Drama

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Cert 12A 121mins Stars 4

Emma stone comes out swinging in this ace of a tennis drama. Fresh from her best actress Oscar for La La Land, she serves up another great performance as game changing tennis pro, Billie Jean King.

It’s smart blend of biopic, love story, sports movie and gender politics, with the famous 1973 exhibition match King played against Bobby Riggs as the focal point.

An astute businessperson King keenly understands her earning power is dependent on maintaining a saleable image to straight, Christian, white America.

While conducting a high profile public fight for workplace equality, the married King experiences a private sexual awakening. She begins a tender and passionate relationship with her hairdresser, played by Geordie actress Andrea Riseborough,

Steve Carell uses the full scope of his ability to unearth the humanity in the former US and Wimbledon champ, Riggs.

The rabble rouser is selling the match as the ‘male chauvinist pig versus the hairy legged feminist.’

Aged 29 and 55 respectively, Stone and Carell are the correct age or their roles. The tennis is convincing staged and though the speed of the game seems tame by modern standards, but the politics are vicious.

Not only is there a huge prize of $100,000 to win, but King knows her defeat would be as regarded as conclusive evidence of the inferiority of women.

These are the stakes which make this a more gripping film than this year’s other tennis film, the more introspective, Borg v McEnroe.

Entertaining, warm and funny, the script by The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy emphasises the importance of a level playing field in society, with winning being dependent on talent, dedication and courage.

Its a celebration of dignity, inclusiveness and a compelling argument for not having to compromise your identity in order to earn a living.

Though it’s game set and match to Emma Stone, the real winners are us all.

ONLY THE BRAVE

Cert 12A 133mins Stars 3

There’s a long slow burn to the action in this real life firefighting drama.

It’s an honourably sincere and respectful tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of the elite firefighters, the Granite Mountain Hotshots. 19 of whom perished saving their town from a ferocious Arizona wildfire in 2013.

However I may burn in hell for sniggering at the first degree levels of unsuppressed testosterone and muscle flexing machismo not seen in cinemas since Tom Cruise took flight in Top Gun.

While waiting for the call to duty, handlebar moustache-sporting beefcakes enjoy manly joshing, sweaty workouts and semi-naked games of pitch and toss. 

Jailbird Miles Teller is the new recruit trying to go straight by joining James Brolin’s team. Jennifer Connelly and Andie MacDowell play the weeping wives comforted by Jeff Bridges’ former firefighter.

The veteran star has reached an age where he now looks exactly like his father Lloyd in 1980 comedy classic, Airplane! I guess he picked the wrong day to quit smoking.

MARJORIE PRIME

Cert 12A 99mins Stars 3

Pay close attention to this ghostly sci-fi drama which will test your memory as well as your patience.

Lois Smith plays an 85 year old widow of failing health who has a computer programme possessed of artificial intelligent to keep her company.

Marjorie has directed it to learn to adopt the personality of her husband as she remembers him.

And having not yet lost her marbles she insists it projects itself in hologram form as the handsome young version of her man, when he looked like Jon Hamm from TV’s Madmen.

With a cast including Geena Davis and Tim Robbins, the performances are as tasteful and highly polished as the decor in Marjorie’s elegant and expensive Los Angeles beach front home.

Moving at a hypnotic pace, the stage bound script toys with time and questions the relationship between thought and identity, often making us feel as if we’re eavesdropping on someones deeply personal and very expensive therapy.

 

 

 

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Cert 15 132mins Stars 4

A summer of love has long lasting repercussions for a teenager in this coming out, coming of age romance.

Elegant, sincere, sensual and sensitive, it has two exceptional performances from Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. The latter is all the more impressive as the actor is mostly famous for playing the Lone Ranger to Johnny Depp’s Tonto.

Chalamet plays Elio, an American-Italian Jewish 17-year-old. While spending his holidays in his parent’s Italian villa, he’s attracted to the presence of Hammer’s visiting 24-year-old American Jewish scholar.

Small gestures have huge significance, and as the pair edge towards each other they talk in coded language so as not to betray themselves.

Though much time is spent by the pool or playing volley ball, a key seduction scene involves the witty use of a piano.

Occasionally the pace is overly languid, however this does allow us to drown in the local texture and gorgeous locations.

THE GLASS CASTLE

Cert 12A 127mins Stars 1

Brie Larson fails to build on her 2016 best actress Oscar success with this shoddily constructed drama.

Based on the memoir of journalist Jeannette Walls, Larson plays the New York gossip columnist forced to confront her past when her parents move to a nearby bohemian squat.

Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts wholeheartedly commit themselves to the shabby material.

There is an astonishing unintentional disconnect between what we’re told to feel and what we see, as woefully misjudged as filming Wuthering Heights as a heartwarming tale of everyday farming folk.

Walls’ journey from poverty stricken childhood to successful adulthood was an itinerant experience full of neglect and alcoholism.

Yet the film drowns the story in romanticised mawkishness and presents her father as an unconventional romantic with huge dreams.

There’s a lack of emotional truth among the appalling abuse, fear and violence. And despite being based on a real story, I didn’t believe a second of it.

GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Cert PG 107mins Stars 4

If you go down to 100 Acre wood today you’re in for a wonderful surprise.

This terrific family film explores how playwright A. A. Milne came to create his loveable honey loving bear, Winnie-the-Pooh.

Filmed in suitably honey coloured glow and melting with sweetness, this is a warm and sentimental homage to the author and his most famous creation.

Remaining hugely popular since being published in 1926, the stories were inspired by the writer’s son and his menagerie of stuffed animal toys.

Father and son have a humorous though sometimes fraught relationship which matures as the Second World War looms with a melancholy menace.

Having experienced the horrors of the Somme in the First World War, Milne retires to a farmhouse where struggling with writers block he begins spending time with his son, Christopher Robin.

He’s known to the family by the nickname Billy Moon, and young actor Will Tilston is a newly discovered treasure.

Domhnall Gleeson is his usual excellent self as the PTSD sufferer learning to be a father. You have to pinch yourself to remember he’s acting.

Plus he cuts a dash in his three piece suits and blonde Lawrence of Arabia hairstyle, and it must be a pleasant step up from his usual supporting roles.

Aussie actress Margot Robbie struggles to maintain a convincing accent as his society wife, Daphne. However she is otherwise excellent and game to be frequently unsympathetic.

100 Acre wood is an idyllic adventure playground and the film is a hymn to the stunning rural beauty of England. There are lovely touches of magical realism such as we saw in the recent adaptation of Paddington, which has a similar charm.

Grand claims about how the best selling books gave the whole nation a lift after the Great War must be taken with a measure of scepticism, as 1926 was also the year of the General Strike.

However we can forgive the scriptwriters for their indulgence when they serve up a treat as delightful as this.

 

 

DAPHNE

Cert 15 86mins Stars 3

Explore the life of a modern single woman in this low budget British drama which resembles Bridget Jones without the jokes. 

This ode to a multicultural world of pubs, cabs and kebabs, is far from a glossy tourist trap vision of London, but one reeking of urban isolation, 21st century angst.

Outwardly cynical and quietly vulnerable, middle class Daphne works in the kitchen of an artisan restaurant and reads philosophy in her spare time.

Quick witted and articulate she’s an entertainingly abrasive character and Emily Beecham’s strong central performance offers wonderful depth.

It’s a gift of a role, full of complexity and contradiction. Refreshingly success in life is not measured by finding a wealthy husband but in recognising her own self worth.

When she witnesses a stabbing, she begins to lose herself in alcohol, drugs and sexual encounters.

The episodic script is painfully matter of fact about her unsatisfactory life and provides plenty of black humour but too little joy or laughter.

 

BORG V MCENROE

Cert 15 107mins Stars 3

This biopic of two all time great tennis players is broad stroke stuff and serves up too few aces.

It centres on the 1980 Wimbledon final between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, played with admirable application by Sverrir Gudnason and Shia Labeouf.

Billed as as the ‘ice’ Borg versus Superbrat, it saw the reigning champ serving for a fifth consecutive title against his up and coming rival.

The Swede is wound so tight his psychological string may snap at any point while McEnroe is reduced to not much more than a greatest hits package of famous on-court rants. 

With the result never in doubt, the film explores the psychology of the sportsmen revealing surprising attitudes to playing the game.

As their extraordinary five set battle becomes an existential slog, their is no sense of joy in playing or even in winning.

So contrary to most sports films, this thought provoking victory seems a defeat for both men.

MOTHER!

Cert 18 121mins Stars 5

Jennifer Lawrence is back on Oscar worthy form in this fist in the mouth intense horror. It’s a nightmarish fantasy of biblical madness from the director who dared to cast Russell Crowe on a sea of trouble as Noah.

Billed only as Mother, she plays the wife of a writer who spends her time lovingly restoring their grand old farmhouse home, to which she seems to have an almost supernatural connection.

A fan of the writer calls by and her husband invites him to stay the night. The next day members of the stranger’s family arrive, bringing with them chaos and violence.

Still only 27 years old, Lawrence has every chance of a fifth Academy award nomination and a possible second statuette for this phenomenal and punishing performance.

Despite it’s early moments of dark humour, Mother! is a very different movie from the romcom Silver Linings Playbook for which Lawrence won in 2012.

A welcome temporary lull in her blockbuster commitment to the X-Men superhero franchise allows her to team up with indie darling Darren Aronofsky.

The writer/director inspired Mickey Rourke to a nomination in 2009 for The Wrestler and guided Natalie Portman to an Academy award in his 2010 horror, Black Swan. He does his absolute utmost to repeat a similar trick here.

His camera almost sits on Lawrence’s shoulders, immersing us in her world as it spirals insanely out of control.

Employing biblical allusions with tremendous finesse and huge ambition, Aronofsky unleashes an apocalypse of condemnation on his targets. These include the control organised religion exerts over women, the cult of celebrity, and the vanity of the male creative process.

Javier Bardem oozes narcissistic charm as the writer and Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer provide strong support.

With every department working at full mind bending tilt, this is an extraordinary experience which may leave you crying out for your own mother.

THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM

Cert 15 109mins Stars 3

Get lost in the gothic and grisly gloom of this blood curdling murder mystery.

This pea souper of fact and fiction sees real life Victorian characters mixed up in a fictional serial killer in London’s down market Limehouse district.

With more than a dash of Hammer House of Horror blood splashed about, it all resembles the case of Jack the Ripper as if it were being investigated by an ageing Sherlock Holmes.

With his cadaverous face and grave manner, the venerable Bill Nighy is well cast as Inspector John Kildare, in a role originally pencilled in for Alan Rickman before his sad death.

Wild rumours suggest the mythical Golem is responsible. When the ageing detective is sent to investigate, he stumbles across a second murder case which may be connected.

Former singer and dancer Elizabeth, the prime suspect in the poisoning of her playwright husband.

Oldham born actress Emilia Cooke is fabulous in the role and in a flashback to her stage routine, her incandescent vitality and talent outshines the limelights and is the best reason for watching.

Picking his way though a shroud of intrigue, corruption, exploitation, rape and of course, murder, Kildare is led to the music hall where the famous Dan Leno performs.

The real life drag artist, dancer and comic is played with a suitably theatrical flourish by Douglas Booth.

He’s part of a bawdy repertory of performers and trapeze artists who all have their secrets, allowing for a shoal of red herrings to be scattered.

Cursed with a limited budget which doesn’t stretch stretch to grand spectacle, the money has been spent wisely on the period costumes and interior design.

Filmed on location up north, Leeds and Manchester stand in for the capital and show how sinister they can be at night. 

So beware the danger lurking in the shadows when you slip out to see the Limehouse Golem.