Colette - Review

Rather surprisingly, Colette is not based on the fallout of the shocking Oscar snub of Toni Collette for Hereditary but the true story of Colette Willy, the wife of the famed French author and his muse and ghost writer who created and wrote his finest work, the Claudine novels.
Despite the fact that Colette is apparently one of France's biggest selling authors of all-time, this reviewer was shockingly ignorant of her and her story (particularly when a Wikipedia search post film revealed she wrote the novel that was turned into the Oscar winning film Gigi).
Yet that does not matter as the film does an excellent job of taking the audience through Colette's story. From timid, meek ingenue to muse and ghost writer (sometimes to the point of tortured slave labour), through her burgeoning sexual awakening to the point where she truly discovers herself and stands up to her husband demanding full credit for her work.
*Note - these are not spoilers as it is all in the trailer*
Now men taking credit for other people's work is certainly nothing new and what Colette does very well is remind us that sadly not much has really changed in the 119 years since the publication of Claudine a L'Ecole.
Yet Henry Willy, played with relish by Dominic West, is playful, charming, seductive and persuasive in his controlling ways and arguments to keep his name on the books, claiming he is a "brand" and any suggestion that he did not pen the work could be catastrophic and ruin their lifestyle which the books pay for.
He is in many ways the perfect abuser and despite his obvious charms, one hopes that Colette will find a way out from under his grip.
Knightley impresses as Colette, coming into her own just as Colette does when she experiments with her sexuality and gender role. She has always seemed more comfortable and fitting within a period setting and it is no different here, doing a fine job of reminding people of this trendsetter and inspirational role model.
Colette. The best a woman can get. Or should that be the best women can be?

3 stars

The Imitation Game - review

According to The Imitation Game, Alan Turing was a genius but a tortured one. Socially awkward, unlikeable, irritable. The perfect character for Benedict Cumberbatch to do his best stiff upper lip imitation of House M.D..

He's even given a classic House moment as something unrelated to the problem suddenly unlocks the key and you see him working out the solution in his head before that "Eureka" moment.

There have been previous films that have looked at the Bletchley Park team that cracked Enigma but this is the first that focuses on the man behind the machine that beat the machine.

The action is kept within the confines of Bletchley Park, rarely venturing out to examine the horrors of war, but the team are aware of the power and responsibility they have in determining the fates of many and the outcome of the war.

Cumberbatch delivers a commendable performance in a film which sets out to crack the code of what made Turing the man he was.

Very much like The King's Speech, it is a watchable take on a true story but isn't that cinematic and feels more like a real Sunday night BBC drama and an imitation of an Oscar contender.

3 stars

Say When - review

Directed by Mumblecore director Lynn Shelton, Say When has desires of achieving a Garden State-esque meditation on the struggles of someone in their mid-twenties finally leaving the past behind and figuring out who they are and what they want out of life.

In this case, it is Megan (Keira Knightley) who is floating through life without a job or career, still with the same group of friends she has had since high school but feeling like an outsider as she hasn't really grown up. When her high school boyfriend proposes, she freaks out and runs off for a week, pretending to be at a career seminar, but actually hangs out with teenager Annika (Moretz) and bonds with her single dad played by Sam Rockwell.

Rockwell adds some much needed spark to a tale that kind of shuffles and mopes along like a sulky, lethargic teenager and instead of becoming a thoughtful take on the "quarter-life crisis", it descends into standard rom-com cliches and formulas come the predictable finale.

2 stars

Begin Again - review

There is a moment in the trailer of Begin Again where the drunk, divorced A&R man Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is fired and screams that he is taking his client list with him only for his former partner to tell him "This isn't Jerry Maguire".

Only, it kind of is. Albeit a version set in the music industry rather than sports.

Just like Jerry, Dan hits rock bottom. Having lost his job, wife, etc he attempts to make it all the way back to the top with the help of one client and a beautiful woman (her all rolled into the form of Greta aka Keira Knightley).

Knightley's voice is a huge surprise as she has a sweet vulnerability but a tone that is reminiscent of Aimee Mann and this is most apparent on her solo version of the song Lost Stars.

They meet at an open mic night where they suffering from heartbreak and rejection. There is a lovely juxtaposition where we see the song 'A Step You Can't Take Back' from Knightley's nervous acoustic performance and then from Ruffalo's where he sees the potential in the song and adds in an imaginary band to bring it to life.

He persuades her to record an outdoor album that will help to mend his career and mend her broken heart at the hands of ex-boyfriend and now famous musician played by Adam Levine.

Many of the songs feature heavily in the film but rather than just being filler, they all have a purpose and sentiment which furthers the plot and it becomes a non-traditional musical, similar to the director's first film Once.

A song accidentally reveals an infidelity, a drunken song on voicemail sparks a potential reconciliation, etc but more than this they act as a love song but the object of its affection is in fact the city of New York.

Carney clearly has an affinity for the city that never sleeps. After all it is where the Guy in Once travels to at the end of the film to seek fame and fortune. Did he make it like Levine's Dave Kohl or did he go back to busking like Greta's best mate Steve (James Corden).

This love for the city shines through in a sequence where Dan and Greta wander through the city at night linked by a headphone splitter, sharing stories, memories and songs like Luck Be A Lady and For Once In My Life.

Similar to the way Greta criticises Dave for his over-production on Lost Stars, the song she wrote for him, Begin Again does seem more flashy and stylised than the low-budget immediacy and improvisational nature of Once but it has a charm of its own that really captures the heart of the audience, with much of it down to the chemistry between the two leads. Although like his first film, the director is not afraid to avoid typical Hollywood conventions in terms of how this relationship plays out.

Together they create their outdoor album and all their hopes and dreams come together in one perfect moment as they perform Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home on a rooftop in Manhattan. Dan's crazy idea is working and could prove his redemption, Greta will become a star and Dan's daughter surprises everyone by finding herself in guitar on the track.

The film was originally called "Can A Song Save Your Life?" and while it might do that for the main characters, it certainly provides several tunes that will be saved to my iPod as John Carney proves that he is not just a Once trick pony as lightning strikes twice with Begin Again.

4 stars

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - review

Not content with playing a new version of Captain Kirk, Chris Pine steps into the shoes previously worn by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck in this full system reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise... even if this is the first one to feature his name in the title.

Would the casual cinemagoer actually be able to tell you that The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum Of All Fears were all linked by the same character?

Quick as a flash we speed through John Patrick Ryan's, Jack to his friends, backstory:

A shot of him at London School of Economics tells us he is smart.

Seeing him watch 9/11 on TV and a guy saying "hey, you're American. Sorry man" tells us he's American.

We then cut to a military helicopter in Afghanistan to tell us he is a soldier.

The copter is then attacked and we see him on a stretcher. He is hurt but a hero.

Character building on the most economical of scales.

He recovers in hospital where a date with Keira Knightley is used as an incentive to heal. Some might prefer to stay in a wheelchair! Bazinga!

He is also recruited by Kevin Costner to the CIA to work on Wall Street to follow the money and find potential terrorist groups.

Before you can say "America. F*ck Yeah!", Cut to ten years later and Ryan uncovers a plot by some stereotypical 80s bad guy Russians led by heavily accented Kenneth Branagh (pulling double duty as director too) to launch a terrorist attack on the US and then sell huge reserves of dollars to crush the economy.

Follow that? That's the simplified version that Costner asks Ryan to explain the plot to him (and the audience) in layman terms.

So in the words of Team America: World Police:

"From what I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.N.C.E has gathered, it would be 9/11 times 100.
9/11 times a hundred? Jesus, that's...
Yes, 91,100."

Cue Jack Ryan becoming a fully operational agent which involves him:

having the bathroom fight scene from Casino Royale

several scenes of his girlfriend thinking he is having an affair because he is off doing spy shit before breaking the oath he took when joining the CIA to tell her the truth, which obviously then gets her into immediate danger

the needing to download files from the bad guy's office while his girlfriend distracts him over dinner scene from a Mission Impossible movie

ending with the race against time to find and diffuse a bomb from "EVERY action movie ever made"

Can't say I'm looking forward to the sequel where he must rescue Keira and their newborn child in Jack Ryan's Daughter.

2 stars