Building a long-term relationship is like renovating a house. You construct a space together, bringing your own furniture into a communal area that gradually encroaches upon – but never consumes – each person’s private domain. Maintenance of this communal space requires careful management of memories; positive ones are amplified and reinforced, while the murkier moments…
I wanted to hate Youth. I usually walk into movies wanting to like/love them, but given my antipathy for Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, I was hoping for some more ammunition in my argument that it’s terribly overrated. Youth gave me sufficient ammunition, I’ll give it that. Sorrentino’s take on affluent, existential aimlessness, spent…
The worst kind of biopic is the Wikipedia-checklist biopic; The Program, in retelling Lance Armstrong’s rise and fall, instead opts for the ASADA-report-checklist, chronicling the cyclist’s doping habits in careful detail but failing to offer a substantial supplementary storyline. Admittedly, after a clunky cancer-centric introduction – think “I got the results of the test back.…
This is a flashback on history that for me was unfamiliar and enlightening. In 1986 the riots between the Protestant and Catholic Church were becoming a regular backdrop to everyday life. Simultaneously, Northern Ireland qualified for the World Cup for the third time, travelling to Mexico to compete against the best in the world. Shooting…
Successful speculative fiction is essentially sociology. It’s grounded not in the details of the alternate reality it concocts, but in investigating how societies and individuals would react to different structures and opportunities. The best speculative fiction isn’t inspired by spaceships or wizardry; rather, it’s impelled by an overriding interest in human nature – a considered,…
Freeheld is an uneven drama that frequently veers from tragedy to drudgery. Which is a shame, since its true story – of homosexual policewoman, Laurel Hester – is both fascinating and vital. Arriving hot on the heels of the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the US, this otherwise unremarkable film represents a missed opportunity. The film chronicles cancer-stricken Hester’s (Julianne Moore) fight…
We often see the dehumanising effects of war observed in film; the loss of one’s innocence through unimaginable and uncharacteristic actions or events. However, in such settings, rarely is this gaze cast upon the most intrinsic form of innocence – childhood. Beasts of No Nation follows the transformation – or corruption, rather – of young Agu…
There’s a germ of a good idea in Man Up, a disappointing rom-com starring Simon Pegg and Lake Bell. It’s the idea of its characters as “emotional jigsaws” – dating in their mid-30s/early-40s while burdened by the baggage of failed relationships. In Man Up’s world, the challenges of dating aren’t so much associated with finding…
As a portrait of David Foster Wallace, The End of the Tour is mostly a failure. Along with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), we follow Wallace’s 1996 promotion tour for Infinite Jest, but we learn less about him from the film than we could divine from reading his justly-celebrated novels and essays. Jason…
The nature of romantic comedy has changed in the past 20 years. Sleepless in Seattle, Pretty Woman – these movies provided a fairytale aspect to the idea of romance: Prince Charming, the one person made for you. Nowadays, a hyper-realistic brand of rom-com has sprung up, grounded less in idealised perfect moments and more in…
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