Never Let Me Go (2010)

Based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, this is possibly the most depressing film I’ve ever seen. 

1978. Three young friends, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, are at a mysterious boarding school called Hailsham. One day, a teacher tells them that they only exist to be organ donors. They will “complete” (i.e., die) in early adulthood when they are no longer strong enough to donate further organs. The film is split between their childhood at Hailsham and their adulthood – in 1985, and then in 1994 – once the donor process begins. Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield star. 

What makes it work is that the plot functions as a romantic love triangle, but it’s set against an extremely subtle dystopian backdrop. There’s a lot that isn’t explained – such as why they barely seem to resist or even question their destiny. Is that because of brainwashing or did the film just avoid the most obvious issues? As it stands, their resigned behaviour just adds to the sense of grim fatalism, which is probably intentional. 

The bleakness comes from the way it’s shot as well as the overall message. It leaves you almost no glimmer of hope. In its own it's way quite brilliant, but ultimately I regretted watching it.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Oliver Stone’s disappointing and unnecessary sequel to his original 1987 Wall Street hit, which was itself patchy. Michael Douglas returns as Gordon Gekko. He’s out of prison and says he wants to reconnect with his estranged daughter (an unconvincing Carey Mulligan). That daughter’s fiancé (Shia LaBeouf) is himself a Wall Street wizard and begins his own wheeler-dealing with Gordon Gekko. Josh Brolin plays a smooth, ruthless banker who gave evidence against Gekko in the past.

It’s a frustrating film that feels slow in parts and plain odd in others. Naff visuals don’t help: sometimes there are fussy split-screen effects, and at a couple of points we see crudely literal representation of “dominoes falling” and “science”. 

Susan Sarandon has a bit part that doesn’t really work, and Charlie Sheen has an awkward cameo purely as a nod to his role in the first film. He wasn’t very good in that either. 

Michael Douglas is always compelling, but it’s a genuinely baffling story that simply did not need to be told. The bolted-on happy ending suggests that Oliver Stone is muddled about how he feels about Gordon Gekko. He seems to be in love with the character and unable to make up his mind about whether he’s a nice guy or a baddie. Instead, he gives him a line about all of us being mixed bags who should give each other a break. After two films, that just seems like a cop-out.

Drive (2011)

A disturbing thriller.

Ryan Gosling plays a getaway driver who becomes mixed up in a crime involving the husband of his neighbour (Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan respectively). After a brooding, menacing start, it turns very, very violent indeed. Gosling seems superbly intense in the lead, initially, but his character development takes him down a path that means you can no longer identify with him.

I found the violence somewhat gratuitous. I know that violence was in many ways the subject of the film, but a couple of the scenes were horrifically drawn out in a way that they really didn’t need to be. It was difficult to know what I was supposed to take away from it.

On the plus side, the driving sequences were exciting and the locations were well chosen. Gosling and Mulligan had a certain chemistry, too. There are echoes of Taxi Driver, but it doesn’t have the consistent logic or magnetic pull of that masterpiece.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

I really disliked this Coen Brothers so-called “comedy drama” about a folk singer in New York in 1961.
1. It looks horrible: washed-out and grey – just not a visual treatment I can enjoy. I understand that this was meant to mirror a washed-out and grey existence, but it felt heavy-handed and self-conscious.
2. Everyone and everything was made as ugly as possible. Why?
3. With the exception of Oscar Isaac as the character in the film title, no one was likeable in any way.
4. There’s an entirely superfluous sub-plot about a road trip to Chicago that promises lots and goes absolutely nowhere.
5. I have an aversion to John Goodman. He’s always the same in everything he does and he’s never as funny as he’s meant to be. Just the same annoying tics. 
6. The comedy in general was extremely weak. No laughs, or even wry smiles, and opportunities to satirise were overlooked.
7. Unfortunately, the drama was weak also – mainly because of point 3, above.
8. Carey Mulligan’s character was so objectionable that you couldn’t care in the slightest about her problems.
9. There’s something deeply soporific about it – the long, ponderous performance scenes and the consistently unsparkling dialogue. Even the endless swearing lacked impact.
10. The directors take a fascinating time and place in American history and crush all the life out of it. Or as Suzanne Vega stated: “I feel they took a vibrant, crackling, competitive, romantic, communal, crazy, drunken, brawling scene and crumpled it into a slow brown sad movie.” The arrival of Bob Dylan at the end to usher in a new era was too little too late.