Rev Stan's film blog

Review: Marion Cotillard shines in sluggish Two Days One Night

Synopsis: Sandra (Cotillard) is a young mother who has been suffering from depression. Ready to return to work she discovers that her colleagues have been told that if she is dismissed the company can afford to give her a bonus. She has a weekend to convince them to vote to keep her on.

Stan's thoughts: Marion Cotillard I could watch all day. Her performance in this is incredible in its understatement but, and I feel I have to apologise, I just found the film a bit dull. It is pretty much as described: a depressed woman travelling from door to door asking her colleagues to chose her over a bonus. The conversations go pretty much the same with each one and I just wanted to fast forward to the vote.

Be warned that right at the beginning, when the film certificate is displayed, it does give you a spoiler and that particular event, I think is unsatisfactorily glossed over. It feels like 90% of the film is at one pace then the final 10% is a resolution at another.

Sorry Marion you were fab but the film wasn't, for me, and I normally love this sort of subtle, quiet, human drama. Everyone else seems to have adored it though so probably best to just ignore me.

Ratings

• Stan’s 50%
• IMDB 75%
• Metascore 94%
• Rotten Tomatoes 94%
• RT Audience Rating* 82%

Recently seen

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* Based on number of people who rated the film 3.5/5 and higher

 

Review: Bright Days Ahead

Synopsis: Caroline (Fanny Ardent) is a newly retired dentist and her family buys her membership of the Bright Days Ahead activity club to keep her occupied. The only thing she likes about the club is the young computer class teacher Julien (Laurent Lafitte) who starts to flirt with her.

Stan's thoughts: Got to like French cinema for producing films that not only feature interesting, complex and flawed women characters but also interesting, complex and flawed older women. It puts Hollywood to shame.

Ardent clearly demonstrates that there is no sell-by date for sexiness and you never doubt that Julien would find her attractive. Equally this isn't just about sex but about a woman who while confident and worldly-wise is still finding her way as her life changes. She makes mistakes at times, occasionally makes a fool of herself but ultimately comes through it all with a enlightened strength and dignity.

This is about love and sex and adapting to a new life while appreciating the old. It is a breath of fresh air next to most English language cinema when it comes to the portrayal of older women.

Ratings

• Stan’s 60%
• IMDB 62%
• Metascore 57%
• Rotten Tomatoes 86%
• RT Audience Rating* 54%

Recently seen

Fault of Our Stars

The Young and Prodigeous TS Spivet

Belle

Edge of Tomorrow

Two Face of January

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Frank

Blue Ruin

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* Based on number of people who rated the film 3.5/5 and higher

Review: The slightly more explicit than I was expecting, Stranger By The Lake

Synopsis: It's summer time at a secluded, lake-side, gay cruising spot . Franck (Pierre Deladonchamp) falls in love with Michel (Christoph Paou) even though he knows he is dangerous.

Stan's thoughts: When the 18 certificate was displayed with the words 'for real sex' I thought they were kidding, real looking sex is what they meant. No, they didn't. I wasn't surprised by what I was seeing, more by the fact that it was being shown in a mainstream cinema. (If you thought Blue Is The Warmest Colour was racy, this makes that look like a Barbara Cartland made-for-TV film.)

The problem is that it becomes a bit of a distraction to what is an interesting story. The relationship between Franck and Michel and the behaviour of this gay community when terrible things happen in their midst is what really drives the narrative. That and the growing sense of danger and unease.

All the full frontal nudity and sex in all shapes and forms starts feeling a bit over done in the same way that the orgy/partying scenes in Wolf of Wall Street start feeling over done. When you've seen one blow job/hand job etc, do you really need to see it again and again and again to get the point?

Director/writer Alain Guiraudie's relaxed shooting style is to be admired, in fact it is so relaxed that there are no Hollywood-style flattering angles. Naturalistic is certainly a word you could use to describe this film. Likewise the etiquette and behaviour at cruising spots is, I am told, very well observed.

Stranger By The Lake feels like a really interesting story that has been overly sexed up and I think the shame is that a lot of people will go and see it for the latter when there is much else of merit. When I sat down at the early Sunday morning screening a couple of weeks ago I was surprised by quite how busy it was. Once the film started I understood.

PS It was, however, refreshing to watch an 18 film that was entirely devoid of naked lady bits for once.

Ratings

• Stan's: 75%
• IMDB: 70%
• Metascore: 82%
• Rotten Tomatoes: 95% 
• RT audience rating: 70%

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Review: The wonderful Blue is The Warmest colour

Synopsis: A story of self discovery as teen Adele (Adele Exarchopolous) meets the confident, bohemian art student Emma (Lea Seydoux) and falls in love.

Stan's thoughts: Saw this at a preview back in early November and it still haunts me now. When I tweeted about it I said it was surely a contender for the Best Foreign Film Oscar but, in the joyous afterglow of seeing a great film, I'd forgotten that in the US people are far more squeamish about sex than they are about violence. Also the film has had a very limited release in the US which is a shame because it really is very good.

So why did I like it? Well first and foremost is its subtlety. The performances are so raw, honest and real, so extraordinarily ordinary, very human in fact, that you can help but be moved. Its power comes in part from director Abdellatif Kechiche decision to linger with close up shots on his two actresses who are acting with the very cells of their skin.

And then there is the story. It too is very subtle and very honest - Adele is growing up and with that comes the tensions of peer pressure, conformity and personal honesty. It is an epically small journey but one filled with successes and mistakes, clarity and confusion and you travel every step with her.

Settling down to watch I thought that the three hour running time must surely be indulgent but in the end I found it hard to tear myself away for the inevitable comfort break. I'd be surprised if this didn't make it into my end of year top 10.

Ratings

• Stan's: 90%
• IMDB: 81%
• Metascore: 88%
• Rotten Tomatoes: 90% 
• RT audience rating: 87%

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Review: The intriguing In The House

Synopsis: Literature teacher and failed novelist Germain is impressed when student Claude turns in a piece of original writing about how he has insinuated his way into the home of his friend Rapha. The writing shows talent and Germain encourages Claude to carry on but how far will teacher go to get the story and how far will Claude go to create it?

Stan's thoughts: Fact and fiction are blurred in so many different senses in this film. How much of what Claude is writing real, how far should fact be manipulated to create a better fiction and how far should you live your life through others, indeed are the lives of others quite what you believe them to be?

On one level this is a study on dangers of living your life through other people, on another it is about the nature of literature. And it is very well done with a superb performance from Ernst Unhauer as the bright, charming and manipulative Claude. Unhauer also gives the character a vital tinge of sadness and tragedy that works wonders in messing with your perception of him.

Great piece of meaty psychological French cinema and one you can delightfully mull over. If I was to criticise it would be that it very occasionally it drags its heels.

Ratings

• Stan's 79%
• IMDB 73%
• Metascore No rating
• Rotten Tomatoes 91%

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#LFF Review: Rust and Bone

First film of the festival and bit of a mixed view on this one. It's a French film starring the fabulous Marion Cotillard as killer whale-trainer Stephanie who loses both legs at the knee in an accident. Prior to the accident she meets bouncer Alain (Matthias Schoenaerts) a single father with a penchant for casual sex who earns extra cash competing in illegal, bare-knuckle fights.

It's an unlikely pairing but then their relationship has a grittiness to it that you won't usually find on screen. Both are intriguing characters full of light and shade. At the beginning of the film we discover that Stephanie likes to leave her boyfriend at home while she goes out clubbing, enjoying male attention. Alain on the other hand is not the most attentive or responsible of parents picking up women at the gym for casual sex and in the process forgetting to collect his son from school.

When Stephanie calls on Alain after the accident he finds her sat at home, withdrawn and full of self pity. In his own way Alain draws Stephanie out reigniting her zest for life. Stephanie likes to watch Alain fight and her presence encourages him.

As their friendship grows it develops into sex, an experiment at first for Stephanie post the accident but soon means something different to both. When Alain's not entirely legal work in security take a unexpected turn he flees leaving his family and Stephanie in the lurch until a near tragedy puts priorities into perspective.

For all the meatiness and layers of the central characters my one grumble with this film would be the central relationship in that I wasn't wholly convinced that a woman like Stephanie would fall for Alain. Stephanie's character felt less developed than Alain and therefore it was difficult to judge her motivations.

Nonetheless it certainly gave me plenty to think about, was refreshingly gritty, real and French in its approach and definitely not the usual cliched soppy love story fare. Not quite as good as Jacques Audiard's previous film A Prophet but I'm going to give it 62%. On IMDb it has 78% with a Metacritic score of 76% while on Rotten Tomatoes, as it hasn't had a general release yet, it doesn't have a consensus.

 

Review round up: Pirates: An Adventure With Scientists, Good Bye First Love and Free Men

Pirates - not Aardmen's best film but still enjoyable with a few laugh out loud moments. Definitely benefit from repeat viewing as the details are easily missed and playing guess the voice over is always fun. 59%

Goodbye First Love - musing on the power of first love. Story is fairly simple girl meets boy. Falls in love and everything is perfect until boy decides to go travelling for a year. Girl is devastated. They write to each other for a while. As time goes on girl eventually starts to move on meets someone else then boy comes back.

It's a nice gentle film but never quite plumbs the emotional depth the subject matter demands. It has it's moments but just wasn't quite satisfying enough. 55%

Free Men - great second world war film told from a different perspective, that of a Muslim living in German occupied Paris who after getting caught selling black market goods is persuaded to spy on the local mosque, suspected of harbouring Jews. 

Loyalties and duty are tested but it lacks the wrought emotional and moral dilemmas and sense of danger of films like The Counterfeiters. Otherwise an interesting film. 60%

 

Unlocking Sarah's Key

This is the second film I've seen in as many months about the round up and expulsion of French Jews during the second world war.  The first was The Round Up and set predominantly during the second world war. Sarah's Key has two interlinked stories set during the war and in contemporary France.

At the heart of the film is the  story of Sarah (Melusine Mayance). She is the young daughter of a Jewish family living in Paris and when the round up starts she locks her younger brother in a hidden cupboard so that he will be safe.

As her family are carted off first to a velodrome in Paris, then holding camps before the final journey to the concentration camps Sarah is desperate to get back to her brother and free him from the cupboard.

The contemporary story sees an American journalist, Julia (Kristen Scott Thomas) who is married to a French architect and living in Paris and is researching a piece on the round up. In the course of her research she discovers that her husband's family apartment, which he is renovating, belonged to a Jewish family who were sent off to the camps. Sarah's family in fact.

So as the story of Sarah and her attempts to get back to her brother unfold, Julia is slowly unearthing the story herself and the connection her husband's family have with that period of history.

It's nicely done but it is one of those films that you can't help feeling like the writers have come up with a good idea then gone beyond what is really necessary, diluting what is good source material. 

The story of Sarah and whether she will or won't get back to her brother and whether he is or isn't still in cupboard, dead or alive is a compelling and deeply moving one. Julia's investigation into the story adds an extra layer of tension as she gets ever closer to discovering the truth.

*Potential spoilers* But does Julia really need to have marital and fertility problems? It is interesting to know what happened to Sarah after the war but does it need to go into quite so much detail about her family and the tension between Julia and the Sarah's grown up son just seems extraneous.

Sarah's key has some great moments and occasionally comes close to The Counterfeiters for dilemma and psychological trauma but its excess baggage weighs it down which is a shame. I'm going to give it 68%.

It's got 72% from users on IMDb, 58% from Metacritic and on Rotten Tomatoes it has 74% from critics and 84% from users.

 

French film double bill #2: The Round Up

The last Holocaust film I saw was the Counterfeiters which is one of my all time favourite films. This French-made film is set in France and tells the story of the round up of French Jews in 1942 by the occupying Germans.

It follows a group of Jewish families living in an enclave in Paris as life gets more tough and restricted in the lead up to and after their incarceration before being transported to Poland.

Aside from the families' stories it also examines the politics of the time as French politician's negotiated the terms of the hand over and the numbers.

Naturally its an emotional piece both from the perspective of those whose lives as are destroyed and the non-Jewish French people who did everything they could to help them and ease their suffering.

French film double bill part 1: Point Blank

 This film packs an awful lot of action/thriller punch for it's 86 minute running time. OK so it stretches the suspension of disbelief quite a bit but it still has a pretty good grip.

Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) is a trainee nurse with a heavily pregnant wife who gets dragged into the criminal underworld. While on duty one night he sees a doctor he doesn't recognise with a patient. When confronted the doctor runs and he realises that the patient's ventilation tube has been cut.

He saves the patient and the incident is reported to the police and that is that. Or so he thinks only that evening, while at home with his wife, he is knocked unconscious and his wife is kidnapped. The 'ransom' is that he has three hours to get that same patient out of the hospital.