The Seven Year Itch (1955)

It TICKLES and TANTALIZES! - The funniest comedy since laughter began!

What would any normal guy give to be one-to-one with Marilyn Monroe? What are the chances? Wouldn't even a happily married man with a kid get the "seven year itch"?

It's summertime in Manhattan, and like many men, publishing editor Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) sends his wife Helen (Evelyn Keyes) of seven years and young son Ricky (Butch Bernard) up north for a 2-week vacation in Maine, while he stays and works in the city. Back at his apartment that evening, awaiting a phone call from Helen, Richard determines to keep on the straight and narrow during this time: no cigarettes, no drinking, and settles down to work on the patio with a manuscript. But out of the blue, literally, he is almost killed by a falling flower pot accidentally dislodged by his new upstairs neighbour, a stunningly gorgeous blonde bombshell played by the wonderful Marilyn Monroe.

Against the dictates of his rational mind, Richard, mesmerised by his neighbour's beauty and overcome with desire, can't stop himself inviting her to his apartment, and Monroe's character is so ditzy (innocently silly and scatterbrained) that she seems to have no idea what objective Richard's instincts are driving him towards.

So, will Richard be able to withstand the range of temptations available to the married man left alone in the big city, and in particular, to any male neighbour of Monroe? How will Monroe's character respond?

This is pretty much a two-hander between Ewell and Monroe. Though creepy like a lizard at some points in the film in his lust for Monroe, overall, Ewell's performance is magnificent. A great deal of the script has Richard dialoguing with himself, which is quite an unnatural thing to do, highly stylized, and could have gone disastrously wrong. Ewell pulls it off pretty well though, so that it is mostly very acceptable. Richard is a bit of a Walter Mitty, highly imaginative, and a lot of the fun consists of his imaginings coming to life, and delighting or scaring him. Monroe plays her rather challenging ditzy role very well, simpering like a small excited girl in a grown woman's body, highly desirable in a sexual way, but not slutty, managing to stay pure and chaste in herself.

The lack of political correctness in this film goes well beyond current socially-sanctioned norms, with Wilder commenting on the audience's fascination with beauties like Monroe, for instance, in the way Richard's publishing house markets their books, pandering to our men's objectification of women as sex objects. It is this film that includes the justly famous scene where Monroe stands over the air vent in the white dress, innocently enjoying the cooling breeze that pushes the skirt of her dress up in such a revealing flutter. Talk about objectification: Monroe's character does not even merit a name, for pity's sake, being labelled "The Girl" in the credits.

The peeping Tom aspect of cinema audience's appetite to watch actresses like Monroe is clearly paralleled in Richard's relationship with Monroe. The fourth wall is even broken at one point, in the third reel, by Ewell referring explicitly by name to Marilyn Monroe. This makes the story quite a meta-experience, but also makes one feel quite queasy while watching, as you come to understand that this is the true subject or target of the film.

The element of psychology is included in the person of Dr. Brubaker (Oskar Homolka), the author of the manuscript that Richard is editing, and whose writing is used to introduce statistics about temptations for married men in the summer and the "seven year itch" in particular. Ewell externalises the conflicts within him in the form of an itch on his chest, near his heart (geddit?), and a nervous twitch in one of his thumbs (presumably with phallic connotation?).

Apparently, the film is based on a three-act play by George Axelrod. In Wikipedia's entry for this film (see link below), there is an interesting discussion of the restrictions put on the film, compared to the play, by the studio's adherence to the Hayes Code of the time.

Five years later, in "The Apartment" with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, Wilder revisited the temptations-of-summer-affairs-in-Manhattan scenario introduced in "The Seven Year Itch" and created a human drama of great warmth and darkness and resonance. This film, while interesting, and a great showcase for Monroe's talents, does not approach those heights.

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• Director: Billy Wilder
• Writers: George Axelrod, Billy Wilder
• Starring: Tom Ewell, Marilyn Monroe, Evelyn Keyes, Marguerite Chapman, Robert Strauss, Oscar Homolka, Sonny Tufts, Donald MacBride

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• Rating: High matinee
• When seen: 1 July 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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My Life Without Me (2003)

On receipt of news of terminal illness, there are perhaps four key choices that any of us would have to make:

1. On receipt of such news, in the short term, how would we choose to respond, say, by going to pieces or by remaining calm?
2. Who, if anyone, would we choose to share the news with? Family? Friends?
3. How would we choose to spend our remaining days? Would we spend our time putting our affairs in order or, exploiting a release from future consequences, throw caution to the wind and fill our time with wild debauchery?
4. Where would we choose to die?

"My Life Without Me" is the story of Ann (Sarah Polley), a young Canadian mother of two living in straitened circumstances in a mobile trailer home in her mother's (Deborah Harry) back yard, who goes to the doctor with symptoms of early pregnancy (nausea, stomach cramps and so on) only to learn that she has an inoperable tumour and has at most two or three months left to live. If this sounds like the premise of a traditional weepy, a sentimental drama "based on a true story", well, certainly for Ann the stakes could not be any higher. There is strong emotional content in the film, but the emotions are true emotions, and muted more often than amplified, and the high quality of the acting and direction lifts the story above clichéd dramatics to a level of apparent realism and authenticity.

In response to the news of her imminent death, rather than going all to pieces, Ann responds in an admirably level-headed way. Seeking to maximise the time she has left, she makes out a list of things to do before she dies. It is the nature of this "To Do" list, and the other choices she makes in response to the news that make this story compelling, particularly given the particular circumstances of her life, which emerge during the course of the film.

The lynchpin of the film is the performance of Polley, and she is totally believable in the role, portraying a young woman of intelligence, courage, determination and heart. She is so good with the girls who play her daughters (Jessica Amlee, Kenya Jo Kennedy) that it's hard to believe she is not their mother in real life. The supporting cast is uniformly good: Julian Richings as the doctor, Scott Speedman and especially Mark Ruffalo, respectively, Ann's husband and Ann's admirer, Deborah Harry and Alfred Molina as Ann's parents, Amanda Plummer, Leonor Watling, and Maria de Medeiros as Ann's friends, neighbours, co-workers, acquaintances.

The script is intelligent and the direction is unostentatious. The story is based on the book "Pretending the Bed Is a Raft" by Nanci Kincaid, and the scene where Anne acts out with the girls on the bed being on a raft, beset by dangers of different kinds, is a wonderful scene, one that as a parent I envy, like the scene in Crash (2004) where the admirably resourceful Daniel (Michael Peña) calms his daughter's fears of neighbourhood drive-by shootings with the invention of an invisible bullet-proof fairy cloak.

References

• Wikipedia: Crash (2004 film)

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• Director: Isabel Coixet
• Writers: Isabel Coixet, Nanci Kincaid
• Starring: Sarah Polley, Scott Speedman, Mark Ruffalo, Deborah Harry, Amanda Plummer, Leonor Watling, Maria de Medeiros, Julian Richings, Alfred Molina

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• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 17 Aug 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Woman of the Year (1942)

The picture of the year!

Woman of the Year (1942) is the first pairing of the legendary on-screen romcom couple, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The film poses the question, still relevant today, of how the busy modern woman can manage to combine a career with a happy marriage and home life, and, winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, it packs quite a punch.

The story wastes little time in throwing together Sam Craig (Tracy), a hard-headed sports reporter and all-round regular American, and Tess Hardy (Hepburn), a high society sophisticate and international charity worker, fluent in various languages, who writes a column for the same newspaper. Their little literary spat develops into a series of start-stop dates, driven by mutual attraction, but frequently delayed or interrupted by Tess's hectic schedule.

The gulf between their lifestyles is underlined. Sam takes Tess to a baseball game, something which she knows nothing of, but quite enjoys. Tess invites Sam to an evening party at her apartment, but has little time to talk to him. After failing to bond with groups of non-English speaking refugees and diplomats, he slips out early. He travels to sporting events, and hangs out in bars. She travels to conferences and holds open house in the evenings in her uptown apartment. Eventually, they kiss, confess their love for each other, he proposes, she accepts. Cue a happy ending...

But the story does not end there. It goes on, beyond the honeymoon period, itself not without its issues, to examine subsequent married life for such a loving but busy modern couple. It also, very cleverly, examines the issue of the quality of care for very young children in such a setup. So, the question remains till quite late in the story: can they make it work? And will they be able to meet in the middle, or will one have to make unequal compromises?

One has to appreciate the generally modern, progressive view of the sexes, evidenced by the script in the characters of Sam and Tess throughout most of the story. To my mind, the dilemma faced by Tess is never really satisfactorily resolved, but, along the way, Hepburn gets to do a revealingly inept extended comic kitchen routine.

There is real chemistry between Tracy and Hepburn. They both have impeccable comic timing. Tracy is very likeable, so that the male can identify with him, and Hepburn is a fine woman with stunning looks and personality, an aristocrat in the best sense of the word.

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• Director: George Stevens
• Writers: Ring Lardner Jr., Michael Kanin, John Lee Mahin, Garson Kanin
• Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen, Minor Watson, William Bendix, Gladys Blake

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• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 2 Aug 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)

Audrey Hepburn plays Holly Golightly, the craziest heroine who ever crept between the pages of a best-selling novel!

Breakfast at Tiffany's, based on the novella (1958) by Truman Capote, is a romantic comedy drama with a very dark heart about identity, self-delusion and ambition in New York City, featuring a mesmerising central performance by Audrey Hepburn.

Holly Golightly (Hepburn) is a bubbly kooky glamorous fun-loving girl whose life seems to be constant swirl of nightclubs, late night parties and men. A handsome young author, Paul Varjak (George Peppard), moves into an apartment above, and is willingly drawn into the carousel of Holly's chaotic existence.

The stage is set for romance, or would be but for one small hurdle. Varjak has long-term writer's block and seems to subsist on handouts from a wealthy patroness, Emily Eustace Failenson (Patricia Neal), while Holly has set her sights on marrying a man rich enough to validate her current life-style, a millionaire, and puts a kind of magic ring-fence around Varjak, nicknaming him "Fred" after her older brother.

The two leads are likeable characters, and we wish them well. Will the fixedness of Holly's ambitions prevent her from finding true happiness? Will Varjak ever find sufficient lead for his pencil (actually ribbon for his typewriter)? As the story unfolds, the happy-go-lucky world of Holly Golightly begins to develop serious fault-lines, as the world-conquering self-image that she has created for herself becomes increasingly difficult to maintain against the intrusion of inconvenient prosaic realities from her present and past lives.

There are strong parallels between the two lead characters, relating to their sources of income, indicated early on in the story. In the small hours in the apartment building one night, escaping from an insistent drunken date, angry that the $50 "restroom attendant tip" he gave her has got him nothing in return, Holly slips up the fire escape to Varjak's window and sees Failenson inside, adjusting her clothes and leaving a $300 gift on the bedside table before exiting. Holly's main income, it can be inferred, is in the form of "gifts", money or otherwise, from men at clubs, where she presumably serves as some sort of escort or companion. Wikipedia's entry for Capote's novella states: "Holly Golightly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl, who makes her living as a companion to society's most prominent men." Varjak has had a book of short stories published, but nothing else recently, so it seems very doubtful that he could be getting sufficient royalties to pay for an apartment in Manhattan. Judging by the decor, it seems more likely that the apartment is provided for him by Failenson.

While watching, I suspected that Holly Golightly was a stand-in for Truman Capote himself, casting himself, metaphorically as an aspirational "media whore". Wikipedia, however, draws parallels between Golightly and Capote's mother, who carved out a new life for herself in New York City in a similar way to Golightly: "both left the husbands they married as teenagers and abandoned relatives they loved and were responsible for in order to make their way to New York City, and both achieved Cafe Society status through relationships with wealthier men".

The best thing about the film is the character of Holly Golightly, the glamorous tart rejecting her heart, and Hepburn's wonderful portrayal of her. Wikipedia says that Hepburn herself "regarded it as one of her most challenging roles, since she was an introvert required to play an extrovert", and also that Marilyn Monroe was first choice for the role, which would have been different, but also probably very effective. The great song "Moon River" by Henry Mancini was apparently written specially for the "limited vocal range" of Audrey Hepburn, whose singing of it, according to Wikipedia "helped composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer win an Oscar for Best Song."

Peppard, by contrast, 33 years old at the time, was surely too old for the role. (Hepburn was 42 32, but always looked young for her age.) Admittedly, he does have the intelligence and sensitivity for the role, but to attract a rich sugar mummy, surely his character would need to be a slimmer, more handsome, more waifish younger man, a young Warren Beatty or Anthony Perkins, for instance, not this stolid buttoned-up suit-wearing type.

Sources:

• Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany%27s_(novella)
• Audrey Hepburn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Hepburn
• George Peppard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Peppard

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• Director: Blake Edwards
• Writers: George Axelrod (screenplay), Truman Capote (novella)
• Starring: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Martin Balsam, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Mickey Rooney, John McGiver, José Luis de Villalonga

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• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 2 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Following good comment from @anonymous, deleted "more waifish" from description of the young Warren Beatty. Added ranking image. Following comment by Wanderer, struck through the whole of last paragraph, which has been pretty much blown out of the water.

Funny Face (1957)

'S Wonderful! 'S Marvelous!

Here's a romantic musical comedy with the most promising ingredients:

• featuring winsome Audrey Hepburn in her first musical outing and legendary dancer Fred Astaire
• directed by Stanley Donen, uncrowned king of Hollywood musicals and director of the glorious classic "Singing in the Rain"
• music by George and Ira Gershwin
• choreography by Eugene Loring
• set in New York City and Paris

Sadly, what should be a light and airy soufflé turns out to be a bit of a pudding.

The film starts well enough with a sprightly musical dance title sequence in a modernistic Mondrian-like style, apparently designed by photographer Richard Avedon, in which Maggie Prescott (the fabulously talented Kay Thompson), editor of Quality fashion magazine, throws out the design for next month's edition, and demands a bold new look, all in pink. Lead photographer, Dick Avery (Astaire), a character apparently based on Richard Avedon himself, seeking inspiration in a Greenwich book shop, happens upon fashion-eschewing philosophy-loving sales assistant, Jo Stockton (Hepburn), and convinces Prescott that Stockton has the fresh new look the magazine needs. Stockton, though somewhat smitten with Avery following an impromptu kiss on the lips, is at first reluctant to be involved. But, on the strength of a free trip to Paris, where at last, in her free time, she can attend lectures by her idol, Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair), professor of empathicalism, she finally agrees to work as Quality magazine's featured model, and they all fly to Paris.

The setup is a bit like a fifties' version of The Devil Wears Prada (2006), with Hepburn pre-figuring Anne Hathaway's fashion-ambivalent journalist Andrea Sacks, and Thompson trailblazing the tyrannical reign of Meryl Streep's ruthless Runway magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. It is a setup with fantastic potential for subtly exploring issues relating to the role of women in the modern world via the conflicting external and internal forces acting on the character of Stockton, a woman who, rejecting conventional gender stereotyping and espousing the world of ideas, nevertheless, has temporarily agreed to compromise her ideals by working in the fashion industry.

A great setup, yes, but a very unsatisfying payoff, where the issues posed in the setup, even the relatively minor issue of the questionable value of fashion (which The Devil Wears Prada addresses very smartly), are pretty much left by the wayside. Instead (without dropping specific plot spoilers), Stockton's behaviour becomes irrationally, even selfishly capricious, leading to peculiar plot developments, all apparently serving to maintain the conventions of the genre. Could this lack of bite in the script have resulted from a failure of nerve when facing up to the popular modern monsters of feminism, intellectualism and anti-materialism?

Forgetting the film's questionable morals and character development, taking it purely in terms of entertainment, the film is simply rather dull. Despite being awarded a Golden Laurel nomination for "Top Male Musical Performance" at Cannes Film Festival (1957), to my unschooled eyes, Astaire seems rather subdued and does not really do anything very impressive in dance, except when pretending to be a French beatnik, and his singing isn't that great, either. My teenage daughter, who has had a good deal of dance training, commented that his dancing was boring. The songs by Gershwin are quite unmemorable. The view provided on the bohemian Left Bank culture looks stereotyped and unconvincing. That said, the Paris-based Bohemian dance numbers by Hepburn, Thompson and Astaire are pretty funny. The best performers are Hepburn who does a funny modern dance routine to express herself in a French dive, and her boss, the head of Quality magazine, who is a hugely entertaining dancer.

Astaire was terribly miscast. (According to Wikipedia, Hepburn insisted that he be cast. He had starred with his sister Adele in the stage version years before.) Hepburn was 28 but looked younger. Astaire was 58 and looked it, especially in his frequent cardigans, a 30-year age gap, too wide. There seemed to be no reason why she should fall for him, except that he took the liberty of kissing her on the lips a couple of times, and also that he was the one that saw her potential as a model and chose her for the magazine feature.

According to Wikipedia, only a year or so after the release of this film, the bottom fell out of the musical film genre, and Donen had to change to other kinds of work. On the evidence of this film, I'm not really surprised.

Sources:

• Stanley Donen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Donen
  

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• Director: Stanley Donen
• Writer: Leonard Gershe
• Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair, Robert Flemyng, Suzy Parker

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• Rating: Rental
• When seen: 22 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendment: Added ranking image.

Groundhog Day (1993)

He's having the worst day of his life... over and over...

This is a wonderfully entertaining romantic comedy in which a clever fantasy premise is exploited to the full by a really sharp script, supported by exemplary performances, and underpinned by a subtext of real substance.

The film poses the question, "What would you do if you got stuck in a time loop, and were condemned to relive the same day, over and over again?" Would it be a curse or a blessing? Scriptwriters Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis take obnoxiously jaded TV weather reporter, Phil Connors (Bill Murray), with accompanying producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliott), and drop him into small-town hell. For Phil's fourth year running, he is being sent to report from the otherwise unremarkable town of Punxutawney, Pennsylvania, on the February 2nd tradition of using a burrowing animal, the eponymous groundhog, a sort of over-grown hamster, to predict the weather, and the accompanying goofily energetic celebrations that grip the townspeople.

February 2nd, our first day in Punxutawney introduces us, at least tangentially, to most of the characters and locations that we will be revisiting in the rest of the film. Phil, painted as a cynical pessimist, a "glass is half empty" kind of guy, dismisses the enthusiastic Rita as "fun, but not my kind of fun", cold shoulders the rather nerdy Larry, and sneers at the small town antics of the townspeople and their ignorance of more fashionable ways of life in the metropolis. Forget about being able to get an espresso or cappuccino, they don't even know how to spell the words!

The following morning, Phil is subjected to a second performance of the previous day, but finds that he is the only person aware that the day is repeating, in a kind of nightmarishly extended deja vu. As he continues to wake up, at 6.00 a.m. morning after morning, on the same day, February 2nd, he goes through the full gamut of responses to the situation, ranging from scepticism, confusion and disbelief to panic, stoicism and darkest despair, all to no avail. Although he can behave as a free agent, no matter what he does, he can't escape this loop in time.

Quickly figuring out the parameters of the situation, Phil realises that when time loops, effectively, there are no social consequences, no retribution for selfish, immoral or illegal actions, and he begins to "game" the system. This aspect of the film is highly entertaining, as day-by-day, Phil cynically accumulates knowledge in order to exploit other people and gain material things and experiences, and various scenarios mutate and extrapolate in different ways, some of them laugh out loud funny. It is only when he realises and tries to win his heart's desire that his system breaks down, and things get very interesting.

The cinematography is not flashy, but in some scenes the visuals and audio are used in quite sophisticated ways to subliminally enhance the emotional impact, with the filmmakers subtly distorting spacial dimensions and/or soundscapes. For example, to create an eerie "deja vu" effect when Phil returns to Gobblers Knob, the little park with the bandstand, the music is slightly distorted with a chilling echo effect. Later too, when in extreme close-up the clock numerals on Phil's hotel alarm clock change from 05.59 to 06.00 a.m., the audio effect is amplified, heightening the dreadful inevitability Phil feels. And apparently the dimensions of Phil's hotel room were changed to increase feelings of claustrophobia and alienation.

Speaking of alienation, Brian Aldiss, one of the later breed of science fiction writers mining inner space (people's psyches) rather than outer space, successfully created an objective rationale for alienation in the short story "Man In His Time" (1965). The idea in this story is that planets have their own time zones and that planet-hopping astronauts may return to us physically but remain separated from us temporally, even, in the case of the protagonist of this story, finding himself experiencing everything an awkward three minutes ahead of his wife and colleagues. Likewise, Groundhog Day is an elegantly realised externalisation of inner space through a time-travel or alternate dimension paradigm, encapsulating the whole breadth of human emotion and attitude to life. For all that it is a comedy, at its centre, I would say Groundhog Day is a story about human depression and despair and our responses to that human predicament. The title has entered the vernacular as short-hand for a tedious repetitive (working) experience.

Turning to the performances, Bill Murray puts in a great performance, typically minimal, and credible across a wide range of character traits, from warm-hearted and loving to coolly obnoxious to clinically depressed. I hadn't given Andie MacDowell much credit, but on second thoughts, she is an excellent foil for Murray, and functions as the story's moral and emotional compass, guiding the audience via her reactions to Phil. As Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson said about Michelle Monaghan's performance in Duncan Jones's similarly themed Source Code (2011), MacDowell is able to overcome the inherent difficulties in a role with a lot of repetition, keeping her performance feeling fresh and spontaneous.

It is not only the leads who give good performances. A host of actors with small roles provide outstanding supporting performances. Stephen Tobolowsky is gorgeously obnoxious as the insurance salesman and Marita Geraghty is stunningly ditzy. Given only the verbal equivalent of post-it notes, Angela Paton, Brenda Pickleman, Robin Duke and Rick Overton, to name but a few, are all brilliantly effective in making their points.

Exceptional films like this remind us that, like good dramas, good comedies turn out to be about something substantial. I tell my students that we can derive two morals from this film: 1) It's up to you what you make of your time (your day) on earth, so spend your time wisely; 2) If you want to win a person's love, you need to make yourself loveable.

Postscript (30.05.11): I've been reading "How to Read a Film" by James Monaco, and this has reminded me of the filmic writing of Alain Robbe-Grillet. It occurs to me now that the literary equivalent of Groundhog Day is Robbe-Grillet's novel "Jealousy" (1957), in which the same scenes are revisited again and again, with new twists and false trails and dead ends and backtracks and insights, in the mind of a man suspicious that his wife may be having an affair.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 14 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Sources:

• Filmspotting #342

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Corrected "Quickly figuring out the parameters of situation" to "Quickly figuring out the parameters of the situation". Added ranking image.

Desk Set (1957)

Make the office a wonderful place to love in!

Desk Set is a smart romantic office-based comedy starring the legendary on-screen/off-screen couple, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and an interesting man (or in this case, woman) vs. machine theme, with a sly twist of woman vs. man thrown in.

Miss "Bunny" Watson (Hepburn) is the operational head of the Reference Department of a large corporation (the fictional Federal Broadcasting Network, it says on Wikipedia), where she oversees a small team of women researchers, fending a host of queries by phone. Watson has moulded her researchers into a capable and productive team, and she herself is stunningly encyclopaedic in her knowledge. Into this smoothly-running department comes a mystery consultant assigned by top management, Richard Sumner (Tracy), a self-effacing tight-lipped but strangely likeable character who spends his time poking into obscure corners, measuring things with his tape measure, and crawling around on the floor with a piece of chalk. He turns out to be an efficiency expert, or "methods engineer" as he puts it, whose work in the Accounts Department is rumoured to have resulted in the installation of a new computer system, and a large number of workers losing their jobs. As one would expect, such rumours lead to high anxiety among the Reference Department staff, particularly as, because of a possible upcoming merger deal, Sumner has been sworn to secrecy by the top brass as to his true goals within the department.

There are some very enjoyable scenes, including one where Sumner, hoping to prove to Watson how useful a computerised reference system would be, tests her with the sort of questions that computers are very good at but most humans are rather poor at, with interesting results. Another excellent scene pits the women in the reference department against a computerised system, like a modern version of John Henry, the legendary railway worker who pitted his skills against a mechanical steam hammer (or drill, depending on the source [Wikipedia: John Henry (folklore)]).

As for the romantic angle, Watson is in a long-term relationship with her immediate boss, titular head of the department, Mike Cutler (Gig Young), and as the film begins, is waiting for her invitation to accompany him to some upcoming key social event. There is more than a little anxiety on her part due to the length of their relationship, and the way he seems to take her for granted. Sumner's arrival introduces an interesting twist. Watson is unexpectedly asked out to lunch by Sumner, and there is a little flutter of excitement at a potential rival suitor, though the lunch engagement turns out very differently to how Watson imagines.

For those familiar with the genre of romantic comedies (and who is not?), there is little suspense to be had here, but a great deal of pleasure in watching the easy interplay between the two leads in their familiar double act (they first teamed 15 years earlier, according to Wikipedia), with Tracy playing the quiet straight man, the understated foil, to Hepburn's high intensity comic. Of course, as often happened in the old Hollywood studio system with its stables of highly charismatic and capable but ageing stars, Tracy and Hepburn are too old for their roles. The role of Watson would be best suited to someone in her late thirties, at a guess, while Hepburn was a decade older, and Tracy was in his mid-fifties at the time of filming. Perhaps this is partly why Hepburn ramps her performance up to such high levels of energy, simulating youthful vigour and joie de vivre.

Viewed as a group, the women represent a cline of romantic options in the office environment. At one extreme is the fresh young recruit, Ruthie (Sue Randall), so green she has to ask how far you can go with male co-workers at office parties (the unwritten rule being, apparently, whatever you can get away with without having to lock the door). At the peak of her powers is Sylvia (Dina Merill), still young and confident that she can have her choice of men, (it is she who pins a sprig of mistletoe to the inside of the department door so that she can nab any good-looking men on entry). Further along is Watson, older and on the border of hope and despair, languishing in an excessively long and uncommitted relationship with her immediate boss and worried that, like a dependable old suit of clothes that he knows will be waiting for him at the back of the closet, he might tire of her and pass her over for a younger woman. Finally, at the end of the road is Watson's best buddy, Peg (Joan Blondell), more mature, not quite so attractive, perhaps, who describes herself as having passed the point of no return, and is now on the shelf with no hope of romantic salvation.

This all begs the question of why the men should seem to have all the initiative in romantic relationships, severely disadvantaging the women, and leads on more generally to the issue of equality in the workplace. The script clearly establishes that Watson is the brains of the department, with Cutler exploiting their relationship to get her to help him with his work, which he then takes credit for. The women are clearly on relatively low salaries, with Ruthie struggling to find an affordable party dress, and even Watson having insufficient funds in hand to repay a co-worker ten dollars until another colleague repays her loan of five dollars, putting them almost at the level of the office errand boy, happy to be able to extract another five dollars in tips with their advice.

• Rating: High matinee
• When seen: 16 Apr 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Hepburn)

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Away From Her (2006)

Sometimes you have to let go of what you can't live without.

"Away From Her" is the writing and directorial feature film debut of the multi-talented Canadian actress (writer, director, singer) Sarah Polley, so good in Doug Liman's ensemble black comedy "Go" (1999) and Vincenzo Natali's recent SF fantasy horror "Splice" (2009).

This film is a remarkably accomplished first feature, with a suspenseful story and beautifully judged performances by the main actors. It tells the story of how a retired university professor (Gordon Pinsent) and his wife (Julie Christie) cope with Christie's incipient Alzheimer's disease. As Christie's character, clearly possessing a strong legacy of physical fitness, presence of mind and social adroitness, starts to lose her mental faculties, so far as to endanger her own safety, the couple is faced with unpleasant choices.

The plot develops in directions that are unexpected but that significantly advance the story, severely testing the strength of Christie's husband's love. The plot is cleverly structured, interleaving events separated in time to build to a satisfying if not long-lasting end. Although the subject matter sounds depressing, ultimately, the film leaves the viewer not depressed but moved.

Christie is fantastic in the lead role, conveying from the outset, through body language and vocal delivery, a person of exceptional grace and sensibility, without which husband Pinsent's actions would be without credibility. Pinsent, Dukakis and the other members of the cast are very good in supporting roles.

Produced by Atom Egoyan, who directed Polley in "The Sweet Hereafter" (1997), for me this is a more accessible, more satisfying experience, and I look forward to more by film-maker Sarah Polley.

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 20 Mar 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

I Know Where I'm Going, a film by the venerated film-making partnership of Powell and Pressberger, poses the question of how important money is in the pursuit of happiness, and explores what happens when a person with an eminently sensible plan for future well-being unexpectedly falls into the grip of an inconvenient passion that threatens to completely derail her plans.

Wendy Hiller is compelling as Joan Webster, a middle class English woman who travels to the wilds of Scotland to marry her wealthy fiancé - so wealthy he has his own island - but finds herself stuck on the mainland in the company of a naval officer on leave, Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesy), a man apparently of little means.

The big question the film explores is that of the source of happiness, and whether money and comfort are the key. Webster, used to a relatively affluent urban existence, is impressed by the locals apparent lack of interest in money. In one scene, travelling incognito, as it were, in a local bus, Webster overhears local people commenting unfavourably on the money-powered extravagances of her wealthy fiancé. However, although spending money is a scarce commodity amongst the locals, the lack of it is not unnoticed. The hotel owner points out that her hunting rabbits for the table is not done solely for the joy of the hunt, but as the alternative to going hungry. The happiness of the son of a local fisherman / ferry boat owner is unattainable until he can save up the relatively massive sum of £20. The underlying choice facing Webster and almost all the people she meets is, when presented with financial solutions, will they gain more than they have to lose? Should they risk it?

Here's a related quote from IMDb.com:

"Joan Webster: People around here are very poor I suppose.
Torquil MacNeil: Not poor, they just haven't got money.
Joan Webster: It's the same thing.
Torquil MacNeil: Oh no, it's something quite different."

Looking at stylistic devices, there is a noticeable use of concrete metaphors, standing for intangible attributes possessed by the characters. Most striking is the use of the varying weather and water conditions to represent Webster's emotions: the fog of confusion in which she fears she will lose her way, ironically, given the title; the buffeting winds of passion that she tries to exclude from her room but that still manage sneak through cracks in the wainscotting and flutter the curtains, like the tell-tale twitching of a nervous person's fingers; the illusory calm of the flat surface of the water in the bay; the deafening torrent of water falling bizarrely beside the village's only public telephone; the huge wind-driven waves between Webster and her fiancé, strong enough to tear a treasured object from the hand, dangerous enough to drown even an experienced sailor.

Given that a key pre-requisite of a romance is that the audience be able to fall in love, at least to a degree, with the romantic leads, Hiller, for her part, exudes vitality and poise, and projects with great credibility a person struggling to keep unwanted feelings tightly bottled, with only slight perturbations indicating the strength of emotion welling inside. She is attractive, but not unobtainably so, and generally cuts a very fine figure.

Likewise, to be credible as McNeil, the man Webster falls for in just a couple of days, Livesy needs to be charismatic, preferably with a strong under-current of passion, and preferably reasonably good-looking. I'm afraid he is miscast. To my eyes, he is just a polite cheery man with a pipe, brave admittedly, but otherwise all surface and no sub-text. Perhaps, in his day, he came across differently, and it's my modern eyes that are failing to capture the charm of his performance. Alternatively, perhaps, it's a failing of the home viewing experience: perhaps on the big screen, small nuances of body language and expression in his performance have great impact.

A minor quibble is the age of the actors playing the leads. To increase the stakes, the fear that this might be her last big chance for happiness, it is good casting to have a somewhat mature actor to play Webster, and checking on Wikipedia, Hiller was a suitable 33 at the time. McNeil, on the other hand, is supposed to be 33, but, played by Livesy, looks a good deal older, in his early 50s perhaps, although, again according to Wikipedia, he was actually only 39.

• Rating: High matinee
• When seen: 27 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Starman (1984)

In 1977 Voyager II was launched into space, inviting all lifeforms in the universe to visit our planet. Get ready. Company's coming.

Heart-warming story of a visiting alien, knocked out of the sky by the trigger-happy US military, far from his rendezvous point three days hence, who takes the form of a dead man, press-ganging the man's grieving widow into chauffeur duty, as the US military machine gears up to track him down.

Excellent portrayal of the alien by Jeff Bridges, cleverly making it seem as if he is inhabiting a body whose workings are unfamiliar to him.

In a film underpinned by sentiment, Bridges manages to win our sympathies without falsely anthropomorphising his character. Karen Allen gives a luminous performance of a woman torn by contradictory feelings of attraction and repulsion. Good supporting performances by Jaekel as the head of the US military task force, and by Martin Smith as the SETI specialist.

Along the way, there is some fun to be had of the "stranger in a strange land" variety, with Bridges having to cope with a variety of new human experiences.

Parallels with the more common type of "alien" in the southern states of the USA are there for those who wish to see them. Bridges and Allen travel in the margins of society, hitching rides in the back of trucks and riding the rails at night like illegal immigrants who have just snuck across the border: a transient procession of diners, truck stops, motels, long dusty roads. The people they meet are the salt of the earth: generally kind (especially the waitresses), without thought of personal gain, though sadly not without a proportion of thick-headed red-necks.

Religious parallels are also present, but are included tastefully and appropriately, serving the story.

Special effects are relatively few, interestingly, strength of plot and acting performance being the primary sources of credibility.

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 22 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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The Rare Breed (1966)

This is a pretty entertaining film, with a good story, entertaining characters, and an interesting historical slant.

The premise is great: drop a couple of well-brought up English ladies and their well-cared for hornless Herefordshire bull into the harsh wilds of Texas, with its brutal survivalist ethos and its famously hardy longhorn cattle. Will the bull prove unfit for such a harsh environment and fail to breed? Will the English ladies be too delicate and have to escape back to England?

The women's need for funds forces them to sell the bull, and their concern for the longterm welfare of the bull provides sufficient motivation to take them to Texas. Along the way, the women experience pretty much the whole gamut of western tropes, from lusty barroom brawls to life-threatening cattle stampedes, ruthless armed robbery and the stench and squalor of an isolated cattle baron's accommodation.

The standout performances are those of the two female leads, Juliet Mills (daughter Hilary), and even more so, Maureen O'Hara (Martha). The latter is magnificent, dominating every scene.

The film introduces James Stewart's character, Sam Burnett, as an archetypal American male: tough and unafraid, quick to defend his friends with his fists, and literally taking bulls by their horns. From the outset, the plot endeavours to make Stewart's employer, rancher Taylor, unsympathetic, so as to bring us more on side when Stewart's character later contracts to cheat the man - a key plot point. However, I was distracted by the idea of Stewart wrestling a powerful longhorn bull to the ground, wondering if the filmmakers were seriously going to expect us to believe that a middle-aged man would be up for such athletics. As is often the case, James Stewart (here 58) is really too old for the role (you can clearly see the use of thicker-bodied stunt doubles in the action sequences) and too intelligent to play such a simple-minded cowboy (John Wayne, anyone?). I've seen a documentary that included modern "bull-grabbers", and they were all fit young men. Stewart's role is rather subdued for most of the story, only once or twice rising to the thrilling intensity of one of his conflicted characters in the Anthony Mann westerns. Arguably, Stewart does not play the lead but rather a supporting character, and it's really an O'Hara movie.

One strange character choice was to portray cattle rancher Bowen (Brian Keith), Stewart's rival for O'Hara's affections, for all the world like a traditional Scottish laird in a ranch-house styled like a dark high-ceilinged Scottish Highland castle, and first seen in squalor, filthy furs piled all around, tearing meat from the bone with his teeth, with the dogs allowed on the table, snatching meat from the master's platter. According to Wikipedia, the story is loosely based on the life of rancher William Burgess, so maybe this was true to life. In any case, the inclusion of the ex-Scot, Bowen, allows the film-makers to pit a Briton against Stewart's archetypal American in a struggle for O'Hara's affections.

The outdoor snow scenes feature some stunning photography, notably when Stewart's horse is trying to force its way through very deep snow drifts. But on the whole, this is not a very naturalistic film. There are some poorly realised overlay shots where the colour palettes of the foreground characters and background scenes jar. The women maintain a high degree of enhanced photogeneity throughout, and apart from Bowen, the men remain fairly presentable. The fight scenes are generally of the comic bar-room brawl style, where fists connect with jaws with impressive sound effects, nobody gets seriously hurt, and nobody is even asked to pay for the extensive damage!

So, all in all, worth catching, but without the intensity of interest of an Anthony Mann western.

• Rating: Matinee
• When seen: 19 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Crazy Heart (2009)

The harder the life, the sweeter the song.

Unfortunately, as with so many DVDs watched at home, under less than ideal conditions, I didn't see this all at once, but saw the last 15 minutes some days later. It wasn't easy to find the right occasion to watch the last part of the film, and now, sadly, I can't remember much of what I thought and felt about the film.

The story is very simple, and is told in a straightforward fashion. An aging country singer/songwriter with a failing career and a drinking problem meets a woman who he really likes. How will it all turn out? Can a person like him find happiness?

Bridges, of course, is very good, though so method (or mumble-core in modern vernacular) that it is sometimes difficult to make out what he is saying, at least for my poor ears, and I'll admit after a while I resorted to subtitles. (Apparently in True Grit, he's even more incomprehensible. Don't suppose they'll let me run subtitles at the cinema!)

Gyllenhaal too is fine, but at the risk of being ungallant, I don't really understand why she is chosen for lead romantic roles. I can't understand her appeal. Farrell is good as the face of new country.

I read on Wikipedia that The New York Times said the novel, written by Thomas Cobb, "also functions as a shrewd and funny running critique of contemporary country music." Sounds great. This film doesn't really achieve that, to my mind, although it does indicate that if you live the kind of hard-drinking life rhapsodised in many country songs, you'll be unsuited for a career in country music.

The story line with the Gyllenhaal's son is interesting and well done.

I remember thinking the country music was pretty good, and that Jeff Bridges sang well (bought a couple of the songs off the soundtrack album from iTunes). Made me wonder about other similar singing actors, like Joachim Phoenix in Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash story, Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born, Bob Dylan in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and in the shower I've been singing Lee Marvin's Wandrin' Star (which I really like - unlike many, apparently) from Paint Your Wagon, while wondering about Clint Eastwood's A side song (was it Talk to the Trees?) and thinking I should check out other stuff by him.

Clint Eastwood has a pretty good voice, and composed the music for a number of his films, if I remember right. So why hasn't he been praised for doing the whole shebang - the way Chaplin was? Could it be because country music is considered too low-brow?

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 17 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Added genre tag "romance"; deleted a reference to a family member who objected to having their opinions aired in public. Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

It's Complicated (2009)

Divorced... with benefits.

I wouldn't normally have chosen to watch this film. It was lent to me, impromptu, by a colleague with whom I had been talking - positively - about Meryl Streep, praising her for her ability to pull off strongly contrastring roles in Mama Mia and Doubt. But then I thought, why not give it a spin: Xanthe and I can watch it on Valentine's Day!

So, it's clearly a chick flick - which is to say a film proceeding within or alongside a set of audience expectations relating to the loose conventions of the romantic comedy genre - but with such well-seasoned protagonists, definitely one for middle-aged chicks. I have mixed feelings about the film, but it does have some strong comic moments.

The plot plays with an interesting premise: given the opportunity to have a second chance at a relationship with your ex-husband or wife, who previously left you for a much younger partner (to whom they are still married), what happens? Where does happiness lie? Is it with the old familiar partner or might a new love interest win out?

Meryl Streep is in Mama Mia rather than Doubt mode: laughing, smiling, twinkling, chortling, cavorting; doing her winsome best to keep the proceedings light and frothy.

Alec Baldwin very good value as the ex-husband. Steve Martin, the new man on Streep's horizon, looking strangely well-preserved, so that Xanthe was sure he'd had some "work" done, especially as this was an topic raised early in the plot.

The attitude towards physical love-making is quite positive: two key protagonists get very excited about all the great sex they are having and behave very impulsively. By contrast, the young people in the film are all nicely dressed and behave quite demurely.

I was annoyed by the "Greek chorus" of girlfriends Streep's character, Jane, gets together with on occasion, who presumably function partly as our on-screen surrogates (or is it peers?), egging her on. Likewise, I felt that her therapist took a wrong turn in their meeting, in a way that stretched credibility.

The wealth of the main protagonists rather reduced for me the urgency of their personal stakes. At times I felt I couldn't care less about the petty emotional issues of such well-to-do, over-fed people.

Xanthe and I were stunned at the size and opulence of Streep character's home and garden, and couldn't understand why she needed to extend the building, which already seemed quite large enough. We also wondered where the money to pay for it all was coming from. I had thought she was just an employee at the bakery where she worked, but to have acquired so much disposable income, she must surely have been the proprietor.

• Rating: Matinee
• When seen: 14 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)

He's quite engaging. She's otherwise engaged.

Such a successful romantic tragi-comedy. Really funny, moving, emotionally credible. A breakout success that paved the way in the US market for a rush of other British films.

Remarkable how no backstory is given for the characters. Yet we believe in them as a strange social group. The plot cleverly excludes almost all references to the world of work, so the characters exist in a pure world of social relationships.

The WH Auden poem, Stop All The Clocks, is a real highpoint. I saw it on the day of a colleague's funeral, and wept.

Such a good performance by Hugh Grant - probably the key to film's success. Also of course Kristen Scott Thomas. Not to mention the gay couple Simon Callow and John Hannah. And McDowell is fine, if less desirable, ultimately, than Scott Thomas, who is luminous, rivettingly (regally?) fine and intelligent.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 17 Dec 2010
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Simon Callow, James Fleet, Rowan Atkinson, John Hannah, David Bower, Charlotte Coleman". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Enchanted (2007)

The real world and the animated world collide. This fairytale princess is about to meet a real Prince Charming.

Very enjoyable. Good story with strong positive underlying message about women's role in fairy tales, with Giselle (Amy Adams) developing from paper doll into a strong relatively rounded character.

Especially notable for Adams' performance, bringing credibility to a tricky role requiring sweetness and naïveté as well as inner strength.

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 26 Dec 2010
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, Susan Sarandon". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Adventureland (2009)

Long hours. Low pay. High times.

Very nice romantic comedy drama, with realistic coming-of-age story. Excellent script. Quite low-key, but all the better for it.

Eisenberg very good as a sympathetic, sensitive geeky intellectual, thrown into a shitty work environment by his parents' financial straits. Stewart also good with her minimal poker-face style. Supporting cast excellent.

• Rating: Full price
• When seen: 07 Jan 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: added actor tags: "Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Amelie (2001)

She'll change your life.

This is a wonderful film, a romantic comedy but not a genre film, set in the world of comic Jeunet grotesques (cf. Delicatessen, City of Lost Children).

The character of Amelie is something of a grotesque too, but made mainstream (= commercial) by the actor Audrey Tatou's personal charm and good looks, which provides a relatively normal access point, or point of view (POV), for the viewer. Switch Tatou for a less winsome, odder-looking young woman, and Amelie would be more unavoidably an eccentric amongst grotesques.

The stakes couldn't be higher. From the beginning, we are shown that Amelie is a young woman whose character has been been formed by an unusual childhood, which has given her an eccentric outlook on the world. As an adult, she now occupies a world of eccentrics, none of whom has been able to fully realise themselves, each one compromised by some flaw or circumstance. And we understand that Amelie herself is ultimately in terrible jeopardy, for unless something or someone changes the course of her future, she will share her neighbours' bleak fate, becoming like them a disappointed or embittered or damaged grotesque.

In many respects, Amelie is a modern version of Jane Austen's Emma: busy making matches between lonely people, and trying to bring hope and /or happiness to sad people, but reluctant to risk reaching out to seize happiness for herself. She is good at clever "schemes" but always at a distance, anonymously.

Jeunet uses every trick in the book to keep things fresh and surprising and delightful: ironic voice over, magic realism, breaking the fourth wall with direct looks and performances to the audience, speeding up sequences.

There is a wonderful mystery involving photo booths, like one of those logic problems people used to tease you with.

The sub-textual values of the film are to be cherished: art for art's delightful sake rather than commercial gain, although that message may be slightly ironic given the film's strong commercial appeal.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 03 Feb 2011
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

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Amendments: Added writer tag: "Guillaume Laurant"; actor tags: "Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Claire Maurier, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Witness (1985)

Harrison Ford is John Book - a big city cop who knows too much. His only evidence: a small boy who's seen too much...

I really love this film. It is so clever, using our identification with the honest but cynical and violent Detective Book (Harrison Ford) to draw us into an alternative culture, existing alongside ours in virtual islands. As Book gets to know and falls in love with Rachel (Kelly McGillis), we ourselves learn about and fall in love with the old-world values of Amish life, with its insistence on pacificism and strength of community (who can not weep a little for our alienated modern life-style during the barn-raising scene?).

The direction (Peter Weir) is outstanding, with numerous bravura sequences of fluid apparently-meandering camera-work and no / almost no dialogue, notably the early sequence with Samuel at the train station, the sequence with Samuel in the police station, and the explosive final reel in the barn. Also of note is Weir's technique for creating chemistry between the two leads, in the remarkable "ballet of alternating looks" that creates tension.

The performances are amazing, with McGillis showing a range from demure to openly sizzlingly wantonly lustful, and Ford turning in a career best, e.g. in one or two scenes doing more with the back of his head and shoulders than many actors can do with the front of their faces, to say nothing of brilliant turns from Haas, Rubes and Godunov. Roger Ebert said: "Harrison Ford has never given a better performance in a movie."

Put all that together with thrilling action sequences and a story with real heart, and you have one of the best films of the 1980s.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: Unrecorded
• Where seen: Home
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added writer tags: "Earl W Wallace, William Kelley, Pamela Wallace"; actor tags: "Kelly McGillis, Jan Rubes, Danny Glover, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.

Once (2006)

How often do you find the right person?

A lovely gentle musical film with three main strands of interest: the developing relationship between the two leads; an overview of the music-recording process, from street performing to the professional production of a studio CD; and lastly, an insight into the lives of the kind of people we see in the street selling things and performing.

The film is very naturalistic, with a kind of intimate small story about believable people. John Carney, the director, was a drummer in Glen Hansard's band The Frames, and the musical side of things seems entirely authentic. The leads, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, are musicians and wrote and perform their music themselves. In an interview on the DVD, Carney explained that the story underlying the film was purposefully short and simple. For people with short attention spans, there may be a dearth of action, and too many musical sections, allowed for by the simplicity of storyline. As well as a great amount of music in the film, a notable feature is the diegetic nature of almost all the music.

The arc of the relationship between the two leads and its denouement is very interesting and well done. I was told by a Russian student that when he asks her in Czech if she still loves her husband, and she answers mysteriously in Czech, and won't translate, that what she says is that she loves HIM. I read that in real life, the leads had a romantic relationship, but that it only lasted a couple of years.

The final crane shot, pulling back from the final configuration of characters, with one of them looking out, is very emotional for me, still after several viewings.

• Rating: Exceptional
• When seen: 27 Jan 2011
• Where seen: School
• More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia

Amendments: Added actor tag: "Markéta Irglová". Corrected spelling of "diegetic". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.