Jamie passion and passionfruit!

I finally caught this 04 documentary by Morgan Spurlock in which he shows how a month of eating only McDonald’s food wreaks havoc with his health.  Less aggressive and more entertaining than Michael Moore, this is an important film in the fight against the multinationals that say they are looking after us but are really lining their own pockets.  It may not be a perfectly rigorous piece of research but Spurlock makes his point well and gets us thinking about the dangers of even occasional rations of fast food.

* * * *

Not a lot can be said in favour of this updated and revamped version of a 1939 film about a group of women forging their lives in New York.  The new film is a clichéd package of messages about female empowerment, all very unreal given the wealth of the women and their ability to get out of situations that their weak and caddish menfolk have created.  The messages are fine – it is just that they seem so forced and unauthentic.  Then there are the cipher characters seemingly put there to make up the quota – Debra Messing as the future mum who gets an operatic birth scene at the end and Jada Pinkett as a lesbian. What for?

Annette Bening shines as ever, Meg Ryan is an every woman with no special mark, Candice Bergen has some good lines, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher and Bette Midler all appear and give us a moment to smile but on the whole this is a lemon.

* *

Clint Eastwood back again with Angelina Jolie as the mother of a child who goes missing and who is ‘replaced’ by the LA Police Department with a false child rather than work harder at finding children.  She sets off trying to find out the truth and is put in a mental hospital.  This is the late 1920’s, of course but some of the high-handed police and governmental behaviour still goes on 80 years later.  This is a careful but almost too slow recreation of the times. You feel so safe with Clint and confident that he will tell the story well here but although he tones down the obvious outrage at the police’s behaviour, the film also suffers from some pretty one-sided charcterisations and an almost overloaded extension of plot and genre.  Just when you think things are getting sorted, a plot twist emerges and you are off on another twenty minute storyline.

Well, Angelina is suitably restrained for the most part, almost insignifiacne but turns on a rant and some hysteria when needed. Malkovich and other leading actors are low-key and only Jason Butler Harman, a newcomer to me, does a more memorable turn as a serial killer.  I enjoyed and respect this film by Clint but it is a little soulless and he has done better.  His own music is suitably poignant, the photography is in order but I still needed more to care about the characters and story, however real it was.  Angelina was Oscar nominated and she is good but by no means is it a superb performance.

* * * +

Great winner of the Golden Palm at the last Cannes festival, this absorbing film is not just a fascinating view for us teachers of a high school class in Paris today but also a slowly building drama of the typical everyday issues that a teacher of a multi-racial class has to face.  Laurent Cantet has built a reputation for his ability to capture today’s reality whether it be unions in action, the unemployment of executives or the sex trade and this is another triumph.  The story of the trials of this teacher and his class as he tries to make French relevant to his students is told without flourishes and fake moves.  François Bégaudeau takes the lead role in the film which recreates his book and is ably assisted by a team of students, teachers and parents who were recruited in the very same high school Bégaudeau wrote about. The film leaves you with plenty to think about as students and teachers question the viability of what they are teaching and the resources they have to work with in conveying this to students.  I wholeheartedly enjoyed it and in it’s low-key way think it is a most effective piece of cinema.

* * * * + +

Likeable but definitely undemanding comedy starring Steve Carell as Dan and Juliette Binoche as Marie, a couple who are made for each other but can’t quite get it together because she is going out with Dan’s brother.  It all comes together at a big family reunion in an imposing Rhode Island beach house.  It is not very realistic but the leads and the supporting players like Dane Cook, Dianne Wiest and Emily Blunt keep this oldish material fresh and moving.  Wet afternoon material and a chance to see the ever deepening talents of Carell.

* * *

An almost disconcerting film, of strong emotions and very good performances, this second work from Lucia Puenzo proves her talent at film making and her willingness to go for subjects that would normally put others off.  After the hermaphroditism of XXY, her latest tackles a lesbian love affair between a daughter of a judge and the Paraguayan maid who lives in the same house.  Not only that but crimes and hidden secrets emerge as Lala, the rich girl, gets to swim in the underworld and magic reality of rural Paraguay that Ailín comes from.  There are many strong points in the film.  Inés Efron is yet again luminous as the ethereal and yet gutsy Lala – she has a face that cameras love, and a body that she uses so effectively.  Emme or Mariela Vitale is a singer whose debut acting performance as the maid is also excellent and surprising and she manages to keep pace with Efrón all the way.  Then there is soap actor Arnaldo André almost parodying himself as La Guayi’s dad.  He too does a good job.  The film has a good script, very Latin American in its scenes and story, written by Puenzo from her own novel, suitable photography and appropriate music.  While watching I felt that there was a lot to commend about the movie and yet it also left a slightly sad and bitter taste. It is, after all, not a very happy story, even if the ending is sufficiently open to allow us to hope that the protagonists do get their dream come true.  Watch Puenzo – one day, she will produce the film that ticks all boxes.

* * * *

This is a film that belongs to a genre that you either like or you don’t.  It is about the learning that two very different people can take from striking up a relationship and trusting the other and striving to understand the other.  I do enjoy these films and can therefore forgive a certain lack of action and plot.  And this movie of Jean Becker is blessed with the presence of Daniel Auteuil (much better than in L’Invité) and Jean-Pierre Darroussin as the unlikely friends of rich painter and poor gardener.  They shine despite the potential of this film to sink into schmaltz with terminal illnesses, fishing trips and doses of classical music.  Somehow it all works and makes its points with beauty and tact.  Nice to see Hiam Abbas in a small role.

* * * *

Based on a real story of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire caught in a ménage-a-trois with her dry husband and Lady Bess, this is a sort of Diana prequel.  Well made but somehow lacking in originality, Keira Knightley does her usual competent job or portraying a forward thinking woman for her time trapped in a dry and virtually dead marriage with the Duke of Devonshire, played by Ralph Fiennes.  Fiennes does what he can with an unsympathetic part and tries not to make him a complete villain or deadly dull while in many ways he is both.  Hayley Atwell as Lady Bess is an attractive ambiguous character, Dominic Cooper doesn’t quite grab as Grey, Georgiana’s lover and Charlotte Rampling has little room to move as her mother.  A more sedate film than The Other Boleyn Girl, the settings, the photography and Rachel Portman’s music are all correct but the overall effect is to leave us wanting more.

* * *

The film of the book – the revealing inside story of the mafia as written by the now haunted writer Roberto Saviano.  It takes five stories which show us different facets of the mafia: their involvement in the haute couture fashion trade, the dumping of toxic waste, their control of poor neighbourhoods and paying off of families whose members are in jail for mafia work plus a couple of storylines about how new members are recruited or dissuaded. It is tough stuff and distinctly depressing at times even if Matteo Garrone’s direction keeps things moving along at a great pace.  The cast is largely amateur but the whole thing comes across as very authentic and just plain sordid and so mundane – frightening really.  Gianfelice Imparato as Don Ciro is one of the most impressive of the characters, but each character and each story comes across as worthy of our attention. Not exactly entertaining but definitely a film to make you think and not so horrendously graphic as to put you off a pretty heavy topic. The sort of film that is important to make and one made with more than a little style.

* * * * +