Touched With Fire

Writer/director Paul Dalio's mesmerizing new drama about a young couple of manic depressives who fall in and out of love takes on a whole new sense of meaning when you appreciate that he has had his own similar struggles being bi-polar. This heartbreaking tale is of two good looking poets : Carla has published a slim volume of her work, and Marco takes part in rapping at poetry slams held in smoky Manhattan basements. They meet by chance at a psychiatric hospital where they have both committed too .... he by his father but she had inadvertently been admitted voluntary .

Their similar mental conditions meant that they had these manic highs and whilst they were both going through one Marco used his heightened sensibility to persuade Carla that they should embrace these moments (of madness) and use them to lead a much fuller and creative life.   He is successful, but the trouble is the moment they come down from these and have to face reality again, their depression can re-emerge and be a real challenge to them trying to develop a relationship with each other, let alone anyone else in their lives.

After they leave the hospital, to the consternation of her parents and his father, Carla and Marco move in and lead a somewhat carefree life not bound by the normal conventions of other couples.  Even another spell back in hospital will not stop their ardour, but then when they discover that Carla is pregnant, they both reluctantly decide to try to 'go straight' and play by the rules.  This means taking their meds regularly and getting a job so that they can become responsible parents.

For a very brief time it looks like they may actually be able to pull it off, but it very quickly becomes obvious that they don't really stand a chance and their mental states ...... particularly his .... render this impossible.  

What Dalio achieves, thanks mainly to the beautiful career-best performances by his two stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby, is this very fine line between sanity and mania, that he (and they) approach with both such sensitivity and conviction that we can really appreciate how life can seem much more real when our sensibilities are heightened in this way. Carla and Marco are petrified that sticking to their extensive daily regime of meds will stifle their creativity and reduce the depth of their feelings, and their rationale for this is so sound, we are there for them every inch of the way.

It's a heartbreaking love story because you know that in the end so called sanity will win out, but actually for once you never stop wanting it to lose.

★★★★★★★★

Meet The Patels

Finding the love of your life in today's culture isn't easy, particularly with its dependency on social media. In fact it can really be quite complicated as Ravi Patel found out especially when he wanted to bring his parent's happiness into the equation too. Ravi, a rather charismatic Indian/American actor living in L.A. has just split up with Audrey his redheaded girlfriend from Connecticut of 2 years who's very existence he kept a secret from his parents because she wasn't an Indian, and he wants to finally settle down with a wife. He and his sister Geeta .... who is behind the camera filming this documentary .... are very close to their parents, however as neither of the siblings, both in their thirties, have never married, the Patel seniors are really disappointed that they still cannot look forward to the prospect of any grandchildren like all their friends.

The family are entirely Americanized but once Ravi finally agrees that he will allow his parents to fix him up with an 'arranged' marriage, they all take a trip together to India in search of a traditional bride.  Not just any suitably unattached female, but one who is also named Patel.  It is not a matter of some icky incest (!) but this is also the surname of an entire community in a particular region of the country.  They even have their own Patel Matrimonial Convention to make it easier, but naturally with Ravi and all his westernized ways, even that is not really going to make it that simple for him. 

Ravi's parents are such an amiable and patient couple who adapt all their different searches back home in the U.S. to cater for his whims, because although he says he is in full agreement of them selecting a wife, it is soon very obvious that his heart is not actually in this whole exercise.  In fairness Ravi goes through checking out all the 'candidates'  under the very close scrutiny of the camera, and even though his world is far apart from that of his parents, he has inherited all their disarming charm, which makes both the search and this enchanting movie so completely enjoyable.

Greeta is hardly a good cameraman but even her sometimes shaky shots add to the informality of this completely engaging tale that has all the makings of a perfect TV reality show.  Except there is no need for any follow up as Ravi ended up set to live happily ever after, and with his parents with their big happy grins looking on  ...... but you will need to see the movie to discover why and how.

★★★★★★★★

6 Years

Twenty-year-old Dan and Mel have been dating for six years now and although they are constantly declaring their love to each other, it is clear that the magic is definitely rubbing off their romance. After she staggers home late and drunk one night, Mel picks a fight with Dan which ends up with him in the Hospital's Emergency Room getting a head wound sorted out.  Next day a sober Mel is distraught and apologetic but she has obviously hurt a great deal more then her boyfriend's skull this time.

They are both finishing up at College and Dan is already working part-time as an Intern at a record company and is hoping that they will actually offer him a job soon.  Mel wants to be a schoolteacher so their plan is that when Dan graduates they will stay on in Texas whilst she takes a final course at school to qualify. However whilst Mel is content to just hang out with her close-knit college gal pals as she has always done, Dan wants to branch out and start socialising with his new music business friends. When he eventually persuades Mel to go to a party to hang out with them she sulks off home after having just one drink leaving Dan on his own to deal with all the temptations of a summer pool party where the drink is flowing.  He cannot resist and ends up  somewhat impulsively kissing Amanda his pretty co-worker who has been flirting with him in the office for sometime now.

That's not a problem until Mel finds out and then another fight between the two of them ensues, but this time its out in public and results in the Police getting involved and hauling Dan off to spend a night in jail.  That certainly cools his ardor down for Mel, and it looks like a temporary break from each other that he now insists on, could possibly become permanent.  Whilst he is pondering this all he actually gets his job offer and it is even better than he had expected or hoped for.  There is however one small snag, it would mean that he would need to move across country to Brooklyn.  Its a move that his mother says that if he doesn't make, he will regret it all her life exactly as she had done with some of her own life choices.  Mel on the other hand will not even listen to Dan's ideas on how he could take the job and still make their relationship work albeit ling distance, as she screams out the same mantra that she seems permanently struck on these days of 'how could you do this too me?'  

It is really the question that poor Dan should ask as after yet another fight he ends up in the hospital again with a very bloodied injury, much to the resigned face of the Emergency Room nurse.  We sort of feel the same too by now.

It's a straightforward enough story and makes far more sense than writer/director Hannah Fidell's rather annoying previous film 'A Teacher,' but why she chose to make it quite so melodramatic is still quite a mystery. The two leads are admirably played by Taissa Farmiga (actor/director Vera's younger sister) and Ben Rosenfield but the script simply does not allow us to empathize with them much at all, especially as it is inevitable from a very early point in the movie how it is all going to end. The 'journey' to this point is a tad long and fails to really completely engage the audience.

It had been produced by the talented Duplass Brothers and no doubt their fans will want to see this one but they maybe a little  disappointed : it is certainly not one of their best.

★★★★★

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

It’s hard to distinguish if some of the criticism leveled at this, the fourth adaption of Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel, is because the director of this English classic is Danish, or because ardent cinephiles are miffed that anyone should try surpassing John Schlesinger’s 1967 definitive version starring Julie Christie. Nevertheless this new pared down adaptation scores high with its take on the tale of how Miss Bathsheba Everdene discovers that her new found wealth makes her the most eligible spinster in the County.  

To be fair her first suitor Gabriel Oaks, the strong rough farmer of very few words, pops the question when he first meets the headstrong young woman before Bathsheba even knows that she is about to inherit her late Uncle’s very impressive farm.  Poor Gabriel is not only unlucky in love and fails to get Bathsheba to accept him, but very soon afterwards his young sheepdog goes wild and in a freak accident, Gabriel loses his flock and the farm with it too.  So instead of becoming his wife, Bathsheba becomes his employer when she hires him as a shepherd to work on her farm. 

Her second suitor is a wealthy middle-aged landowner whose vast estates adjoin her land. Mr. Boldwood initially seems to view a potential marriage as a way of merging their properties together but it soon appears that this confirmed bachelor is quite smitten with his pretty young neighbour and steps up his courtship a peg or two in the hope that he will win her hand.  She lets him down gentler than she had with Gabriel and gives him hope when she promised to seriously think about his offer of marriage.

The third man to court her is a dashing army Sergeant who is still smarting from the fact that a kitchen maid had left him standing at the altar recently.  Now on the rebound Sergeant Troy in his bright scarlet uniform puts on all the charm he can muster to outrageously flirt with this wealthy pretty heiress, and totally out of character this normally level headed young woman falls for his veneer of smarm, and runs off and marries him.

Back on the farm with the new ‘master’ installed who is hell bent on gambling away all her income, Bathsheba soon comes to regret her mistake in marrying a scoundrel who had only courted after he had been jilted by the love of his life. Something that becomes quickly confirmed when the body of his dead pregnant ex-girlfriend appears on their doorstep.

Troy drowns his sorrows and himself, and so now a ‘widow’ Bathsheba is courted once again by Mr Boldwood and this time he almost makes it to the finishing post.  However, in Vinterberg’s take on the story, Ms. Everdene’s choices for a spouse had been clear all along. It was either to be the Goodie, the Baddie or the Hottie, and even in this rural 19th Century setting, we always knew who had to succeed.

Shot on location in Hardy’s lush Dorset countryside it feels as English as it could with Carey Mulligan shining so radiantly as the woman that everyone wants to fall in love, especially in this case, the camera. Michael Sheen gives a wonderfully moving performance as the heartbroken Boldwood; Tom Sturridge plays the Sergeant , and Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts does his best West Country accent as the broody Gabriel.

Coming in at 60 minutes shorter than Schlesinger’s epic, it still packs the full punch of Hardy’s classic tale, and for once this is a remake that is almost as good as the original.

★★★★★★★★

BEYOND THE LIGHTS

This rag to riches music industry drama starts off in a grubby Town Hall in Brixton one of London's rougher areas where Nona a frizzy-haired schoolgirl is stunning the audience at this Talent Show with her capella rendition of Nina Simone's classic song Blackbird. She wins second place which immediately enrages her potty-mouthed pushy stage mother who insists that Nona should never ever settle for anything less than being a winner and that she should smash the trophy up.

The action then flashes forward to the present time and a grown-up Noni has been transformed into looking every part an MTV star complete with a purple weave and wearing skimpy revealing clothes that any stripper would revel in.  Noni's debut album is still yet to be released but she has already had several hits with her white hip-hop star boyfriend and they are about to perform together live on the latest Awards Show.

It looks like Noni has everything going for her, but the moment she is alone in her palatial penthouse hotel suite, Noni heads for the balcony and precarious dangles on the edge.  Fortunately Kaz a young earnest policeman who has been assigned to guard her room, intervenes and pulls her back to safety.  Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments before Mother quickly moves in to handle the damage control as word has leaked out of Noni's behaviour.  Kaz is therefore pressured into towing the official line that the young singer had merely slipped and that all is right with the world.

Noni's mother is in denial about her daughters unhappiness and still pulls all the strings and wants her to keep dating the totally unsuitable hip-hop boyfriend even when it becomes clear that hot handsome Kaz has taken a shine to the young singer too. The policeman on the other hand is being groomed by his father to pursue a career in local politics where having a scantly clad pop singer on his arm just wouldn't be a good fit.

When Noni and Kaz manage to give her handlers and the paparazzi the slip, they dine out on fast-food fried chicken on a very chaste date but its obvious that they have both got the hots for each other. When on a later date she seduces the blindfold cop who has a fear of flying on a private plane you realise that these two are not kids after all.

Full of foot tapping very raucous hit-sounding music this entertaining but very slight romance is lifted to a higher level than one would normally expect because of the outstanding breakthrough powerhouse performance of Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Noni.  We knew from her starring role in 'Belle' that this beautiful woman is a very talented actress, but little did we expect that she could out Rhianna Rhianna.

Credit also to Nat Parker who played Kaz, and also in what I initially thought was bizarre casting, but by the final scene, I actually thought that Minnie Driver made a perfect mother.

If MTV is your favorite channel then you will love this movie, but even if it's not, you can still appreciate that you are witnessing a rising star in the making.

★★★★★★

FOR A WOMAN aka Pour Une Femme

Soon after their mother dies in the 1980’s siblings Anne and Tania are sorting through her belongings when they come across a box of old photographs that they had never seen before. Anne, the older of the two is a film director, and is positively intrigued by this discovery. Their mother had always been deliberately evasive about her past, and had never really explained why she and their father had survived a prison camp in World War 2, only to separate and divorce in the years that followed.

The story that Anne uncovers that she wants to film, and is the main body of the movie, is an intriguing melodrama that starts immediately after the war. Her parents Michel and Lena, are newlyweds and they move into a home over their fledgling tailor business in Lyon which has been funded in part by the Communist Party that Michel is a fervent member of.  They are both Ukrainian by birth but have been raised in France. Soon after Lena gives birth to Anne, Michel's long-lost adult brother turns up on their doorstep. Well, they think he is Jean, but as Michel hasn't seen him since he was just 9 years old and had assumed that he hadn't survived the War, he actually has trouble recognising him.

Even though Jean's story about his recent past doesn't quite ring true, they take him in to live with them anyway. Wherever Jean is, it would appear that the mysterious stranger Sacha is not far behind, and he ends up being employed in their tailors store. For a new arrival in Town, Jean surprisingly has a great many local connections which he uses, amongst other things, to make Michel's business very successful.  Whilst the older brother divides his time between his flourishing shop and his Party activities, Jean spends his day wooing Lena who very quickly falls for her handsome brother-in-law.

There is a secondary story strand that involves their friend Madeleine who is quite openly cheating on her older husband who is the local Communist Party leader. This seems to be a potential precursor as what will happen to Lena if she went public with her affair, however writer/director Diane Kurys who based this all on the story on her own family, takes a different track when she eventually reveals the real reason that Lena and Michel got married which throws an entirely different light on everything.

This rather enjoyable post-war romance drama with its political intrigue is a quintessential French old-fashioned 'women's picture' that will delight everyone who likes this genre. Kurys insures there is enough loose strands to the story for us to have to fill in some of the gaps ourselves as we try and work out if and why Lena will do the 'right thing' or just follow her heart.

Great solid cast that turn in some convincing performances in an enjoyable beautifully crafted crowd-pleaser movie.

★★★★★★★

FLYING HOME

This is the rather preposterous tale of a Middle Eastern Sheik who is being wooed by different Wall Street Hedge Funds who want to get hold of his oil billions to invest.  High-flying broker Colin is despatched to charm the reluctant Emirate who is on the verge on signing up with a rival Firm. Colin knows that every man has a weakness (his own in meaningless sex with blonde bimbos) and he is determined to establish what his 'mark's' is and fulfill it, and thus win the lucrative account.

Turns out that the man who lives in the middle of the desert is a pigeon fancier, and if that is not ridiculous enough, he lusts after the World Champion Pigeon who is owned by a Belgian breeder who refuses to part with it, even for a kings ransom.  Colin declares he will do the seemingly impossible and obtain this precious bird and bag the account too.

Next stop is Flanders in Belgium and traveling under a false name and a convoluted story about looking for an the grave of an ancestor who had died there in World War 2, he worms his way into the local village to track down his prey without alerting anyone to his mission.  Pauwels the elderly Breeder has an attractive 30 something-year-old granddaughter called Isabelle, and Colin soon works out that the way to getting his hands on the pigeon is by getting his arms around the girl first.

He easily wins her heart but not Pauwels's, so when push comes to shove Colin has to revert to his usual mode of 'dirty tricks' in order to successfully blackmail the old man into selling the pigeon, and so naturally both Pauwels and Isabelle end up hating him.

Back in New York, and a happy Sheik signs away his billion dollar account, and Colin gets very rich from his fat bonus and promotion.  But despite this, he is totally miserable, and even his quick usual one-night stands are no longer doing it for him.  Colin is in love, and he knows that he will have to give up all his worldly trappings and undo his dirty deeds and get the wretched pigeon back if he is to get the girl in the final reel.  

This well-meaning and extremely predicable and somewhat silly tale will find an appreciative for one reason only.  It stars the Northern Ireland hunky heartthrob actor Jamie Dornan who is about to be elevated to the Hollywood 'A' List when the much-hyped '50 Shades of Grey' opens soon.  Dornan puts in a good performance but the whole thing is hardly a stretch for him or Charlotte De Bruyne his co-star.

Written and directed by an Oscar nominated filmmaker Dominique Deruddere, the movie was a smash hit when it opened in Belgium in April. We will however have to wait a while longer to see if Jamie really can make this wee film fly. 

★★★★★★

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 LUNCHBOX

Ila a young Indian housewife feels totally neglected by her husband and so her older upstairs neighbor suggests that to put some spice back into her marriage she should start with spicing up his food. Everyday she prepares a lunch box that is picked by one of Mumbai's 5000 plus white coated 'dabbawallahs' who, through a very intricate system that involves bike and trains, deliver them to people's desks in the heart of the city. As infallible as the ancient traditional system is lauded to be, for once it goes wrong and instead of reaching her spouse's desk it lands on that of a Mr Fernandes a widowed office worker nearing his retirement.

Ila soon discovers that her food has been eaten by a stranger by the mere fact that he literally licked the containers clean and is obviously much keener on her cooking than her complacent husband has ever been.  So next day she includes a brief note, and to her delight receives one back with the container that night.  The brief notes of thanks and mild criticism that follow soon begin a regular correspondence that quickly evolves from exchanging pleasantries to actually trading the type of very personal confidences which people feel more comfortable doing with perfect strangers.

Mr Fernandes has been a loner since his wife's death and his life revolves around the same desk he has sat at for the past 35 years filing Claims.  He has no friends amongst his work colleagues, and back at his apartment building even the neighborhood children steer clear of him.  Now that he is about to stop working his boss has asked him to train an irrepressible chatty young man who irritates the life out of him.  This replacement is impervious to the cold-shoulder treatment he gets and insists on trying to get as closer to his new mentor as possible.  

As the notes in the lunchbox keep coming every day, Ilo shares that she is now convinced that her husband who is rarely home is definitely having an affair, and wants out of her marriage.  Mr Fernandes agrees to meet her one day in the City for lunch, but chickens out when he catches sight of her from afar and is brought up very sharp that their age difference is much more significant than he had imagined.  They have both been clinging to the dream of a new life and a new beginning even though beyond a few daily notes, they knew hardly anything about each other.

There is something extremely refreshing to this sentimental romance that has such an old-fashioned feel to it.  Even though it is shot on location in the heart of a very contemporary bustling city its perhaps the whole notion that something as quaint as the lunchbox system still flourishes even today. Mr Fernades is played by Irrfan Khan (Adult Pi in The Life of Pi) with a perfect hangdog expressionless face as he is resigned just to put up with the rather empty life that had been doled out to him.  A relatively unknown Nimrat Kaur is perfect as Ilo whose guide through life is the unseen 'Aunty' who doles out her sanguine advice by shouting down from the upstairs window.  Ilo and Fernandes are just two lonely souls perfect for what I guess could be easily described as an Indian take on 'You've Got Mail.'

Quite delightful and a treat to watch unfold.

★★★★★★★★

SLEEPLESS IN NEW YORK

Swiss Oscar-Nominated Director Christian  Frei's new documentary is his well-meaning attempt to investigate the power of love and how to survive once you lose it.  With the involvement of Dr Helen Fisher PhD a Biological Anthropologist and Professor at Rutgers (and the author of 5 books on 'romantic love') Frei follows three love-lorn people as they attempt to put their lives together after being un-ceremoniously dumped.

He plastered New York with flyers about this project asking for volunteers and Alley Scott one of the people, literally called him on the third night after her boyfriend of three years walked out on her. Another broken heart was Michael Hariton a freelance Translator who fell apart after his girlfriend told him she wanted out. The third participant that Frei chose was Rosey La Rouge a burlesque dancer who had put her life on hold waiting for her 'One Night Stand' to come back after he had declared his undying love during their quickie behind the Shark Tank during the annual Mermaids Parade (and believe me, I did not make that last part up).

It was fine to hear Dr Fisher's well researched theories on the power of love which for the whole made a great deal of sense, it was therefore rather disappointing that Frei had chosen as his subjects three whiny pathetic and morose self-absorbed individuals who stretched one's patience way too far. Your sympathies totally lay with their lucky ex partners who got away.

I can only assume that their decision to participate in this film showing them in such a poor light was part of their desire to be able to continue to indulge in self pity as they were running out of willing listeners. This is 'sharing' way too much that none of us needs. Hariton in fact spent most of his cello lesson carping on to his teacher about how bad his ex treated him (although he still craved her back). Luckily for him as this is NY, even music teachers can pontificate like a therapist.

Dr Fisher declared that we often love someone more after been rejected and this she termed as 'frustration attraction.'  None of them however heeded a single one of Dr Fisher's theories like that love was an addiction like alcohol and in the same way if you were recovering from the latter you would not keep a bottle of liquor in the house, then you should throw out all your exes photos and letters. Frei allowed his three subjects  to narrate their own scenes as they sat around their apartments cyber stalking their exes and spouting out such mots of wisdom like (Hareton) 'Why won't she call me to tell me not to call?'   Exactly. 

I do subscribe to a theory that a reaction to any movie we view is subjective to the mood we feel at that time.  On that basis maybe to really 'enjoy' all this wallowing in self-pity, one should watch this movie the moment your present/next lover leaves. That is instead of getting drunk and laid which was the sound advice given to these three by their friends and which they sadly chose to ignore. 

★★★★

BRIGHT DAYS AHEAD

64 year old Caroline has retired earlier from her dental practice than she had expected too after falling out with a colleague and she now finds herself at a loose end with too much spare time on her hands. She feels somewhat depressed and disorientated after the death of her best friend from breast cancer just three months prior, and this has made her even more aware of her own mortality.   Her two grown up children with their own busy lives, want to encourage her to move on and so buy her a trial membership to a local seniors club that has the innocuous title of  'Bright Days Ahead'.

Caroline's first nervous visit to the centre ends every badly when she feels patronized by the young woman running the drama classes, but when she gets home and neither she or her husband can work out their new wifi set up, she reluctantly agrees to go back and try the computer class instead.  This is led by Julian an attractive 41 year old man who confides in her that he has a toothache and after Caroline takes him back to her ex surgery to fix it for him, he returns the favor by making a pass at her.

Its not exactly the main reason why this man, who is the same age as her daughters, wants to bed her as he turns out that he is quite the ladies man with a small stable of regular 'dates'.  But even when she discovers this Caroline is more happy to indulge in some very hot love-making as she and her husband had stopped being physical with each other some time ago.

The secret affair brings more than color to Caroline's cheeks as it makes her extraordinary happy and gives her such a sense of purpose that she throws herself enthusiastically into most of the activities at the Club and becomes friends with all the other women there. When word eventually gets out about her daily dalliances in Julian's office etc , her classmates are in awe and egg her on. However Phillipe her husband doesn't take too kindly at being cuckolded especially as in this small coastal town that they live in, news like this travels very fast.

It seems like as a respected dentist, a loyal wife and a good mother, Caroline has always put the consideration of others first in her priorities, but now she has done  a complete U turn and thought of nothing more than her own pleasure and happiness. With such a past track record, its obvious that she will end up doing the 'decent thing' in the end, but hopefully with the realisation that there is an alternative to the inevitable after all.

The movie has received criticism that it portrays a very unrealistic view of old-age greatly enhanced by the fact that Caroline is played by the strikingly beautiful and exquisite Fanny Ardant. One would never ever dream of calling this great French actress a senior citizen no matter what her age.  It is her very presence that so radiates in every scene on the screen, and so I for one am more than happy for Caroline to indulge in this fantasy, no matter how unrealistic it may be.

A very light and enjoyable piece with one of THE grande dames of French cinema.

Available on Amazon

★★★★★★★

NEVER LET ME GO

I’ve never been a fan of the supernatural but the buzz around this movie back in 2010 intrigued me sufficiently to want to see I would change my mind.  The story from the best selling novel that almost won Kazuo Ishiguro the Booker Prize, is about children who are reared with the sole purpose in their lives of becoming organ donors so that other people can live beyond 100 years old.  More specifically it’s about 3 in particular Kathy, Tommy & Ruth who we first meet as children at a rather austere and scary Boarding School where they are indoctrinated with their predestined futures.  Love is never meant to be part of the ‘plan’ so when Cathy falls in love with Tommy much to the chagrin of Ruth who steals him away to become her boyfriend it throws mire than spanner un the works.

We later meet the three again when they are now grown up and in the process of making their ‘donations’ which will inevitably lea to their deaths, known much nicer as ‘completions’, except for Cathy who has become a ‘carer’ who looks after others like them.  Ruth confesses up about stealing Tommy's affections in the hope that now Cathy and he can be together they can apply for a ‘referral’ which will delay the donations a while so that they can have a life together as lovers.

The first part of this movie dragged at such a slow pace I was bored enough to start imagining Charlotte Rampling, the elderly prim headmistress Miss Emily, as she was back in the 60’s in her scant Nazi uniform in 'The Night Porter'  … but I digress.  But the pace quickened, and so did my interest as the real story unfolded, and by the end I was actually interested on what happened to all three of them.

Two fine Brit actors in the leads helped. Cathy was played by Carey Mulligan who the camera loves as much as me; Tommy by Andrew Garfield (about to hit the big time with the lead in Spiderman).  Ruth was played by my nemesis Keira Knightly who irritates me consistently as much as Catherine Zeta-Jones (yes, that bad!), so the less said about her the better.

Out on DVD at Amazon
★★★★★★★