love
Manchester By The Sea
“I said a lot of terrible things to you. My heart was broken, and I know yours is broken, too.”
A United Kingdom
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Moana
“The 0cean chose me for a reason’
Southside With You
How I Met Your President
Read my 
review here:
http://vulturehound.co.uk/2016/09/how-i-met-your-president-southside-with-you-film-review/
Captain Fantastic
“What we’ve created here maybe unique in all of human existence. We’ve created a paradise.”
Julieta
Brooding, sentimental and utterly charming
I think I’ve only given five stars twice this year. This will now be the third as ‘Julieta‘ is unquestionably a five star movie. The entire film has an air of intrigue which smothers the viewer and draws them into a grief-tainted realm of love and loss. There’s much brooding meditation on universal themes such as fate and guilt – how yearning and regret can torture generations.
Julieta (Suárez) is about to move away from Madrid to Portugal with Lorenzo (Grandinetti). When she goes on her final errands she has a chance encounter with Beatriz (Jenner) who was the childhood best friend of Julieta’s daughter Antia. Beatriz tells Julieta about how she had bumped into Antia the week prior, about how well she was looking and how she meet Antia’s children. It’s a casual encounter and yet it forces Julieta to face her past. She tells Lorenzo that she will not be moving to Portugal with him but she doesn’t tell him the reason – that she needs to confront the events that led up to the decades-long estrangement of her and her daughter.
One of the film’s great successes it how it instantaneously hooks the viewer in whilst revelling very little. We can observe much about Julieta and her relationship with Lorenzo – we see how happy and doubt free she appears to be about the move- and how this shifts entirely by to what would appear to bystanders as smalltalk-laden chance encounter. We witness how her moving forward with her life is swiftly halted as she is ejected back into her past. Not only is she inevitably forced back to the past mentally and emotionally, she then returns to living in the apartment block she lived in with Antia in the hope of manifesting ghosts of her past into present figures. The letter she then begins to write to Antia serves as the frame of the story, the letter starts at the beginning and we are then placed their – in the 1980s with a twenty-something Julieta played by a different actress (Ugarte).
What follows could then be categorised as a lengthy flashback and yet it doesn’t quite fit nor feel like that. Assigning that label makes it sound like a laborious or arduous watch – it wholeheartedly isn’t. We, the viewer, live the memories just as Julieta is reliving them. We follow Julieta as she meets Antia’s father Xoan (Grao), her relationship with him, Antia’s birth and the seemingly fated separation that occurs with both of them. Julieta is a specialist in Classics and an air of Greek mythology lingers over the events – a prevailing sense of tragedy and predestiny, decision and consequence, fate and regret.
As we face in our own lives some of the events in Julieta’s life come as a quick and devastating surprise whilst others are drawn out, almost suffocating in their inevitability. Both Ugarte and Suárez are truly excellent in their joint role – each providing so much depth to Julita, each equally and superbly moving as they endure unresolved personal heartbreak. This, of course, would not be possible were it not for the master behind the camera. Almodóvar reminds us, were it needed, that he is one of cinema’s greatest living directors. He tells the story in a way that is both fractured yet whole- just like Julieta – muted yet melodramatic. Many moments within the film are gasp-inducing in their blend of beauty and tragedy, but none more so than the switch from younger to older Julieta. It’s a tradition that is the epitome of seamless yet utterly shattering.
Extraordinarily stylish on the eye, food for your soul, heartbreaking yet heart-mending. Extraordinary.
Dir:Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Adriana Ugarte, Rossy de Palma, Emma Suárez, Michelle Jenner, Inma Cuesta, Daniel Grao, Darío Grandinetti.
Country: Spain Year: 2016 Run time: 99 Minutes
Julieta is in UK cinemas now.
Kids In Love
Me Before You
A serviceable and relatively sincere weepie
Let’s start this with an admission. I am a crier. I have cried and will cry at everything and anything. An article on human kindness – I weep. An audition on a relatively television program – I sob. A particularly emotive song – I howl. Considering the nature of this film and what I had heard of the book I had the tissues at the ready. Literally I had taken a tissue out of the packet and tucked it into a jumper sleeve for easy access. Come the roll of the credits and the tissue had remained unused. I didn’t cry. This is not necessarily a criticism of the film – there were plenty of noses being blown and gentle sobbing echoed around the screen. Yet not a peep from me. Whether that is because I’m all cried out from recent weeks or whether the film didn’t have the emotional depth needed? Well, read on and see…
Two years ago William Traynor (Sam Claflin) was hit by a motorbike – leaving him paralysed from the neck-down. Will was once a man about town, living and hustling in London. The type of man all men envied and all women wanted. Now he is stuck back in his small-town home with his parents Camilla (Janet McTeer) and Steven (Charles Dance). Concerned by his desperately low spirits she decides to hire a carer/companion who can brighten up his lonely existence. Enter Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke) who has just lost her job at the local cafe. Aged 26 she has never left her small town home, a place which she either loves too much or is too scared to leave. Her family rely on her as she brings in the only income so this job is perfect for her! Except she has zero experience as a carer. Having always been outshone by her younger sister, single mother Katrina (Jenna Coleman), or patronised by her long-term boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis), Louisa is a woman not living life to its fullest. Maybe Will, a man who can no longer enjoy life, is the perfect person to help her live hers?
Having not read the book I cannot comment on the success of the transition of book to screen, although Twitter would suggest it is faithful. The story itself is relatively predictable, with little surprise, though this is not necessarily a bad thing as the story itself is told rather well. The pacing is solid with the growing bond between Louisa and Will is believable.The supporting cast are impeccably stereotypical and two-dimensional. Roll call for romantic tragedy archetypes – we have present: jealous and moody boyfriend who ‘doesn’t understand or appreciate’ how amazing his girlfriend is. Overly concerned mother and withdrawn father. Know-it-all younger sibling full of great advice. Friendly Australian nurse who steals most of the scenes he is in… (Side note: how can I get my own Nathan, Stephen Peacocke..?)
The main cast themselves are solid. Claflin does well with his role as a man who feels he has little reason to live. He provides his character with just enough spark to hint at the man Will once was. His bond with Clarke’s character is well-established and there is plenty of charisma between them. It’s Clarke’s performance that particularly stands out, with her facial expressions providing an earnest authenticity to her character. Although her character is essentially a 2016 small-town England Manic Pixie Dream Girl (her ‘quirky’ clothes and shoes used to denote her character as opposed to providing her with any genuine character traits) she is remarkably likeable. Her eyebrow acting is, as my secondary school students would say, on point – managing to show so much with them knitted in concern.
There’s enough here to watch and enjoy with a glass of wine. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but if you’re a fan of such films as The Fault In Our Stars or Me, Earl and the Dying Girl then you’ll enjoy this.
Sing Street
1980s. Dublin. New Romantics.
If the prospect of those three words being combined into a film does not fill you with glee I’m not sure how well we’re going to get on or how well you’re going to get on with this film. If you haven’t jumped ship and are still reading – then this film may just be for you! From John Carney, the writer-director-producer of Once and Begin Again, comes another musical tale about love and friendship. But this time our main characters are teenagers and they are forming a band The Commitments-style. The result is one of the most rewarding, enjoyable and grin-inducing films of the year so far.
It’s 1985. Like all epic stories it started with money problems and a girl. Connor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is forced to leave his expensive fee-paying school and attend the local state school Synge Street CBS. The family has little money coming in as patriarch Robert (Aidan Gillen) is finding his architecture practice is not really required during a financial crisis. It’s at his new school, well on the school’s doorstep, that Connor first meets Raphina (Lucy Boynton). Raphina is an older lady, one year older, and is the most glamorous/gorgeous/extraordinary woman Cosmo has ever seen. New-found friend and wanna-be entrepreneur Darren (Ben Carolan) explains the school gossip that Raphina is a model who will soon be moving to England to make her fortune. Connor bravely introduces himself to Raphina and offers her a job that weekend to star in his band’s music video. After a bit of charming she agrees to take the job. Except Connor doesn’t actually have a band – yet. With audiophile elder brother Brendan (Jack Reynor) to guide him surely it’ll all be easy, won’t it..?
There are so many reasons to love this film – many of which I don’t want to discuss in too much detail or give away as it’s discovering them for yourself that only add to the brilliance. However I will briefly give the headlines of the reasons for my adoration. For favourite character I am torn between Brendan and bespeckled multi-instrumentalist Eamon (Mark McKenna). The soundtrack will undoubtedly be one of the best of the year – the classics are superbly chosen and the original songs (such Riddle of the Model) are wonderful tributes with some infectiously catchy riffs. The storyline is told with great empathy and sympathy. This is a film that truly cares about its characters. The music videos the band makes are both hilarious and nostalgia-inducing (even for those of us who were not alive in 1985!) I full enjoyed the references to The Cure, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet to name just three – I can only imagine the depth of the enjoyment for those who leaved and breathed this music scene. The friendship between the newly-formed band is heart-warming and believable thanks to some fantastic chemistry between them. The film also manages to cover lots of ‘big’ topics – mental health, adultery, abuse – sensitively and appropriately. There’s a great balance here between pathos and humour.
My main criticism would be the treatment of Raphina. Boynton does an excellent job with the material she is given but the presentation/treatment of her character is far too Maniac Pixie Dream Girl. For the most part we only learn about Raphina through what Connor (whom Raphina later renames Cosmo) sees and hears. She doesn’t transcend being his figure of worship and far too much screen time is dedicated to his male-gaze watching her. Whilst the dialogue of most of the characters is rooted in a degree of realism or believability Raphina’s craic is over-rehearsed. Arguably this could be a reflection of her personality as a character but for the most part her dialogue rarely lands as effectively like the other characters. Any film that focuses on a romantic crush, be that of a man or woman, must deal with the universality of the story arc as a duel-edged sword. Whilst it makes for an accessible storyline, as the majority of the world’s population would have had a romantic crush at some point or another, it means we then have to believe in the crush and that all the turmoil it brings our lead character is worth it. Is Raphina worth it?
Aside from my ponderings on potentially dubious representation, I truly loved Sing Street. So much so I think a rewatch in the new few weeks will be in order. It tickles the funny bone whilst tugging at the heart strings. It’s an old-fashioned story told with great warmth and will great skill. And, for New Romantics at heart like me, it’s chance to feel immersed in and nostalgic for a lifetime I never lived.
Charlotte Sometimes 