BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘In the Shadows’

Posted on February 17, 2010 by admin

Misel Maticevic plays a tough guy who can’t seem to get away with anything

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Thomas Arsian’s “In the Shadows” aims to be a character study of a certain kind of man who will do anything to achieve independence including armed robbery and murder, but the result is ponderous and unexciting.

Misel Maticevic plays a man fresh out of jail who first seeks his share of the heist for which he was imprisoned and then a target for a high-paying robbery. Maticevic looks the part but Arsian’s screenplay and direction let him down with filmmaking that is flat-out dull. The film is not likely to make much of a mark beyond its home territory.

The man’s name is Trojan, which sounds better in German (Troy-ahn), and he’s the cool, handsome and silent type who just wants his money. Not only does his old partner stiff him on his cut, he also sends two hoodlums to eliminate Trojan.

Meanwhile, Nora, a blonde lawyer and sometime lover (Karoline Eichhorn), knows of a money transport van that can be knocked over so Trojan gets a retired crook (Rainer Bock) to join him in the raid.

But a corrupt cop named Meyer (Uwe Bohm) is on his trail from the get-go and it’s just a matter of time before the cheat’s hoods, the cop, and Trojan have fateful encounters.

It’s a traditional framework for a noir picture but being detached should not mean being pedestrian and this particular criminal isn’t half as smart as he needs to be for a film like this.

The cinematography is also flat and music appears to be an afterthought as it is dropped in at the occasional moment when tension is needed but is not established by the visuals.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Production company: Schramm Film; Cast: Misel Maticevic, Karoline Eichhorn, Uwe Bohm, Rainer Bock; Director, screenwriter: Thomas Arsian; Producers: Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber; Director of photography: Reinhold Vorschneider; Production designer: Reinhild Blaschke; Music: Geir Jenssen; Costume designer: Anette Guther; Editor: Bettina Blickwede; No rating, 85 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘A Somewhat Gentle Man’

Posted on February 16, 2010 by admin

Stellan Starsgard (centre) plays a genial ex-con in bad company

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – An oddball comedy with criminal undertones, Hans Petter Moland’s “A Somewhat Gentle Man” follows a mild-mannered convict as he gets out of jail seeking mostly a quiet life but possibly also vengeance against the man who testified against him.

Played for laughs drawn from characters rather than funny lines, the Norwegian film is a charmer with Stellan Skarsgard for once in a role worthy of his attention. Although a little long for its own good and with a score that’s too bouncy by half, it’s the kind of film that sneaks up on you and leaves a warm smile. It should do very well in international markets and festivals will line up to offer applause.

Given a friendly farewell by a prison guard, Ulrik (Skarsgard) walks out a free man after serving 12 years and goes looking for a job and a place to live. He’s a slow-moving man who appears happy to go along to get along and soon he’s got a spare basement pad and work as an auto mechanic.

He owes his old crime boss Jensen (Bjorn Floberg) for making sure his ex-wife and son received money regularly while he was inside, however, and the man wants payback. Killing the snitch that put him away will settle his account.

But the folks around him turn out to be more complicated than they first appeared and his easygoing manner only gets him in deeper. For one thing, bulky with thinning hair that makes a long but lank ponytail, Ulrik is catnip to the ladies. His landlady (Jorunn Kjellsby) is a homely creature but eager for a roll in the hay when she serves him a meal most evenings.

Even his ex-wife (Kjersti Holmen) offers a quickie when he goes to visit and after he sorts out the wife-beating ex-husband of the garage clerk (Jannike Kruse), she takes him home to her bed.

Ulrik’s main interest is in seeing his estranged son, now a grown man (Jan Gunnar Roise) with a pregnant wife (Julia Bache Wiig) who wants nothing to do with her ex-con father-in-law.

Director Moland and screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson take a leisurely stroll around their central character and his attempts to be gracious to everyone make him increasingly endearing.

Kjellsby is a riot as a worn-out woman who takes her sexual pleasures where she can find them and despite her unfortunate appearance becomes an enthusiastic and joyful bed partner.

Floberg’s character remains dangerous even though he’s an eccentric bird with a sidekick (Gard B. Eidswold) that he casually abuses in very amusing ways.

Best of all is Skarsgard, who uses his heavy body and seen-it-all eyes to portray a man whose acceptance of the way the wind blows can give way to sudden and matter-of-fact brutality. His face also lights up in delighted bemusement when he realizes now and then that he really hasn’t seen it all.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; In Competition; Sales: TrustNordisk; Production company: Paradox; Cast: Stellan Skarsgard, Bjorn Floberg, Jorunn Kjellsby, Jannike Kruse, Gard B. Eidsvold, Jan Gunnar Roise, Njorn Sundquist, Julia Bache Wiig; Director: Hans Petter Moland; Screenwriter: Kim Fupz Aakeson; Producers: Stein B. Kvae, Finn Gjerdrum; Director of photography: Philip Ogaard; Production designer: Gert Wibe; Music: Halfdan E; Costume designer: Caroline Satre; Editor: Jens Christian Fodstad; No rating, 107 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Doris Dorrie’s ‘Hairdresser’

Posted on February 16, 2010 by admin

Ill-Young Kim takes a fancy to larger-than-life Gabriela Maria Schmeide

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – The difficulty with Doris Dorrie’s jolly and colorful romp “The Hairdresser” is that when the fat lady sings it still ain’t over. She doesn’t so much sing, really, as chirp, but she keeps on chirping relentlessly until you wish she’d just eat a wafer-thin mint and explode like Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote.

But that’s just me. Several at the packed press screening found considerable mirth in the considerable girth of star Gabriela Maria Schmeide. It might be that there’s an audience waiting to applaud a woman whose complete denial of any potential health fears from being massively obese comes with a very appealing grin. Women of a certain size, and not a few men, might eat it up like a double helping of ice cream.

Schmeide plays a morbidly overweight woman named Kathy whose indomitable spirit the film celebrates even as she has to pause at length climbing the stairs to her apartment, requires a rope to haul herself out of bed, and needs the assistance of a stranger in the metro to unzip the back of her dress because she won’t be able to reach it when she gets home.

Oh, and her husband has left her, she’s a single parent, she doesn’t have a job, and she has multiple sclerosis. But none of that puts a dent in Kathy’s determination to be the best hairdresser in Berlin, and the film follows her as she strives to follow her dream even if it involves smuggling Vietnamese immigrants across the border from Poland. What?

Screenwriter Laila Stieler finds it highly amusing to have an extremely obese woman taking care of a dozen or so Asian immigrants in her cramped apartment. Not only that, but one of them, a genial chap named Tien (Ill-Young Kim) takes distinct fancy to Kathy’s monumental curves. There’s a fairly explicit scene in which skinny Tien not so much makes love to the naked Kathy as gets in amongst her.

Schmeide throws herself into everything with cheerful abandon. We get to see Kathy from the back and below as she clambers naked out of bed, Kathy naked in the bathtub and Kathy lifting major parts of her naked body in order to slather on skin cream. Some will find this diverting, others not.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Berlinale Special; Sales: Constantin Film; Production company: Collina Filmproduktion; Cast: Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Ill-Young Kim; Director: Doris Dorrie; Screenwriter: Laila Stieler; Producer: Ulrich Limmer; Executive producer: Martin Moskowicz; Director of photography: Hanno Lentz; Production designer: Susanne Hopf; Music: Ivan Hajek, Coconami, LaBrassBanda; Costume designer: Sabine Greunig; Editor: Inez Regnier, Frank Muller; No rating, 106 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘For the Good of Others’

Posted on February 16, 2010 by admin

Eduardo Noriega and Belen Rueda in Oskar Santos’ ‘For the Love of Others’

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Modern medicine and old-fashioned superstition clash in Oskar Santos’ well-constructed medical drama “For the Good of Others” about a doctor who discovers that he holds the power to heal in his hands. But only those with a strong ability to suspend disbelief will find it credible.

Good performances by an attractive cast led by Eduado Noriega, a slick depiction of a big-city emergency room, and a surreal element that many might enjoy should take the film successfully to Spanish-language markets and international art houses.

With a slightly different approach, the film could have been a sharp satire on the way some doctors come to believe they are God but Santos and screenwriter Daniel Sanchez Arevalo play this particular inexplicable power of healing straight down the middle.

Noriega plays a pain expert who is dedicated but detached and in danger of losing his wife (Cristina Plazas) and daughter (Clara Lago) because he devotes all his time to his work. His days are filled with people at various stages of terminal illness with most of them enduring immense suffering whether physical, emotional or mental.

The thoroughly professional, if nightmarish, scene of doctors, nurses, patients, blood, instruments and screaming becomes skewed when the lover of one his patients fires a gun at him before killing himself but there is no bullet wound on the doctor.

When patients start to go into remission and emerge from comas, Diego comes to believe that he can now heal the sick with the touch of his hands. Superstitions, however, tend to come with conditions and he discovers that his gift comes at an enormous cost.

To his credit, Santos does not milk the supernatural elements and make the film overly melodramatic. The turns of event are treated matter-of-factly as Diego becomes involved with the widow of the man who shot him, Isabel (Belen Rueda from “The Sea Inside”) and comes to grips with his dilemma.

Noriega makes a handsome and persuasive leading man, playing the doctor’s scenes of anguish with conviction but also showing how his vanity is tickled by his sudden gift.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Panorama; Production companies: MOD Producciones, Himenoptero, Telecinco Cinema; Cast: Eduardo Noriega, Belen Rueda, Angie Cepeda, Cristina Plazas, Clara Lago, Marcel Borras, Carlos Leal; Director: Oskar Santos; Screenwriter: Daniel Sanchez Arevalo; Producers: Fernando Bovaira, Alejandro Amenabar, Alvaro Augustin; Director of photography: Josu Inchaustegui; Production designer: Isabel Vinuales; Music: Fernando Velazquez; Costume designer: Tatiana Hernandez; Editor: Carlos Agullo; No rating, 102 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Feo Aladag’s ‘When We Leave’

Posted on February 15, 2010 by admin

Sibel Kekilli as a young mother trapped in an abusive marriage in ‘When We Leave’

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – A battered wife leaves her husband and takes her son back home but their reception is not at all what she expected in Feo Aladag’s “When We Leave”, a well-crafted examination of the blindness of hidebound tradition.

Told calmly but with an escalating sense of dread, the story tackles a conflict that arises in many countries when modern thinking clashes with the strict patriarchal rules of ancient cultures. It’s a universal story that will connect with audiences familiar with the struggle of expatriate families to hold on to their sense of community while their daughters aspire to independence.

Angry but clear-eyed, the film should do well at home and find a sympathetic welcome in international markets and on the festival circuit.

In an engaging performance that requires grace, thoughtfulness and outbursts of rage, Sibel Kekilli plays Umay, a young woman from a Turkish family in Germany who has married a Turkish man and gone to live in Istanbul. Having had a secret abortion because she can no longer bear her husband’s mistreatment, she takes her infant son Cem (Nizam Schiller) and goes home to Berlin.

Although she explains the terror of her marriage, her working class father (Settar Tanriogen) and older brother Mehmet (Tamer Yigit) insist that she must return to her husband. Even her mother (Dertya Alabora) and younger siblings tell her she’s wrong. Umay sets about establishing a new life but the perils of going against entrenched attitudes that are more ingrained that familial love soon become horrifyingly apparent.

Aladag’s sympathy is clearly with the young woman but he does not demonize her family although Yigit is allowed to froth at the mouth a bit as her pigheaded thug of an older brother. As the confused and worried parents, Tanriogen and Alabora aptly convey the sternness required of their traditions and the inner turmoil that results from living in a world they don’t understand.

Scenes between Umay and her son are managed with considerable authority so that their relationship grows increasingly meaningful as the festering hypocrisy of pious morality becomes ever more menacing and leads to a shattering outcome.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival — Panorama; Sales: Majestic; Production company: Independent Artists Filmproduktion; Cast: Sibel Kekilli, Nizam Schiller, Settar Tanriogen, Tamer Yigit, Dertya Alabora; Director, screenwriter, producer: Feo Aladag; Producer: Zuli Aladag; Director of photography: Judith Kaufmann; Production designer: Silke Buhr; Music: Max Richter, Stephane Moucha; Costume designer: Gioia Raspé; Editor: Andrea Martens; Not rated, 119 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Jo Baier’s ‘Henry of Navarre’

Posted on February 14, 2010 by admin

henry4cliff

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Epic in scale but still betraying its producers’ willingness to cut it into two parts for television sales, Jo Baier’s “Henry of Navarre” should do well in most international markets looking for something in the line of royal court intrigue, religious conflict, bloody battles and lots of raucous sex.

Based on the popular novel by Heinrich Mann, the film covers the same ground as Patrice Chereau’s more accomplished 1994 drama “La Reine Margot,” in which Isabelle Adjani was the queen and Daniel Auteuil her tormented but determined spouse.

The time is 1653 with Catholics and Protestants – in the form of Huguenots from Avarre in the southwestern part of France – are at fearful odds. Catherine de Medici (Hannelore Hoger) is a bringer of death who rules everyone and everything with brutal guile as she plots to keep one or other of her sons on the throne.

Current occupant Charles IX (Ulrich Noethen) is batty as a flock of gargoyles and so fearful that he sweats blood and gives in to whatever horrible things his mother makes him do. That includes permitting the massacre of the Huguenots who gather in Paris peacefully on St. Bartholemew’s Day for the marriage of his firebrand sister Margot (Armelle Deutsch) to Huguenot leader Henry of Navarre (Julien Soiseelier).

The film begins with the story of Henry’s childhood with a narration that casts the boy and future king as a savior of France and the fear is that the film will be all about a saintly fellow who simply follows his destiny.

But the individual described by author Mann and screenwriters Baier and Cooky Ziesche, and portrayed by Boisselier, is far from squeaky clean. With his eye firmly on the prize, which is to say the crown, Henry matches wits with the matriarch of the de Medicis, legates from the Papacy, villains dispatched by the king’s cohorts and the bewitching but soul-destroying Margot.

With serious features that suddenly break out in a winning smile, Boisselier captures Henry’s chameleon ability to roll with the punches and be peasant or king, warrior or diplomat, and lover or chaste as the situation requires. Deutsch plays Margot enjoyably as all sex and little mischief while Chloé Stefani brings wit and insolence to temper the devotion of Gabrielle, the love of Henry’s life. Hoger is a fairly conventional Catherine but Ulrich Noethen sees what a rich role he has in Charles and enjoys every minute of it.

Baier uses an €18 million budget with admirable craft and does a masterful job of hiding the seams in the big battle scenes where money must have been tight. Considerable credit is due to cinematographer Gernot Roll, production designers Klaus-Pete Platten and Christian Strang, costume designers Gergard Golinhofer and Isabel von Forster and editors Alexander Berner and Claus Wehlisch.

Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer and Henry Jackman, who has worked with Zimmer on many films and here joins him with a full composer credit, provide an expert score with a range of tones and colors to match the film’s sweep and its quieter moments. Their themes do much to give the production the feel of a major motion picture.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale Special; Cast: Julien Boisselier, Joachim Krol, Andreas Schmidt, Roger Casamajor, Armelle Deutsch, Chloé Stefani, Hannelore Hoger, Ulrich Noethen; Director, screenwriter: Jo Baier; Screenwriter: Cooky Ziesche; Director of photography: Gernot Roll; Production designers: Klaus-Peter Platten, Christian Strang; Music: Hans Zimmer and Henry Jackman; Costume designers: Gerhard Golinhofer, Isabel von Forster; Editors: Alexander Berner, Claus Wehlisch; Producer: Regina Ziegler; Executive producers: Hartmut Kohler, Jan Novotny; Production company: Ziegler Film; Sales: Bavaria Film International; Not rated, 153 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘Counting of the Damages’

Posted on February 13, 2010 by admin

counting of the damages x650By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – It’s never a good sign at a festival press screening when the person to your right gets up and leaves after 15 minutes and the one to your left falls asleep, but they were both apt comments on Ines de Oliveira Cezar’s morose Argentinian film “The Counting of the Damages” (El recuento de los danos).

The remainder of the packed Forum audience remained but the end of the film, which uses Argentina’s history of families being torn apart as background for what might be an Oedipal love affair, was met with silence aside from the bustle of people leaving. It’s hard to see the film finding a better reception elsewhere.

Told elliptically with many static scenes, the story is of a young man (Santiago Gobernori) who shows up at a factory to report on its performance for distant owners. He finds that the general manager has died and the man’s widow (Eva Blanco) and her brother-in-law (Marcelo D’Andrea, pictured right with Goernori and Blanco) are running the place. They are quickly at odds over its operation.

But then, abruptly, the young man and the smokily elegant and grief-stricken woman erupt in moments of heightened excitement and are soon in bed. The coincidence of the late husband’s death in a car accident and the young man’s arrival, and the fact that the woman was parted from a son two decades earlier in political upheaval are then used to drive the tale.

It has no power, however, as the scenes fail to engage and the performances are left to drift without purpose.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival, Forum; Cast: Santiago Gobernori, Eva Blanco, Marcelo D’Andrea, Agustina Munoz, Dalila Cebrian; Director, writer, producer: Ines de Oliveira Cezar; Writer: Anna Berard; Director of photography: Gerardo Silvatici; Production designer: Aili Chen; Executive producer: Alejandro Israel; Production: Ajimolido Films, Buenos Aires; Not rated; running time, 80 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘Arias With a Twist: The Docufantasy’

Posted on February 12, 2010 by admin

New York performance artist Joey Arias in ‘Arias With a Twist’

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – There are many who will take to the flamboyant New York performance artist Joey Arias immediately although some will find he has to grow on you. But he does grow on you in Bobby Sheehan’s insightful and entertaining documentary “Arias With a Twist: The Docufantasy.”

It helps greatly that the Twist in the title is Basil Twist, one of the world’s masters of the marionette whose humble genius in puppetry combines with Arias’s exuberant exoticism to make richly fertile entertainment.

Using footage both reportorial and artistic, Sheehan traces the development of Arias as a performance artist in New York through eras marked with success and great tragedy, especially in the time when AIDs took its first early toll.

The showman’s recollections of that time and the friends and fellow performers he lost are very moving and the testament of survivors adds to the impression of Arias that he is a pillar of emotional as well as creative strength.

Scenes of Twist at work are magical, and the productions that Arias and Twist have done together on stage involve scintillating images showing the power of personality and the artistic achievement that comes from the attention to fine detail that puppetry requires.

It’s a highly original and startling success.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Director, writer, producer, director of photography: Bobby Sheehan; Director of photography: Russell Swanson; Music: Randy Lee; Editor: Robert Whitney; Production: Working Pictures; Not rated; running time, 88 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Semih Kaplanoglu’s ‘Honey’ (Bal)

Posted on February 11, 2010 by admin

Erdal Besikcioglu and Boras Altas are father and son in ‘Bal’ (Honey)

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – The third film in Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu’s trilogy about a young poet named Yusuf, “Honey” (Bal), sees him as a 6-year-old learning the harsh realities of nature as his beekeeper father disappears in the forest.

This splendid won the Golden Bear in competition at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival with a running time of 103 minutes. For commercial release, it has been trimmed to 87 minutes, which is a shame in many ways but probably will not harm the picture’s power and graceful charm.

Measured and contemplative with a remarkable screen performance by Boras Altas, then 7, and superlative cinematography by Baris Ozbicer, the film will follow its predecessors in winning great appreciation at film festivals. It might also attract art houses with audiences interested in things bucolic and spiritual.

The relationship between the beekeeper (Erdal Besikcioglu) and the forest is established early in the film as we see how closely the boy follows in his father’s footsteps. The cages for the honey are placed high in tall trees so his work is very dangerous and almost right away while he is off working alone, a tree snaps and the man is left hanging by a rope.

The film moves back to tell how he came to be there. Kaplanoglu and his co-screenwriter Orcun Koksal contrive small and delicate scenes to evoke the strong emotional bond between father and son. They whisper to each other and the boy learns about time and place, the nature of birds, and the names, smells and taste of flowers.

Mother (Tulin Ozen) is a benign but mostly silent presence and only comes to the fore when her husband is believed missing. In a touching scene, the boy who has shown that he hates milk, drinks a glass down unasked just to please her.

Tulin Ozen plays the boy’s loving but anxious mother

The boy’s struggle to read and please his teacher in class contrasts with his assurance in the woods and while the fate of his father remains unknown, the film conveys powerfully that the boy will continue to know his way.

Kaplanoglu draws a multi-faceted performance from the boy helped greatly by Besikcioglu’s solid presence as the father while the gentle strength of the mother is well captured by Ozen, using small glances to great effect.

Slow-paced and without music other than the calls and cries of the forest creatures, “Honey” suggests that while nature is not full of human kindness, humans may find salvation there.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival — In Competition; Opens: UK July 15 (Verve Pictures); Cast: Boras Altas, Erdal Besikcioglu, Tulin Ozen; Director, screenwriter, producer, editor: Semih Kaplanoglu; Screenwriter: Orcan Koksul; Director of photography: Baris Ozbicer; Production designer: Naz Erayda; Editors: Ayhan Ergursel, Suzan Hande Guneri; Production: Kaplan Film, Heimatfilm; Rated PG, 87 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s a trailer for ‘Honey’

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FILM REVIEW: Andy Serkis in ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’

Posted on January 8, 2010 by admin

serkis as dury

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Rowdy and a bit ragged but wholly entertaining, Mat Whitecross’s “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” is a biopic of British punk rocker Ian Dury with a sensational lead performance by Andy Serkis, best known as Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings’ films.

Set around performances by Dury and his band the Blockheads at the Watford Palace Theatre, the film takes a surrealist path to relating the rocker’s journey from polio-stricken kid to top-of-the-charts entertainer.

It’s an energetic and vivacious film that will appeal to fans of punk rock around the world and should find its place in the pantheon of great music film biographies. First-time director Whitecross and Serkis should be in line for awards.

Serkis does the singing with the real Blockhead musicians including guitarist and co-writer Chaz Jankel, portrayed winningly by Tom Hughes. Numbers given full screen time include the title track, “Billaricay Dickie,” “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,” the controversial Spasticus Autisticus” and the mournful tribute “Sweet Gene Vincent.”

Dury never claimed to have a great voice although it was very distinctive and Serkis captures it perfectly. He also does a great job portraying the determinedly independent and outrageous performer’s flamboyant manner.

Paul Viragh’s screenplay has Dury talking onstage about his lonely upbringing with a father (Ray Winstone) who was frequently absent, leaving him at an institution for handicapped children in the care of an unfeeling orderly (Toby Jones).

The story follows Dury from his first failed band through to 1970s success after hooking up with Jankel, and his love affairs with tolerant wife Betty (Olivia Williams) and young girlfriend Denise (Naomie Harris).

The two actresses make effective contrasts with Williams using stillness to convey Betty’s wise kindness and Harris animated and wilful as the optimistic young woman. Bill Milner (“Son of Rambow”) is all cheeky resilience as Dury’s son Baxter, a young man whose exposure to his father’s excessive rock ’n’ roll lifestyle looks as it could take him off the rails.

The film is fast-paced and funny, with many jump cuts and bits of animation, but there are scenes of great poignancy conveying Dury and his tortured relationships. The English music hall was in Dury’s blood and combined with his great determination to kill off any hint of self-pity. Serkis lets his eyes do the work in the quiet moments with as much skill as he displays in the splashy numbers.

“Sex & Drugs” features lots of cheerful English swearing and the film’s exuberant pleasure in depicting Dury’s waywardness may put off straight-laced audiences, but punk rockers everywhere will eat it up.

Opens: U.K. Jan. 8 (Entertainment); Cast: Andy Serkis, Naomie Harris, Olivia Williams, Bill Milner, Ray Winstone, Mackenzie Cook, Luke Evans, Toby Jones, Tom Hughes; Director: Mat Whitecross; Writer: Paul Viragh; Directors of photography: Christopher Ross, Brian Tufano; Production designer: Richard Bullock; Music: Chaz Jankel; Costume designer: Joanna Eatwell; Editor: Peter Christelis; Producer: Damian Jones; Executive producers: Kevin Phelan, Peter Hampden, Andy Serkis, Paul Viragh, Ian Neil, Ralph Kamp, Paul Brett, Steve “Harry Harrigan, Tim Smith Production: Aegis Film Fund, DJ Films, Lipsync Productions, Prescience Film Fund, UK Film Council; Sales: Metropolis International; Not rated; running time, 115 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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