Best of the festival part 2

The King's Speech
Consumate populist film-making lifted to another level by an Oscar-worthy and possibly career-best performance from Colin Firth.

Director Tom Hooper follows up his portrayal of Cloughie in The Damned United with this moving, stirring tale of a man rising to his destiny, overcoming his stammer, and finding friendship (the key issue in focus in The Damned United).

Firth is Prince Albert, the Duke of York, crippled by an appalling stammer that makes the public speaking part of his job intolerably painful for him and any audience. As his father's health falters and his brother's adbication crisis looms, so the duke is persuaded to have one last attempt at speech therapy, this time putting his voice in the hands of Geoffrey Rush's controversial therapist, Lionel Logue.

It's a matter of historical record that Logue's approach worked, so the enjoyment in the film is the journey. And what enjoyment: the burgeoning friendship between Logue and the Duke, the underplayed banter between the two, the splendid support from the rest of the cast (notably Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce), and the crisp direction from Hooper.

There are a few hokey, painting royalty biopic by numbers scenes, and the post-modern approach to some scenes and dialogue may be a little too knowing, but they don't detract from the film's impact.

Ultimately, the reason to see this is Firth (and Rush) - this should land him the Best Actor Oscar he should have won this year for A Single Man. As with Tom Ford's directorial debut, Firth's performance is all about the unspoken that's revealed by his face. A superb performance. A superb film that adds to cinema's rare analysis of male friendships.
Score: 9/10

Submarine
This is the first film directed by IT Crowd star Richard Ayoade. It’s a mostly heartwarming, occasionally curious, frequently laugh out loud funny coming of age story, adapted from the novel by Joe Dunthorne.

Oliver Tate is a 15-year old boy, anxious to win over the girl of his dreams, his classmate Jordana; he’s also anxious to help his parents through the rough patch they’re in and to ensure his mum (a delightful Sally Hawkins) doesn’t have an affair with an old flame (a scene-stealing Paddy Considine) who has moved in next door.

Ayoade directs with beginner’s verve, pulling stunts and failing to observe unwritten rules with abandon.

The two young leads – Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige – are outstanding. Oliver’s attempt to seduce Jordana is possibly the most toe-curlingly embarrassing scene of the year.

However, everyone in the film is ‘unconventional’ as is the storytelling – and this deviation from the norm may put some off.
Score: 7.5/10

Sensation
This Irish farming sex comedy walks a very thin line – and just pulls it off.
Domhall Gleeson plays Donal, a sex-starved farmer’s son. The death of his father prompts him to meet a call-girl, Kim (Luanne Gordon), who wants to run her own ‘agency’.

Together, with the funds from the sale of the farm, the two become partners, both in romance and business – or are they? The leads’ true motivations are never entirely clear, and there are many bumps along the way for the pair.

Ultimately this plays like a more realistic, downbeat Risky Business. The two leads are great throughout, but their characters have considerably more depth than Tom Cruise’s and Rebecca de Mornay’s in that 80s classic. Indeed, there are many points in the film where the leads become unlikeable. The film delights in the machinations of a call girl setting up her own agency, but also has Kim reveal that having spent too long servicing clients’ desires means she is unable to reach orgasm with a boyfriend.

Patrick Ryan, who looks like Colin Farrell’s fat brother, is great as Donal’s slob of a mate Karl, always ready with a disgusting line to pop any pretension/apprehension on Donal’s part.
Score: 7.5/10

Lemmy
This documentary is neither fish nor fowl: it’s neither an authoritative history of the great man nor an insightful dissection of his character and psyche.
The filmmakers purport that this doc should be accessible to anyone, but, if you have no concept of Lemmy, Hawkwind, Motorhead and the world of heavy metal, this will be entirely lost on you.

The filmmakers spent three years filming Lemmy going about his life: playing computer games, drinking with Billy Bob Thornton, gambling in his local bar, touring with Motorhead, recording his soon to be released solo album, and discussing all the nick-nacks he’s collected (including that controversial mountain of Nazi memorabilia).

These sections are interspersed with both his peers (Hawkwind and Motorhead members alike) and those musicians who claim to have been inspired by Lemmy talking about him.

Lemmy is more approachable, less suspicious of the camera, than he appears in the film of the making of Ace of Spades. But the question remains after two hours: what have we learnt about Lemmy, and what, if anything, has he revealed about himself? The answer is: not a lot. A more fascinating, rigorous dissection of Lemmy is still required.
Score: 7/10

Deep In The Woods
Fearless performances from its two leads drive this psychological drama set in the rural France in the 1860s. Newcomer Nahuel Perez Biscayart is the near feral loner who is taken in by doctor’s daughter Isild le Besco’s father.

This act of kindness is almost immediately soiled by the loner apparently casting a spell over le Besco, she totally at his will even as she is conscious that she does not want to submit to his whims.

Effectively he kidnaps her, at which point the film becomes a race against time: will the authorities catch up with them before he has so entirely subjugated her that he no longer needs his magic to control her? Will she, in fact, turn tables on him?

The two leads are compelling screen presences – you can’t ignore them nor avert your gaze no matter how depraved their relationship becomes. More than Biscayart, Le Besco is astonishing: she may just be the new Isabelle Huppert – almost incapable of taking on a role that doesn’t push her to the darkest psychological places and seemingly comfortable with her body being used in all manner of ways.

However, this is a slow film, and has an air of nastiness about that it drives the viewer away. This came across to me as nothing more than a French period remake of Brimstone & Treacle.
Score: 5/10