Film review: Dear Frankie (2004) ***

With a story that is simultaneously optimistic and saddening, Shona Auerbach's Dear Frankie is perhaps best described as the sort of film that makes you smile on a Bank Holiday afternoon spent with your parents. That may sound like a cynical introduction, but picture other charming ‘Sunday afternoon’ fare such as ITV’s Goodnight, Mister Tom (1998), and you may appreciate the compliment.

The film centres on the titular Frankie (Jack McElhone), a nine year-old deaf child, raised in Scotland by his single mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer). Frankie believes his father is away at sea, but when news comes in of his dad’s boat docking at the local harbour, it soon becomes apparent that Lizzie has been protecting her son from the truth. If she wishes to continue the charade, a stand-in will be needed; an apprehensive Gerard Butler, credited only as “The Stranger”.

A story about human connections, Dear Frankie hinges upon both writer Andrea Gibb’s restrained script and the understated performances of its cast. Emily Mortimer is suitably enclosed as a woman trying to come to terms with a life permanently unsettled, her sad eyes telling us that she is always thinking of Frankie’s wellbeing, even when searching the town for a new man. Butler also does well, first displaying near disgust at Lizzie’s deceit of her son, before becoming an image of genuine affection during his scenes with Frankie. Perhaps expectedly though, it is the young lead who proves most crucial. Lending Frankie a believable sweetness, McElhone’s performance allows events to progress without crossing the line into unconvincing. As Lizzie and The Stranger grow to trust each other, it is the lovable portrayal of the child between them that makes their connection plausible. Dear Frankie then, is something often unseen; a film that not only acknowledges the narrow gap between sentiment and mawkishness, but passes through it successfully.

Film review: Festival (2005) **1/2

Comedic, but not romanticised, Festival is writer-director Annie Griffin’s portrayal of life beneath the surface of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. An ensemble piece, the film weaves together stories as Irish comic, Tommy O’Dwyer (Chris O’Dowd), attempts to seduce a local radio host and comedy competition juror, Joan Gerard (Daniela Nardini), who herself is involved in a clash of personalities with arrogant celebrity comic, Sean Sullivan (Stephen Mangan), a member of her judging panel.

These characters are only a few in a collection of personalities serving to highlight the tensions between the entertainment industry and the personal happiness of its stars. “This is a festival, it’s about fun”, Joan’s producer tells her in one scene and it is this expectation of constant joviality that weighs so heavily upon the lives of entertainers. Indeed, even when Sean and his disillusioned agent, Petra (Raquel Cassidy), are arguing on a hotel staircase, passing tourists assume that they must be witnessing a play. Festivals may bring lives together, but they can also disrupt them. It is this irony that Griffin is interested in.

Sadly though, the director’s approach to her exploration of the showbiz underbelly is not always a success. Take, for example, her unabashed portrayal of sex. The sight of Tommy lifting his face from Joan’s crotch to swig on a Barcardi miniature amuses, but a scene in which a comic whose routine is reliant upon having his hand in a puppet’s rear-end finds himself on the receiving end of his own scenario seems entirely misjudged.

The main problem though is that Festival simply tries to do too much. The central threads engage, but elsewhere characters seem peripheral and weakly drawn - a trio of kooky Canadian performers are little more than a clichéd annoyance, whilst the tragic arc of a clergyman and his one-man show about paedophile priests seems largely unnecessary. Had it been more focused then this bleak comedy could have been a hit, instead though the frequent variation in quality creates a link between entertainment and frustration almost as strong as the one the story attempts to exemplify.

Film review: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) *****

Released in 1951, Eliah Kazan’s adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire tells of disturbed Southern belle, Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh), who arrives in New Orleans seeking refuge with her sister, Stella (Kim Hunter), following the unexpected loss of her family plantation. Bullied and tormented by her brutish brother-in-law, Stanley (Marlon Brando), the secrets of Blanche’s past slowly reveal themselves as she is gradually driven deeper into her own despair. Leigh’s face tells the whole story. Blanche is terrified by the violent dynamic between Stella and Stanley and yet captivated by every male she sees. With her longing eyes and pouting lips, Leigh is constantly expressing newfound love as Blanche seeks solace with one man after another, exposing her desperate desire for protection long before the script does.

But this is Brando’s show. His Stanley is a picture of unrestrained masculinity; his handsome features and imposing physique suggesting he’s equally capable of seduction or violence. His muscular arms are there for Blanche to grasp when startled by an alley-cat, but they also belie an aggressive streak. With his T-shirts perpetually drenched in sweat and his drawling voice coming from a mouth that is almost always mid-chew, he is – as Blanche describes – “an animal”, eating, mating and ruling over the territory of the small apartment set. With Brando’s ability for both restrained anger and outbursts of rage, Stanley’s every smile has the potential to turn to intense wrath. One second he is Blanche’s confidant, the next her attacker, throwing her down and cruelly mocking her. It’s hard to believe a face can simultaneously convey both belittlement and lust, but as Stanley advances on Blanche, jaw still chewing, Brando’s displays just that. A thug to be hated, played by a force that cannot be resisted; like Stella, we want more of him, but are unable to explain why.

Ordinary Heroes. Comic book writer Mark Millar on why the superhero genre needs a Kick-[up-the]-Ass.

When you were younger, did you ever wonder how you would fare as a superhero? Not a version of you with bullet-like pace, super strength, or the ability to fly – just plain, old, regular you? If you suspect it probably would have resulted in a horrific beating, imagine no more; Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar has put the scene down on paper so that you don’t have to. The adaptation of Kick-Ass by director Matthew Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman is currently riding high at the UK box-office, but it was Millar that first brought the scenario to light. Containing all the savage violence and ‘C’-word dropping children currently enraging film critics at the Daily Mail, it was in his comic that the story first took form. What on Earth was he thinking?

“It’s entirely autobiographical,” laughs Millar, speaking in a recent appearance at the Glasgow Film Festival. “A friend from school and I just loved superhero comics, particularly the realistic stuff, like Alan Moore and Frank Miller, and we thought; ‘let’s do this, let’s try and be superheroes.’” At fifteen years old and weighing in at a combined weight of around sixteen stone, it’s safe to say Millar and his cohort might not have been the most imposing deterrent criminals could ever face, they would have – as Millar now freely admits – ended up in hospital. Fortunately though, circumstance meant that their time of trial never really arrived; “luckily we were in rural Scotland, it was hardly Gotham central.” But this didn’t stop them trying. “We designed costumes and created characters for ourselves,” Millar timidly confesses, “I was called ‘Mr Danger’. I wanted to be like Rorschach from Watchmen, but I looked more like a walking Oxfam advert”. If Millar’s idea wasn’t exactly original, then his friend hardly fared better; “He decided to be Batman!”

Eventually Millar settled for writing superhero stories, rather than starring in them and it seems unlikely that he would regret his decision – he has recently become the biggest selling British comic book writer currently being published in America. Yet even today, as he publicises the second big-screen adaptation of his writing (the first being 2008’s Wanted), he observes his peers’ continued reluctance to let go of other people’s characters. “People always say that Superman and Batman are forever”, Millar tells his audience at the Glasgow Film Theatre, “but they’re not. They’re forever to us because we’re mortal, but things belong to their time and they evolve to become other things. What started off as Hercules five thousand years ago turned into Superman and it’ll be something else in two thousand years time.” The transition, Millar believes, is already underway and, following a conversation with comic book legend, Stan Lee (creator of such massive names as Spider-man and the X-men), the writer has developed an insatiable urge for fresh ideas. “Stan once told me that if he’d just been writing about his favourites then it would have all been Tarzan, Superman and Batman – no Spider-man, no Hulk, nothing. And I thought that was interesting, because now everybody just wants to do Stan’s creations when they could be doing their own.” Today, the much loved tree-swinger of Lee’s generation has as good as died out from the world of comics, how long will it be before the others follow suit? “I think we’re coming to the end of those 20^th Century heroes,” Millar comments, “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got Christopher Reeve’s cape from Superman hanging on my wall at home – those characters means a lot to me – but I see that as a particular period in my life. I just think they belong to a different era”.

It’s about time, Millar believes, that the industry produced some new heroes, rather than relying on those that have gone before. Ever the creative mind, he has his own way of describing the situation. “The way I think of it is to imagine somebody who’s thinking of starting a family. They don’t think; ‘Let’s try to resuscitate that old man and then maybe we’ll adopt him,’ they think; ‘Let’s just have a baby.’” A new generation of readers calls for a new generation of characters, and Millar – to continue his metaphor – hopes that he can help give birth to them. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that certain archetypes will always remain relevant. “There’s a line we can draw from the Golden Age of comics to now where you can see character types developing; Clark Kent and Peter Parker are kind of similar and I’ve tried to carry that lineage through with Kick-Ass.”

So, is Dave Lizewski (the eponymous Kick-Ass) the sort of super-nerd the 21^st Century needs? Millar would like to think so. It’s a bold claim, but the writer assures people that he is not attempting to put himself on a creative pedestal. “I think a lot of is to do with the timing as opposed to the quality of the work. I think this generation doesn’t have its Spider-man yet, it forms a vacuum.” Millar is just lucky that his work has been given the opportunity to fill the void. But, at this stage, it is still just that – an opportunity. In order for a hero to be successful today, simply conquering the comic book medium isn’t enough; there is another art form that craves new and occasionally radioactive, blood. Hollywood has been riding high on the superheroes for a number of years now and with 2008 not only yielding the record breaking The Dark Knight, but also a summer blockbuster for the previously B-list hero, Iron Man, the genre is showing no signs of slowing down. That is, of course, until it runs out of characters. “I think that’s one of the reasons Kick-Ass became a movie within months of the comic book,” Millar muses, “there’s just such a hunger for it. Sony have bought the rights to my last story, War Heroes, and I’ve already had people ask me about my next book, Nemesis. Hollywood just eats up ideas so fast.”

It’s interesting that Hollywood should suddenly take such a strong interest in Millar’s work. When director Matthew Vaughn originally tried to pitch the idea of an adaptation of Kick-Ass, every major studio refused involvement unless drastic changes were made. The main bone of contention was Hit Girl – played in the film by Chloë Moretz. A supporting character in Millar’s story, she is an 11 year-old girl raised by her father, Big Daddy, to become not just a superhero, but a criminal killing machine – a stark contrast to the protagonist Dave’s more nervous approach. Oh, and she also happens to have a mouth like a sailor. For some reason producers seemed to think there was something unmarketable about the ultra-violent, swear-spouting, pre-pubescent youngster.

Considering some of the awkward territory Millar enters even speaking of her casting process, perhaps this is not surprising. “I was on a train, talking on my mobile, and I just went into a little bubble where I forgot other people could hear me. ‘Matthew and I have had a brilliant few days,’ I said, ‘we’ve just been watching DVDs of loads of wee girls!’” It’s the sort of discussion that would usually see your name joining a criminal register, rather than the box-office top ten. But a new kind of superhero film needs a new kind of approach and this is exactly what Vaughn and Millar opted for, deciding to fund the film independently before enticing distributors by revealing the first rapturously received clips at 2009’s San Diego Comic-Con. It’s a choice that Millar feels was essential to the film’s success. “If we had done Kick-Ass with the studios it would have been a sanitised mess and probably wouldn’t have even made it out theatrically. Doing it outside the system let us make the movie we really wanted to make” – 11 year-old assassins and all.

With an admirable share of positive reviews suggesting that the filmmakers were right to stick to their guns, the dust of controversy surrounding Kick-Ass may well be settling, but this doesn’t mean that Millar is ready to stop playing with convention. “I’d like to do a superhero film set in Scotland”, the writer reveals, speaking of a possible foray into directing. “I want to do something as cool as District 9 was to South Africa. I think it’s really interesting when people juxtapose two things you wouldn’t often see together – like alien invasion and South African politics. So I thought; superheroes and Scotland.” If the concept sounds a little BBC on paper, don’t worry, Millar – as always – has his own vision. “I really like Alan Clarke stuff, like Scum [1979]. I love the way it’s so raw and real. I think it’d be great to do superhero movie like that. I think it could be really epic; something unlike anything anybody’s ever seen before.” After seeing Kick-Ass, it’s easy to believe him.

Film review: Salesman (1968) ****

The American Dream is not about how much you can achieve, but how much you can attain. What could reflect this more than the commercialisation of the very Faith the nation was founded on? Released in 1968, Salesman is a documentary confronting the realities of door-to-door Bible selling, a job founded solely on the principle that its product is one of the biggest sellers in the world. If you’re not making money as a Bible salesman, as one manager tells his workforce in the film, “it’s your fault”.

Enter Paul Brennan (otherwise known as “The Badger”). Travelling from city to city, hotel to hotel, Paul is “living like a king” – or so his wife tells him. Chances are Paul once believed it too. Now though, constantly shuffling from one client to the next, becoming more insistent and aggravated with each failed sale, Paul seems increasingly desperate. Firing off clichés in attempt to sway an audience of housewives, he is himself an upsetting stereotype – Death of a Salesman’s Willy Loman transported into the real world. Other salesmen are briefly introduced throughout, but ultimately they serve only as an illustration of how Paul could be, or may once have been.

The black and white handheld camerawork heightens the dreariness of the scenes, but by showing events from a fly-on-the-wall perspective directors Albert and David Maysles largely allow the circumstances to speak for themselves. Yet it is still possible to question the film's ability to showcase uninfluenced authenticity. It is not clear, for example, how far camera presence may have affected clients during sales (one woman of Polish descent seems particularly uncomfortable turning Paul down on film, drawing out the anxiety of his failing pitch), and some scenes feel as if they may have been re-shot more than once. In spite of this though, Salesman remains poignant and saddening; a portrait of one man's loss of purpose, painted in shades of grey. On its release, Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times: “It's such a fine, pure picture of a small section of American life that I can't imagine its ever seeming irrelevant”. He’s yet to be proved wrong.

"A Serious Man" - New Coen Brothers trailer online.

It seems like only a few months back we were chuckling (for the most part) at the exploits of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and John Malkovich in the Coen spy comedy, Burn After Reading. Made rather speedily on the heels of the multi-Oscar winning success of No Country For Old Men, and starring the Coens' most eye-catchingly A-list cast to date, you could be forgiven for believing that the Coens were heading in a direction a little less leftfield and little more universally accessible. Whilst it could have been feared that this may lead them closer to the dangerous territory of the Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykiller days (usually acknowledged as the Coens' least, well, Coen-like, works and also their worst), the film itself went some way to prove that, regardless of a star cast, the Coens' are still masters of creating a unique mix of comedy, weirdness and violence never quite seen anywhere else.

Yesterday Empire Online brought news of the trailer for the Brothers' latest offering, A Serious Man. Set in 1967, it tells the story of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Jewish academic who's up for tenure and facing a series of personal crises. His wife (Sari Wagner Lennick) wants a divorce so she can marry his colleague (Fred Melamed); his brother (Richard Kind) is living on his sofa and his children are stealing from him. He looks for advice from three different rabbis, but doesn't get exactly what he's looking for. It has the potential to be pretty bleak, yet it also has the potential - if done right - to be very funny. In other words, it has the potential to be very Coen. And not a star name in sight!

Check the preview out below:

I personally think the trailer is wonderfully done. It gives away suitably little, and yet at the same time it feels like it may be giving artful set-up to the themes and atmosphere of the film. The looping sounds and images give the impression of a man who's sad life has left him trapped in a never-ending cycle, desperate for help - whilst shots of scratched teeth and Larry spying on his sunbathing neighbour seem to suggest a more sinister element. And it all builds up to a great punchline exchange. Imagine that the Coen filmography that rolls near the end were a list of credits and the whole edit could almost be presented as a short film in itself.

I have to admit that I was beginning to worry that the Coens may be getting over prolific after their No Country success and would start rushing out lower quality films, with more focus on big names than unique ideas - I mean Burn After Reading was good, but it wasn't quite their best. However, from this trailer, A Serious Man looks like a great return to their shades of brown and grey, wonderfully odd 20th century period films, like Barton Fink (one of my favourites). Encouraging stuff! I await this one eagerly.

Watchmen Reflections

A pre-second viewing look back...

As I noted in my last entry under "Idle Observation", you may have noticed that after my Watchmen "Comic vs. Film" themed rant in March (an entry written before the movie's release, recommending that people read the graphic novel first - a recommendation based solely on a "feeling" about the upcoming film based on trailers, clips etc), I never actually got around to giving my opinion on the film. Well, since it is now just under a week before the UK DVD release date, I figured that now is a good time for me to finally get that down - though I should point out now that I will mostly be critiquing, not formally reviewing and therefore will be saying little of the actual storyline (though you've all read it since my last post, right? *wink*). Of course, I will now have the benefit of hindsight, which some may argue is unfair on the movie, since the cinematic experience and the first time "Wow factor" often diminish over time - but I feel, in this case, this is acceptable as no second viewing has yet been undertaken and since, with this particular film, I began thinking over its every detail almost as soon as I left the theatre, making notes along the way. Makes me sound like a lunatic, I'm sure, but trust me; it was the natural reaction for any moderate - large Watchmen fan.

So, I hear you ask, how do I feel Zack Snyder's vision shaped up? A complete disaster from start to finish, right? Well, actually, to his credit - no, not totally. *Gasp* I know!

"But I read your previous rant - what about the edits? The background detail? The thriving sense of a real, though alternative, New York city with living characters and activities, surely that can't be there?" - Well, to be honest, it's not. Not really. But not despite Snyder's best efforts. There are nods here, there and everywhere - newspaper headlines, magazine covers, great sets and things in the background for fans to notice. However, whilst it helps create a bit of an all round atmosphere, a lot of it is real blink and you'll miss it stuff. It's a commendable attempt by all means, but other than providing nice shot dressing it's not particularly enhancing to the movie viewing experience, unless you're able to scan through it all in slow motion (which I'm sure Zack Snyder would love, since we know how much he likes slow motion). The background characters also take a definite backseat, several of them being cut or making only non-speaking appearances that fresh viewers would think nothing of, but this is understandable given the time limits imposed. However, the very presence of such characters means that there may be hope for them to receive more screen time in a future fan pleasing Director's Cut, which is definitely good news.

Aside from these (to be fair, probably impossible to capture) little details though, there are also some more noticeably strange directorial choices; for example, the expansion (and in several cases, of course, slow motioning) of every fight scene and the decision to make these fight scenes ultra-violent. Where in the comic it was a bloody nose here, a knock-out there, on the big screen these have become a smashed face or an obliterated limb. I'm not normally one to complain about this sort of thing, but Watchmen is a movie that could actually benefit from some cut-aways that leave things to the imagination. In fact, so much emphasis is placed on blood spattering in some of the first fights that some of the more violent instances from the comic, such as a man receiving a gas propelled grappling hook to the chest, when seen onscreen actually seem fairly tame in comparison to one of Nite Owl II's bone smashing punches. In one scene, they even go out of their way to re-write how Rorschach disposes of a foe, adding blood where there wasn't blood before, in a way that seems strangely pointless. This doesn't detract from Snyder's storytelling though, so much as just confuse anybody who has read the comic, making them think; "I don't remember it being quite like that".

Now, this may sound fairly negative so far, so why am I not berating the movie and saying it was a total cock-up? Well, the answer to that is that in order to assess Watchmen as a movie, one has to judge whether it works as just that - a comprehensible and enjoyable piece of storytelling in the cinematic medium that, whilst it will never be the same as the comic, at least stays loyal to the essentials of its plot and tone. And it does... up until a point - literally, a chronological point. Sure, there are subplots missing and yes, there's a bizarre amount of gore, but as far in as the first 90 minutes I still found myself having a pretty good time. Directorial choices aside, seeing the characters brought to the screen was an exciting experience, the pace of the story was good and the overall tone seemed to be about right. There were some flashy and over the top moments in the fight scenes, but generally this didn't have the feel of being just another stupid Hollywood blockbuster. However, Watchmen is 160 minutes long, which - it would seem - must have been at least an hour too short. Oddly though, Snyder's reaction to this seems to suggest not only that he was worried about how to fit everything in, but also that he felt the established pace and tone of the first two acts could not possibly continue without the audience getting bored.

From the moment that Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II decide to come out of retirement by donning their costumes and taking the Owl ship out for a spin, there seems to be a sudden shift in the film's dynamic. It's possible this was inserted in order to reflect how returning to crime fighting allows these characters rediscover their purpose in life, allowing them to step away from the depression that previously dominated their personalities and become more confident and assertive, but the way its delivered simply jars with what precedes it. From the needlessly over-dramatised fire rescue they perform, to the ridicule worthy sex scene that follows (which plays like a horrible soft porn, scored to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah") there's a sense that Snyder was scared that the start of the movie had been taking itself too seriously. Suddenly the edits and re-writes from the source material start to stand out more and leaps of logic/sudden moments of convenient deduction seem to present themselves with greater frequency. It seems like Snyder is zipping the audience along post-haste, worried that otherwise he might lose their attention as we approach the movie's most controversial departure from the comic. Yes, that re-written ending.

Those of you who have read Watchmen will know its distinctive ending well and, when it was rumoured that Zach Snyder had changed this, fanboys were up in arms. So, without giving away too much - either of the comic or the film, does the new ending work? Well, yes and no. The essential bare bones structure of the Watchmen ending is that - since the story is set in an alternate 1985 - in order to end the never-ending stand-off between the USA and the USSR, which seems set to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war, the story's villain reveals that he believes he is actually trying to save the world by finding a way to shock the Earth into becoming a united front. The movie, in its own way, keeps this central theme intact and, through several small re-writes/removals along the way, makes it internally seem to make some sense. However, since the whole final act is somewhat rushed, and since we don't really know anything about the civilians of New York (tying again to the removal of background characters) who, in the comic, play a crucial role in bringing home the story's final scenes, we don't really get the gravitas of situation or sense the constrasting horror and admiration that could be gleaned from what the villain has/hasn't accomplished, or who he has/hasn't hurt in the process. Some of the comic's vital dialogue exchanges are removed in favour of yet more silly fighting (which now seems fuelled less by gore and more by the Hollywood school of wire work) and, overall, the whole thing just doesn't hit as heavily as it should. Plus, when you stop to think about it too much outside the theatre (as anybody who's read the source material naturally finds themselves doing), the re-written ending has a bit of a flaw. Whilst the comic focuses on how only an unknown and baffling threat could scare the world into the unison, the film chooses a known scapegoat to pin the threat on, and one who - before this point - is seen (as much as politics would see things) as being very much allied to the US. Surely this would just make the USSR and its supporters even more pissed off with America for being the ones to provide civilisation with a massive global threat?

Overall, Watchmen would have perhaps been better handled as something like a 5 part mini-series. Something that would keep all of its layers and tangents in place and could flow at the sort of pace that Snyder's first 90 minutes did without having to worry about time constraints. Because, when one reflects, it's not just the ending that suffers. Not enough time is spent on the story's best reveals (who's under Rorschach's mask doesn't seem to be a mystery for longer than five minutes, the mystery of Silk Spectre II's parentage is dealt with all too speedily and the revelation of the villain barely even registers) and, despite serving as focal points, at least two of the central characters, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan, don't get the full fleshing out they deserve. Does a fresh viewer, unaware of the comic, really get a feel for how Dr Manhattan experiences time? Is there any evidence of Rorschach's sly ingenuity, surveying out every room he enters and removing any useful materials that could later be used for weaponry or sustenance? Or, more importantly, do viewers get a full sense of his unflinching and uncompromising viewpoint on crime and the soul crushing effect his stories can have on those who choose to see the world more liberally? I'd say probably not.

To sum up then: a fair effort from Zack Snyder, but in the end perhaps Watchmen just isn't right for the screen, or - if it is - perhaps just not in this format. When I left the cinema I probably would have given it 3 1/2 out of 5 for the general experience, but I fear on future viewings, that could sadly slip lower.