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Gone Girl

Title - Gone Girl. Director - David Fincher. Main cast - Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike. Genre - maybe mystery, thriller (?). These raisins were pretty much all I knew about this going into the cinema. And that's the best way to see this fine film. With no background at all. So, even though I'll try to avoid spoilers, I'd suggest not reading any more of this until you've seen the film.
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Okay. So.....For fuck AND fuck's brother's sake as well. What a satisfying 'big' film. Very much against type for a studio picture. The performances are nicely tuned to the bi-polar nature of the story. Pike is superbly icy and unhinged. Affleck plays a more aggressive version of The Affleck but it's positioned in the sweet spot, almost like a Tendulkar cover drive. The supporting cast fill in the cracks with farce or pathos or whatever is required at any given point. Uniformly sound.

Fincher himself said on an Empire magazine podcast interview that he didn't know what actual genre Gone Girl was. He suggested it skips from missing person mystery to thriller to dark satire. I'd probably add elements of police procedural, black comedy and the unreliable narrator but he's basically on the money. The satire angle is the most audacious. Fincher and the writer Gillian Flynn (from her own novel) rip the piss out of the mainstream media and suburban American marriage and society without really condescending too much (well, one particular TV host comes off as a vulgar caricature but I'm guessing that's sadly accurate in the U.S.).

I've heard that some reviewers (?) have suggested the film is misogynistic. I can see where that's coming from but I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to Fincher and Flynn. I actually think it reads more like a parody of the warped views of the bottom drawer misogynist. [Hear Helen O'Hara on the Empire podcast 'Gone Girl Spoiler Special' for more on this]. As you may be able to tell, I'm still chewing over the plot points and character motives of this film nearly two days after seeing it. Will be for a few more days, I'll wager. Quality cinema. Thank you Mr. Fincher. A proper film-maker (putting Bennny Button to one side, of course).

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Bird

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Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically. The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...

Lee

Biopics are tough to get right. For every Lawrence of Arabia , there's a Diana , for every Raging Bull , there's an Ali . The film Lee shines some natural light of the life of renowned war photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. She gives it full welly in this - physically and emotionally nude, with camouflage painted boobs, close-ups with no make-up, moles, wrinkles, rage and tears. It's very much the kind of 'brave' performance that the Academy loves to reward. The film starts with Miller crustily answering questions to a young man in 1977, and as she remembers things from her past, we head to flashback territory. It seems a fairly cack-handed framing device until we realise why it's happening. A modicum of research reveals that the film is a pretty accurate retelling of Miller's life - first her carefree bohemian days in pre-WW2 France (including her intro to future hubby, Roland Penrose, played by Alexander Skarsgård), then how she started with...

Gladiator II

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