Film Shapes

Iranian writer/director, Asghar Farhadi returns to familiar ground for A Hero , a film reminiscent of his 2011 masterpiece,  A Separation. Like that film, this deals with family, social 'contracts', stifling bureaucracy and loss of innocence. It follows the plight of Rahim Soltani, played with fantastically dim-eyed naivety by Amir Jadidi, and his attempts to gain release from prison by paying off a creditor. The backstory goes that Rahim needed a guarantor to set up a new business, so his ex-wife's brother stumped up, only to see the money disappear with Rahim's dodgy business partner. Loan-sharks need repaying, so the brother-in-law, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh) has to cash in his daughter's dowry, depriving her of marriage. All this is winkled out during the actual plot, which is pretty labyrinthine as it stands. Needless to say, events turn more complex when Rahim's new fiancé, Farkondeh (Sahar Goldust) finds a bag carrying a number of gold coins, giving them ...

In the first ten minutes or so of The Innocents cute, blonde nine-year-old Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløtta) eats a lolly that's been stuck on the car window, pinches her autistic sister's leg, HARD, gozzes over the balcony of her new apartment and puts broken glass shards into her sister's shoe. Pathological or sociopathic, maybe, but innocent? Hmmm. Of course, there's a lot more to it than this, not least the other children in the film - Ida's sister, Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad); Ben (Sam Ashraf); and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). This quartet dominate the film, leaving the parents to play very minor roles. In fact, we know very little about the adults, though we can surmise that Ben and Aisha's respective mums have it tough due to some nicely subtle shots (Aisha's mum weeping behind an open cupboard door, Ben's mum smoking nervously). Ida and Anna's folks are also struggling, mainly with concerns about Anna's condition, but also moving to a ne...

This debut feature from Finnish writer/director, Hanna Bergholm is almost perfectly pitched. It's about a young girl, Tinja, played by Siiri Solalinna (also, amazingly, her screen debut), who is struggling to live up to her mother's exacting expectations. Mother, Äiti, played by Sophia Heikkilä, wants her daughter to win the school gymnastics competition and show the world through her 'lifestyle' vlogs what a great family they are. Rounding out this family are downtrodden husband, Isä (Jani Volanen) and irritating son, Matias (Oiva Ollila), though they all seem to be only mildly on board with the whole social media enterprise.  At the beginning of the film, a panicky blackbird gets trapped in the living room of the family house and smashes up the place. After catching it, Tinja asks if she can release it outside. Mother, instead, snaps its neck and tells Tinja to dispose of it. Later that night, Tinja is awoken by a shrill squawking and upon searching the creepy forest ...

This version of author Georges Simenon's famous detective is the latest in a pedigree stretching back to the 1930s. Pierre Renoir (son of Impressionist Pierre Auguste, brother of director Jean), Charles Laughton, Jean Gabin, Richard Harris, Michael Gambon (two Dumbledores right there) and even Rowan Atkinson have all played Detective Maigret. That could play as a variation of the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - what links Mr. Bean to Luncheon of the Boating Party? Anyway, this 2022 iteration is housed in the formidable personage of Gérard Depardieu and he's calmly excellent. He can do this kind of role in his sleep, and I'm nicking this adjective from Roly - what he does in Maigret seems effortless. Whether it's Simenon or writer/director, Patrice Leconte or perhaps co-writer, Jérôme Tonnerre to thank, they give Depardieu some golden lines to deliver. His grumpy coaxing of his underling in how to smoke a pipe is top drawer - "You're sucking it, you have to p...

For all Sam Raimi's standing in the industry and the adulation in which he's held, by my reckoning, his last good film was 1995's The Quick and the Dead . I haven't forgotten his Spider-Man  films (really disliked those) and there are a couple I've missed, sure, but Marvel took a risk signing him on for this. The good news for Feige and co is that it works. It's more inventive than recent MCU films, what with the multiverse angle that was road-tested by the Loki  (and WandaVision to a lesser extent) TV series, and its smattering of Raimi touches. It's arguably the best of the phase 4 films so far. Brief rundown - a demon is hunting a girl, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez, and you're on your own pronouncing that first name) to steal her power of traversing the multiverse (multi-traversing?). Our Strange (Universe 616) is co-opted into helping her avoid said nasty. Cumberbatch is supreme (though not Sorcerer Supreme) as Strange, and he's well supported ...

This film was on a hiding to nothing from the start. The actual story of Operation Mincemeat is so unlikely, so fanciful that any rendition would be hard pressed to do it justice. As far as accuracy goes, the writer, Michelle Ashford and director, John Madden have been scrupulously loyal to the events and people involved (give or take a romantic misfire and an invented character or two). In 1943, British intelligence were looking for a way to convince the Germans that the planned Allied invasion was going to be somewhere other than Sicily, the actual target. Two officers suggested reviving an earlier plan (probably devised by Bond author, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming) to drop a dead body in the sea near Spain with papers indicting Greece to be the spot. Deception afoot! The film revolves around the small team tasked with planning the ruse - the aforementioned duo, lawyer Ewan Montagu (Colin Firth) and intelligence officer Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen), along with clerk,...

The nutters responsible for the oddly engaging Swiss Army Man have upped the ante with this multiversal ode to familial love. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, credited as Daniels, have Michelle Yeoh play Evelyn Wang, a frazzled owner of a coin laundry. We're introduced to her as she's preparing for two concurrent events - a Chinese New Year party and a trip to the tax office - both of which are causing a fair amount of strain. Her husband, Waymond, played by Short Round himself, Ke Huy Quan, is attempting to serve her with divorce papers; her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is not best pleased to be there, especially with her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel) in tow; and her crotchety father, legendary James Hong, is all patriarchal glower. It's amazing to see this guy still turning it out - he's 93 and imdb has him down for 451 acting credits! Among those are roles in The Sand Pebbles , Chinatown , Blade Runner and Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise . Like I said...

Somebody on the Adam Buxton podcast recently told a story of a person who shouted 'UNBEARABLE' then stormed out of a screening of The Unbearable Lightness of Being . Well, not much of this film was unbearable, unless you dislike Nicolas Cage. Wrong film for you, if that's the case. For the most part, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was a bloody hoot.  After a serious break-in/kidnap sequence, the film gets right into the Cage-work. There's a Hollywood lunch with a director (played by an actual director, David Gordon Green), where Cage - wait, I didn't mention, that he's playing himself in the film - tramples all over his chances of getting a sought after part. The car ride from the restaurant gives us a peek at the peak of this bonkers work. Nicolas Cage driving, Nicky Cage - from Wild at Heart , Terry Wogan appearance era - sitting in the passenger seat. This conjures up memories of Cage playing identical twins in Adaptation , though obviously this is...