WHAT A MAN

There's a real sense of irony in the title of this German romantic comedy written and directed by the leading TV actor Matthias Schweighöfer, as Alex the protagonist (that he also plays) is rather an immature wimp.  Well, he starts out that way as he allows his self-starved uptight model girlfriend to literally walk over him. He doesn't even know that she is having an affair with the loud-mouthed neighbor that she pretends to hate until she is rushed to the Hospital E.R. room after injuring herself in the course of having some very rough sex. 

Even then Alex is prepared to 'forgive' her and carry on, but since she has experienced the joys of sex toys which Alex now finds hidden in their closet, she wants no more of him.  Heartbroken, and cap in hand, he slinks off to sleep on the couch of his lifelong female friend Niele who is currently dating Etienne, when he is not out saving the world. Meanwhile, his best pal Okke who is desperate to stop him crawling back and begging Carolin to give him another chance, takes him to task and attempts to teach him how to 'man-up' by doing such butch activities as paintball and workshops in the wilderness.

You would have to be from another planet to miss seeing where this very predictable plot would end up, but full credit to the boyish looking Mr. Schweighöfer for imbuing the disarmingly charming lovelorn Alex with enough naivete that at least he seemed genuinely surprised with how much a man he was after all. He carries the piece and with such style that he made the movie quite a big Box-Office smash in Germany.  He will not however be able to repeat that in other markets that may be a tad more immune to his appeal, but nevertheless if you are up for an easygoing inoffensive date-night rom-com then this may do the trick.

★★★★★★

 

THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH aka 'La femme du Vème'

When Tom an American College Professor and one-time author arrives in Paris he tells the Immigration Officer he is there to visit his wife and child.  What he doesn't reveal is that she has a Court Restraining Order out and refuses to let him see their daughter. When Tom stalks the girl the police are called and he runs away in and hides out in the nearest bar.  Some hours later after drinking his worries away he ends up waking up on a bus minus all his luggage and wallet.

Stuck in a very run down part of town, he persuades a very sketchy bar owner to rent him a room on the basis that he will somehow pay him for it later. Totally broke he accepts a very odd job from the man where all he has to do is sit in a locked room buzzing in a flow of mysterious men.

Meanwhile when he is back hanging about in the city center he is recognised by an ex-pat bookseller from the photo on the cover of his one published novel, and gets invited to a literary gathering where he is instantly picked up by Margit a very glamorous widow of a Hungarian novelist.  She phones him the next day and invites him over to her grand apartment in the 5th Arrondissement. She clearly has one thing in mind, and it isn't about having a cup of tea. 

There are other hints as to the fact that things may not really be as they seem in this story with the presence of an aggressive Black man who lives in the room next door to Tom and leaves their shared bathroom in disgusting state, and than physically threatens him when he dares to complain. There is also the young Polish waitress in the Bar who Tom starts sleeping with, before he realises that she is in fact the girlfriend of the owner who is not to hesitant about becoming violent when need be.  But nothing really starts to add up in this psychological thriller until someone gets murdered.

This puzzling mystery based on the best selling novel by Douglas Kennedy is the work of writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski and only surfaced on my 'watchlist' after recently seeing his superb new movie 'Ida' which intrigued me sufficently to want to see his other work.  With this movie which he made in 2011, Pawlikowski shows us exactly what we (think we) want to see whilst leaving it all open to our own interpretation.  And he really succeeds so well in this thanks mainly to the fact that troubled Tom is played so sublimely by Ethan Hawkes who is so at home with such an enigmatic role like this.  Hawkes chooses his parts so carefully that his presence in any movie immediately validates it for me (next up Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood').  It also didn't actually hurt that the seductress was played by my favorite femme fatale Kristin Scott Thomas.

At times the blurring of all the lines gets very confusing and it is definitely one of those movies that remain with you days later when you are still trying to think what really happened.  Very intriguing and totally engaging. 

★★★★★★★★

WISH I WAS HERE

Aiden is evidently a very lousy actor.  He's so bad that even though he lives in L.A. he hasn't managed to score even a bit-part role for some years now.  He does insist though that he must 'follow his dream' and selfishly refuses to give up even though his nearest  and dearest must pick up the slack for him. His wife Sarah has a monotonous data-processing job at the Water Company just to put food on their table, and his father pays the fees for the private Jewish school that both of his children, Grace and Tucker, attend. This however now has to change as his father announces that as he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and wants to spend all his money on alternative therapies, he can no longer fund the kids schooling.

Aiden's response to this new development is to try and get accepted as a charity case at the school hoping they may forgo the fees, and when this fails, decides he will home school the children instead. It's something that he clearly has no skills for, but then again, its obvious that he's not actually qualified to do much at all beyond attending auditions.

Pre-teen Grace who is a very earnest honors student wants to continue learning how to become a devout Jew, whereas her younger sibling Tucker would rather play video games than participate in his father's attempts to teach him anything. Meanwhile Sarah has to work in cubicle with a creepy man who insists on talking in what he calls his penis voice and when she complains to her Boss is just rebuked and told that she should be grateful she even has a job. Aiden's father's treatments fail and his health is now declining rapidly and he is desperate to make amends with Aiden's slacker brother who seems to hate the entire world, except for the cute woman next door. But somehow Aiden still manages to make most of this all about him.

There are more than a few similarities between than Aiden on screen and his creator/writer/director Zach Braff (although Mr Braff is  a good actor) as both are well meaning and full of good intentions but in this movie are ultimately doomed to fall well short of their goals. This comic drama about the angst of a middle-class Jewish family 'struggling' in LA is at best mildly amusing, but for the most part is very flat and annoying.  The fact that Mr Braff totally funded his sophomore movie from Kickstarter donors may be the clue as to why this rather undisciplined story, free of any Studio input,  seems to have allowed him to indulge him in taking swings at many of the things in LA that seem to really peeve him with such an unfunny script.

There are touches of the disarmingly charming Braff who has delighted audiences in his TV sitcom 'Scrubs' for years, but not even a glimpse of the wit or humor of Woody Allen that he claims to want to aspire too. The high points are the poignant performance by Mandy Patinkin as the father, and a resilient Kate Hudson doing her best with the little she had been given as Sarah.  

After being so enamoured with his debut movie Garden State,a break-out Indie smash ten years ago, I was so looking forward to Braff's follow up, and it is just a disappointment then to find it is so less accomplished and enjoyable than one would have expected.

★★★★★

BEGIN AGAIN

When I sat watching writer/director John Carney's  latest movie that was hoping to follow on with the surprise success of his last hit, instead of being enthralled by the warbling tones of singer/songwriter Gretta on screen I just couldn't get a certain Sondheim lyric out of my head. 'Once, yes, once for a lark, Twice, though, loses the spark' which so summed up my feelings about the sickly sweet story unravelling in front of me.

Like his first movie 'Once' (which spawned the Tony Award winning Musical of the same name) this is the tale of a troubadour.  In this instance Gretta who had accompanied Dave her budding rock star boyfriend to New York where he was being treated like royalty as he recorded his first album.  Up to this point they had written songs together but the Record Company just wanted his music and they gave him anything and everything he wanted to ensure he produced a hit. It included a pretty Assistant who stepped into his bed when Dave went off to LA without Gretta.

When she discovers this she storms off in a huff and lands on the doorstep of Steve a fellow Brit and ex-college mate from Bristol, whilst she plans to fly back home to the UK.  He's also a musician .... a pretty bad one though .... and he persuades her to accompany him to an Open Mike night at a small local bar.  He forces her to perform and her wispy willowy lament goes down like a lead balloon except in the ears and eyes of Dan a drunk recently-fired Record Company Executive who thinks she is a star in the making.

However no-one else does and as he cannot get her signed up with a Record Label,  Dan sets out to make an album with her to prove that they are all wrong.  As he is penniless and cannot shell out for a studio he hits on the idea of recording it all live on different locations on the streets of the city with the help of a few other hippie musicians willing to work for free.  It makes for a pretty travelogue for the some of the scenic and hip places of New York that actually end up with a starring role in the movie.

As this unlikely pair of singer and manager/producer make music Gretta has to deal with the fact that Dave is getting famous but wants her back, whilst Dan is trying to re-connect to both his teenage daughter and his ex-wife whom he is estranged from. Hence the title of the movie, although only one of the two chooses to go it alone whilst the other decides to begin again by re-visiting their past.

The essential ingredients of making a movie about a singer/songwriter are that you need someone with a good voice and give them some good material to sing. This sadly has neither. The irritating and somewhat awkward Gretta as played by the oh-so-British Keira Knightly can limp through her songs but they sadly lack the energy and lasting power of the ones in 'Once'.  Mark Ruffalo energetically throws himself into the role of music genius Dan but there is the uncomfortable frisson between him and his protege who are never sure if they should have a romantic connection as well.  I'm glad they don't as they are so worlds apart that it would almost seem creepy. 

Kudos though to young Hailee Steinfeld who was perfect as Dan's daughter Violet, and also to handsome Adam Levine (ex Lead Singer of Maroon 5) making his acting debut as Dave for at least giving some real musicality to the piece.

I'm sure that despite all that it lacks it will still find an audience especially amongst aficionados of all those TV talent shows.  I however can simply summarise it up with the same word that I counted Gretta used at least four time in the movie : its just cheesy.

★★★★

BETHLEHEM

This tense taut thriller is about yet another deadly incident in the ongoing struggle in the Middle East and was  written by a former Israeli Secret Agent and a Palestinian journalist.  Yet despite its bipartisan credentials the overwhelming feeling that you come away after watching 'Bethlehem' is that the world is split into different camps of goodies and baddies, and you are left with no doubt who is which.

Razi is an Agent for Shabak, Israel's most elite Security Force, and he has somehow managed to coerce Sanfur a 15 year-old Palestinian to spy on his own family. Sanfur's older sibling Ibrahim is a notorious terrorist who leads a rogue group called the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who are intent on wreaking havoc and killing as many Israelis as possible.  For the past two years Razi and Sanfur have bonded like surrogate father and son and have been keeping a track on Ibrahim's activities. Sanfur provides information and in return Razi plies him with money and little luxuries like an expensive pair of jeans of a new cellphone.

However now Sanfur is now restless and wants to prove himself to the rough gang of gun-toting thugs that he hangs about with. He is provoked by them to do dumb things like letting them take aim at him to test out how effective a bullet proof vest is.  It turns out that it isnt .... bullet proof that is ... and the boy ends up in hospital in Jerusalem having the bullet removed and then being stitched up.   At the same time there is a bomb explosion in the city which kills a dozen people and when Ibrahim issues a Statement claiming responsibility, Razi knows he must lean hard on his young informant to discover his brother's hiding place.

Things get a lot hotter when  Israeli Intelligence get wind that Hamas is trying to send much needed funds to Ibrahim via Sanfur who is to act as the courier.  Razi goes against his bosses orders and ensures that instead Sanfur is safely out of harms way, so when they do the set a trap he will not be caught.  This may save the boy's life but when Ibrahim is killed in the process, Sanfur is so enraged and that he is also been made to be complicit in the killing, he wants to avenge his brothers death. It is obvious then that this is not going to end well for anyone.

Throughout it all Razi is shown as a man of impeccable honor and flawless morals and shines out like a beacon that is almost too good to be true compared to his aggressive revengeful fellow Agents who will stop at nothing to impose their will.  And at the other extreme all the Palestinians however are, without exception, portrayed as a bunch of fanatical, sociopathetic, bloodthirsty scheming killers. 

Despite this somewhat ludicrous unbalanced representation of the two sides, it is still,as a piece of fiction, an exceptionally good movie. The pace is fast and the tension never lets up, and the mere fact that a boy as young as Sanfur is dragged into brutality and sheer hatred without hesitation adds an uncurrent of hopelessness and despair which somehow engages one attention even if it is for all the wrong reasons.  The Israelis must have liked it too, as it was their Official Nomination for the Best Foreign Picture Academy Award this year.

★★★★★★★★

IDA

It's hard to decide exactly what period this new cinematic masterpiece from Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is set in with its austere dramatic settings that look like they have remained unchanged for centuries. This unforgiving bleak countryside that seems to have escaped any attempt at modernisation is in fact 1962 but you have this sinking feeling that this part of rural post-war Poland is probably still exactly the same today.

Ida is an 18 year old Novice at a large decaying rather remote Convent and is just about to take her final Vows. The Convent has been her home since she had been abandoned as a orphaned baby, but now the Mother Superior tells her that she does in fact have one living relative, an Aunt who  she should go visit before she makes her ultimate comittment to God.

She has two major shocks awaiting her at the end of her long bus journey when she finally meets her Aunt.  Not only does she discover that she is Jewish by birth, but she also quickly realises that her Aunt, is a former high-ranking Communist Party Public Prosecutor who has transgressed into an alcoholic chain-smoking woman who seems to bed every man she meets.  The sheltered young nun-to-be however seems to take it all into her stride and announces that she wants to go back to her home village just once and visit her parents grave.

An initially reluctant Aunt agrees to drive her there as she needs to prepare Ida for the harsh reality of the situation.  The parents had been slaughtered in the Pogrom in the War and even now the local anti-Semitic Communist population are in denial of their complicity as in many cases they then stole the lands left by the murdered Jews. This was the case of her own parents and it took the fearless tenacity of the Aunt to uncover the actual facts.

Along their road-trip they give a lift to a handsome young saxophonist who is enroute to play at a Ball in the next town.  Ida doesn't realise at the time that he will turn out to be one of the reasons that she questions her vocation and her 'calling' to serve God.

The tense melodramatic story is as uncompromisingly bleak as the landscape it is set in, and it's twisting plot lines as both women's lives unfold in front of our eyes makes for compelling viewing. The reason for their sadness is understandable and the outcome is therefore inevitable as neither of them can really carry on as before with the knowledge that they have unleashed.

It is unquestionable one of the most powerfully moving films of the year to date.  Completely stunning on so many levels but even so it is the superb black & white cinematography that so carefully framed each single shot that took this movie to a whole another level. Faultless award-worthy acting by two sublime actors Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza who had great chemistry as the two completely different woman who really had so much in common.

Completely unmissable.

P.S. The really surprising detail about this movie that will undoubtedly go down in the annals of Polish cinema as a national masterpiece, is that it's director and co-writer Pawel Pawlikowskin was born there but has actually lived and worked in the UK and France most of his life. Interesting then seeing the country as he must remember it from his own childhood.

★★★★★★★★★

VERY GOOD GIRLS

Best friends Lily and Gerri are determined to lose their virginity during their last summer together before they leave home for College. The drag is that there is evidently only one decent looking potential candidate to perform this service in Brighton Beach, and they both fall for him.  The object of their affections is David a hunky ice cream salesman & budding photographer who is thirty-something and way too old for either of the girls in reality. However Gerri announces that she is smitten the moment the two girls run into him on the Boardwalk, but it is the slightly aloof Lily that catches his eye.

Lily whilst looking no older than 12 years old acts like someone twice her age as she tries to manipulate her parents as they decide to separate after she catches her psychiatrist father making out with a patient, which is no real surprise given that her mother, also a therapist, is an uptight rather mean control freak. Gerri on the other hand lives with her free-spirited liberal hippyish parents who insist on talking about sex at the dinner table as if they were always at it with each other and others too. Both girls despise the fact that despite their wish to be different, they are actually very much like their own parents.

Lily has a secret affair with David and does in fact 'give it up to him' whereas Gerri who has decided to stalk him instead, talks about him to Lily at every opportunity, but she still remains 'in tact' even when the summer is out.  In this very lame and predictable plot it is inevitable that when Gerri eventually discovers that her best friend has been having this covert affair with the man she thought wanted to date her, there is a big fight.   

They kiss and make up in the end, as do Lily's parents too, and for some inexplicable reason the girls feel a need to celebrate by stripping (almost) naked together in their Long Island driveway after David has escaped to Paris.

There is not a lot in this tepid drama to redeem itself as writer Naomi Foner in her directing debut has made many spurious bad calls asides from her script. Lily was played by Dakota Fanning and Gerri by Elizabeth Olsen who did her best with her part but at 24 (6 years older than Ms Fanning) was just too old.  But then again Ellen Burstyn playing Lily's mother looked an odd match with Clark Gregg playing her husband as he is a good 8 years younger.  Ms Foner also had the benefit of having Richard Dreyfus, Demi Moore and Peter Sarsgaard but gave them nothing to get their teeth into. (Sarsgaard is actually her son-in-law as he is married to her daughter Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Very Good Girls is at best a Very Poor Film.

★★★

JUST A SIGH aka Le temps de l'aventure

What starts as not even a brief encounter but just mere eye contact across a crowded train carriage followed by one quick question, leads into a 24 hour romantic liaison  that neither of the two strangers expected.  Alix is a beautiful middle-aged actress who is commuting between Calais where she is currently performing in an Ibsen play, and Paris where she lives with Antoine her boyfriend of 7 years.  She is heading back to the city for an audition for a movie and spend a few hours with him and also borrow some money as she is working for a small Fringe company who cannot pay her.

Asides from her bank debit card not working, she has no cash at all and has also left her cellphone charger back in Calais.  She is a mess and rather distracted to say the least.  He on the other hand (Douglas, but we do not learn his name until the end) is a 60-something-year-old serious looking Brit who is making his way to the Basilca of Sainte Clotilde in Saint-Germain-des-Prés to attend a funeral.  Alix only discovers the last part when on a whim and running out of options that day, decides to go and take another look at him. Mistaken for one of the mourners she joins the Wake at a nearby Bar and finally the two of them talk.

Alix is a good actress as we have already seen her turn in a couple of powerful performances for the audition, and we are unsure if this immediate attraction to this craggy faced man 20 years her senior is just another role for her to play. After they have hooked up in his hotel room, its obvious to the pair of them, that as tender and romantic as their lovemaking was, that this cannot and will not lead to anything else beyond today.  

She leaves him to go tap her up her estranged elder sister for money, but as desperate as she is for cash just to get through the day she still gets into a nasty fight with her, once again asserting her independence.  And then she rushes back for another brief alliance with Douglas. When he gently rebukes her for stalking him, she somewhat indignantly responds 'I went and found you, that's different.'   It is to Douglas that she finally reveals the secret that has obviously been troubling her and which she wants to share with Antoine who has been playing phone-tag with her all day.

These two somewhat lonely souls who initially seem the most unlikely pair of lovers have this diverting 'brief encounter' that seems as doomed as Laura and Alec in David Lean's 1945 classic, although this contemporary French take will not garner any Oscar nominations like the original.  But the reason this rather slight story works so well is  due to the key performances of the very vivacious Emmanuelle Devos as Alex and the slightly grumpy looking Gabriel Byrne as the rather reserved Daniel.

It all happens on the longest day of the year which is quite as well as they have a lot to pack in before Alex has to catch the train back to Calais and Ibsen.

★★★★★★★

THE GOLDEN DREAM aka 'La jaula de oro'

This story about Guatemalan teenagers trying to escape their life of poverty and illegally cross the Mexican Border after a long and arduous journey en route to the USA, is one of the saddest and most dispiriting I have seen in a very long time.  It starts with three friends Samuel, Juan and his girlfriend Sara who disguises herself as a boy, but a native Indian called Chaulk also latches on to them soon after they set out.

The first of their many frightening ordeals occurs in small Mexican town where the Police round them up and immediately deport them back to Guatemala, but not before they rob them of their few possessions and their boots.  They quickly find their way back to the Border but Samuel has already had enough and wants to go home.  Juan has taken an instant dislike to Chaulk who he thinks is after Sara, but she insists he travels with them, so they all set off again.

It's not too long before the train they have jumped on along with hundreds of would-be migrants is stopped by the Mexican Army, but this time the three of them manage to escape and seek refuge in a sugar plantation. Back on the train, and this time it is halted by a band of Drug Traffickers who relieve everyone of anything remotely saleable and capture all the women including Sara who is spotted despite her disguise. When the two boys try to save her they are viscously beaten up by the gang and left unconscious in the middle of nowhere.

Chaulk revives first as Juan's injuries are more severe and the young Indian carries him to safety and nurses him back to health. Soon they are back on another train yet again and are easily lulled into false sense of security by another Guatemalan kid who promises them a job with his Uncle as they will need money to pay smugglers for the final stretch of their journey. It is a trap and they are about to be held hostage for ransom but as this gang is led by a fellow Guatemalan, Juan is let free.  However as he won't leave without Chaulk as he had saved his life, he offers the Captors the few dollars he has to buy the Indian's freedom.

It is sadly not the end of all the dangerous obstacles they will have to overcome on this seemingly endless harrowing journey, and sad to say, only one of them will make their final destination in one piece.  It is in fact a US meat processing plant where he works long hours for a pittance along with all the other undocumented workers.

The movie's original title is 'Juala de Oro' which translates into 'Golden Cage' and this is exactly what the kids get for all their dreams. The US willingly accepts illegals cheap labor but will not allow them the proper papers to rise beyond this lowly position. Despite this, and the continual fear of being caught and deported every single day, there will be hundreds of thousands other kids like these, that will still risk their lives for the hope of a better existence.

Directed and co-written by Spanish filmmaker Diego Quemada-Díez (who was a cameraman on many of Ken Loach's movies) it has a beautiful backdrop of stunning Mexican and Guatemalan landscapes that sometimes makes you forget the sheer poverty and the hardships of its inhabitants.  The movie relies on amateur actors, but it is the sheer power of the story that makes it so watchable and also the reason it has won several awards including Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival.

★★★★★★★★

OBVIOUS CHILD

The movie opens with a very confident Donna in the middle of her stand-up comedy routine in a small nondescript bar in New York. She is extremely funny and disarmingly honest as she talks candidly about the absurdities of her own life. The small audience love it and applaud her enthusiastically when she finishes her Set.  All that is except her boyfriend who had been standing at the back of the room listening to a stream of highly personal jokes made at his expense.  Then minutes the two of them are together in a rather busy unisex bathroom and he dumps her.  Not for the jokes but because he has been sleeping with her best friend for some time now.

Suddenly life doesn't seem quite so funny for this part-time comedian so she takes to her bed with a large bottle of wine and her phone.  The more she drinks. the more she leaves a series of ugly voicemails on her (now ex) boyfriends machine.

Days later she's back on stage and recounts this new development that resulted in her being a reluctant single again but she is so bitter and angry that she totally alienates the dwindling audience. This calls for more drinking in the bar afterwards and when she is well-plastered allows herself to be picked up by Max a clean-cut preppy business studies graduate who seems a fish-out-water both in this Dive, and also in Donna's bed where he ends up later.

Fast forward a few weeks and Donna discovers she is pregnant.  She knows that the baby is Max's but, as she tells Nellie her roommate, she doesn't know how it happened.  She was sure they had condoms and that she had even helped Max open the packet, but she was unsure if in their drunken stupor they had actually used them.

What Donna has no doubts about is that she will have an abortion, but when in a series of co-incidences, she keeps running into Max again, she feels an obligation to at least share the news with him. The trouble is she never knows how too. She tries to confide in her puppet-making very supportive father and even in her rather cold micro-managing Professor mother but she fears losing their support. Naturally when she does break down and break the news they are in her corner anyway and back her choice completely.

But still left with having to deal with Max, she invites the unsuspecting (and very sweet) man to watch her perform at the Bar the night before the 'procedure' is scheduled, the date is February 13th.  She is brutally upfront with all the details regarding the unwanted pregnancy and her chosen route, and has her slightly-shocked audience laughing along with her. Except Max who runs out into the cold.

This wonderful refreshing heart-breaking comedy that bravely dares to tackle the oft-taboo subject of abortion head on is the work director an co-writer Gillian Robespierre, and is based on the successful short film she had made a few years earlier.   Both Donna and Max are very believable characters, thanks to a combination of some excellent writing and great performances, and even though they are so totally opposite on many levels they are a good fit.  This is, despite the plot I have outlined so far, a romantic comedy after all. There are still some moments of great pain and struggle as Donna wrestles with the finality of her choice and I think it is also very important to note that even with its very honest and open approach to abortion, no-one in this story treats the subject glibly.

Their is also a rather wonderful unexpected ending that so refreshingly steered cleared of all of the usual cliches but as it includes spoilers I have omitted covering it here.

This is indie movie making at its best and I first saw this at Sundance in the winter, and loved it now just as much the second time around.

★★★★★★★★