Drama

Chevalier

Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari (2016) BBFC cert

Described by the filmmakers as a buddy movie without the buddies, this black comedy satirises the competitive machismo of modern men.

It’s acutely observed and men everywhere will squirm uncomfortably at with recognition at the petty behaviour.

Six average middle aged blokes are enjoying a fishing trip on a luxury yacht when one suggests a game. The winner will be declared ‘best in general’ with the prize a chevalier signet ring.

They set each other a series of challenges with each man scoring everyone else in a note book. Recipes, ringtones and sexual relationships are all under scrutiny and inevitably there is some pointed measuring of body parts.

The captains’ voice over the tannoy suggests the spirit of reality TV, but also harks back to army camp announcer Radar from M.A.S.H. (1970). Robert Altman’s anti-war satire offered a far more scathing examination of humanity in a regimented environment.

As holiday activities of skinny dipping, jet skiing, wind surfing become areas of conflict, so collusion, cheating and the pleasure place becomes more a floating prison.

Amid the ridiculous and pointless competitiveness, the film offers sympathy for the men who are prisoners to their natures and submit to vice to cope with the pressures of scrutiny and ambition.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

The Neon Demon

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn (2016) BBFC cert. 18

Catwalk models will kill to keep their place at the top of the fashion food chain in this boldly provocative and pale skinned horror show.

Taut performances combine with an uncompromising visual style which is underpinned by a techno score. The recurring presence of big cats and the slow glide of the camera create a sense of a victim being stalked.

There are images of bondage and an emphasis on reducing people to sinew, muscle, bone, hair and lipgloss.

Elle Fanning stars as ambitious model Jesse who arrives on the bitchy and backstabbing  LA fashion scene. She lives in a cheap motel whose seedy motel owner Hank is played by a brilliantly seedy Keanu Reeves.

Christina Hendricks previously appeared in Refn’s Drive (2011) is here as a modelling agent who archly dispenses euphemistic career advice. Abbey Lee and Bella Heathcote are conspiratorial and competitive fellow models.

In order to succeed Jesse chooses to immerse herself in the exploitative world of photographers, agents and make-up artists.

She adopts an emotional mask for protection from recurrent threats of rejection and rape. But this also creates a barrier to our sympathies and engagement.

Glossy and reflective surfaces reflects the empty narcissism of the LA inhabitants and the pristine environs suggest the sci-fi world of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The short shelf life of a models career recalls the limited timespan of the living mannequins of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), as well as the youth obsessed society of Logan’s Run (1976).

Similar to its blank eyed protagonists, The Neon Demon obsesses over its own sleekly manicured surfaces, making it a film hard to get to grips with.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Suburra

Director: Stefano Sollima (2016)

This stylish and epic thriller is a lurid neon vision of modern Italy drenched in the traditional local virtues of ambition, power and corruption.

It’s covers fictional events in the five days prior to the real life resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the midst of a national debt crisis 12 November 2011.

The overdose of an underage prostitute threatens to derail a lucrative land deal and results in a bloody gang war.

Politicians, businessman and mobsters become involved in kidnap, blackmail, murder and a shoot out in a shopping mall.

Filippo Malgradi’s corrupt politician, Elio Germano cowardly pimp, Giulia Elettra Gorietti’s hooker, Greta Scarano’s junkie and Claudio Amendola’s enforcer are some of the memorable characters in this brutal, sexy and skilfully told tale.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Elvis & Nixon

Director: Liza Johnson (2016)

Elvis Presley enters the building in this rocking good dramatisation of the day he dropped by the White House to visit president Nixon.

They are played with competitive brilliance by Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey.

These global heads of music and politics met on December 21 1970. This is in the wake of the optimism of the luna landing and before the crucifixion of the American psyche caused by fall of Saigon.

Brooding in his Graceland mansion and disgusted by the state of the world, Elvis flies to Washington DC. Guards are bemused when he rocks up to the White House and asks to see the President.

Nixon is persuaded a joint photo will help him capture the youth vote. Elvis wants to become a Federal Agent At Large, in order to infiltrate the underworld and fight crime.

A smart script milks the meeting for humour and a comparison of their homes flags up the similarities between the isolated, paranoid and self made pair.

They bond over a love for their daughters and share fears for America’s future in the face of a youth culture neither understand.

Their defining relationships are with flunkies who sacrifice their own lives to serve. Alex Pettyfer and Colin Hanks provide very effective support as Elvis acolyte Jerry Schilling and White House aide Egil Krogh.

The emotional core of the film lies in the gap between the differing attitudes of these characters to their bosses.

With hunched shoulders and wrists flashing like a snakes tongue, Kevin Spacey captures the voice and mannerisms of Tricky Dicky. A broad performance rather than deep but we enjoy it almost as much as the actor does.

Nixon has been essayed several times on screen. In Frost/Nixon (2008) in a best supporting Oscar winning turn by  Frank Langella. Anthony Hopkins played him in Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) and Dan Hedaya was a Nixon surrogate in Dick (1999). My personal favourite Nixon is James Le Gros in surf and bank robbing thriller Point Break (1991).

In a film career of increasingly questionable quality Elvis starred in 31 movies. Viva Las Vegas (1964) was his last excellent film and it’s notable it was released the same year as The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night (1964), the band who pushed Elvis aside as they imported a new brand of music to the US.

Kurt Russell was enjoyable in TV movie Elvis (1979) and Val Kilmer was a charismatic gold lame-clad spiritual guide in the Tarantino scripted True Romance (1993).

The brave decision not to feature any Elvis songs in Elvis & Nixon prevents us from being distracted by miming or less than perfect singing.

Shannon looks even less like Elvis than I do, but his astute and captivating performance sidesteps caricature to give us the man and the myth.

Still capable of causing hysteria in secretaries and receptionists wherever he goes, Elvis is thoughtful and proudly polite, employing his charm and celebrity status to open doors.

Deadly serious in his intentions and brilliant at relating to people, he also seems a couple of places removed from our everyday reality.

This is an existential Elvis struggling with the weight of his own legacy, gold medallions and sunglasses. One who recognises the gap between the lonesome rockabilly and the global superstar and is calculating enough to use the latter to achieve the objectives of the former.

The meeting in the Oval Office is all too brief and being a consummate performer, the king keeps us wanting more.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Me Before You

Director: Thea Sharrock (2016)

Get your hankies at the ready for this modern day old fashioned romantic weepie.

Based on the best selling novel by Jojo Moyes, it’s derivative, sentimental and impervious to the charms of subtlety. But it is effective.

Two fabulously attractive young people are brought together by tragedy. Once they’ve fallen in love those same circumstances threaten to tear them apart.

Sporty banker William loses the use of his legs and arms while lowly waitress Louisa loses her job. Their fates collide when she takes a job as his carer.

Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin have a hugely engaging chemistry and the film succeeds on the strength of their charm and talent.

The puppyish enthusiasm of Clarke and her incredibly expressive eyebrows contrast nicely with Claflin’s remarkably still sneer.

William teaches Louisa culture and she helps him lighten up. But his strong views on his condition threatens to cast a permanent shadow on their potential happiness.

It’s best imagined as a British version of Pretty Woman (1990) where Richard Gere is in a wheelchair and Julia Robert’s hooker is now an obliging nurse played by the ditzy younger sister of Bridget Jones (2001).

A snow clad castle dominates the chocolate box scenery as they visit the races and a concert of classical music.

It would be too easy to mock the One Nation Tory politics underpinning this twist on the Cinderella story.

It’s a fairytale world where the landed gentry casually bestow jobs on the feckless and bitter unemployed working classes. Plus there’s a singular avoidance of the practical hardships of being quadriplegic.

However Me Before You doesn’t pretend or aspire to be a movie with a social conscience.

There isn’t any ambition beyond making you smile through a bucket of tears and on that score it’s an undoubted success.

Charles Dance and Janet McTeer provide gravitas as William’s parents and Dr Who’s Jenna Coleman appears as Louisa’s single parent sister. Joanna Lumley breezes through as a fragrant wedding guest.

Clarke is famed for her frequent nudity on TV’s Game of Thrones but here keeps her curves under wraps.

This tearjerker won’t be the last performance which has Clarke’s fans reaching for the tissues.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Love And Friendship

Director: Walt Stillman (2016)

Like TV’s Downton Abbey but with wit and considerably better breeding, this adaptation of Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan is an elegant waspish joy.

There’s corsets for the ladies and mutton chops for the chaps. With a full carriage of wealthy suitors, impoverished friends and watchful servants, it’s a sharp eyed trot though the drawing rooms of nineteenth century stately homes.

Kate Beckinsale is ravishing in scarlet as the penniless widow out to secure a good marriage for herself and her daughter. As young Frederica an impressive Morfydd Clark suffers her mother’s machinations with determined grace.

Tom Bennett is marvellously silly as the stupid, wealthy and available Sir James Martin. Chloe Sevigny, Jemma Redgrave and Stephen Fry are swept up with the gossip, intrigue and social commentary as it flits between London the crisp English countryside.

Under the comic assault of Austen’s withering writing, the cast contrive to keep a straight face with far more success than I managed to do.

Though the selfish, arrogant and manipulative Lady Susan is a collection of unattractive traits, we warm to her because she is alarmingly funny, decisive, intelligent and not to be denied her pleasure because society frowns upon her doing so.

It would be intriguing to read Austen’s thoughts on the gender divide in 2016, a year in which it’s possible to argue this year’s best role for a fortysomething actress was written by herself 200 years ago.

 ★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

The Daughter

Director: Simon Stone (2016)

This gloomy family drama is a sombre reflection on class, wealth, infidelity and betrayal.

A respectful adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck (pub. 1884 as Vildanden) it successfully migrates from 19th century Norway to modern day Australia.

A languid pace and sumptuous cinematography encourages us to wallow in the brooding atmosphere. Varied locations from stately home to derelict mill suggest the texture of history.

They anchor the poised performances from a top drawer cast which includes veteran Aussie actors Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill. They play estranged former business partners Henry and Walter.

With an endearing and frank freshness, pink haired teenager Odessa Young plays Hedwig. She’s Walter’s grand-daughter and the daughter of the title. Bright and sensitive, she’s pursuing a romance with a school friend.

As Henry prepares to marry his young housekeeper Anna, his confrontational and alcoholic son Christian has returned from abroad.

Although never dull, we spend a long time waiting for a dark secret to power the violent finale where lives are shredded.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

Chicken

Director: Joe Stephenson (2016)

Intense performances, an assured tone and a textured landscape shot with an appreciative eye are the strengths of this earnest and occasionally raw drama.

But as the characters struggle with poverty and abandonment, the script fails to free itself of the burden of its theatrical roots, failing to ignite the painstakingly constructed emotional bonfire.

Morgan Watkins and Scott Chambers play brothers with learning difficulties who live in a derelict caravan on farmland.

Polly is older, aggressive and more capable than Richard, he earns beer money as a casual labourer.

During Polly’s daily absence, the sweet natured Richard strikes up an unlikely friendship with spoilt middle class teenager Annabelle, played brightly by Yasmin Paige.

The deterioration of the boys challenging circumstances accelerates the decline of their relationship, unearthing a life changing family secret.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett