People - Here, There and Everywhere | Home

Critics divided over Keira's Venice film

BRITISH actress Keira Knightley certainly looked a class act in a figure-hugging Chanel gown as her new film, Atonement, opened the Venice Film Festival last night amid chatter about Oscar nominations and a new British cinematic triumph. But some critics this morning punctured the hype.

The film, directed by Briton Joe Wright - at 35 the youngest director to have his film open the festival in its 75-year history - is based on an Ian McEwan (below) novel about a doomed romance whose narrative spans 50 years, which the Daily Mail calls "unfilmable". Knightley, playing the aristocratic Cecilia, "never fully engages our sympathy", and the outcome is "a skilful, civilised but fatally unfocused film that doesn't connect as movingly or viscerally as the novel".

The Times is also unconvinced, arguing that although the film-makers have assembled "a catwalk of fashionable talent", the film becomes "a grim slog", with the final scenes, featuring Vanessa Redgrave, "flat and uninvolving".

The Guardian is won over, suggesting that the film could be "The English Patient for the noughties," providing "food for thought and a colossal sugar-rush of romance". The Telegraph believes the film "wholly justifies the fuss being made about it". The public can decide for itself when Atonement opens in Britain on September 7.
Venice: the opening night in pictures

Flanders floors David Cameron

Jeremy Paxman, watch your back. While Newsnight's senior anchor was away, the late-night show's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, showed her mettle as one of a panel interviewing Tory leader David Cameron. She pounced with her very first question: "I'm not married, I have a small child. Are you saying that the Conservative Party would like me to be married?"

A stunned Cameron insisted he was not trying to tell people how to live their lives, but said there was evidence that children tended to do better in life if they were raised by a mother and a father. "I'm unashamedly pro-family," he added. "For me it absolutely comes first."

Flanders, a high-flyer at the BBC, is the daughter of Michael Flanders who with Donald Swann made up one of Britain's most popular post-war comedy acts.

August 30: Tom Cruise and Eva Longoria attend Playing For Good, an international philanthropic summit in Mallorca, Spain

August 31: Iggy & The Stooges, Idlewild, The Horrors, Sons and Daughters, and The Sunshine Underground play the Rock the House Festival, Harewood House, Leeds

August 31 - Sep 2 : Primal Scream, Bjork (above), MIA and Jesus and Mary Chain play the Connect Festival, Loch Fyne, Scotland

Vaclav Havel: no wife, no play

FORMER Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel has often struggled to get his critically-acclaimed plays staged. His works were banned from theatres under the communist regime, while he spent years in and out of prison for dissident activities before he became president after leading the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

Now he's having trouble staging Odchazeni (Leaving), his first new drama for 20 years. It was (continued below ad)

(continued from above ad) to appear next summer at Prague's National Theatre - but Havel has pulled it after the theatre refused to allow his wife to play the lead role.

The 70-year-old, whose presidency ended in 2003, insists he wrote Odchazeni for his wife, Dagmar Havlova, a 54-year-old former comedy actor (pictured, above centre, with Havel and actress Saffron Burrows at a Czech film festival). Havel said: "I wrote it for her, I imagined her being in it... We wanted to return to the theatre together." He insists that if she cannot play the lead, it will have to be staged elsewhere.

Many believe the stand-off results from the Czech public's hatred of Havlova, whom Havel married in 1997, less than a year after the death of his extremely popular first wife, Olga. Havel recently admitted he had begun an affair with the actress seven years previously.

The new play has been kept under tight wraps. What is known is that it draws on aspects of Shakespeare's King Lear and of Havel's autobiography. Havlova describes it as a "beautiful, unique drama, the best Vaclav has ever written". Audiences may face a long wait to find out for themselves.

Keith Richards demands apology

ROLLING STONES guitarist Keith Richards is demanding an apology from two Swedish newspapers who printed damning reviews of the band's gigs in the country earlier this month.

One, Aftonbladet, dared to give the show only two stars out of five and said the 63-year-old had looked "confused", while the other, Expressen, went even further, issuing no stars and suggesting that Richards had been "very drunk". "This is a first!" the rock veteran said in a statement. "Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review." But he decided to "stand up... for our fans all over Sweden" and say "you owe them, and us, an apology... Write the truth. It was a good show."

But Aftonbladet's Markus Larsson wrote on the tabloid's website, "He can forget it. I am not going to apologise. It is Keith who should apologise. After all, it costs around $145 to see a rock star who can hardly handle the riff to Brown Sugar any more." Expressen's entertainment editor, Dan Panas, said: "Our reviewer had one opinion of the quality of the show and Keith Richards has another."

Richards toppled over twice on stage in Helsinki earlier this month, and at one point had to be saved from falling off the stage altogether by a grumpy-looking Mick Jagger. The Stones ended their Bigger Bang world tour last Sunday in London.

Camilla to holiday without Charles

The Duchess of Cornwall is flying off for a Mediterranean holiday without Prince Charles following her final decision, taken apparently after a major row with her husband, not to attend tomorrow's tenth anniversary memorial service for Diana, Princess of Wales.

A source told the London Evening Standard: "She cannot wait to go. The Prince of Wales will not be joining his wife. It is fair to say that the Duchess is looking forward to her holiday with or without him."

Camilla's destination is not known. It is thought she will stay alone at Balmoral when other members of the Royal family take the royal train or fly south for the service, and then travel to the Med. The source said: "She is going with close friends and no expense has been spared."

The televised service at the Guards Chapel at Wellington Barracks will be attended by nearly 500 people.

Campery in Shoreditch for Francesca Burns and pals at the second annual Bistrotheque drag ball.
More pictures

Bend over, please, I'm Madonna

Madonna has already picked out a second Malawian baby to bring to her London home, despite the controversy still raging over her adoption of 22-month-old David Banda last year.

The singer selected the 13-month-old girl named Mercy after watching a video of 11 girls who were up for adoption. Mercy has been nicknamed "smiling angel" by Madonna, 49, who initially set her heart on a three-year-old called Grace, but had to make a second choice after the girl's extended family objected.

Madonna's brood - which includes her own children Lourdes and Rocco - will next week face an inspection from the Malawi welfare official overseeing the adoptions. The visit, due in May, had to be rescheduled when it emerged that the singer had paid the inspector's travel expenses, casting doubt on his impartiality. If all goes well this time, the adoption should be finalised in January, and Madonna is set to file Mercy's adoption papers a month later.

Meanwhile, the singer made a bizarre demonstration of her maternal instincts on the East London set of her husband Guy Richie's new gangster flick Rock n Rolla, where cast members have been struck down with a stomach bug. The Mirror reports that the Material Girl arrived in her Range Rover to personally plunge vitamin B12 injections into the bottoms of cast members, who queued up for the privilege.

Actress Sienna Miller (below) is to appear as a witness when pro-hunt campaigner Otis Ferry appears in court in November accused of criminal damage after preventing photographers snapping Sienna and his brother Isaac... Steve Coogan (below) has refuted a claim by ex-girlfriend Courtney Love that he 'led astray' Owen Wilson, the depressed actor who attempted suicide this week... David Bowie is to star as an alien in Doctor Who... Kelly Osbourne denies a claim by Gym Class Heroes singer Travis McCoy that they have secretly married... A lookalike of the Queen, sitting on a lavatory with her knickers round her knees, features in a book of spoof images from photographer Alison Jackson...