LONDON CITY NIGHTS

Friday, November 14, 2014

'My Old Lady' (2014) directed by Israel Horowitz

Friday, November 14, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

If you're a fan of French probate and property law then boy oh boy do I have a movie for you.  The excitingly titled My Old Lady (adapted from the director's own play!) starts with a bang – explaining the intricacies of the French viager system.  This is real adrenaline rush cinema, your heart thumping in your chest as you learn that the viager system is a system that allows elderly homeowners to realise the monetary value of their property as a lump sum (and also to receive an index-linked monthly stipend) while still remaining occupants until their death, at which point ownership of the property will transfer to the viager investor.  

Essentially, the prospective buyer weighs the amount of the lump sum (plus the stipend) against the market value of the property and the life expectancy of the occupant and decides whether he (or she) is going to get a good deal.  Now who needs Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson firing a minigun from a burning car that's also jumping through a massive explosion when you have action-packed cinema like this?!

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…. okay fine I admit it this film is fucking booooooooring.  

Boring isn't the kind of word I throw around lightly, but for nearly every one of it's 107 minutes, My Old Lady is deeply, almostly masterfully, boring.  Here's the situation; broke alcoholic loser Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) arrives in Paris having been beqeathed a house in his father's will.  He intends to make a quick sale and skedaddle with the cash, but is stymied when he discovers that his father had entered into a viager with the elderly occupant.

The titular old lady is Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), a 93 year old English teacher who is very comfortable with Mathias' father's viager.  She reveals to a dumbstruck Mathias that he must pay her for the privilege of living in what is essentially 'his' house.  Complicating matters is the presence of her daughter Chloe (Kristin Scott Thomas), who immediately recognises Mathias as an opportunistic loser out to ruin their idyllic life.

The rest of the film charts Mathias' explorations of the French property law, his attempts to broker a deal for his stake in the viager and the growth of his relationship with Mathilde and Chloe, both of whom turn out to be more involved in his past than he first suspected.

Nearly entirely taking place within Mathilde's dark, dusty house, every inch of this feels like a stage adaptation.  There's the odd jaunt out into the streets of Paris, but they're bizarrely devoid of life as if the populace had collectively decided to have an extended lie-in (and to be honest I don't blame them).  This zeroes the drama in on Matthias, Mathilde and Girard, who, despite efforts to inject a bit of sizzle into their past are all rather dowdy, dull characters.

Mathias in particular is a deeply annoying protagonist, spending much of the latter half of the film drunkenly wandering about, wine bottle in hand, delivering misery-laced monologues about how crap his life is, how everybody has let him down and how horrible a person he is.  Kline's supercilious performance style only serves to underline these annoying qualities.  Let's face it, there are few things more tedious than a self-pitying pisshead, very quickly you find yourself wishing the very worst upon him.  

Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas come out of this largely unscathed, but these are actors so talented that they can find something of worth even in the biggest heap of garbage. Smith in particular makes Mathilde quietly likeable, constantly hinting at a carefree Bohemian life without giving us too many particulars.  She works on the principle that “precision is key to a long life”, a proverb that may as well also apply to Smith's acting style, working out every little flicker of the eyes or pursing of the lips to maximise our potential.

Scott-Thomas isn't given a lot to work with, but she latches onto Chloe's existential blues, showing us someone who has gotten used to setting her expectations low.  Given that she's the one giving lameass sadsack Mathias a hard time we warm to her pretty quickly. Unfortunately the hard work of both women is undone by a series of revelations that make them mere cogs in Mathias' self actualisation.  They submissively accept the abuse that Mathias heaps upon them, topped off with the ludicrous development of Chloe falling in love with Mathias.  This is bizarre! The stuffed animals that populate the flat are a better romantic prospect than Mathias; a man any self respecting woman wouldn't let within 5 feet of her.

With its middle-aged to elderly cast My Old Lady is perhaps aiming for the now-lucrative silver screener audience.  But surely even these audiences don't want an outright boring experience.  With its muffled drama, hugely annoying protagonist, dull scenery, focus on financial affairs and tortoise-slow pace, the film is about as much fun as being stuck in an accountant's waiting room.  

★★

My Old Lady is released 21st November 2014

Saturday, December 29, 2012

'Quartet' (2012) directed by Dustin Hoffman, 28th December 2012

Saturday, December 29, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 2 Comments

You'll know the cloth from which 'Quartet' is cut pretty fast.  The film is almost entirely set in a friendly retirement home full of opera singers and classical musicians that are past their prime.  But it's in financial trouble!  The only way it can be saved is for four once world famous opera singers is to band together and perform their signature piece, thus raising enough money to keep the place going.  But they've all got problems and little bits of personal development that they have to get through before they can get back on stage, prove that age is no barrier to success and give the best damn performance of their lives.

'Quartet' winds a familiar path through a setup that's as creaky as its characters, who are played by the cream of British establishment acting.  Our quartet is composed of Jean (Maggie Smith), Wilf (Billy Connolly), Reginald (Tom Courtenay) and Cissy (Pauline Collins). In supporting roles are a mixture of established theatrical performers, notably Michael Gambon and Andrew Sachs and a smattering of actual retired classical performers, none of whom I recognised, but all of whom get a nice shout-out to their careers in the credits.

Left to Right: Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Andrew Sachs and Pauline Collins

These leads are about as safe a set of hands you could hope to hire for a film like this.  There is no conceivable way that Billy Connolly is going to misfire in a role that primarily requires him to say quasi-sexual inneundos to pretty young nurses.  Likewise, Maggie Smith plays the role of a slightly depressed elderly opera singer struggling to regain her confidence brilliantly.  In one sorrowful stare through a pane of glass she conveys everything you need to know about her misery at ageing and having to move into a retirement home.  it's impressive, but then, it's Maggie Smith.  Of course she's going to be good.   The highlight for me is Michael Gambon as 'Cedric', the overbearing bumbling musical director.   As a minor character he's not burdened with the serious, sad scenes that the central quartet are, and gets to cut free a bit, overacting in what seems to be his Dumbledore costume minus the beard.

Maybe this is just Gambon's style now?

You very quickly realise here that the film is set on an course, and is inexorably plodding towards a big concert finale. As soon as they mention this, it's just a matter of when, not how we're going to get there.  Whether a conscious choice or not, this drains a lot of dynamism from a film that is content to spend the majority of its run time meandering through low-stakes emotional conflict.  

I guess you have to work out who exactly the film is aimed at: the elderly.   This seems primed to ride the wave that stuff like 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' (which I haven't seen) have generated.   'Quartet' is a film that plays it safe at every opportunity, and treats its target audience with a faint, unconscious contempt for their critical faculties.  Humourwise there's nothing original here; all the jokes in here are straight out of the 'old age' cliche book; ha, they have to piss a lot!  Ha-ha look he's old and still horny!  Hey look, she's a bit dotty and forgetful!  Hilarious. It seems a bit insulting to assume that older audiences want the film equivalent of a cup of weak tea.

Maggie Smith as Jean, and Sheridan Smith as Dr Lucy Cogan

Worse, the world of the retirement home is sinisterly sugar-coated.  Beecham House is more of a luxury spa than a retirement home, staffed full of cheeky and cheery empathetic characters who are more than happy to indulge their elderly patients.  This is a fairly light-hearted comedy and I didn't exactly want the film go all Haneke on me, but maybe a few quick acknowledgements life in an extremely plush hospital isn't all happy fun times wouldn't have gone amiss.  A prime example is a light-hearted scene where Wilf (Connolly) negotiates with the Doctor that runs the place about going out to a restaurant for dinner.  It's presented in a fun, flirty and friendly way, but there's a sinister undertone of enforced confinement.

'Quartet's message is inarguably a noble one: old age shouldn't be a barrier to achievement and that a new chapter in our lives can come along right when you least expect it.  But all of the personal growth that happens in the film is the result of our leads surrendering their independence and trotting off to live in seclusion in the countryside with other old people.  Beecham House may be kind, opulent and friendly, but it is a cage.  The film feels like the kind of thing that a cold hearted son or daughter with their eye on their old Mum's house might show her to try and convince to her move out of the place.  "Oh look all your friends will be there!  And the nurses are so friendly!  There's even zumba!"

But 'Quartet' doesn't only stumble in delivering its uplifting message, it's a structurally flawed film and, like an ill-made souffle, completely collapses towards the end.  Dustin Hoffman, in his directorial debut, has made a film that's sickly sweet in it's imagery.  It's hard to gauge just how much time passes between scenes as it feels like damn near every outside shot is taken on a hazy summer evening as the sun is about to set.  I get it Hoffman.  The sun is setting but it is still beautiful. Perhaps this isn't quite as clever and subtle as you think. The film shamelessly exploits an overly twee rural England aesthetic, characters traipse through compositions that look like they've been ripped from the front of a tin of shortbread.  These aren't the fastest moving characters in film either, so you're going to drink in this cloying countryside postcardiness whether you like it or not.

Despite all this, I am still a bit of a sucker for films that end in a big concert scene.  You know deep down that everything's going to work out alright, but there's behind the scenes trouble, last minute panics, sudden losses of confidence and so on.  It's manipulative and cliched, but does a workman like job of ratcheting up the tension.  But then two things happen in quick sequence that sucked out whatever goodwill I had left remaining for the film.  They're spoiled below, but frankly it's better you know about them now rather than waste your money.

The central pressure on our leads is to raise enough money by putting on a concert to save the luxurious, friendly retirement community that they live in.  This means there is a certain pressure of responsibility on our leads, they must each risk their own dignity for the community that supports them.  This gives them a heroic nobility that is vital in getting us to sympathise with them.  But this structure means that the real triumph isn't them actually performing, it's just that they will appear on the bill.  The film actually calls attention to this, saying "we've saved the home!" before the climax.  Doing this pulls the plug on the wider drama going on around the characters. 

That's a problem, but there is a far, far worse one that dawns on you in the closing seconds.  This is a film about opera singers discovering that they've still got it.  We hear all about how our leads were amazing in their time, but we never actually get to hear them sing prior to the finale.  We see a montage set to music of them rehearsing, showing their frustrations and joy as they obviously begin to get the hang on it.  The tension builds as their spot at the top of the bill draws closer, and by the time they step on stage we're as racked with nerves as they are.  Will Wilf keep his balance?  Will Jean hit those high notes like she used to?  Will Cissy's dress stay in one piece?  It's the final round in 'Rocky'.  It's the choir performing for the Pope in 'Sister Act'. Hell, it's the battle of the bands in 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey'.  The band starts up, we lean forward and...

Fade to black.  Credits.

WHAT?!  All that and we don't even get to hear them sing?  Hey 'Quartet', in the words of Maggie Smith's Jean I'm about to say a very rude thing:

"Fuck you!"

This doesn't happen.  Boooooooooo!