Film Reviews by None

This is a partially successful Pixar comedy which about the various (anthropomorphised) emotions that control the mind of an eleven-year old girl. A bit like the Numskulls from the Beano or 'Herman's Head', but with more of a grasp on contemporary ideas of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy of self. Has some smart ideas and a few (though, by Pixar's standards, too few) good laughs but the adventure narrative feels a bit overworked and contrived and is resolved a rather too neatly to satisfy.

High-minded critics are wont to describe Jacques Tati's 'Play Time' as a surreal and penetrating satirical vision of the modern world; in fact it's insufferably smug, excruciatingly dull and painfully, fatally unfunny. Tati is often compared to earlier giants of silent comedy like Chaplin and Keaton, but on this evidence he has precious little of Chaplin's empathy and grace and even less of Keaton's frenetic physical dexterity and dynamism. In fairness, it is visually quite interesting, but its intentionally drab colour palette and boxy concrete office and apartment blocks are actually nowhere near as imaginative or as interesting as the kind of high modernism Tati evidently thinks he is poking fun at.

It's tempting to surmise that this is a once great film of its particular time that simply hasn't aged well, but actually its critical reputation has only grown over the years - on its release, audiences reportedly found it unoriginal and trite. They were right and subsequent generations of critics are most definitely wrong.

This is an absolute train wreck of a film: a slow motion collision of half-formed ideas, dialogue composed almost entirely of pseudo-philosophical non sequiturs, excruciatingly hammy performances, and a visual style utterly unsuited to its modernist pretensions. It pays lip service to a satirical feminist critique of the film industry in its opening scenes, but Folman is seemingly incapable of keeping an idea in his head long enough to develop it into anything meaningful and it comes as no surprise to discover as this travesty of a film unfolds (or rather, unravels) that its politics are every bit as superficial and idiotic as its philosophy.

The musical score by the wonderful Max Richter is the only redeeming feature (though what induced an artist of Richter's stature to involve himself in this tripe, I can't imagine).