Netflix Review - Love Wedding Repeat (15)

We live in a universe that's ruled by chaos and chance, where all it takes is just one moment of ill-fortune for all our hopes and dreams to go right down the shitter.

The Gist: Mild-mannered Jack (Sam Claflin) is in charge of his sister Hayley's Italian wedding, no parents remaining alive to help organise proceedings. He's determined to get everything right for his troubled little sis (Poldark's flame-haired Eleanor Tomlinson), but events become complicated by unreliable 'maid' of honour Bryan (Joel Fry), Jack's vindictive ex-girlfriend complete with new plus-one and Hayley's cocaine-addled party-crashing ex (additional Poldark alumnus Jack Farthing). Further distraction comes for poor Jack in the form of Dina (Olivia Munn), the American journalist he so nearly got together with one year before. In among the mayhem might be his own best chance at love, but there are multiple ways in which the same day might work out for all concerned, some more disastrous than others...

The Juice: Love Wedding Repeat may be adapted from French farce Plan de Table, but it's plain even from a plot summary that its overriding influence is Richard Curtis. Four Weddings and a Funeral's lavish nuptial rites are transplanted into sun-drenched Italy, while the central conceit of exploring more than one time-line is reminiscent of Curtis' time-travel tale About Time (though Sliding Doors might be a more accurate Britcom reference point here). Even Claflin is channelling the self-deprecating affability of a young Hugh Grant and - in fairness - doing a decent job of it. 

The screenplay, courtesy of writer-director Dean Craig, is clunky in structure, while stronger in its individual moments of character comedy. The latter are helped along by neat performances across the board. Claflin and Munn have a nice romantic chemistry (you do root for them from the start), while Yesterday's scene-stealing Joel Fry works his shambling Rhys Ifans-style magic again, particularly when paired with Irish comedian Aisling Bea as his conversationally disastrous female equivalent. Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto has tremendous fun as the ex from hell, while deft comic actor Tim Key adds to the brew of social ineptitude as Jack's nervously over-talkative friend Sidney.

The Judgement: 6/10. It all chugs along at a leisurely pace, rather than with real comic momentum, though there are a few good comedy punches along the way (including a glorious punchline for the central romance). And if it doesn't match the sheer champagne fizz of Four Weddings, there are enough bubbles in the glass to keep you entertained. There's also a genuine sense of sweetness, despite a central plot device involving the ill-advised use of a sleeping-drug. Don't worry - it's all well-intentioned, as is the film as a whole. Love Wedding Repeat will satisfy your lockdown romcom needs without every becoming too sickly. Enjoy.

Feature - Ed's Lockdown Movie Double-Bills Part 1

Are you not entertained? Maximus Decimus Meridius - Gladiator

Okay, let's be reasonable here, friends - during a virulent global pandemic there are worse things possible than being cooped up with your family for several months. Yes, I know that's easy for me to say in my child-free state, but I urge you - try to retain perspective. Films will help - I'm talking about proper films, not dross from the furthest flung shores of Netflix. I can't solve all your social isolation problems, but I can make a few suggestions to while some of those nights - or holiday afternoons - away.

I realise some of you are already bingeing Peaky Blinders like you'd always intended, others are ensconced in Harry Potter and Marvel marathons. I personally know someone who is revisiting all the MCU movies in chronological order. Well done that person, it's a worthwhile enterprise and you have my respect. But I'm going to try something different - an idea that will take no more than a single evening at a time rather than committing everyone to a long-haul. I'm talking about movie double-bills. Roughly four hours of your locked-down life each go (five if you do dinner in the break) and a nice cohesive home cinema experience. So let's go.

1. The Jumanji Double-Bill

You could conceivably go back to the Robin Williams 1995 original and turn this into a triple - there's a touching reference to Williams' character in the new iteration of the franchise to tie all three films together. However the recent pair of Jumanji adventures work very well on their own and would make a nigh-on perfect evening of family entertainment. Welcome to the Jungle introduces a video-game avatar spin on the basic Jumanji concept, which becomes everything that makes it fun and distinctive. Then The Next Level finds smart ways of mixing things up to keep the comedy flowing; it even succeeds in being more exciting than the first. This is how to use a talented (and expanding) group of comic actors - serving them with material worthy of their mirth-inducing talents and creating a multi-generation-pleasing experience in the process.

2. The Sword-and-Sandals Double Bill

Try this one - it'll be epic, in the truest sense of the word. Watch Spartacus, the 1960 Stanley Kubrick version with Kirk Douglas as the revel slave. It'll take you over three hours, but it's the best Ancient Roman action-drama ever committed to film (stone cold fact, no arguments please) and even in more normal circumstances that makes it a worthwhile time commitment. Then have some cheese and crackers - vegan alternative if you prefer - and get stuck into Gladiator, the best genre equivalent of the modern era. Think about it: that's both the 'I am Spartacus' scene and the 'My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius...' speech in full glorious context in the same evening. You're getting chills already, aren't you? Seriously, track them both down on your various streaming services - pay if you have to - and wallow in these toga-rich dramas of decadence and defiance. It'll actually make you glad of this unlooked-for down time.

3. The Zombieland Double-Bill

2009's Zombieland is, simply put, one of the most rewatchable comedies of 21st century cinema. It's consistently witty, furiously paced and commendably short - and it's got lots of vividly comical zombie-slaughtering action. Fans waited (or not) a full decade for its follow-up and to its credit Zombieland: Douple Tap gets enough right to make it a worthy sequel. It does fall into the trap that Jumanji 2019 avoided - that of trading too much on the original film's jokes - but the character dynamics show development, several entertaining new players are introduced and the central location in the final act is psychedelic feat of the imagination. It's great to see the original gang reunited (and then split apart and reunited again) and overall there's enough caustic humour, heart and guts (real and figurative in the case of those latter two) to create a terrific evening of popcorn-centric home entertainment. (Other snacks apply if you don't have your own popping corn.)

4. The Aardman Double-Bill

I had a few titles to choose from here, but I thought I'd go with a combination of the classic and the lesser known. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit is the duo's one feature-length adventure and manages to extend their 'eccentric inventor and his long-suffering dog' shtick successfully into the longer format by virtue of a terrific central conceit. It's one that draws on the tropes of classic movie horror, transplanting them into a Yorkshire village preparing for its annual church fete to gleefully pun-tastic effect. Pair that with The Pirates! Band of Misfits (known in other territories as The Pirates! In and Adventure with Scientists). Ignore all the issues they had with finding a decent title and enjoy a truly wacky tale of Charles Darwin on the high seas with Hugh Grant voicing a posh pirate captain. It's adapted from Gideon Dafoe's lunatic Pirates! novels, but contains all the gloriously absurd visual humour of Aardman's best. A stop-motion double delight.

5. The 'Marooned' Double-Bill 

One man trapped in an unforgiving environment. Fighting insanity and despair as much as the physically hostile surroundings. Attempting an escape that's almost certainly doomed. Those ideas equally describe Cast Away, the film in which Tom Hanks puts in the definitive performance of a lonely man having a desert island bromance with an anthropomorphised volleyball, and The Martian, where Matt Damon makes a daily space blog, thereby giving himself something Hank-style to talk to, while he endeavours to escape from the surface of Mars where he's been accidentally abandoned - thanks very much, Jessica Chastain! (In fairness it really wasn't her fault.) The parallels between these two films are too perfect to bypass, plus when you think about it, they both deal with a very unplanned form of social distancing. Hey if you want to really go for it conceptually, watch Apollo 13 as well. The Martian, you could argue, if a beautiful fusion of the other two. Think about that. You've got the time.

6. The Paddington Double-Bill

It's my earnest hope that this pair of films will one day be extended into a trilogy - but let's not complain, because the riches on display here are considerable. 2014's Paddington was a delightful cinematic introduction to Michael Bond's immigrant bear from Peru, even if the Nicole Kidman villain plot felt a little forced. The 2017 follow-up, however, took everything that worked first time around and raised it to greatness. And I do mean 'greatness' - check that 100% critical rating on rottentomatoes.com after 238 reviews if you don't believe me. It was one of the best films - not children's films, not family films, just films - of that or any year. Watch P1 as a warm and cuddly prologue and then bask in the unutterable joy of P2. It's got humanity, hilarity, charm, craft, Hugh Grant being outrageous... it will make you feel good about the workd again. It's the ultimate family movie too, in that anyone who's ever been part of a family - of any kind - will love it. Seriously, I cannot think of another two films that would serve as a better tonic right now. Please let this bear look after you.

Good. That's almost a week of lockdown catered for in filmic terms. I'll see if I can provide more ideas along the way. Stay safe and happy watching...

(Keep getting better, Tom.)

Home Cinema Review - The Good Liar (15)

Seems like you've had quite a past, Roy.

The Gist: Wealthy suburban widow Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) takes to online dating, through which she meets the charming and self-effacing Roy (Ian McKellen). Her son Stephen (Russell Tovey) takes a dim view of the pair's developing friendship with - we quickly see - good reason. Roy is a practised con-artist with dark criminal connections and an eye to Betty's fortune. She seems clueless to his wiles, getting ever more tightly drawn in by his clever machinations. But for all this woman's good nature, is she the totally naive mark that Roy expects her to be?

The Juice: Directed by experienced helmer Bill Condon and based on a novel by Nicholas Searle, The Good Liar is possessed of numerous strengths and marred by one fatal flaw that prevents it from achieving top-flight thriller status. Chief among its plus-points is that pair of hugely enjoyable central performances. McKellen's conman is no lovable rogue; when not channeling his suave alter-ego, Roy is a deeply unpleasant piece of work - a portrait of creepy malevolence. (The acclaimed theatre knight has a scenery-chewing blast in the role.) Mirren is even more impressive as Betty, providing the apparently gullible widow with depth and nuance that comes into play ever more as the running time progresses. Condon, veteran of big studio fare from Dreamgirls to the live-action Beauty and the Beast (he helped McKellen to Oscar contention via 1999's Gods and Monsters) imbues the whole film with intrigue and suspense, particularly when McKellen is plying his behind-the-scenes criminality or homing in on his financial prize. The early acts get commendably close to the Hitchcockian tension to which the film so clearly aspires. 

What a pity then that the later revelations fail to tie the plot together satisfactorily. Don't get me wrong - it all makes sense, but the truth behind all the story's secrets and lies isn't hidden in plain sight. There isn't the 'Yes, of course!' moment of the best con dramas, because the reality is left-field unguessable. The final act has tension as the stakes increase for Mirren's character, but you're still left with a sense of 'Where did that all come from?'

The Judgement: 6/10. More than worth watching for Sir Ian and Dame Helen, and for the nicely sustained tension of the first two thirds, this is ultimately a solid thriller rather the truly delicious one it was shaping up to be. You can't enjoy a plot's ingenious clockwork Knives Out-style, if the key piece exists so firmly off-screen. You'll see what I mean when you watch it. Just keep your expectations in check and enjoy what's there for the enjoying. It's this pair after all.

Film Review - The Invisible Man (15)

He's sitting in that chair.

H. G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man told of Griffin, a genius in the scientific field of optics, who is driven to violence having achieved invisibility - irreversibly so. In 2020 writer/director Leigh Wannell has reworked the premise, forging it into a horror-thriller to satisfyingly suspenseful effect. The best scary films - I've said it before - tend to be those about something beyond their obvious hook. Wannell's film puts a diabolical spin on Wells' idea, one that gives the story a spiky modern resonance and a reason to exist all its own. If you didn't see the need for this new version, look again. Look hard.

The Griffin in question this time around is Adrian - a brilliant optical physicist like his 1897 literary counterpart, but equally an abusive and coercive partner to Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss). When she finally breaks free of his control, the worst of her suffering seems behind her, dramatic developments appearing to confirm that Adrian won't ever be a part of her life again. But then a string of unnerving events suggest the incredible - that her ex is stalking her invisibly, in a terrifying literal sense. As her closest friends and family dismiss her fears as PTSD-induced paranoia (you can't not see their point), the unseen threat intensifies. And as her world threatens to crash all over again, fragile Cecilia struggles in her attempts to retaliate or even to prove she's not losing her mind.

If as originally intended The Invisible Man had been part of Universal Studios' 'Monster Universe', this would have been a very different film. The shrewdness of this version is to take the fantastical premise and ground it in reality, forging a notably modern story about coercive control. Who better to terrorise an emotionally damaged ex than someone she can't even see? And isn't it the MO of that type of abuser - to make his victim appear like she's the crazy one? However outlandish the basic concept of invisibility, the story's psychology convinces completely, so that it's easy to buy into the reality of Cecilia's plight.

This is a high-tension experience throughout. Years of working in the Saw and Insidious franchises have honed Wannell's skills as a director of suspense. A taut opening sequence establishes the stakes, making it clear how terrifying a proposition Adrian is even when clearly three-dimensional. Every trick is utilised here (the occasional well-placed jump-scare included) to ensure you're rattled like Cecilia from the very start. Then a more creepily subtle approach takes over along with the invisibility shenanigans. Little can be more unsettling than a camera lingering significantly on empty space, cluing you in on the threat neither you nor the protagonist can see. There's an accompanying chill in the colour palette too as events turn sinister, draining all the protective warmth from the home Cecilia finds with her friend James and his daughter Sydney (Aldis Hodge and Storm Reid). And that's just the first act. Any time our heroine threatens to outwit her nemesis from them on, this screenplay has a wicked way - accompanied by Benjamin Wallfisch's jagged score - of upping the threat level.

At the centre of all this is Moss, who's been becoming steadily more visible since Mad Men by way of The Handmaid's Tale. Her portrayal of Cecelia is the stuff of awards (if those doing the awarding could get over their genre movie snobbery). Jumpy from sustained trauma at the start, she spirals through degrees of fear and derangement, before evolving by necessity into something gratifyingly different. It's a performance marked by authenticity - the kind where cathartic releases of emotion happen before your eyes with no camera breaks to aid them. Take into account that she's often acting with an antagonist who isn't visibly there and you grasp how impressive this all is. There's commendable support - Hodge's sympathetic but skeptical friend and Michael Dorman's spineless brother-of-Adrian both stick in the memory - but it's Moss's show first and last and she rises heroically to the unseeable challenge.

If I've made the movie sound sombre and over-serious, let me just clarify that this is primarily an escalating thrill-ride - one that cranks its way to vertigo-inducing heights of tension before plunging into third-act mayhem. Yes it carries genuine thematic weight, but those themes are all delivered through sustained anxiety and heart-racing excitement. Even the invisibility shtick - practical effects favoured over CGI - are convincing enough to keep you fully invested. What might have been dismissed as a run-of-the mill genre flick is anything but. Whatever you're expecting to view, there's much more to this Invisible Man than initially meets the eye.

Gut Reaction: Had me socially distancing myself from my seat at one point and in an advanced state of unease for the rest. The ending is a satisfying belter though.

Memorable Moment: You'll know it when you don't see it.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Never before has an invisibility film invoked such a sense of 'is he there or not???' A terrific horror-splashed thriller and a pre-quarantine reminder of why I like the group movie experience so much. 

Film Review - Dark Waters (12A)

The system is rigged. They want us to believe that it'll protect us, but that's a lie. 

With the western world currently straining under the full weight of Covid 19 (I'm writing this on 4th April, 2020), Dark Waters presents us with an even longer-term health concern. The new strain of coronavirus will work its short-term devastation, but micro-plastic pollution in our water systems won't go away nearly so readily. Aside from being a superior drama, Todd Haynes' new feature acts as a stark reminder of that fact. Admittedly it doesn't make for the kind of distraction many of us might be seeking right now (even if there were cinemas open where we could see it), but that doesn't take away from how good a film this is.

Mark Ruffalo plays the real-life Robert Bilott, a corporate defence attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio, who specialised in defending chemical companies. That was until 1999 when (as the film recounts it) he was approached by West Virginian farmer William Tennant, regarding the death of the man's livestock and a possible connection with the a nearby DuPont chemical factory. Bilott's investigation into DuPont and subsequent decision to represent Tennant was a dramatic turn-around and one that led the lawyer - along with his vastly patient wife and family - into a decades-long legal struggle with some powerful and toxic opponants. It was a battle that exposed an environmental compromise reaching scarily far beyond one West Verginian farm.

Director Todd Haynes is best known - to me at any rate - for his colour-saturated throwback melodramas Far From Heaven and Carol. Dark Water is an entirely different proposition, as grainy and drained of colour as its title and subject matter might suggest. While reminiscent of other David and Goliath legal dramas - Erin Brokovich and The Rainmaker spring most readily to mind - this sheds light on a particularly murky real-life case, one where the power and guile of a global corporation bears down on our hero in a uniquely relentless - and sometimes frightening - fashion. Yuletide reds and greens reminscent of a Christmas scene from Carol might serve as a backdrop to one hard-fought legal victory. But it's never long before we're plunged back into the gloomy greys of corporate obfuscation and amorality. Neither Haynes' direction nor a painfully authentic screenplay from Mario Correa will spare us from reality for very long.

In the thick of it is Ruffalo, embracing this post-Avengers environmental passion project. His portrayal of Bilott is not unlike Bruce Banner in its downplayed ordinariness, only this everyman hero is fuelled by a dogged obsessive streak rather than an inner Hulk. The actor's acquaintance with the actual lawyer during production seems to have permeated deep - this is a performance with a heartfelt sense of mission. In keeping with the script he's low on courtroom fireworks, but high on long-haul determination, just like his real-life counterpart.

Anne Hathaway is meanwhile given room to create a nuanced portrayal in the traditionally thankless 'supportive spouse' role. 'I'm not just the wife', she actually articulates at one stage, this movie emphasising the toll of the legal case on the Bilotts' marriage as well as their relationship's strength. It's good to see Tim Robbins in big-screen action as the lawyer's cautioning yet supportive boss, yet the most memorable supporting performace comes perhaps from elsewhere. As the frustrated farmer whose wrath ignites the anti-DuPont fire, character actor Bill Camp is gruffly magnificent. There's no hint of sentimentality in his relationship with Bilott, just the sense of a man with nothing left to lose. Ultimately he comes to symbolise an entire community undermined by its enemies - both the invisible kind and the type that's defended by a battery of well-paid lawyers. 

On reaching the other side of the Corona crisis, it's possible that few will want to take in this drama and all its implications for global wellbeing. That'd be a shame. With Covid 19 spotlighting how capitalist societies approach issues of public health, here's a story of one company's bloody-minded refusal to put people ahead of profit. That it's true is sobering. That it's well-told makes it all the more salutary. With or without covid, Dark Waters is a tale that needed to be told in 2020.

Gut Reaction: Not thrilled as such, just deeply absorbed and increasingly hacked off.

Memorable Moment: No, Mrs Bilott, your husband hasn't gone mad.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Unflinching in its realistic treatment of the subject, this film offers real tough drama over air-punching victory moments. And Ruffalo's protagonist is relatably human. Turns out earth's heroes need to be a whole different kind of mighty.