Best of the London Film Festival 2016: Prevenge

In which Alice Lowe comes of age and reveals herself to be a distinctive new voice in British cinema that should be embraced and encouraged.

Having apprenticed with Ben Wheatley, here Lowe writes, stars in and for the first time directs. She is clearly from the school of Wheatley: this is a jet black, gory revenge comedy with a shocking impetus at its core – Lowe’s ‘heroine’ is heavily pregnant and is compelled to kill by her unborn child. She directs with verve, aided by Ryan Eddleston’s camera forcing its way into the action and Matteo Bini’s editing.

Revelation of the tragedy at the heart of the film is worked seamlessly into the narrative, the visual image of that tragedy echoing and reflecting in the story’s key metaphor.

Lowe’s Ruth is perhaps not that different to her Tina in Wheatley’s Sightseers, that same doleful expression, that same sense of resignation, but mated to a greater fury.

Men do not fare well in Lowe’s deliciously twisted script, and some suffer much more than others. I shan’t spoil your viewing by revealing their humiliations, at least one of which has not been seen in such detail on film since the days of Video Nasties. This is not a film for those with weak stomachs: you have been warned!

Score: 8/10

UK release date: tbc

Best of the London Film Festival 2016: Prevenge

In which Alice Lowe comes of age and reveals herself to be a distinctive new voice in British cinema that should be embraced and encouraged.

Having apprenticed with Ben Wheatley, here Lowe writes, stars in and for the first time directs. She is clearly from the school of Wheatley: this is a jet black, gory revenge comedy with a shocking impetus at its core – Lowe’s ‘heroine’ is heavily pregnant and is compelled to kill by her unborn child. She directs with verve, aided by Ryan Eddleston’s camera forcing its way into the action and Matteo Bini’s editing.

Revelation of the tragedy at the heart of the film is worked seamlessly into the narrative, the visual image of that tragedy echoing and reflecting in the story’s key metaphor.

Lowe’s Ruth is perhaps not that different to her Tina in Wheatley’s Sightseers, that same doleful expression, that same sense of resignation, but mated to a greater fury.

Men do not fare well in Lowe’s deliciously twisted script, and some suffer much more than others. I shan’t spoil your viewing by revealing their humiliations, at least one of which has not been seen in such detail on film since the days of Video Nasties. This is not a film for those with weak stomachs: you have been warned!

Score: 8/10

UK release date: tbc

Best of the London Film Festival 2016: Manchester By The Sea

If La La Land was the best possible way to start a Saturday, Manchester By The Sea was a surprisingly life-affirming start to a Sunday. How a two-and-a-quarter-hour movie about death and grief can be so full of life and so damn naturally funny is hard to fathom.

I was expecting 135 minutes of tortured dissection of emotional trauma and to an extent that’s what I got, but I got so much more.

Casey Affleck delivers not only his best performance since Gone Baby Gone but also quite possibly his career-best. From the opening scenes, it’s all too clear that his Lee Chandler is a broken man, carrying insurmountable and self-destructive guilt over an unknown trauma. Required to return to his eponymous hometown for the first time in many years due to the death of his brother, the cause of Lee’s guilt and grief is gradually revealed in timely flashbacks. The revelation of what happened has a half-life for Lee, his family, the town and the audience.

Where’s the humour then? In Lee’s bickering but loving relationship with his nephew, played by an almost equally outstanding Lucas Hedges. There’s an Odd Couple-esque chemistry to this pair, the reluctant parent and the reluctant child on the verge of being his own man.

The script and direction by Kenneth Lonergan are outstanding and will be rewarded with awards noms left right and centre, as will Caffleck. Given the nature and detail of the narrative, the film could have been unwatchably grim, but Lonergan finds a lightness of touch that allows the film to breathe.

Also awards-worthy is Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife, mostly seen in flashback, but her key scene in the present with Caffleck is best described by Screen’s Jeremy Kay as “devastating in capital letters”. Arguably it is both the most upsetting and the most uplifting scene in this simply outstanding film that may well find its way on to my Desert Island Flicks list.

Score: 10/10

UK release date: 13 January 2017

Best of the London Film Festival 2016: La La Land

This was the perfect start to a Saturday morning! Frankly, if every morning started with La La Land, the world would be a better place.

I don’t get on with musicals, but this hooked me if not from the opening of the first scene, then certainly the first angry exchange between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

There are others actors in this film, but the film really belongs to Stone. Yes, Gosling adds singing and dancing to his brooding film repertoire, but this is Stone’s moment. So far she’s got two Golden Globe noms, one BAFTA and one Oscar, but this will send her into the stratosphere. Indeed Screen US editor Jeremy Kay had this to say in his recent awards season previewpiece: “This is an ‘Audrey Hepburn’ moment for Stone – just as Silver Linings Playbook was for Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence – and voters will fall in love with her as the season progresses.”

And he’s damn right! In films like Zombieland, Easy A and Birdman, the cameras fell in love with her, and while La La Land doesn’t offer a stand-out scene like her harrowing critique of her father in Birdman, it does allow her to be front and centre for the vast majority of the film and shows her maturing, reeling her usual fire in a little to allow for some more depth.

Part of that is due to Damien Chazelle’s script and direction. While nominally a boy-meets-girl love story (that absolutely works thanks to the real spark between the two leads), the film’s real focus is on chasing dreams and what happens when you realise them. There is a bitter sweetness at the film’s core that lifts it above the obvious rom-com, which left me a bit of a blubbery mess at the end. I am, if nothing else, a romantic at heart.

If you have an ounce of romance in you, you will fall in love with this too.

Score: 10/10

UK release date: 13 January 2017