Begin Again (2013)

Image: The Weinstein Company

In a word: charming.

3.5/5

Begin Again is a story of finding yourself, and your purpose, when it seems hopeless.  It helps that, in true movie style, the down-on-their-luck pair at the centre of this story are the eternally likeable Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley dialling down her pout and model-looks for a naturalistic and endearing performance.

Ruffalo plays Dan; a washed-up music producer with a drink problem, an estranged family and a serious case of self-sabotage.  Stumbling into a bar one night on open-mic night he catches Knightley’s Gretta on stage and is convinced, despite (because of?) his drunken haze, that she’s the singer-songwriter talent he’s been searching. Gretta’s on a serious downer herself after her relationship has just imploded in spectacular fashion but Dan’s belief that she has enough talent to record her own album is so persuasive she jumps on board.

Begin Again feels like an indie – slight storyline, slightly rough around the edges but plucky with bags of heart – and much like director John Carney’s first film (Once: 2006) it touches a chord (pun intended) and stays with you longer than you’d expect.

Notes
– James Corden has a big role in this film as Gretta’s college buddy.  That will please some and irritate (the hell out of) others.  Normally I’d be in the latter camp, but he (just about) restrains his comedic persona here.

– Adam Levine (Maroon 5 lead singer) also makes an appearance.  His facial hair is more memorable than he is but he aquits himself without dishonour.

– Since it’s a film about musicians, the songs could be better.  Sadly there’s nothing like “Falling Slowly” – the smash hit from Once but there’s nothing terrible.
– Previously titled “Can A Song Save Your Life?”

Begin Again reviews I rate

Rolling Stone: Peter Traver’s Begin Again review

Salon.com: Andrew O’Hehir’s Begin Again review

King Arthur (2004)

Ancient Britain’s dream team (image: ImpAwards website)

Wot, no Excalibur?

It’s unclear why the filmmakers have chosen to name their swords and sandals saga, ‘King Arthur’, given they’ve decided to eschew all elements of Arthurian legend in favour of a look at the “man (that might have been) behind the legend”.

In this gritty ‘reimagining’, Arthur is a now a soldier of dual Roman/British heritage who lost his faith in Britain as a child, after the brutal slaying of his mother at the hands of the Picts – blue-tinted native Britons (note: not to be confused with the Na’vi). A firm believer in the progressiveness of the Roman way of life Arthur, backed by his legionnaires, is proud to uphold Rome’s laws in Britain. But the once mighty Roman Empire is under threat and decides to withdraw its troops from its foreign outposts to focus on its enemies closer to home.

Arthur plans to go ‘home’ to Rome but is given one last challenge by wily Bishop Germanius, to go north of Hadrian’s Wall and rescue a Roman family from the lawless Picts and a new threat – invading Saxon forces.

The Duchess (2008)

Dir: Saul Dibb / Writers: Jeffrey Hatcher, Anders Thomas Jensen, Saul Dibb / Cinematography: Gyula Pados

Keira? (image: pinkmoose FlickrCC)

Scandal, 18th century-style
Keira Knightley channels Diana, Princess of Wales as she portrays Diana’s headstrong predecessor Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

With interesting parallels to modern royalty, poor G is married off, young and naive, to the ageing Duke whose opinion on the marital union is particularly low. G is important to him only for her ability to bear him a son and continue the family line – beyond that he has little interest in her.

As a fictionalised study of gender rights in the 18th century it is absorbing and horrifying in equal measure. Even wealthy connected women were completely at the mercy of their husbands’ good natures.

As a period drama it is well made (the production and costume design is gorgeous) but not outstanding. Fiennes works hard to rescue such an unsympathetic part from caricature and Charlotte Rampling as Georgiana’s mama is interesting but Knightley never seems to wholly inhabit her character and the central romance between G and future PM Charles Grey (Mama Mia‘s Dominic Cooper) fails to light the necessary sparks.

Rating: 3/5
IMDb entry for The Duchess

* Adapted from the novel by Amanda Foreman

 

Atonement

Dir: Joe Wright. UK / France. 2007

James McAvoy as Robbie Turner (image: Yu-Yee FlickrCC)

In the heat of the night

I’ve never rated Keira Knightley; too stiff in Bend It Like Beckham, too ‘jolly hockey sticks’ as Jane Austen’s famous heroine Elizabeth Bennett (in Pride & Prejudice) but for once the familiar buzz of Keira worship seems only fitting. In Atonement, Knightley (in her second film with director Joe Wright) seems to have found her perfect role. She plays Cecilia Tallis – bored, rich, headstrong – to outstanding effect but ultimately with depths of character that ground the epic romance at the heart of this story.

Atonement drops us into summer 1935 – and life at the Tallis family mansion in the heart of the English countryside.  Cecilia and housekeeper’s son Robbie (both just down from Cambridge University) squabble fractiously while they await the arrival of her brother, and assorted guests, for the weekend.  Over the course of this swelteringly hot summer’s day Briony Tallis, Cecilia’s melodramatic sister lets a misunderstood situation and an unrequited crush drive her towards an act of malice that has tragic repercussions.

Stunningly shot, with note-perfect locations and costume, muted tones with flashes of brilliant colour (particularly one fabulous evening dress), Atonement looks, and feels, like a classic unfolding before our eyes. The shots of English countryside and Blitz-hit London re-create the 1930s effortlessly.  Only war scenes at Dunkirk seem a little heavy-handed as though, having booked the extras and the props, Wright felt duty bound to use as much as possible.  This is a tiny criticism of a well-paced and superbly structured film.

All this would be for nothing, of course, without the performances.  Knightley and (the always reliable) James McAvoy in the central roles, achieve the kind of chemistry that makes you invest in what unfolds, without tipping over into sentimentality. Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai (as young and older Briony, respectively) manage to make a difficult, and unlikeable, role human and other supporting performances are delivered in light, yet revealing, touches.

Rating: 4/5
IMDb entry for Atonement

Pride & Prejudice

Dir: Joe Wright. UK.  2005

Mr Darcy fan (image: Jamelah FlickrCC)

Where’s Colin Firth when you need him?

First-time director Joe Wright brings Jane Austen’s celebrated tale of love and pride to the big screen for the first time since 1940. He takes a different tack from previous feature-length or small-screen outings, rooting his Pride & Prejudice firmly in the robust side of eighteenth-century village life (complete with livestock running wild in the houses and muck and mud aplenty) rather than focussing overmuch on frills and ribbons.

The Bennet family has five daughters, cause for concern in the eighteenth century when a gentleman had to provide a dowry to go along with each daughter he wanted to marry off. Austen’s portrayal of the trials and tribulations of their adventures in love, and the inside track on the attitudes and interests of good society has been a bestseller for over three hundred years.

In Wright’s vision, the Bennet females laugh like hyenas and act like a rowdy hockey team on tour. Toothy English rose, Keira Knightley, is his chosen leading lady (head girl) Lizzie Bennet.  She puts in an energetic performance, bouncing around the screen, with little evidence of any of the wit, intelligence or introspection that Austen wrote into her favourite fictional character.  And with every jolly hockey sticks bray and squawk we get further away from the classic tale and closer to standard rom-com fare.

Unfortunately, lacklustre Matthew MacFadyen seems to be too overwhelmed by his comedy side-burns to have much impact on the spectacle unfolding before him and the venerable Donald Sutherland seems to have got his accent from Little House on the Prairie.  Only Brenda Blethyn (and Mrs Bennet) and Judi Dench (as Lady Catherine de Bourg) manage to balance the inherent sense and sensibility of Austen and come away with their dignity intact.

Rated: 2/5
IMDb page