Saturday 21 May 2022

May 19th

How to Please a Woman
Everything Went Fine
The Innocents
To Olivia
Operation Mincemeat
Pompo: The Cinephile
                  
What a big week it is! Not only with our nail-biting election but also with the movie world. I review a fabulously pleasing new Aussie film, along with offerings from France, Norway, England and Japan. 

How to Please a Woman
Dir: Renee Webster
Length: 107 mins
© Madman - I just loved this
audacious, sexy  film. 
Unhappily married middle-aged woman Gina (Sally Phillips) gets sent a male stripper, Tom (Alexander England) as a birthday present from her girlfriends. When Tom suggests she can have anything she wants, she opts to ask him to clean her house. When Gina loses her job, she decides to take over the trucking company she had been in the throes of liquidating, and to set up an all male house cleaning business. But the female customers are soon looking for "extras" and that's where the fun begins. The three "cleaners" Anthony (Ryan Johnson), Ben (Josh Thomson) and Tom (yes, the stripper), take to their jobs with alacrity and are willing learners. The business ramps up to the next level with Steve (Erik Thomson) and Gina running the show. This cheeky film is a total delight, especially for women, seeing the tables turned upon men. The film dares to ask what would it be like for women to be able to openly and unabashedly ask for what they want. The script has an audaciously authentic feel to it, exposing real "girls' talk", delving into issues of sexuality without ever crossing the line into sleaziness. There is plenty of wit, plus a good dollop of compassion, poignancy and joy. It's wonderful that the female stars are not unattainable young beauties, but real women, making the film ever-so easy to relate to. (If you can drag your man along, there could be some eye-opening moments from which he can learn a trick or two!)
4 - highly recommended

Everything Went Fine
Dir: Francois Ozon
Length: 113 mins
© Sharmill - love and coming to
terms with death
Emmanuele  (Sophie Marceau) gets the dreaded phone call that her 85-year-old father Andre (Andre Dussolier) has had a stroke. She and her sister Pascale (Geraldine Pailhas) race to the hospital, for the start of a heart-breaking endurance course as he slowly improves, but never regains full health. Andre doesn't want to live such an impaired life, and begs Emmanuele to help him to end his life. Ozon has directed so many fine films in differing genres, and now he tackles a subject highly relevant to many aging people and their troubled children. He really nails it - managing to create a film that is nuanced, compassionate, and extremely moving. The early hospital scenes have an immediacy, thanks to the confined settings and constrained shots; we really feel the distress and tension. The underlying tensions and love between the sisters and their father are delicately handled; nothing is glaring in this understated but absolutely truthful film. Charlotte Rampling as Andre's ex-wife shows again her acting prowess as she encapsulates the confusion of aging, while Gregory Gadebois brings Ozon's almost obligatory gay character into a small but important role. The entire cast is superb and Hanna Schygulla makes a welcome appearance as a gentle person known only as "the Swiss lady"; someone who embodies the film's message that dying with dignity can be a fine thing.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended

The Innocents
Dir: Eskil Vogt
Length: 117 mins
© Rialto -  can children really be evil?
Somewhere in Norway a young family relocates to a housing estate for the father's work. Young Ida (Rakel Lenora Flottum) is disconsolate; she must make new friends, and to boot she is aggravated by her non-verbal, autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad). At the local playground Ida meets Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim) along with Ben (Sam Ashraf), a mysterious outsider, seemingly neglected by his mother. The kids start to discover strange connections and powers that they have, especially when they are around each other. But it is Ben who begins to loom large as an almost evil presence, causing people to do things against their wills. It's hard to pigeonhole this film - plenty of supernatural elements, an exploration of childhood issues, the challenges of autism, the genesis of a psychopath? This slow-burn film builds its power with careful visual  framing, sinister music, and a couple of highly disturbing scenes. Yet all the time it keeps the audience painfully aware that these are still children, worthy of compassion and empathy.  The young performances are simply stunning, and this much-awarded film will keep you thinking long after it ends. But it must be noted it won't be everyone's cup of tea.  
4 - highly recommended

To Olivia
Dir: John Hay 
Length: 99 mins
© Icon - a creative couple
must come to terms with tragedy
Much loved children's writer Roald Dahl (Hugh Bonneville) was married to American actress Patricia Neal (Keeley Hawes). In 1962, when this film takes place, he hasn't yet hit the big-time, while Neal is already a Hollywood star (Hawes for me doesn't capture the stardom factor, feeling more like a suburban mum). They retreat to the British countryside to raise their three children, when tragedy strikes: Olivia catches measles and dies.This portrait of grief, eccentric creativity and a marriage in crisis draws its strength predominantly from the casting of Bonneville who is excellent as a man unable initially to confront his sadness. Especially notable is Isabella Johnsson as Olivia's little sister, who feels excluded both before and after Olivia's death. Neal's part in the Paul Newman film Hud features, as does Roald's struggles to create the legendary story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Somehow the film tries a bit too hard on all levels, never really exploring any one them deeply enough. Despite this, it has worthwhile moments of deep emotion and engagement.  
3 - recommended

Operation Mincemeat
Dir: John Madden
Length: 128 mins
© Transmission - terrific spies those Brits!
How the Brits love a good stiff-upper-lip wartime drama. And this one is a true story, based around the planned 1943 invasion of Sicily. Hoping to keep the Germans off the scent, the army and their trusty spies devise a plan involving fake papers planted on a corpse that is engineered to wash up on a Spanish beach. The brains behind the outrageous deception are Ewen Montagu (a dashing Colin Firth) ably assisted by Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew McFadyen), and two women in the MI5 office, Jean Leslie (Kelly McDonald), and Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton).  Along with the sometimes comical details of engineering the plan, there's a quasi-romantic subplot involving Montagu's wife and kids shipping out for America while he slowly warms to Jean, who is already in the sights of Charles. While there is nothing earth-shattering in the film-makers approach, this is entertaining enough fair, with excellent sense of place and history and probably most appealing to wartime-buffs (and Firth fans).
3 - recommended

Pompo: The Cinephile
Dir: Takayuki Hirao
Length: 94 mins
© Kismet - 
Pompo is a young movie producer, the granddaughter of a cinema legend. Mostly she directs shlocky B-grade films starring the shapely Mystia, but suddenly she decides she wants assistant Gene to direct her next film, a drama about a tormented orchestral conductor. This crazy Japanese animation is essentially a homage to the art of movie making, and all things cinema. In some ways it spoofs Hollywood and its mainstream glamor and over-the-top publicity; in other ways it is about the deep and passionate love that actors, directors and all involved in a movie bring to their art. The film is a visual blast; glorious animation and everything larger-than-life. In typical Japanese fashion, so much is loudly overstated and melodramatised, but all to the benefit of what is a major entertainment  for any cinephile.
3.5 - well recommended

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