Film Reviews by JR

Anyone who knows Kelly Reichardt's films will know that they are slow-burn, detailed, meticulous and low key but pack an emotional and artistic punch. There is also her tenderness and compassion for animals. This film's focus is especially narrow. Lizzie is an artist who makes expressive ceramic figures - unlike Lizzie herself who is not very expressive at all: she doesn't say much, doesn't smile much and dresses like an old woman in shades of beige. She works at an art school run by her mother and lives in a friend's flat with her cat, who one day injures a pigeon. Is the pigeon a reflection of Lizzie - too drab, too overlooked to care about? Lizzie's day to day life is explored, all of which sounds boring, but the film is unexpectedly funny in parts, although there is sadness (Lizzie's brother is mentally fragile), and it is profound and hopeful at the end. The scenes in the art school show the creative process in an art bubble away from the real world; the young students (somewhat improbably!)100% focused on their work.

I'm afraid I only lasted 25 minutes of this film. The acting was atrocious, the script verbose and pointless and very little happens. It's very static and stagey with long dialogues that just seem to go round in circles and so many non-sequiturs that it became deeply annoying. Dreadful.

There isn't a strong enough narrative to last the course of the film. It would have been much better if it had been a one hour teleplay. The flashback scenes to Bernie's youth are either over sentimental, or rather unconvincing recreations of battle scenes and amount to unnecessary padding. It is rather depressing, and rams home how unpleasant and difficult old age is. Michael Caine is excellent, and gives nuance and complexity to the mainly unsympathetic character of Bernie, and Glenda Jackson, in her final role is mesmerising as his unconventional and strong-willed wife.

Writing as a teenage girl in the seventies, I found little in this film that chimed with me. It seems when the family moved from New York city, they moved into the nineteen fifties where feminism is an unknown concept. The girls are obsessed with wanting breasts and periods - whereas most of us were hoping for as much time as possible before the loss of freedom that the changes of puberty bring. The mother seems underwritten and just a 'ray of sunshine' with little complexity. Kathy Bates is the best thing about the film.

I loved Ira Sachs 'Love is Strange' and 'Little Men'. In this film, the main character, Tomas, has no redeeming features. He cheats on his husband with a woman, then he cheats on the woman by almost stalking his ex, and sabotaging the ex's new relationship. The question is why do these two reasonable people - the husband and the woman, find him attractive? Why do they give him so much leeway? The film gives no back story so we have no reason for his appalling toxic narcissistic behaviour. The result is a frustratingly narrow, predictable 'love' triangle, with no wider insights.

The film seems to pre-suppose you have a fairly good understanding of what happened with Gamestop. If you had no previous knowledge, like me, you won't be able to follow the goings on. The film seems to be in a huge hurry and I soon lost interest in the unappealing/obnoxious characters' antics, all set to rap music with explicit sexist and misogynistic lyrics. It's supposed to be about the little guys undermining the big investment banks, but the irony is that they share the same obsession: the love of money. It is billed as a comedy, but it was boring and un-funny.

We never really know Nora, the protagonist, because we have to just accept, without evidence, her brilliance (aspiring to win a Tony), and because of her rather opaque, underdeveloped characterisation. Her callous treatment of the adoring Hae Sung, first neglecting to say goodbye to him aged 12, and again in her 20's abruptly ending a series of intense late night video calls filled with longing (on his part), makes her a rather unsympathetic character. There were slight echoes of Nora (is the name a coincidence?) Ephron's 'You've got Mail' and 'Sleepless in Seattle' but without the fizz and verve. The film is long and slow and offers little that's new in the 'What if/Unrequited love' romantic genre. The music is good and some of the cinematography is interesting.

Hats off to the production designers - Barbieland is a pink plastic technicolour nauseatingly amusing wonderland. But after Barbie and Ken arrive in the real world, the visual gags tail off and so does the humour. The whole section with Will Ferrell and the board of Mattel is unfunny; the stereotypical plotline of the hard working Latino mother with the parent-hating teenage daughter is schmaltzy and sentimental. There is a long tedious musical number that is unnecessary, and you'll almost want to support Ken by the 20th time you've been force-fed the 'smash the patriarchy' lines.

Another sugary British plucky underdog feel good film but lacking the pace and humour to make it watchable. Samantha Morton battles valiantly, but the rest of the performances are hammy and the characters are cliched. There are several scenes of am-dram productions, and this film feels like one itself.

I have always struggled to understand why so many film makers and critics rate Kurosawa's Ikiru so highly - it is cloyingly cliched and sentimental. This adaptation by by Kazuo Ishiguro is reverential to the original but allows scope for his interest in English reserve and repression. I enjoyed the recreation of late '40's London, the train commute, and the examination of the stiff hierarchical world of work. However Nighy's performance lives up to his character's 'Mr Zombie' nickname: it is so understated that it is bloodless and without nuance.

It has the trappings of an art house film with found film insets, and long silences, but the characters are not interesting and there is no plot. I stuck it out to the end, hoping something would happen or some insight would become apparent, but nothing does.

Bjorn looks like a ghost - sepulchrally thin, grey face hidden by long white hair and beard. He drifts through his life in misery, completely emotionally shut down, chain smoking and living in poverty and self-imposed squalor. Is it a film about the dark side of fame? Or is it about the curse of great beauty? Well, the case is not made adequately. Yes, his screen test with Visconti was rather exploitative, but we learn that during the shoot of 'Death in Venice', his pushy 'stage mum' grandmother was always with him, and he had a female chaperone. The film makers follow him as he revisits Japan (did they pay for him? It's not revealed) where he had been mobbed and almost worshipped as the beautiful boy; and it seems that in retrospect those were the times, although weird and almost overwhelming, that he felt the most alive. The film then frustratingly draws a veil over his life after he left adolescence behind. We hear hints at hedonism and self-destructive addictions and broken relationships, and another hugely traumatic event in his late twenties. The only thing the viewer can be certain of is that Bjorn's early childhood is where his misery really stems from; the trauma of which he has never been able to come to terms with.

This is not a sophisticated film like 'Adaptation' where Cage previously played himself; but it is funny and an undeniably clever premise. It is not without its faults, but it will sweep you along with engaging characters and laugh out loud gags, so enjoy the ride.

This is a quiet, simple film which shows great understanding and tenderness for a withdrawn, neglected and unloved child. It shows Irish rural life in its hardship and also beauty, and there is poetry in the cinematography of the natural surroundings. I found the dialogue difficult to hear, particularly Cait's family, so I was very glad of the subtitles for the Irish dialogue.

As a travelogue of the Swedish island of Faro, the film is stunning, and will have you planning your next summer holiday there. But the rest is long and boring. It is the navel gazing of wealthy film creatives with nothing to say about life outside their privileged bubble. There is a film within a film which is even more pointless than the main one. Bergman would turn in his grave at this.