SAVING MR BANKS

Based very loosely on a true story, this is the tale about all the shenanigans behind the making of the multi-Oscar winner smash hit movie 'Mary Poppins' in 1964. Walt Disney had been pursuing the book's author P.L. Travers (Pamela) for the past 20 years to get the film rights and now in a last ditch attempt to persuade the reluctant writer he had arranged to fly her to Los Angelas for a visit to see if she could be tempted by the screenplay that had been written.

Mrs Travers, as she insisted on being addressed by all and sundry, was a formidable woman and although actually Australian by birth, had become this quintessential English grand dame with a marked distaste for everything American.  The only reason that she had been persuaded to take this trip by her Agent was that as her book sales had slowed up considerably, she was running out of money.

Everything about the Studio, including the script, the songs and Walt himself totally appalled her and she made sure that everyone knew this in no uncertain terms.  She ran roughshod over the poor screenwriter, dismissed the Sherman brothers cute songs as banal, and at one point even threw the whole script out the Rehearsal Studio window.

In a series of flashbacks it became clear that these stories that she had written about this magical Nanny were rooted in her own tough childhood in the Australian outback. When her beloved father (surprisingly sensitive performance from Colin Farrell), who had always encouraged her vivid imagination, tragically died when she was only 7 years old, it was the sudden appearance of her Aunt who had come to 'save' the family that was the turning point in her young life. When Mr Disney finally realised that in the book it wasn't the children that the Nanny had come to rescue, but Mr Banks himself, he knew then that he had cracked the code to Mrs Traver's story ... a fact he used to now convince her that he could be trusted to make a movie that she would like.

Saving Mr Banks is a gloriously funny over-sentimentalised movie that proves to be a great vehicle for the Emma Thompson's dynamic turn as Mrs Travers with her rapid-fire acerbic wit. She is nothing short than superb with an hilarious performance that will probably earn her an Oscar Nomination.  The flashbacks show us that she has never reconciled to her loss of her father and this accounts for her overly protective grasp on her Mary Poppins books.  It takes Tom Hanks effortlessly playing an amiable Walt Disney with more patience than God and an unshakable charm offensive that wins her over so that he gets to make his movie. At the premiere in LA, which Mrs Travers had to invite herself too, she sits between the Sherman brothers and openly cries. Alls well that ends well.

If only that was all true though.  This movie that had originated in Australia and then was slated to be produced by the BBC in the UK, but as they needed get permission to use the songs etc from Mary Poppins they needed approval of The Disney Company who then ended up making this movie.  Hence the discord between Mrs Travers and Walt ended up on screen as being totally cordially, with Mr Disney being portrayed in such an impossibly saintly manner. What is not shown, is that after the Premiere Mrs Travers sought out Walt and demanded that the animation sequences be removed. He is quoted as saying 'That boat has sailed Pamela'. After that she refused to sell him the film rights for the rest of the Mary Poppins books, and never ever returned to Hollywood.

Another omission that was even stranger given the fact that in this movie Mrs Travers frequently asked other people if they were parents, yet there was no mention of the fact that she had a child too.  Never married (she had relationships with people of both sexes) she had adopted one of twins, but had very oddly refusing point blank to adopt his brother.

'Saving Mr Banks' is a entertaining crowd pleaser ..... but think how much better it would have been if they had used more facts and less fiction.

P.S. Stay for the final credits as they used the actual tape recordings that the real Mrs Travers made on that fateful visit to the Studios.

★★★★★★★★

WINNIE MANDELA

With its opening shots dramatically sweeping over the sun-drenched plains accompanied by the lush sounds of a symphony orchestra you can be forgiven for thinking that you are about to see an African 'Sound of Music' rather than the tale of the poor tribeswoman who would end up marrying one on the most famous men of the last century.  This is the story of Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela who's birth in 1936 greatly disappointed her school-teacher father who was hoping that his sixth child  would finally be the son he always wanted.  Young Winnie however turned out to be quite the tomboy and an avid learner too so by the time she won a scholarship to go study in the big city, her father had become really proud of her.

Winnie was a very serious young lady preferring to spend all her time studying and then working rather than socialising with colleagues and friends. Even before she met her future husband, she shocked everyone by turning down a chance to study in Boston so that she could become a Social Worker in the Township of Soweto instead. When she caught the eye of budding politician and activist Nelson Mandela she initially rebuffed his advances, and only gave in and started dating him when he showed how tenacious he could be.  By the time they married, Mandela was already being harassed and pursued by the South African authorities often on the most tenuous of charges. They tried to make life as impossible as they could for the couple and that included having Winnie fired from the job that she loved so much.

Mandela was arrested and tried with three other black leaders and narrowly escaping the death penalty is given a sentence of life imprisonment.  There is a wonderful slightly ridiculous scene in the movie which adds a touch of humor when Winnie enters the Courtroom for the Trial and is decked out in full national regalia topped off with an outrageous headdress.  It earns the rebuke of the judge, to whom a defiant Winnie replies that she has little rights as a black woman in this country, but she still has the right to decide what to wear!

With Mandela doing hard labour on Robbins Island, the Authorities turn their attention to Winnie who has taken over her husband's mantle and become a leader of the Movement and something of a firebrand speaker. They jail her without charges and put her in solitary confinement for almost a year but when they fail to break one single part of her spirit and determination, they release her again.

When she is finally allowed to visit her husband in jail he is horrified by her appearance and screams 'what have they done to you?'  To which she calmly replies 'Made me stronger!'. 

Winnie is then banished to a remote township for some years, until the Government starts having some serious discussions with Mandela in prison about trying to find away out of the country's political impasse, and so they allow her to return to Soweto. The township has radically changed since she was last there and now rival anti-apartheid gangs violently fight with each other resorting to the practice of necklacing (putting a tyre around a victims neck and setting it alight). When Winnie's house is firebombed, one of her supporters creates a bodyguard posse for her using the cover of a football club to make them appear legitimate.  Before long the antics of the Mandela United Football Club become infamous and when she visits her husband in jail he demands to know why Winnie is condoning the actions of these thugs and asks if she is actually sleeping with their leader.  She doesn't answer either questions.

This is possibly the weakest part of the story as there is no attempt to explain why this respected activist who had been known throughout the world as 'the mother of the nation' is suddenly standing by silently when those close to her are committing unspeakable acts of violence.  When one of her Club boys is murdered for being a suspected Police Informer, we are never sure how complicit Winnie was, although many years later at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings she is held 'politically and morally accountable' for all the gross violations in human rights by her Football Club.  

By the time a freed Mandela became the President of South Africa in 1994, he had been seperated from Winnie for over two years.  He knew that his position as Leader would have been untenable if he had remained linked to this woman who once had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but had turned out to both malevolent and dangerous.

This fascinating biopic with its overly-dramatic soundtrack that gives it such an old-fashioned feel ends way before Winnie does finally end up behind bars.  What lifts it higher than its somewhat cliched script may have deserved is the two central performances, particularly that of Jennifer Hudson as Winnie who proves that her Oscar was no fluke performance. Terrence Howard takes great pains to ensure that he sounds acts as much like Mandela as possible and strangely physically ages much quicker than Winnie on screen!

Mrs Winnie Mandela is a powerful and fascinating character and I know there is a lot more milage in her life story yet, and it will be interesting to see how this incomplete version compares with 'Mandela : The Long Walk to Freedom' that has just been released.

Out now on VOD & DVD.

★★★★★★★

BEST KEPT SECRET

When they answer the phone at John F Kennedy High School in Newark, they add the tag line 'New Jersey's Kept Secret' and after watching Samantha Buck's heartbreaking documentary you can understand why they so deserve to make this claim. You will also soon realise that most of the credit for the remarkable activities and achievements at JFK is due to a self-less inspirational teacher called Janet Mino who refuses to ever give up on her classroom of autistic children come what may.

The city is not only the 10th poorest in the nation it also has one of the highest rates of autism too.  Mino and her colleagues have some of the toughest jobs in education and sadly they have the misfortune to be in a State where the school systems are not only chronicled under-funded but also having to cut even more vital services when budgets are squeezed even further as result of the current recession.

The documentary follows Mino's class that will graduate in 18 months timeand focuses on three of the kids in particular, all of whom will break your heart.  A few are lucky to have two parents to support them, many are from single-parent homes and a couple have been placed in foster-are when their parent couldn't cope. Mino has both inexhaustible patience and limitless respect with them all, and in most cases has far more optimism of their capabilities than their own carers who struggle to accept anything beyond the status quo.  She wants her pupils to be able to communicate and be as independent as possible in a world that is often hostile to people like them

Asides from teaching them, Mino rushes around to check out all the government-funded programs in which to place her students after graduation hoping to find ones that will continue her good work. Sadly they include facilities where they will be set to do mindless repetitive work just to keep them occupied but not stimulated, and as these often are a cheaper option for the parent/carer they are often the ones selected. Mino is nothing less then tenacious in trying to always get the best for her pupils despite her colleagues attempts to get her to face the harsh realities of very limited options that life has in store for these future 'consumers' as they will now be deemed by officialdom.

Buck's camera is upfront and close at all times following Mina's every step and also recording those of her pupils, and it remains there too when one of them has the occasional meltdown.  When Mina manages to fulfill Erik's dream of a part time cleaning up at Burger King we are as elated as him, and equally crushed when it falls through because there are not funds to provide the necessary job coach to mentor him for those few hours a week.

The entire class deservedly get to graduate and in style, By this time we are 100% in their corner as we have got to know them one by one over the past 86 minutes we now share Mina's genuine concern about the next stage in their fragile lives. Meanwhile she has a whole new class of autistic kids in needs to start the whole process all over again.

The woman is a Saint.

Available now on VOD & DVD

★★★★★★★★

THE HUNT

Lucas is slowly getting his life together after a messy divorce with a traumatic custody battle, and also losing his teaching job as a result of the recession. Now in this small Danish country town he is working helping out at a kindergarten in the day and hanging out having fun with his male friends at night. It's not a perfect situation with him alone in the big house that he once shared with his family, but he has just heard that his son wants to come live with him so things are definitely on the up.

That all changes suddenly one day when in a fit of pique a 5 year old girl called Klara blurts out to Grethe the Kindergarten's owner that Lucas had exposed himself to her. A flummoxed Grethe calls in a child psychologist to see if there is any truth in the accusation, and in his overly-cautious way of desperately trying not to upset the child anymore, inadvertently puts words in her mouth and so draws the wrong conclusion.  Lucas is told to take a few days off whilst the matter gets sorted out, and Klara's parents ...... who happen to be Lucas's best friends .... are called in and told of the accusation.

From there the situation snowballs out of control as Grethe gives all the other worried parents a vague list of 'symptoms' to watch out for and then they all become convinced that Lucas has molested their children too.  And then when young Karla attempts to recant her story and tell the truth, this is rejected and explained away by the 'experts' as actually the severity of the abuse that has been inflicted upon her. When the local Magistrate refuses to charge Lucas due to an overwhelming lack of evidence, almost the entire community are outraged as they are totally convinced that a pedophile is loose in their midst now. 

As we know that the whole thing is a lie from the outset, it's harrowing to watch Lucas falsely treated like a criminal by the very community that he was once such an integral part of it.  They take out their anger on him both physically and verbally inflicting their own concept of justice on a man they unanimously feel should be punished.

Fast forward to when the truth finally is allowed to come out, and when the whole town accepts that it was all one huge mistake, Lucas and them kiss and make up, and life gets back to exactly where it was again for them all.  Or does it ... wait for the most unexpected finale before you decide .

Directed and co-written by Thomas Vinterberg ('The Celebration') it has a remarkable centered performance from acclaimed Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen with his weather-beaten sad face. Its a break from seeing him from playing a villain as he is usually typecast .... he was Le Chiffre in 'Casino Royale' and is currently playing Hannibal Lecter on NBC TV. He subtly portrays the persecuted Lucas with an intense quiet dignity despite all the hatred that is heaped upon him, until he finally lets his inner rage surface.  It's powerful stuff that it makes you want to root for him even more as the plot thickens.  Mr Mikkelsen was deservedly given the Best Actor Award at Cannes Film Festival for this.

Credit too for an astonishingly realistic performance from young Annika Wedderkopp as Klara, and also to Thomas Bo Larsen ('The Celebration') as Theo who was so torn between his loyalties as Klara's father and Lucas's best friend.

A harrowing take on a very difficult subject where people are so desperate to over-protect young children that they inadvertently see what they want to see and are totally blind to the truth.  It will make you both angry and sad. Trust me.

Out now on VOD & DVD.

★★★★★★★★

AMERICAN HUSTLE

From the opening scenes when a bald and paunchy Irving Rosenfeld (a totally unrecognizable Christian Bale) stands in front of the mirror doing a painstaking ritual of sticking on a toupee and then doing the most ridiculous comb-over ever, you can immediately sense that you are in for a riot of a movie.  This wonderful 1970's stylish comedy caper directed and co-written by 3 time Oscar nominee David O Russell is as much fun as you will ever have at the movies.

Its very vaguely based on a real incident from that time when the FBI enlisted the services of a con man from the Bronx to lead an undercover operation called Abscam that included the creation of a fictitious Arab sheikh named Abdul and resulted in the conviction of six congressman and a United States Senator, among others.  But in this movie where everyone seems to be intent on conning each other its almost impossible to keep on top of the complicated plot at all times.  Not that spoils one's enjoyment at all, as the real pleasure is in the cast of extraordinary hysterically funny characters that make this such a sheer delight.

Irving is a small time con man and loan shark who although married to his stunning beautiful but batty wife Rosalyn, falls really hard for Sydney a tough bright cookie from New Mexico who transforms herself into English aristocratic Lady Edith Greensley complete with fake high-powered business connections in London. She makes Irving ratch the cons up a notch or two and soon the money starts rolling in.  But their success attract the attention of  the FBI  who set them up on a sting, and once caught they are persuaded to help entrap some bigger fish in exchange for the charges against them being dropped.

They now have to work for Ritchie DiMaso a would-be hot-shot Agent who puts curlers in his hair at night and still lives at home, but is so insanely ambitious he would happily beat his boss to a pulp to get his own way.  Ritchie is so manically intense about everything which often causes him to goof up as he gets in such a state, he cannot see the woods from trees. Played somewhat frenetically by a rather brilliant Bradley Cooper who manages to steal most of his scenes ...even the ones with Bale.

The three of them embark of a series of ambitious undercover stings which brings them closer together and so Sydney turns her romantic attentions towards Ritchie as Irving will not (or can not) let Rosalyn loosen her grip on him.  Jennifer Lawrence's completely over the top showy performance as Rosalyn is a deliciously funny comic highlight of the story, and as such is already attracting a lot of awards and nominations.

When the chips are down and their biggest entrapment looks like it is going horrible wrong it is the sleezy looking Irving that proves that once again he is the smartest man in the room, and no matter how bright the best FBI Agents are, you can never out-con a con man.

Mr Russell has not put one single foot wrong creating this, one of the very best movies of the year.  The sets, the costumes, the make-up, the hairstyles, the soundtrack etc. every little detail makes this movie soar so high.  He's reunited with some of his favorite actors that he has once again extracted award-winning performances from.  Besides Christian Bale (Oscar Winner 'The Fighter') who is totally superb in yet another career-best turn, there is the sublime Amy Adams (Oscar Nominated 'The Fighter'), Bradley Cooper (Oscar Nominated 'Silver Linings Playbook'), Jennifer Lawrence (Oscar Winner 'Silver Linings Playbook'), Robert DeNiro (Oscar Nominated 'Silver Linings Playbook). Plus two time Oscar Nominee Jeremy Renner, Jack Huston, Alessandro Nivola and Michael Pena.

I definitely want to see this one again.  Not to try and make sense of some of the complicated plot twists I may have missed, but simply to revel once more in the experience of so much joy that this well-crafted movie has.  Such excellence from Hollywood is a rare commodity, and fun needs to be repeated.  More than once.

★★★★★★★★★★

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

Didier and Elise may look like a good fit when they fall in love at first sight and start a life together on his rundown farm, but appearances can be deceiving. This lanky bearded bluegrass banjo playing man is a romantic atheist whereas Elise, a beautiful blond hippy tattoo artist who maps her life out by the ink on her body, is a religious realist.

They both share a passion for each other and also for making music together and when Elise becomes suddenly pregnant, they extend this to Maybelle their child too. It's a big happy family until one day Maybelle, now aged 7, is diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Elise finds solace in her spirituality and in religious symbolism, whereas an desolate Didier focuses his anger at raging at the fanatics of the religious right who are successful in banning cell stem research that could help others like his child.

Keeping their lives together becomes more difficult as they get mired in their grief, and this couple that were inseparable can now barely speak to each other and are bound to go their desperate ways.

In this story co-written from a play by lead actor Johan Heldenberg (Didier) what strikes one most is the sheer intensity of every single part of the story. Right from the very raw love-making of the pair, to the heart wrenching twist of the child's sudden illness. When Didier suddenly loses his cool completely and rants and rages at the audience in the middle of his band's performance he is really asking what the point of life actually is if tragedies like the loss of his child can occur.

The irony is that this Flemish man has always been so impressed with everything American as he believes life there is perfection, yet he can see from his TV (Pres. Bush at a news conference) that the culprits who are stopping the medical research are in his precious USA.  And the Appalachian music he is devoted to sing is deeply infused with the God that he hates so much.

It's an immensely powerful and painfully devastating movie that will move you to tears more than once. Watching the pair struggle to come to terms with having to witness the sheer cruelty of Maybelle's suffering, (with a staggeringly realistic performance from an exceptionally talented five year old Nell Cattrysse) and then trying to find some rationality in the situation just exasperates their anger even more.

And lest I should forget, there is the glorious haunting Bluegrass music that peppers the whole story ..... and all sung and played by the actors themselves.

This is Belgium's official nomination for Best Foreign Language Oscar and has deservedly made the final shortlist and is a very serious contender for actually winning.  It has already been picking up awards around the world including a Best Actress one at Tribeca Festival for Veerle Baetens's riveting performance as Elise.

Unmissable.

★★★★★★★★★★

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

Poor Llewyn is both a loser and a user. Nothing is safe in his hands as his life careers from disaster to disaster whilst he goes from crashing on couch to couch in his long suffering friend's New York apartments. He even manages to lose one of his host's cat that he lets escape into the streets.

'Inside Llewyn Davies' is the Coen Brother's wonderful take on the early 1960's folk music scene in Greenwich Village that focuses on good-looking 30-something year old Llewyn whose songs are as bleak as his very messy life.  He treats everyone so shabbily that it is a complete surprise that anyone puts up with him at all. There's Jean, who sings with her husband Jim when she is not sleeping with Llewyn and half of the folk club circuit. She blames Llewyn for her pregnancy and although he unquestioningly accepts responsibility for paying for an abortion, in reality it may not even be his child.

There's Joy his resentful sister who allows Llewyn to crash in the Long Island house that had once been their childhood home just so that she can nag him to give up singing and go back to being a merchant seaman. And in uptown Manhattan, there are the Columbus scholars the Gorfiens whose cat he loses, but it also turns out that they were the parents of Llewyn's late singing partner who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.

Everybody on the folk club circuit is enjoying more success than Llewyn even though he think he has much more talent, but he fails miserably to earn their respect or worthwhile gigs or even a decent Agent.

Why such a depressing tale should be so watchable is totally down to the Coen's obsessive attention to detail.  It's a glorious period piece shot in smoky hues that makes it feel like a black & white movie that has been hand tinted with some color.  The acting from this incredible ensemble is top-notch but the production design and cinematography deserves star billing too. The fact that we get so engaged in watching the story of a loser is because he is played by a remarkable relatively unknown actor Oscar Isaac (and local Miami boy) who was nothing less than sensational in this his first ever lead role.

Rounding out the cast were the superb Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake as Jean and Jim, Garret Hedlund as Johnny Five, and John Goodman playing the obnoxious loud-mouthed Roland Turner.

My initial reaction after viewing this, was one of stunned silence as I had simply not been prepared for what a downer the actual story was.  Now on reflection, and I am wallowing in the memory of the sheer pleasure of what a powerful character study of such a flawed character it was in such a magnificent set piece.  And lest I should forget there was all that music too that had been ex-produced by none other than T Bone Burnett.

It won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and is unmissable, as it could even be the best Coen Brothers yet.  And that is really saying something.

★★★★★★★★★★

THE PATIENCE STONE

In a decrepit bomb-damaged house in a  war-torn country ....probably Afghanistan ......an unnamed young woman in her mid thirties is struggling to take care of her two young children and also her much older husband who was seriously wounded in a battle. A bullet in his neck has reduced him to a comatose state, and as they have run out of money to buy any drugs, he is kept alive by the glucose drip she has rigged up, and by her extraordinary patience.

They have been abandoned by all his family who have escaped to a safer area, and even his fellow combatants and are now totally alone in what has now become the front line of the fighting. She manages to track down her Aunt, who has survived as an independent unmarried woman in this fiercely Muslim country by working as a prostitute and she provides a refuge for the children, and some support/encouragement for her to go back and sit it out with her husband.

Left alone with his motionless body for company all day, the woman starts to open up and speak the truth to her silent husband. Something she would never have dared to do had he been conscious. She tells him about her childhood, her frustrations, her dreams and her innermost secrets. Emboldened by the relief she feels in letting go, her confessions get more extraordinary and audacious as she rails on about this old man who never tried to understand her, or ever showed her any respect or kindness, and so often mistreated.

According to Persian mythology 'the patience stone' is a magical black stone that absorbs the plight of those who confide in it, and that is exactly what the woman is now doing. She goes even further and even confides to her husband about the young stuttering virgin soldier who mistook her as a prostitute and how she has been finding happiness in helping him with his sexual awareness and teaching him how to pleasure her.  And if that is not enough, she finally confesses about the long-held secrets about the paternity of their daughters.

The movie written and directed by Atiq Rahimi based on his own award winning novel is a powerful feminist tale. To take aim like this against a repressive religious patriarchy in a set up where the men literally have no voice, is completely ingenious. We share every sliver of all the emotions that the woman feels from her bitterness to her downright anger in being forced to have silently accepted her role as her husband's property to do with exactly as he pleases. It's a potent and compelling performance by Golshifteh Farahani, an exceptionally gifted Iranian actress who is no longer welcome in her home country since she posed nude in a French Magazine last year. The success of the whole piece lies squarely on her shoulders, a task that she rises to so totally.

It's a movie that every woman should see .... if nothing more than to empower you to find your own 'patience stone' and tell a few home truths to your partner even if he isn't comatose.

P.S. This is Afghanistan's Official Submission for Best Foreign Picture Oscar.

★★★★★★★★★

THE GREAT BEAUTY aka LA GRANDE BELLAZZA

There is not just only one person who could make claim to being 'the great beauty' in Paolo Sorrentino's stunning new masterpiece that focuses on Rome's fast set as everybody is completely obsessed with being desired and admired by all. Well, by everyone in their clique at least. At the epicentre of all this frantic partygoing is Jep,  a great wit who is living of the reputation of the acclaimed novella he wrote decades previously and whose claim to fame now is that he knows everyone in society who matters. He also has the added good fortune of a stunning apartment with an enormous roof deck that overlooks the ruins of the Coliseum.  

The movie opens with a party in progress on Jep's deck : this one is to celebrate his 65th birthday ... not that this crowd really need an excuse to party all night.  The scene is like one glorious carnival with its cast full of eccentrics and oddities and with everyone intent on their version of what constitutes a good time. They are all completely self-absorbed which makes Jep their natural leader as he has the biggest ego of them all. It's a tale of decadence and gross self-indulgence of heavily botoxed middle-aged Euro-trash who are still living as they did in the past before resorting to be titled aristocrats for hire.

Sorrentino sets up a series of scenarios, some of which like the dinner party with the cooking obsessed Bishop are hilariously funny, and others with a Japanese tourist dropping dead in the midday sun at the mere sight of Rome, are a tad too obscure. Together they all add up to what is like the libretto of a grand opera, with its dependence on such high drama, which hits you hard with its sense of love and loss, and for its intense, unbearable melancholy at the end.

It's a total opulent visual smorgasbord that almost tips into sensual overload at times with it's highly meticulous stylised details : a sheer delight.  It's so easy to see why every critic compares Mr Sorrentino to Fellini as he is unquestionably his natural successor. It helps too that he uses his favorite actor Toni Servillo as Jep who wants to be Peter Pan yet mocks everyone else who wants the same: its a stunning performance that it would be hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

The Great Beauty is one of those rare movies that so utterly overwhelm you with awe and unfettered amazement that you simply have to view it a second time (at least) .    It has been quite rightly nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Movie : go see it ..... at least once.

★★★★★★★★★★

YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL aka JEUNE & JOLIE

Isabelle is on vacation with her parents and kid brother in the South of France and she celebrates her 17th Birthday by losing her virginity to Felix a young German lad she met on the beach.  You can tell that to her its no fun at all and its more like a rite of passage and at one point she 'leaves her body' and can be seen looking down at herself wondering why she agreed to do this.

Come Fall and the family is back in Paris in their usual routines and Felix is but a distant memory.  Isabelle is back at school studying, but she's now also got herself a very lucrative part time : she's become an Hooker. One minute she's in the classroom with her chums reading out loud Rimbaud's poem 'No One's Serious at Seventeen' and the next she is turning tricks with old men in luxury hotels.

She passes herself off as 20 years old, although non of her johns buy that as she looks much younger, but then she goes from losing her disdain for sex and actually starts enjoying it especially when one Georges one of her regulars treats so protectively.  Isabelle manages to fit her new secret life into her daily routines without anyone suspecting anything, until Georges dies in flagrante delicto and subsequently the Police coming looking for her.  

It's now winter and once the beans are spilled, Isabelle's horrified mother insists that she stops instantly, and that she signs up for therapy, and donates her rather impressive stash of earnings to charity.   She agrees to the first two, but insists that she will keep the money and use it to pay the Therapist.

Everyone is desperately interested in what makes a young woman from a wealthy and privileged family who has been spoilt choose to take such a path.  Even her stepfather who she hits on as by now Isabelle is aware the power that a pretty girl like her has over wanting middle-aged men.   

Come Spring and trying to turn over a new leaf Isabelle accepts an invitation to join her classmates at a party ..... something she has always avoided in the past.  She shocks the nervous boy who makes a clumsy pass at her by encouraging him to make out with her, although she stops at going home with him 'never on the first night.' And then they end up dating until a morning some weeks later and Isabelle wakes up to the fact that she is just going through the motions, and so breaks up with the love-lorn kid.  Its like Felix all over again.

And as the year almost comes full circle Isabelle turns on the cellphone she used for 'Clients' and finds lots of 'bookings'.  She takes one that takes her back to the hotel where Georges died, and finds that the 'client' who has booked her is his widow.  She just wants to see Isabelle to asks questions and get some closure on her husband's death.  By now Isabelle is beginning she also needs to ask herself some questions to make some sort of sense of where she is.

This however is a Francois Ozon penned/directed movie (and one of his best too) so you know that there will be several strands of the story that will never be tied up neatly.  It's not so much that Ozon likes to confuse, but he does have more intriguing ends to his movies then other filmmaker.  Isabelle is remarkably calm and poised for someone so young that embarks on what seems to be an emotionless search for her identity.  Ozon hints at an issue with her father who has a new family now, and also at an act of rebellion against a mother who is cheating on her husband, plus the fact that Isabelle simply now realises the power she has just by being so very pretty.

Its the scarily convincing performance by the remarkable young actress Marine Vacth as Isabelle that makes this movie really sing. She is fortunate however that her scene with Georges's widow, played by Charlotte Rampling is quite short , as its doesn't matter how pretty and talented a young star is, they are simply no physical match for a screen idol like her.

Whilst we get all the wonderful touches we expect from Mr Ozon, we also get something we don't expect and certainly want. I.E. him succumbing to French filmmaker's fixation with using really cheesy pop music that kills any mood, whether it be sexy, romantic or just thoughtful.  In '8 Women' is was camp; in this it is just annoying.

Ignoring the music (!) it's still Ozon on top form , which is always a joy..... and it did almost win the Palme D'or at Cannes this year.

★★★★★★★★

NEBRASKA

Old and dishevelled Woody Grant looks like he is on his last legs. Unemployed, crotchety and ornery, completely ignores his wife, and barely able to walk, but that doesn't stop him being stubbornly determined to trek some 900 old miles by foot on a whim that he has won $1 million dollars.  He has received one of those innocuous 'sweepstake' flyers in the mail that are trying to sell magazine subscriptions but as it has his name is printed on it, he has convinced himself that the prize money is real and his and that just needs to be claimed in person.

Every time the Police pick him up after finding him wandering the highway bound for Nebraska, his son David has to take him back home again to face the wrath of Kate, Woody's very angry wife. Initially David, worried that his father is losing his mind with his obsessional quest, also pleads with him to see sense, but after a while, concedes that he will help Woody regardless, if for no other reason than to take a break from his own rather sad disappointed life.

He offers to drive Woody as he had lost his licence some years ago, and the two set off on the long road trip.  Down through Wyoming and South Dakota until they make a pit-stop in Woody's old hometown of Hawthorne.  Paying a visit to his older brothers ramshackle home, it is obvious that Woody is not the only male in the family that grunts in monosyllables as a way of conversation. 

Word soon leaks out in this close community of Woody's impending newly found riches and he becomes the talk of this very small town. He is happy to bask in this new celebrity even though it brings out his ex-partner and untold family members who are keen to stake their claim on the winnings. Any attempt by David to explain the reality behind Woody's expectations is met with derision, but he does at least get to meet people from his father's past ....such as an ex girlfriend .... and for once actually starts to learn something about his taciturn father.

Kate and Woody's other son Ross reluctantly rejoin them for the final part of the trip, and even though they all believe in its futility, have some how started to find a closeness as family that never exsited before. Kate is always relentless tough on Woody, but when she lets her potty mouth lose on their money grabbing relatives, she gives an impassioned speech on what a good man he is, that suddenly reveals another side of her and their relationship.

This simple story completely engages from the start and so that you cannot avoid being invested in its outcome, which is far less about the $1 million itself but what the journey does to the dynamics of this family.   

This glorious new movie from Alexander Payne ('Sideways' 'The Descendents') shot in austere back and white is set in the present but with its vistas of near-abandoned farmland and its dilapidated struggling small mid-west towns that have been decimated by the economic climate, gives it feeling of a bygone America from another era.  Woody just seems like another victim of a world that has simply passed him by.

Besides the immediate family, the story is peppered with some totally glorious but completely droll plain-speaking mid-westerners who unwittingly add a rich layer of humor and warmth to this tale. They may appear as if time has stopped still for them as they seem as discarded as the land that they used to farm but some how that doesn't worry any of them.

Payne could not have hired a better cast.  Bruce Dern with his weather-beaten face looking perpetually dazed gave a career defining performance as Woody. He was so full of self-loathing and real indignation and cantankerous as ever when he believed that people had misjudged him, and they all did.  In a far from easy role as the son who had also fallen way short of his own expectations, let alone his father's, Will Forte (ex SNL) was perfect as David in a part that I would never have previously imagined him for.  And I totally loved June Squibb ('About Schmidt') as put upon Kate who barely had a good word to say about anyone.

This was the first time that Mr Payne was working from a script written by someone other than himself (Bob Nelson).  It was also the first time he made a movie in his home state which judging from this he obviously felt the need to leave as soon as he could. Making 'Woody' make the journey there was a profound reflective look at what he left behind.

A sheer joy ..........

★★★★★★★★★★

PHILOMENA

It's Anthony's 50th birthday, a fact that Jane discovers when she finds her mother Philomena crying over an old photograph.  Anthony is the son that she had out of wedlock as a teenager in Ireland and who was forcibly taken by Nuns and given away for adoption. It's a tale that she has kept to herself for all these years but she can longer hold back on wanting to know what ever became of him.

A chance meeting leads Jane to Martin Sixsmith a former BBC journalist who just had to resign as a Government Spin Doctor over a scandal and was now at a loose end.  As an ex Foreign Correspondent used to loftier matters he initially resisted the approach to investigate Philomena's story as he considered human interest pieces beneath him.  But he did reluctantly take on the project even though he initially had a great deal of difficulty adapting to Philomena and her world. She was still a devout Catholic, and a retired nurse with very simple tastes, plainly spoken and completely unworldly.  And he was ex Oxbridge & Harvard, having spent years as the BBC's Correspondent in Moscow & Washington and was urbane, sophisticated and very sarcastic. 

They started by taking a trip together back to the Convent in Ireland where the baby had been born. Philomena still believed that the Nuns would help her in her search even though all those years ago they had been prepared to let her die as a penance for her sins when it was a difficult breach birth.  However they drew a blank as the Nuns claimed that all the papers relating to all the babies born there had been burned in a fire long ago. But later at the local pub where they were lodging Martin learned that the Nuns had burned all the evidence because they had actually been selling all the babies off to wealthy families in the USA.

Now that he senses that there is a real story to tell, he gets a contract with a Magazine that will finance the next part of their search which will mean them both of flying to Washington D.C. to investigate any leads they can get from Adoption Agencies on Immigration Officials to find Anthony. Finding the son who was given away turned out to easier than even the intrepid journalist believed. However not only was it not the outcome that either of them had wished for, but it was what they also discovered about themselves as a result that had a profound effect on them both.

Director Stephen Frears ('The Queen', 'High Fidelity') is so back on form with this wonderful new movie after his last three missfires.  Based on a true story written by Martin Sixsmith .... and with a script co-written by Steve Coogan, who plays Martin in the movie .... it's a harrowing heartbreaking tale that fills one with so many emotions.  In fairness it starts out slowly, but once Philomena hits her stride and you begin to realise that this is far from a predicable birth-mother and child reunion story, that you start to choke up ... and get angry too.

Dame Judi Dench reunited with Mr Frears (Mrs Henderson Presents) is flawless as Philomena, who she reveals has this wonderful sense of wicked humor. and on certain matters is a lot more worldly than we ever expected. Her rigid belief in her faith regardless of all the evil she uncovers is both remarkable and totally convincing, albeit hard to approve off.  Despite all that she went through, she asks for very little ....'I'd just like to know what he thought of me, I have thought about him every day'. And she does at least get that. It is a breath-taking performance.

Steve Coogan plays Sixsmith rather drolly as a total non-believer and in the investigation itself is the 'bad cop' to her 'good cop' role. He and Philomena hold different views on almost everything, but as the search moves closer to its conclusion they develop a close bond together and a deep respect for each other.

This movie will probably end up on my Year's Best Movie List ... although before that the Academy will be definitely giving it some nominations. I think it best to go into this movie knowing no more of the plot than what I have revealed here. Although I should perhaps share that you will more than one pack of kleenex handy, and also if you had a low opinion of the morals of Catholic Nuns before this, you will discover that they are even more despicable evil than that. Urgh!

Such a treat .......

★★★★★★★★★★