LONDON CITY NIGHTS: keira knightley

Saturday, November 1, 2014

'Say When' (2014) directed by Lynn Shelton

Saturday, November 1, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Nobody ever says they like Keira Knightley. At best she gets grudging tolerance, at worst she suffers snide jabs at her features, her acting abilities and her (imagined) haughty demeanour. Well I'm going to come out on the record and say it: I like Keira Knightley. I liked her in Pride & Prejudice, I liked her in The Duchess, I liked her in A Dangerous Method, I liked her in The Imitation Game and I like her in Say When. I even kinda liked her in Pirates of the Caribbean. She is a good actor.

Here she plays Megan, a twenty-eight year old suffered from a stalled life. She's got an advanced degree, a long term boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) and a smart metropolitan flat; yet true adulthood hasn't quite 'taken' yet. Whiling away her time as a sign flipper for her Dad's business, she's constantly subtly (and not so subtly) nudged towards career fairs and development counsellors. The rapid onset of mature tedium leads to to wistfully recall her teenage kicks; smoking cigarettes, drinking wine coolers and skinnydipping with her besties. Cut to the present day and those besties have metastasised into prissy, uptight WASPS, accompanied with dull husbands and gaggles of screaming, shitting children.

So when her boyfriend unexpectedly proposes she panics and does a runner. She finds refuge with Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), a 16 year old girl who reminds Megan of the best times in her life. Needing some time to figure out her future, Megan lies that she's going to a business seminar and holes up in Annika's house, = reverting to a teenage state. Annika's Dad (Sam Rockwell) is equal parts curious, bemused and concerned by this strange woman befriending his teenage daughter, but as a lawyer he feels he's got a pretty good handle on people and grudgingly begins to trust her and maybe even... love her?

Say When (known as Laggies outside the UK) isn't the most ambitious movie you'll ever see. Exploring the difficult transition between late adolescence and adulthood is the the territory of maybe 90% of low-key indie dramas (the remaining 10% being depressed middle-aged couples having affairs, see Lyn Shelton's previous Your Sister's Sister), so exploring the woes of a character who'd rather get drunk and have a good time bridling against responsibility is very familiar territory

Granted these manchild roles tend to be played by Seth Rogen (or Rogen-a-likes), so it's a nice change to see this transition from a woman's perspective. The gender flip doesn't really break virgin cinematic ground either; but at least the central relationship between the mature-for-her-years Annika and the developmentally stunted Megan has a few interesting wrinkles. Prime among them is the refusal to sink into easy stereotypes; Annika and her friends are entirely believable teenagers, their outlooks, problems and behaviour perfectly pitched at 16. Not only that, writer/director Lynn Shelton also effortlessly overcomes the not inconsiderable hurdle of getting us to buy into not only a 16 year girl befriending a 28 year old woman, but that woman entering into a relationship with her 45 year old Dad without it feeling even slightly creepy.

With dull-if-competent cinematography and a suburban American setting that throws up very little of visual interest, the success of the film is borne on the backs of the cast. On the younger side of the generation gap Moretz makes her teenage neuroses feel important; we buy into her rocky relationship with her divorced parents and respect her intelligence and maturity. The supporting cast teenagers also impress, particularly a scene-stealing turn from Short Term 12's Kaitlyn Dever as smart-ass best friend Misty.

It's the adults that really shine, particularly the love triangle between Knightley, Rockwell and Webber. The latter, saddled with a thankless role as the supportive yet dull-as-dishwater long term boyfriend expertly injects pathos into the role, his defeated, hangdog expression allowing us to feel sympathetic even as we silently urge Knightley to dump his boring ass.

But the heart of the film lies with Knightley and Rockwell. In lesser hands the woes of an attractive, educated, upper middle class woman torn between two attractive wealthy man might come across as a touch insulting; if this is the worst problem you'll ever have to deal with then you've lead a charmed life. But Knightley digs deep, exposing a raft of vulnerabilities and paranoias in Megan that elevate her into a fully three-dimensional character. These problems may not amount to a hill of beans, but at least for the film's 90 minute run time I cared about them.

worrr look at em go!

Rockwell isn't stretching quite as far; playing a smart, funny and quietly heartbroken man is firmly within his stable of capabilities. But in the latter scenes, where needles are jabbed into his psychological wounds he ups the ante, giving us a powerful dose of crushing disappointment as we watch his last dreams of happiness shriveling up before our very eyes. This is aided by some genuine chemistry between him and Knightley, including one slam-wham-bam first kiss that instantly goes down as (so far) my 'Kiss of 2014'.

As well as these characters are realised they're still locked into a largely predictable series of events. There's a cliched cycle towards the end of the film where Megan does something horrible to each of the supporting cast in turn, for about 5-10 minutes of the run time they'll hate her guts, but one-by-one she miraculously wins them back over until everyone's super chums all over again. Their easy forgiveness feels a bit trite and ill-earned, undermining some of what was so painstakingly built up in the performances. Also the relationship between Annika and Megan peters out precisely as Megan starts banging her Dad, which you'd think would warrant slightly more than a shrug and an "I guess I'm cool with it" from Annika.

Say When isn't going to go down in history as a stone cold classic. It's not even going to be in anyone's Best of 2014 list. But it's a competent, occasionally touching drama that puts its its best assets (Knightley, Rockwell and Moretz) front and centre and trusts them to do their thing.

★★★

Say When is released November 7th

Thursday, October 9, 2014

'The Imitation Game' (2014) directed by Morten Tyldum [LFF 2014]

Thursday, October 9, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

If you're looking for an actor who can believably play a superhuman genius, Benedict Cumberbatch is your man. Since Sherlock Cumberbatch has displayed his mastery of a) talking very fast, b) being a charismatic prick and c) layering in a streak of humanising vulnerability. So who else do you call when you're casting Alan Turing, a genius prick with a vulnerable steak?

The Imitation Game opens with Turing's arrest in 1951 for indecency. This public outing was the beginning of a sad spiral of events that concluded with his suicide in 1954. Within the striplit police interrogation room Turing's skin takes on a deathly white pallor, as if his ghost talking to us from beyond the grave. "Pay attention", he sternly says, "or you're going to miss things."

Flashback ten years. Britain is at war with Germany and things are not looking good. With the aid of the famously 'unbreakable' Enigma encryption device the Nazis are able to coordinate surprise attacks across the Atlantic, sending tonnes of crucial food aid to the ocean floor. Britain is starving, bloody from being pummelled by the Luftwaffe and growing increasingly desperate - "we are losing this war". But at Bletchley Park a team of expert cryptanalysts is being formed, their ultimate goal to crack the Enigma code.

Turing, a man who "loves solving puzzles" is drawn to Bletchley like a moth to a flame, presenting himself to the commanding officer and straightforwardly telling him that his mathematical theories are the only realistic chance of beating Enigma. The rest of the film chronicles his time at Bletchley; his rocky relationship with his fellow cryptanalysts; his neuroses about his homosexuality; guilt at the growing pile of wartime dead and his fast friendship with the only person he considers smarter than himself, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley).

For the most part this is riveting stuff. The plot rumbles along at a decent pace, historical details are keenly observed and Tyldum throws in a smattering of clever visual direction (tank treads match cut to spinning computer parts, torpedoes match cut to cigarettes being stubbed out). Importantly, the film goes to great lengths to give the audience the illusion that they're as smart as these characters. Cryptography, high level statistical analysis and mechanical computing isn't the most relatable (or cinematic) subject around, but The Imitation Game is smart enough to know how to communicate what's going on.

Most of the time this works. Using the ability to solve crossword puzzles as a mark of intelligence gives us a window into logical problem solving and the script is packed to the rafters with similes that more than outline how huge an endeavour cracking Enigma is. That said there are moments when things are dumbed down a touch too much, a late 'eureka!' moment must be on the first page of Codebreaking for Dummies. It's a delicate balancing act; if we're too far behind Turing's team we can't follow the action, if we're too far ahead they lose their mystique.

Slightly more egregious flaws lie in the film nakedly shooting for awards season success. This has Oscar contender written all over it - for the most part deservedly so. But there are moments where Alexander Desplat's overbearing score swells with strings and someone says something really damn corny like "sometimes it is the people who no-one imagines anything of, who do the things no-one can imagine". In a film full of largely naturalistic dialogue, crap like this stands out a mile - dialogue that feels written to be slotted into the trailer (as indeed it is). The nadir is the utterly moronic text that closes the film; "scientists called these devices Turing Machines." (dramatic pause) "We call them 'computers'". Well duh.

The Imitation Game's desire for mass market acceptance only truly trips up the film by mandating a rather cowardly depiction of sexuality. Turing's gayness thrums along behind Cumberbatch's performance throughout, but only comes to the foreground in the final act. Unfortunately while the film pays lip service to gay rights it doesn't have the balls to actually show Turing's sexuality. The character, by and large, ends up in a conventional love story with Keira Knightley's character with every act of gay affection taking place firmly off screen.

I strongly suspect this omission is made with one eye on the box office; the producers either fearing that audiences won't relate to an actively gay hero or, more pragmatically (and depressingly), knowing showing Turing even kissing another man will earn the film an automatic R certificate from the MPAA, with the resultant reduction in its potential audience.

It's a shame that The Imitation Game often feels like it's had its rough edges sanded away, as there's a barrel load of great stuff here. Cumberbatch, though essentially playing a spin on his Sherlock character, is fantastic as Turing and Knightley is comfortably his equal as a genius mathematician. The supporting cast is similarly impressive, particularly Matthew Goode as a suave codebreaker and Mark Strong as a weirdly droll spymaster.

It's more than worth seeing, and works beautifully as uplifting, tense and exciting entertainment. But you can't ever shake the impression that these events have been strained through an extremely efficient studio machine designed to filter out every bit of grit and risk. This means that despite the obvious effort and hard work that's gone into The Imitation Game it feels a mite insubstantial.

★★★

The Imitation Game is released 14th November 2014.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

'Begin Again' (2014) directed by John Carney

Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Begin Again is a lovely salad with a big lump of shit sitting proudly in the middle of it. Sure the shit is only touching a tiny bit of the salad, but you're sure as hell not going to be eating anything on that plate.

The film revolves around Dan (Mark Ruffalo) and Greta (Keira Knightley). Dan, channelling the rumpled, acerbic carelessness of a Groundhog Day era Bill Murray, is a fallen star record producer / A&R man. He rolls around New York drunk off his tits in a vintage black Jaguar with a strangely canine aura to him. This is a Mark Ruffalo you could imagine spotting behind the bars of the local dog pound, looking sorry for himself, whining and pawing at his cage. Naturally his personal life is a complete shambles, with a distant, troubled daughter and exasperated wife viewing him with outright contempt. After being sacked from his job and bopped in the face by an angry bouncer he hits rock bottom, contemplating jumping in front of a subway train and ending this miserable existence. But first another drink, so he stops in a bar where he finds...

Greta! Greta is a precision-tooled objet d'indie girl - from her casually tied back, shampoo ad glossy hair to her very on trend patterned summer dresses. She plays a beaten up acoustic guitar almost bent double over it, as if she's really, really into the music, man. She's a British girl in New York, having arrived as the girlfriend of Dave Kohl (Adam Levine) an indie superstar who is currently in the process of blowing up (unfortunately not literally). Their picture perfect relationship is shattered when Kohl starts banging a sexy A&R girl and Greta proceeds to mope around the city looking attractively wan and miserable, guitar in hand.

Greta plays a song in a bar that touches Dan, the two become friends and Dan's creative juices start flowing as he devises a new type of album - one entirely recorded on the actual streets of New York City! Soon the two are collecting various musicians, writing songs, recording and engaging in cute indie montages where they wander around smiling and listening to their music collections. As the album begins to come together, so do their fractured lives - the pair almost literally healed by the divine power of guitar led indie. Isn't music a wonderful thing?

It really is. But oh boy, not here. I'm going to bang on about how crappy the music in Begin Again is for quite a bit now, but if you want to skip that I can summarise what's wrong with this film with one simple point: the lead singer of Maroon 5 has a large role in the movie. Maroon 5. For FUCK'S sake. I mean... listen to this (not all of it obviously that would be insane):

(my blood boils over at precisely 02:45)

I'm really sorry I subjected you to that. But goddamn that's bad....

This is the lump of shit in the otherwise alright salad: the music in Begin Again really, really, really sucks. It's flaccid, over-produced, syrupy indie rock sung by oh-so-deep wankers in flannel shirts perched atop stools in depopulated prick-bars. This is music devoid of passion, imagination and feeling, made so much worse by the fact that these musicians consider themselves painfully authentic. As they incessantly drone on like delicate little flowers about their feelings, staring off into the middle distance with big doe eyes I wanted to jump into the movie screen, smash their bloody acoustic guitars over their heads and put on some Extreme Noise Terror or maybe a bit of hard acid techno.

I really hate this man.

As they go on to produce Greta's atrocious album they rope in a gaggle of musicians who proceed to fanny around on top of buildings in porkpie hats creating the kind of sludgy brainless acoustic whiffle that you'd generally expect to find as muzak in your local branch of Starbucks. Then, through furrowed, confused brows, we watch as everyone in the film simpers over how great it is. "Greta, your album is amazing!" they breathlessly intone. "No! It's shit shitty shit shit!" I (inwardly) heckled back.

For a film about the wonder, power and beauty of music to subject us to the guy from Maroon 5 repeatedly bleating his tortured little heart out feels like a particularly perverse form of torture. It's especially cruel given that, aside from the music, everything else isn't all that bad. Both Knightley and Ruffalo bring something neat to the table, there's a charismatic cameo from CeeLo Green and an appearance by an fascinatingly bearded Mos Def. It's all framed and lit beautifully, with cinematographer Yaron Orbach finding a bewilderingly impressive number of ways to frame two people sitting next to each other listening to headphones. Even James Corden is likeable here!

But all that good stuff is for naught. If you make a film about music where the music sucks then you're leaving port in a ship with a gaping hole in the side. Water is rushing in, people are futilely diving overboard, alarms are blaring, red lights are flashing. Eventually the boat keels over and vanishes beneath the waves. There are no survivors.

★★

Begin Again is released July 11th

LONDON CITY NIGHTS