Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Not so comic Argentine romantic comedy about Aldo, a car wash owner and landlord and a bit of a sad figure with his obsession with control and his model car friends and the woman who walks into his life, Andrea, a liberal photographer, 3 months pregnant and ready to turn his life upside down.  The movie has funny scenes and quite a lot to say about conventions in society and there is a very funny cameo by Lidia Catalano as Aldo’s elderly maid who helps him with a sexual problem.  However, the overall tone is rather dark in places and I can’t say I really took to it.  Diego Peretti and Carolina Peleritti do a good job in the lead roles and the Spanish co-production stars fit in.  But overall and thanks to a wimp out ending I felt the good elements did not add up to so much.

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A film made for Peter O’Toole in many ways in which he plays a dying thespian who is still clinging on to the wiles of his trade and his seductive powers of yore.  He becomes besotted with the grandniece of one of his friends, Jessie – a fairly simple uncultured girl who, in a way he also takes under his wing.  Exploring this relationship which treads the limits of tenderness and dirty old man’s obsessions is the material of this film and it does it relatively well under the direction of Roger Michell with Hanif Kureishi as the scriptwriter.  There are lots of British theatrical in jokes and there are also some poignant comments about old age and the passing of the years.  Leslie Phillips and Vanessa Redgrave accompany Peter in this almost vignette-like work and Jodie Whittaker does a great job as the newcomer in a part that could have been explored further.  It is O’Toole’s film and he shows why he has been such a great actor in role which has elements of the teacher in Educating Rita but has other darker levels too.  There are a couple of really sad scenes too which really get to you.  While the acting is fine, I did feel the film dragged a little in places, the slightly voyeuristic photography didn’t always suit and Corinne Rae Bailey’s music, while sunny enough comes across as a little obvious.  There is a slight hint of telefilm about it which perhaps detracts a little from the obvious importance of the acting and the message.

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This is the tale of Idi Amin as seeen through the eyes of a young naive Scottish doctor who gets to become his personal physician.  The film begins with the rise of Idi to power and we see how his reign manages to combine charm and horror in the way that many dictators operate.  Obviously, this is Forest Whitaker’s film and he creates a compelling character which dominates every scene he is in.  James McAvoy as Nicholas the doctor does a good job too and these two dominate proceedings.  The film itself is satisfactory but hardly rises above the expected for this sort of biopic with drama and there are some gaps in characterization and motives for the minor characters.  Watchable but nothing out of this world.

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Argentine film by Ana Katz director of the embarrassingly humourous El juego de la silla.  Ana also plays Ines the main carácter who is in the middle of a break up with her boyfriend. To say she is unbearable is an understatement – a control freak, a pain in the neck , it is no wonder her man stays on the bus and lets her get off at the coastal resort where they were to have their anniversary weekend.  And this is the problem with the film.  Why should we care about a woman who is basically selfish and unlikeable and who doesn’t seem to learn anything during the film.  She gets the hots for a hotel porter who isn’t interested.  The only person who really is interested in her, Germán (nicely portrayed by Carlos Portaluppi) gets the brush off.  There is no doubt that Katz gives us authentic scenes that can occur with many people but watching such an immature selfish girl is not so attractive.  There are some well constructed scenes but a lot of boring stuff too.  More hype than really important cinema.

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A powerful little film from Argentina about Alex who is 15 and in the middle of a struggle with the fact that she is a hermaphodite.  Along to visit her and her family on the windswept Uruguayan coast is a family made up of a plastic surgeon father, a mother and a 16 year old boy who seems more interested by sketching beetles than sex but is soon in the middle of the turmoil that is present here.  Should Alex be operated on?  Should she give up the pills and risk regression to a more masculine state?  Father Richard Darin, impeccable as always, agonises over this, keenly supported by Valeria Bertuccelli.  But the real acting honours go to Ines Efrón whose feral look and ambiguous performance makes for a perfect Alex and Martin Piroyanski as Alvaro, all confusion and excitement.  Excellent compositions by both young actors.  The photography is also great and Lucia Puenzo must be given great credit for not shying away from difficult scenes and a very touchy subject in order to bring us this satisfying debut work.

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This debut film as a director by actor Kim Rossi Stuart is a powerful story of the effect of dysfunctional parents on their children, especially as seen through the eyes of Tomasso, an eleven year-old.  What the parents, in their own immaturity and craziness do and say in front of their children mark their lives forever and Rossi Stuart presents us with a pastiche of those small moments that make the difference.

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