The Lighthouse (15) Dir: Robert Eggers

Writer-director Robert Eggers follows up his unsettling and atmospheric feature debut The Witch with a similarly mysterious and intense tale of two lighthouse keepers attempting to maintain their sanity on a remote New England island in the 1890s.

Young gun Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and old timer Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) are partnered up on the island for four weeks to maintain the lighthouse before relief comes.

The rain lashes down, thunder rumbles, seagulls squawk, the foghorn blares. Constantly, the foghorn blares.

Over the first of many supper time scenes, Wake pours Winslow a drink which Winslow refuses, thus setting up the first wedge between the two. Their strange relationship intensifies over the coming days and weeks as Winslow feels put upon, Wake feels Winslow is not pulling his weight. They bond over respective back stories, but clash over their island responsibilities. Winslow is desperate to tend the light and prove himself as a “wickie” but Wake pulls rank keeping the light (and its secrets) for himself.

From here it’s a descent into madness and an exploration of the many states of a fractured mind, as both men begin to question the motive of the other.

The dialogue is peppered with authentic sailor slang and turns of phrase that offer the film a certain dark poetry. These lines are delivered perfectly by Dafoe with his gruff, salty-dog accent, pipe protruding from his mouth askew. Pattinson is equally impressive as Winslow, a man battling not only the here and now on the island, but a dark and devastating past.

The film shares elements with David Lynch’s Eraserhead, not just in its gorgeous 1.19:1 monochrome photography by Jarin Blaschke, but its industrial aesthetic and soundscape. Coal is shovelled, pistons whir, machinery clanks and clatters. One can almost smell the salty sea air and feel the greasy oil under the fingernails, which is almost as black as the film’s humour.

It won’t be for everyone, particularly as the visuals and atmosphere are cranked up toward the climax, but viewers who roll with it will be hooked, line and sinker.

What We Did On Our Holiday (12) Dir: Guy Jenkin & Andy Hamilton (2014)

*This review contains spoilers*

Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered collaborators Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton write and direct this amusing family comedy.

Bickering couple Abi (Rosamund Pike) and Doug (David Tenant) are on their way to Scotland for Doug’s terminally ill father’s birthday with their three kids. Youngest Jess (Harriet Turnbull) wants to bring her friend bricks Eric and Norman, Viking-obsessed Mikey (Bobby Smalldridge) hopes to meet his hero Odin, and eldest Lottie (Emilia Jones) brings her notebook so she can keep up with the web of lies her parents spin. You see, Abi and Doug are in fact separated and working towards divorce, but have kept it thus far from Doug’s family. The simple aim is to keep up appearances long enough to survive the trip.

Easier said than done when the dysfunctional extended family includes Doug’s money-mad brother Gavin (Ben Miller) who insists on showing off his “intelligent house” at every opportunity, sister-in-law Margaret (Amelia Bullmore) who dutifully cooks and cleans whilst harbouring her own secrets, and violinist teenage nephew Kenneth (Lewis Davie) who doesn’t think twice about slide tackling three-year-old Jess during a family game of football.

At the head of this dynasty sits Gordie, beautifully played by a thoroughly charming Billy Connolly. Gordie is the complete antithesis of his two sons, laid back to the point of horizontality. He’d much rather spend his birthday at the beach with his grandchildren than prepare for the overblown party organised with military precision by Gavin.

It is in the film’s more intimate moments between grandfather and grandchildren when the film soars highest; Gordie imparting refreshingly unfiltered wisdom on the children who are all already wise beyond their years. When Gordie tells the kids that he’d rather have a Viking funeral than a boring family affair where the inevitable fights would sour the mood just before popping his clogs the kids take it quite literally and see to it that his final wish is respected. Amusement ensues back at the house once the family learns of the impromptu send-off. Gavin is incredulous at the fact that he’s been hung up on by 999, while Abi struggles to get the facts from Jess as she focuses on how many pebbles she found and then subsequently lost.

Predictably, from here the film becomes a sweet, if slight, examination of how great tragedy has the power to reconnect once disparate threads of a family. The players are all endearing enough (even if Ben Miller’s Scottish accent leaves a little to be desired).

The film’s greatest weakness are its visuals. The highland scenery is utterly breathtaking, but the film in general is so televisual in style and execution it looks and feels like a BBC comedy drama rather than a movie. Jenkin and Hamilton’s direction is disappointingly flat, especially given the quality of the screenplay. The family interplay is the film’s greatest strength, and it is these scenes which will live longest in the memory.

 

Rocketman (15) Dir: Dexter Fletcher (2019)

Dexter Fletcher has largely been credited with coming to the last minute rescue of recent Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, a film which received uneven critical reaction. Despite this Rami Malek walked away with the Best Actor Oscar at the 2019 ceremony, and fans across the globe fell at their feet again to worship these sovereign superstars.

Part of the criticism of Bohemian Rhapsody was its dumbing-down of the life of Freddy Mercury. Well, now, Fletcher has returned to the musical biopic to tell the story of Reg Dwight, aka Elton John. John is quoted in The Guardian as having “not lived a PG-13 life” and this is definitely reflected in Rocketman which never shies away from the star’s problematic issues with sex and drugs. Luckily, there’s a whole load of rock’n’roll to boot.

Rocketman is a dazzling feast for the senses. The film plays out more as a magic realist musical rather than a traditional rock biopic with songs chosen from John’s incredible back catalogue to match the current mood of the film as opposed to gunning for chronological accuracy. This works an absolute treat because it means the songs (especially Bernie Taupin’s lyrics) help to shape the narrative of the film, and often provide an interesting alternative context.

Taron Egerton as John is terrific. He not only embodies the flamboyant showmanship of the man, but also that sense of shyness that never went away. Egerton is seemingly able to flick a switch between the two emotions, much like John himself. And boy can this lad sing. When Egerton is introduced to us as the teenage John for the first time during a sweeping rendition of Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting at a fun fair with Oliver-levels of twirling extras we are properly swept off our feet and barely touch the ground again. At one of John’s first American gigs at the Troubadour in LA he seems to float off the floor, soon followed by the crowd; levitating and transfixed by the genius on display. Fletcher here captures that incredible feeling at a music gig, unrivalled by any other, that music has an indefinable power.

If music has power for good, though, then people within the industry can surely prove otherwise. Richard Madden as John’s manager/lover, John Reid, starts off all smiles and sunshine (with electric chemistry between him and Egerton). This soon leads to slick music exec power-hunger, with Madden turning on his snake-like charm. Stephen Graham as Dick James is clearly having a ball, sneering and snarling through most of his performance. Bryce Dallas Howard is almost unrecognisable as Elton’s mother, Sheila – the occasionally too down-to-earth-for-her-own-good maternal presence. Steven Mackintosh doesn’t have loads to do as Elton’s absent father, Stanley, but what he does do he does well. Elton aged five asks his father “when will you hug me?”, to which the response is of course a cold silence. It is a particularly heartbreaking scene later which sees Stanley asking Elton to sign a record for him in front of his new sons, with whom he clearly has a much more affectionate relationship.

Where Rocketman provides warmth for John though is through his relationship with friend and collaborator, Bernie Taupin, played superbly by Jamie Bell. It is an understated performance amid a film full of garish outfits, wigs and glasses that regularly brings us back to reality.

There are plenty of times, however, where we simply don’t want to come back. Whether it’s the electric Pinball Wizard number played in dizzying rotations, Egerton’s soulful rendition of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or Rocket Man‘s surreal sequence that begins underwater and ends with Elton literally firing off into the sky like a firework. When Fletcher, and in particular George Richmond’s camera, takes us on these mesmerising flights of fancy it is impossible not to tap, dance or sing along with an enormous grin.

Rocketman is an absolute gem. Now go and download some Elton John, for goodness sake.

         

 

Us (15) Dir: Jordan Peele (2019)

Jordan Peele’s feature debut took America, and the Academy Awards, by storm. Get Out was an ingenious horror with comedic inflections and a powerful subtextual message on race relations in the US. Peele’s sophomore effort, Us, is an ingenious horror with comedic inflections and a powerful subtextual message on America itself.

1986. When five-year-old Adelaide (Madison Curry) wanders off from her parents during a trip to the seaside fun fair at Santa Cruz she stumbles into a creepy hall of mirrors and sees herself. Not a reflection, but another version of herself. Needless to say this incident has a profound impact on her. Fast forward to the present day and the grown up Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) returns to Santa Cruz on a beach vacation with husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex). Settling in for the night after a day of sun and sand, the family realise they are not alone in their holiday cabin; the family’s doppelgangers, dressed in red jumpsuits and wielding extraordinarily sharp scissors, have arrived and are hell-bent on terror.

Once the home invasion begins, the film rarely lets up its relentless pace and tension. However, before the horror kicks off we are given enough time to get to know the Wilson family and begin to feel for them as real people. They bicker around the dining table. They struggle with awkward interactions with the family of a supposed friend. They are an American every-family.

Performances are excellent across the board. Duke is often hilarious as Gabe, offsetting the rising suspense with much needed moments of humour. As Gabe’s double, Abraham, Duke is a muscular and foreboding presence. Joseph’s Zora is a resourceful and capable young woman (and handy with a golf club), while Zora’s double, Umbrae, has a fixed devilish grin that would give Momo nightmares. Alex as Jason nails frozen, wide-eyed fear; while Pluto, Jason’s doppelganger, is an energetic ball of hyperactivity.

However, the movie absolutely belongs to Lupita Nyong’o. She is brilliant as Adelaide, who is prepared to do anything to protect her family. The early scenes of tenderness and warmth with her loved ones give way to unbridled terror, and Nyong’o commits wholeheartedly. It is as Red, though, where Nyong’o mesmerises. Adelaide’s double is the matriarch of this shadow family, and she is terrifying. She moves with the precision of an automaton and glides around like Sadako via The Woman In Black. Her voice is a raspy, forced wheeze; truly the sound of nightmares.

The twists and turns of the picture are as thrilling as those of any fun fair ride. Peele’s screenplay is fiendishly smart, dropping subtle hints here and there as to what to expect, without ever revealing too much. The digs at the state of American society range from the throwaway (a brief mention of mind-control fluoride) to the bleeding obvious (“We’re Americans” says Red when she’s asked who she is).

Michael Ables’ score is a pulsating, string-heavy delight, ratcheting up tension at every possibility. There is also a wonderful use of a remixed version of Luniz’s I Got 5 On It. In fact, there are a number of terrific musical cues, including one Alexa-style gag that will raise the roof. The sound design, too, is extraordinary. Every footfall, every creak of a door, every rev of an engine is ramped up to the max, and the scissors of the troubled doubles really sound as sharp as they look.

Peele has achieved almost the unimaginable; followed up Get Out with an equally intelligent and thrilling rollercoaster ride of a movie.

Apostasy (PG) Dir: Daniel Kokotajlo (2017)

Daniel Kokotajlo’s intimate portrait of the strains and stresses of a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses is powerful, thoughtful and, impressively, largely non-judgemental.

Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) is the single mother of Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and Alex (Molly Wright). They frequently attend meetings and knock on doors spreading God’s word. As active members of the JW community, Luisa and Alex even learn Urdu in an attempt to convert local Pakistani residents. However, when Luisa falls pregnant she is disfellowshipped by her religious elders and, more painfully, by her mother. Alex struggles with the initial reaction to her sister’s “transgression”, but suffering from anaemia, and having undergone a blood transfusion (illegal in the JW world) as a baby against her mother’s knowledge, Alex has her own religious doubts.

Apostasy rings absolutely true in all departments. Kokotajlo was brought up in the religion and this is clear with his assured handling of all the scenes in the Kingdom Hall. They are not showy, exaggerated religious skits as is so often the portrayal of ministry of this nature, but rather low-key and understated.

Adam Scarth’s muted photography perfectly encapsulates the plain, drab world of the Manchester Jehovah’s Witnesses scene. After his work on the impressive Daphne this is now a British independent two for two.

Finneran nails the mother caught between her God and her family, frequently and frustratingly trapped in wanting to take care of her daughter despite the risk of disfellowship herself for associating with a wrong-doer. Parkinson’s Luisa is wide-eyed yet confident. She, too, is torn between wanting to please her mother by accepting the family’s religion, and retaining the courage of her convictions to stand up against the oppressive elders. It is Wright as Alex, though, who shines brightest. She delivers a quiet and measured performance as an eighteen-year-old swimming upstream in a baffling world, carrying an unjustified burden of guilt.

As a believable portrayal of contemporary British Jehovah’s Witnesses life Apostasy is a triumph. It is a confident and impressive feature debut by a promising directorial talent.

Dreamcatcher (15) Dir: Lawrence Kasdan (2003)

Dreamcatcher starts promisingly and has a solid enough premise that it really should succeed more than it does. Four friends, united by a defining incident of their childhood, gather at an isolated cabin in the snowy woods outside Maine. When they take in a sick passer-by having been lost in the forest the ick-factor suddenly rises as they discover he is infected with some kind of gruesome alien parasite hell-bent on wiping out not only the four chums, but the rest of the planet as well.

There’s a really good film in Dreamcatcher somewhere, unfortunately director and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan simply doesn’t have a handle on the film’s many strands and genres. Is it a gross-out horror/comedy, or a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi actioner? There’s mad army men, clairvoyancey, pointless CGI, an inner memory warehouse, and a painful under-representation of women.

As with many Stephen King adaptations, it appears that what may work on page doesn’t translate so successfully to the screen. Dreamcatcher is almost good, but ultimately just stupid.

Pet Sematary (18) Dir: Mary Lambert (1989)

Mary Lambert’s adaptation of Stephen King’s chilling novel is less a resurrected loved one, and more a rotting corpse. When tragedy strikes the Creed family cat not long after they move into their new Maine home, Dad Louis (Dale Midkiff) discovers thanks to creepy neighbour Jud (Fred Gwynne) that dead things buried in the nearby ancient Indian burial ground (yes, really!) come back to life (yes, really!). Even though the cat returns having undergone a stark personality u-turn this doesn’t stop the dim-witted father from burying his three-year-old son in the same soil after his painfully neglectful death.

Pet Sematary is a real clunker; shuffling its way from one tired horror cliche to the next. Midkiff is more wooden than an Ikea four-piece dining set. The final showdown between father and reanimated toddler is laughably constructed. Only Gwynne and Blaze Berdhall as daughter Ellie offer any kind of relief from the mind-numbing inexplicability of it all. Avoid.

2018 Top Ten

Better late than never, I have decided to compile a little list of the best ten movies I saw in UK cinemas last year. This list is based purely on UK cinema (or streaming platform) release dates. It is also not an exhaustive list. I certainly didn’t get round to seeing everything I would have liked to, so certain titles that have featured in other lists of this variety (Widows, Jeunne Femme, Isle Of Dogs) do not feature here.

10. First Man (12A)

Ryan Gosling is Neil Armostrong in Damien Chazelle’s biopic of the first man on the moon. Gosling is typicially excellent as the mild-mannered astronaut struggling with tremendous personal tragedy and the weight of a nation’s expectations on his shoulders. However, it is Claire Foy as Janet Armstrong who steals the film with her sensistive and powerful portrayal of a wife and mother holding the family together in the midst of great adversity.

9. A Quiet Place (15)

John Krasinski directs, co-writes and co-stars in this high concept horror-thriller where mysterious monsters with ultra sensitive hearing have devastated the US, forcing survivors to live in silence. Emily Blunt is terrific (as always) as the expectant mother fearing for the inevitable issues surrounding keeping a new born quiet. Millicent Simmonds as the hard of hearing daughter is the breakout star, though, balancing fear, bravery and resourcefulness in equal measure.

8. 22 July (15)

Released in the UK on Netflix to reach a wider audience, Paul Greengrass’s masterful recreation of the terrible events of July 22^nd 2011 in Norway is a powerful and thought-provoking real-life thriller. The unutterable scenes of terror play out discreetly, but no less impactfully. After, the film explores three strands of how the country is effected by the attack focusing on a survivor, the lawyer defending the terrorist, and the politicians attempting to put the country back together. It is a gripping and moving piece of work.

7. A Fantastic Woman (15)

When Marina’s (Daniela Vega) older lover unexpectedly dies, her life is thrown into chaos as she is rejected by his family. Being a trans woman, Marina faces discrimination and suspicion at every turn; ignorant family members, unpleasant police officials etc. Daniela Vega’s central performance is astonishing, imbuing Marina with a quiet dignity in the face of relentless persecution. Director Sebastian Lelio offers brief flights of fancy amid increasingly upsetting circumstances, while Nani Garcia’s score lends the whole piece a classical Hollywood feel. However, this is undoubtedly Vega’s picture which was the rightful winner of the Best Foreign Language film at last year’s Academy Awards.

6. Three Billboards Outisde Ebbing, Missouri (15)

Martin McDonagh’s first film since 2012’s Seven Psycopaths was well worth the wait. Frances McDormand is on Oscar-winning form as the grieving mother who holds the local police authority responsible for failing to capture her daughter’s murderer. A sensitive subject matter is dealt with adeptly with frequent laugh-out-louder humour, typical of the man behind In Bruges. It could easily be called Three Letters by Woody Harrelson, whose triplicate correspondence punctuate the narrative with a hard-hitting and surprising profundity. Sam Rockwell also picked up an Academy Award for his brilliant portrayal of a man who could so easily have slipped into racist cop cardboard cutout caricature.

5. Annihilation (15)

Another Netflix release, Alex Garland follows the brilliant Ex Machina with an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s sci-fi novel starring Natalie Portman. After her husband disappears in the Shimmer, a mysterious environmental disaster zone, Portman’s biologist leads a team of scientists inside to investigate. This is exhilarating science-fiction; baffling, exciting and genuinely unnerving. The final scenes are reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer’s superb sci-fi drama, Under The Skin and Portman delivers another knockout performance.

4. Roma (15)

Full review here: https://whymrpink.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/roma-15-dir-alfonso-cuaron/

Alfonso Cuaron’s latest is a deeply personal examination of the maid of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s. Shot gorgeously in monochrome by Cuaron himself (acting as cinematographer for the first time), we follow a year in the life of Cleo – brilliantly played by Yalitza Aparicio and fully deserving her recent Oscar nomination. Cuaron’s typical visual flair never detracts from the main story here. It is a film of quiet emotional power, building as it does to a beautifully simple, yet techinally dazzling, heart-wrenching climax.

3. The Shape Of Water (15)

Full review here: https://whymrpink.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/the-shape-of-water-15-dir-guillermo-del-toro-2017/

Guillermo Del Toro’s magical watery fable is a love letter to cinema, disguised as a sumptuous fantasy movie. Sally Hawkins’ mute Eliza falls in love with Doug Jones’ Amphibian Man after he is captured and brought to the secure government facility where Eliza works as a cleaner. It may not be Del Toro’s best film, that will surely forever be Pan’s Labyrinth, but The Shape Of Water is an absolute masterclass in the collision of two distinctly different worlds. Alexandre Desplat’s gorgeous score and top-notch production design and cinematography makes this a joy to both look at and listen to.

2. The Breadwinner (12A)

Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon follow the excellent The Secret Of Kells and Song Of The Sea with another profound animated effort. The Breadwinner, directed by Nora Twomey, tells the story of an 11-year-old girl, Parvana, who, after her father is wrongfully imprisoned in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, poses as a boy in order to get work to support her family. The glorious animation style offers a magic realist take on an undoubtedly important and relevant subject. The fantastical flights of fancy provide necessary respite from the horror of Parvana’s real life, the terrific sound design transports us directly on to the bustling Afghan streets, and the film’s final message of love triumphing over adversity is one that will resonate with viewers of all ages.

1. They Shall Not Grow Old (15)

Peter Jackson’s phenomenal documentary is not only the best film of 2018, but one of the most astonishing technical achievements in cinema history. Jackson and his team have painstakingly colourised and modernised footage from the Imperial War Museum’s archives of World War 1. The result is simply astounding. Interviews from hundreds of survivors play over these impossibly realisitic images telling the whole story of the Great War from recruitment, through boot camp, to going over the top, taking German soldiers prisoner, and eventually coming home to a terrifyingly non-plussed homeland. The film is harrowing, yet humorous; Jackson never refusing an opportunity to display the relatable humanity of those involved. Essential viewing for absolutely everyone, and no doubt will become a staple of history classes across the country for years to come.

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As with all these kinds of lists, whittling down to just ten is an extremely tough task. On another day it could so easily have been an entirely different line up. Here are a few honourable mentions from last year; some of which should feel very hard done by to not feature in the final list of favourites.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s sumptuously shot, brilliantly acted Phantom Thread is another great entry in Anderson’s impressive body of work with a further terrific score from Johnny Greenwood.

Lynne Ramsey’s stark You Were Never Really Here provides us with another quietly great Joaquin Phoenix performance and an impressive handle on difficult subject matter.

Greta Gerwig’s solo feature debut Lady Bird is a terrific coming-of-age comedy drama capturing the genuine trials and tribulations of Saoirse Ronan’s titular seventeen-year-old.

Bradley Cooper’s updating of A Star Is Born sees Lady Gaga on revelatory form as the pop star whose star rises as Cooper’s ageing rocker’s falls.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the Halloween franchise in David Gordon Green’s pleasingly satisfying horror sequel that dispenses with the previous, largely forgettable series’ entries.

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, and Joan Plowright are on sparkling form sitting round a table, discussing their careers in Roger Michell’s lovely Nothing Like A Dame.

Ari Aster’s full-on horror Hereditary suffers from over-exposition in the final act, but a nail-biting opening means the piece lingers long in the memory.

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is an incredibly urgent, important and powerful film with great central performances and a hell of a sting in its tail.

Rob Marshall’s sequel to cinema’s all-time favourite nanny is a joyous and heartwarming affair, with Emily Blunt on scintillating form in Mary Poppins Returns.

Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise reteam for another stonking actioner in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

John Francis Daley’s and Jonathan Goldstein’s high-concept comedy Game Night is fresh and funny enough to manoeuvre potential hiccups.

Panos Costamos’ bonkers horror-thriller Mandy sees Nicolas Cage light a cigarette off the decapitated head of a villain and that’s not even the strangest occurrence in the film.

Joe Pearlman’s and David Soutar’s (un)intentionally hilarious documentary on Bros, After The Screaming Stops is the most quotable and accidentally Alan Partridge-esque film of the year.    

Roma (15) Dir: Alfonso Cuaron

Alfonso Cuaron is no stranger to awards success. His previous feature, 2013’s Gravity, saw him collect the Best Director Oscar as well the Academy Award for editing, which he shared with Mark Sanger. His latest, Roma, a deeply personal examination of a year in the life of the maid of a middle-class family in early ‘70s Mexico City, sees him again nominated for direction and editing, as well as in the cinematography and original screenplay categories. The film has picked up ten nominations in total, including Best Actress for Yalitza Aparicio and Best Suporting Actress for Marina de Tavira.

Aparicio’s Cleo is the maid at the centre of the film. She is quiet and unassuming, yet clearly has a powerful bond with the energetic children of Dr Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) and his wife Sofia (de Tavira). They frequently tell her how much they love her. A sentiment rarely, if ever, directed at their mother.

The film is a snap shot not only of Cleo’s domestic life, but also of the state of Mexico itself. Terrifying student riots, adverse poverty, the division of class systems are all present, if intentionally pushed to the edges of the main narrative, with the exception of one nail-biting sequence involving a seemingly innocuous visit to a furniture store.

Cuaron’s camera prowls the Mexico City streets in beautifully composed tracking shots, while the middle-class interiors are often captured through long, single-take pans. The effect is both urgent and classy. The camera always remains at a fair distance, generally avoiding close-ups in favour of a steadier mid-shot that allows the audience to take in the entire milieu.

Yalitza Aparicio is subtly mesmersising in the central role. An innocently reactive presence to the horrors, both personal and national, that surround her; Aparicio plays Cleo with a dignified, elegant grace. Alongside Olivia Colman (The Favourite), Glenn Close (The Wife) and Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born), competition for the Leading Actress category at this year’s Oscars couldn’t be tighter.

Roma is a film of quiet emotional power, building as it does to a beautifully simple, yet techinally dazzling, heart-wrenching climax as the family go for a trip to the seaside. The astonishing heart-tugging heft rather sneaks up on the audience, and will undoubtedly stay with viewers for a long time after the final credits roll.

A powerful entry in Cuaron’s impressive canon. Yalitza Aparicio fully deserves her Oscar Nomination in the central role. A simple, yet technically dazzling snap-shot of 1970s Mexican life.

 

Goodnight Mommy (15) Dirs: Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz

The considerable shadow of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games looms large over this art-house horror effort from Austrian filmmakers Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz.

The mother of identical twins Elias and Lukas (played by real life twins Elias and Lukas Schwarz) returns home after extensive cosmetic surgery with bandages obscuring her face. Once loving and kind, she now appears stern and cold which makes the boys question whether she is their mother at all.

Dissecting Goodnight Mommy – original title Ich Seh, Ich Seh (I See, I See) – without revealing its twists and turns requires careful treading. However, if you don’t pick up on the film’s major twist then you simply weren’t paying attention. In fact, the twist is so obviously signposted it’s difficult to imagine the directors intended it as a twist at all. And herein lies the fundamental problem with the film.

The plot moves at an absolute snail’s pace, proving hard work for even the most hardened of Euro art-house darlings. The screenplay’s insistence on refusing to reveal any of the story’s absolute truths until the very final act prove frustrating. Think of the brilliant inch-by-inch reveals of key information in Asghar Farhadi’s brilliant The Past. A totally different type of film, of course, but one that satisfies enormously due to its slow drip-feeding of information at exactly the right time, adding layers to the gripping story. Here, it would’ve been nice to have had something to cling on to, rather than constantly second-guessing yourself.

As the boys become more and more certain that this imposter isn’t their mother things encroach more and more into Michael Haneke territory. The isolated, modernist country setting could easily be the backdrop for one of the great Austrian auteur’s movies. The boys interrogation of their “mother” (Susanne Wuest) begins with them tying her to her bed and slowly torturing her using everyday objects they have at their disposal; superglue, magnifying glass, toy cross bow. So far, so Funny Games. What makes the violence so shocking here is that these protagonists (or perhaps antagonists?) are even younger than the adolescent pair at the centre of Haneke’s masterpiece. The wince-inducing final act is difficult to process. It is neither tame enough to be suggestive and rely on performance and filmmaking craft for its shocks, nor is it schlocky enough to sate the blood-lust of horror aficionados. It sits somewhere awkwardly in the middle; which is a truth of the film itself.

It’s not entirely devoid of merit. The boys central performances are excellent; their playful banter slowly descending into uncertainty and paranoia is expertly judged. The setting and framing of the piece too is effective. The sterile, clinical house juxtaposes nicely with a surrounding natural environment which suggests foreboding; clouds loom threatening and black, hail stones mercilessly drop from the sky, nearby crops inexplicably find themselves ablaze.

However, the film’s shortcomings are what linger longest in the memory afterwards. An interesting dream sequence suggesting a hint of monster movie is never expanded upon. Perhaps most frustratingly of all, when two Red Cross volunteers stumble across the house and casually let themselves in and wander around upstairs as the mother lies bound and gagged in her bedroom all sense of realism appears to have been flung out of the window.

An uneven entry in the annals of Euro horror cinema. Solid central performances and a neat setting elevate it above many similar offerings, but when a film evokes the works of Michael Haneke so resoundingly it’s always going to be an uphill struggle.