Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne, Oher’s new “mother”, and delivers one of her strongest performances in a complex role.
Only one criticism: I misheard some of the intro and it sent me down the wrong path. I spent the whole film expecting Oher to fatally injure another player, which wasn’t where it was heading at all. That’s my fault, but I do think the opening moments could have been clearer.
High-powered businesswoman Margaret (Sandra Bullock) will be deported and lose her job at a New York publishing firm unless she gets married to an American. She forces her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to go along with the plan. They travel to his family home in Alaska, where – in trying to convince his family and immigration agent that they’re in love – they inevitably fall in love for real.
It sounds formulaic but there are some genuinely funny moments and the script is finely tuned enough to sparkle.
Sandra Bullock is likeable as a hard-edged bully who slowly reveals her vulnerabilities. A ludicrous scene in which a small dog is carried off by an eagle actually works.
The strong cast also includes Mary Steenburgen and Betty White.
A group of middle-class Iranians to go the Caspian Sea for a short holiday, staying in a run-down house on the beach.
Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), the organiser, has invited her daughter's nursery teacher, Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), who she is trying to match up with one of her friends, who is also part of the group. Events take a darker turn when one of the couples' children nearly drowns. Then Elly goes missing. Has she gone home because she was so uncomfortable with the social situation, or did she get swept away by the strong tide while trying to rescue the boy?
The ensemble aspect of the film is expertly handled, offering multiple perspectives on the events. Farhadi really understands how to mine the interactions for maximum interest, while also revealing flashes of the darkest comedy.
Darwin (Paul Bettany) attempts to complete On the Origin of Species while dealing with the grief of his daughter Annie’s death. He’s also semi-estranged from his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), and his theories about the beginnings of life on Earth are inflaming tensions in the God-fearing community.
There are impressive scenes of nature, illustrating the idea of evolution as Darwin perceives it.
Bettany’s compelling performance lifts the film and makes it highly watchable. Connelly brings a welcome complexity to her part as she tries to reconcile her love for her husband with her love of the God his life’s work debunks.
The quirky tone takes a little getting used to, but once you acclimatise, the film is highly enjoyable.
Zellweger is excellent as always – highly watchable and sympathetic.
There are hints of Woody Allen (especially his Blue Jasmine) crossed with the parent/child drama of Anywhere but Here.
For a relatively lightweight comedy it's surprisingly enjoyable. Zellweger is always a joy to watch, such is the multi-dimensional way she inhabits a character. And while there's nothing much that truly surprises in the storyline, it keeps you engaged until the end.
A surprisingly moving story directed by Peter Jackson.
In 1973, a girl named Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered by a serial killer (Stanley Tucci). But rather than vanish from the story, Susie narrates what happens next from an “in-between” realm between Heaven and Earth. She explores the impact of her death on her family, who she seems able to reach and influence in subtle ways. That family is played, affectingly, by Rachel Weisz (Susie’s mother), Mark Wahlberg (her father), Susan Sarandon (her grandmother) and Rose McIver (her sister).
It’s often an uneasy mix – and this is presumably deliberate – between the gruesome details of a serial killer at work and the almost whimsical dreamscapes that Susie now inhabits. She walks through psychedelic, oversaturated worlds that sometimes threaten to turn the film into a fantasy romp. But these sequences just about work because they can be seen to mirror the perceptions of a 14-year-old struggling to comprehend the enormity of what has happened to her.
If you can get past the slightly jarring combination of gritty and fantastical, you can engage with some profound questions about life and death.
Growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s, Lennon (Aaron Johnson) is torn between his solid, strict, practical Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his flighty mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), who gave him up to live with her sister.
Wisely, it keeps to the emotional drama: the story of Lennon’s musical development mostly takes place in the background. I feared that it would be a sentimental and/or simplistic account of the heartache that led to his rise to fame, but the film explores his complicated relationships with nuance and subtlety.
A social worker (the always likeable Renée Zellweger) applies for custody of a girl she believes is in danger from her parents. But after a spate of disturbing events it turns out that the real danger is the girl herself.
It’s suspenseful and dramatic, with excellently handled tension throughout. Co-stars Bradley Cooper and Ian McShane add depth, although Cooper seems underused for an actor of his talents.
Thankfully, Case 39 doesn’t turn silly at the end like so many horror-flavoured stories tend to. That said, the ending did disappoint as I imagined a much bleaker (and even darkly comic) outcome. In fact, something similar to what I’d expected can be seen as the DVD bonus alternative ending.
Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a New York journalist who is addicted to buying fashionable clothes. She ends up working as a finance columnist for Successful Saving magazine in a role where her lack of knowledge or pretension is welcomed as a refreshing asset. Meanwhile, she also falls in love with her boss (Hugh Dancy, as a sort of fifth-rate Hugh Grant) and tries to avoid a debt collector.
The film has many failings and it’s a bit of a muddled mess in terms of its views on consumerism. It can’t decide whether it’s a critique or a celebration. That said, it’s a little unfair that it was criticised for being tone deaf to the fall-out of the global financial crisis. Is it really the film’s job to reflect the changing economic and political landscape?
Pretty much everything about Confessions of a Shopaholic is clumsy and awkward, and in particular Rebecca’s parents – annoyingly and bizarrely portrayed by John Goodman and Joan Cusack. Kristin Scott Thomas seems out of place, too. The major plus is Isla Fisher, who has a real radiance. Each time she smiles, she lights up the whole film and transforms a mediocre scene into something full of charm and charisma.
An unnamed man and his son (Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) travel across the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic America following an unnamed disaster.
It’s horrifying in places (there’s a recurring thread about vigilante bands of cannibals roaming the land), but it’s also a tender drama about the love between a boy and his father.
The film asks you to consider what value life has after everything else has been lost. I like the way it doesn’t try to explain the event that led to this chaos. Instead, it just puts you straight into the situation and lets you stare it in the face.
It’s a touching romance that never gives in to mere sentimentality. The two leads are remarkable, with a very real chemistry. The music is excellent, too. Bridges seems every bit the grizzled country singer. You can truly believe him, whether he’s at his public best on stage or at his private nadir, passing out drunk in his hotel room.
There are parallels with A Star Is Born, and particularly the Streisand/Kristofferson version from 1976, but Crazy Heart seems like a more credible attempt to present a fading performer in a desperate situation.
It completely lacks charm or intrigue. The sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll feels forced and clichéd. None of the characters seems to care about anything, so why should we care about them? It makes the mistake of being every bit as empty, vacuous and depressing as the world it portrays.
There’s an all-star cast including Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke and Chris Isaak, and some of the individual performances are reasonable enough. But none stand out and the film doesn’t really hang together. What works well on the page seems flat and even annoying in this jarring, unrewarding mess.
The story is fascinating and Matt Damon is watchable in the lead role. What spoils it is the deliberately “cheesy” tone achieved by Soderbergh, who applies irritatingly chirpy and “comedic” music to nearly every scene. I’ve never known music to be more poorly judged or matched to a film. It only underscores that the story and situations we see unfolding aren’t particularly funny. The Informant! (why the exclamation mark?) could have been far more compelling as a straightforward biographical drama.
The same corny stylings ruined Ocean's Eleven, too, so I’ve come to conclude that this director’s work simply isn’t for me.
Matt Damon plays the team captain and Morgan Freeman plays Mandela.
While Freeman’s impersonation of the president may be accurate, there’s something about this old man playing another old man that ends up being ponderous and extremely dull. It could be his slow speaking manner or the rather flat way the scenes are directed, but the first half feels slow and laboured. Also, Matt Damon’s character is hardly developed at all. He’s highly watchable, but he doesn’t have much to get behind in terms of the role. His girlfriend and family are even sketchier. Also, the racial stuff seems simplistically handled.
On the plus side, things improve a lot once the actual rugby begins. The final is exciting and dynamic in a way that little else in the film is.
Syracuse a.k.a. "Circus" (Colin Farrell) is an Irish fisherman. While out on his boat one day he catches a young woman in his trawling net. Remarkably, she's alive.
Director Neil Jordan has fun playing with the ambiguity of Ondine's true essence. He cleverly has it both ways: she is both a mythological sea creature and a very real human with a very real past that inevitably comes back to haunt her.
It works on multiple levels: as a gentle smalltown love story, as an escapist fantasy in the vein of Local Hero, and as a kind of modern fairytale.
Alison Barry is absolutely wonderful as Syracuse’s young daughter suffering from kidney failure. It’s rare to see a child actor with such composure, wit and timing. And Alicja Bachleda gets it just right as the troubled, enigmatic Ondine, who never denies being a "selkie".
The supporting cast are also excellent, including Stephen Rea as the local priest and Dervla Kirwan as Syracuse's alcoholic ex-wife.
It’s nearly an engaging comedy thriller, but the “funny” bits really aren’t funny enough. Also, there are so many bluffs and double-bluffs that it can be tricky to follow. Ultimately, the whole scam scenario is so unlikely that it’s difficult to believe.
Owen and Roberts always appeal but they can’t really shine in such a self-consciously tricksy, disjointed narrative. In fact, the film’s flaws are built in from the very beginning: the characters have a deliberate coldness to indicate their professionalism and mutual distrust. But that coldness makes them – and their story – a lot harder to like. One solution would have been to spice up their encounters with a little more passion (which worked in The Thomas Crown Affair), but Duplicity, which has a “12” certificate, opts not to take that route.
On the plus side, it’s refreshing to see a thriller that doesn’t include any guns or killing.
Russell Crowe plays a Washington Globe journalist investigating a series of deaths that are linked to his friend, a congressman (Ben Affleck).
It’s an exciting drama that touches on a lot of themes. There’s political and corporate corruption. There’s also a celebration of old-school news reporting, with a nice platonic relationship between the experienced journalist and the young recruit (Rachel McAdams), who represents the world of blogs and digital news.
Crowe is as good as ever, but all of the main actors are excellent. Helen Mirren is the tough newspaper boss who is to Crowe what Judi Dench’s M was to Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Jeff Daniels is a Congressman with secrets. Robin Wright plays the politician’s wife, who has a “history” with Crowe.
Director Kevin Macdonald had previously made films about mountaineering disaster, Mick Jagger and the 1972 Munich Olympics, and you can see a certain documentary style applied to this fiction too.
Only the generic, interchangeable title lets it down.
It focuses on a North Sea pirate radio station, Radio Rock, and the DJs and other characters aboard it. Their adventures are juxtaposed against the government’s attempts to make pirate radio illegal and shut down the whole operation.
The all-star cast includes Gemma Arterton, Kenneth Branagh, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, Katherine Parkinson and Emma Thompson, but the film is told from the perspective of a teenager, Carl (Tom Sturridge), who joins the floating team and gains the sense of family and identity that he’s been missing. There’s also a thread about him seeking his father, who he’s led to believe is on the boat.
There are plenty of laughs but there are poignant moments too. And each of the characters is extremely well drawn, so you feel you get to know them all.
The music is fantastic as you might expect for a film set in 1966–1967. Warm yet unsentimental, it works towards a dramatic and satisfying conclusion.
Divorcee Jane (Meryl Streep) begins an “affair” with her own ex-husband (Alec Baldwin). But she’s also drawn to the architect she hired to make her huge home even bigger (Steve Martin).
The film is directed by Nancy Meyers, who was responsible for Something’s Gotta Give, and very much follows the formula of that earlier film. But whereas that was just about salvaged by the talents of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, this film has to survive on the abilities of Streep alone. Baldwin is oddly repulsive (it’s not clear how much of that is intentional), while Martin seems bland and underwritten.
These smug, wealthy people are difficult to like. That’s not helped by the shallow way the film addresses a potentially interesting web of relationships. But it’s not a story about how people actually are. Instead, it seems to be an aspirational exercise about how you too can be wealthy, have a huge home, have lots of friends, be loved by everyone and have a top-quality job that’s both well-paid and endlessly rewarding.
There’s a bottom line of watchability with Streep, but that’s not enough this time.
