Reviews

i rather enjoyed this movie, but thinking about it afterwards i thought it was a rather disjointed and hollow movie.

woodcock is a teacher, whose teaching style borders on child abuse you see him picking on the small kids, the fat kids and other less than athletic kids.

which is fine by me, child abuse is a good subject for a serious movie. bullshit author and victim returns home and learns things about him self and makes teacher see the error of his ways sounds like a good serious movie.

turn the child abuse into 'tough but fair teaching' and throw in a few gross out larf scenes and it would have made a good revenge comedy.

BUT this movie tries to be both a comedy AND a serious movie, and fails in both guises it fails to be a comedy because the subject is way to serious, and it fails to be a serious movie because woodcock is exonerated at the end of the movie.

having never actually seen anything by this beloved of the luvvies, let alone a production of merchant of venice, i cant comment on how faithful it is to previous adaptations of the play so i will treat it as just another movie that tries to be more than novocaine for the eye MoV is an instantly gripping movie about a young lover bassanio (fiennes) and his merchant friend antonio (irons) and a Jewish money lender shylock (pacino)

plot summary

bassiano is broke and needs money to woo the lovely portia (collins), he goes to his friend antonio, who sypathises with his friends predicament, so borrows some money off shylock

now antonio does not like jews in general and shylock in particular and shylock bitter and twisted from the abuse he has suffered from antonio in particular and christians in general agrees to lend antonio the money on condition that if antonio does not repay the loan by the agreed deadline, shylock will cut a pound of flesh from antonios body

comment

the movie is breathtakingly beautiful and acted and spoken in such a way as to force you to think about what each line means, this in turn causes the viewer to gain insights into the characters and their motivations

it seems to me to be a movie about the choices that shylock makes, and how making wrong choices leads to shylocks ruin

from the moment shylock demands his pound of flesh he is doomed, for rest of the world is against him and connives to bring about his downfall

this disturbed me greatly, normally in a movie when a victim gets a chance of revenge against those who have harmed him either the victim succeeds or makes the villain see the error of his ways leading to a big hug

not in MoV the victim quickly becomes seen as the villain and is stripped of his fortune and faith

this movie is a powerful and subtle portrayal of casual anti semitism which shows how a whole society can turn on a minority and make it seem like the victim is really the offender

i was blown away by this movie 10/10

leigh-anne is a single mother, on benefit, living in dark, damp house, with sick baby

from this cheerful start the film spirals down to its tragic ending

well thats the review over with, now for some comments

+++SPOILERS+++

movies that portray people from the arse end of society are not uncommon, what distinguishes a way of life from the plethora of sentimental portrayals of plucky and lovable characters, is that the main characters in a way of life are completely lacking in redeeming features and the film itself is about as unsentimental as it is possible to get

the central character, leigh-anne, is portrayed as an twisted evil bitch, who is surrounded by friends who are not really her friends

this is an example of how bad leigh-anne is:

a middle aged man comes up to her in a pub, obviously wanting to purchase her sexual services, to which she responds: "ain't you gonna buy me a drink first"

she starts a conversation with a girl a pub, who tells her: "me mam wont let me have a boyfriend till I'm 15"

leigh-anne responds with fake astonishment: "well thats ages away, pity you could have any boy in this place"

so she takes the girl out of the pub, and is followed by the middle aged man, who asks her how much? she says £30, he says he can get it for half that elsewhere, to which she says: "yeah but she ain't been had before"

she takes his money and says to the girl: "just open your legs and let him do the rest"

we see a parting shot of rough sex and the girl in pain