REVIEW: Boyhood

Man, I haven't connected with a film like this for a long time. I think the last time was probably Almost Famous, and I don't even particularly like 70's rock & roll. But what that film managed to capture was, essentially, my life as an awkward teenage boy, and Boyhood goes one step further to completely embody my entire childhood and adolescence.

Ellar Coltrane, the star of Richard Linklater's latest (and perhaps greatest) masterpiece, was born on August 27, 1994. I was born on July 17, 1995. This means that we would have been a year apart at school, albeit barely. And watching this film felt like, in parts, a collection of home movies from my very own coming-of-age story.

Admittedly, there are some significant differences between the life of myself and the life of Mason Jr, the film's protagonist. I never had a bratty older sister who woke me up singing Britney Spears. I grew up in a small town in Kent rather than Texas, so I never got a shotgun for my fifteenth birthday. While I grew up with my parents separated, I never had a bad experience with abusive step-dads (twice). And of course, I was never as good-looking as Coltrane, so I didn't have as much luck with girls.

But these are merely details. Where Linklater excels is in capturing the very spirit of "boyhood", the experiences felt growing up which are not as unique to us as we might think. Mason's journey from naive child, lying on the grass staring dreamily up at the clouds, to pretentious young adult, ranting about the NSA as if he's the first person to do so, rings perfectly true. Who didn't grow their hair long, experiment with drinking, or have their friends taken away, either by adults who didn't understand or who were powerless to do anything?

The main draw of this film is that filming took place over 11 years, dropping in and out at key moments in Mason's growing-up process. To a cynic it might sound like a gimmick, a gimmick which has been done before by Michael Apted with his Up series and François Truffaut with his collaboration with Jean-Pierre Léaud. But never before have we seen actors age in front of our very eyes over the course of one film, at least not on this grand a scale. Linklater had the impossible task of casting a child who would grow up to become a good actor, and he somehow succeeded with Coltrane. While the plot is fictional, I would imagine much of the scenarios came about organically, since he gives such a naturalistic and likeable performance it's hard sometimes to remember he's acting. He could well be your child - he's honest, funny, frustrating at times but always good-natured - and by the end of the film it's likely you'll feel that same paternal bond.

The supporting players are fantastic, too. Ethan Hawke, whose aging process parallels the real-life transition he made from cocky Training Day underling to mature Before Midnight leading man, is excellent, and I saw so much of my own father within his character - also a tortured creative type with a penchant for the Beatles, though one without a job at an insurance company. And Patricia Arquette steals the show by giving the most quietly dignified and best performance of her career, with the scene where she cries as she sends her son to college hitting a bit too close to home.

The universal appeal of this film has brought on an astonishing wave of positive criticism if the Rotten Tomatoes scores are anything to go by, a rarity even with a project as ambitious as this. It feels like the kind of film which Roger Ebert would have raved about, much like he did with The Tree of Life and Synedoche, New York, because it's ambitious and exhibits a deeply abiding love for life itself. It's also the masterwork of an already talented artist - I've been a fan of Richard Linklater since I saw Before Sunrise late at night on a television with dodgy colour resolution, and it's only grown from there (A Scanner Darkly was, for a time, my favourite film, in spite of its flaws). But Boyhood is the absolute pinnacle of his creative talent, the product of eleven years of effort and ingenuity. And for what it is, it's perfect.

★★★★★

REVIEW: Million Dollar Arm

I'll keep this one short, simply because there's not much to say about this boilerplate sports film. Based on the true story of sports agent J.B. Bernstein, Million Dollar Arm details the signing of the first two Indian baseball pitchers after a reality show competition. Jon Hamm plays the lead, and there's some support from Bill Paxton and Alan Arkin, but most of the (Indian) cast is played by unknowns. It's exactly what you'd expect from a Disney sports film - there's lots of slow-motion shots of throwing things, there's humour, derived from the Indians’ unfamiliarity with all things American (which becomes stale quickly), and there's a dull character arc in Hamm's arrogant sports agent, who must learn the value of love if he's ever going to live a happy, fulfilling life. Bleh. Fortunately Hamm employs his Don Draper-charm and carries the entire film, and there's some good support from the acerbic Lake Bell, who displayed such promising talent in her debut film In A World... last year. A pleasant but dull affair. Watch Moneyball instead.

★★½

REVIEW: Oculus

I've never heard of Mike Flanagan and his short film, Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan (an absurd title if there ever was one). But after seeing his big-budget remake, shortened simply to Oculus, I'll have to keep an eye out for this promising new horror director, whose film gave me the chills.

It's a fairly standard premise - a haunted object, passed down through generations, claims the lives of its owners, in this case a huge, Gothic mirror - but is carried out with a pleasingly inventive execution. Karen Gillan (surely one of the best things to come out of Doctor Who) and Brendon Thwaites play siblings who have to face up to their decidedly unhappy past. The latter has been recently released from a mental asylum, whereas the former is obsessed with finding out whether their big, scary childhood mirror possesses supernatural abilities, abilities which compelled her brother and father into committing terrible crimes. The film is interspersed with flashbacks but mostly takes place in their childhood home - particularly one room where Gillan sets up a complex series of cameras, in what appears to be a throwback to the single location of the frightening original.

If it wasn't already obvious from the title, Oculus is very much preoccupied with seeing things - what we see, what the camera sees, and how much of the story we can trust from the film's perspective. Is that shot objective, or are we seeing through the eyes of a character, whose mind is being manipulated and distorted by the mirror? Are we in the past or the present? The current-day antics and flashbacks soon begin to mesh together as the film goes on, and there are some startlingly nasty sequences throughout (one involving an apple will give you nightmares). It marks Oculus as a horror film which really utilises the power of cinema in delivering its frights - Flanagan is primarily an editor, but at no point does the film descend into jump-scares, instead relishing in the sense of dread and paranoia which precedes such things. Certainly some of the finest modern-day horror to come out of Hollywood, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

★★★★

REVIEW: The Double

Richard Ayoade's new film The Double has been dubbed a "black comedy", which might be a mistake. I found it more nightmarish than funny - although it certainly has its moments. Adapted from a Fyodor Dostoyevsky novella, it centres around nebbish office worker Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) who, having gone unnoticed by his office colleagues for seven years, encounters his doppelgänger James Simon (Eisenberg again). James is identical to Simon in appearance but the complete opposite in personality - where Simon is timid and apprehensive, James is extroverted and assertive. While the two initially get along, James soon begins to take over Simon's life, even going behind his back to start a relationship with Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), the object of Simon's romantic intentions. The two are inevitably dragged into a conflict with one another, which escalates into violence and madness.

I found the first thirty minutes of this film difficult to watch. The world Ayoade has created is effectively atmospheric and claustrophobic - the bureaucratic nightmare of endless cubicles and whirring 1980s computers reminded me, in the best possible way, of Terry Gilliam's Brazil - but I found it frustratingly Kafkaesque without the absurd and amusingly sincere prose, more downwardly depressing than satirical. But the film picks up when the promised "double" appears. Eisenberg joins the ranks of Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) and Jeremy Irons (Dead Ringers) in giving two great performances in one film, somehow maintaining excellent chemistry with, ah, himself. He's perfectly cast, too, since throughout his career he's alternated between playing shy and socially awkward characters (Adventureland, Zombieland) and cocky and brash characters (Now You See Me, The Social Network). And as the film hurtled towards its final frames, each character's lives disintegrating in some way, I found it interesting how the two Eisenberg personalities began to meld, our perception of character becoming unhinged as Simon became darker and more confident, lending an element of mystery to the memorable final shot.

The problem I had was that I didn't engage with the film on an emotional level. I was a fan of Ayoade's previous film, Submarine, which not only was a funnier film but much warmer, too. I suppose I can't fault The Double for not being like Submarine enough; it's a different film, and actually demonstrates a surer understanding of directing on a technical level (the use of a subway train as an aural motif is genius). And Ayoade once again sides with the underdog, which is something I will always love about British cinema. Yet I ultimately found the film depressing, which may be an inevitable by-product of adapting a psychologically complex Russian novella written in the 1800s but, aside from a few touches - Paddy Constantine's cameo in a parody of 80s sci-fi shows is a hilarious highlight - seems distinctly more cynical than I expected.

★★★

REVIEW: Calvary

Is Calvary one of the greatest films to come out of Ireland? Maybe. John Michael McDonagh is certainly one of the country's greatest directors, as is his brother Martin McDonagh. Talk about a talented family. Both made astonishing feature film debuts with The Guard and In Bruges respectively - the former an exceptionally funny and lively hybrid of violent crime drama and domestic British comedy, the latter an equally amusing but much darker tale of redemption (with a blisteringly good performance from Colin Farrell). Yet while Martin McDonagh went to Hollywood to write and direct the disappointing Seven Psychopaths, John Michael McDonagh has stuck around with Calvary, set in his native Ireland and concerned with issues much closer to home.

The shocking opening scene sets the tone of the piece. Brendan Gleeson's priest, Father James Lavelle, listens to a man in a confessional booth, who describes how he was abused by a priest at a young age ("I first tasted semen when I was seven years old") and that in seven days he will kill him despite, or perhaps because, he is a good man. Lavelle thinks he recognises the man but refuses to go to the police, instead going about his daily duties of attending to members of his flock. We see a glimpse into the priest's life as the days count down, and his experiences with the characters of the local village prompt him to grapple with his own mortality.

It's a beautifully made film, with the sweeping shots of the tumultuous coast contrasted with Patrick Cassidy's haunting orchestral compositions. But it's the performances which really make this film work. English actress Kelly Reilly excels as Gleeson's troubled daughter struggling with depression, and Chris O'Dowd doesn't get nearly enough screen time as a potential wife-beater, sure to obliterate everyone's perceptions of the actor as "that guy from The I.T. Crowd". In fact, the only actor I had a problem with was a scenery-chewing Aiden Gillen, essentially playing his Game of Thrones character with an Irish accent. Yet ultimately it's Brendan Gleeson's show; without him the (often stage-like) film would not work since he ties together the loosely connected characters with a towering performance, full of gravitas and sincerity. He's not the archetypal "good priest", he's a man struggling with his demons (he used to be an alcoholic and bar-brawler) who uses faith to find meaning and redemption in the later years of his life.

It's an old-fashioned set of values which he embodies, an image of the church which has become tarnished after years of scandal. McDonagh presents quite an ugly picture of Ireland, where all the locals regard the church with their own brand of hostility and violence can - and does - erupt frequently. And Calvary is a deeply angry film, angry with those who committed atrocities and angry with those who looked away, and the society born out of this tragedy is forever affected by what happened. All this builds to a tremendously powerful final fifteen minutes which, frankly, left me speechless. The greatest film to come out of Ireland? Probably not, if Jim Sheridan has anything to say about it, but it definitely comes close.

★★★★½

REVIEW: Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer's third feature film comes ten years after 2004's Birth. What he was doing during those ten years is unclear, but quite a bit of it must have been spent trying to convince people that this film would work, an often intangible mix of science fiction and a road movie with horror elements. Sort of. I walked out of the cinema unsure of what, exactly, I had just seen, but I'm glad Glazer succeeded in releasing this film, for a world without Under the Skin would be a far less rich and interesting one.

To even try and describe what this film is about would be a disservice, but one could possible summarise with this; an alien seductress (who goes throughout the film unnamed, but who is labelled as Laura in the production specs) travels around Glasgow and surrounding areas of Scotland in her van, preying on men and luring them to their deaths.

If you've seen the film, you know that barely scratches the surface of what it's about. From its indescribable opening to its hauntingly beautiful climax, the film constantly challenges the viewer to think and respond to it, creating some incredibly experimental and effective moments. A scene on a beach with a family is simultaneously one of the most terrifying and devastating things I've ever seen in film. Another sequence, where Laura wanders through the crowds in a shopping centre, will challenge your perception of the people who pass you every day. I could spend the majority of this review praising the astonishing sound design (you'll never hear the sound of a screaming child in the same way again) or the unforgettable abstract imagery we see throughout, such as a sequence where a man's body literally crumples.

Yet ultimately there are two very clever tricks this film pulls which make it work. One is setting the story in Scotland, a land as equally hostile and outlandish as the alien dimension from which the protagonist originates, and one which grounds the more abstract ideas in an often comically mundane reality. The other is the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Laura, whose status as a big-name Hollywood actress would seem out of place in this very low-budget art house British film. Nonetheless, after seeing Under the Skin, it's difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. Johansson is one of those impossibly beautiful actresses who seems forever out of reach. We can see them in their films and on talk shows but, as a typical British filmgoer, we know that they are part of a completely different world, and we can never truly know someone like that. And that's what makes the character in this film so interesting. Never before has a film so perfectly captured the sense of extra-terrestrial unfamiliarity; Scarlett Johansson is an alien, and her presence prompts a similar response to those of the fine selection of Scottish men her character lures into her lair, that of completely mesmerised awe. The film then proceeds to try and take apart this fascinatingly enigmatic character, by getting both metaphorically and, at one point, literally under her skin. It's a challenge for the viewer to follow Glazer's vision, but one which is incredibly rewarding.

You will leave this film with more questions than answers, such as why Laura decides to kill the men she seduces, or the perplexing significance of the man on the motorbike. To find concrete answers to these questions, however, would be to undermine much of the power of Under the Skin. It is not a film to be explained rationally and logically, but one to be taken in on an emotional level. I've only seen this film once, which may be a mistake - I intend to see it a second (and perhaps third) time, if only to develop my understanding of some of the more obscure elements - but even seeing it once left a truly lasting impression. A modern masterpiece.

★★★★★

REVIEW: The Grand Budapest Hotel

How do you talk about a Wes Anderson film without constantly referring to it as a "Wes Anderson film"? Short answer: you can't. Most directors - not always good directors, but most directors nevertheless - will have some kind of visual or thematic flourish which acts as a directorial signature on the work. Anderson has about fifty. His work is so recognisable, so separate from the majority of modern cinematic releases, that in any significant analysis of his films it is impossible to divorce the man from his fiction, and this is no less true in his latest offering.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is both a farce and a reflective depiction of wartime Europe in the 1930s. It tells the story of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a world-famous concierge at the eponymous European hotel, who takes young lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori) under his wing. A whimsical plot unfolds, revolving around the theft of a priceless painting from his old lover (Tilda Swinton) whose murder Gustave is framed for. It's entertaining, considered, and shouldn't be dismissed as "just another Wes Anderson film", although all of the major hallmarks are present; as always, Anderson's shots and compositions are perfect, even obsessive, and the use of warm, vibrant colour here is better than ever. But what struck me most about this film was the deeply nostalgic tone, more so than any other Anderson has made. He uses the 4:3 ratio throughout most of the film, and The Grand Budapest Hotel reminded me of older, classic films of the 20s and 30s - films most of today's audiences would be unaware of - through a wonderful evocation of its period. There's a charming (and deliberate) use of miniatures for some of the exterior shots of the hotel with the cable cars leading up to it, and my favourite scene in the film came towards the end, when the two protagonists chase the villain down a ski slope - the tiny figurines in place of characters during wide shots is an old-school trick, one which reminds you that you're watching a film, but it's made with such charm and verve that you can't help but be swept along by it.

Regarding the tone, the film does a wonderful thing where it manages to be light and fun without being breezy. In the mix of absurd situations and larger-than-life characters there's an undercurrent of sincerity, probably best represented by an excellent performance from Ralph Fiennes. Excluding some scene-stealing support from Harvey Keitel and Jeff Goldblum, Fiennes completely owns this film; like Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic and Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, he unites the ensemble under his enigmatic Gustave H. Effortlessly filling the role, at once charming, crude, promiscuous yet lovable ("She was dynamite in the sack, by the way", referring to an 84-year-old woman), the film instantly confirms Fiennes' status as a brilliant comedic actor, his timing perhaps even better here than his expletive-filled performance from In Bruges. He also manages to bring an unexpected amount of dramatic gravitas to the role, balancing the one-liners with the development of an affecting paternal bond with Revolori's Zero. It is this which makes the comedy all the richer, since throughout the film we are reminded of the more serious historical reality of the time (one scene shot in black and white might just be one of the saddest scenes in Anderson's career).

Perhaps the only time the film loses its footing is when it features moments of darker, nastier humour. A shot of a cat's splattered carcass drew more winces than laughter from the audience, as did a prolonged shot of a severed head being extracted from a box - more Se7en than Steve Zissou. Still, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise consistently excellent film, which I would urge you to go and see if only to serve as a whimsical antidote to the typically serious and desaturated world of the mainstream blockbuster. However, a small warning: you will sincerely crave cake afterwards.

★★★★