TIFF FILM REVIEW: Richard Ayoade’s ‘Submarine’

Posted on September 16, 2010 by admin

Craig Roberts and Justine Paige in Richard Ayoade’s film of Joe Dunthorne’s ‘Submarine’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Joe Dunthorne’s delightfully idiosyncratic 2008 novel “Submarine,” in which a smart and eccentrically gifted 15-year-old muses about school, girls, movies, parents and life in general, is the kind of book that almost never is made into a film of matching quality. Richard Ayoade’s movie “Submarine” is a sublime exception.

Given a central character who describes his own take on things while evidence to the contrary is there for all to see, the film could easily get a case of the insufferable cutes, but Ayoade succeeds with a light touch and a keen sense of the absurd.

Fans of vaguely twisted humor rendered by skilled actors with straight faces will eat this up, and if it catches the right wave, “Submarine” could navigate towards wide appeal with acclaim and consequent box office success.

Jaunty and sly with a great many laughs, the film also has on its soundtrack several typically witty and melodic songs written and performed by Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys.

Craig Roberts as Oliver Tate and Yasmin Paige as his beloved Jordana are perfect, with each demonstrating a pleasing agility in vocal and facial expression that adds immeasurably to the drollery.

Roberts plays Oliver as a young man in Wales whose grasp of imagined possibilities is greater than his grip on reality and he manages it with great charm. Paige is a wonder as Jordana, who brings Oliver down to earth abruptly with her simple but at that age savage statements of honesty. Adept at glances that render speech unnecessary and, for a yearning boy, rid the world of hope, she also can grant the wickedest hint of a smile that soothes all ills.

Roberts’ confident voice-over derives from Dunthorne’s writing with observations about scenes that the director and cinematographer Erik Wilson play with mischievously.

Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins play Oliver’s parents with a smart duality that reflects both the boy’s impression of them and who they might actually be. Their reading of lines that touch on serious matters regarding education, teenagers and sexual activity are so dry they become hilarious.

Paddy Considine contributes a vision of a mystic mentalist whose over-the-top brio is curiously tempered by self-doubt even as he attempts to seduce the compliant Mrs. Tate.

Schoolyard bullying, classroom pranks, and the pain in the teenaged heart caused by unrequited love are all detailed with a fine attention to nuance. It’s clever stuff, and very funny.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Sales: Protagonist Pictures; Production company: Warp Films; Cast: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Page, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine, Sally Hawkins; Director, screenwriter: Richard Ayoade, based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne; Producers: Marj Herbert, Andy Stebbing, Mary Burke; Executive producers: Ben Stiller, Stuart Cornfeld, Jeremy Kramer; Director of photography: Erik Wilson; Production designer: Gary Williamson; Music: Alex Turner, Andrew Hewitt; Costume designer: Charlotte Walter; Editors: Nick Fenton, Chris Dickens; No rating, running time 94 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM FESTIVAL: Justin Lerner’s ‘Girlfriend’

Posted on September 15, 2010 by admin

Shannon Woodward and Evan Snider in a difficult romance in Justin Lerner’s ‘Girlfriend’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Justin Lerner’s “Girlfriend” claims to be the first U.S. feature film to star a person with Down syndrome, namely Evan Sneider who plays a young man with a major crush on a single mom he’s coveted since high school.

The particular difficulties that face someone in his situation are explored with sensitivity and genuine dramatic tension with a central performance that will please audiences seeking observant and heartfelt drama. It should do well in selected theatrical markets and thrive on DVD.

Evan, also the character’s name in the film, is industrious and gregarious, joining his Mom (Amanda Plummer) on staff at a local café. When she dies suddenly, his other relatives elect to trust his ability to look after himself with a very large amount of insurance cash.

Evan has long harbored romantic inclinations towards a former classmate named Candy, played by Shannon Woodward (TV’s “The Riches” and this season’s Fox comedy “Raising Hope”). He likes to drop by her house unannounced and discovers that she is about to be evicted from her home due to lack of payments by ex-husband Russ (Jackson Rathbone, Jasper in “The Twilight Saga” films).

The young man decides to give her $1000 to help her out and as her ex-husband becomes more abusive, he gives her even more. Candy swears the money is just a loan, but Evan is clear that he just wants to give it to her.

His gift, however, does come with a price, and that is for her to become his girlfriend. With Candy involved with a married man on top of her hassles with Russ, the situation will become heated.

Writer-director Lerner does not over-do the melodrama and he derives considerable suspense from the notion that Evan’s behavior could become extreme. Sneider handles scenes of tenderness, mystery and anger with much skill and the director shrewdly lets the young actor’s expressive eyes carry key scenes.

Woodward matches him playing an easily tempted woman who discovers within herself a degree of grace she might not have suspected was there. It requires considerable delicacy and Woodward nails it. Rathbone, too, gives his jealous lover a measure of subtlety that adds depth to his character.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Sales: Paradigm; Production companies: Wayne/Lauren Film Company; Cast: Shannon Woodward, Jackson Rathbone, Amanda Plummer, Evan Sneider; Director, screenwriter, producer: Justin Lerner; Producers: Jerad Anderson, Kristina Lauren Anderson, Shaun O’Banion; Executive producer: Jason Oliver; Director of photography: Quyen Tran; Production designers: Seth Chatfield, Harrison Lees; Music: 100 Monkeys; Costume designer: June Suepunpuck; Editor: Jeff Castellucio; No rating, running time 94 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Rowan Joffe’s ‘Brighton Rock’

Posted on September 15, 2010 by admin

Sam Riley is Pinkie and Andrea Riseborough is Rose in the new ‘Brighton Rock’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Rowan Joffe’s film of Graham Greene’s 1938 novel “Brighton Rock” takes a gothic approach to the story of a young thug obsessed with hell with little of the writer’s subtlety and too much reliance on a loud quasi-religious choral score.

In his first film as director, screenwriter Joffe (“The American,” “28 Days Later”) sets the drama entirely in Brighton on the UK’s Sussex coast but transplants the story from the book’s 1930s to 1964 during the Mods vs. Rockers gang wars. That cultural conflict and the burgeoning ’60s social revolution, however, have little to do with the central story, which is a typical Greene tale of good versus evil.

John Boulting’s 1947 film, also known as “Young Scarface,” made a major star of Richard Attenborough but while Sam Riley (“Control”) acquits himself well, the new film is not likely to do the same for him. The director’s injudicious emphasis on Martin Phipps’ score also does not help.

Reliable veterans Helen Mirren and John Hurt and the highly promising young actress Andrea Riseborough add to the film’s appeal but it will probably be restricted to literary buffs curious to see a new Greene picture.

The production is faithful to the novel, starting with a murder that triggers a gang war over the protection racket in the seaside town. Pinkie (Riley) is a nasty young hoodlum with big ambitions whose leader is knifed to death.

Vengeance leads to the death of the perpetrator Hale (Sean Harris) but not before he has involved an innocent waitress named Rose (Riseborough) as he tries to evade Pinkie’s henchman Spicer (Phil Harris) on the Brighton Pier.

With Rose now a vital witness, Pinkie courts her to keep her quiet but discovers that she also is a lost soul but one who innately on the side of the angels. “I’m bad. You’re good. We’re made for each other,” he says.

Meanwhile, Rose’s boss Ida (Mirren), who runs a pub and a posh tea shop, starts to ask questions about her late friend Hale and with a local bookie named Corkery (Hurt), she gradually puts the pieces together. Pinkie is willing to marry Rose to keep her quiet even though the girl believes he truly loves her. He’s also willing to sell out his fellow gang-members by going to work for rival hoodlum Colleoni (Andy Serkis).

Greene’s examination of the tug of war between Ida and Pinkie over Rose’s fate plays out as in the book but the other characters are given short shrift. Riley continues to grow as an actor but lacks the feral impact of the young Attenborough or Richard Widmark.

Riseborough, her beauty made dowdy and winsome, captures with delicacy Rose’s willingness to forsake heaven for the love of a wretched man. Mirren makes Ida knowing and tough but also susceptible to the shy approach of the longtime friend played by Hurt as a wounded soul.

The film looks good with splendid images of the Brighton Pier and the marvelous white cliffs in Sussex known as the Seven Sisters where key scenes take place.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Sales: Optimum Releasing; Production companies: BBC Films, Kudos Film and Television, Optimum Films; Cast: Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren, John Hurt, Andy Serkis, Phil Davis, Sean Harris, Nonso Anozie; Director, screenwriter: Rowan Joffe; Producer: Paul Webster; Director of photography: John Mathieson; Production designer: James Merifield; Music: Martin Phipps; Costume designer: Julian Day; Editor: Joe Walker; No rating, 111 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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THEATER REVIEW: ‘Les Miserables – 25th Anniversary’

Posted on September 15, 2010 by admin

les mis 25th x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – In a reasonable world, 25 years should see fans of strident caterwauling  sated sufficiently, but here is “Les Miserables” in a new production to celebrate the show’s quarter century.

It has returned to London’s Barbican from whence it came and it’s a testament to that solidly built cultural center that its roof remains intact despite the relentless assault of orchestra and singers whose sole aim appears to be to blow it off.

Monotonous inflated music with banal lyrics is blasted out in an aggressively unpleasant production that treats audience members as if they were trapped in a wind tunnel. Perhaps once it was sung better and the “American Idol” style of belting has infected it.

There’s no accounting for taste, of course, and some 50 million theatergoers reportedly have subjected themselves willingly to this abuse, but then 36 million people used to watch “American Idol.”

Based on the epic Victor Hugo novel, “Les Miserables” tells of unrest in France over 20 years leading up to the Paris uprising of 1832. It follows ex-convict Jean Valjean (John Owen-Jones) as he tries to make his way in the world while harassed at every turn by obsessed police inspector Javert (Earl Cameron) who wants to return him to the slammer.

There’s a woman named Fantine (Madaleno Alberto) who has a child named Cosette (Katie Hall) but Fantine suffers and dies and Cosette mostly just suffers. They each proclaim their misery in songs of yearning including a shrieked version of the hit “I Dreamed a Dream,” which Susan Boyle sang to great acclaim on “Britain’s Got Talent.”

There’s corrupt hotelkeeper Thenardier (Ashey Artus) and his rudely buxom wife Mrs. Thenardier (Lynne Wilmot), who are intended for light relief but whose songs are bitter rather than biting. There are assorted young men and women who weep and wail, and one who marches in step ahead of a stomping chorus as they all try to collapse the rear walls of the theater.

The show is sung-through so that ordinary conversation also is delivered in full voice, which only adds to the sense of being bombarded by perhaps talented vocalists who have been encouraged never to lower their tones.

Once celebrated for its impressive sets, the new production has been scaled down so that Hugo-inspired videos play as a backdrop. With no set changes, it propels along and its pulsating drive nullifies whatever charms the show might have had. No doubt there will be many who will have a different reaction but from here it’s entirely appropriate that the English translation of the title is “The Wretched.”

Venue: Barbican Hall, runs through Oct. 2; Cast: John Owen-Jones, Earl Carpenter, Madaleno Alberto, Katie Hall, Gareth Gates, Rosalind James; Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg; Lyrics: Herbert Kretzmer; Original French text: Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel; Directors: Laurence Connor, James Powell; Set designer: Matt Kinley; Lighting designer: Paule Constable; Costume designer: Andreane Neofitou.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Hilary Swank in ‘Conviction’

Posted on September 14, 2010 by admin

Minnie Driver and Hilary Swank fight to release a falsely accused man in ‘Conviction’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” is a soundly constructed tale of an individual fighting against a travesty of justice with Hilary Swank as a high school dropout who devotes her life to becoming a lawyer in order to prove that her jailed brother is innocent of murder.

With a fine cast including Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver and Melissa Leo, the film is in the tradition of fighting-the-system stories drawn from real life such as “Erin Brokovich,” and its powerful emotional appeal should draw a substantial grownup audience.

Swank and Rockwell play Betty Ann and Kenny Waters, siblings in rural Massachusetts in the 1980s who in flashbacks are seen to have come to depend upon only each other thanks to an absent father, a careless, self-absorbed mother and a string of foster homes.

They both marry and have children but Kenny is a rowdy roughneck whose hijinks often put him on the wrong side of the law. When a woman is brutally murdered, he’s one of the usual suspects but is soon cleared and sent home.

Two years later, new evidence surfaces in the form of testimony from two women who claim they heard Kenny confess to the murder. Pushy small-town cop Nancy Taylor (Leo) immediately arrests him and he is tried and convicted.

Betty Ann refuses to believe her brother is possible of murder and she sets out to prove it. Over almost two decades, she first gets a high-school diploma, then a degree and finally tackles law school.

She loses her husband but she makes an important friend in fellow law student Abra (Driver), who encourages her ambition and helps with the investigation. When DNA forensic techniques are discovered, it becomes a matter of finding all the blood work from the first trial to force an acquital, and so Betty Ann continues her quest.

Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray have a fine grasp of classic storytelling and while the pace never slackens, they always find time for the small but important touches that add to a film’s depth.

Swank and Rockwell are very effective as siblings locked at the hip and their scenes together smack of a real shared history. Driver adds some important pepper to the proceedings and Juliette Lewis makes a vital impression in two scenes as a bedraggled, not very bright witness.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures;Production: Andrew Sugerman, Longfellow Pictures; Cast: Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo, Peter Gallagher; Director, Producer: Tony Goldwyn; Screenwriter: Pamela Gray; Producers: Andrew S. Karsch, Andrew Sugarman; Director of Photography: Adriano Goldman; Production designer: Mark Ricker; Music: Paul Cantelon; Costume designer: Wendy Chuck; Editor: Jay Cassidy.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Mickey Rourke in ‘Passion Play’

Posted on September 14, 2010 by admin

Megan Fox plays Mickey Rourke’s feathery angel in Mitch Glazer’s ‘Passion Play’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Screenwriter Mitch Glazer’s first directorial effort, “Passion Play” starring Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox is a sentimental noir fable aimed at movie buffs with a soft spot for tough guys with tender hearts.

Rourke in “The Wrestler” mode plays a washed-up horn player at odds with a buttoned-down but very dangerous hoodlum named Happy Shannon played by Bill Murray at his most deadpan. Megan Fox is the angel flying too close to the ground who comes between them.

If the degree of laughter at the wrong moments and the number of walkouts at the Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the film will appeal only to the most fondly indulgent.

Fans of the genre will know where the film is going the minute Nate (Rourke) is driven to a remote place next to a river by a bad man with a gun to be punished for sleeping with the boss’ wife.

A red-tail hawk fills the screen and bullets fly but they hit the bad guy. Nate staggers through the brush and stumbles upon a carnival run by flamboyant carny boss Sam Adamo (Rhys Ifans in full voice).

There, he meets a beautiful young woman named Annie (Fox) whose abundant charms extend to a genuine pair of wings. At this point, those who don’t get it will likely begin to snigger, as many did in the press and industry audience at the Toronto.

Smitten instantly, Nate frees Annie from Adamo’s exploitive clutches but no sooner are they back in the city than he’s trying to make a deal with Happy Shannon over rights to Annie’s potential income as a gorgeous woman with wings.

The inevitable falling out leads to a tussle over the woman and along the way Rourke gets to mime an extraordinarily unconvincing scene of Nate’s trumpet playing, and Fox disrobes attractively.

Rourke’s rumpled hard-man vulnerability is part of his charm and fans will enjoy his work, as will those who enjoy Murray’s ineffably cool line readings. Fox is persuasively shy and hurt, using a soft and whispery voice.

Best of all, there is a terrific song soundtrack assembled by music supervisor Randall Poster including tracks by Little Jimmy Scott, Solomon Burke, Allen Tousaint, and Billy Swan’s marvelous slow version of the Elvis classic “Don’t Be Cruel” heard in full.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Sales: Sierra Pictures; Production company: Annapurna Productions; Cast: Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox, Bill Murray, Kelly Lynch, Rhys Ifans; Director, screenwriter: Mitch Glazer; Producers: Daniel Dubiecki, Megan Ellison; Director of photography: Christopher Doyle; Production designer: Waldermar Kalinowski; Music: Dickon Hinchliffe; Costume designer: Lisa Jensen Nye; Editor: Billy Weber; No rating, 91 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Clive Owen in ‘Trust’

Posted on September 13, 2010 by admin

Clive Owen and Liana LIberato as father and daughter in David Schwimmer’s ‘Trust’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – The title of David Schwimmer’s understated drama “Trust” derives from children and parents who have too much of it when dealing with the potential perils of internet chat rooms.

Clive Owen provides a wrenching study of an apparently hip dad whose confidence in his 14-year-old daughter’s fearlessly independent spirit is destroyed when she falls afoul of a preying pedophile.

The film has some problems with plausibility given the huge amount of publicity accorded the dangers of online relationships and there are questions about the girl’s behavior. But the even-handed storytelling and moving performances should attract substantial grownup audiences.

Without attempting to be too clever, Schwimmer and screenwriter Andy Bellin use onscreen titles to match online chats as the central characters are introduced. Annie (Liana Liberato) gets a top-of-the-line laptop for her birthday to go with her smartphone but besides her school pals she’s in constant touch with a boy in California she knows as Charlie.

Mom (Catherine Keener) and dad are professionals who run a loving home with Annie, a son going off to college and a younger daughter. Heading to highschool, Annie worries about being popular and making the netball team but the one she confides in most is Charlie.

Credibility takes a hit when Charlie reveals in their online chats that he is not Annie’s age but actually 20. Then he tells her he’s 25, and doesn’t stop there. Schwimmer makes no attempt to obscure the fact that Liberato is a perfectly gorgeous young woman with poise, intelligence and charm, so it’s a bit surprising that she doesn’t just go, “Eyew,” and cut him right off.

With dad a handsome and successful advertising man who adores her, it’s not easy to see where her lack of esteem and apparently desperate need for approval come from.

Still less when she agrees to meet Charlie at the mall and he turns out to be a 40-year-old man (Chris Henry Coffey) with a pleadingly unctuous manner. The plot requires Annie to go with him to a motel room and parade in skimpy red undies he bought for her.

The film withdraws before the inevitable assault takes place but Schwimmer is less interested in that than he is in the repercussions since Annie turns out to be not terribly fazed by it. Only when a school chum reports seeing her with an older man does the truth come out.

The reaction of the parents is far more credible as dad goes almost ballistic while mom seeks to comfort a daughter who says she only wants to be able to continue her relationship with a man they view as a rapist but she sees as a soul-mate.

This theme is well drawn and the film plays out with great intensity as Owen’s character grapples with the fact that the daughter he loves might have changed forever. The filmmakers know, too, that there are no glib answers and their film sensibly does not attempt to provide them.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Distributor: Millennium Films; Production company: Nu Image; Cast: Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, Liana Liberato, Viola Davis; Director, Producer: David Schwimmer; Screenwriter: Andy Bellin; Producers: Avi Lerner, Robert Greenhut, Heidi Jo Markel, Tom Hodges, Dana Golomb and Ed Cathell; Director of photography: Andrzej Sekula; Production designer: Michael Shaw; Music: Nathan Larson; Costume designer: Ellen Lutter; Editor: Douglas Crise; No rating, running time 124 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Jeanne Labrune’s ‘Special Treatment’

Posted on September 13, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Parisian sophistication is hard work in Jeanne Labrune’s ineffectual “Special Treatment,” which attempts to explore the similarities between prostitution and psychoanalysis.

Isabelle Huppert plays a 40-ish uptown hooker bored with her chosen career path who decides that seeing a psychiatrist will help her break free.

The woman’s roundelay of johns and shrinks soon becomes tiresome, however, and with neither great insight nor any sign of wit, the film is not likely to capture interest outside France.

Alice (Huppert) is a matter-of-fact practitioner who uses her own name to meet clients who arrive only by appointment following a recommendation from someone she knows.

Her initial encounters with potential customers take place in the bars of swank hotels where the woman arrives dressed plainly and without makeup. She seems almost bored as she runs down the activities she has on offer and the price list.

Among the analysts she seeks out are Xavier (Bouli Lanners), who is also tired of his chosen profession to the point that his wife (Valerie Dreville), also a shrink, boots him out. When Xavier meets Alice, it’s a coin toss as to who is really wishing to employ whom.

Huppert plays the role in a subdued manner that does not provide the spark that the situations require although she’s up against it given the remarkably dull script.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Sales: Films Boutique; Production companies: Artemis Productions, Art-Light; Productions, Liaison Cinematique, Samsa Film; Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Bouli Lanners, Richard Debuisne, Sabila Moussadek, Valerie Dreville; Director, screenwriter: Jeanne Labrune ; Screenwriter: Richard Debuisne; Producer: Jani Thiltges; Director of photography: Virginie Saint-Martin; Production designer: Regine Constant; Music: Andre Mergenthaler; Editor: Anja Ludcke; No rating, running time 95 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘Made in Dagenham’

Posted on September 12, 2010 by admin

Sally Hawkins plays a reluctant union organiser in ‘Made In Dagenham’

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – The real-life tale of a group of female machinists who took on the Ford Motor Company in England and earned equal pay for women gets a rousing and entertaining telling in Nigel Cole’s crowd-pleasing “Made in Dagenham.”

Sally Field won her first Oscar in 1979 playing a reluctant union activist in Martin Ritt’s “Norma Mae” and history might repeat itself with Sally Hawkins as Rita O’Grady, the leader of 187 women who went on strike against the auto giant in the late 1960s.

Like Cole’s “Calendar Girls,” it’s a story about no-nonsense women doing their bit for the right cause and, especially in these tough economic times, it should strike a rich seam of rewards from audiences everywhere.

Period authenticity is nailed within the film’s sunny design and sharply drawn characters with Britain’s class structure and male-oriented industries depicted without fuss. It was a simple fact that women were required to do the same work as men but for far less pay. When the machinists at Ford’s huge plant in Dagenham, near London, objected to being classified as non-skilled workers in order to keep their wages down, they not only objected but also took action with game-changing impact.

Hawkins plays one of the “girls” whose husband Eddie (Daniel Mays) also works at the plant. When shop steward Connie (Geraldine James) finds taking care of her war-wounded husband (Roger Lloyd-Pack) to much, she is glad to hand things over to Rita.

Bob Hoskins plays a wise old union hand whose affection for the hard-working women in his family drives him to support the women’s struggle. Kenneth Cranham is the plant’s union chief who is usually willing to get into bed with management so long as peace is maintained.

Andrea Riseborough and Jaime Winstone are among the feistier women at the plant and Rosamund Pike plays a posh educated woman whose marriage to a Ford executive (Rupert Graves) has turned her into a reluctant housewife but not made her lose her drive.

Miranda Richardson has a rare old time as the redheaded and fiercely political Barbara Castle, the Labour minister in charge of employment who rebelled against not only Ford but also her own Prime Minister, Harold Wilson (John Sessions).

Screenwriter William Ivory gives just enough back-story to provide heft for the characters and Cole draws sprightly performances from the entire cast without making the women into caricatures. Hopkins plays in a minor key satisfyingly and Hawkins is as upbeat as she was in “Happy-Go-Lucky” but with a wariness and steeliness that should win over those who were put off with the chatter of the teacher she played in that film.

Andrew McAlpine’s production design and John de Borman’s cinematography combine to depict the era without resorting to cliché and David Arnold provides an apt score that never tries to milk the situation.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics; Production company: Hanway Films; Cast: Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Andrea Riseborough, Geraldine James, Rosamund Pike, Miranda Richardson; Director: Nigel Cole; Screenwriter: William Ivory; Producer: Stephen Wooley, Elizabeth Karlsen; Director of photography: John de Borman; Production designer: Andrew McAlpine; Music: David Arnold; Costume designer: Louise Stjernsward; Editor: Michael Parker; No rating, running time 113 minutes.

This review appears in The Hollywood Reporter

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Khalo Matabane’s ‘State of Violence’

Posted on September 12, 2010 by admin

state of violence x650By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Khalo Matabane’s South Africa-set “State of Violence” is a sturdy and straightforward parable about the way violence becomes an endless cycle unless someone is prepared to put a stop to it.

Its linear story is told efficiently in less than 80 minutes and the film might well travel as a cautionary tale but it lacks the sparks of urgency and originality that would make it stand out from earlier such pictures.

Rugged and strong-browed Fana Mokoena plays Bobedi, a self-made businessman with a fine home, a fancy car and a beautiful and loving wife, Joy (Lindi Matshikiza).

His happy life comes to an end when a young man with a gun breaks into his home, yells out Bobedi’s youthful nickname – Terror – and kills Joy, crying out that he wants Bobedi to feel the same pain that he does.

The police investigate but Bobedi sets out to find the killer, which means a return to the crowded backstreet maze of the township where he grew up. His brother Boy-Boy (Presley Chwenenyage) helps but makes Bobedi promise that he will not kill the perpetrator.

When the killer is revealed as OJ (Neo Ntlatleng), son of a man that Bobedi murdered horribly when he was a boy, a chain of vengeance is set in motion that threatens never to stop.

Writer and director Matabane, who clearly knows the terrain and understands the violence that is common in the townships, takes his camera into vivid locations. Ntlatleng, strung out and terrified, makes a credible killer and Chwenenyage’s boyish optimism contrasts nicely with Mokoena’s stern countenance that slowly gives off signs of second thoughts. Matshikiza makes a striking impression as the lovely murder victim and the loss of her vitality underpins the rest of the film.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Cast: Fana Mokoena, Presley Chweneyagae, Neo Ntlatleng, Lindi Matshikiza; Director, screenwriter: Khalo Matabane; Director of photography: Matthys Mocke; Production designer: Carlu Portwig; Costume designer: Maureen Shezi; Editor: Audrey Maurion; Producers: Michelle Wheatley, Jeremy Nathan; Production: DV8 Films, Liaison Cinematographique; Sales: Pyramide International; Not rated; running time, 79 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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