June 6th
Red Joan
My Big Gay Italian Wedding

With a looming long weekend I would have hoped for more inspiring musical fare. Stick with Rocketman (reviewed last week) if you still haven't seen it. 

Red Joan
Director: Trevor Nunn
Length: 101 min

© Transmission - two strong performances 
fail to make the film soar

No still picture will show both actresses who play this role, as the film toggles between two time periods. Sophie Cookson  plays Joan Stanley, a young scientist who gets involved with communists at university in the 1930s, and who is arrested in her old age as having been a former spy who passed nuclear secrets to the Russians. Judi Dench plays the aging Joan. I love Dench and had high hopes for this film but find myself somewhat disappointed. Sure, the actual plot (loosely based on a true story) is intriguing, and both the lead women give strong performances, but we see so little of the great Dench who spends most of her time looking sad and vaguely regretful. Yes, the recreation of the 30s is fine, but the formulaic way of telling this tale prevents it from ever soaring and actually feeling like a thriller. The rather naive excuses Joan gives for doing what she did sound trite, and her two boyfriends, committed commie Leo (Tom Hughes) and her employer Max (Stephen Campbell Moore) are a bit like cardboard cut-out characters. If you're a die-hard Dench fan it cold be worth a look.
2.5 - maybe!

My Big Gay Italian Wedding
Director: Alessandro Genovesi
Length: 90 min

© Palace - lightweight love story, with a very
positive approach to same-sex marriage

Antonio (Cristiano Caccamo) and his boyfriend Paolo (Salvatore Esposito) live in Berlin. When Antonio proposes to Paolo, they travel back to Italy to meet the parents and hopefully marry in the quaint village of Antonio's birth. Tagging along is their long-term flatmate Bernadetta and new aspiring flatmate, the totally insecure Donato, who likes to dress as a woman. While Antonio's Mum (Monica Guerritore) is accepting, his Dad, the town mayor (Diego Abatantuomo) takes some convincing. Trying to put a spoke in it all is Antonio's one-time girlfriend Camilla. This is super-light fare, not unpleasant, but not incisively witty. It has a good heart and some fun gender-bending attitudes (especially from the priest, who is unexpectedly pro-same-sex marriage.) Sudden changes of heart of certain characters are all too abrupt and unexplained, as is the silly musical ending. Its biggest recommendation is its setting - a stunning medieval village high on a clifftop.
2.5 - maybe!