NOWHERE BOY

Written by Matt Greenhalg

Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood

Starring Aaron Johnson, Kristen Scott Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff

John: Why couldn't God make me Elvis?

Julia: Because God was saving you for John Lennon.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing some of Sam Taylor-Wood’s art firsthand in exhibition. It was stark, cold but yet still emotional and affecting. It was both sad and sexual, making for a challenging experience, to say the least. Still, it was an experience I’m glad I had and one that I am also glad to say, has effectively translated to film in Taylor-Wood’s first feature, NOWHERE BOY. The images here may be moving in comparison but are just as rich with depth and pain.

This is a story of a young boy in Liverpool, whom you might know as John Lennon. Unless you know Lennon’s history well though, you will not know this story. The film opens with a dream and that classically unmistakable opening chord from The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” rings in the image. That is the last you will hear of anything The Beatles ever sang or recorded for the rest of the film though. This is not that story, not exactly. This story is about a boy, played with surprising charm and strength by relative unknown, Aaron Johnson (KICK-ASS). This boy wants to put a band together but it proves to be tricky when he is caught between the affections of the aunt who raised him his whole life (Kristen Scott Thomas) and his unstable mother (Anne-Marie Duff) with whom he has just reunited. His name just happens to be Lennon and the band he throws together in a bathroom just happens to be one of the most influential of all time.

We all come from somewhere and if we happen to have been blessed with a little talent or a little genius, then the odds are that the somewhere we came from may not have been so simple a place. Taylor-Wood shows us Lennon’s somewhere and allows us to draw our own conclusions about what made the man that would become a legend rather than do all the drawing for us. There was nothing simple about Lennon’s upbringing. He was kept in the dark until he was an adult and by then, the damage had been done. Fortunately for him and for his fans the world over, that damage became great music.

EASY VIRTUE

Written by Stephan Elliott & Sheridan Jobbins
Directed by Stephan Elliott
Starring Jessica Biel, Kristen Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes and Colin Firth


Mrs. Whittaker: Smile, Marion.
Marion Whittaker: I don’t feel like smiling.
Mrs. Whittaker: You’re English, dear. Fake it.

You pretty much know from the very start whether EASY VIRTUE will be an easy experience for you or an excruciating one. It opens with a big, bright opening musical number that cuts back and forth between a staged choreography, complete with fans and clam shells and a sepia soaked introduction to Jessica Biel as Larita, the first female race car driver, winning a race and finding the man of her dreams at the finish line. By the time you meet her man, John Whittaker’s (Ben Barnes) eccentric British family at their country home, the ridiculously dramatic tone of the film is completely set. It is forced, exaggerated and awkward. It isn’t until a few scenes later that it becomes apparent that THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT director, Stephan Elliott, is trying to be farcical on purpose. By that time, it hardly even seems to matter.


John has just married Larita without telling his family first and he is bringing his American girl home to meet Mum and Dad. Kristen Scott Thomas plays the matriarch of the household and she will have nothing to do with this American tart waltzing into her home and stealing her baby boy from her. After all, it was up to him to take over the house at some point and Larita being accustomed to life in the fast lane, means she will not be entertaining the notion of living in the country. And so the tug of war between mother and daughter-in-law begins. It isn’t pretty, let me tell you. It also isn’t that interesting. The son they are fighting over is a bit of a spineless drifter, first of all, so he hardly seems worth all the trouble. And then there are the ladies themselves. Thomas, who has been making something of a successful resurgence in the last year, looks as though she may implode at any moment as she frantically rushes about and barks nonsense at everyone. And then there’s Biel, who is clearly trying to improve her standing as a leading lady. She isn’t the presence she needs to be to throw this family into such turmoil and subsequently only half holds our own and our attention. Colin Firth is the only presence that grounds everything. This is primarily because he seems about just as interested in being there as we are.


Elliott never quite seems to get a grasp on how he wants EASY VIRTUE to play out. Once the battle between the ladies is fully on, it finds an acceptable pace but it is still strained. People occasionally sing out of nowhere. Modern songs are repurposed with a big band sound to contemporize the period genre. And he is constantly forcing camera tricks to spice things up but they are entirely transparent. You end up waiting for the only possible conclusion to come and realizing pretty quickly that this film is about as virtuous as it is easy.

DVD Review: TELL NO ONE

Written and Directed by Guillaume Canet
Starring Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josee Croze and Kristen Scott Thomas


There are times when I sit down to my computer to write about a film and I am stumped over how to convey my admiration, or lack thereof, without giving everything away. This is exponentially more difficult when the film itself explicitly insists you say nothing. And so I have decided to say very little about French director, Guillaume Canet’s TELL NO ONE. I can tell you this; it takes place approximately eight years after a man has lost his wife in a brutal murder and a new development in the case calls his innocence into question. I can also tell you that you’re better off not knowing anything else as the experience is all the more mesmerizing with just the right amount of ignorance going in.


Parlez vous francais? If you cannot answer that question, then I have my answer. TELL NO ONE contains just one extra in its DVD form, an hour long documentary chronicling the film’s making, and it is entirely in French. While the film is suitably subtitled, I guess the distributors decided that English speaking admirers of the film should be happy enough to enjoy the film and stop there. Given the film’s strong international success, they could have definitely splurged on a translator. That said, if you do speak French, I’m not sure you’re in any better position. The documentary itself goes absolutely nowhere and serves to showcase the director mostly as a young genius in the making, doing little to enhance the appreciation of the film itself.


TELL NO ONE is both tender and tense, both playful and sinister. Canet guides you along a journey that is consistently unexpected and yet never gimmicky or contrived. All you have to do is sit on the edge of your couch and wait with horrible impatience to be let in on the secret.

FILM


DVD

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

Written by Peter Morgan
Directed by Justin Chadwick
Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Kristen Scott Thomas


Lady Elizabeth: Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.

Historically speaking, Anne Boleyn was the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII. She was instrumental in England’s political and religious upheaval that saw England ultimately break away from the Catholic Church. When Henry’s first wife was unable to produce a male heir, he began to look elsewhere. His advances toward Anne were not returned, as she did not want to chance pregnancy. Any child born before the King could annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon would be a bastard child and therefore not a potential heir to the throne. As if this weren’t enough drama for the Boleyn family, Anne’s sister, Mary, was also involved with the King and rumoured to have had a child he fathered prior to his involvement with Anne. Regardless of how sordid the whole affair might have been, it altered England’s history dramatically and Anne went on to become both a martyr and a feminist icon. You would think that a screenplay about both sisters’ involvement with the King by the Oscar nominated writer of THE QUEEN would be an impartial account of the period but instead, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is nothing but a sexist farce that reduces both the male and female players to tired platitudes before robbing the story of all its humanity.


Men crave power and status. Women crave powerful men that they can manipulate to do their bidding. Men will essentially do anything to get into the skirt of a woman they desire and will lose their minds and capacity for rational thinking if she denies him. Women will in turn step over anyone, including their own sister, in order to bag a supposedly good man. Not only are all of these statements borderline offensive but they are also inane. There is always so much more to it than simply that. These clichés are the stuff great teen movies are made of and perhaps it was unfair of me to expect more from a costume film than insipid, nonsensical melodrama. What most undermines first time feature film director Justin Chadwick’s work is that it is amateurish and not at all convincing. Anne and Mary Boleyn (Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson) are introduced as loving, caring sisters. They protect each other, respect each other and love each other. Why then would I believe that either would hurt the other so maliciously? I guess because they’re girls and that’s what girls do when there is a man involved, right? Sure to stereotype both sexes fairly, the men do not escape Chadwick’s narrow view of gender definition. Am I to seriously believe the King of England (Eric Bana) would risk his throne and country’s well being just because a girl he lusts over refuses his royal wanting?


As Anne, Portman is a natural for the period but as she gets caught up in her father’s plans to have her bed the King as a means to better position her family’s standing at court, the inherent intelligence she brings to most of her roles makes it seem entirely unnatural that she would be naïve enough to play along with Daddy’s game. Johansson has never looked more drab as she stands amidst an always-overcast English countryside, her long, golden locks lying limp on her shoulders, her eyebrows almost invisible against her pale face. Though she seems to be playing catch-up to Portman’s supposed ease with the material at first, it is her poise and restraint that make for a more believable and sympathetic Boleyn. While Portman certainly masters the pain, remorse and paranoid fear necessary to convey Anne’s arch, she is incapable of escaping the same trap the entire cast falls into. Perhaps from having seen too many period pieces prior, the ensemble acts as though the events taking place are not actually happening to them as characters. Instead, they come off as amateur theatre actors caught up in the lore that comes with corsets and faked British accents.


THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is not all that horrible. I too find myself getting lost in the barrage of bodices. Still, marrying off your children as commodities should not be taken lightly and the knowing twinkle in these girls’ eyes gives away their modern feminist thinking, making their wily behaviour seem all the more implausible. The only thing that makes this all worse is that all this trouble comes about to please the patriarch of the Boleyn family who is nothing more than a pathetic, insecure coward.