London Film Fest Day 7 - THE LIMITS OF CONTROL

I must confess that I found THE LIMITS OF CONTROL such hard work that I simply walked out after an hour of lessening patience and sheer disgust with how ludicrous the whole thing was. What a pretentious pile of wank this movie is.

Isaach de Bankoele is some kind of shady character. He sits in various cafes and for no particular reason orders two espressos in different cups. He exchanges matchboxes with various other shady characters and engages in the same stilted stupid conversations. There's even a random, seriously off-her-trolley naked chick. What is all this for? What is it meant to be? Or is it just a case of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Are we meant to be laughing with Jarmusch or at Jarmusch? I left because I felt he was laughing, sneering, at us.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL was released earlier this year in the US, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Australia, Romania, Finland, Hong Kong, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil and Spain. It is currently on release in Russia. It opens on November 26th in Argentina; December 2nd in France, the Netherlands and Mexico; on December 11th in the UK and on February 2rd in Belgium.

London Film Fest Day 6 - BRIGHT STAR

I had the misfortune of studying Keats in the same term I was taught Byron. As a result, despite admiring his poetry, we teenage girls couldn't help but think Keats a bit of a sap in comparison to dashing, dangerous Byron. He was, after all, just a bourgeois doctor, who talked drippily of sensory experience and the unfortunately named "negative capability" - being open to everything and comfortable with uncertainty. Worse still, his only love affair was with the unfortunately named girl-next-door, Fanny Brawne. As with Byron, Keats' life was cut short, but rather than being killed in a dashing Greek adventure, Keats died of TB - far more pedestrian a death to teenage girls. We teenage girls came to the brutal conclusion that when it came to Keats, it was best to stick to the poetry, and leave off exploring his life because, frankly, he didn't have much of one.

Unfortunately, Jane Campion's new film about the love affair between Keats and Fanny Brawne has not changed my opinion one jot. Ben Whishaw is, of course, a marvellous actor, and is deeply affecting as the limpid Keats, reaching out to touch Fanny's hand at a dinner party. But what can we make of Australian actress Abbie Cornish's Fanny - with her uncertain English accent - and her characterisation as a girl who liked to flirt and sew? Apparently Keats and Fanny bonded over the shared experiences of grief, but frankly, there is not much in this film to suggest why they had such a powerful attraction to each other. By far the most interesting character in the piece is Keats' friend, fellow poet and benefactor, Mr Brown, played by Paul Schneider. He is a fascinating because he was arguably interested in Fanny himself, was evidently a bit of a rogue, but also deeply protective of his friend. Paul Schneider gives a compelling performance but it's a shame that he too cannot pull off the accent required of the role - in this case, Scottish.

When introducing the film, writer-director Jane Campion said that she used to be frightened of poetry and that the audience shouldn't worry if they were, because this film catered to them. That is, to my mind, it's flaw. Because I didn't understand the relationship between Fanny and Keats - because the script and performances hadn't convinced me of it or made it compelling - I was looking to the film for insight into how love had affected Keats' work. But, a few recitations apart, there is very little about the process of writing, or what Keats thought about writing in this film. Indeed, the only clumsy reference to inspiration is in a scene where Fanny's little brother is trying to find a nightingale's nest and then we switch to a scene in which Keats pens his favourite ode. Oh dear.

The upshot is that this film contains a not particularly interesting nor convincing central romance and not much else. Can we say anything positive about it? Well, Jane Campion is, as ever, brilliant at creating a sensory impression - close-ups of flowers, women sewing, etc. The film looks great. But this is by no means a film that should be bracketed with the superb PORTRAIT OF A LADY, THE PIANO or IN THE CUT.

BRIGHT STAR played Cannes, Toronto and London. It is currently on release in the USA, Israel and the Netherlands. It opens in the UK on November 6th and in December in Germany, Greece and Australia. It opens on January 7th in Portugal and on January 13th in France.

London Film Fest Day 6 - BELLAMY

BELLAMY is an interminable and deeply dull French cop movie directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Gerard Depardieu as the eponymous retired "flic". The movie lazily meanders through life in Nimes, where a sort-of crime is sort-of solved or rather pieced together by Bellamy through a series of happy coincidences. For example, Bellamy's wife's dentist happens to sell his car to the police chief who happens to be boffing the mistress of the alleged murderer. The mistress is - obviously - the pedicurist of Bellamy's wife. Oh, and the alleged murderer's wife's son is tutored by Bellamy's wife. The upshot is that there is no tension nor are there any steel interviews. People give up info over a cup of coffee. And anyway, the info isn't that exciting.

I just can't make BELLAMY out. What is Chabrol trying to achieve? The plotting is sub-TV quality and the production lifeless and wearisome. I swear only Depardieu's innate charm kept me from walking out.

BELLAMY played Berlin 2009. It opened earlier this year in France, Belgium, Argentina, Germany and Austria.

London Film Fest Day 6 - COLD SOULS

Writer-director Sophie Barthes' debut feature, COLD SOULS, feel like a rip-off of a Charlie Kauffman or Spike Jones film but is not as well-made. It has a clever concept that has not been richly mined. The result is that the movie feels too long and too thin: a surreal Monty Python sketch spun out of control.

The clever concept is that people encumbered with troubled souls can have them extracted, bottled and stored at a facility in New Jersey. Having done so, they can continue about their business lighter and without ennui. Of course, wherever there's consumer demand there's a black market. In this case, Russians traffic extracted souls for rich Americans to hire out. Who would you like to be today? A Russan poet, perhaps?

Paul Giamatti plays "Paul Giamatti" - he's getting down playing Vanya so he gets his soul extracted. But then he's too lightweight to play tragedy, and he can't connect with his wife, so he hires in a Russian soul. And so forth.

The whole thing is utterly derivative. Medical procedures to solve emotional distress were done in ETERNAL SUNSHINE. An actor playing himself has been done many times, but most wittily in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Compared to these films, COLD SOULS is poor fare indeed.

COLD SOULS played Sundance and London 2009 and was released earlier this yaer in the US. It opens in the UK on November 13th.

London Film Fest Day 5 - UP IN THE AIR

My friends typically work for former-I-banks, private equity houses and fund managers, and travel to at least one European or long-haul destination per week. They are nice, interesting people but every time we get together the conversation at some point descends into comparing airline frequent flyer programmes, blackberries and check-listing the best restaurants and concierges in various European capitals. We are the cohort that knows exactly the quickest route through any airport and always turn left upon boarding. But that's not all there is to life. Some have kids - some an unhealthy obsession with movies. We are all aware that the big corporates target insecure over-achievers: smart young graduates who will so identify with the corporate brand that their self-esteem lies in the coolness of their new laptop and how many miles they fly per year. It's as though the apparently elite status they have been sold compensates for working insane hours. Stick with it, kid, and one day you TOO can become a Lufthansa Hons member and make Managing Director. We too were once shiny bright 23 year olds, unleashed upon the world with dreams of summer houses and Porsche Cayennes. Ten years later, the 2001 dotcom crash and the credit crunch later, heartbreak, marriages, divorces have come and gone, and we'll settle. And no, it doesn't seem like failure.

I give you this little round-up to tell you that when it comes to reviewing UP IN THE AIR - the new romantic comedy from THANK YOU FOR SMOKING director Jason Reitman, I know whereof I speak, and I know whereof he speaks. Problem is, I think he's set up a straw man. The fact that he occasionally hits the mark with some biting dialogue doesn't make up for it.

Reitman's central character is a mono-dimensional corporate man called Bingham (Clooney). He's the classic air-miles junkie, happiest in the air, avoiding a real relationship with his family or a potential girlfriend at all costs. The movie is about how he reacts when he falls for a whip-smart woman who is just as career-focused as he is (Vera Farmiga). Along the way, he realises just what a shitty profession he is in (a consultant brought in to fire people) when he sees it afresh through the eyes of the new hire (Anna Kendrick). Reitman has Bingham go through one of those classic rom-com epiphanies, where the caricatured hard-ass central character realises it might actually be nice to have a relationship with someone. (See THE PROPOSAL, THE FAMILY STONE, MANAGEMENT et hoc genus omne). It even comes complete with a running through the night to tell the one you love that you love them scene. I only just forgave Reitman for that hackneyed move. The problem is that the really interesting dynamic isn't about ultra career focused people suddenly realising they'd like a relationship. It's about people, like the new hire, who do want both, know they want both, but can't seem to make it work out. That's the rub.

Anyways, let's be generous and grant that Jason Reitman's fictive career-focused lone wolf is credible and interesting. Given that, how does the movie work out? Well, I like the overall bleak tone, especially the final act twist. Totally brought it back from the rom-com vibe I was getting in the penultimate act. I also really like the way in which Reitman plays the scene between the career woman at 23 and the career woman at 33: very psychologically accurate and superbly done. Other than that, I thought the movie contained too much dead air, and much like THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, wasn't even in tone. Ultimately, I wasn't engaged by the characters, because the central struggle didn't seem real to me, and I thought Reitman didn't really have the balls to deal with the critique implicit in his subject matter of mass lay-offs. It all felt rather exploitative.

UP IN THE AIR played Toronto 2009. It opens in November in the USA. It opens in January 2010 in Australia, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, Russia and Denmark. It opens in February 2010 in Mexico, Turkey, Hungary and Singapore. It opens in Finland on March 19th.

London Film Fest Day 5 - MICMACs

Jean Pierre Jeunet of DELICATESSEN and AMELIE fame is back with a delightful, inventive, visually stunning movie about a bunch of misfits who bring arms dealers to account! It's a movie that is steeped in cinema history, but wears that knowledge lightly. It has everything from the finest in physical comedy, reminiscent of Tati and Chaplin - to the practical jokes and explosions of Tex Avery - to post-modern insider jokes worthy of Charlie Kauffman. I had a thoroughly good time watching MICMACs!

So what's it all about, Alfie? In a set-up that's a paragon of efficiency, Jeunet shows us a French soldier killed by a landmine in Algeria. Back at home, his wife goes insane with grief and his little boy, left to a convent, escapes in a laundry van. Thirty years later, he's manning a video store, lipsynching to The Big Sleep, when a drive-by shooting leaves him with a bullet in his brain, without a job or a flat, and on the streets. And who is to blame for his predicament? Why, the two arms companies who sold the landmine and the bullet respectively.

Our hero is picked up and be-familied by a wonderful group of people united by having scraps of metal in their bodies. They salvage old junk, fix it and sell it. Together, they help our hero exact revenge through ingenious practical jokes and tricks - the "micmacs" of the title.

The resulting movie is a goofy caper - a screwball romance - a visual and linguistic delight. It's funnier and more endearing than Amelie and I hope will have as much success.

MICMACS played Toronto 2009. It goes on release in Belgium and France on October 28th; it opens on November 26th; on December 17th in the Netherlands; on January 8th in the UK; and on January 24th in Germany.

London Film Fest Day 5 - FROM TIME TO TIME

Writer-director Julian Fellowes has transferred his familiar obsession with characters trapped in the British class system to the children's adventure genre, in his faithful adaptation of "The Chimneys of Green Knowe". I must confess that I did not read the book as a child, so I take the fidelity on faith and the overall style of the film, which is "heritage" film-making in the manner of THE RAILWAY CHILDREN without any vulgar American influence. The movie looks and feels traditional and heartfelt: indeed, it got a little dusty in the theatre toward the end.

The plot occurs in wartime England, both World War Two and the Napoleonic wars, hence the unhappily vague title of the film. In 1944 a young boy called Tolly is sent to stay with his Granny in her old manor house while he waits for news of his father, Missing In Action. Granny fears she will have to sell the house, and the movie has that air of pining for a lifestyle that can no longer be maintained, a little like Brideshead. The family jewels were, you see, lost in the fire that destroyed half the house in the early nineteenth century. Tolly periodically escapes into this world and meets kind Captain Oldelknow, his lovely daughter Susan, and her helper, an escaped slave boy called Jacob. Together they fight the evil butler Caxton and Susan's resentful brother Sefton. Along the way, Julian Fellowes draws a parralel between Mrs Oldeknow of C19, shut out by her social betters, and Tolly's mother, deemed "common" by Granny.

FROM TIME TO TIME is a charming little movie, well-made and well-acted by a sterling British cast. It's not going to set the world alight, but as honest family entertainment it works just fine.