious Louis B. Mayer (Richard Cordery), a man who thinks nothing of working a twelve year old relentlessly around the clock, knowing full well that she has to exist on a diet of ‘pep pills’ in order to keep going. Later on, there’s also a charming plot strand where Garland befriends a couple of gay fans (Andy Nyman, Daniel Cerquira) and ends up back at their flat, cooking them an omelette, which makes them, I suppose, the original ‘friends of Dorothy.’

But unfortunately, so much of the narrative is devoted to Garland, the other characters barely get a look-in. The super-talented Jessie Buckley, for instance, is second-billed here, but we learn virtually nothing about Rosalyn; and why bother to employ the mighty Michael Gambon if all he gets to do is sit in the audience and look disgruntled? Finn Whittrock also struggles to make anything of his role as ‘unsuitable husband number five,’ Micky Deans. Was this man a cruel opportunist looking for his own personal rake-off? Was he just lousy at doing business? Did he have genuine affection for Judy? There’s not enough information here to let me make a judgement on any of those questions and that’s a shame.

Still, if, like me, you have a soft spot for the divine Ms Garland, this is worth catching for that sublime central performance. Zellweger does rousing versions of some of Judy’s best-remembered songs and manages to capture her distinctive vocal inflexions perfectly. And, unless you’re made of stone, you’ll probably have a tear in your eye at the film’s unexpectedly redemptive conclusion.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Hercules

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25/1/15

This film came and went from the UK box office making barely a ripple. Worth catching up with on DVD? Absolutely. In fact, it’s a hoot, mainly because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and there’s some astute casting choices here. Dwayne Johnson plays the musclebound hero and we join him some time after he has undertaken his twelve epic tasks. We see them enacted in the opening scenes, employing decent CGI, but then, the camera pulls back and shows us something closer to the reality of the situation. Hercules is now a mercenary who works for the highest bidder and though possessed of exceptional strength, he doesn’t undertake his missions alone, but with a crack team of warriors. These include his best pal Autoclytus (Rufus Sewell) as adept with the sword as he is with a well-timed witty wisecrack and resident seer Amphiaraus (Ian McShane) who having foreseen his own imminent death, lends a certain gallows humour to the proceedings. We quickly learn that those Herculean ‘tasks’ have been somewhat exaggerated. The mythical beasts were just men in masks and this story concerns itself chiefly with the way myths are created, how fairly ordinary events are, over time, amped up into legend.

When the team is approached by Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), the daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt), who is looking to hire some mercenaries, Hercules agrees to undertake the task in exchange for his own weight in gold. But as he and his friends set about training Lord Cotys’s army for battle it soon becomes clear that Cotys has been somewhat economical with the truth and maybe it’s time for Hercules and his crew to pick their sides more carefully.

Director Brett Ratner, hasn’t always delivered the best product in the past (Rush Hour, anybody? Red Dragon?) but this is good, undemanding fun, with some well paced battle sequences and a better script than this kind of story generally enjoys. Johnson is appealing in the title role, showing a certain vulnerability beneath the physique (even if his friendship with Ergenia’s squawking brat of a son is hard to fathom) and there’s a nice turn by the ever dependable Peter Mullan as the scowling Sitacles. Think The Magnificent Seven with breastplates and togas and you’ll know what to expect.

3.9 stars

Philip Caveney