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And So It Goes (2014)
And so it goes surprisingly well, though the final film is hardly what you'd call a classic.
It's easy to assume the worst of And So It Goes. It looks like every other generic "comedy" that's been hastily slapped together to appeal to a more mature audience - the kind of film in which, these days, respected veterans of the silver screen appear in order to finance their retirement. Heck, this isn't even the first time Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton have popped up in such "comedies": the former played an aging Lothario in Last Vegas, while Keaton kicked off the whole sub-genre in Something's Gotta Give, and most recently appeared in The Big Wedding. The good news is that And So It Goes somehow manages to work anyway. It's predictable and occasionally not funny at all, but when it settles into its groove, the weight of age and experience of the two lead characters contributes quite a bit to their inevitable romance.
Oren Little (Douglas) is a cynical, cantankerous old man who's never recovered from the death of his beloved wife many years ago. As a result, he's pushed almost everyone away, including his estranged, ex-junkie son Luke (Scott Shepherd). While trying to sell off his family home so he can retire in Canada, Oren moves into a lakeside apartment complex he owns. There, he meets Leah (Keaton), an aspiring lounge singer who can never get all the way through a song without bursting into tears at the thought of her own deceased husband. On his way to a stint in jail, Luke begs Oren to take care of his daughter Sarah (Sterling Jerins) - a task which Oren promptly palms off to Leah.
The plot, as you might imagine, marches on predictably from here: Oren and Leah, forced to spend more time together, begin to soften towards each other. He realises she's smart, spunky and a great cook; she sees that he's not just a grumpy, irascible ball of hatred. It's sometimes hard to take too seriously the way in which And So It Goes pulls off its so-called 'character development': can a casual bigot like Oren, who tosses off rather offensive remarks with little care for what others might think, really be trusted around other human beings? Much less deliver a baby, as he's called upon to do in one of the film's more surreal moments?
And yet, the film manages to find its own emotional groove anyway. The connection between Oren and Leah, both of whom have lost the first loves of their lives, is deep in a way other meet-cute romances aren't. You suspect that the reason they fall for each other is as much due to mutual attraction as to the fact that the other person loves so deeply and so truly.
Both actors lend the considerable weight of their experiences and personalities to their roles: Douglas gives Oren a great deal of charm, and makes his friendship with his old biddy of an assistant Claire (Frances Sternhagen) shine through the insults they casually trade. Keaton does what Keaton has always done, and does it very well. She glides through the film, as kooky as the day we first sat up and took notice of her in Annie Hall, and easily sings her tremulous way into Oren's heart - and the hearts of her audiences.
Not by any stretch of the imagination a great film, And So It Goes is nevertheless a mostly enjoyable watch. It won't be a highlight on the CVs of anyone involved: not for director Rob Reiner (who has a supporting role as Leah's hapless accompanist), and certainly not for Douglas and Keaton. But it won't be an abject embarrassment either. You might be hoping for a little more from cast and script and premise, but this is nevertheless a film that - for all its awkward fumbles - deals with the profound ideas of love, loss and second chances in a surprisingly effective way.
Hateship Loveship (2013)
Part farce, part tragedy - a well-acted but oddly-executed affair.
"Dying is easy," so they say. "It's comedy that's hard." That's why it's always so thrilling to see comedians stretch their wings a little and try a little bit of dramatic acting for a change - frequently, their performances are all the more affecting because they're acutely aware of the fineness of the line that exists between comedy and tragedy. Kristen Wiig, of Saturday Night Live and Bridesmaids fame, proves this to be true with her first stab at the almost purely dramatic in Hateship Loveship, although she's ultimately let down by an overly wooden script and character.
Johanna (Wiig) is a caregiver who leads a nomadic existence, packing up what little there is of her life to move into whichever household requires her services next. When she arrives at the McCauley home, she meets the motherless Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld) and her alcoholic, undependable father Ken (Guy Pearce). Wilfully bristling at the new addition to the family, Sabitha plots with her best friend Edith (Sami Gayle) to play a practical joke on Johanna: they craft a letter of clear amorous intent from Ken in response to Johanna's simple thank-you note.
It's a situation that could easily be played for comedy or for tragedy: the misunderstanding created by the two girls blossoms into a one-sided love affair for Johanna, so good at cleaning up people's lives but so inexperienced at living her own. Hateship Loveship settles for an uncomfortable mix of the two, often trading awkward, neo-farcical humour for genuine insight into Johanna's psyche. When Johanna decides to commit fully to her 'relationship' with Ken, the film stumbles into almost horrifying territory. It's difficult to know just how to respond to Johanna's predicament and Ken's understandably shocked reaction to her arrival in his life, just as it's tough to really buy into the way their relationship develops thereafter.
For the most part, the clumsiness of the film has little to do with its cast. Wiig bravely underplays her part, hinting at rather than telegraphing Johanna's soul-deep loneliness and craving for a family of her own. It's unfortunate that her character takes on a near-robotic cast so early on in the film. Pearce manages to be both charming and off-putting as Ken, while Nick Nolte makes his mark on the film as Sabitha's caring but clueless grandfather. Steinfeld, while perfectly fine in her part, is largely upstaged by the chirpy meanness evinced by Gayle - who, unfortunately, is also let down by the fact that Edith is almost purely the villain here, and bears none of the subtle characterisation she enjoys in Alice Munro's original short story.
Taking a step back from the film, its themes and intent become more readily apparent: families can be forged, just as relationships and love can, out of hate, resentment and misunderstanding. But, buried beneath a few extraneous subplots and some really patchy writing and character development, it never entirely comes clear when you're actually watching Hateship Loveship. Fittingly for a film that isn't quite sure what it wants to be, it's tough to know whether one should laugh or cry in response.
Apolitical Romance (2013)
Apolitical Romance works best as a political romance - when it manages to be smart, funny and bittersweet all at once.
It isn't often that you get a helping of politics to go with your romantic comedy of choice. The tensions, history and realities that colour the relationship between China and Taiwan - and thus the odd couple at the heart of the film - are the most striking element of Apolitical Romance, lending it a heft not typically associated with rom-coms. To the film's detriment, this streak of political consciousness peters out towards the end. But there's still plenty to enjoy in the excellent performances and snappy dialogue peppered throughout the script.
We're first introduced to a couple of clichés: A-Cheng (Bryan Chang Shuhao) is a bookish, well-mannered Taiwanese civil servant, and Qinlang (Huang Lu) a brash, opinionated Chinese girl with no qualms about yelling down strangers in the street. Their meet-cute is textbook rom-com (and thus a bit disappointing): after she yells a lot at a dumpling shop and makes him pay for all the stuff she takes from random stores, he decides that she can help him fix his woefully uninformed report on China, and she enlists him to help her find her grandmother's childhood sweetheart, Chen Guang.
But, thankfully, Apolitical Romance deepens as it goes on. The easy prejudices and assumptions we all make due to nationality and cultural differences slowly fade away, as A-Cheng and Qinlang start to see each other as real people and not just stereotypes. They bicker and banter their way across Taiwan, trekking down Chen Guang after Chen Guang: it's an odyssey that covers a lot of literal and metaphorical ground. They go from the bustling streets of Taipei to the smaller alleys and dusty houses of the countryside, even as he learns about her troubled romantic past and she takes an interest in his broken family. In the process, they effectively help each other heal past emotional wounds - which sounds enormously cheesy, but doesn't play out as such in the film.
Of course, the big metaphor demanding to be addressed is the troubled relationship between China and Taiwan. And Apolitical Romance does so in a surprisingly powerful way. This is not the politics of diplomats and war, but the politics of real life: the way history and differences between nations intrude on the present, and shape people and their lives - for better or for worse. For our pair of protagonists, it's the stuff of the recent past, real but untroubling. Qinlang dances past A-Cheng, calling his country a province, and they sing nationalist songs at each other while visiting the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. But the film sobers up whenever we meet another Chen Guang, who tells yet another tale of a life and a family (or two) rent asunder by political differences.
Whenever the film veers towards less appealing territory (pretty much whenever it becomes a standard rom-com), its two leads make up for a lot. Chang manages to pull off the tricky feat of being utterly charming when, as A-Cheng, he gloats constantly about his good looks. He'll definitely break a heart or two when he sinks to his knees in a railway station to get Qinlang's attention. Huang, meanwhile, tempers her character's brash attitude very well by allowing us glimpses into her inner life and the heartbreak she hides beneath her cheery exterior.
Does the movie, like all rom-coms, end happily? Well... Kind of. But, as befitting a film that is, however obliquely, about cross-strait relations, Apolitical Romance doesn't give anyone an easy ending: not Qinlang, not A-Cheng, and certainly not its viewers. As a romance that doubles as a gentle commentary on the way big politics can touch even the smallest of lives, it's a surprisingly empowering statement: we get to decide where the story goes. The film's final frame is, after all, whatever we want it to be.
Minuscule - La vallée des fourmis perdues (2013)
There are some surprisingly big laughs in this small, amiable film.
Does the world really need another animated movie centred around the inner worlds of bugs? After all, we already have quite a few of those: in 1998 alone, Pixar produced the effervescent A Bug's Life, while DreamWorks dreamt up the more acerbic Antz. But there's something to be said for the simple, sweet charms of Miniscule: Valley Of The Lost Ants, a French effort which eschews the wisecracks and anthropomorphism that helped audiences warm up to the insectoid protagonists of the aforementioned films. Instead, by mixing ingenious sound effects and lovingly-shot real-life footage into its slight plot, Miniscule conjures up a cheerful, cheeky world that's steeped in both realism and fantasy.
The film opens on an idyllic picnic in the French countryside, before it zooms down to the miniscule level of its protagonists. A ladybug is forcibly separated from his family when one of his tiny wings is clipped. Lonely and unsure of what to do, he hides out in a tin box left in the forest by humans. Before long, he finds himself in the company of a troop of black ants, who decide to bring the box and all its sugary treasures home to their queen. Together, ladybug and black ants begin a perilous trek across pastures, hills and rivers, pursued all the while by a host of ravenous red ants. When war breaks out between the two ant colonies, it's up to our little ladybug friend to save the day.
It's easy to see why Miniscule was such a hit in France. With nary a word of dialogue, the film nevertheless manages to be surprisingly witty and genuinely funny. Much of its humour is physical, of course: the eye of the red ant leader twitches in anger, and the black ant archivist tries but fails to figure out a numerical slider puzzle. But the gags are also enriched by a welcome burst of surrealism: for instance, the red ants carry not just bug spray but a fork into battle. The character design is delightful, with the ladybug and ants being particularly endearing to kids and adults alike. It's beautifully animated to boot (at least when focused on its smaller friends), with its protagonists dancing through gorgeous outdoor footage of Provence's pastures and forests.
But, although a generally charming, pleasant watch, Miniscule is not without its problems. Sometimes, one gets the feeling that the film's story and style would be better suited to the small screen - and, indeed, Miniscule is the feature-length version of a popular French TV series, in which insectoid adventures unfold in six-minute segments. It's clearly pushing it for its plot to be expanded to almost 90 minutes. As a result, parts of its narrative positively drag, particularly when the ladybug makes his valiant bid to save his ant buddies. He experiences so many detours along the way that one can't help but wonder why the ants haven't already been massacred by the time he finally returns.
All in all, Miniscule is undemanding animated fare for all the family. It might bore older viewers in parts, and puzzle younger viewers at others (no, ladybugs can't re-generate lost wings!), but it's so quaint, charming and well-meaning that it's hard to dislike anything about it.
Third Person (2013)
Interesting premise undone by its execution - shouldn't the final film be more scintillating than this?
Third Person is an odd beast of a film. It awkwardly tries to tell three different stories of love, romance and loss - none of which seem, at least on the surface, connected in any way. The characters can sometimes feel paper-thin and poorly-written, and their motivations are murky at best. But, stick with it all the way to the end, and you'll find that writer-director Paul Haggis' premise is a twisted and very ambitious one. It's almost reason enough to excuse the fact that the film he's created out of it isn't actually all that good.
We open on Michael (Neeson), a tortured, prize-winning novelist who's holed himself up in a hotel in Paris to write his latest book. There, he meets his mistress Anna (Wilde), a bright, feisty woman with aspirations to write and a deep secret of her own, even as he chats with his estranged wife Elaine (Kim Basinger) on the phone. Cut to Rome, where Scott (Brody) takes a break from trading in top-secret fashion designs to get embroiled in the life and troubles of Monika (Atias), a woman trying to buy her young daughter back from a smuggler. Meanwhile, in New York, Julia (Kunis) struggles to keep herself together in her bitter custody battle with ex-husband Rick (Franco). All she wants is to see their son again, but events keep conspiring against her every attempt to prove herself worthy of visitation rights.
There's no denying that Haggis' fundamental concept for Third Person is fascinating. It's layered with rich ideas - the genesis of inspiration, the power of creation, the themes of loss, lies and love, and what it means to really trust someone - and its narrative twist even accounts for some of the cardboard-stiff dialogue that emerges from the mouths of Haggis' characters. Speaking of which, the twist, which an astute viewer should be able to figure out at some point during the film, actually becomes more audacious in the final few moments - when secrets unravel, and it becomes clear just what kind of person Michael really is.
But what's so very frustrating about Third Person is that it never really lives up to its potential. Sure, its premise and characters can be picked over for ages: what is real, and what's imaginary? Did this character actually say that? What is the significance of that character? - and so on. But would anyone who has sat through the entire film really want to? For the most part, Third Person unspools like a tedious melodrama, with Haggis' generally quite accomplished cast (surprising MVP: Kunis) speaking in odd, weighty language that would not feel out of place in a soap opera. The characters all struggle to feel real, with Anna in particular flitting between emotional extremes in a most wearying manner. That might be Haggis' point - but it's hammered home in so joyless a fashion that it's hard to care too much, after a while.
Ultimately, Haggis' high concept proves to be the film's bright spot - and also its undoing. He has to juggle so furiously to keep all his balls in the air that he perhaps fails to realise that his three stories only become genuinely interesting in retrospect - which is a criminal waste of his audiences' interest and affections. He also doesn't really go as far with his concept as he could have done, although that might - arguably - be because he wants to allow his viewers the chance to finish the story for themselves. Whatever the case may be, Third Person languishes when it should race, and loses itself in the intriguing knots of its own premise.
Jersey Boys (2014)
A solid, thoughtful, if somewhat stiff adaptation of the rather more energetic Broadway musical.
Jukebox musicals musicals constructed out of an existing catalogue of songs don't typically boast the strongest of plots. Most of the time, story and character have to get out of the way for yet another toe- tapping number. To some extent, this applies to Broadway smash hit Jersey Boys, which has been playing to packed houses since 2005. But it's also easy to see why director Clint Eastwood was drawn to the material: there's a comparative depth of character to this rags-to- riches true story of four boys escaping their mob-ruled neighbourhood in Jersey through the music they made together. Eastwood mines this very well for his film adaptation, although he does lose a little of the musical's energy and spark along the way.
Frankie (John Lloyd Young) is an apprentice hairdresser with the voice of an angel. Everyone thinks so, from local mob boss Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken) to two-bit hustler Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza). Tommy cobbles together a band, anointing Frankie as lead singer, with Nick (Michael Lomenda) as bass vocalist. Playing in dives and rundown bars, it looks like they're never going to hit it big and get out of Jersey. But the arrival on the scene of songwriter Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) changes everything. His music provides the re-christened Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons with a string of radio hits, but also upsets the dynamics within the group - which starts to slowly disintegrate even as its star rises.
In Eastwood's hands, Jersey Boys can sometimes feel a little flat, like soda left out for too long on a hot day. You know something fizzy was once there, and the taste of it remains - but it's also faintly disappointing. That's largely because the film doesn't quite seem to know what to do with its most crowd-pleasing musical numbers. They sound great (and are mainly shot with live vocals), but some are left to play in the background, while others - like Sherry and Walk Like A Man - are filmed in so straightforward a fashion that they barely register before they're over. This curious lack of musicality - particularly odd given Eastwood's own passion for music - is particularly keenly felt in the final third of the film, when Jersey Boys becomes Jersey Boy, and the story's focus narrows squarely down to Frankie and his limply sketched-out relationship with wayward daughter Francine.
But Eastwood does a decent job with character development, even though he's forced to grapple with some plainly paper-thin creations. (Why is mobster Gyp DeCarlo treated with such reverence when the only thing he can do to help with Tommy's growing debts is serve as a kooky mediator?) Tommy, in particular, is a fascinating character - he struts through the first half of the film with a confident nonchalance that belies his passion and belief in Frankie - something even his band-mates doubt, through all their years of working together. It's why the interplay amongst the characters works so well: Tommy grows anxious when Frankie and Bob cut a deal with each other, Bob snaps when Tommy gets the group in financial trouble, Nick drifts silently through it all until he can stand it no longer.
As always, Eastwood is remarkably canny in selecting his cast. Three of the four Seasons - Lloyd Young, Bergen and Lomenda - all come with theatre chops, having performed in the stage version of the show at some point in their careers. In fact, Lloyd Young - with his distinctive high notes and vocal trills - originated his part on Broadway, and it shows. Frankie is easily the most opaque character - we're told his story; he never gets a chance to tell it to the camera like his compatriots do - but Lloyd Young shades a lot of sad nobility into this man who chooses to dig himself into a hole for a friend: a decision that, ultimately, costs him his family. The other standout is Piazza. Die-hard fans might have railed at Piazza's lack of stage experience, but his on screen charisma is what Tommy sorely needs - and no doubt what Eastwood saw in him.
Put it all together, and Jersey Boys emerges as a solid if somewhat stiff adaptation of the musical. It misses a few beats, and loses a little bit of its emotional (and actual) rhythm along the way. But Eastwood keeps the character drama humming along well enough, and really makes it all work in the end: from a rousing performance of Frankie's first solo hit, Can't Take My Eyes Off You, in which he finally gets his long-awaited horn section; through to a reunion many years later that proves surprisingly emotional. By the time the credits roll, and the entire cast cuts loose in an utterly joyous rendition of December 1963 (Oh, What A Night), you'll find yourself willing to forgive anything - including the film's occasional pacing and musical sins.
Mei Gaau Siu Nui (2014)
Nowhere near as frivolous as it appears, but it's also too dark and detached to really connect emotionally with audiences.
There are films that paint the bumpy road we take through youth as a time of discovery and magic, despite - or perhaps, oddly, because of - all the hormones and existential angst that come with it. Notwithstanding its chirpy, colour-splashed publicity campaign, May We Chat is not one of those films. Instead, filtered through the ultra-hip prism of popular Chinese social networking app WeChat, it explores the grim, bitter realities faced by kids struggling to survive in a seedy, hopeless modern-day Hong Kong. But, although writer-director Philip Yung's sophomore effort clearly wants to say a lot about society, it winds up descending into bleak torture porn and is, as a result, curiously devoid of emotional power and meaning.
The film follows three girls who have befriended one another on WeChat, but have never met in person. There's Yan (Kabby Hui), the spoilt rich girl who wanders aimlessly through life and one casual sexual encounter after another. We also meet Wai (Heidi Lee), a spirited girl trying to take care of her drug-addled mother and younger sister; and Chiu (Rainky Wai), a deaf-mute girl who lives with her grandmother and earns cash on the side as a hooker. When Yan mysteriously vanishes after a suicide attempt, Wai and Chiu finally meet in person to try and track her down.
It's impossible to deny Yung's ambition: he weaves an almost epic collision of character and circumstance into his script. We find out more about each member of the trio: Yan's tale is coloured in via sombre flashbacks to her unhappy past as a child of divorce and remarriage, while Wai and Chiu struggle to make ends meet even as their quest to find their friend plunges them ever deeper into the crime and grime of Hong Kong's underworld. This allows Yung to conjure up moments both shocking and chilling, largely involving Chiu as she makes the ultimate - and most horrific - sacrifice to get a lead as to Yan's whereabouts.
Yung even hints at the cyclical nature of lost youth and tragic violence by closely tying his film to Lovely Fifteen, a 1983 movie that examined in bleak detail the easy degeneracy of those who are barely older than children, but eager to believe themselves adults. In fact, Yung brings in two actors from that older film - Irene Wan and Peter Mak - to play older versions of themselves in May We Chat. Wan, as Yan's mother, and Mak, as a gangster turned kindly pimp, provide a tremulous link to an era gone by, even as each tries to deal with the new ways in which youths interact in this present.
But, smart and hip as it all is, May We Chat is also an oddly unemotional, almost clinical beast of a film. The story lines intersect in confusing and frustrating ways, cutting back and forth across time, with the overall plot never really seeming to make much sense - even though, once you've pieced it together, it's actually frightfully simple. It's tough, too, to form much of an emotional connection to any of Yung's lead characters. In effect, we are told how we should feel about each character, but never really feel it for ourselves. This has little to do with his cast: they're all surprisingly competent for newcomers, particularly Wai, who does a lot with very little - we never see where all the money she gets from prostituting herself goes, since her grandmother never seems to benefit from it.
It doesn't help that the final act of the film descends into a cold pit of torture porn. Yung ratchets up the violence to alarming degrees, without ever grounding it in something more real or emotional. There's an odd emptiness to the way in which his camera lingers almost horrifyingly on Chiu's bruised face, or Yan's mascara-scarred cheek, in the aftermath of some explosive act of violence. Wai's final emotional outburst, after weeks of tense searching for Yan, feels less truthful than callous.
That is, perhaps, Yung's point. The world is bleak, society is grim, and the few friends we make never really understood us at all. Wash, rinse, repeat. It certainly captures the zeitgeist of a world now moderated, shaped and broken apart by social networking, but May We Chat ultimately fails to connect: both as a coherent piece in and of itself, and with audiences. It may be smart, and it may be ambitious - but it's also hollow, and not entirely convincing as either thriller or social commentary.
Walking on Sunshine (2014)
Nowhere near as great as its soundtrack, but this is harmless, cheesy fun if you're in the mood for it.
Very few films aspire to the heights (or, more accurately, depths) of chirpy cheesiness achieved by Mamma Mia!: a cinematic guilty pleasure if ever there was one. Walking On Sunshine is that rare film which does. In fact, it's dancing merrily into theatres, so intent on recreating the unexpected blockbuster success of Mamma Mia! that it's forgotten to tweak the formula even a little bit. And so, we go from the sun-washed beaches of Greece to the sun-washed beaches of Italy, from cheesy but super-catchy ABBA tunes to cheesy but super-catchy 80s pop hits, from an awkward love affair to... an awkward love affair. Do you see where we're going here? The unfortunate thing is that Walking On Sunshine never quite hits on that elusive magic which allowed Mamma Mia! to be so bad and so darn good at the same time.
Here's how the story (what little there is of it) goes: Taylor (Hannah Arterton) meets and falls in love with gorgeous Italian hunk Raf (Giulio Berruti) on a sun-kissed beach in Italy. But the summer is drawing to an end, and she has to be responsible and go back to school. Three years later, when she finally graduates, Taylor returns to the same Italian village to meet her headstrong, impulsive sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey) - whereupon she learns that Maddie, on the rebound from her horrible ex Doug (Greg Wise), is due to get married in a matter of days. The twist in the tale, of course, is that Maddie is planning to marry Raf - the love of Taylor's life.
In other words, the plot, such as it is, is flimsy and contrived. The narrative staggers predictably from song to song, whether it's Taylor and Raf realising they still have feelings for each other (It Must Have Been Love), or Doug and Maddie crooning about their toxic relationship (Don't You Want Me). The characters seem to function on the basis of narrative expediency: Doug, for instance, waltzes in and out of the film, teetering dangerously between unforgivable jerk and viable love interest. Truth be told, if you're looking for depth or complexity, look away now. The film seems to operate on the blithe assumption that yet another karaoke-friendly song will sweep away the awkward writing that preceded it.
The film also falters somewhat where its cast is concerned. All of them are earnest to a fault, belting their numbers with more passion than skill. They certainly work incredibly hard at playing characters with little more complexity than a batch of paper dolls: Arterton is the textbook lovelorn but responsible girl, torn between her head and her heart, while Scholey sizzles efficiently as the bubbly Maddie. But they never really manage to give off the sheer, unmitigated joy that practically radiated from the A-list cast populating the Greek islands in Mamma Mia!. Of the supporting cast, comedienne Katy Brand wins most charismatic honours as the sisters' best friend Lil - not something that can be said of X-Factor winner Leona Lewis, who should really stick to her day job.
To be fair, Walking On Sunshine does have its merits. If you're in the right mood for it, it's a silly, summery burst of fun - not quite as funny and sweet as you might want, but good enough in a pinch. Its soundtrack is great, jumping from Madonna (Holiday) to George Michael (Faith), before taking a delightful detour into tomato-strewn mayhem in the huge musical number that accompanies the title song. There are even a couple of unexpectedly rich character moments that come courtesy of the two sisters: Taylor's bravery in returning for Maddie's wedding is a surprisingly emotional moment and one of the high points of the film.
Of course, when it comes down to it, no amount of critical analysis will matter anyway. Walking On Sunshine is, quite simply, the kind of film that's largely critic-proof. It may not even be as good as Mamma Mia!, and its story and characters are almost wilfully poorly-constructed. But it won't matter because the film is also relentlessly fun, silly, sunny, and cheesy. Berruti is gorgeous to look at, as are the sun-kissed beaches of Italy. The songs are catchy, summery and joyous. That certainly doesn't add up to 'great' but, if you're open to it, it just might add up to 'good enough'.
Behaving Badly (2014)
Initially promising, this film soon feels like it's punishing its audience - and itself - for its bad behaviour.
Somewhere in this tangled mess of debauchery and off-kilter, almost deliberately offensive humour is a decent movie. At its best and most promising, Behaving Badly plays like an ultra-quirky, purposefully black-hearted look at the standard coming-of-age tale we've seen too many times before. But it never really knows when to dial back its strange and frequently off-putting humour, resulting in a film that frustrates as much as it amuses.
Rick (Nat Wolff) is a self-absorbed, close to morally degenerate teenager growing up in a complicated household: his boozed-up mom Lucy (Mary Louise Parker) is barely coherent from day to day, and his deadbeat dad Joseph (Cary Elwes) only stays married to avoid paying alimony. Even as he navigates a huge crush on Nina (Selena Gómez), the school's resident goody-two-shoes, he embarks on an ill-advised affair with the sexually voracious Pamela (Elisabeth Shue), mom to his strange best friend Billy (Lachlan Buchanan).
The film is every bit as complicated and filthy as its title suggests, its characters dealing in drugs, alcohol and sex with next to no moral compunction. Actually, that's not its problem. These scenes are riddled with a grim humour, and work best when played loudly and ridiculously - as they frequently are. And so there are moments when Rick receives counselling from Saint Lola, the patron saint of aimless teenagers (played in a neat Oedipal twist by Parker); or when he must cut a deal with slimy strip-club boss Jimmy (Dylan McDermott) to score backstage passes for a Josh Groban concert. The film is almost brave in how determinedly it sinks into the most depraved of narrative depths.
But it's hard to shake the feeling that writer-director Tim Garrick lets his own crazy creation get the best of him. He packs the film with knowing, self-aware touches - Rick frequently speaks straight to the camera, as the title character did in iconic teen flick Ferris Bueller's Day Off - but achieves very little in the way of emotional payoff and insight. As a result, when his deliberately peculiar film heads down the road to redemption, it pretty much collapses on itself. It's hard to believe in any of Garrick's characters making good, when they've otherwise been portrayed as so horribly bad that they barely register as real human beings.
At least Garrick's cast seems to be in on the joke. Wolff is an affable if somewhat opaque lead, largely outshone by Buchanan (delightfully weird) and the adult actors - all of whom seem to be only too pleased to have been let off the leash and told to behave, well, pretty much as badly as they like. Parker, Shue and McDermott, in particular, play the taboo-happy comedy with relish, committing so fearfully to their parts that watching them in action becomes part of the joy of the film.
It's unfortunate, then, that they're doing such good work in so awkward a movie. Behaving Badly is not for the faint of heart or morally conservative, for a start. But even those who are willing to take a walk on the wild side with their teen raunch-coms will find themselves disappointed by the film, which flirts tantalisingly with the dark side but winds up being both too strange and too predictable to really work in the end.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
A new dawn indeed - one that's bracing, smart, philosophical and explosive.
No one expected great things from RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the 2011 reboot of a sci-fi franchise that nobody asked for. There just seems to be something faintly camp about its premise: a monkey acquires human intelligence - from James Franco, no less - and leads his simian brethren in a rebellion against mankind?!? And yet, surprising critics and audiences, RISE made its alternate universe terrifyingly, beautifully credible through its mix of sincere character work, lofty sci-fi and ground-breaking CGI. Miraculously, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is even better - it blends even more stunning animation and heart- pounding action with huger ideas and bigger emotions, finding within its fiercely-fought battles the metaphor and menace of every conflict and war that has ever plagued mankind.
A decade after Earth has been ravaged by the simian virus unleashed in RISE, Caesar (Serkis) has settled his well-evolved community of apes high atop a mountain. But, one day, their idyll is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a band of human survivors led by the kindly, open-minded Malcolm (Clarke). As it turns out, the apes have settled upon a non-functioning hydro-electric dam - the last chance a nearby human colony has of restoring its power supply for good. Caesar and Malcolm forge a tentative alliance - one that rests on a powder-keg of tension and mistrust. Dreyfus (Oldman) urges the human settlers to build up their stockpile of weapons in case they have to take the ape stronghold by force; while Koba (Kebbell) first tries to warn, before he tries to manipulate, his fellow apes against the human menace in their midst.
DAWN carries over one element from its predecessor: the increasingly urgent identity crisis and soul-searching that come when man and ape try to figure out how to live with one another. What is humanity? And what is base, animalistic behaviour? Humans can make music, as we see in a heartrendingly sweet moment when the human survivors hear music again for the first time in years. But they also make weapons. The growth of understanding and respect between Caesar and Malcolm is balanced against the sheer hatred of humanity that runs through Koba in the film's second half, and the suspicions and doubt experienced by Caesar's own son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) about his father's 'human-loving tendencies'.
All the more impressive is the fact that the film takes no sides: every character feels real, and even the antagonists have perfectly logical reasons for behaving in the way they do. As Koba regresses ever more into a spitting, irrational animal, we can never forget what he suffered at the hands of human scientists: the scars and anger he bears are the legacy of human neglect and cruelty. The same goes for Dreyfus: as he readies the humans for war, we're allowed a peek into the heart of the man when the return of electricity gives him glimpses of a past that he can never forget. In these moments of insight, the film goes from good to great.
DAWN is also one of the finest movies made in recent memory that focuses so squarely on the outbreak and tragic inevitability of war. The film explores in intelligent, sensitive detail how conflicts can begin - and lays out in excruciating fashion how having right-minded individuals on both sides of a divide is no guarantee of peace. Director Matt Reeves handles the descent into battle beautifully: every step towards war is a small one, whether deliberate or unintentional, and builds to a crescendo of mutually-assured destruction. The parallels with real-world conflicts, from guerrilla warfare to nuclear destruction, are rife, and will strike you in ways you'd never expect from a sci-fi blockbuster about apes taking over the world.
As for the outer trappings of the film, these are truly spectacular - the animation is astounding, especially considering that the motion- capture performed for many of the ape characters took place outside of a conventional studio setting. Soundtracked by Michael Giacchino's bitingly tense score, the action sequences are fantastic: they thrum with action and inventiveness, as the apes storm the human settlement, or tumble through the air in a storm of fire. The cast is uniformly excellent: Serkis, Kobbell and Thurston, in particular, are shrouded by CGI but nevertheless turn in performances bursting with spirit and soul. Clarke plays his one-note "sensible, good man" very well, and Keri Russell gets more to do as the medically-trained Ellie than most female leads in such blockbusters typically would.
The question is whether audiences can buy completely into the universe created by the film. As was the case with RISE, Reeves and his entire cast and crew have committed wholly to this fiction: DAWN takes itself deadly seriously, never once winking at the audience in acknowledgement of its slightly campy premise. That is, arguably, necessary for the film to reach the heights that it does. If it weren't completely earnest, DAWN's emotional moments - of which there are many - would not be as successful, or as well-earned.
However, viewers who remain detached from it all would find it easier to spot the film's draggier moments, or to take note of its odd collapsing of time when the apes attack the human colony. They might also sorely feel the lack of levity in the film; there's only a brief moment of comic clowning by Koba which, unfortunately, shades very quickly into horror and tragedy.
Nevertheless, it's hard to deny that DAWN is a powerful, thought- provoking entry into the Apes canon. In making a war between man and ape so chillingly plausible, it easily becomes one of the boldest, darkest and smartest sci-fi films yet to be constructed on a possibly rather hokey premise. Best of all, whether you're here for its philosophy or its explosions, DAWN pays off in spades: giving you plenty to think about even as it teases, pleases and confounds your senses.