The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady opens with an old lady complaining about the price of milk in her local shop. That lady is Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) who has given the security cordon around her flat the slip. Thatcher is now in her mid 80’s and growing physically and mentally frail. This is the focus for the majority of the film, an old lady in her twilight years, wandering around her flat, conversing with her daughter and her few staff, whilst sorting out the belongings of her late husband Dennis who died in 2003. Someone whom she seems to struggling to cope without because Dennis pops up regularly in her imagination, and in the ghostlike form of Jim Broadbent. This is at first confusing and then eventually quite annoying.

Interspersed with these present day scenes are flashbacks of the rest of her life. From growing up as a Greengrocer's Daughter to being inspired by her father and building a career in politics.

This is the real strength of the film as key events, such as the 1979 Election, the assassination of Airey Neave (Nicholas Farrell), the Brighton bombing, the miners' strike, the Poll Tax and the Falklands War vie for screen time. All of these scenes leave you gagging for more and while there were political omissions, personally I wanted more back story, of her life before politics, at university or while working as a barrister.

I also wanted to see the fight for the leadership of the party but her story is a vast one and there wouldn’t be enough time in any film for everything. Which makes it just the more annoying that after these too brief scenes we are returned repeatedly and rather frustratingly back to the present day.

It’s been a commonly expressed opinion, and I totally agree, that the film focuses on the wrong thing. A massive two-thirds of the film is set in the present day, which isn’t terribly interesting and actually makes me feel a bit uncomfortable for being a fly on the wall during somebody else’s declining health. Although it did achieve one thing and that was to humanise a woman who many people thought was anything but. Still, I got to the stage that if I saw Jim Broadbent's ghost one more time I was ready to stand up and punch him.

I can’t help feeling that if you want to make a film about an elderly person’s slide into dementia, then make one but you don’t need to focus on a famous figure to do that. Equally, if you going to make a film about Margaret Thatcher's life, make one. One day somebody will make a great one but unfortunately this isn't it. Two great story ideas do not together make one great film. An opportunity missed.

It’s still very enjoyable though, Dennis aside, with some great performances. Michael Pennington is hilarious as Michael Foot but then Michael Foot always was hilarious but Richard E Grant makes an odd Michael Heseltine. Meryl Streep meanwhile is outstanding as MT, but if we’re talking best Actress statuettes... is her Thatcher as good as Michelle Williams' Monroe? Probably not.

The Artist

Tonight, in the age of 3D and CGI, we watch Golden Globe winner 'The Artist' which is a silent film, made in black and white and not even widescreen. Ho hum. I must be feeling rebellious.

Hollywood 1927, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie star of huge proportions. After another successful premiere, a pretty young fan throws herself at him (1920's style) and he poses for photos with her. The young girl is Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who starts to audition for the movies herself and gets a role as an extra. George is even more impressed when he meets her legs. It's lust at first sight (1920's style).

Times are a changing though, movies with words are on the way... 'talkies' they call them. George scoffs at the mere thought but audiences want change he's told. It's time to move on but filled with a sense of his own importance and perhaps a little fear, he doesn't. Meaning his fall from grace is almost as swift as the rise of the new star and the pin-up of the 'talkies'. Some chick called Peppy Miller. Ouch.

George stumbles on, from one crisis to another. His self-funded film, silent of course, flops. The stock market crashes, leaving him destitute. His wife leaves him and he is forced to fire his loyal butler Clifton. Then when he runs out of alcohol in which to drown his sorrows he auctions off everything he owns. When that fails to solve his problems he sets fire to his old film reels and, with them, his apartment. This leads me nicely on to the star of the film, who rushes to his aid, Uggie the dog.

Meanwhile bizarrely, frighteningly, Peppy Miller not content with backwardly slagging George off in public, has started to stalk him. Maybe she's just taking pity on him, but come on she bought ALL his possessions. Obsessive or what. She even takes on his discarded butler. She’s one scary woman, steer clear, but he doesn't and he convalesces from his fire damage at her house where he finds out the extent of her obsessive behaviour/kindness. He puts a gun in his mouth in an attempt to kill himself. For God's sake man, think of the dog, the one that is anxiously pulling at your trouser leg.

This isn’t actually a bad plot when you write it all down but it’s all old school silent, complete with the overblown gestures and storyboards of the day. Oh, apart from a brief dream sequence where we had sound, which teased you into thinking the plot would develop in that direction. It was certainly odd for the film to continue completely silent with Miller now acting in ‘talkies’ but not being able to hear her.

Its hard work, the lack of dialogue just keeps you focused on trying to lip read what everyone is saying. This is perhaps why I’ve never made it through a silent film before and why everyone unanimously thought ‘talkies’ were such a big step forward. The chap next to us clearly agreed, he went to the loo or the bar at least three times.

At the end Valentin is back in the spotlight tap dancing, partnering Peppy Miller. So is the message of the film that unless you adapt to the times you become obsolete... and to make their point they make a silent film about the end of silent films, in black and white and not even widescreen. Ho hum. Now who's obsolete? Confused? I am.

Ok... it's not a bad film... it’s a well crafted period piece with some excellent attention to detail... but you still walk out thinking that there was a valid reason why silent movies disappeared. Well I did. However, I am clearly in the minority. There appears to a Best Picture Oscar waiting for ‘The Artist’. Which I think will be a bit of a kick in the teeth for the actors and actresses who have put in great performances this year, that is if they get beaten by two people who do not speak.

Well at least everyones favourite character has already had his recognition. In Cannes last year, Uggie was awarded the 2011 Palm Dog award for Best Canine Performance in a film. Bless.

War Horse

‘War Horse’ is a children's book by Michael Morpurgo that I wasn’t really aware of until recently. I’m assured it’s a cracking book and that there’s also a rather good stage production of it using life-sized horse puppets. That’s perhaps where it should have stayed.

It appears to be a fanciful tale that perhaps works in those formats, perhaps a cartoon would have worked also but here, where Steven Spielberg tries to tell it as a real story on film, it fails spectacularly.

Yeah it’s got great, well actually overdone, cinematography, loads of dramatic music and an able cast. Sadly they are all asked to play clichéd stereotypes and to work with a script that asks you to suspend belief at the cinema door. Welcome to the equine offspring of a one night stand between ‘Lassie Come Home’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Now I've never trained a horse, but I've trained dogs and simply whispering in their ears what you want them to do doesn’t work. I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that it doesn't work with horses either but I suppose I could be wrong.

Then the way the bone hard rock strewn field suddenly becomes ploughable to a foot depth after five minutes of rain was hilarious, almost as hilarious as the plough itself splitting a large rock in two. Again I’m no expert but surely it would be basic farming practice to remove as many of the rocks as possible before you attempt to plough the field? Therefore not making it as hard as possible for your horse, even if that horse does happen to be Joey the wonder horse? The story doesn’t get any less ridiculous from there onwards, very little of it made any sense at all.

Sorry I’m skipping the actual plot here. Farmer Narracott (Peter Mullan), a Boer war veteran (he doesn’t talk about it), buys a thoroughbred horse at a Devon cattle market rather than the usual type of nag you’d use to plough a field with and he uses the family’s rent money to do so. Oops. Commonsense bypass. His missus, Emily Watson, with her brow permanently furrowed (unlike their field) isn’t happy. Cue yet more furrowing of brow. No matter, their teenage son Albert (Jeremy Irvine), occasionally called Albie, trains him, hence the whispering. He names our hero Joey.

Well the field gets ploughed and the crops get sown but then they all destroyed by another freak storm, not unlike the one that got the field ploughed in the first place. Joey gets sold to a captain in the British cavalry (Tom Hiddleston) for use in a suicidal WWI military manoeuvre, so that the rent can be paid.

Once the cavalry have all been slaughtered, Joey ends up in the hands of the Germans where he is cared for by two young brothers, one of whom is only 14 but then presumably after having lied about his age to get in the German army, the pair of them inexplicably decide to desert using the horses to escape. They are captured and shot. Good riddance.

Joey and another horse are now in the hands of a sickly young French girl called Emilie. We only know she’s French because she calls her grandfather ‘grand père’ in a terrible French accent. Joey is only briefly in these pseudo-French hands because soon a group of soldiers with equally bad German accents snatch the horses back. A bit of real foreign language dialogue here would have added a much needed touch of reality and clarity to the proceedings because it’s anybody’s guess what language the ensuing German-French conversation takes place in.

Now Joey the wonder horse visits the Somme circa 1918, where he escapes from the retreating Germans and goes for a gallop across no man’s land, running straight through at least two barbed wire fences... er, no, terribly unlikely. Finally entangled in the wire we get the one great scene of the film as a British and German soldier team up to cut him free from the barbed wire.

Back in the hands of the Brits, Joey is about to be shot because he’s too damaged to save when Albert, himself now fighting and subsequently wounded in the war, recognises his beloved Joey. Quickly the armistice is declared, yet Albert and Joey, suddenly in perfect health again, are set to be parted once more because all the horses are to be auctioned off.

Grand père turns up out of the blue and outbids everyone for the horse, wanting Joey in memory of his granddaughter who has since died. Blimey, ten minutes ago she looked as strong as, well, a horse. Still, it’s a relief of sorts because my partner suspected that she'd resurface later as romantic interest for our Albie. Phew.

I don’t feel guilty spoiling the plot and saying that it all turns out ok in the end because you’d know that from the off. It’s all so inevitable. The more interesting back story was whether Albert's father’s Boer war pennant, which accompanied Joey the whole time, would make it home safely. Thankfully it did.

In the book Joey actually narrates the story (it probably worked better that way around) and it would have been nice for the horse to have said something like ‘That’s All Folks’ at the end to complete the charade but sadly it didn't.

It is, I think, supposed to be a tear jerker and my partner may have shed a few at some point but then she cries in most things and it’s hard not to cry for the horse for putting up with the corny script. Surprisingly the usually able Richard Curtis worked on it. He does reuse what he can from ‘Black Adder Goes Forth’ but even that doesn’t save the film.

I was originally going to say it’s an ok but not great film but the more I think about it, the more terrible it seems. Frankly it was awful, apart from the horse that is, who to be fair, was great, nay, terrific and acts everyone else off the screen. Give that stallion an Oscar and send the rest of them back to the trenches.

Shame

In Shame, on the surface Brandon (Michael Fassbender) seems to be your typical office worker and typical red-blooded male, checking out the girls from behind, eyeing them up on the tube and if he can pull someone in the bar after work then he wouldn't turn down any action offered to him.

Only I hope she doesn’t want to talk afterwards. She’ll likely be ushered out of the door pretty quickly, that is if she got in the door in the first place and wasn’t just offered a quickie in the street.

The Buzzcocks would have said ‘he's an orgasm addict, he's always at it’. Nipping off to the toilets if he gets a spare minute in his work day, for a quick one to one with his right hand and then later, a night of virtual sex in front of his laptop.

Although he seems to have little problem picking up women, he prefers prostitutes. He finds it easier to relate to them, or with his right hand, than with a real person. No strings attached. No feelings, no emotions. We’re led to believe he’s a junkie feeding a drug habit.

He certainly struggles to relate to his younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) who turns up unannounced in his shower one night. Sissy has her own problems, is incredibly needy but probably just requires a bit of attention and to spend some time with her brother. They are both a bit of a mess, in different ways.

Brandon resents having her crash at his place as it interferes with his routine and he grows increasingly frustrated with her invasive presence. He also isn't too thrilled when she mimics some of his own behaviour by hooking up with a married man (James Badge Dale) who also happens to be Brandon’s boss. More than anything it’s not terribly good form to shag your brother’s boss in your brother’s own bed.

When Brandon actually tries to enjoy a date with a colleague from the office, it’s an uncomfortable night. He is much happier when he drags her out of work the next day and takes her to a hotel for, yes a quickie, but he can’t go through with it with someone he actual knows and respects.

Meanwhile the secrecy around his habit is starting to unravel. His computer at work is taken away by the IT department, to have all the porn he’s downloaded on to it removed. Luckily they don’t seem to suspect him. Then Sissy stumbles across one of his virtual friends on his laptop. Slowly his world begins to spiral out of control as he is forced to hunt outside his normal boundaries to feed his addiction.

There really is not that much to the film story wise. It’s a portrait of a man struggling with his inner sexual demons and it leaves a lot unresolved. There are no reasons offered for his addiction or for what is behind the strained relationship with his sister.

There’s plenty of explicitness, which in a film about sex addiction is understandable. However there is also quite a bit of gratuitous nudity... unless the film is hinting at something deeper. Sissy certainly isn't shy about being naked around her brother. If that had happened in our household there would have been plenty of choice words said on both sides.

At least the nudity isn’t discriminatory. A Michael Fassbender full frontal is followed by Carey Mulligan full frontal but then there’s that scene of Fassbender urinating... Was that really necessary?

The film sort of hangs around a shocking scene that comes towards the end, which I won’t divulge but again we’re left wondering, does it change anything?

Right at the close, he sees a woman on the tube, the same woman he eyed up right at the start of the film. On that occasion, as he pretty much telegraphed his intentions to her, she was happy to give him the eye back, clearly interested. Then when she got up, we saw her wedding ring and her expression change to one of shame for flirting with him before she ran out on to the platform. Despite running after her, he lost her in the crowd, leaving him gutted he would have to go elsewhere for his next ‘hit’.

Now she has glammed up and appears to have had second thoughts about having second thoughts but is Brandon still tempted after all he’s been through?

We came out of the cinema and my first thoughts were ‘is that it?’ I was a little disappointed but then we talked about it constantly for the next 24 hours, still trying to decipher it. Which is always the sign of a good film.

Puss In Boots

The film opens with Puss crawling out of the boudoir of another cat, though not only is Puss (Antonio Banderas) gaining a reputation with the kitties, he’s become an outlaw. He’s a wanted cat with a price on his head.

One night in a bar he hears that Jack and Jill, murderous outlaws obviously, are in town and in possession of the fabled magic beans that they have stolen from another Jack (he of the beanstalk) who’s in jail. You may already be spotting here that the story is not exactly faithful to the original Puss in Boots story but some hybrid collaboration of fairytales.

Puss wants those beans but is thwarted when he tries to get them by a fellow feline in a kinky mask. This is Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) - master thief, useful with a sword, on the dance floor and potential love interest.

Unfortunately Kitty is working for Humpty 'Alexander' Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis). I kid you not. I kind of lost it at this point and spent the rest of the film wondering why it had a giant egg in it. Though, I guess, once you base a film on a talking cat, it isn’t much of a stretch to include a talking egg as well... but Humpty Dumpty? Oh my.

Hump and Kit want Puss to help them get the beans but he wants nothing to do with them. Well not with Humpty anyway; the over-sized egg had betrayed him once before and clearly he doesn’t wish to end up with egg on his face again. Kitty on the other hand... flutters her eyelashes and... oh, ok then. He’ll do it to try and restore his good name. Puss was once in an orphanage before being taken in by a kind-hearted woman called Imelda. While living with her he gained the trust and respect of the whole town before it all went wrong thanks to the egg.

So they steal the beans and plant them at a ‘special’ spot from which sprouts a beanstalk to the heavens. All they now have to do is shin up to the Giant's castle which lies at the top and grab the goose that lays the golden eggs. Sound familiar? I’m not sure how Puss thinks that snatching a baby goose from its mother will restore his good name but anyway. At least they’ll all be rich, maybe. Maybe not.

I went into this film with very mild expectations, they were not exceeded. Puss himself was quite good but he was clearly working with a very amateur supporting cast and as for the scriptwriter, oh dear. Some of the cat jokes are clever but it’s not enough to save a very lazy plot. It’s a family film obviously but I think as a child it would have bored me. Years ago, this was the sort of thing that would have been a mere TV series, shown at 4pm on the BBC’s Children’s slot. Definitely not put on the big screen. It’s certainly not a classic that they’ll be dragging out to reshow year after year. Could have been a lot better.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Tonight the swift and pointless remake, sorry re-adaptation, by Hollywood of, yep, ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’. Luckily most pointless remakes, sorry re-adaptations, aren't directed by David Fincher and, to my immense surprise, I rather liked it.

That is once I got over the rather unexpected opening credits which involved Led Zeppelin's ‘Immigrant Song’ remade, sorry re-adapted, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with vocals by Karen O. Together with rather striking visuals. It was totally out of place and was more like a supporting feature. It was how you’d expect a James Bond film to open and then low and behold on walked Bond himself, Daniel Craig.

I won't go over all the plot again because you should know it and if you don't, either go read the book, see the Swedish original or if you’re American and you can’t read subtitles, then read my review of it. This review could only ever have been a comparison between the two.



Just like the Swedish original the first hour felt rushed with too much to fit in. You urged it to slow down and eventually it did. At which point it dawned in me that this version was actually more faithful to the novel and included plenty of scenes that were omitted from the original. Blomkvist's daughter is back as is his affair with Erika Berger but not his one with Cecilia but it’s also clear that Fincher has seen the Swedish version because he steals plot from that as well, using the same shortcuts in places.



Of course, the Swedish version was spliced from a TV series which, across the trilogy, left a total of two hours on the cutting room floor. I've just ordered the DVD of that, so that'll be an interesting watch to see what was cut for the cinema release. However, they still cut it, so they have to take the rap for it.

This version also seems to big up Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) role and reduce Mikael Blomkvist’s (Daniel Craig) which considering we have a rather wooden Mr Craig here, is perhaps no bad thing. Craig’s Blomkvist lacks emotion and personality, at times looks lost and forgets to wear enough clothes for the Swedish winter. Although, to be fair, Blomkvist is a bit dull in the book as well, save for his liking of trysts with his women. Don't we all.



Talking of trysts, this version seems to throw Blomkvist and Salander together on the screen a lot more, both in bed and out of it, but still the pair badly lacked chemistry. Not that a lack of chemistry has ever got in the way of a good shag. Mara certainly throws herself, totally naked, into that and into the whole role. She is good throughout although she will inevitably forever be overshadowed by Noomi Rapace from the Swedish version. She just doesn't have the same presence. Mara’s Salander is waiflike, more pouting teenager where as Rapace was simply a menacing woman who had never learnt how to pout. Loved the t-shirt though Mara, ‘F*ck you you f*cking f*ck’.

If it’s raunchier, it’s also funnier, not sure if that's a plus or not. It’s also possibly more sadistic. Whether this is because Yorick van Wageningen who plays Nils Bjurman looks like Rory McGrath, which is a scary enough thought on its own.



The slightly altered ending may actually be better but isn't correct. Sadly Harriet no longer runs a cattle ranch in Australia but the reinstatement of Salander’s gift to Blomkvist is welcome and is necessary to set up her antagonism toward him later, should the second book get filmed. Although I’m sure some scenes from the second book appeared here - e.g. Salander's confrontation with Bjurman about his tattoo removal.



As remakes go, this is actually a good one. The scriptwriter deserves praise and the cinematography is better, although I expect done on a much larger budget. They also resisted the temptation to transpose this story to America, which was a relief.

I would almost say it was better than the Swedish version but for Daniel Craig. So overall it’s still the rawer original for me, I think... maybe... I'm actually not sure.

(Saturday 7th January)