LFF 2011: Take Shelter ****

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Posted: 23/11/2011

Writer-director Jeff Nichols stays close to his Southern roots again with another intensely powerful look at complex family relationships in Take Shelter, starring his Shotgun Stories lead, Michael Shannon, once more. Admittedly, Take Shelter is one of the most original familiar studies to come to the big screen in a long time, set against an idyllic landscape that focuses your full attention on the deeply troubling events unfolding.

Curtis LaForche (Shannon) lives in a small Ohio town with his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and six-year-old daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart), who is deaf. Money is tight, but the family is a happy one, until Curtis begins to be plagued by a series of terrifying visions of an encroaching storm that haunt him day and night. Rather than discuss them at first, he decides to channel his anxiety into the obsessive building of a storm shelter in their backyard. Curtis begins to questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

Ultimately, Take Shelter is a sensitively constructed, if somewhat protracted metaphor for mental health and its frightening onset that remains with you long after viewing. Nichols uses the temperamental weather of the area to evoke the gradually looming fate of its protagonist with astounding effect. As nature is uncontrollable, so is the family’s destiny, it seems, which with innocent victims has powerful consequences. It is also a great cinematic exploration of human resolve, too, that saves the characters from falling into a pathetic context. It is hard not to empathise with Curtis’s drive to protect.

Chastain gives another standout strong performance, re-emphasising her star status as one of the most exciting film faces to watch. Shannon is quietly captivating as a brooding Alpha male restraining his inner demons and trying to weather the impending mental storm – perhaps paving the chilling way for his Zod interpretation in 2013’s Man of Steel. Much of Shannon’s strength of performance lies in his eyes that reflect a myriad of thoughts with one glance. He expertly plays down the hysterical pull in this, keeping us firmly questioning his and our sanity and belief, climaxing in an end scene that is straight out of an apocalyptic blockbuster, which will divide opinion as to the outcome – some might feel a more fitting ending is in the shelter itself.

Nichols adds an atmosphere of the supernatural to events in Take Shelter that make piecing the puzzle together of what is real and what is not all the more immensely enthralling. The hunt for answers propels the narrative along on the whole, with stalling areas in parts, and fills you with more dread than any recent horror/thriller has, as your fervent imagination and prejudices of what constitutes ‘mental illness’ are met head on.

4/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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LFF 2011: The Deep Blue Sea ***

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Posted: 23/11/2011

The closing film at this year’s 55th London Film Festival, The Deep Blue Sea, has more of a touch of the stage than the big screen to it, although it has an implied admiration for the exquisiteness of yesteryear’s silver screen in its stunning cinematography and scene construction. It is also another ode to nostalgic post-War England that writer-director Terence Davies excels in, so is naturally highly romantic and self indulgent in form.

Based on Terence Rattigan‘s play, Rachel Weisz is Hester Collyer, the wife of a renowned British judge William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale) who is a lot older than she is, but who keeps her in a comfortable lifestyle in post-war Britain that only few could hope for. She falls for the charms of former Air Force pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), who can give her very little in material value, but excitement and the love she craves. Leaving her fortunate existence behind, Hester’s love becomes obsessive and alienates the two men in her life and destroys her well-being. Can she ever be happy?

Every frame of this film feels meticulously crafted, as we are led to fall in love with the idea of all-consuming passion, while being serenaded by the arousing score. This is the ultimate filmmaker’s textbook film, rather than being a great cinematic narrative, in both a technical and performance-related sense. Weisz becomes more mesmerising and incandescent as the minutes unfold and her resolve crumbles with the helplessness that is love, and Hiddleston is the dashing and proud 1940s movie hero. Davies’s lighting creates the mood of the moment but is also absorbed by Weisz’s presence as she struggles with the impending gloom that gradually surrounds her.

These intense, theatrical, one-on-one portrayals of raw feeling that feel egotistic and claustrophobic in parts are knitted together with other scenes full of post-war, selfless camaraderie and hope to put everything into context. Davies heavily relies on the power of music and song in this to touch the soul, and it’s a curious experience that both relinquishes tension and escalates it in equal schizophrenic nature.

In summary, fans of filmmaker Davies, the actors Weisz and Hiddleston, theatre and 1940s romance classics will revel in the love-triangle story, The Deep Blue Sea, whereas everyone else may feel a little short-changed at the box office by the experience, if narrative development is to your taste. This is a beautiful-looking film that concerns itself with looking at its most divine while indulging its characters’ eccentricities and torments to evoke any drama it has to offer. For these reasons, it’s the perfect film festival closer, and a nostalgic burst from the past unlike anything else currently showing.

3/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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Resistance ***

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Posted: 23/11/2011

As wartime dramas go, one begins to feel very much like another. But what debut feature-film writer-director Amit Gupta has created is an alternative 1940s ‘reality’, based on a fascinating novel by Owen Sheers, about what if the Nazis had succeeded with their invasion plans of Old Blighty. Resistance actually reignites our interest in the genre, as well as points to a fascinating real-life back-story.

It’s WWII and Britain is occupied. A group of women in a remote Welsh village wake up to discover all of their husbands have mysteriously vanished overnight, possibly to join the Resistance. Meanwhile, a German patrol led by commanding officer Albrecht (Tom Wlaschiha) arrives in the valley on a mysterious mission. The women are scared but defiant, and with the harsh winter closing in begin to form a dependency. One young wife, Sarah (Andrea Riseborough), catches Albrecht’s eye. Cut off from all other wartime events, the lines between collaboration, duty, occupation and survival become blurred, as the future looks unknown.

This strangely abstract ‘anti-wartime’ drama has it’s own quietly aching soul, powered by an all-consuming and unique back-story that up until now has never been portrayed on film. In fact, the ‘Auxiliary Units’, a government-funded network of WWII resistance cells whose grim tasks would have included supposedly shooting all Nazi collaborators, as well as disrupting any invaders arriving on these shores, have been shrouded in secrecy for the past 50 years and are only coming to light now. But those expecting to see an action-packed and explosive adaptation of the Sheers novel of the same name, like some sober Dad’s Army imitation, will be disappointed, as this is not the film to expose the clandestine happenings  – it merely suggests the presence of such units at the start.

Gupta is more interested in those left behind, and the impact of occupation, which has an intriguing analogy to current war zones like Afghanistan. In this sense, Gupta’s women in the story are strong and curiously ambiguous in thought. There are long, lingering moments of just ‘being’ in some scenes, as though the female characters will remain silent to their graves as they wait out events and the impending winter. It creates a haunting and quite moving effect, and the balance of power interestingly swings between local knowledge and that of the occupiers. Riseborough plays Sarah as a complete enigma, brave yet struggling with her self resolve, and keeping you guessing at her every thought and move while creating a tantalising, underlying narrative tension alone.

Wlaschiha as Albrecht is the film’s catalyst, the smiling, handsome face of the enemy and the approachable negotiator who wants nothing more than to survive the war by hiding out in the village from both sides – more so from the SS. Wlaschiha is charismatic in a mitigating and rigid fashion, but his presence is necessary to break down the women’s barriers, and the actor gives a confident and memorable performance. Nevertheless, we are always left wondering at Albrecht’s true feelings and whether they are selfish and out of necessity for survival, rather than anything meaningful. In this sense, and with the deliberate pace of the film, Gupta creates an alluring character study of resilience under occupation of both the occupier and the occupied.

That said – and without clues from the research of Sheer’s novel, there is a little too much ambiguity at times, especially with the appearance and subsequent shock disappearance of Michael Sheen as Resistance fighter Tommy Atkins that is woefully undeveloped and unexplained. Understandably, to venture down this path would detract from the women’s story and would mean a completely different film altogether, but all we are given is Atkins’ pearls of wisdom and his blunt commands to the only Welsh man left in the village, a young sniper called George (Iwan Rheon) who takes on the typical film/TV resistance role. It is also not clear what the true mission of Albrecht and his men are, short of the obvious as previously explained, and a hidden treasure in a cave seems like another obscure sub-plot that merely confuses our impression of Albrecht’s true intent.

In fact, Gupta’s faithfully muted approach to Sheers’ literary atmosphere is both Resistance’s illusive strength and its hindrance. However, Gupta demonstrates that he is more than deft at such a provocative subject matter, and like his leads, is one appealing emerging talent to watch.

3/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 **

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Posted: 21/11/2011

As predicted, the next film in The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn Part 1, breaks box office records for the ‘biggest non-3D’ opening Friday film of all time. Perhaps if it had been 3D, it could have topped even that feat – who knows? One thing is for certain, the love triangle that is Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black continues to fascinate audiences, or maybe it’s the curiosity of how the Twilight movie-making machine – that includes author Stephenie Meyer producing – will reproduce the turbulent love affair? Our guess is it’s actually the birth scene that’s the real moneymaking clincher here.

In the forth film, Bella (Kristen Stewart) finally becomes Mrs Cullen and marries her vampire Prince Charming, Edward (Robert Pattinson), in a fairy-tale wedding. But against the wishes of most of the werewolf population, including the pining Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella’s planning on honeymooning still as a human, which if the newlyweds consummate their marriage, will put her life at risk. As the sexual tension that’s been building over the series grows, the couple unsurprisingly can’t keep their hands off each other, which results in one small mistake that drains the life out of the new bride, and reignites the tensions in the wolf-vampire coven.

The ‘Bell-ward’ passion is as brooding and apprehensive but awkward to watch as ever, with lingering, hungry glares from porcelain-faced Rpatz and prickly, “I’ve-just-swallowed-something-horrid” facial gurns from Stewart. However, the acting still feels as leaden and tedious as the other films – except the first under the talented direction of Catherine Hardwicke when it was all new and exciting to us.

The Cullens’ much-anticipated union in matrimony in the book is like watching the real-life on-off lovers in an intimate off-camera clinch, and apart from some rippling Rpatz back muscles in action to gain a few fan-girl sighs is a disappointing and relatively unsexy replica. Admittedly, the series tries to keep the sex side to a minimum, which is tough when you are dealing with vampires and the obvious sexual connotations that include penetration in a 12A film.

Thankfully, though, there are some lighter moments to be had: the newlyweds ‘rearrange’ their paradise boudoir after a night of passion, with Bella looking mighty smug, plus the new bride rifles through her packed undies to try to find some choice garments to tempt her vamp into giving her a love bite worth showing off to friends. Indeed, what the film does in the first half hour is fulfil every young girl’s dream, with a wedding design and glamorous guest list to die for – not to mention the much anticipated ‘first-look’ at Bella’s dress. It’s what every Twerd has been waiting for. The film oozes style for the fashionista or luxury goods fanatic, if nothing else. Oh, and wait for the titles to roll for the biggest giggle to be had.

As a film, the only character who seems to be ‘doing anything’ exciting and single-handedly – until the final vampire-wolf standoff – is poor Jacob who ‘comes of age/pack’ in this and is the only voice of reason among the vacuous, trance-like stares, even out-smarting the normally immaculately posed Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli). Lautner has the best moments in this, and also removes his shirt within minutes of first appearing on screen.

What is shocking is watching an already delicate-looking Stewart waste away before your very eyes – and who said pregnancy made you glow? Not even a blood shake can get some colour back into her cheeks. This finally makes you feel a strange empathy for her, after years of nauseating emo angst. The birth in the ‘Grand Designs’ Cullen abode matches anything off ER for impact, which is just as well as precious little else occurs in this film, apart from the usual CGed-to-death fight scenes and vampires whizzing around the forest undergrowth. Another shocker for those not familiar with the book is Bella’s newborn triggering Jacob’s ‘imprint’ – basically a young man’s love at first sight for a child that’s borderline creepy, not to mention screams paedophilia.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 feels like yet another rather odd and protracted stepping stone to the ultimate finale, involving the Quileute and the Volturi and the Cullens – with an attractive Cullen daughter in the mix for the next adventure. Fans will flock see it – as box office figures show; non-fans will have to be dragged kicking and screaming. But with millions of avid Twi-hard readers, it’s a done deal for Meyer and co who are laughing all the way to the bank, regardless of how good a film adaptation it is.

2/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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LFF 2011: Snowtown ****

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Posted: 17/11/2011

Believe the stories of disturbed audience members leaving various screenings – there were a few hurried departures when we saw this film at this year’s London Film Festival. Debut feature writer-director Justin Kurzel has co-penned a gripping, ‘car-crash’ account based on a true Australian crime story from the 1990s. However, it’s not necessarily the crime that is the most shocking, but the slow and systematic abuse of the family involved.

Based on the Snowtown murders (August 1992 and May 1999) – also known as the Bodies in Barrels murders – in Snowtown, 145km north of Adelaide, where 11 people lost their lives at the hands of serial killer John Bunting, Kurzel’s story follows the effect Bunting had on one vulnerable and struggling family and its elder son, Jamie (Lucas Pittaway). After being abused by a seemingly friendly neighbour across the street – who takes indecent photos of the boys while having them in his care, concerned and caring Bunting (Daniel Henshall) appears on the scene like the family’s saviour, arranging community meetings to rid the area of its paedophiles and other undesirables, and becoming a compassionate surrogate father to mother Elizabeth’s (Louise Harris) kids, as well as a financially stable partner to her. As his gradual influence on all grows, and Jamie comes to rely more on him as a role model, the young man begins to be drawn into the darker world of Bunting, both emotionally and physically, and has no apparent escape.

Snowtown does not follow conventional, glossy thrillers as such: there are no dramatic build-ups or ringing alarm bells, and no grizzly climaxes. In fact, apart from one horrific torture scene that involves Jamie – as the story is told from his perspective, there is very little gore to witness on camera. It is as though Kurzel has documented an account of the killings with real-life footage taken from the time, and its stark realism is echoed in the film’s limited, even washed-out palette that perpetuates the equally decayed existence of the impoverished environment it is set in.

Like unwilling voyeurs at times, you witness events happening in secret, right in front of you, in a kind of helpless and depressing fashion. The film is prone to confusion in parts as the gloomy interiors and wider shots often make it difficult to establish who is doing what to whom – especially when Jamie is abused at home, for example. What is actually far more alarming is the apparent frequency that family members encounter abuse of all kinds and deal with it in a matter-of-fact way, plus the progressive psychological damage that Bunting inflicts as his true character is gradually revealed. This debilitating acceptance of their fate filters through and immerses you in a deep gloom.

Kurzel toys with our views on vigilantism. At first, we naturally empathise with the plight of the locals, as the ugly truth on their doorstep seems to fester. Like all serial killers, Bunting like Bundy is accommodating, articulate and highly sociable, and no more prejudice or remarkable than his peers. Ironically, one of the townsfolk is a transvestite, and although we know his card is marked by the fascist views of Bunting and co-collaborator – like others who fall into the trap, it is the waiting that simultaneously drains and propels the narrative to that end, in some scenes that could have been shorter. But perhaps it is the subject matter that is so abhorrent that we wish it to end as quickly as possible, a prolonged torture for the viewer even.

Virtual unknowns, Australian TV actor Daniel Henshall as Bunting and acting newcomer Jamie Vlassakis as Jamie have certainly stamped their respective marks with some outstanding performances, and concoct a mesmerizing chemistry – much like watching a twitching fly trapped in a spider’s web of deceit. Vlassakis is a young man lost, blindly sleepwalking his way into peril, and only coming alive with bursts of frustration and anger after realising his quandary. His outbursts are complimented by Henshall’s calm resolve that is full of menace as the disguise evaporates.

Like a brutal coming-of-age drama unfolding, Kurzel’s brilliantly directed and acted Snowtown does not leave your thoughts until long after watching it, as though you carry a guilty at witnessing the abuse. Apart from a little character confusion at times, this oppressive account is one of the most effective and uncompromising horrors of human essence of recent years – a powerful testament to the talents of all involved.

4/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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Justice **

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Posted: 17/11/2011

No stranger to staging well-paced crime thrillers, like The Bank Job, The Recruit and No Way Out, director Roger Donaldson is about as qualified as any to bring this gritty story of crime and revenge to the screen – all set in one of the most exciting cities in the US, New Orleans. But although most films cannot resist the seedy allure of the French Quarter – and this film is no exception in parts, Justice does try to delve into a more realistically captured but darker depiction.

Nic Cage stars as Will Gerard, a husband who enlists the services of a vigilante group, headed by its curious leader Simon (Guy Pearce), to help him settle the score after his wife, Laura (January Jones), is brutalised. However, Will gets involved way over his head and tries to get out of the deadly pact he has made. The trouble is whom can you trust?

While the film is a half-decent enough thriller with so many twists and turns it trips itself up at times, the basic thriller ingredients have been tried and tested a lot better before, so a good proportion of the film feels like a carbon-copy of others we’ve seen. Granted, the thrill for Cage fans is seeing their hero in a rather physical role, dodging traffic and hanging from underpasses that even leaves him rubbing his head (more than once, and usually in the car) in exasperation.

What is most intriguing is the film’s main idea of disenchantment in a wounded city still hurting from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, leading to self-served justice, and this gives the whole affair an empathetic but equally menacing edge. Cage is the ideal star to tap into this darker aspect.

Like Will, Cage has a crazed, risk-taking side that the New Orleans setting flatters and seems to nurture, and an increasingly erratic Cage is more than capable and watchable in this type of action role as he makes it his eccentric own. The issues come not from his portrayal, but from the complex – and sometimes irrelevant – labyrinth of subplots that Donaldson and writers feel are necessary to throw at him. With too much at play, other things naturally go unexplained.

Sadly, we only get to see a one-dimensional and frustratingly under-developed performance from Pearce, for example, with no explanation as to where his loyalties stem from – even though we understand that his character and others are designed to be as enigmatic as possible throughout to add to the intrigue. On the plus side, Jones, who normally adds the cutesy glamour to any scene, does some of her best work yet as the victim in the first half of the film, only to be sidelined in the rest as a pawn in the increasingly paranoid Cage dance with death. Still, it’s a vast improvement on her usual film roles, and one we’d quite like seeing her tackle again.

Justice is well staged at the start and has the presence to go far. It’s just the sum of its parts – like the random journalist murder subplot – don’t add up at times and make it feel somewhat disjointed. Cage fans are guaranteed a thrill at seeing him in action, with Ghost Rider elements of a mortal Blaze out to serve and protect the ‘ordinary man’ – and Cage is always satisfying in this type of ‘moral crusader’ role. It’s just a shame Donaldson’s film doesn’t fully realise that immense talent, having him running from pillar to post throughout – and making us rub our heads in anguish at times, too.

2/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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Special Forces ***

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Posted: 17/11/2011

Remember last year’s The Way Back, starring Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris and rising Hanna star Saoirse Ronan, where Siberian gulag escapees seem to walk half the planet to reach a safe destination, and defy all of nature’s odds? Well, writer-director Stéphane Rybojad’s new French action drama Special Forces feels much the same, only swapping Siberia for the unforgiving terrain of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the Taliban in hot pursuit. If ever there was a recruitment advert for the military might of France, it’s this.

Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) plays Elsa, a determined journalist after the inside scoop in Afghanistan, who is kidnapped by the Taliban and on course to die at their hands. In fly the French ‘special forces’, an elite bunch of six commandos, armed to the teeth and with a no-holds-barred ticket to rescue her. After successfully doing so, they miss their rendezvous point and have to form their own plan of escape and survival to bring her to safety.

Much of Rybojad’s film plays out like a gun-ho video combat game that turns into a nature adventure programme. But with its infectious French swagger – heightened by the unflustered determination of Commander Guezennec, played by international cinema heavyweight Tchéky Karyo, and the bravado of our six hero rescuers on the way to their mission who “love their job”, it’s highly entertaining and even humorous at times (considering the subject matter). Rybojad’s glorification of mighty firepower is mostly set against an over-the-top, pumping techno tracks with slow-mo action and death-defying moves, all designed to place us firmly on the side of the elite killing team.

With all-masculine names like Kovax (Blood Diamond’s Djimon Hounsou), Tic-Tac (Benoît Magimel), Lucas (Denis Menochet), Elias (Raphaël Personnaz), Victor (Alain Figlarz) and Marius (Alain Alivon), we’re given salt-of-the-earth, testosterone-fuelled and committed men who start out as one camouflaged force, but who develop personalities along the way as the story alters from war film to survival mission among the stunning but cruel terrain. The great performances from Kruger and the boys give the desired impression of unfaltering unity as the stakes get higher (making you earn for a blast of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” at times), resulting in the grand end scenes managing to tug a few heartstrings and get a few cheers. There are the inevitable clichéd and groan-inducing moments at humanitarian attempts, but such theatrics within a gallant French film production are carried off without much adversity.

Rybojad’s tale does suffer from the inevitable, overly lengthy moments, though, as he tries to stuff his visuals with even more breathtaking landscapes – like a Gallic Peter Weir. The pursuit scenes and subsequent defence ones begin to drag a little, and even Taliban chief Zaief, played (ironically) by striking-looking Israeli actor Raz Degan, and his men begin to look a little weary after their cross-country marathon. Degan is incredibly charismatic in the role, a mixture of intelligence and brewing danger, but who comes to a less than satisfactory conclusion, which renders the previous padded scenes fairly redundant. It is certainly at this point that you know Rybojad’s primary aim is to unify all sides by suggesting that man’s biggest enemy is nature itself.

Special Forces has an amusing, arrogant French Rambo-esque appeal to it that paints an uncompromising and lengthy black-and-white picture of the Afghanistan issue. Amongst the killing and body count is the contrary desire to end the conflict and heal the wounds. In this sense, it is a film you can get behind in its end goal. With an attractive international cast in tow, it should translate well for global audiences – and beguile the viewer at the locations’ magnificent beauty, while banging the drum for “vive la France.”

3/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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LFF 2011: The Awakening ***

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Posted: 10/11/2011

Writer-director Nick Murphy’s first feature film, The Awakening, is a bold step into the well-trodden genre of horror. Thankfully, Murphy has mixed supernatural intrigue with historical fact to bolster his story’s significance, adopting an old-fashioned ghost-hunting theme to its investigative concept, without relying on modern-day effects for big scares.

Set in 1921 England, there is an overwhelming sense of loss and grief after World War I, with many people missing, and others succumbing to Spanish Flu. As a result, many tricksters hold hoax séances to appease and fleece the grieving. Sceptic investigator and authoress Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) makes it her mission to expose the hoaxers. She is visited by boarding school teacher Robert Mallory (Dominic West) and invited to his school to explain the sightings of a child ghost, thought to be responsible for the death of a student. Reluctantly, Florence takes on the job, but everything she believes in begins to unravel as odd things begin to happen to her, personally.

Murphy has produced a mind-bending and foreboding suspense thriller full of intriguing dead ends and plausible accounts, much like The Others or The Shining. It addition, we get to marvel at the strange scientific gadgets used by Florence to explain the paranormal, all enhanced within Eduard Grau’s exquisite cinematography that adopts a palette to suit the time period and the moment, as well as a moving and hauntingly melancholic score.

Murphy submerges you in the looming and frosty presence of the school building, instantly producing a sense of apprehension for the findings of the investigation ahead and building the tension for the old-fashioned scares. But it is the quintessentially British cast of Hall, West and Imelda Staunton as the mysterious school matron that completes the vintage picture, and keeps the search for answers fresh and alive.

Like some yesteryear Miss Marple, stunning Hall is highly watchable in every frame as the ‘beauty with brains’ and sharp wit, driving our curiosity onwards. This is possibly Hall’s finest and assured performance yet. Like the school she and the others inhabit, there is also a great sense of grief that keeps things sombre and distressing and fuels the ghostly premise Murphy has created. Hall is assisted by West and Staunton who give the same polish performances you would expect, resulting in a dynamic trio at play.

However, what begins as an engaging and intrepid scientific investigation that reveals the true nature of the era’s grief becomes muddied in the end, with Murphy’s insistence on keeping the unexplained supernatural aspect alive, rather than allowing Florence’s logical answers to come to the fore. There is simply an inconsistency that clashes with Murphy’s commendable efforts in developing his dogmatic lead character beforehand. There are also some back-story moments that feel lacking in explanation, too, possibly as too many factors are introduced that begin unravelling the story’s focus on finding the culprit.

That said The Awakening emerges you in a nostalgic and elegant time when existences were built on stories and folklore and there was still a sense of the great unknown that fuelled exploration and human desires to learn. Murphy captures this beautifully, while addressing the aftermath of emotional trauma in such a way that even the most steadfast ghost sceptics will appreciate.

3/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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Arthur Christmas ****

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Posted: 09/11/2011

Reviewing an animated family Christmas film is rather like looking at a small child’s enthusiastic doodle – you try really hard to say something positive and glowing about it but feel wicked if negative thoughts pop into your head. It’s probably the toughest thing to do in this job, and sadly, does depend on your view of the silly season. You can take extra confidence in knowing that Arthur Christmas comes from very British and respected stock, Aardman – with a little Sony influence. So it’s not a bad result at all.

Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy) is the youngest son of the Christmas family who run the festive season each year from the North Pole in a military-style, super-high-tech fashion, thanks to older brother Steve’s (Hugh Laurie) technological advances that have superseded the old-fashioned sleigh and reindeer or yesteryear. But when the system fails, and one small child in Cornwall doesn’t get the bike she’s asked Santa (Jim Broadbent) for this Christmas before the sun rises on Christmas Day, Arthur, along with Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), Bryony the packing elf (Ashley Jensen) and an assortment of retired reindeer, make it their mission to make sure she does.

In one respect, the story bears all the signs of other past, overcooked turkeys: something goes horribly wrong with the smooth functioning of Christmas, and someone has to bail everybody out. It’s all designed to provoke festive team spirit and save the annual ritual. Thankfully, because Arthur Christmas has been laced with Aardman’s dry wit, it doesn’t go down the Disney/Pixar sentimental, moralistic route that’s as nauseating and sickly sweet as eating too much Christmas pud. In fact, its contemporary writing style is evident within the first scene’s monologue that will have a few adults nodding and smiling (knowingly) in agreement: How DOES Santa get the job done on time?

In another respect, the ugliness of corporate progression/greed assisted by technology has also been visited before, from the likes of Miracle on 34th Street to Fred Claus. Writer-director Sarah Smith and co-writer Peter Baynham cannot ignore this sentiment though, especially as people’s growing redundancy is very topical at present, in times of austerity when money is tight. All that Arthur Christmas does is take these anxieties and look at them within the context of inter-family relationships in a family business context, with Arthur being the old-school nostalgic we all secretly crave to remain like, while Steve is the corporate climber we all fear, but cannot ignore. It’s a great portrayal of family differences being emphasised at the time of year when we’re all expected to get along.

But much as the same ingredients are present and some bloating happens around the middle, there is a distinct and endearing whiff of determined Blighty to this film – even Mrs. Santa (Imelda Staunton) looks and acts like Her Majesty, the Queen, with the hilariously un-PC Grandsanta like Only Fools’ Uncle Albert who steals all the scenes with his risky actions and even riskier views. It’s just pure Nighy, upping the ante and lending his voice to another lovable Christmas rogue, after Love Actually’s colourful Billy Mack character.

Fans of Aardman’s animation style will still see traces of their Plasticine predecessors in the physicalities of the characters (pertruding ears, manic toothy smiles etc), but not the stop-motion lumps and bumps of the
Wallace & Gromit masterpieces. This is smoother and slicker – as one might expect with Sony in tow, but easier on the eye than, say, the frenetic actions of The Incredibles. It is bathed in colour and detail though (we watched the 2D version), and there are hours of fun to be had taking in all the background elf jokes in the North Pole scenes. It even gets to venture to the African Serengeti with some wonderful flying wild animal scenes and set-pieces. And for the sci-fi kids out there, the space-aged, futuristic references will absolutely thrill.

Arthur Christmas is a guaranteed festive tickler with the magic Aardman touch, complete with some very real characters and issues. Totally clued and plugged into to gadget generation, it’s sure to be a massive Christmas hit for years to come.

4/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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