London Film Fest 2011 Day 12 - TAKE SHELTER

Writer-director Jeff Nichols's psychological drama, TAKE SHELTER, has been winning rave reviews, and with screeners already sent out to the Oscar electorate, I am sure Michael Shannon (BOARDWALK EMPIRE, BUG) will be receiving Oscar buzz for his performance of a man conscious that he is losing his mind.  But to be frank, I found this movie near un-watchable - so languorous was its pace, so obvious was its plot trajectory.   

Shannon plays Curtis, a hard-working man, whose nightmares of violent storms and biting dogs start to seep into his waking life.  Convinced that a violent storm is coming he puts himself in financial jeopardy to extend and stock up a storm shelter in his garden, at the same time alienating himself from his sweet wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain).  Shannon is always committed and convincing in his performances, but has become typecast as the sympathetic insane person. I also feel that Chastain needs to move beyond roles where she is just an archetypal sweet wife to be adored and put on a pedestal. She needs to break free of this typecasting. I feel that I have yet to see her really act. But the story just moves at such a slow pace, and doesn't really go anywhere. Over-hyped tedium.   

TAKE SHELTER played Sundance, Cannes where it won the Critics Week Grand Prize, and Jeff Nichols won the SACD award for Best Feature.  It also played Hollywood 2011 where Jessica Chastain won Breakthrough Actress, and London 2011. It opened in September in the US and opens on November 11th in the UK. It opens in France on December 7th.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - BARRY MUNDAY aka THE FAMILY JEWELS

I rather liked THE FAMILY JEWELS, although I must admit it was rather betrayed by its marketing. I was rather expecting it to be a gross-out frat-boy comedy in the manner of a Judd Apatow flick. After all, the central conceit is that Patrick Wilson's character - Barry Munday - is a promiscuous, misogynistic David Brent-style loser who gets his balls cut off by the vengeful father of a teenage girl. Just as he realises he can't father children, he's told that a plain-jane one-night stand (Judy Greer) he can't even remember fucking, is knocked up.  What then follows is actually a rather sweet, rather earnest little romantic drama, in which Barry comes to accept fatherhood and his baby-mama, Ginger, comes to accept his attentions. The movie may be rather predictable and the direction is certainly workman-like, but it's also peppered with some delicious cameos from the likes of Billy-Dee Williams as Barry's boss; Malcolm McDowell as Ginger's dad; and Cybill Shepherd as her mum. Overall, the movie is not particularly memorable but it was enjoyable enough at the time, and Patrick Wilson is so funny and convincing as Barry Munday I would love to see him do more out-and-out comedy. 

THE FAMILY JEWELS played a bunch of minor festivals in 2010 and had a very limited US release in October 2010. It is available to rent and own.

Overlooked DVD of the month - THE KILLING ROOM

Director Jonathan Liebesman followed up DARKNESS FALL and TCM: THE BEGINNING with a quiet psychological thriller called THE KILLING ROOM. It's an austere, tightly made, well-acted film that, while mining familiar material, still manages to hold our attention. The movie takes the same kind of approach as DAS EXPERIMENT - creating a fictional exploration of a real psychological experiment - in this case, the CIA's infamous MK Ultra programme. In the real life version, "volunteers" were subjected to mind-control experiments, often drug-induced, of the kind that led to Manchurian candidates. In this fictionalised version, four men have volunteered for a medical experiment run by the ruthless Dr Phillips (Peter Stormare) and the ambitious but morally uncertain Miss Reilly (Chloe Sevigny). They have to solve puzzles, and the man with the least correct guess is summarily executed. The prisoners try to outwit the system, and even escape, while the audience try to figure out what purpose such a sadistic experiment could serve. I liked the stark production design, gathering sense of claustrophobia, and Timothy Hutton's performance as one of the "volunteers". This movie is well worth a watch.

THE KILLING ROOM played Sundance 2009 and went straight to DVD.