GRASSLAND

When John is not goofing off with his best friend Shane, he is driving his taxi around some of the more seedier downtrodden neighbourhoods on the fringes of Dublin looking for fares.  Pickings are slim and he pleads with his boss to give him more shifts to make ends meet.  He needs the money to support himself and Jean his alcoholic mother who seems determined to drink herself to an early grave.

On the rare times she is sober she is vivacious and funny, but when she is wasted, Jean changes into a mean and nasty drunk.  So much so that John videos one of her drink-fuelled tirades to play it back to show her what she turns into. Coming home to find her passed out is a regular occurrence, but on this occasion when he discovers her lying lifeless in a pool of her vomit he rushes her to the hospital ER. The doctor breaks the news that Jean desperate needs a new kidney, but if she doesn't get her drinking in check immediately, she probably won't last long enough to even have a transplant. 

If that is not enough for John to deal with, he also has to take sole responsibility for his younger sibling Kit who has Down syndrome, as Jean refuses to even acknowledge his very existence, let alone attend his 18th birthday. He does however finally manage to get Jean to an AA meeting but he discovers what she really needs is a proper detox programme that will coat £8000.  No amount of driving hookers around looking for their 'johns' in his cab will raise an amount as large as this, so he is forced to borrow it from an unlikely source.

He is actually handed the money by a person on a horse who passes him a tin full of money.  We find later that the price he will have to pay for this is something to do with the activities of the criminal clicque who lent it to him, but what this actually is as clear as mud and is open to wild guesswork. Their is a clue in the naked dead woman he discovers in the bath in a deserted country house he has been sent too, but we are never sure why.

Saying that this powerful Irish kitchen-sink drama is completely gripping from the word go.  It has an impressive performance from Irish actor Jack Reynor as John that got him a Best Acting Award at Sundance earlier this year.  Playing his mother quite superbly is Toni Collete who is pitch perfect as a deeply unhappy woman who seems almost happy to drink herself into oblivion.  A nod to Harry Nagle a young actor with Down syndrome for his bravado ad Kit.

Confusing but quite compelling.

★★★★★★★

THE LAST FIVE YEARS

The Last Five Years is a rare breed. It is an (off) Broadway Hit Musical that has been very successfully adapted as a movie and avoided the disastrous transition from stage to screen that usually ruins most of Broadway's exports. The simple story explores a five-year relationship between Cathy, a struggling actress, and her boyfriend Jamie who is a new novelist destined for big things. The show bravely tells Cathy's story starting at the end of their marriage and working backwards, whereas Jamie's is told in chronological order.

With very little dialogue this two-hander is a series of songs with the couple singing to each other about their romance as it takes off and then falls apart, and in fact there is only one number in the middle of the movie when they sing a duet.  So Cathy starts with her sad lament 'Jamie it's Over' whereas Jamie's exuberant first song 'Shiksa Goddess' is about when they first meet and he totally falls in love with her and declares she can be anything, but preferably not Jewish as his Orthodox family had pressured him for years.

As the title gives away the young couple meet, fall in love, marry and then part all in five years. Cathy gets stuck midway doing Summer Stock Theater in Ohio (!) whilst Jamie's literary success makes him the toast of Manhattan. Evidently so closer based on composer Tony Award Winner James Robert Brown's own life that he had to change one of the original songs after his actress ex-wife threatened legal action. 

It is completely enchanting and although sometimes the songs are a tad more passionate than the actual relationship, the infectious score and the very witty lyrics make this movie such a sheer delight.  Credit too for a rather wonderful performance from rising star Anna Kendrick who showed in 'Into The Woods' recently that she can sing as well as she can act.  She is teamed with handsome Jeremy Jordan (from TV's Smash) who is obviously a seasoned musical performer.

The original stage show was first produced in Chicago in 2002 before setting in off-Broadway and picking up a few Awards.  It has aged well with time, and this movie adaption from director Richard LaGravanse ('PS I Love You') will appeal to people beyond the usual musical aficionados.

★★★★★★★★

WOMAN IN GOLD

Maria Altmann has been living in California since she and her late husband managed to flee from Austria when World War 2 started. Now that her sister has just died Maria has uncovered several documents concerning all the art and other valuables that the Nazis had looted from their family home. One of them was a portrait of her Aunt Adele by Gustav Klimt which had been embellished with gold leaf and is considered one of his finest masterpieces. However since the War it has been hanging in Austria's National Gallery at the Belvedere Palace and has come to be regarded as the country's Mona Lisa.

Maria asks Randy a young struggling lawyer if he will look over the papers to see if she has a case to get her family's possessions back. He eventually agrees to pursue the matter even though the pair of them make such an odd couple.  She is very correct and proper with her curt clipped accent and her no-nonsense approach whereas he is a bit of a gangly nerd who only begrudgingly takes on the project as a favor to his mother who is an old friend of Maria's.

The movie faithfully follows the couple's long journey through the Courts where the Austrian authorities do their very best to thwart them at every step.  The first time that Maria returns to her home country after all these decades is very emotional as it stirs up all the memories of the family that never survived the War.  

Some of the best parts of the movie are all the flashbacks seeing a very young Maria and her handsome Opera singer husband at home with her parents who were one of the leading wealthy Jewish families in Vienna.  She enjoyed a really privileged life in their old-world rather grand apartment which the family shared with Aunt Adele until her untimely death from meningitis when she was just 42 years old.

Maria and Ryan hook up with an Austrian journalist who is the only one in the country who is prepared to help Maria to be reunited with the picture and he digs up some useful information that will help prove her rightful ownership. However no matter how solid the evidence is the Austrian Government steadfastedly refuse to budge from their rigid insistence that the picture is theirs. All the years the case drags through the Courts takes their toll on both Maria and Ryan who take it in turns to want to withdraw but they battle it out to the end and all's well that end's well.

It's based on a very real emotional story that is about one Jewish survivor seeking to be reunited with what the Nazis stole as the spoils of the war but that doesn't excuse the fact that the telling of it left so much to be desired.  As 'Maria' Dame Helen Mirren is a shining beacon making light work of some of the heavy-handed and rather inane words that the script placed in her mouth.  It is a wonderfully entertaining performance and makes up a little for Ryan Reynolds somewhat awkward turn as the Lawyer who may have won his case in court but would never be able to convince anyone he was remotely Jewish.  

Despite supporting roles played by such talented actors such as Daniel Bruhl, Max Irons, Allan Corduner, Jonathan Pryce and Katie Holmes this second feature film from TV Director Simon Curtis felt it more rightly belonged to the small screen as of it Lifetime TV's movie of the week. 

★★★★★★

GIRLHOOD

Life is pretty bleak in this concrete jungle of soul-less tower blocks of shabby apartments on this housing complex in a poor rundown suburb of Paris.  Sixteen year old Marieme is hoping that one day she will break out of there so for a better life so she does her school work, plays American football, and then goes home to look after her younger siblings whilst her mother is out all hours doing cleaning jobs to keep the family together.

However when Marieme learns that her grades are not enough to continue high school she gives up being a good girl and falls in with a gang of three girls who seem to wreak havoc whereever they go. At first Marieme sits on the sidelines observing the girls led by a real toughie who calls herself Lady, but she soon gets drawn into their questionable activities when the slack off school every day. She swaps her braids for a more glam look and starts aping their more outrageous dress style.  Its not long until she is the one menacing other kids on their way to school to relieve them of every cent they have to fund the gang's nefarious agenda.

They use the money to check into a hotel to try on all the clothes they have stolen from the Mall, get wasted on a diet of booze and pot noodles, and give a full rendition of Rihanna's "Diamonds." It's their idea of a high life, sad as it is.

Things change when Lady gets roundly beaten in a fight with a member of another gang, so an emboldened Marieme ....known by the girls as Vic ....steps up to the plate and takes on the victor and beats her up. It delights Djibril one of her brother's friends who she has been hooking up with in secret, but it infuriates her bully of a brother, and when he threatens her , she knows it is time to leave home.

In this situation the only way out is to start selling drugs, which she does for another gang in return for a share in a safe house in another neighborhood. As tough she has become, this is very much a man's world, and despite all her efforts, she is still a girl.

Its the third feature from French filmmaker Céline Sciamma and although it doesn't quite have the same resonance of her Award-winning 'Tomboy' but it does nevertheless pack a powerful punch. It's a bleak grim reality that these tough bad girls inhabit and come-of-age in but Sciamma does at least infuse it with a glimmer of hope .... and some compassion too.  It's zillion years away from the cosy life of 'Boyhood'!

★★★★★★

TRUE STORY

When the editors of The New York Times discovered that investigative journalist Michael Finkel had tinkered with the truth when he filed a report of modern day slavery in Africa they promptly fired him. Licking his wounds back home in Montana the disgraced reporter tried to kickstart his stalled career but he was shunned by everyone, except his unswerving loyal wife.

Then one day out of the blue Finkel received a phone call from a local newspaperman who alerted him to the fact that when an accused murderer on the run was finally caught down in Mexico, the authorities discovered that the man had been using Finkel's identity. The news triggers off a light bulb in the journalist's mind who thinks that not only is there possibly be a big story here, but it could be the ver thing he needed to help redeem his shattered reputation. 

When Finkel meets the man ... Christian Longo .... in jail awaiting his Trial, he strikes up a bargain with him.  Longo, who implies he is innocent, will tell the truth exclusively to Finkel to be published when the case is settled, on condition that he teaches him how to become a writer.

Finkel takes the bait, gets himself a lucrative book deal on the basis of it, and starts to get the story down on paper. The trouble is, the more immersed he is in the project, the more he realizes that what Longo is feeding him is edited highlights of his story and that he is obviously holding back on some of the more essential parts of the tale.  There is also the question of exactly how much is really true, and is in fact Longo even innocent after all.  Whilst this is all completely absorbing a rather obsessed and troubled Finkel, his wife is feeling ignored, and in a very odd scene which made little sense, is seen reaching out to Longo for sympathy via the phone.

Written and directed by British stage director Rupert  Goold and based on Finkel's own self-serving memoir the movie's pre-occupation with the 'truth' makes it all rather too slow paced and even boring at times. Too much of the 'action' takes place with just the two men facing each other across a table in the jail which is hard to make compelling viewing even at the best of times. Longo is played by James Franco who loves to play complex edgy characters, even though he doesn't always succeed in making them that believable. Opposite him as Finkel was the charming young and rather earnest Jonah Hill who was hopelessly miscast as the determined investigator desperate for a Pulitzer but meanwhile would just settle for another job.  Poor Felicity Jones cast as Mrs Finkel had little to do beyond pout and play the piano

True Story is based on a real true story.  It just turns out it was not an interesting one after all.

★★★★★

WILD TALES

Pretty model Isabel is on a business trip and strikes up a conversation with a gentleman the other side of the aisle of the plane.They quickly discover that they have a mutual acquaintance in Gabriel Pasternak who Isabel used to date and whom the man had once turned down for a College Grant. The woman seated in the row in front hears their conversation and proffers up that she once taught this same Gabriel Pasternak at her school. Very quickly they establish that everyone on board had some sort of dealings with Gabriel, most of which had ended unhappily, and they also discover that he had not only gifted them all their plane tickets, but was one of the crew on board.  

This is first of six extraordinary and wonderfully wicked hilarious short stories that all end badly,  and have one thing in common. i.e. vengeance.  Created by Argentinian filmmaker Damián Szifrón each one is manically bizarre and all, nothing less than brilliant, show his delightfully warped imagination 

In the second tale called ‘The Rats’ which is set in a remote roadside diner, the waitress discovers that her sole customer that night is a loan shark who had driven her father to kill himself.  The cook, a tough female ex-con, declares that merely rebuking the man is not enough and she is determined that this will be his last meal ever.  It’s followed ‘Road to Hell’ which is by the bloodiest episode of the set, with its tale of road rage that so gets out of control when an arrogant hot-shot yuppie in an expensive Audi tries to belittle a country redneck in his beat up wreck. The fourth of Szifrón’s yarns ‘Bombita’ is about an unfortunate demolition engineer who is having a really bad day.  His car is impounded when he stops for one brief moment to pick up a birthday cake for his young daughter.  He is forced to pay a hefty fine to the rude staff at the compound to retrieve it, and then gets screamed at by his wife for completely missing the child’s party.  It’s the last straw for her and she demands a divorce and so his car is towed away again and he literally explodes.

The penultimate tale is the only really serious one that is totally devoid of any humor. It’s the story of a very wealthy family whose son has killed a pregnant woman in a hit-and-run accident and they try and bribe their gardener to take the rap instead.  Their ploy almost falls apart when everybody, including the Police, seems to want ensure that they get the heftiest share of the hush money.

The rather spectacular finale has the very apt title ‘Till Death Do Us Part. It’s set at a Jewish wedding reception where the bride loses her big smile when she suddenly discovers that her groom has been having carnal knowledge with a very pretty younger girl in his office.  The bride loses it big time and is determined that not only will her new husband suffer, so too will his family and inevitably all the guests as well in an outrageous seemingly endless slapstick performance. 

The manic pace never lets up in the entire 2 hours, which for once just flies by as you sit on the edge on your seat unable to even guess what could possibly happen next.  What is really quite delicious though is Szifrón’s subversive humor which sets this unique piece really apart and must been a major contributing factor in the movie getting a Best Foreign Picture Oscar Nomination.   It also benefitted from an excellent cast, a stunning soundtrack from Gustavo Santaolalla, and the fact that it had the Almodovar Brothers on board as its Producers.

Wild Tales is really one wild ride that you will not want to miss.

★★★★★★★★★★

MAGICIAN: THE ASTONISHING LIFE AND WORK OF ORSON WELLES.

What maybe the start of yet another Orson Welles  revival, this montage of clips and interviews in a new documentary from Academy Award Winning Director Chuck Workman on the great man’s life that marks the centenary of his birth. With a wealth of archival footage and contributions from leading cinematic figures such as Martin Scorsese, Julie Taymor and Peter Bogdanovich this affectionate tribute meanders somewhat haphazardly through Welles roller coaster career.  Whilst it hardly covers any new ground on a subject that has already been well documented, it does offer a lively account of some of the high points of Welles’ life and many of his low ones too, with some very forthright and funny input from the man himself. 

Workman starts from the very beginning with Welles being hailed as a Boy Genius who parlayed the attention he gained at a very early age into establishing his own Repertoire Company.  He grabbed the general public’s attention at large in 1938 with a dramatic live radio version of H.G. Well’s ‘War Of The Worlds’, which had people clamoring for his life after being scared out of their wits when they believed he was seriously announcing that the world was being invaded by aliens.  The Police were called in to investigate but as he mischievously claims ‘I didn’t go to jail, I went to Hollywood!’

The Studio that had lured this budding genius was RKO who hired Welles to deliver masterpieces.  He did that twice, but they hated them and in the end, him too. His first movie ‘Citizen Kane’ which is now on every film aficionado’s Top Ten List was killed off at the time by the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst who was the thinly disguised subject of the movie.  This was followed by ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’, which was the first of several movies that Welles would be fired from and someone else would be asked to edit and finish resulting in a much inferior film. What is evident now and borne out by all the Hollywood insiders interviewed on screen is that Welles was at least 40 years ahead of his time.  

The actor Simon Callow who is one of Welles’ biographers expresses his astonishment at why the filmmaker was thwarted at almost every step. ‘The great mystery is why this extraordinarily brilliant man was constantly outwitted by so much less remarkable people.’  As the documentary goes on to illustrate Welles is celebrated as much for his body of outstanding movies that never got finished and/or released as the few that the public did get to see. His own favorite and the one that he considered his personal best was ‘Chimes of Midnight’ his version of ‘Falstaff ‘, which is still tied up in legal disputes and may never be seen again.

Unable to get directing work he earned his keep by acting in a whole slew of movies that were certainly not what he considered were very good, and in fact the role that gave him his biggest commercial success as Harry Lime in ‘The Third Man’ was the one he despised the most.  Welles always retreated to do Shakespeare whenever he could afford to, as that was where he felt most challenged and comfortable even though at the time the critics warmly welcomed none of these films.

It’s hard not to like this unmistakable genius who in the 1950’s was one of the first real indie filmmakers, albeit not by his own choice. His own Mercury Theater gave him the platform to become both one of the highest paid actors on radio, and also one of the most celebrated stage actors of the last century. With a personality and ego even larger then his bulky physique that seems to give him seemingly endless trouble it evokes comments like the one from the veteran French star Jeanne Moreau who fondly described Welles ‘like a destitute King on this earth where there is no kingdom big enough for him’. 

Welles deserves a far better profile than this well intended but slightly disjointed attempt, but it will nevertheless still please his devoted fans, and make a few new ones too.

★★★★★★★ ★