Anne (Series)

A 4-part British series, competently and sensitively made about Anne Williams, mother of one of the victims of the Hillsborough soccer stadium disaster in Sheffield in 1989.  Her 15-year-old son Kevin was crushed to death along with 95 other fans.

The police blamed drunk fans for the tragedy but in fact it was because of erroneous decisions taken by the police to open a gate letting in far more people to an overcrowded stadium and to woeful medical responses when the deaths started occurring. Having watched this a few days after a fan died from dehydration at a Taylor Swift concert in Rio, it is a reminder of the perils of large crowds in public spaces. 

Episode 1 sets the scene, recounts what happens on the day and the grueling identification of the body by the parents and the coroner’s verdict.

Once it transpires that the official stand was to deviate blame from the police, etc. Anne and other families who lost members in the stadium begin a fight that has lasted over 30 years to get justice.  Attempts to reopen inquests are blocked, new investigations despite bringing compelling evidence that the state did have some responsibility for the tragedy lead to the same dead ends, the EU claim statute of limitations to avoid becoming involved.  It is only in 2016 that an independent inquiry categorically places much of the blame on the state and still no one by 2023 has been charged with anything.  A shocking example of the state failing to protect its people (and this is seen during various governments of different hues and sides).

The middle episodes follow Anne as leader of this saga. There is plenty of evidence that Kevin could have survived if properly treated in time but police officers are leaned upon to change their statements, etc.  In some ways, this series is a reflection of the appalling performance of the police in Britain in recent decades. Never wrong, never to blame but in the centre of many cases of abuse of power and criminal neglect.

The final episode leads up to a 2012 inquiry and reopening of the case and Anne’s own demise from cancer with the changes in her family: separation from her husband and the support of her daughter and brother in the last days.

The series is not for the faint-hearted.  There are many very sad scenes of grief and loss and impotence in the face of official stonewalling.  But as a document of the way people’s rights are not respected by their own governments in the desire to protect themselves, it is an excellent work.  While there are few joys in watching this, the performance of Maxine Peake in the lead role is superb, undoubtedly one of the performances of the year.  

Acting from the usual wide range of British character actors, direction and script are all solid with the only complaint being a slight repetitiveness of some moments. On the other hand, it gets us into this endless journey the victims had to get justice.

4 stars

You Hurt My Feelings

Nicole Holofcener is a well-regarded indie director and scriptwriter in the US.  I have seen a number of her films and they also offer something to say.  In this film, the topic is white lies and trust.  What happens when someone who you trust is actually telling you lies, even though these lies are to support and encourage you?

This is what she explores via some characters in New York.  Beth (Julia Louis Dreyfuss) is a writer with little output and confidence who has just written her first novel (she had a relatively successful memoir). Hubby (Tobias Menzies) is a shrink who is not having the best of runs in his consultancy.  

The son (Owen Teague) also aspires to be a writer and is working in a weed shop. Beth’s sister is an interior decorator fed up with the whims of her clients.  Her husband Mark is a failed actor.  

All of these people need feedback and praise but what happens when it is not true, or not what they expected?  The best part of this low-key film is the screenplay which is economical and to the point, returning time and time again to the same issues – like therapy in fact.  Holofcener has also added in therapy patients, a creative writing class and home owners who all have sharp observations and witty lines.  This kept my attention in a fairly slow-paced movie with characters that don’t really inspire.  And yet we can recognize much of ourselves in them. There are a couple of good laughs too.  Dreyfuss is competent and well-supported but much of the film is forgettable however well-scripted it is.  Something of an exercise with decent results but nothing that stands out.

3 stars

Nuovo Olimpo

The latest from Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek.  Sort of comfort viewing in a way as it pays homage to Rome and to the cinema at the same time as telling a story of “a might have-been romance” that most of us have and which never prospered due to bad luck or circumstances.  

Two gay men meet in a cinema in Rome with the name of this film and they have a brief romance.  Enea (Damiano Gaviano) is an aspiring film director and Pietro (Andrea di Luigi), from another part of Italy is studying medicine.  

They get separated because of a violent student demonstration in which Pietro is injured and never see each other again.  Both recall the magic of their attraction and wonder what would have happened if they had been able to stay together. 

30 years later their paths cross again.  Enea is injured on set and the surgeon who operates on him is none other than Pietro.  At first, they seem oblivious to this but then realise the fact.  Both are now in committed relationships, Pietro married to Giulia (Greta Scarano).  What will they do?

I found the treatment of this film as low-key Almodovar.  Ozpetek is great on décor and creating atmospheres and the melodrama has a touch of Cinema Paradiso and other homages to film about it.  

Luisa Rainieri as the box-office clerk of the era has a touching part, knowing that in those days most men went to the cinema for a pick-up rather than to see the classic films.

It is a perfect wet Sunday afternoon film but I was left wanting for more bite and ambition. It does make you regret missed opportunities and in a way the film is an example of this.  

Acting is fine and the photography of Gian Filippo Curticelli in golden tones and the music of Andrea Guerra are both apt.

Nonetheless, I felt it needed more bite and punch as Almodovar would give.

3 stars plus

Theater Camp

Independent American film about 4 weeks at a holiday camp for young kids who want to explore their creativity.  

Anyone who has experienced amateur dramatics will recognize much of the absurdity and humour and although we have some awful puns like Adirond Acts, there is enough to keep a smile on your face.  It’s a largely choral affair but the main characters tend to be the staff led by long-time teachers Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon)

who act like a couple but aren’t, yet nonetheless are responsible for writing and directing the camp’s main shows.  

This year they are doing Joan, Still, a musical in honour of the camp founder Joan (Amy Sedaris) who is lying in a coma.  

Troy (Jimmy Tatro) is Joan’s son and he has come to run the failing enterprise in her absence and while he thinks he is an entrepreneur, he keeps making mistakes and nobody pays attention to him. Noah Galvin is Glenn the fix-it man of the campo who ends up being a star.

Ayo Edebiri plays a new teacher who has faked her cv and there are a few drama queen teachers as you’d expect.  Mostly, the kids are likeable misfits who have found a place in the world.

Gordon and Nick Lieberman direct and join Platt and Galvin in the screenplay. It is reasonable fun, not too long and a pleasant watch.  Not much more than that.

3 stars

Winter Boy (Le Lycéen)

Christophe Honoré wrote and directed this film based partly on an episode from his own life but updated to the current world in pandemia. Lucas (Paul Kircher) is at boarding school in the French provinces when tragedy strikes his family – his father dies in a car crash and Lucas, his older brother Quentin (Vincent Lacoste) and his mother Isabelle (Juliette Binoche) have to remake their lives.  

First and foremost, this is a film about grief.  Grief striking a whole family but especially a 17-year-old boy, growing up and beginning to explore his sexuality (he’s gay). His initial reaction is to spurn the wider family and avoid the funeral.  Quentin takes him to Paris for a week but cannot entertain him and Lucas starts to have casual sex with men and tries to seduce Quentin’s friend Lilio (Erwan Kapoa Falé).  

Sent back home, he continues to argue with his mother, refuses to return to school and then makes a suicide attempt.  Some may see this as typical French teenage melodrama but it is very well handled and credible.  Much more so than US gay teen coming-of-age stories like Love Simon.  Part of this is due to Honoré´s direction and screenplay which is set up like a therapy session giving us selective memories little by little so that we have to concentrate to piece it all together.  

It is also helped by the superb performance by Paul Kircher (son of actress Irene Jacob), whose natural and quirky manner, reflects not only his generation but the features of his character that are processing his grief. Kircher shows immense courage and openness for his age in this role.

As you can imagine, the film ends up being a fairly rich look at a situation that is not so uncommon (premature parental death) which happens to coincide with the burgeoning sexuality and independence of a thoughtful teenager.  Binoche is great as usual in her supporting role as is Lacoste and Yoshihiro Hanao offers a good winter soundtrack.

4 stars

Munich: The Edge of War

Historical film that fills in a gap in our knowledge about the pre-WW2 relationship between Germany and Britain.  The story is told through the eyes of two students from Oxford in the early 30’s who find themselves a few years later involved in the talks between Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) and Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons).  Both working as diplomat/translators.  

Hugh (George MacKay), the Brit is a slightly innocent young man deputed to bring back from Munich a document which details Hitler’s true intentions for Europe.  

He will receive it from Paul (Jannis Niewohner), who is in fact a member of the resistance working undercover in the government.  

The major part of the film is a suspenseful round of meetings both official and secret as the politicians make their agreements and these junior officials meet to pass the documents which reveal the real state of play.  Chamberlain teaches Hugh something about diplomacy in the process.  It is all quite watchable but not that gripping really.  

Jeremy Irons steals the scenes he’s in with one of his best recent performances, full of nuances – a fatigued but ever-optimistic politician.  Hitler is less convincing, physically different and with a menace that may not be so authentic.

Niewohner does a great job as the young idealist Paul who ends up coming face to face with his enemy Hitler and has to decide whether he can change the face of history.  MacKay is more one note but is credible.  August Diehl fits in well as a Secret Service guy.  

Nice to see Sandra Huller and Liv Lisa Fries (cameo only) in smaller roles.  

The recreation of the time and atmosphere is good as well. Solid direction from Christian Schwochow and an acceptable screenplay by Ben Power from a Robert Harris novel.  I can’t say anything stood out.

3 stars plus

Wham!

Recent Netflix documentary about George Michael (known intimately as Yog) and Andrew Ridgeley and their rise to fame as the band Wham! In 1982.  

The two met at school, formed the usual high school band and shot to fame on Top of the Pops.  

Regarded as a tacky, not very serious pop group, they soon proved the critics wrong with George Michael’s songwriting talents and emotional voice maturing into the star he became.

The last two years of Wham!`s success foreshadows the type of music and star he would become.

We learn little new in the documentary but it emphasizes the friendship between the two and how Ridgeley supported George both in the band and his quest as a soloist.  

He and Shirley, the backing singer and one-time Ridgeley girlfriend gave him a safe support and containment. 

 We see how George lost his nerve about coming out but was never pressured by his bandmate.

Mostly, the documentary by Chris Smith mixes old footage, concerts, photos and voiceovers by both men with Ridgeley’s mum providing her scrapbooks for the record.  

The result is a simple but authentic look at the period without any tremendous depth, which no doubt comes in the various George Michael based films and documentaries doing the rounds.

3 stars

Ten Pound Poms (series)

British-Australian co-production about a group of British migrants who paid only 10 pounds in the 1950’s to emigrate to Australia.  When they arrived they were sent to a camp made up of basic Nissen huts and helped to get jobs until they could earn enough to move out to their own place.  This (first?) series takes place largely in the camp and features the Roberts family: Terry (Warren Brown), a traumatized war veteran and a prize wuss to boot who has a drink problem, Annie (Faye Marsay) his battling and somewhat ambitious wife who keeps the family together, Pattie (Hattie Hook), the smart adolescent daughter and Peter (Finn Treacy) a shy schoolboy.  

Kate Thorne (Michelle Keegan), a nurse has left her fiancé behind to find the son she was forced to give up for adoption is the other main character and then wwe have other British migrants, some cameos for Italian and German migrants at the camp, JJ (Stephen Curry), the ineffective camp manager and his mean spirited mother (Tina Bursill), Robbie (Nic English), the immigrations photographer who helps Kate, Marlene (Cheree Cassidy) and the ghastly Dean (David Field) who is a bullying co-worker of Terry’s (overacted and overwritten but oddly recognizable).

Ten Pound Poms,21-05-2023,2,Dean (DAVID FIELD),Eleven,John Platt

So, lots of characters and storylines to keep us busy. And here is where the problems start.  Some stories like Pattie’s pregnancy are telescoped into much shorter time than they really took, others are presented and then have no resolution (does the director expect a second series?), others are too contrived.

Ten Pound Poms,14-05-2023,1,Kate (MICHELLE KEEGAN),Eleven,John Platt

Although there is considerable effort made to replicate the period, there are continuity gaps, Michelle Keegan seems far too 21^st century for her role and a lot of the topics are treated from a current perspective (e.g., women’s rights) which would not be the case then.  The series seems hell-bent on presenting the majority of Australians as racist and mean right down to the school master.  Nuances please!

There is an aborigine theme included with the discrimination against them highlighted but Terry of course ends up being best friends with Ron (Rob Collins).  Unlikely.

Finally, we have the geographical and social issues. They are sent to a town via the Blue Mountains and suddenly seem to have close access to a beach, which in reality would be many many miles away. Marlene is manager of a sleepy small town department store but is closely connected to the new TV stars of the day and lives in a mansion overlooking Sydney harbour. Unlikely.

Ana Kokkinos and Jamie Magnus Stone share the directing and Daniel Brocklehurst is the writer and creator. His gloss on the subject leaves me feeling that there may be some general truths here but there is a lot of inauthenticity and a big lack of subtlety.  Watchable it is, often predictable and nothing like The Sullivans or old Australian TV products that did the past much more convincingly.

2 stars

Babylon

Damien Chazelle’s epic homage to Hollywood in the form of a rather mythic and copied depiction of the shift from silent movies to talkies in the second-half of the 1920’s.  It has elements of Singing in the Rain, made in the 1950’s about the same era, some characters who are real and others who are based on real people. 

Right from the 26-minute intro Chazelle throws us into the thick of it.  A party at Eli Wallach’s mansion outside LA, we are pitched into an orgy of sex, drugs and blues complete with an elephant.  We get to meet the main characters: Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the number one silent movies star, Nelly Laroy (Margot Robbie), a wannabe actress from a lower class, Manny Torres (Diego Calva) a gofer who rises to be a studio executive because he can solve problems and a host of other recognizable types from Elinor St John (Jean Smart) , the gossip columnist, Sid Parker (Jovan Adepo), a black trumpeter getting shortchanged

  and Fay, an Asian actress with dark tastes.

The format is quickly established:  Chazelle goes from one big set piece to another with only occasional smaller and quieter scenes to move the plot along a bit. As most of his set pieces are full on with huge casts and action bombarding you at any given moment it becomes rather tiring and the few quiet scenes are most appreciated.  Which is not to say that he does the big scenes badly.  

He gives us some scenes on set filming, not just one film but several at the same time, and different parties including a very dark underworld party in a hillside out of town that a strange gambling boss (Tobey Maguire made up like the Joker) takes 2 of them too late on. 

 We get plenty of hysterical scenes, shootings and suicides.  Margot Robbie gets to do a lot of dancing, screaming and vomiting.  

Manny tries to keep a lid on everything. Jack is a more thoughtful actor struggling with the advent of talkies and in this role Brad Pitt gives us both charisma and food for thought.

I thought the actors did well throughout and it was good to see Katherine Waterston, Lukas Haas and Max Minghella among others.  Calva is a great discovery and Robbie has fun in her over-the-top part (chanelling Marilyn and others).  Brad Pitt is a nuanced centre.

The photography by Linus Sandgren is pretty good, more so for capturing action than perhaps light and colours and Justin Hurwitz gives us a versatile and appropriate soundtrack – one of the best this year.

Chazelle clearly has a lot to say. He wants to honour Hollywood, hence a pastichy coda at the very end.  He has things to say about the machine chewing up and spitting out talent, left right and centre, the passing nature of fame and how it quickly evaporates and the connection between this great period of creativity and debauched practices – of which we see a lot.

A lot of reviewers slammed the film.  I can’t quite agree given that there are some excellent scenes, both in technical skills and acting and I consider he gives us plenty to reflect on.  Where I do agree is on the length and the rather exhausting pacing.  It needed more light and shade and a half an hour cut off.  It`s not a masterpiece so I can’t call it a flawed masterpiece and it does wear its epicness rather self-consciously but it is watchable and confident.  My final idea is that rather than be a faithful recreation of the period it is more like one of the films he is describing: a glossy fairytale like movie of the era.

3 stars plus

Joyland

Debut feature by Pakistani filmmaker Saim Sadiq which attracted a lot of attention for having a trans actor in one of the lead roles and for depicting her relationship with a married man.  Banned initially in Pakistan it has still not been shown in Lahore, where it was filmed.  More than its LGBTQ content it is a portrait of a society where individual freedoms are subjugated to social and religious rules and mores where everyone ends up unhappy, especially the men who sustain these rules.  I found Sadiq’s film to be a subtle, challenging movie that offers no quick answers but makes us think about how we construct our societies and the consequences this has.

Haider (Ali Junejo) is the younger son of a Lahore household.  He is married to Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) who is a make-up artist.  Mumtaz works and Haider stays at home looking after his elderly father and his nieces.  Strike one against Haider in this macho world.  Nucci, the sister-in-law, wife of his brother is about to give birth but unfortunately it is a fourth daughter! Haider gets a job but has to keep it quiet because it is as a dancer in a revue, backing a trans performer Biba (Alina Khan) who is trying to make a living in this very conservative society, Haider is fascinated by Biba and falls in love with her.  

He tells Mumtaz a lot and she, in her openness and unconventionality accepts much of this.  Interestingly the couple have an affectionate relationship but it is not the coup de foudre he feels with Biba.  

Biba herself is hot and cold on Haider, wondering about his intentions and trying to protect her career and space.  Meanwhile the grandfather (Salmaan Peerzada) is involved in a scene with a widow who is her neighbour and who comes daily to help him.  One night Fayyaz (Sania Saeed) cannot return home and a family crisis ensues with her son arriving to ban his own mother from leaving the house, at the age of 60-something for fear of what society would say. Granddad meekly assents when these two old people could be spending the rest of their days together.  Even Nucci feels trapped.  Despite all this frustration, there is a lot of fun and humour in the movie but by the end it becomes terribly sad as you see the sacrifices people make to give priority to society and religion over personal goals and happiness.  Even the men who flock to the revue (almost no women in the crowd and lots of horny men) seem thwarted and destined to live an unfulfilled life,  Culture versus humanity.

Some really nice scenes by the director, a good screenplay written with Maggie Briggs, Joe Sadde’s photography captures many quiet moments in a big city.  The acting is uniformly good and convincing.  Junejo as Haider does very well with a subtle role that could have been badly played, Farooq is also excellent as Mumtaz and Sania Saeed shines in a couple of key roles.

A warm welcome to Pakistani film!

4 stars plus