Film review: Married Life, Man on Wire, A Letter to True, El Bano del Papa | Home

Married Life

Adapted from John Bingham's crime novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven, Married Life sails close to the Hitchcockian psychological thriller of old in its tale of the lies and double-crossings that can subvert a marriage. Patricia Clarkson and Chris Cooper star as Pat and Harry Allen, who in 1949 have been steadily married for years when Harry encounters seductive young widow Kay (Rachel McAdams) and tumbles headlong in love with her. Believing, however, that Pat would be destroyed by a divorce, Harry opts instead for what he perceives to be the kinder option and begins plotting her murder. Into this mix comes Harry's best friend, a smooth-tongued lothario named Richard (Pierce Brosnan), who not only narrates the film, but also has his own designs on Kay. Like many films and TV series set in this era (Savage Grace, Mad Men), some of the fun and even the fear of Married Life is stifled somewhat by the fact that it comes across more as a period piece than a living, breathing movie.
PG, 90 mins

A Letter to True

It'll be interesting to see just how many audiences can stomach the unremitting sentimentality of Bruce Weber's A Letter to True. Weber is a director (Let's Get Lost) and fashion photographer of some achievement, famed particularly for Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren adverts showing a biceped and beautiful world. Here, however, he turns his talents to composing a love-letter to one of his golden retrievers, a loveable hound named True. Alas, the film is every bit as mushy as the concept: a non-linear tale of his affection for the dog, his life, his (celebrity) friends, other (famous) dogs and their (famous) owners, and his musings on the world at large. The essential notion is that we live in dark, cruel times (helpfully illustrated by footage of Haitian refugees and 9/11) and that things would be so much better if we could only love one another in that simple, devoted way that a dog loves his owner and vice versa. Animal lovers might warm to this idea of course, and to the excerpts from Lassie and the poems read by Julie Christie and Marianne Faithfull. But, ultimately, even Weber's beautiful cinematography cannot distract you from the fact that this entire film feels like one big schmaltzy indulgence.

TBC, 78 mins

Hancock

Cinema's infatuation with superheroes rolls ever onward with this story of John Hancock (Will Smith), the unwilling recipient of superhuman capabilities - flying, incredible strength, indestructibility... you know the drill. Rather than embracing his powers and the responsibilities they carry, Hancock hits the bottle and remains a perpetual grouch. When he saves the life of PR guru Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), however, he is presented with an opportunity to overhaul his image with a stint in jail, a stretch in rehab and a few anger management classes. There is a pretty fine premise behind Hancock, and it floats along quite satisfactorily for the first quarter before one realises that the jokes just ain't that funny, and the plot is staggering off in an unexpected - and uninteresting - direction. As for the love interest... well, Charlize Theron is a knockout, but there is, to me, a complete lack of sexual chemistry between her and Smith. Poor Charlize is left to smoulder on her own. The interesting thing with Hancock will be to see whether the sheer audience-wooing clout of Will Smith can counteract the thorough limpness of this movie.
12A, 92 mins

Wanted

And so the summer blockbuster kerplunks into our laps. Adapted from Mark Millar's graphic novel, Wanted brings us the story of young Wes (James McAvoy) who has a dead-end job, is much-berated by his boss and largely ignored by his girlfriend. It seems, in short, that he will amount to very little. But meeting Angelina Jolie can have a strange effect on a fellow. Here, Jolie plays Fox, an assassin and member of The Fraternity - a secret society headed by the mysterious Sloan (Morgan Freeman) - which works to maintain civilisation by bumping off ne'er-do-wells. Fox recruits Wes when his estranged father (a top Fraternity assassin) is killed, and sets about transforming him into a well-honed, revenge-enacting machine. Wanted is actually tremendous fun and looks stunning, thanks to the art of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. Jolie is here doing what she does best - smouldering and looking as if she might whup your sorry ass at any minute. And it's hard not to feel a rush of delight for McAvoy, who's cementing his big-league place in Hollywood with what amounts to a classy action thriller.
18, 110 mins

El Bano del Papa

That the title of this film translates as 'The Pope's Toilet' may give you some inkling of its irreverent tone. It's the tale of a small Uruguayan village preparing for a Papal visit, hoping to make big money from selling food to all those who flock to the poor, dusty region to see him. The most enterprising of all the villagers is surely Beto (Cesar Troncoso), who is ducking and diving, mending and making-do as his wife Carmen (Virginia Mendez) struggles on at home and his daughter Silvia (Virginia Ruiz) dreams of a brighter future, when he comes up with the idea of providing a pay-as-you-go lavatory to cater for the needs of the faithful. There is considerable humour in Beto's meticulous construction of his 'water closet' and in the feverish anticipation of the Pope's arrival as the village goes into corn-fritter overdrive. It's gorgeous to behold, too, with Cesar Charlone (cinematographer on City of God) here co-directing and co-writing. The one flaw, perhaps, is that El Bano del Papa never seems to culminate in anything. The sense of anti-climax may, of course, be deliberate, but it brings an oddly dissatisfying close to a previously satisfying film.
TBC, 97 mins

Baby Mama

There's something uncompromisingly light about Baby Mama, but as a showcase for the considerable comic talents of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (not to mention a response to the laddish Apatow humour that has sprawled relentlessly across our screens recently in movies such as Knocked Up) it works rather adequately. One rather feels the sense of missed opportunity, though. Fey plays Kate, a woman in her late 30s, devoted to her career but beginning to fret that she has missed the boat, baby-wise. Accordingly, she hires the womb of Angie (Poehler), drawn as a sweet, trashy figure in hotpants. From thereon in, Baby Mama unfolds quite predictably. There are amusing appearances by Steve Martin as Kate's boss at the organic grocery chain, and by Greg Kinnear as a Johnny-come-lately love interest. But, by-and-large, one is left with the feeling that this film is not as funny as Fey and Poehler, nor as funny as most women you know, nor indeed as funny as Knocked Up. Is it really so difficult to get women's humour onto the big screen? Currently, one fears the answer is a thudding yes. 12A, 99 mins

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

A couple of years on from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, we now have the second installment of Disney's adaptation of CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. But a lot has changed in Narnia: while it's wartime in Blighty, in the land through the wardrobe door the creatures have all disappeared, the great hall lies ruined, and dour-faced men in body armour rumble about, fiendishly plotting. At the heart of the distress sits poor Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and his viperous uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) who has taken the throne from Caspian's father. When Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), Narnia's exiled kings and queens, are flung back into this world - all glorious manners and innocent faces - it seems the very least they can do is sort things out. The Chronicles take a darker, more ominous turn here, and all the glowering might prove a little too much for younger children. Yet for the older ones this is a smashing film - with war, political intrigue, a burgeoning romance between the Prince and Susan, and of course the full gamut of furry critters. It's perfect children's entertainment.
PG, 147 mins

Man on Wire

High up above Manhattan on a late-summer day in 1974, a Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped into the air between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. Petit (an experienced funambulist) proceeded to spend 45 minutes balancing on a wire stretched between the towers in a spectacular display of illegal tightrope walking. In his riveting film, director James Marsh recounts the feat itself and the events leading up to it, interviews Petit and his co-conspirators, onlookers and police chiefs - all in a measured documentary style that draws largely on Petit's own book, To Reach the Clouds. Not once does Marsh reference the events of September 11th and the loss of those towers from the New York skyline - a decision that appears gently respectful. This is, after all, a story about both mortality and the life-affirming effect that such a ludicrous gamble can have. It's a triumph of quiet simplicity.
PG, 90 mins

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Gurinder Chadha has demonstrated her ability to convincingly portray the world of adolescent girls before, in the feted Bend It Like Beckham. This time she's addressing those hellish years when girls' interaction is more popularity contest than friendship (see also Heathers and Jawbreaker) and boys loom large on the horizon. Both problems dominate the life of 15-year-old Georgia (Georgia Groome). She's stewing away in teenage misery on the south coast in Eastbourne and is head-over-heels with new boy Robbie (Aaron Johnson), who comes equipped with a twin brother Tom (Sean Bourke) who quickly becomes the object of her best friend's affection. It isn't the fieriest movie, perhaps, but it is a charmer - in a gentle, resolutely un-American way. The cast squawks and rages and flounces its way through to the conclusion in precisely the way that teenage girls are wont to do - and if only for that, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging deserves applause.
12A, 100 mins

Donkey Punch

Out on the Med, a group of young British holidaymakers are enjoying the summer on a luxury yacht, all gaiety, raunch, hard partying, drink and drugs - until one of them meets an untimely and bizarre end. Suddenly the mood sours, unleashing a taut - if unremarkable - psychological thriller. Despite its ordinariness, Donkey Punch already carries with it a whiff of infamy - its stars and director have been forced to defend its orgy scenes, and, in particular, its unsettling, sex-related death. The scandal appears to have painted over the film's fundamental flaws. Sensationalism aside, there is nonetheless something hopeful about Donkey Punch: made on an extremely small budget by first-time director Oliver Blackburn, and starring a host of young actors including Jaime Winstone and Sian Breckin, there is a certain fresh-air feeling to this movie that comes from the sound of a new generation of British talent hurrying in.
18, 99 mins

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

This is the second screen adaptation of the Jules Verne novel of 1864, in which the science fiction author envisioned the centre of the earth to be a land of oceans and dinosaurs. The 1959 version starred Pat Boone, but this time, enjoying a modernised script, we have Brendan Fraser as Trevor Anderson, a university professor and expert in seismology who is still haunted by the disappearance of his brother Max some years earlier. When Max's stroppy teenage son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) comes to visit, he brings along some of Max's documents, including an annotated copy of the Verne novel in which he has floated his own theories about how to reach the earth's centre. Trevor and Sean promptly rush off to Iceland with Max's notes as their map, where they meet the frostily gorgeous tour guide Hannah (Anna Briem), and together they all go crashing into the earth. What follows is a science fiction film that is at once thrilling, tender and funny, and a glorious celebration of CGI. Indeed, the greatest achievement of this incarnation of Journey is perhaps the balance it strikes between big, splashy special effects and Fraser's thoroughly likable humour - it's a combination that saves this film from tumbling into true Vernian geekdom.
12A, 92 mins

The Dark Knight

When Christopher Nolan gave us Batman Begins back in 2005, he brought a certain dourness to the previously brash world of cinematic comic book heroes. Here, he takes the director's chair again, and seems to bring the series to an even darker, moodier place. Christian Bale is back as the caped crusader, still chased by those demons, still looking one half chiselled superhero, one half American Psycho, but now also thoroughly unsettled when into Gotham City springs his nemesis, The Joker (a creepy, nerve-jangling and masterful performance by the late Heath Ledger), intent on wreaking havoc. It's the same old fight, the same old opponents, the same old love interest (here given a fresh twist by Maggie Gyllenhaal), but somehow The Dark Knight feels different. Gotham City itself is all glass and steel, more fragile-looking, while Batman is even more troubled, more elusive and more dragged down, it seems, by a sense of inevitable doom. The screens are crowded with superheroes this summer, but there are few as hauntingly impressive as this new, unsettling Batman.
12A, 152 mins

WALL-E

WALL-E, Pixar's latest - and most wonderful - animated film, tells the story of a rubbish recycling machine (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) who trundles around an apocalyptic wasteland once known as Earth, in the company of his cockroach pal. Until, that is, he falls in love with another machine - the sleek and sophisticated research probe, Eve - who has been sent to inspect the state of the planet by an exiled human race. Inspired by a videotape of the film Hello, Dolly! that informs him on matters romantic, he attempts to woo the good Eve and ends up pursuing her across the galaxy. But this is not a mere robotic love story; it's a tale of man's short-sightedness and his destruction of our world in a flurry of waste and megastores. Mankind now lives on a far-flung space station where humans have ballooned into a kind of physical, mental and moral blubberiness. It is, you gather, a warning bell, a sounding of the alarm, to let us know what we could so easily become. Accordingly, WALL-E is charged with a deep melancholy, a sadness kindled by both the passing of our planet and by the fact that, despite it all, love still exists in what mankind has created. Absolutely brilliant stuff.
U, 98 mins

Mamma Mia!

Since it opened in 1999, Mamma Mia! has become one of the most successful and best-loved stage productions in the world, and its transfer to the screen has therefore been hotly anticipated. Blessedly, the cinematic version is an absolute gem, full of energy and gusto, and bolstered by a gung-ho cast and the writer, director and producer of the stage play. For those unfamiliar with the story, Mamma Mia! relates the tale of Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), the proprietor of a Greek taverna, who, having passed the 1970s somewhat promiscuously, has a daughter named Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), fathered potentially by one of three men. Now that Sophie is due to wed she wants to know which of these men should be walking her down the aisle - Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth or Stellan Skarsgard. One should add that - this being a musical - the story is told to the tune of Abba's greatest hits. The three paternal candidates all bring a certain disorientated charm to the screen, but it's the women who flourish here - not only Streep and Seyfried, but also Julie Walters and Christine Baranski in their supporting roles. Amid all the buffed-up action flicks and the chirpy-voiced animations haunting our screens this summer, Mamma Mia! provides the more voluptuous, womanly film choice.
12A, 108 mins