Usually when a film is divisive, it is a love-hate film, eliciting extreme reactions on each end of the scale. Surrogates, surprisingly, is a divisive film as well, but not in the usual way as it has been seen as either offensively trite or acceptably solid filmmaking.

The story is that in the future, research originally designed to give paralysed people more of a normal life has been adopted by the military and then the general public, creating "surrogates", who are controlled by a human through their brainwaves but pose no physical risk to the operator. A brief introduction informs that 98% of the world's population now uses surrogates and crime and disease are virtually nil. Following the death of two humans whilst using their surrogates, cop Bruce Willis is on the case to unravel the mystery.

A lot of this film has been done before, it's a little bit I, Robot, a lot Philip K. Dick so it brings very little new to the table. The acting is fine but unspectacular, the execution is passable and the special effects are in the main decent. This is one of those films that does exactly what it says on the tin and delivers what you'd expect but nothing more than that. It is nice to see Rosamund Pike (as Mrs. Bruce) in a big-ish film again as she's much better than the Bond girl she's best known for being, and Radha Mitchell rounds out the central cast nicely.

As a result, there's not a lot wrong with this film, but there's not a lot right with it either. It does leave massive questions the writers are too lazy to even contemplate answering, it has some interesting ideas but doesn't fully flesh them out and it goes for the lowest common denominator at every possible opportunity. What remains is a film that if you shut your brain off for 90 minutes then it's entertaining enough if almost completely unremarkable. Give it too much thought or expectation though and it could easily be labelled a hackjob.

 

Okay, four to whisk through. I've been aware of The Blob since it was casually referenced in an episode of Red Dwarf, and for some reason it was on one of the sky channels so I checked it out. Ultra-low budget, B-movie feel to it, doesn't have the intelligence of a, say, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and is far more unintentionally funny. Steve McQueen wasn't anywhere near the level of poise and cool he'd go on to show and has a pet peeve of mine with characters saying each others names in every other sentence. This would make a good drinking game film as while bad, it's entertainingly so.

On to the pick of the bunch, Water Lilies, which was shown on Film Four (and will be repeated next Thursday night). This is basically Show Me Love meets Innocence. It's about three young teenagers who are intertwined via the local synchronised swimming classes (one's advanced, another a beginner, another just watches) and their sexual awakenings. Absolutely beautifully put together by writer/director Céline Sciamma, technically it's all very smooth and cleanly presented. The acting from all three is good, especially Pauline Acquart in the anchor of a lead role. It's fairly sparse, totally universal and rather thought provoking, of course with that final image (the original title, Naissance des pieuvres, means birth of octopuses), but more importantly with the undercurrent to what's been happening prior to that. A slow burner that's really worth checking out.

Sadly that last sentiment could not apply to either of the next two films, the first of which is Home of the Brave, which started doing the rounds this week on Sky Premiere. I watched it because Christina Ricci was in the cast and there was nothing else on, but it turns out Ricci is in it for two scenes so in that respect I was very disappointed. It's a war film starring primarily Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel (with some 50 Cent thrown in) showing an ambush in Iraq, but then focusing on the psychological aftermath upon returning from duty. Whilst being entirely inoffensive and rather average and trite, they do all try, but therein lies the problem as you can sense them trying. Jessica Biel, sitting on a bed, about to unburden herself ... the camera starts to zoom in. If only she were good enough to make the zoom in worthwhile.

Laslty, my second Gallic offering of the four, namely Mathieu Kassovitz's dystopian Babylon A.D. Having not being a fan at all (that's putting it mildly) of his incredibly lauded La Haine, and never having seen a Vin Diesel film all the way through, I wasn't expecting much but having heard about the troubled production I was intrigued (as while having The Magnificent Ambersons butchered by the studio makes me never want to see it, here I don't respect Kassovitz as a director as he's no Orson Welles so I'll happily view the butchering). It's ... okay, just about, I'm not quite sure. Diesel is just there, Mélanie Thierry is just pretty, Michelle Yeoh tries and Charlotte Rampling doesn't. The occasional action scene has some vibrancy but it's all very familar stuff, and the end rips the guts out of the film. I doubt an extra 15 minutes (or 70, whichever figure is accurate) would have added too much.

On occasion you come across a film that has it all, quality acting, good writing, assured direction, but somehow something intangible misfires, you can't quite put your finger on why because all of the individual aspects are first rate, but it falls short and becomes less than the sum of its parts. With District 9, the debut film from South African director Neill Blomkamp, it's the opposite as despite flaws in philosophy, approach and execution it still remains rather watchable.

Considering this is essentially an action film with lots of aliens and shooting, the film is staggeringly pretentious, taking such an empty genre and simply basing certain elements (that point being key, not the whole thing) on real life situations that arose in South Africa under Apartheid. The result is a messy, tacked on allegory that does not follow through and is a massive conceit.

Another conceit is the approach, which begins with a cross cutting of "footage" from CCTV and news reports combined with "witnesses" after the fact, in the style of a television documentary. Now to begin with this type of thing is hardly original or groundbreaking, but cynically it is there solely to get the exposition and backstory across and the longer it goes the more Blomkamp ditches the technique in favour of traditional storytelling. It means when he brings it back in token fashion it jars and draws attention to the the method.

Even the cinematography (which has some very nice shots) does this too as the "blood splatter" on the lens-trick, which is seldom anything other than ill-advised, is used incredibly frequently and only results in continuously reminding everyone that this is a film, as does the uneven approach in general. The CGI is very good and the aliens all look fine, but one decent performance from the central character played by Sharlto Copley is scant reward for this cross between Cloverfield, The Fly and King Kong. The latter reference is another problematic area, in that film Peter Jackson (who produced this) was able to convey genuine emotion towards the creature and show humans as the evil ones. Here, nothing of the sort is attempted and it's just empty, but very fine computer effects fighting 2D faceless humans - even Transformers at least had some laughs.

In the end, it is just about watchable, the opening hour drags a touch, but the third act whizzes by and if a brainless killing of lots of people and aliens is the order of the day then this delivers, but it's as deep as a puddle and given its delusions of grandeur it leaves quite the aftertaste. Also, the truly cynical and unsatisfactory ending is the most ridiculously left open for a sequel since the likes of Species and Resident Evil. Average when in the cinema, but the more intellectual time given to it, the more the house of cards is blown down.

If you are a young, good looking actor, then there are very few roles better than the eponymous character in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's a meaty role that allows the actor to run the gamate, from wide-eyed innocence, through corruption to thoroughly damned. The problem is though that very few actors under the age of 30 have the dramatic chops to tackle such a role and even fewer who on top of that have the looks required to even attempt it. In this latest adaptation, the role has been given to Ben Barnes and while looking the part, he's way out of his depth here.

Oliver Parker is the director, and he is a man whose career started with period dramas before nose-diving headlong towards the likes of St. Trinians. Sadly here he takes the trashiest possible approach to the subject matter, overplaying any possible salacious tittilation imaginable. As a result the balance between source material and subject is very much pushed in favour of what the story is about rather than the story itself, and the result is an extremely shallow one.

This is a shame because the story is so timeless it will always appeal and whatever form it is presented in here it still remains intrinsically watchable. Colin Firth and Rebecca Hall add a great deal to this, as while Barnes may be about as effective as an underwater hairdryer, they lend some class and charm (respectively) to the proceedings. Somehow the role of Sybil Vane (played so memorably by a young Angela Lansbury in her oscar-nominated turn in the 1940s Hollywood version of the tale) gets completely lost and Rachel Hurd-Wood is wasted as a result, as are solid performers like Emilia Fox and Ben Chaplin who are given little to do.

This is because the focus is all on the character of Gray and what erotic and sinful shenanigans he can get up to. The basic story of how his soul suffers for that can't really be fleshed out simply because either a/ Barnes isn't a good enough actor to fully get it across, b/ Parker isn't a good enough director to drag a performance out of him, or c/ (and most likely) it's both of those in tandem. That is a shame because this is a very handsomely shot film by the impeccable Roger Pratt and beneath the overt trashiness it's well put together and shifts along. It's just the tone, the approach and sadly, the talent (or lack of it) which stops it being anything other than average.

So here I was thinking I had a few to talk about but I'd forgotten I'd seen a couple on tv before I went to Venice so I'll just have to blast through it all. Okay, first up Stop Loss, which I saw just before seeing The Hurt Locker (which gives you an idea how long ago that was) and I must say I enjoyed it more than that film, although that's really not saying much. Thought the approach was really uneven with all the writing on the screen at the beginning. Ryan Phillipe was surprisingly effective and it's the first time I've actually recognised Abbie Cornish in something even if it did take me half an hour (she's completely forgettable in that Michael Fassbender kind of way). Decent film, nice point, fairly well put together.

Moving on I saw the latter two thirds of The Buddy Holly Story, which has very little to do with the reality of Buddy Holly's life as SO much of it is made up. Gary Busey gives an excellent performance in what should be a by-the-numbers biopic, but it's rather like The Glenn Miller Story in that it's entertaining in and of itself and is a better example of it than most. After I got back the first thing I saw was The World According to Garp, and I wasn't too impressed. Robin Williams would go on to be much more of a screen actor and Mary Beth Hurt hardly had anything to do. Glenn Close was fine as the mother but nothing out of the ordinary and John Lithgow had the showiest role as the transsexual former American Football player and he was easily the best on show. It gets a little repetetive and drawn out, but it's watchable enough as far as it goes.

Right, so flicking back over Ken Rudolph's site (he's an oscar voter on the foreign language and documentary committees - http://kenru.net/movies/index.html) I re-read mention of an Israeli film called Late Marriage allegedly influencing Two Lovers, so upon unsurprisingly finding it unavailable in the UK I downloaded it. It was Israel's submission for the Foreign Language category at the oscars in 2001 and stars Lior Ashkenazi as a 31 year old man whose parents feel shame that he hasn't married yet, and Ronit Elkabetz (so delightful in The Band's Visit) as the older, divorced mother who he is having an affair with. For the most part this is a very good film, but some of the important scenes fall a little flat and the end is extremely abbreviated as it skates over the natural winding up of the story and goes straight for the conclusions. Well worth watching for both leads alone though.

I tried to watch The Mist as it was on sky the other night but as it had got to about 20 or 30 mins to go it was really impossible to care at that point. Not that the film was incredibly bad, it was just incredibly dull and the confinement in a supermarket-type set up has been done before (and way better, for example the legendary episode of ER with Ewan McGregor, The Long Way Around). When the "action" scenes come they're tired and hackneyed, nothing really on offer here, more proof that Frank Darabont has lost whatever he once had.

 Moving on from that yesterday I caught A Town Like Alice, which is a classic British film without too much of a reputation online. Based on the Nevil Shute novel (well, half of it ) it dramatises the true story of how a group of women stranded in Japanese-occupied Malaya were forced to walk over a thousand miles from town to town in search of a camp, as none of the officers will accept responsibility for them. It's a director's film more than anything else and Jack Lee does a very fine job. Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch are very appealing as the main couple and it was easily the best film of the bunch I've talked about here.

Right, so at the Venice Film Festival there were various stalls selling film-related stuff, be they dvds, posters, books, etc. and upon seeing this for 6 Euros it was an absolute must-buy. Gloria Swanson has an abiding reputation for her iconic role in Sunset Blvd., but of course she was "the greatest star of them all" in the silent era. I'd seen her in tv interviews in the 70s and she was a lovely woman (and needless to say the complete opposite of Norma Desmond) and as a result I REALLY want to see Perfect Understanding with her and Olivier, which Parkinson showed a clip of and it was just divine. Anyway, there's virtually nothing available in this country unless you import region 1 stuff, so seeing this and so cheap I just jumped all over it.

THE FILM :

TITLE - Sadie Thompson
RELEASE - 1928
COUNTRY - USA
DIRECTOR - Raoul Walsh
DISTRIBUTOR - Ermitage Cinema

Sadie Thompson was made in a time of upheaval in Hollywood. The Hays Code was a few years away from being officially implemented, but by 1927 there already was an informal list of dos and don'ts filmmakers were advised to adhere to. Thus, in Gloria Swanson (with her producer's hat on) trying to adapt the play Rain (based on a W. Somerset Maugham story) it was fraught with problems and many compromises had to be made.

Fortunately the compromises in the story do not compromise the quality of the storytelling as Raoul Walsh has made one of the more genuinely watchable silent films I've seen. There's a lot of humour in there and it's artfully made, but the main appeal of this in spite of that is Swanson and she's just sublime. Playing the woman who ticks off a local "reformer" (a minister in the original story) and has to repent for her sins or be sent back to San Francisco, Swanson has a very meaty role and she attacks it head on. It's not as mannered as one might expect, and she has some quite complicated emotions to get across the longer it goes, but she just nails it.

Lionel Barrymore is the villain of the piece and he's sufficiently over the top (although it does tread the line between delicious and laughable occasionally) and Walsh as Swanson's love interest/way out has a nice presence. As with a lot of silents the tacked-on score isn't great and for long periods I put on some Shostakovich instead, but it still works in the dramatic moments. Rather bittersweet though as it makes me really want to check out as much of Swanson as I can, but there's not much of her around. This though was well worth getting and a perfect introduction to her silent work.

BONUS BITS :

Well, it is an Italian dvd, but there's only really profiles and stuff like that, but all in Italian, so even though lame in theory, particularly useless for me.

This film finally got its UK release after about a year of waiting, having done the rounds in numerous local film festivals (Athens, Leeds, Turin) and garnering a reputation as quite the crowd-pleaser. Sadly though it got a truly pathetic opening (2 screens, presumably in London) and took the best part of two months to get anywhere near the second biggest city in the country.

Rumba follows a married pair of teachers at a local school whose passion is dancing. They enter (and win) lots of local dance competitions, but this is brought tumbling down when a suicidal man puts himself in front of their car, the car swerves, and it results in the wife losing a leg and the husband loses his memory. If that sounds incredibly depressing, it isn't, this is a comedy and a virtually silent one at that. Hardly any dialogue is spoken and it's all very silly set pieces one after the other.

Due to the nature of the type of story, some of this hits more than it misses, but it would be churlish to suggest this isn't worth seeing. This is the kind of film that can get any reaction from it audience, from cross-armed scorn to bladder-testing mirth. Some of the set pieces are wonderfully done, especially a sequence of shadows dancing on the wall as our stricken pair sit motionless in silence. There are also some moments that will have pretty much everyone in the cinema laughing.

This is a very cute, hyper-stylised film, which is very short (it's 77 mins long and took 11 weeks to shoot, so certainly a labour of love getting one minute on film a day) and does exactly what it says on the tin as it always tries to entertain. In a way it's a throwback, the kind of physical comedy they employ is timeless and universal and will have a wide appeal. That said though it can have the tendency to drag if a certain scene isn't doing much for you, but it's definitely worth checking out just to see what you can get out of it, and based on the showing I saw, more will like it than not.

In 2002, a frustrated wannabe-writer named Julie Powell, who worked as a secretary for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, decided to cook her way through the 500+ recipes of American celebrity chef Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year and write a blog chronicling her efforts. This film is the result of that blog, but writer/director Nora Ephron decided one story wasn't enough and also adapted Child's posthumous autobiography My Life in France, and tells the story of how that seminal book came into existance.

This is ostensibly a comedy but it's not very amusing and the double-whammy is that it's so lightweight it doesn't really work as a drama either. The story of Child going from bored wife to trained chef and writer, coupled with Powell's tale of a year of blogging doesn't really create any really genuinely funny moments or situations where we truly care about what's happening to these people. At one point Powell's husband leaves her but it's so tritely drawn it falls somewhat flat, and knowing that Child will succeed in getting her book published relies on individual scenes to provide interest.

Amy Adams and Meryl Streep take the respective roles of Julie and Julia, and just as they did together in Doubt, they highlight the opposite approaches the actresses take. Adams gives a very natural, subtle turn but isn't really given much to do. Streep on the other hand has this extremely big personality ... and even a few watches of clips on youtube will show that her 2D caricature of Child owes more to Dan Aykroyd's Saturday Night Live skit than the real thing. It has been suggested that Streep is playing people's idea of Child rather than Child herself, but when the result is a supposedly beloved character so annoying that she should be taken round the back of the nearest shed and given both barrels to the face, it doesn't work on its own merits. Given her reputation for accents it's doubly distressing that she's taken this woman and made her sound like a pompous soprano who's just sat on a red hot poker. Now, this overplaying of the sing-song nature of the personality is something Greer Garson did to Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello, but Streep here makes it difficult to get involved with her character because she's so over the top.

The cutting between the timelines is not very consistent and sometimes it stretches too far to draw parallels between the two stories, yet in spite of all of this it does just about work. A nice score by Alexandre Desplat holds the two together and while not really working properly as a drama or a comedy, half-hitting both makes it watchable in general, if not entirely successful. Adams is the best thing about the modern story (her on-screen husband Chris Messina is sufficiently dull) and Stanley Tucci as Child's husband gives a very nice little performance to balance out Streep's excesses. Both storylines have their moments (Child finding out her sister is pregnant, Powell and the lobsters), but they're few and far between and the end result is a film that only just about drags itself up to average.

Sam Mendes began his film career at a very consistent pace, three years after his debut American Beauty he delivered Road to Perdition, and then had the same gap between that and Jarhead, and that and Revolutionary Road. Following last year's oscar begging nominated film for the first time in his career Mendes went out and just made a film straight on the back of it and given the results, he should never work any other way.

Away We Go is probably the most instantly likeable non-animated film in a number of years. Starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, it follows a couple who upon getting pregnant and learning his parents are moving to Belgium decide to visit a list of places where they could possibly move to to raise the child. What results is a road movie of sorts, and every good road movie needs a killer soundtrack and this has a truly superb one, pooling a collection of Alexi Murdoch songs with the likes of George Harrison and Bob Dylan. It complements the mood and the characters perfectly as they flit between friends and family trying to find somewhere to fit in.

The trailer for this film makes it seem the bog-standard kind of indie film that has become so common over the last decade, but this has a number of absolutely monster laughs and is absolutely hysterical when it wants to be. Allison Janney gives a knockout supporting turn and Catherine O'Hara and Maggie Gyllenhaal also absolutely come to play. The screenplay is the bedrock of this film and it works on many levels as it crafts comedy through slapstick, one liners and simple visuals.

The heart of the film comes from John Krasinski who has such an appealing screen presence and gives a gorgeous little performance as the sweet man his pregnant girlfriend will never agree to marry. Rudolph doesn't really do much but she doesn't have to because Krasinski picks up the slack and makes their relationship work all on his own, it's such a natural, generous turn. Mendes is at his best here, in the past some of his films have been overtly stylised or pre-thought out in advance, but here he just tells the story as naturally and as simply as possible. It's rather like Ron Howard with Frost/Nixon, he doesn't bring any of his Sam Mendes-ness to it, he just lets the script do the work for him. It's beautifully shot and so smoothly assembled, the technique is simultaneously impressive and invisible.

What remains is a thoroughly enjoyable, extremely entertaining, at-times hilarious, gentle little film that just washes over the audience. It presents the characters and avoids the pitfalls of the genre (usually road movies can suffer in the narrative, but the arcs are well constructed here) as well as embracing the finer parts of it with that super soundtrack which gels in with the film and meshes everything together. It's just a case of lame trailer, surprisingly great film, that probably deserves better marketing and distribution than its gotten. As such it's a diamond in the rough that hopefully won't be overlooked by too many.

Three years after her searing debut Red Road hit screens, Andrea Arnold has followed it up with her new film Fish Tank. Having won an oscar for her critically acclaimed short Wasp, both of her first two features have debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, and both won the Jury Prize. The first was certainly worth the attention, but sadly this one probably isn't.

Following a 15 year old girl named Mia from a single-parent family on an estate, it introduces an almost thoroughly unlikeable character; she's violent, foul-mouthed and chronically abrasive. Now this is not necessarily a flaw in and of itself, Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull was a horrible human being but his story and his character was fascinating. Here though the tale of someone off the rails on an estate is so trite and has been done before and better. The drama unfolds when Mia's mother starts seeing a new man named Conor and the effect his influence has on Mia.

Katie Jarvis is the novice in the lead and she does fine, and Michael Fassbender nails Conor's charm, but is unable to flesh out the complexities of where his character is taken. This is a problem because when the script hasn't fleshed out the motivations of the characters sufficiently, the actors aren't good enough to go above and beyond and paper over the cracks. What results is characters it is very difficult to care for, with unsatisfactorily drawn arcs and performances that fit the basic requirements of the role but do nothing more.

Arnold's visuals are as strong and as direct as ever, but this film is inferior to her debut in pretty much every area. The story is tired and less vital, the acting isn't on the stellar level she's found before and it just seems so "try-hard"ish. There isn't the emotional kick of Red Road and the end is amped up manipulatively then fizzles out unsatisfactorily. It feels more like someone apeing Andrea Arnold than anything else and is a definite regression. A massive disappointment, it's a decent film but given the woman's talent, she's sleepwalking here and she's been hit by the sophomore slump.

FILM - Mr. Nobody, DIRECTOR - Jaco van Dormael,
COUNTRY - Belgium, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - Sarah Polley.

Impressions :

The final film I saw at Venezia 66 was easily the most ambitious of the lot. Boasting a very large budget by European arthouse standards (the best part of £35m), Jaco van Dormael took 6 years to get in a position to make the film and it received its debut here. Set in the future when people no longer die, it follows the "last mortal" man on earth and looks back on the different possible ways his life could have gone back in the late 20th century.

There are so many films this recalls, the love and loss and regret is pure Wong Kar-Wai/2046, the various outcomes are straight out of Blind Chance and Reconstruction and the framing coupled with occasional quirkiness that is very similar to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Jared Leto is Nemo Nobody, the son of Rhys Ifans and Natasha Little (very nice seeing her doing something worthwhile a decade after This Life finished) who "has" three possible relationships with Diane Kruger, Sarah Polley and Linh Dan Pham.

The scale of the vision is very impressive, as is the make up. The attention to detail in the time periods is more drenched in the soundtrack than anything else, as we see Nemo in four timelines (as a young boy, a teenager, as a man and as the ancient last mortal man alive) it's the pop culture (and what girl he's with) which distinguishes everything. There are moments that could be considered homages, but then again there are some music video-style techniches obviously pinched from elsewhere (everything from Requiem for a Dream to the Spice Girls) and the cynic could cry "Hack job!" and there wouldn't be much of a defence. It's occasionally funny, very surreal and I feel I should have liked it more than I did because it has all the ingredients and heavily nods to a lot of films I aboslutely adore.

Sadly though I had to leave 20 mins before the end to try to catch my flight out of Venice, so I'm unable to know whether it all pulls together satisfactorily at the end. As it went, it was a very interesting, strange little film, with quite a lot to like about it amidst all the strangeness. Will definitely be seeing it again when it gets released as this is the kind of film that has "requires repeat viewings" written all over it.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 80 (1577 cumulative)

Right, so after all of that I find myself 33 miles short, but I think given that's just on value for the films and doesn't include the charms of Venice itself it was certainly worth my going. Thanks to the Shovel for pointing me in the direction of making it possible . Right, so prior to going I'd only seen one ***** 2009 film this year and I saw four at that rating or higher in under a week, which was a good return I felt. Sheppy Awards-time then, not going on in competition, but based on everything I saw, here's my picks of the festival :

Best Film :

Gold - Lo spazio bianco (White Space)
Silver - Zanan bedoone mardan (Women Without Men)
Bronze - The Men Who Stare At Goats

Best Actor :

Gold - Ewan McGregor, The Men Who Stare at Goats
Silver - Yoav Donat, Lebanon
Bronze - Sergio Castellitto, 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup

Best Actress :

Gold - Margherita Buy, Lo spazio bianco (White Space)
Silver - Isabelle Huppert, White Material
Bronze - Nelly Karim, One-Zero

Best Direction :

Gold - Francesca Comencini, Lo spazio bianco (White Space)
Silver - Shirin Neshat, Zanan bedoone mardan (Women Without Men)
Bronze - Samuel Maoz & Maoz Shmulik, Lebanon

Special Mentions :

The Screenplay of The Men Who Stare at Goats,
White Space's cinematography,
The Art Direction and Make Up of Mr. Nobody,
Lebanon's sound design,
The soundtracks of The Men Who Stare at Goats, White Space and Mr. Nobody.

The blog will resume normal service later tonight as I have a couple of films to talk about that were released in my absence (one of which is my most anticipated film of the year).

FILM - Zanan bedoone mardan (Women Without Men), DIRECTOR - Shirin Neshat,
COUNTRY - Iran, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - Iranian films invariably interest me and this had an interesting backdrop.

Impressions :

Set against the backdrop of the UK/US-backed 1953 Iranian coup (in which the democratically elected government was overthrown and a western-friendly dictatorship inserted in its place), visual artist Shirin Neshat's debut feature length film based on the novella of the same name (which is banned in Iran) is a bold, unflinching statement.

The stories follow a group of women who, amidst these powder-keg moments of history, find themselves intertwined. Orsolya Tóth is a malnourished prostitute at the end of her rope, Arita Shahrzad a wealthy woman unhappily married to an officer in the army, and there are a couple of friends, one who commits suicide (then comes back to life) due to her overbearing brother and her virginal friend who is in love with the brother.

This film is so artfully made, the images are emotionally arresting and beautifully constructed. Given the nature of the plot it is very metaphorical (especially the woman committing suicide then coming back), but also as such it is occasionally a bit weird. The characters meet at an idyllic orchard far away from the mess of what's going on with the impending coup after the prostitute has had enough, the wife leaves her husband (and buys the orchard) and the friend is raped and flees in shame (the suicide girl gets involved in the communist opposition to the coup, after leading her friend to the orchard). These are things which are changed from the source material, the basic characters are the same but what happens to them has been tinkered with - sometimes it works better and sometimes it doesn't.

Given how gorgeous this film is aesthetically, it's a bonus that Neshat uses the power of the images to supplement the point that she's making and insert an inherent pathos into the film. She says the film is for the victims of all the turbulent back-and-forth power struggles in Iran over the last century and that provokes some very interesting metaphorical readings of the characters and also shows how no matter whether the end result is "good" or "bad" or neither, innocents get hurt in the upheaval. So a very well acted, interesting film, which is lovely to look at and makes you think even when it seems a bit out there, as even that is for a reason.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 250 (1432 cumulative).

 

FILM - Wahed-Sefr (One-Zero), DIRECTOR - Abou Zekri Kamia,
COUNTRY - Iran, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - It sounded as if it should be quite watchable.

Impressions :

One-Zero is a very accessible film to a western audience. Built around the lives of various characters on the day of the final of the 2008 African Cup of Nations it has the feel of those intertwined ensemble pieces which have been a staple of American independent cinema over the last decade or two.

Niveen is a divorcee in her 40s who wants to remarry a talk show host called Sherif, but legally she can't as she asked for the divorce. A hairdresser called Adel lives with his mother and has recently broken up with Nina, who is the latest talentless hottie to become a popstar, much to the chagrin of her conservative sister. All the characters mesh together, but in a way which is almost exactly in the middle between a Paul Thomas Anderson and a Paul Haggis-type of approach.

For the most part this is a very nice little film, there are moments about halfway through where it descends into "people shouting = drama" and it's quite overcooked. That said though it thankfully doesn't last and gets back on track. The ensemble all acquit themselves nicely, with Nelly Karim as the religious nurse being the pick of the bunch. By the time the stories come to their conclusion it makes for a satisfying conclusion. Knowing the result of the final doesn't impact on the film's basic ability to work dramatically and it ensures the end is simultaneously tied up and left sufficiently open as whatever happened that night isn't going to change because of a football match, but it does show how something as simple as that can bring a nation together.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 65 (1497 cumulative).

 

I'll do the last day (which only had one film), and give my awards for what I saw coupled with seeing if I got up to the magic 1,610 miles to have made the return trip worth it at some point later today.

Right, I'm going to have to do these fairly quickly because I've come back and started watching more films and there's a backlog developing. So following the Wednesday where I finally got to see some very good films, my most anticipated of the lot was on this day. I saw it in the cheap Palabiennale, and had queued up at 8.30 in the morning to get a ticket to the Corto Cortissimo shorts later in the day. Also, the previous day I'd had free tickets for the Gallery of the Sala Grande foisted on me for a midnight showing of a Bollywood film and the others were interested in going, so we did.

 

FILM - Lebanon, DIRECTOR - Samuel Maoz & Maoz Shmulik,
COUNTRY - Israel, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - Following in the footsteps of modern Israeli war-based films I'd enjoyed.

Impressions :

On the heels of the likes of Beaufort and Waltz With Bashir, Lebanon debuted here with a great deal of expectation. This is, rather like Waltz With Bashir, quite a gimmicky film. Waltz... is a documentary turned animated film via rotoscoping, this has the intrigue of being a war film from the grunt's-eye-view as it follows a mission an Israeli tank is sent on during the First Lebanon War, set entirely inside the tank (to the extent that we only ever see outside via what the gunner sees through his sights).

Given the claustrophobic nature of the set-up, it requires good character work and fine acting to pull it off and the cast deliver from a more than decent script. It shows superbly the pressures put on these men to dehumanise themselves and the inherent consequences of their actions in the field. The gunner frequently delays firing, the officer chastises his men for not immediately executing his orders but he doesn't override them either. The close quarters also breeds familiarity and contempt between the soldiers in varying positions in the chain of command.

So while a gimmicky, almost Hitchcockian cinematic challenge, there's a lot of substance here. The characters are strongly drawn and put in situations which naturally allow drama to unfold. The continual entry of the major commanding the troops the tank is accompanying breaks up the repetetiveness and at times adds to the tension. Towards the end the filmmakers do push it a tad too far, but the final moments are genuinely exciting. Very worth seeing, technically impressive and it has something to say. That's a combination that works.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 220 (1120 cumulative).

 

FILMS - Various Shorts, DIRECTOR - Meni Philip, Murad Ibragimbekov, Adriano Giannini, Salomé Aleksi
COUNTRY - Various, SECTION - Corto Cortissimo

Why I wanted to see it? - Always worth checking out unusual parts of the festival, especially when free.

Impressions :

Sinner was the first film, and was easily the pick of the bunch. It's about a boy at a school run by rabbis who is having lustful thoughts, tells one of his teachers, then falls victim to abuse. It's nicely shot, smoothly put together, I did think the lad didn't quite have the acting chops to get across the full aspects of the role, but it's still good enough to hit home emotionally.

The second film was a Russian one called Object #1, but it was only 5 minutes long and the English subtitles weren't working. It looked to have overtly artistic visuals, black and white with very colourful red when needed, but it was a bit too quirky for my liking, even without knowing what the hell was going on .

Third up, and receiving the most amount of applause (but then again it was in Italian, well, Sicilian , so it was more likely to hit with the locals) was Il Gioco, which is about a game a group of boys play on the beach. It's got very sheened visuals, but the sound design was ridiculous, trying to amp up everything, just because you're playing the soundtrack loud doesn't make it more dramatic . A bit too weird and silly though for me given where they take it.

The last one (well, the last one I saw, for some reason they showed four, then had an interval then showed the last one - the Italians couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery ) was Felicità, which is about a woman who, having left Georgia to become part of the sex trade in order to support her family, has to mourn the death of her husband over the phone. It's one of these that shoves the "important" subject down the audience's throught, but in the end is not funny enough for what it is and is quite literally pretentious.

It turns out afterwards Felicità got a special mention and Sinner has been sent by the Festival to the European Film Awards, so by all accounts I picked the right day to go even if I was only really impressed with the one.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 50 (1170 cumulative).
 

FILM - Delhi-6, DIRECTOR - Rakesh Omprakash Mehra
COUNTRY - India, SECTION - Out of Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - I liked the director's previous film.

Impressions :

Rakesh Omprakesk Mehra's follow up to the BAFTA nominated Rang de Basanti had a lot to live up to, and if nothing else it wasn't lacking in ambition. It follows a group of people in Delhi and shows how trivial things can accentuate the religious divide and pull the community apart. We follow the arrival of a young American who brings his Grandmother home to die in the country of her birth. Soon he begins to see why the place means so much to her but is also surprised by the cultural things which don't allow people to be accepted.

I'll start with the good, and the acting is in the main fine, and the score and songs by the ubiquitous A.R. Rahman are a good example of his work in the genre. The editing of the musical set pieces is first rate and the cinematography is stylish and interesting.

Sadly though occasionally that turns into a bit of a hack job (especially when apeing Coppola's "beast-eye-view" camera from Dracula) and the story is underpinned by some very silly aspects combined with some tired, cheesy ones. The leads are appealing enough but they can never get any chemistry going because the director doesn't allow them to. The scale of the ambition is such that they don't really know what story they're telling, so a lot of things are skated over and others are only given lip-service.

In fairness, by 1.30am I was yawning my ass off and despite giving the film a lot of good will, it just was not engaging my increasingly tired self. Even though much shorter than a lot of Bollywood films that get good distribution, this one felt overlong and overstuffed and the overt ridiculousness of what underpins the drama made it impossible to take seriously. It looks and sounds nice, but in the end it's a rather hollow venture with delusions of grandeur.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 12 (1182 cumulative).

I'll be back with more tomorrow and hopefully round it off so I can get on to the British releases I've seen since I've been back.

FILM - Il compleanno (David's Birthday), DIRECTOR - Marco Filiberti,
COUNTRY - Italy, SECTION - Controcampo Italiano

Why I wanted to see it? - The plot summary seemed quite interesting and it was a cheap premiere at the main Sala Grande.

Impressions :

Following in the footsteps of many modern Italian films, Il compleanno is extremely competently put together. Italian cinema as a whole (or at least the films that get international distribution) have very smooth, fluid aesthetics and this is certainly no different. I had been intrigued to see this because of when/where it was on coupled with the plot outline - a group of friends reuniting during a holiday with some murky issues between them bubbling beneath the surface.

This is an ensemble film and there isn't a false note amongst the cast (the only one of whom I recognised was Maria de Medeiros who is most famous for being Bruce Willis's arm-chewingly annoying girlfriend in Pulp Fiction). That coupled with the execution from the director and an interesting plot could seemingly hardly fail with 20 mins to go. But alas...

Where they take the film at the end is so melodramatic and overtly operatic (think the "big" moment near the end of The Lives of Others amped up with the stereo turned up to 11) it's a let down dramatically. Worse than that though is the emotional and intellectual reaction to the very questionable messages seemingly on show. It's very homophobic and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, which is a genuine shame because for long periods this had so much to offer. What they end up delivering was an intellectual turd sandwich which should only be placed in a brown bag, set alight and left on Filiberti's doorstep as that's the only fitting place for it.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 8 (180 cumulative).

 

FILM - The Men Who Stare at Goats, DIRECTOR - Grant Heslov,
COUNTRY - USA, SECTION - Out of Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - The cast and a writer I like's debut as a director.

Impressions :

So this is the film that was simply being billed and referred to as "The Clooney" with Italy's most famous resident "headlining" a film which in reality is Ewan McGregor's (but then again Ewan can't get hundreds of Italian females to scream "GIORGIO!!!" on queue when he puts the soles of his shoes on a red carpet, hence ... GIORGIO!!!). It took a packed-out Palabiennale a little while to attune themselves to the style of comedy on show (Ewan's reporter is drawn into a story of army-trained psychics, with George being the most talented), but once this gets going it really gets going.

The most impressive thing about this film (aside from the soundtrack, which is absolutely superb) is debut-director Grant "I wrote Good Night, and Good Luck" Heslov's direction. In comedies such as these tone is key and Heslov walks the tightrope and balances it all extremely well. He has the actors pitching it spot on and uses that great soundtrack to add to and define the humour.

Clooney is in his "zany" mode - when it works (like O Brother, Where Art Thou?) he's very fun, but when it misfires (like Leatherheads) it's not that hot. He's much closer to the former than the latter here. Ewan quietly steals the show, and Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey are okay but don't elevate the material they're given. The good thing though is the material is a fine piece of writing and consistently funny.

This is a very enjoyable crowd-pleaser of a film with more than a few memorably riotous moments that deliver some monster laughs. It may clearly play fast and loose with the truth, but it's just so entertaining you can almost forgive them anything, even the staring at the goats .

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 240 (420 cumulative).

FILM - Lo Spazio Bianco (White Space), DIRECTOR - Francesca Comencini,
COUNTRY - Italy, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - It was part of the double bill with the Clooney and I liked the poster.

Impressions :

There are certain performances where you see them and say "They just won the oscar": Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Jamie Foxx in Ray, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Whether you agree with their wins or not, it was just that obvious. When White Space comes to its achingly beautiful conclusion, had it been in English and starring someone like Michelle Pfeiffer or Meg Ryan then the oscar race would be over before it had even begun: Margherita Buy's performance is just that kind of good.

We are introduced to Buy's character, a woman in her 40s who teaches Italian to adults in Naples and becomes pregnant following a passionate affair. Six months later her baby is prematurely born and the father is nowhere. Buy is forced to wait ... and wait and live with the continuously overbearing uncertainty.

This is not to say that the film is simply a performance piece, it's beautifully constructed. The cinematography is serenely smooth and the soundtrack is first rate. The editing ebbs rhythmically but despite that the film is, if anything, a little long. By definition the type of "story" they're telling (or more accurately - situation they're exploring) is a tad repetetive and can drag, but it does add into the character's situation (more Catch-22 as I mentioned the other day).

Those pacing issues are the only real problem with this lovely little film. Buy's gently subtle "wow" of a performance ensures it will always be worthwhile for that alone, but there is much more on offer from Comencini than you'll find in the average performance piece. It's more Clean than Down to the Bone in that respect and it's all the better for it.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 480 (900 cumulative).

FILM - Choi Voi (Adrift), DIRECTOR - Chuyên Bui Thac,
COUNTRY - Vietnam, SECTION - Horizons

Why I wanted to see it? - Linh Dan Pham, from The Beat That My Heart Skipped and Indochine, plus Do Thi Hai Yen from The Quiet American.

Impressions :

Adrift is a very strange film to talk about, so this will literally be my impressions and not much of a "review". The film is about a couple of newlyweds who don't immediately consumate their relationship. What that results in is the wife becoming more and more frustrated at her cab-driver hubby who is always too tired to give her a roll in the hay. They've moved into a new place and the young neighbour downstairs takes an obvious liking to the husband, and the wife's best friend seems more intent on leading her astray than anything else.

The most interesting thing about the film for me was the visual approach, I found myself watching it thinking "If this was a Wong Kar-Wai film you'd have a longer shot than that" or "If this was a Kieslowski film there'd be a close up of that". There are a lot of open shots, it's smoothly made but there's a distinct choice to show the environment these people are in, whereas others would go for a more intimate, claustrophobic feel. It doesn't make it better or worse, but it's certainly not going for the easy, trite option.

This is the kind of film where the best thing I can say about it is that it's never boring, but on the other hand I have no idea whether I actually liked it or not. The acting was fine, with Linh Dan Pham's very restrained performance being the pick of the bunch. Thematically this should have been something I would be really into with the Wong-ish holding of everything back, but something prevented it from taking hold emotionally. Perhaps a really good score would elevate the film quite a bit, but I do think the second half doesn't quite live up to the intriguing promise of the first.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 25 (76 cumulative).

 

FILM - 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup, DIRECTOR - Jacques Rivette,
COUNTRY - France, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - Liked a couple of RIvette's films in the past.

Impressions :

So I made my way to the Palabiennale for a double bill for the second time, but this time actually had the intention of watching both, and this was the first of the two. Quite simply, I liked it. This is a very simple, watchable little film about a man (Sergio Castellitto) who has an impact on a travelling circus. There are numerous characters but the central role is taken by Jane Birkin, who has returned to her high-wire act for the first time in 15 years. Castellitto persues her, having witnessed the accident which made her stop performing.

Sometimes Sergio has a very annoying screen presence but he didn't bother me here at all. He's natural and doesn't overplay it  as he befriends the clowns, chips away at Birkin's defences and goes from enthusiastic audienc-member to basically running the show as his "suggestions" increasingly become more like orders.

Rivette's technique is very smooth, he shifts the film along with some seamlessly spritely pacing and it's all very well put together. Sometimes you don't know if the performers are practicing or if it's their actual act, but it's seemingly irrelevant as it's just what these people do. It is a comedy as the tone is light, and it is occasionally very funny. The whole cast acquit themselves nicely. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but very watchable, inoffensive stuff.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 80 (156 cumulative).

 

FILM - The Informant!, DIRECTOR - Steven Soderbergh,
COUNTRY - USA, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - It was essentially free as I'd paid for the Rivette.

So from the clowns to the clowning - the latest Steven Soderbergh offering is one of a few real life-based comedies (the biggest other being George Clooney's The Men Who Stare at Goats). Here we find Matt Damon playing a delusional executive at a food company who turns informant for the FBI whilst simultaneously (and naively) trying to take control of the company he works for.

For the first 45 minutes of this it really isn't very funny at all and as a result Soderbergh utilises one of the most condescending scores in recent memory, screaming to the audience "IT'S A COMEDY DAMMIT!!!". Seemingly the exclamation mark in the title wasn't enough . This self-consciousness highlights the first half of the film's major shortcomings, it wants to be light, fresh and breezy but for the most part it's rather dull and not very entertaining. Once Damon starts taping the meetings it does pick up and hits more frequently with the laughs.

Damon is fine, Melanie Lynsky completely wasted in a nothing role, Scott Bakula gives some nice support and the rest of the cast are inoffensively average. The latter comment is representative of the film as a whole, it's not bad but it's far from great, it's not a waste of time but it merely passes it rather than filling it. That is probably the worst reaction a film could get - apathy.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 16 (172 cumulative).

Right, so even though I actually got there last Saturday night, this is about the films and for me at Venice this year Day One was last Sunday. I'd had someone wonderfully procure the tickets I asked for (although unable to score free tickets to Up, despite queueing for 2 hours ) and it meant just the two outings (as while I paid for a double bill including Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, I had zero intention of staying to watch it). It is 805 miles from Venice to Birmingham and as a result I shall be judging how worth my overall trip was in terms of mileage

 

FILM - Insolacao (Sunstroke), DIRECTOR - Daniela Thomas & Felipe Hirsch,
COUNTRY - Brazil, SECTION - Horizons

Why I wanted to see it? - Daniela Thomas, having done very nice work with Walter Salles down the years.

Impressions :

Occasionally in cinema a film comes around where the feeling that the audience experiences is mirrored by the message of the film. I call it "Catch-22-style filmmaking" and it has seen films like I'm Not There result in a film which is first and foremost like its subject. Insolacao follows a group of people and their loves/existances following a meeting with a poetic, bearded drifter. It drags horrendously and is so poorly paced it bogs down the various narratives.

After a while the horror dawned on me that it might just have taken my coming all the way to Venice to walk out of a film for the first time. "Happily" though around about the hour mark the film finally begins to make its point: a character giving a monologue saying that one day he wanted to kill himself, no reason, no big drama, he just wanted it all to end. This is where the Catch-22 effect kicks in: that book was about how war was boring and repetetive and pointless and the author made the book that way too to ram the point home. Here this film is about someone wanting to kill themselves and in the process it makes the audience feel that too because the film is so turgidly dull and annoyingly frustrating that shares in Gillette bound to go through the roof in the aftermath of mass-seppuku.

Some of the acting is quite good, especially the girl playing the confused slut, but for long periods it just isn't enough to retain an interest in what's going on. Neither do the characters as presented and it results in an extremely poor, borderline-unwatchable effort which suggests that Daniela Thomas is far better off when riding Walter Salles's coattails.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 1.

 

FILM - White Material, DIRECTOR - Claire Denis,
COUNTRY - France, SECTION - In Competition

Why I wanted to see it? - Isabelle Huppert, in spite of my reservations about Denis' "talents".

Impressions :

So after Insolacao things literally couldn't have been worse so despite my not being a fan of Denis at all, I had been taught patience earlier in the day and gave this a lot of good will as a result. It follows Isabelle Huppert, who is a French coffee-farmer in Africa who is being urged to leave due to the decreasing stability of law and order in the area.

We see a fire in a building with a white and black man locked inside, then have Huppert hitching a lift on the road, followed by flashbacks once she's in the van. The flashbacks were a little confusing, I thought they were being told from Huppert after the fire, but it turns out it's immediately before and that muddies the water. Dramatically it's not as satisfying and the narrative is more than a tad choppy.

The film lives and dies on Huppert's performance and it's very good. It seems an obvious statement but her screen presence is incredible and she holds it all together brilliantly with some beautifully nuanced body language. The characterisation isn't that deep though as her farmer staying despite everyone telling her it's not safe isn't given much background and doesn't have much motivation fleshed out (as even her character in Home had, implying she broke down anywhere else). That Huppert makes it work in spite of that is a testament to her skills as an actress rather than Denis' as a dramatist.

The cinematography is very rough and ready, especially in the first 20 minutes or so. The editing doesn't aid things as it follows the structure of the script, but there is a gorgeous modern score which adds greatly to the mood and atmosphere of the piece. So in the end, quite good, but it may just be because I watched something truly hideous before.

Number of Miles worth travelling to see : 50 (running total = 51)

 

Will be updating these daily, more tomorrow (well, it's 12.45pm, so ... later today ).

Isabelle Huppert is one of the most decorated of European actresses - over the past thirty years she's won Cannes twice, Venice twice, and got awards from the British, French and European academies. As such, a decent percentage of her films get international distribution of some sort, and the latest of hers to be released in UK cinemas is Home, which debuted in the Critics Week section of the Cannes Film Festival last year.

This is a quirky little film (by debutant director Ursula Meier) following a family who live in a house next to an usused strip of motorway in the middle of nowhere. A care-free family life is depicted with Mom and Dad (Huppert and Gallic everyman Olivier Gourmet) being sufficiently laid back in their approach to parenting the son and two daughters. Communal baths, outdoor tv watching and games of roller-hockey comprise their happy, offbeat existence until out of the blue workers turn up, complete work on the road and after lying unused for a decade the road is opened to the public.

The film has the effect of mirroring its character's lives, it's charming in its unconventionality. Huppert is her usual self, Gourmet stretches himself on occasion, but sadly Adélaïde Leroux (who showed a lot of promise in the otherwise dull Flanders) has little to do other than strut around in a bikini and disrobe every once in a while. Child actors can sometimes be very annoying but Kacey Mottet Klein as the young son keeps himself on the right (i.e. non-punchable) side of cute for the most part. Madeleine Budd is quite amusing as the middle child, distressed at the environmental downsides to having thousands of cars drive past every day.

It's a good thing that there is some humour here and they go for it quite often. This is, and the term is despicable but annoyingly fitting here, a "dramedy", with the tone being light in general but some quite serious stuff going on the longer it goes. The problem is the longer it goes the more the film begins to come to a halt, the further it gets away from its eccentric beginnings the more murky it gets, it's rather reminiscent of Lemming in that respect. It's quite obvious too that it wants to be taken on a metaphorical level, but that would make the whole enterprise much more pretentious and if anything it's probably more rewarding to take the film at face value. So a lot to like, well put together in the main with some fine performances, but it shoots its load a bit too early before limping along to the finish.

(500) Days of Summer is directed by a man called Marc Webb, and it's one of those films where immediately after it's finished, before you go on wikipedia or IMDB to see who he is and what he's done you would lay a £100 bet on him being a music video director - it's that obvious. The most successful music video-turned film directors are people like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, and it's no coincidence both of those gentlemen have made films from Charlie Kaufman scripts, because they have the visual flair to match his flair as a writer. Here, the writing is structured in a very gimmicky, uneven way and sadly just as Jonze and Gondry's approach accentuates the positives in Kaufman's scripts, here Webb's approach visually mirrors the problems with the writing. He has ideas but doesn't have the experience or innate feel for the medium to know how and when to use them. He's like a tennis player who always wants to go for the flashy lob or drop-shot, irregardless of what the circumstances dictate - it makes for a few interesting moments, but it's very hit and miss.

We are introduced to Tom (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who has just broken up with Summer (Zooey Deschanel) 200-odd days into them knowing each other, it then flicks backwards and forwards throughout their relationship. This is one of those films that due to the nature of the story they're telling and the way they tell it, the younger the audience the more they will get out of it, it's not mature filmmaking by any stretch of the imagination. The soundtrack is very good, but then again this is another gimmicky kind of thing, it's three-ring-circus style filmmaking - if you don't like a scene then at least they'll be a Doves or Carla Bruni song on in a second to tie you over and then maybe you'll like the next scene. It's this kind of "throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks"-style filmmaking that is why it's so immature and stops the film being as good as it could be. This is all the more frustrating because despite all the shortcomings in the approach and how obviously hard it tries to be liked, it is quite charming.

The main reason for that is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, without him this film would be insufferable but he plays it right down the middle and gives the film its core. His Tom, on paper, could be rather whiney but he makes the character likeable in spite of it all, it's a very charismatic turn. Zooey Deschanel is asked to do very little other than occasionally looking appealing, but this is not a film that has anything to do with the female perspective and she's left with a rather 2D character as a result. Some moments are genuinely funny and a lot of the film is quite sweetly amusing. It flirts with brilliance (the post-coital "musical number" on the way to work may be one of the best scenes of the year), but that's the problem, it's so uneven it negates the highs. So fairly harmless, in the main inoffensive, but a kop-out end and an inconsistent approach ensure it's only quite good, despite Gordon-Levitt's very best efforts.