Reviews

... well, not quite, although the quite spectacular public toilets of the Japanese capital certainly feature very heavily in this film, because the main character is a toilet cleaner.

Hirayama's life is one of routine. In the morning he wakes in his tiny apartment, folds away his bed linen, cleans his teeth, drinks vending-machine coffee, drives to work while listening to '70s Western soft rock, cleans some toilets (rarely wearing gloves, I noticed!), has lunch in a park, takes photographs of leaves, cleans some more toilets, has dinner in a café, goes home, reads a book, falls asleep and dreams of leaves. Weekends vary slightly, as they include trips to the bath house, to the laundrette and to the second-hand bookshop to buy that week's book. Occasionally things happen to add variety to the routine: there is the love life of his comedy assistant; the sudden appearance of his teenaged niece, running away from her mother; playing 'it' with the ex-husband of his favourite restaurant's owner.

You have to be in the right frame of mind to watch this film: its lack of any dramatic happenings and its slow (peaceful?) pace means it will not satisfy everyone. As Hirayama, Kôji Yakusho does a good job of creating a character who is endearing despite the fact he very rarely speaks: the viewer grows to like him because his face portrays the obvious enjoyment he takes in the world around him.

I would be very surprised if this does not make it onto the shortlist for the best foreign language film Oscar. It may even be the winner.

This film begins with an explanatory caption that sets the scene. Unfortunately I was unable to read it due to one of those pillocks who turn up after a film's advertised starting time, then distract everyone trying to find their seat in the dark. It is high time the London Film Festival, whose screening it was, stuck to their threat to stop such people from entering after the film begins!

Anyway... in the near future, climate change has wrought environmental devastation and large parts of the United States are desert. Young married couple Hen (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal) live in one such area. One evening their quiet existence is shattered when Terrance, an official from a shady government/corporate organisation arrives to tell them Junior has been conscripted to spend a year on an experimental space station. But he need not be concerned about Hen being left all alone on the farm: the organisation will provide her with an exact duplicate of Junior - identical even to memories - to tide her over until her husband returns. So begins a period of intense research into Junior's routines and habits (in order the duplicate can be 'programmed' correctly) as Terrance worms his way into the lives of Junior and Hen, while they try to cope with the damage the enforced separation will cause their marriage.

Ronan is very good, giving a subtle, nuanced performance. As Terrance, Aaron Pierre is suitably slimy and made me feel quite angry with his oh-so-reasonable delivery of lines which threaten to tear apart the young couple. Mescal is less good, with a false American accent straight out of a fourth-form production of 'On the Waterfront' and seemingly trying as well to ape Brando's tough guy image (I should note, however, that his performance during the film's big revelation scene is better).

Quite apart from the glaring plothole of if the duplicate is so good, why can it not be sent up to space instead of the unwilling Junior, if you cannot see the plot twist coming a mile off then this is possibly the first film you have ever seen. But as a three-hander production - it would do well as a play - this character-based drama with sci-fi garnish works very well indeed.

In 1930s' Tel Aviv, Tom Wilkin is a British police officer. He considers himself well-integrated with the local Jewish population, with plenty of Jewish friends and even a Jewish lover - fiery, politically-active Shoshana Borochov. His opposite number in Jerusalem is Geoffrey Morton, a blinkered officer who coolly stages mock executions in order to discover Arab arms caches. When Wilkin's boss is assassinated, Morton is brought in to replace him, but the methods which worked for him with the Arabs of Jerusalem are not so successful with the Jews of Tel Aviv.

Given the extreme political nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (I watched this film in October 2023, just a few days after Hamas militants staged an incursion into Israel ultimately resulting in the deaths of thousands on both sides), I found this relatively even-handed. Both the Jewish and Arab communities are shown as producing victim and villain alike. We see Jewish militants being prepared to sacrifice innocent women and children, and other Jews trying to convince them otherwise. The film's heroine, Borochov, is herself portrayed as morally ambiguous, prepared to report on an informer when she may well have known that by so doing she was sentencing him to death.

The British do not come off well, with even Wilkin, portrayed by Douglas Booth as being quite likeable, falling back on the "it's my job" defence when challenged by Borochov. Harry Melling's Morton is little more than a pantomime villain, all monotone delivery and extreme attitudes. And it is noticeable that the film contains no featured Arab character, just several one-line extras.

How accurate the portrayals are of these real people I do not know (and I always feel it disrespectful to show sex scenes of people who have not long been dead - when this film was made Borochov had been dead not even twenty years). As a work of entertainment it is a success, though, and perhaps challenges the viewer to ponder what he would do if caught up in similar circumstances.

Writer/director Luna Carmoon introduced this film at the 2023 London Film Festival by telling the audience she "hoped you find it unsettling". And it is true it contains sequences that had some audience members squirming in their seats. But this reviewer is afraid that rather than unsettling, he merely found it boring.

As a young child, Maria lives with her mother Cynthia, who is a hoarder, meaning their house is stuffed to the rafters with the rubbish Cynthia finds on all-night scavenging trips, as well as a ferret and nests of dead rats. An increasingly tedious first act is set in the exciting, rubbish-strewn world Cynthia creates for her daughter: the pair are undoubtedly close, but there is only so much noisy play-fights and primal screaming the audience can take. It comes as a relief when Cynthia is buried under a collapsing pile of her own rubbish; at last the story can move on.

Maria is taken into care and placed with Samantha Spiro, doing her working-class-heart-of-gold shtick. Several years later she has grown into the willowy form of Saura Lightfoot Leon and appears none the worse for her chaotic early years - until, that is, a former foster child, dustman Michael (Joseph Quinn), returns with an unconvincing tough-guy accent and a succession of grubby vests.

There are undoubtedly some stand-out moments in this: for instance, the initial coupling between Maria and Michael is almost by itself worth the price of admission for the bewildered expression on passive participant Michael's face. But every time the viewer is lulled into thinking the scenes of kitchen sink drama may lead to an increase in interest levels, up comes another overly-staged shot, or round of primal screaming, or characters acting too weird for words.

There is, it turns out, a method to the madness - but by then I had lost interest, feeling every one of the film's 126 minutes. Definitely an acquired taste!

Adam (Andrew Scott), a shy writer, lives in a tower block that is largely deserted apart from one other resident, Harry (Paul Mescal). By a happy coincidence both men are homosexual, so they pair up. While Adam adjusts to his new romance, he also spends time visiting his parents in their suburban house. The strange thing about that is, his parents died when he was a child, several decades before...

The audience is never given an explanation for how Adam is talking to his dead parents, and this ambiguous approach raises a number of questions: are the encounters all in his mind? In that case, how is Harry also able to see them? Also, indications are that the family's house has stood empty since the parents' deaths (the long-empty childhood home being a staple of many fictional genres) but is that really realistic in densely-populated, housing-short Britain? Perhaps I am over-analysing, but it seems strange that while time is taken to provide an explanation why Adam speaks with an Irish accent when both his parents are English, other questions remain unanswered.

The acting is good; Scott is nicely subtle and Jamie Bell, as his father, is noteable for his believable, naturalistic performance as a suburban dad. I do not understand why Mescal puts on an English accent; if the character had to be English, why did the producers not hire an English actor? And if Mescal specifically was required, why not let him play it Irish? Such is his pulling power it would hardly have adversely affected the viewing figures. It must also be hoped the shaggy moustache Mescal sports in this never makes a reappearance! (Ditto that sported by Bell.)

An odd film in many ways; it is a ghost story with a gay romance thrown in. Either storyline would have made a film by itself, but neither detracts from the other one. An enjoyable, tear-jerker film.

Randall Park introduced the showing of this film at the 2023 London Film Festival by describing Londoners as "physically sexy, intelligent, kind... I'm not just saying that to make you like my movie!" Having been thoroughly buttered-up by the director, what did the audience think of the film? This particular audience member enjoyed it.

The film opens with a 'film-within-a-film' along the lines of 'Crazy Rich Asians'. Watching it is Ben (Justin H Min), an Asian-American who bemoans the only way to get a film made with a majority Asian-American cast is to make what could easily have been a majority-white, crowd-pleasing film... so it is (surely intentionally) ironic that this production is that most Anglo-American of genres, the New York romcom (albeit based partly in San Francisco).

The film follows frustrated film-maker Ben's love life: first with his long-term, trust-funded girlfriend Miko, who leaves him for New York; then with Autumn, who is working on an art installation featuring photographs of her daily toilet leavings - menstrual flow included - and with Sasha, recovering from the break-up of her previous (lesbian) relationship. Watching from the sidelines with a wry smile and dry quip is Ben's best friend Alice (Sherry Cola, taking full advantage of getting all the best lines in the film).

There are a few stand-out moments: the film's tenderest scene is as Ben and Sasha, preparing to have sex, each almost admit they have never before slept with someone of the other's race. But in the main there is nothing particularly original about this; it is merely a feel-good romcom. But there is nothing wrong with that! I am sure I will watch this again.

Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore) writes a script telling her side of a scandal in which she was involved 24 years before: when, as an adult woman, she gave birth to the child of Joe, a seventh-grader (thirteen year-old, for non-US viewers). The couple's relationshiop survived both the national scandal and Gracie's time in prison: they stayed together, had more children, and now live in a gorgeous riverside house. How will the arrival of actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), to whom Gracie sent the script, affect things? Bearing in mind the first thing she does is discover a box of excrement that has been left on the couple's porch, the omens do not look good...

Moore, predictably, is very good in the role of the complex Gracie, a woman for whom the film at first seeks to evoke sympathy before gradually revealing that she is actually rather controlling. Portman's role as the actress who will play Gracie in the film-within-a-film I found rather one-dimensional; it certainly does not allow her to display her acting chops, which is odd as Portman is a co-producer. The other main player is Charles Melton, as the now-adult Joe. His acting never really rises above that of a typical soap opera, although the viewer should give him the benefit of the doubt because Joe is written as a sort of immature man-child - possibly as a result of Gracie's controlling nature.

This is an enjoyable, watchable film, admittedly with some predictable plot developments but also with lots of ambiguity which will keep the viewer thinking. And the soundtrack is pleasingly ominous too. Seen at the 2023 London Film Festival.

Scouser student Oliver (Barry Keoghan, who is not English but Irish) arrives at Oxford University where he sticks out like a sore thumb ("he's a scholarship boy and buys his clothes from Oxfam" sniffs one plummy-voiced deb). Despite this he attracts the attention of Home Counties aristocrat Felix (Jacob Elordi, who is not English but Australian/Spanish) who takes him to his family's country pile - the titular stately home - where Oliver meets Felix's family of stereotypical English aristos: vague mother, mad father, nymphomanic sister, American cousin (Archie Madekwe, who is not American but English/Nigerian/Swiss). At first even more out-of-place than he was at Oxford, Oliver quickly becomes used to life at Saltburn. But for how long will he be welcome there?

Watching this at the 2023 London Film Festival, I found it reminded me of various other films: the obvious one is 'The Talented Mr Ripley' (1999), but there are also aspects of 'Wild Things' (1998) and 'The Riot Club' (2014). Despite this, 'Saltburn' does stand on its own two feet, principally because Oliver's motives are ambiguous and, unlike 'Ripley', there is a vein of comedy throughout (sometimes unintentionally: a scene of Oliver drinking bathwater into which Felix has just ejaculated had the audience falling about, but I am not sure that was the intention of writer/director/producer Emerald Fennell!) I also appreciated that Fennell avoids the reverse-discrimination trap of making rich folk exclusively nasty but instead shows that - hey! - aristocrats have feelings too! Felix, especially, is sympathetically-drawn. If I have any criticism it is that at over two hours the film is over-long - after the birthday party sequence it seems the film has reached a natural conclusion, although there is, it turns out, good reason for it to carry on... perhaps a few of the mid-way scenes could have been cut.

The supporting players are gifted with enjoyable parts - standouts are Carey Mulligan as a drug-addled socialite and Paul Rhys (who, thirty years ago, would have been a natural to play Oliver) as a straight-laced butler. Those actors essaying accents not their own do a good job - Elordi's rich-boy drawl, in particular, is convincing. And as for leading man Keoghan - the lengthy sequence during which he dances nude to 'Murder on the Dance Floor' is likely to be one of the most-discussed scenes of the film.

"This", burbled the cheery filmsnob who introduced it at the 2022 London Film Festival, "is the kind of film you *inhabit* rather than just watching". Director/writer Goran Stolevski was more down-to-earth, pondering whether, when developing the plot, he had been affected by fumes from the Bristol night bus on which he was riding at the time.

And what fumes they must have been. The basic plot is actually quite good: cursed from babyhood by a 'wolf-eateress' (which probably sounds a lot less clunky in the original Macedonian), a girl kept in a cave grows to young adulthood and discovers she has the ability to take another being's form by stuffing into herself the internal organs of that being (there is an awful lot of offal action here). But, having had no contact during her formative years with anyone other than her mother and the wolf-eateress, she finds it difficult to integrate into human society until one final transformation.

This is all very inventive (and the reason I have awarded six stars), even if some aspects of it do not stand up to scrutiny (for instance, when in the form of a dog, how does she use her paws to stuff into herself the innards of her next victim?) There is the germ of a hugely entertaining film here. But the production is too arty: although the character's (lack of) upbringing means her very bad speech is excusable, it makes her voiceover a sore trial for the poor viewer. There are many scenes where very little happens, meaning the film seems to drag.

With a - dare I suggest it? - more commercial treatment, this could have been a sleeper hit; instead, it is probably destined to languish on the festival circuit. Sadly it is the perfect example of a promising plot let down by the execution.

Most of the women who attend the meetings of the biker gangs in this French film are mere appendages of their biker boyfriends: made-up to the nines, they stand on the sidelines while their men do high-speed wheelies. Not Julia, though: she wants to be one of the boys (at one stage she is even seen grabbing her crotch in the manner of those young men who fondly imagine themselves to be dangerously 'urban'). She rides with one of the gangs (whose members sport various arrangements of naff facial hair) and her assistance with their bike-stealing operation is welcome. But in this macho world, misogynism is never far away.

Do writers Lola Quivoron (who also directs) and Antonia Buresi want the audience to cheer for Julia? Some might do so, but I have never liked films or television programmes that glamorize criminals (no 'Peaky Blinders' for me!) and, had I realised Julia was going to be quite as criminal as she is, I might well not have chosen to see this at the 2022 London Film Festival. When her own bike is stolen, Julia simply steals another one - acknowledging no connection between the frustration and anger she feels upon the loss of her old bike, and anything felt by the proper owner of her new one. At one stage she admits that what she needs, she steals. It is hard to feel sympathy for such a person.

On the plus side, the fact the cast is largely non-professional (including Julie Ledru, who plays Julia) does not result in sub-standard performances. And the story is interesting, even if largely predictable. The film seems to last every one of its 105 minutes, but was worth watching once.

This is a film of three parts: the first part introduces Carl and Yaya, who are models (and, as played by Harris Dickinson and the late Charlbi Dean, certainly look the part, although Dickinson would be well advised to lose the spiv moustache he seems to be attempting). They spend their opening scenes arguing about money. When we next see them they are on a luxury yacht, a holiday they have been given because of their status as Internet 'influencers' (although I wonder if the kind of people who are influenced by self-appointed influencers could ever afford such a trip themselves...) The couple's fellow guests include a Russian fertilizer oligarch and a pair of polite elderly British arms dealers. The captain (Woody Harrelson) stays in his cabin drinking, leaving the running of the ship to increasingly frantic yet trusty aide Paula (Vicki Berlin). Then the third part, together with pirates, arrives and those guests and crew who do not die (BTW, this is a comedy) are shipwrecked on an island, where the survival talents of the ship's toilet maid Abigail (Dolly De Leon) see her lording it over the far richer, but suddenly helpless, guests.

Carl and Yaya's money arguments at the beginning of the film last far too long. Similarly, a scene with the captain and the oligarch (Zlatko Buric) drunkenly hogging the ship's public address system also outsays its welcome by some distance. At times I found it hard to follow the dialogue due to the volume of incidental music playing at the same time.

But I enjoyed the film. There are some laugh-out-loud moments from the subtle (Carl trying to figure out how to turn off the multiple lamps in his hotel room - who has not had a similar problem?), through the gross-out (the projectile vomiting when the captain's dinner is staged during a violent storm), to the smutty (Carl selling his sexual favours to Abigail in return for food). Perhaps the 'hunting' scene and a final act of violence sit awkwardly with the general tone of the film, but then it is that kind of production. Overall, it is a success.

In 1950s' London, senior local government officer Mr Williams discovers he is terminally ill and, for the first time in his career, takes a day off sick - an absence that stretches into several weeks. He gets drunk at the seaside, gets addicted to 'claw' arcade games and spends platonic time with a young woman, before returning to work to ensure a children's playground is built.

Williams is played by Bill Nighy, whose previous performances I have found either very enjoyable, or very annoying. Sadly, the latter applies here: his cadaverous looks certainly fit the role, but he delivers his lines in a distracting, husky voice and makes Williams so self-effacing the viewer wonders if he has not already died - a drawback for a film which, for all the story it contains, still manages to give the impression there is not a lot actually in it. (A pointless early sequence in which one of Williams' subordinates tries to navigate the office heirarchy seems tacked on merely to provide some action.)

I do not mind a film in which nothing much happens, but I found most of this film quite dull (tear-jerking, saccharine-laden finish notwithstanding). Williams is given six months to live, and sadly the film seems to drag on for a similar amount of time.

One does not watch Marco Berger films for the plot, but for the scenery: specifically, firm-bodied young men shedding their clothes. That happens several times here, to good effect!

But there *is* actually a plot - or at least, more plot than in Berger's previous, more aimless, films. As in 'Taekwondo' (2016), the setting is a luxurious house in which a group of scantily-clad sportsmen (this time hockey players) gather for the holiday season. Unbenownst to their macho, aggressively straight friends, two of those gathered are occasional bed partners. What will happen if that secret is revealed?

Weaknesses familiar from Berger's previous films are present here: several scenes start with characters statically staring aimlessly into space before one suddenly speaks; and large portions of conversations are carried out with the camera focussed on one participant only. In addition, with upwards of ten featured characters, I found it difficult to keep track of who was who. And the macho crap was, I feel, carried too far: young men do egg each other on, but the constant disparaging references to "homos" felt too frequent. And do young men really take so many photographs of each other in sexual positions?

But on the plus side, a final act of violence is filmed very tastefully, and the nudity is nice (if a bit seamy at times). And it really is a very attractive house...

In 1976 it is three years since the Chilean military coup that brought to power Augusto Pinochet. Carmen is an elegant, middle-aged woman living a comfortable middle-class existence: her husband is a doctor in the city, while Carmen herself remodels the family's seaside holiday home and does good works such as reading to the blind. One day the local priest approaches her: he has taken in a young man who was shot fleeing from Pinochet's forces; can Carmen, with her Red Cross training, provide assistance? Thus begins an adventure involving secrets, suspicion and frankly ridiculous code words ("Do you know where I can buy pasta?" "No, but they told me you can get guitars around the corner").

In this kind of film, a middle-aged woman makes for an unusual heroine and Aline Küppenheim gives Carmen a good sense of genteel bewilderment as she gets carried away by events far bigger than she. But the film feels slightly disjointed, almost as if it were originally devised as a series of webisodes which were stitched together into a wider film (Carmen fails to persuade someone - I think her son - to provide drugs in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen goes to meet a contact who does not turn up in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen loses her grandchildren in the woods in a sequence... you get the idea). I would certainly recommend seeing the film, but do not expect the 'taut thriller' promised by the 2022 London Film Festival programme.

'Persian noir' is not my description - it was used by this Iran-set film's director, Ali Abbasi, when he introduced it at the 2022 London Film Festival. It is an accurate description, at least in that a lot of the action takes place at night. Since it was made, the film, which focusses on violence against women, has gained added resonance due to the death of young Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the Iranian so-called 'morality police' and the protests that have ignited as a result.

It is based on events in Mashhad, Iran's second city, where between 2000-1 construction worker Saeed Hanaei strangled to death at least sixteen prostitutes. Whereas in many thrillers of this sort the killer remains little more than a cipher for deep evil and general nastiness, Saeed is given more of a personality: he is a family man with young children of whom he is clearly fond, and in-laws he does not particularly like. This does not necessarily make him likeable, but it does provide a more rounded character and was a good decision on the part of the film-makers.

The other main character in the film is Rahimi, a female journalist. She seems to be in a permanent state of exasperation, although this is understandable given the petty annoyances with which she has to deal ("please cover your hair" off-handedly orders a hotel receptionist). Determining the police are not doing enough to capture the murderer, it is little surprise when she sets up herself as a target. At this point the viewer may think the film (which at over two hours is rather long) is finished, but instead it goes on to portray society's depressing reactions to Saeed's crimes.

There are a few flaws: for instance, it is never explained why friends of Saeed promise to help him escape but then do nothing. But I appreciated the attempts to make Saeed a more rounded character than might have been expected, and I note that the Iranian judiciary of the time come out of things reasonably well, portrayed as determined that Saeed will answer for his crimes despite the huge amount of support he has among the public - so I think the film-makers have tried to be even-handed rather than forcing their own opinions down the throat of the viewer. That is important, particularly when Western audiences know so little about day-to-day life in the Islamic Republic.

45,000 years ago a small (and conspicuously multi-ethnic) group of humans arrive on the shores of a cold, wet land and determine to make it their own. But when it becomes apparent they are being spied upon - and one of their number disappears from beneath their collective noses - it seems likely whoever (or whatever) already lives there is unwelcoming.

Horror is a genre pretty much as old as cinema itself, so it must be difficult to do anything new with it: by setting their story in the far-distant past, the writers have certainly provided a new twist. But that innovation is outweighed by the predictable, which may or may not keep horror fans happy: there is the tense scene where a child goes missing but is playing a joke; there are several shots of characters being knocked to the ground in what initially seems a threatening manner but is actually a friend saving them; and the identity of the final adult survivor will surprise very few viewers. The mystery's ultimate solution does not stand more than cursory examination - and as for the moral of the story (because there is one, oh yes indeed), it is so blindingly obvious and delivered so clunkingly the viewer feels he has been battered about the head with a prehistoric stone club.

But there are several good points about the film: the menacing atmosphere is maintained mostly with sound and shadow - the threats themselves rarely appear on-screen (which, given one of them looked like a live-action Fred Flinstone, is a good thing). The made-up language in which the characters speak adds to the authenticity (although will put off viewers who do not like sub-titles). This film is worth seeing at least once.

I saw the British premiere of 'Argentina, 1985' at the 2022 London Film Festival. It is inspired by events following the fall of the 1976-1983 military junta that had imposed its rule on Argentina. Civilian Chief Prosecutor Julio Strassera, finding that senior lawyers are either dead, unwilling or "super-fascist", is forced to assemble a team of young, untried but idealistic legal staff to assist him in prosecuting military men who refuse to even recognise the authority of the civilian court. The team begins its work while coping with threats including bomb scares and bullets received through the post.

The trouble with films that are inspired by true events is it is unclear what is fact and what is inspiration. For instance, did the mother of Strassera's deputy Luis Moreno Ocampo really change her junta-supporting opinion on the strength of a single victim's testimony? Did Strassera's young son really spy on the judges as they made their deliberations? Indeed, was Strassera himself really the curmudgeonly but good-hearted soul he is portrayed as here?

I found the film somewhat one-sided. Beyond a few stiffly-delivered statements along the lines of "We were fighting guerillas", the viewer is given hardly any insight into the junta members' motives: was it genuine concern for the nation? Personal enrichment? Or just power-madness? In the trial segment it is particularly noticeable that whereas Strassera's closing speech is featured (and delivered in a compelling but unflashy style by lead actor Ricardo Darín), the equivalent defence speech does not appear: for all I know the defence may not be allowed to make a closing argument in an Argentine trial, but its absence certainly made the trial segment feel a trifle unfinished. Other flaws include at least three major supporting characters being introduced with no explanation as to who they are, and inadequate explanations also about personalities and institutions that may be familiar to Argentine audiences, but not necessarily to their international counterparts (for example, I spent some time puzzling over what 'ESMA' was before the acronym was finally explained).

But do not let those complaints put you off seeing this film. As a courtroom drama it largely works, and if the military men are portrayed as one-dimensional villains, many of the prosecution's team, at least, are provided with more personality (I particularly liked Strassera's no-nonsence wife, Sylvia). The mid-1980s setting is atmospheric. I would certainly watch this again.