The Wonders

Living in a remote part of rural Italy, German transplant Wolfgang and his family have all but turned their backs on the rest of society to live on their desolate farm and survive on their ramshackle beekeeping enterprise. Gelsomina, almost a teen and the oldest of his four daughters, is expected to be fully proficient in helping him run the hives and also taking responsibility for her younger siblings whilst her mother and aunt tend to their small market garden. Their life is tough and hard as Wolfgang insists that on an existence which seems to shun any hint of modern agriculture machinery or methods.

One day when the family are taking a dip in the ocean after doing their daily chores they stumble on a film crew making an advertisement for a Reality TV Show called 'Most Traditional Family'. Both the set and the star are very cheesy but in the eyes of Gelsomina and her sisters who have never ever encountered anything remotely glamorous, it's all beauty personified.   The girls desperately want to be able to enter the competition which totally horrifies their father as it stands for everything he is against. However as the local authorities have just been to visit the farm and demand that he either brings it up to European Law standards or lose it, he is sorely tempted as the family are broke and could badly use the prize money. They have already taken in Martin a sullen German boy from a juvenile delinquent program but they got little money from that and anyway his presence disturbed Gelsomina who thought he would replace her  as her father's heir as he seems like the son that he always wanted.

When Gelsomina's secret application to enter the competition gets accepted, an extremely reluctant Wolfgang agrees.  Dressed up in ancient costumes and taking the boat to the isolated island where the filming is to be done in a cave complete with ancient Etruscan paintings gives an even more surreal feeling to this rather odd story.  Here Wolfgang who never shows any emotions to his family becomes yet even more remote as he goes through the motions required of him to try and get the elusive prize money.

This second feature film from German/Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher ('Corpe Celeste') focuses much more on the atmosphere and image of the situation of the family than the rather slight plot.  She works like a artist painting a blank canvass that she fills with a rough and unforgiving countryside littered with struggling peasants trying to eek out a living into which she places one of the worst ubiquitous symbols of contemporary society : the Reality TV Show.  It is a vivid contrast pitching Wolfgang's idealism with that of the greed and crassness that the TV company is inevitably promoting.

The star of the family .... and the movie ....is young Gelsomina who seems the only one set on keeping this family really together . She's matched in part by her sibling Marinella who is four years younger and is so independently minded that she never hesitates about arguing with Gelsomina about what's best for them all.  Although we should mention too the performance of Monica Bellucci (shortly to be seen in 'Spectre' making out with James Bond) as the TV star that mesmerizes them all.

'The Wonders' all looks like a world from a distant past that is pretty to look at for a very short while, but never to actually ever visit.

★★★★★★★

Breathe

17 year old Charlene (who goes by Charlie) just cannot wait to get to school so that she can escape the constant bickering of her parents.  She may love her father but she doesn't like the way her mother allows him to ride rough shod over her and be so indiscreet about his dalliances with other women. They live in a small characterless house in an equally small French provincial town, so the arrival of Sarah a rather vivacious new addition to her school class who makes a beeline for her, is a very welcome breath of fresh air for shy and quiet Charlie.

Chain-smoking Sarah is a newcomer to town and regales her new best friend with tales of an exotic life she led with her mother who works in Nigeria and who had to reluctantly send her back to France to live with an Aunt when the political climate suddenly got very unstable. The two girls quickly become the best of friends and develop a very close relationship that just stops short of getting physical intimate, and so Charlie invites Sarah to join her family and friends on vacation at the seaside.

From the moment they arrive Sarah practically abandons Charlie as she flirts outrageously with Esteban who is considerably older, although he prefers Charlie's mother anyway.  Not to be outdone she just as quickly turns her attention to a handsome young pilot who she practically throws herself at.  As quickly as Charlie realises that Sarah is revealing herself to be far from the perfect best friend that she desperately wanted her to be, she also discovers the truth about Sarah's real family circumstances which are far removed from the glamorous picture that she had painted.

Once Sarah is aware that Charlie knows the truth she does everything in her power to ensure that she will not spill the beans to anyone else. The love that they both shared now quickly turns to sheer hate, at least on the part of Sarah, who never was quite as committed to their relationship as Charlie was. The lengths that she will go too are extraordinarily pernicious and when other classmates see this malignant behaviour go unchecked they express their concern to a rather distraught Charlie who still refuses to fight back. That is, until she is pushed just too far.

This sophomore movie directed by actress Mélanie Laurent is a melodrama about how passion is harmful when it becomes an obsession as so helpfully pointed out by Charlie's teacher in one of the early scenes. This however falls on deaf ears in this case as this teenager with such an unhappy home life is desperate to grasp any possibility of love especially when it seems to have turned up in shape of her new best friend.  As much as she berates her mother for her co-dependency on her wayward father she does exactly the same with Sarah even though she must be aware that it cannot possible end well.

Laurent cast two exceptionally talented young actress Joséphine Japy and Lou de Laâge who give very naturalistic performances, particular Japy who is pitch perfect as the asthmatic downtrodden Charlie.  They add a very definite sexual frisson to the piece which adds to the uncertainty and the expectations of how this teenage relationship will play out.  It is certainly not one that can be predicted but somehow this climax seems the perfect way to end.

★★★★★★★

A FIVE STAR LIFE

Irene spends her life nit-picking over every casual slight from any hotel front-desk clerk, or noting exactly how long room service takes to deliver her order before she sticks her thermometer in first the wine and then the soup. That's all before she strips the bed down completely to see how soft and clean the linen is.  She is one tough cookie but it's all in a day's work for her as she jet sets around the globe to see if the world's best hotels should retain their 5 Star rating.

Her obsession with minute detail when she is tasting all this luxury really fulfills her which is just as well as when she lands back home in Italy, her rather empty single life is juxtaposed with all the unruly chaos of the people that surround her.  There is her old flame Andrea who is now her best friend and who jolts Irene out of her complacency of the coziness of their relationship when he announces that he is about to become the father of a child with one of his recent one night stands.  Then there is her rather scatter-brained self-absorbed sister Sylvia whose marriage to her musician husband has grown stagnant which seems to be an excuse for her constantly riling Irene about being an unmarried forty-something-year-old woman. 

This inoffensive and quite charming gentle movie from Italian director  Maria Sole Tognazzi is essentially not a great deal more than a travelogue for all the rather splendid hotels that Irene spends her days dissecting. It also serves as a detailed job description for anyone wishing to take this up as a career.  Asides from that it starts with Irene content with traveling alone through work and life, and after a couple of minor diversions, its ends on exactly the same note.

Asides from the Hotels, it also stars Margherita Buy and Stefano Accorsi who had previously worked together in 'His Secret Life' & 'Saturn In Opposition'. Plus a refreshing cameo performance from Brit actor Lesley Manville that looked like it may liven up the pace of the piece somewhat but then when her character gets killed off suddenly, so does all hope of any real fun for poor Irene and us.

★★★★★

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Actress Maria Enders a 40-ish movie star is having something of a middle-aged crisis with her marriage dissolving and her career at a crossroads.  She has been persuaded to travel to Switzerland to accept an Award on behalf of her close friend the playwright Wilhelm Melchior who had given her the breakthrough role that started her career decades ago.  En route she gets a message that he has suddenly died, and soon after learns that to mark his passing there will be a theatrical staging of his celebrated movie 'Maloja Snake' that had made Maria a star. This time however they do not want her to recreate her original role of the young woman but play the part of a burned out older businesswoman who is manipulated by a young female assistant in a daring lesbian dynamic.

It's not something that Maria is keen to undertake as that would mean acknowledging that she is too old to play the part she really identifies with, but also there is bad omen that still remains about the role of the bitter older woman as the original actress had died in a tragic accident soon after the movie was released.

Whenever it suits her, Maria tends to shield herself from the outside world behind Val who acts as her personal assistant, confidante, minder, unofficial therapist and her rehearsal partner.  It is Val who persuades her reluctant boss to accept the stage role and even drags her to a nearby cinema to show Maria a rather appalling movie starring the hot young actress who will be playing the part in the play that Maria still covets. The fact that the ingenue has a infamous Lindsay Lohan type reputation in the media just serves to remind Maria of her own wild times which she had reluctantly left in her past. 

Marie's almost total dependency on Val almost burns her young assistant out and just when there is a hint of some physicality between the two, Val drives off into the night for a date with a boyfriend that she had strangely failed to mention any time prior.Then soon after this she completely disappears somewhat mysteriously when the mists of the clouds high up in the mountains engulf both women, and she is never seen again.

Juliette Binoche brings this rather disturbing plot completely alive with an outstanding and impeccable performance as Maria.  It is on one level a case of art mirroring life, as Ms Binoche got her first big break almost 30 years ago in 'Rendez-vous' written by Oliver Assayas who has now directed her in 'Sils Maria'.  A very impressive Kristen Stewart played Val with such veracity that it earned her a Best Actress César: an extremely rare honor for a non French actor, and Chloë Grace Moretz played Maria's bete noir.

It is very much a thought-provoking piece that gets a tad esoteric at times as Maria struggles to verbalise her own unsettled state.  It takes a brave actress to undertake a role which shows her rather exposed, racked with fear and such uncertainty but luckily for us Ms Binoche is totally fearless.

★★★★★★★★

WINTER SLEEP

Turkish auteur filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest masterful epic is set in the steppes of Cappadocia on the desolate plains of Anatolia, which are heart-stoppingly beautiful. Some of the ancient caves carved into the side of this mountainous terrain have been converted into a Hotel by Aydin, a local landowner retired from acting. It's the middle of a rough winter so the only inhabitants are Aydin's much younger wife, and his sister, and a couple of guests.

The story starts when Aydin is being driven through the village by Hidayet his loyal second-in-command when a rock thrown by a local schoolboy shatters their jeep's window.  Hidayet stops and catches the boy and they drive him home to raise the matter with his father. The meeting doesn't go well, as it turns out that Ismail the boy's angry father has just been released from jail and his family are about to be evicted for not paying the rent.  Their Landlord just happens to be Aydin, who likes to keep a good distance between himself and his tenants, and the rest of the world too.

Back in the hotel he secretes himself away penning opinion pieces for a local newspaper and threatening to start a book on Turkish Theater which he never seems to get around too.  He is both selfish and arrogant and doesn't take too well to dissent or criticism so when his sister, who has just moved back home after a recent nasty divorce, starts to discuss some of his recent articles, it quickly turns into an unpleasant argument as he bitterly vents his anger on her.

Nihal his young wife lives in her own separate quarters and spends her time and his money helping the poor local community in anyway she can, but when Aydin discovers this he just butts and tries to bully her into stopping.  It's an unbalanced fight as her naivete is really no match for his cynicism and his determination to complete control everything and just use the power of his money to get his own way.

This is all quite a reversal of style for Ceylan from his last movie the mesmerising 'Once Upon a Time in Anatolia' which had scant dialogue, as he now drives this story up with several very lengthy set-pieces arguments. First with the two siblings, and now we witness the last tenuous strands holding this rather unbalanced marriage together, being shattered as Aydin and his wife battle it out verbally.

There are others in the saga that add some touches of humor into this otherwise bleak tale such as the local teacher who is quite a funny drunk when Aydin holes up at his friends remote Farm when he cannot escape to Istanbul as he threatens Nihal he will. Also the consequences of the decisions that they both make when they are apart are humorous on one level, but mainly wrenching especially when Nihal takes it upon herself to offer to rescue Ismail and his family.

It is not the visual treat of the exquisite rugged snow-covered landscape courtesy of cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki that makes this epic 196 minute movie so compelling but it does play a major factor in ensurung that this magnum opus is the unforgettable enthralling movie that it is.  On paper it seems like a rather thin scenario but in reality Ceylan fills both the screen and the story to the brim, and its clear to see why this time he finally captured the big prize at The Cannes Film Festival.

★★★★★★★★★★

JIMMY'S HALL

Jimmy Gralton returned to his native Ireland in 1932 when a new Government led by Eammon de Valera took office and at last promised peace after 'the troubles'. Gralton's eldest brother had recently died and his elderly mother was left trying to scrape a living off the poor infertile land on the Farm that the local Lord of the Manor leased to them.  The whole area in this beautiful corner of Ireland had been decimated by war and was depressed by the sheer poverty of the region which seemed inescapable.

Next to Jimmy's family cottage was a rundown old small outhouse on his land that had once served as a Community Centre for the village. The moment that he returned everyone started to implore him to let them help restore the place and bring some small joy to the area again. Everyone that is except the local Catholic Priest who immediately renounced both the plan, and the people executing it, as pure evil and agents of the Devil.  Nothing went on in 'his Parish' without his permission he claimed, and when it came to the matter of classes the Centre would offer he literally blew a fit as he shouted 'education is the sole domain of the Holy Mother Church.'

The villagers finished the Hall and they all attended the opening Dance even though the Priest stood outside with his notebook and wrote down all the names which he then called out and denounced from the Pulpit the next day. But still the children attended singing and dancing classes, and the adults took part in book clubs and all sort of discussions so much so, that the Hall became the centre of the Village.  When a Tenant farmer got evicted, his pals from the IRA took him to the Hall to ask Jimmy and the others for his support.  They did so without the backing of their own IRA Commanders who, in those days, were thick as thieves with the Church as each of them were propping the other's grasp of power.

Jimmy's support, backed by the villagers, of the evicted tenant created more anger and pressure from the Priest and whilst some people caved in (he threatened to get them fired or boycott their wee businesses) Jimmy never did.  He paid dearly though as one night the Hall was burned down completely. Despite the fact that all those in Authority hated what he stood for and his sheer popularity, he was not doing anything that they could charge him with in Court of Law, so the powers-that-be in Dublin were urged to act on a technicality. Jimmy Gralton also owned an American Passport so when they eventually caught him after he went into hiding they deported him without a Trial .... the first, and last Irishman to have been evicted from his own birth country.

This rather enchanting tale of a man who could do a mean Bessie Smith impression when he showed his Irish neighbors how he had learned to 'shimmy' in New York, is based on a very real story.  It's Ken Loach's latest (and probably his last ever) movie on his take on some parts of Irish history and his most gentlest so far.  He and his usual scriptwriting partner Paul Laverty make no effort to dilute their own distaste on how the landed Gentry (mainly English), the IRA and the Church all conspired to keep the working class downtrodden and in their sorry places.  They balanced that with their portrayal of Gralton and his neighbors as unselfish and generous men with very simple ambitions and such a strong sense of love for their country, as opposed to simply what they could plunder from it.

Loach's leading man Barry Ward a handsome Irish actor known mainly for his work on television and stage was a very impressive Gralton that everyone in the Village seemed to fall in love with (save the Priest and his cronies).  Especially Oonagh played by another Irish stage actor Simone Kirby.  In fact Loach ( an Englishman) has used a mainly Irish cast and not necessarily local ones as it includes the Tony Award winning American/Irish Brían F. O'Byrne.

The words that resounded most in this great re-telling of a disturbing time in Ireland's history belong to Gralton when he faces the angry Priest for one final times and says 'There is so much hate in your heart, there cannot possibly any room left for any love at all.'

★★★★★★★★

GRISGRIS

You can be forgiven for thinking that you are watching an African version of Saturday Night Fever in the opening sequences of this movie which captures an energetic man whirling around at full speed on the dance floor in his bright shiny white dress shirt.  The excited audience are enthralled with this man's gymnastic dancing and are screaming out his name and filling his hat with money. The man is Souleymane, known to the crowd as Gris Gris, and what's most remarkable about his spectacular dance routine is that he has one paralysed leg that he drags behind him when he walks but somehow seems not to restrict his dancing at all.

The setting is N'Djamena the capital of Chad one of the poorest countries in the continent, and Souleymane dances just to get by. He also works with his stepfather taking photographs in their rather decrepit shack where the only source of power is via a small generator but there are few and far between customers these days. When his stepfather is hospitalised with serious illness, and his mother is facing a very steep bill for his care, Souleymane realises that he needs to find work that pays some serious money.

He persuades a local crime lord to give him some work in his gas-smuggling operation, but on one of the runs double crosses by selling off the hauls himself and keeps the proceeds to pay the hospital. Moussa the boss and his henchman are soon on to him and after beating up the helpless dancer threaten to kill him if he doesn't repay the money within 24 hours.

The only friend that Soulelamyne has is Mimi a local whore who he had originally met when she came to him asking for some photographs to kickstart a modelling career.  She takes a shine to this shy deformed man who not only comes alive when the dance floor lights are turned on, but more importantly he is one of the few men in the community who treats her with respect.    The two of them escape back to her village and where they both eventually find some peace.

In other words far from simply being another John Travolta homage this movie ..... the first ever to be funded by the Chadian Government.... really covers the waterfront. Violence, sex, robbery, sickness, poverty, disability and even a very strong feminist message at the end. Written and directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (who in 2010 made the excellent 'A Screaming Man' also set in Chad) , this is also the first film that Chad has ever submitted  for Best Foreign Picture Oscar Nomination.  Startling for a country that just re-opened its only movie theater in 2011 after being shuttered for 20 years. And impressive for the fact that Souleymane Démé whose disability is very real and puts in a powerful performance, has never ever acted before.

It's a very dynamic movie to watch, and even more compelling when you realise that although this particular story may be fictional, the circumstances it is set in, are very real.

Highly recommended.

P.S. 'grisgris' is actually the name of an African good luck charm, so I still cannot fathom out why people should call poor luckless Souleymane that.

★★★★★★★★

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

In the opening scene a young 6 year-old boy is sitting upright in a low chair spaced away from his parents who are either side of him. All three are dressed formally in black and are facing two officials behind a desk in this stark room who are firing questions at the boy.  It's all very intimidating but he answers back rapidly without a hint of emotion. It turns out that he's being interviewed to for admission to a much sought after private school, and he had been tutored to provide the correct responses that would give an impression that he is part of a perfect Japanese family.

Ryota his father, is a highly successful architect who, as a workaholic, is rarely around to share much time with his son.  His mousy mother who, after having a tough time giving birth to him was unable to have any more children, devotes her whole life to him, and being subservient to her husband too.  The family live in an expensive glass tower block in the city center and it is decorated and minimally furnished in a cold orderly fashion just like their lives. Asides from the fact that Ryota is unable to succeed in filling his easy-going son Keita with his own totally focused ambition, they are to all intents and purposes, a happy family in their own way.

However, a phone call one day from the hospital Keita was born soon puts an end to all that.  For a reason that will be revealed later, there was a mix-up between the babies born that day and they are now told that he is not in fact their biological son. The embarrassed authorities hastily arrange a meeting with the other couple who have been raising their son, and who are clearly the other end of the social scale.  Yodal runs a small messy Appliance Store and to help make ends meet his wife Yukari works part time in a fast food Noodle Bar.  Their son Ryusei is the oldest of three children and they all live together, with Yodal's elderly father too, in a cramped tiny apartment above the store.  It is obvious though that the children adore Yodal who prefers to devote most of his time playing with them rather than working in the store.

When they first meet Yodal seems preoccupied with suing the hospital authorities to get as much financial remuneration in damages as possible, and although Ryoto agrees with him in public, he has a totally different agenda in mind.  It is obvious that at some time the families must effect a swap to get their own children back, but as there is no precedent on how this should happen, they agree to get to know their birth child first.

After some months pass by and it is obvious that either of the mothers can or want to make the decision, it's up to the men to agree that they should in fact have their own sons back.  It's something no-one seems to want to do especially the children who are completely unhappy in their new homes.  Ryoto is threatened by the disorder of having a son that he cannot manipulate and shape into as a carbon copy of himself, and Ryusei is miserable living in such a cold clinical environment.  Keieta on the other hand although initially yearns for his mother, is soon won over by all the warmth and laughter of his happy new family.

In a plot which is completely impossible to predict, writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda keeps adding nuances so that neither of the families scenarios are exactly what they initially appeared to be.  Ryoto is still dealing with unresolved issues from his childhood when his father left his young mother and he ran away from home and was dragged back to be brought up reluctantly by his step mother.  The initial impression of Yodal being a  money-grabber who simply wants to exploit the situation for his own means is soon dissipated when one realises what a devoted and wonderfully generous parent he is.

This swapped-at-birth is a well trodden theme (think 'The Other Son' in 2012) but what makes it work so beautifully here is the subtlety of the story and how in such a respectful and well-mannered culture such as this, the anguish of the parents in particular manifests itself in a controlled fashion without the obvious histrionics. Its superbly acted too, particularly by the two very young boys who are tugging at your emotions ever second of the 2 hours.

A compelling spell-binding movie that quite rightly won Mr. Kore-eda the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival, and it just maybe make you go back and look at your parents to see if you were given to the right ones too.

★★★★★★★★★

THE PAST

Life for Marie is very fraught. Ahmed, her soon-to-be-ex husband arrives back in Paris from his native Tehran to finalise their divorce.  Marie is already living with her next husband-to-be Samir a laundry owner whose current wife is still lying in a coma after a failed suicide attempt. And the ramshackled crowded household has three children including two daughters from a marriage that pre-dated the one to Ahmad, and the oldest one Lucie a rebellious teenager prefers her stepdad over her mother and her new beau and makes no effort to disguise this fact.

Ahmed's return soon exposes the fact that his relationship with Marie still lacks closure and there is a combination of affection and resentment that still pervades.  Marie still insists on testing Ahmed's feelings like announcing just minutes before their divorce judgement that she is pregnant with Samir's child.  Samir in turn feels Ahmed's presence is threatening to his own relationship with Marie and insists moving back to his own apartment until Ahmed leaves town, and hopefully their lives, again.

Then suddenly the whole plot takes a sudden turn and adds more than one other complex layer which shakes all their emotions up. It's an unpredictable but rather brilliant drama with more than its fair share of twists and turns that keep you completely intrigued to the very end.

The storyteller is Asghar Farhadi the Iranian auteur that won his country's first ever Best Foreign Picture Oscar with his spellbinding 'A Separation'  ..... another family drama about a couple having to make difficult decisions. This new one cannot possible match this but it comes pretty close with a rather stunning performance by Bérénice Bejo as the anguished Marie which won her the Best Actress Award at Cannes.

Available on Amazon

★★★★★★★★

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.

★★★★★★★★

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.

★★★★★★★★★★