The Durrells (Series 3)

Series 3 of the British family living in Corfu and having wild and wonderful adventures in the pre-WW2 years.  All very British and pretty nice harmless stuff.  The same actors and characters are back and I have to say that the series has tightened up a bit this time round with longer scenes and better continuity within the storylines.  

Perhaps the characters are a little more stereotypical with mother Louisa (Keeley Hawes) being embarrassingly motherly for most of the series and unbearably quaint with her number one squeeze Spiro the local taxi driver.

  Gerry (Milo Parker) becoming an adolescent gets better storylines

and both Leslie and Margo (Daisy Waterstone) have some good moments.

I still find Larry a bit tiresome but appreciate Josh O’Connor’s characterisation after seeing him recently in Aisha.

The rest is sunny and unbearably scenic, the perfect antidote to grim England in that period but like a sugary drink, it gets a bit much to take.

The appearance of Henry Miller and the topics of homosexuality and pre-marital sex do make it a little bit closer to the present day.  Anglo period-piece at its most essential.

3 stars

Amulet

Horror movies are not generally my bag but there is plenty of interest in the debut film by actress Romola Garai.  She writes and directs this tale that turns out to be quite feminist in a way but you are not necessarily aware of it until the end.  

Tomas (Alec Secearnu) comes from somewhere in middle Europe and we see him first manning an army outpost in the forest to stop people fleeing and crossing the border during a Civil War. Part of the story takes place here involving a fleeing woman called Miriam and is experienced in dreams by Tomas.  He is now in London, a refugee and working informally on building sites for a pittance.  

After an accident he is befriended by a nun (Imelda Staunton having fun with the role) who offers him free board with a mother and daughter on the grounds that he looks after and repairs the run down house.  

He moves in and even starts to fall for Magda (Carla Juri) despite the scary presence of the moaning mother who lives upstairs and is suffering some terminal illness.  Or so he is told.

After Tomas discovers a strange bat/rat like creature in the toilet and other eerie occurrences he begins to realise that the house is haunted or that Magda and her mother are not exactly who they proclaim to be.  

From then on, we hurtle through a series of shocking revelations and scary moments which connect with Tomas’s past in the forest and with the real identity of all the characters. Enough said for now.  

You may like the denouement and explanation or not or find it unconvincing but there is no doubt that Garai builds up a clever story and creates a tense atmosphere.  Secearnu is especially realistic in the lead and mood is enhanced by Laura Bellingham’s photography and the theremin-based music of Sarah Angliss.  A film to mull over and to be unsettled by.

3 stars plus

Aisha

A small moving piece about a Nigerian woman applying for refugee status in Ireland on the grounds that it is unsafe for her to return to her country.  

In the course of the movie we see the discrimination she suffers, the slowness and deafness of the bureaucracy, the fact that she is moved twice to different residences, one basically being an ill-equipped trailer park in the middle of nowhere.  

Frank Berry, the director and writer is clearly stating that everything is done to dissuade these people from staying and that the governments of the rich countries are definitely guilty of mistreatment of these people, often ironically allowing business migrant mafia to enter when they are far less likely to be good future citizens than the real refugees.

Letitia Wright gives a sober credible portrayal in the lead role and is ably supported by Josh O’Connor as a security worker who tries to help her and falls for her.

The Irish setting doesn’t always seem very clear – it could be anywhere in Britain and I’m not sure why this country was singled out on this point.  A sound effort without being anything outstanding.

3 stars

Haarucha (The Dinner)

Independent Israeli film which gets some way there but leaves a rather underwhelming impression.  Matti Harari and Arik Lubetzky are the directors and screenwriters of a film basically featuring five people (two couples and a friend) in which their relationships become intertwined.  

Grigory and Emma are Russian immigrants who are finding life in Israel a struggle.  They have to do menial work and can’t seem to get a break let alone think about having a family. Emma is sexually harassed at work and ends up becoming a live model and attracting the attention of Alon, a businessman who paints on the sideline.  Alon and his wife, a therapist called Yael, are going through a tough patch so unsurprisingly Alon makes a move on Emma.  Meanwhile his best friend Amnon (Ishai Golan) has designs on Yael.  

Gregori ends up getting a job in Alon’s firm and all this culminates in a tense dinner.

Almost a chamber piece which may work better as a play, it is not a bad film and throws some light on the plight of immigrants to any country but beyond that has little more to say.  Keren Peles, who is a singer, does very well in her first role as Emma.

2 stars plus

Sublime

This debut film by Mariano Biasin treads a well-marked path, that of an adolescent crush on your best friend that perhaps signals being gay or perhaps not.  

Manu (Martin Miller) is a teenager living in a beach town in Argentina.  He has his band with 3 friends and a potential girlfriend in the form of Azul (Azul Masseo)

but he discovers that he is really attracted to Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando), a friend from childhood. 

 Basically, the film follows the brief period of this awakening and confusion as he breaks off from Azul and tries to handle the other matter, plunging himself into more creative songwriting among other things.  

This is played out against issues in his parents’ marriage but things gradually settle again.

Biasin has chosen to limit his ambitions in this film and as a result produces a respectful, beautiful portrait of an adolescent in change, helped by a sound performance by Martin Miller in the lead.  

We see how so much is a struggle to understand let alone put into words.  The characters and their setting come across as authentic teenagers, perhaps a little disconnected from social media compared to many today.  Sublime is a story that gets made on a regular basis and this is a simple honest and attractive version.

 3 stars

Competencia Oficial (Official Competition)

A Spanish-Argentine co-production which is a sharp satire on movie making and actors in particular.  A wealthy 80 year-old businessman wants to leave a legacy and among the things he chooses to do is to finance a film that will he hopes be a big hit. 

 He buys a novel from a Nobel Laureate and contracts a successful if distinctly eccentric director (Penelope Cruz),

who in turn casts the film with the top box-office actor of the moment,

Felix (Antonio Banderas) and a renowned stage actor Iván (Oscar Martínez).

What we see here are the rehearsals and preparation for the film which puts these three monstrous egos together.  The film by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat is not a screaming ego match.  

It is quite a bit more subtle than that and shows the tricks each character uses to get his or her own way.  All three are excellent in their parts and surely thoroughly enjoyed this experience.  

Penelope Cruz shines in her part as Lola Cuevas and Banderas displays his often hidden comic talents.  Martinez fits in well alongside them as the more sober figure with his own hidden quirks.

While the satire starts to fade out towards the end and becomes something much darker, the film as a whole is a satisfying work with plenty to say about its subjects and film-making in general.

4 stars

The Return of Tanya Tucker

This documentary by Kathlyn Horan was a surprise for me.  

I knew little about this country singer from the 70’s and 80’s who looks extremely well-worn but has gained a character-full and gravelly voice with time.  

She was in a state of unplanned retirement when singer songwriter Brandi Carlile wrote an album for her and brought her back in 2019 culminating in several Grammy nominations and a win, decades after her heyday with Glen Campbell and others. 

 Tucker is not an easy person and has clearly suffered from self-doubts partly caused by media backlash against her as she forsook country for rock and had a string of men. 

 But when she is on form she gives a good account of herself and lives up to Carlile’s faith in her.  

This film almost highlights better the sensitive and intelligent work that Carlile is doing to restore former icons to their deserved position.  

Here we have Tanya Tucker and her work with Joni Mitchell is becoming noteworthy.  Carlile seems like a real gem, talented in her own way but a sort of entrepreneur for others as well and I enjoyed seeing this side of her. Unsurprisingly she has gathered a talented and loyal team around her.

As a documentary this is strictly formulaic culminating in Tucker’s Grammy and a visit to the Gran Ole Opry but it gives us a glance at how a former star has returned today.

3 stars

Decision to Leave

This Korean film has had a fair bit of acclaim in recent times.  

It concerns a detective Jang Hae-Joon (Park Hae-il) who becomes infatuated with the widow of a supposed suicide case which he is investigating.

The said woman Song Seo-rae (Wei Tang) is of Chinese origin and works as a carer in Korea.

He stalks her day and night and invites her to eat all in the cause of ensuring that she is not suspect.  However, the plot thickens and time moves on.  He and his wife move to a small town on the coast and lo and behold Seo-rae and a new husband turn up there.  New developments occur leading to a dramatic finale.

I appreciated the unpredictable plot nature of this film and what for us may be an alternative look at aspects of Korean culture.  

On the other hand, I also found it heavy going at times and I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it was the director’s clever tricks, such as placing the protagonists in the same room when they are not.

Perhaps it was the hopeless nature of the “romance”. Yes, there are flavours of Hitchcock and Wong Kar-Wai and the leading actors do a good job.  

However, I felt it lacked something extra to really convince me and I wonder if this was the emotional engagement that I needed to see on screen and that I needed to have with the characters. Director is Park Chan-Wook.

3 stars plus

Shotgun Wedding

More fantasy!  Jennifer Lopez, called Darcy or Didi in this film but very much J-Lo, is getting married again to a nice guy called Tom (Josh Duhamel) who is decent but a bit of a square.  

He has planned a unique wedding at an island resort in the Philippines and got a motley bunch to fly out there to celebrate the moment.

It should be a great success but soon the whole event is hijacked by pirates

and the rest of the film is a sort of slapstick comedy as our heroes try to outwit the buccaneers and bring the wedding home to a good port.  The story is pretty unbelievable and an excuse for Lopez and co to engage in some acrobatics, some fireplay and some hysterical screaming.  

Mercifully, it keeps up a good pace despite the stupidity of the cast and helped by the appearance of the wonderful Jennifer Coolidge, Sonia Braga,

Cheech Marin and Lenny Kravitz.  

Some handle the obvious script better than others but at least there are plenty of characters for us not to get too bored.   

The Dominican Republic subs for the Philippines and the usual local stereotypes abound.  But in the end it was quite fun!

2 stars

RRR

This Indian blockbuster has set the year on fire!  S. S. Ramajouli from the Southern part of India has directed an amazing action film in Telugu, blending legends, anti-imperialist revolution, the history of the 1920’s and Bollywood music to give us a fascinating 3 hours of non-stop entertainment.  

I loved it.  Visually, the movie is a treat with amazing set pieces and computer-generated animals and action and while the story is fairly basic there is plenty in the plot and the physical action to keep you glued to the screen.  

NT Rama Rao Junior and Ram Charan Teja, two established stars play a strange buddy duo – at times opposed, at times working side by side aiming for their particular objectives:

one wants to retrieve a young girl kidnapped from his people by the callous British governor, the other wants to arm the locals in revenge for a horrendous killing by the British, who in general come out of this movie as the most evil of bastards, especially Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson) and his wicked wife Catherine (Alison Doody). 

The film also features British star of Hollywood Alia Bhatt in a role that comes to life near the end.

Some will challenge factual details in the movie or the preposterous acts of acrobatics and heroism but let’s face it, the film is the portrayal of legendary characters performing mythical deeds. 

 As long as it is entertaining and credible enough it has performed its task in my opinion.  

Some say that it provides an awkward model for Hindu nationalism today. 

 I can’t comment on that but do feel that the film can be accepted for its fantasy value alone and as such is an excellent piece of filmmaking.  

Naatu Naatu, the Oscar nominated song is a delight. Overall, like a great ride at the fair, this was a film I was sorry to see the end of.

5 stars