Review: Still Life

Happy in his work ….

 

Title:                                     Still Life

Certificate:                          12A

Director:                              Uberto Pasolini

Major Players:                     Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggatt

Out Of Five:                         Four

 

It’s a crowded week for new releases.  There’ll be plenty of ballyhoo surrounding The Interview – yes, we’re getting it in cinemas! – plus the Martin Luther King drama Selma and even Shaun The Sheep.  There’s also a small British offering which could be overlooked all too easily, but shouldn’t be.  Still Life.

It’s a film that especially strikes a chord if you’re one of the increasing numbers of single people.  Strange as it might sound, there are people out there whose job it is to arrange funerals for people who die leaving nobody behind – or at least appear to.  It’s also their job to establish if there are any living relatives.

At the fictional Kennington Council, the job belongs to John May (Eddie Marsan) and it’s a job he clearly cares about.  But he does more than the job requires, choosing the music for the funerals, writing the eulogy for the vicar, attending the funeral and even deciding on whether a burial or cremation should follow.  It’s always a burial.  Sometimes he’s also able to track down the deceased’s relatives, although the results can vary.  Having dedicated himself to the job for a number of years, he’s suddenly told he’s being made redundant.  His boss allows him to finish his last case, a solitary drunk who lived on the same development as John.  He eventually tracks down the man’s daughter, Kelly (Joanne Froggatt), a meeting which opens up his hitherto solitary and regimented life.

I’ve seen this described as a black comedy, and there are moments when that fits – a coffin descending early in the film to the robust tones of Scotland The Brave is one.  But actually it’s much more of a tragi-comedy, a lump in the throat film and much of that is down to Eddie Marsan’s almost unbearably touching performance in the lead.

He’s such a solitary character that you just know that he’ll join the ranks of those dying alone when his time comes.  He regards his own solitude as natural yet never recognises that he’s desperately lonely, filling his days with routine and order: just watch the way he peels and apple.  Yet he has a massive heart and it’s full of compassion, treating the deceased like individuals instead of just names on paper and the attention to detail that rules his life translates itself into acts of generosity and pure humanity.

Marsan is truly superb, capturing every little nuance of his oddball yet sympathetic character.  More often cast in a supporting role – a British version of  “that guy”, recently seen as a thoroughly nasty undertaker alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman in God’s Pocket  – it’s great to see him in the spotlight and he holds the film together with the lightest of touches.  It’s a performance that won him Best Actor last year at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, although this is a film that was first released in 2013.

Co-star Joanne Froggatt is most familiar nowadays as Anna Bates in Downton.  As the equally lonely Kelly, she’s more aware of her solitude, filling it with a large dog and working at the local kennels.  And it’s the common ground of loneliness that brings them together, hesitantly and cautiously.  It’s reminiscent of Marsan’s role in Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, where he played the friend of the family who touchingly falls in love with Vera’s daughter, a plain and painfully shy girl who they think will never marry.  Both are tender relationships that you desperately want to work out.

For a British film, Still Life feels remarkably European and that’s down to the cinematography.  There’s lots of single figures in landscapes, John very often.  We see him take the same walk home to his flat every day, waiting at the zebra crossing, passing the same man leaning out of the same window every day.  Even when he walks along the high street, it seems remarkably devoid of people during the day time.  The focus, ultimately, is always on him.

It’s a delicate, beautifully judged film with thoughtful acting and genuine warmth, despite all its solitude.  Which is why the final scenes jar so unexpectedly.  I won’t give it away, but all of a sudden the tone descends into a sentimentality that simply doesn’t belong in the film.  And what’s really sad is that it would have worked just as well without it.

 

Still Life is released in selected cinemas on Friday, 6 February.

 

Review: Selma

A magnetic King …..

 

Title:                          Selma

Certificate:               12A                

Director:                    Ava DuVernay

Major Players:          David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Roth

Out Of Five:              Four

 

This year’s Oscar nominations resurrected the debate about diversity in Hollywood.  After a triumphant 12 Years A Slave, it seemed the Academy went into reverse this year, with white nominees across the board for all the acting awards, as well as Best Director.  Selma, released in the UK this week, caused an outcry after only scoring nods in the Best Picture and Best Original Song categories.

The film traces events, and one march in particular, in 1965.  It was the height of the civil rights campaign to give the black community the right to vote – in practise, as well as in theory, as only 2% of black people in the south were actually able to cast their vote.  Events culminated with a march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, with Martin Luther King at the helm.  The first attempt ended on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, with a vicious attack on the marchers by state troopers and police.  A second attempt saw the march take place peacefully with King making a speech outside the governor’s building in Montgomery – the governor being segregationist George Wallace.

The director originally slated for Selma was Lee Daniels.  He, of course, was behind The Butler, which was viewed at the time as Oscar bait but made little or no impact.  The fact that David Oyelowo, who plays Martin Luther King, campaigned for Ava DuVernay to take over in the director’s chair has done much to make Selma the film it is.  Her documentary background and perspective from a different generation – she was born in 1972, well after the events on screen – give her a certain detachment, yet her passionate commitment is very much on show.

The film’s historical accuracy has already been questioned – just like any other historical film.  But, as far as the story on the screen is concerned, President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) eventually caves in and grants a new law to make voting a reality for the black community as a result of a meeting with Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth), of all people. Wallace wasn’t going to back down, Johnson couldn’t let the situation deteriorate any further, so was only one course of action.  Wilkinson, Hollywood’s favourite elder Brit statesman, makes a good LBJ: he definitely has the stature, although his mouth is probably a touch cleaner than the one belonging to the real president – reputedly.  I wasn’t so taken with Tim Roth’s Wallace, though, a one note performance, conveying little more than slyness.  A shame that DuVernay couldn’t draft in Gary Sinise to repeat his impressive performance in the TV bio-pic about the governor’s life.

David Oyelowo’s absence from the Best Actor list at the Oscars is the snub that’s really raised eyebrows and voices.  He’s seriously good as King, with all the presence, charisma and magnetism to galvanise people into following his non-violent approach.  But, away from the crowds, we see his other side.  The weakness for other women which nearly destroys his marriage and the crises of confidence – at one point he is on the brink of giving up the fight altogether.  It’s a well-rounded portrait and one that marks him out as an actor to watch – repeatedly.

The set pieces, especially those involving racist violence, pull no punches whatsoever and nod in the direction of Steve McQueen.  They’re brutal and distressing and the first one, the blowing up of a church killing four little girls, comes as a real shock.  It’s a  moment that constantly lingers just under the surface of the entire film.   The movie has a certain freshness as well, mainly because its new and young director has introduced some equally new faces to the cast.  And this means the overall tone is respectful and aware of the story’s historical significance, but it never slips into sentiment or being over-reverential.

Du Vernay has made a smart choice in concentrating on one short but significant moment in the civil rights movement – it lasted three months – and has done it with confidence and more than a little guts.  The events on screen are still within living memory, after all.  We’re given a powerful reminder of this at the very end of the film, which finishes with the credits rolling to the background of archive audio of the marchers singing at Selma.  At the screening I attended, nearly three quarters of the audience were still in their seats at the end of the credits.  That doesn’t happen very often.

 

Selma is released around the UK on Friday, 6 February.

 

Review: Get On Up

The parting of the ways? Brown and Byrd.

 

Title:                         Get On Up

Certificate:               12A

Director:                   Tate Taylor

Major Players:         Chadwick Boseman, Dan Aykroyd, Octavia Spencer

Out Of Five:             3

 

It’s no wonder the movie industry likes bio-pics about musicians.  They’re big names with colourful lifestyles, making them perfect for the big screen – and there’s always the chance of a soundtrack on the side.  The musician him/herself is often a plum role for an actor as well – Joaquin Phoenix (Johnny Cash in Walk The Line) and Sissy Spacek (Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter) would no doubt agree.  The early days of Jimi Hendrix have already put in an appearance this year, Ben Wishaw looks set to play Freddie Mercury and now we have the life and times of The Godfather Of Soul himself, James Brown, in Get On Up.

There’s big names – and, no doubt, big money – attached to this one.  Mick Jagger is a producer, even though the Stones are regarded with contempt by Brown early on in the film.  Jez Butterworth, author of the multi-award winning play Jerusalem,  wrote the screenplay.  Tate Taylor, the director whose previous offering The Help, was nominated for several Oscars.  And then you’ve a charismatic and eccentric central character, electric on stage, a musical legend of the 20^th century and instantly recognisable to the ear.

The young James starts his life in grinding poverty, living in a shack in the countryside.  His parents fight, his mother leaves and his father decides to go his own way as well, leaving the boy with his aunt, who runs a bordello.  James learns to survive on his own and, through a chance meeting with Bobby Byrd – his eventual long-term friend and collaborator – joins a gospel choir.  His talent is obvious, as is the fact that he should be a front man, and the film charts his rise to the top and the difficulties that went with his success.

Which makes the film sound like a straightforward bio-pic, along the lines of James Mangold’s Walk The Line.  But it isn’t – and it walks behind it for a number of reasons.

It’s clearly a heartfelt project for Taylor, so he wants to give as comprehensive a picture of Brown as possible.  So much so that he puts too much in.  At 2 hours 20 minutes, it needs nipping and tucking.   He’s also tried to do something different in terms of the bio-pic structure and it’s a bold move. Although the film starts with the young James and his parents, the key moments of his life then jump backwards and forwards.  Sometimes it works, when there’s a clear connection between the two sequences, but sometimes that link is blurred, which the switchback frustrating, showy even.  Taylor’s probably tried a little bit too hard to be clever, and it’s only partly come off.

Some individually pitch-perfect scenes stick in your mind.  Brown meeting his mother once he’s become successful and, essentially, paying her off, is right on the button.  It’s full of anger, bitterness and regret and is probably the best scene in the entire film.  The concert sequences are strong, especially the one in Boston, the night after the assassination of Martin Luther King, when emotions run especially high.

I’m not so sure that Chadwick Boseman was the right choice to play Brown.  For a start, he’s hampered by the work of the make-up department to make him look like the real thing.  The extraordinary set of teeth – almost an undershot jaw – means he’s difficult to understand sometimes.  And, inevitably, the hairdressers had a ball too, creating some seriously extravagant quiffs.  They haven’t wasted their time, but when it comes to nailing the person, he has varying degrees of success.  The fact that he doesn’t do his own singing – that’s all down to Brown – isn’t a problem, but he can’t quite capture the magnetism and near megalomania of the man.  What does come across is his razor sharp business brain and his nerve in bucking the established system in the music business. He’s not so much the Godfather as the Godson Of Soul.

As if to accentuate his shortcomings, there’s a real quality supporting cast, not the least of which is Nelsan Ellis as Bobby Byrd.  The real Byrd, by the way, acted as a historical consultant on the film.  His is the less showy part, someone who realised he could never be the front man and always had to settle for being number two, yet he’s a loyal and supportive friend – and Ellis is superb.  Viola Davis is just as good as Brown’s mother, as is Octavia Spencer as his feisty aunt and Dan Aykroyd as the one manager who could control him.  Just watch how the singer goes off the rails after his manager’s death.

Get On Up has the sort of guts that you’d associate with Brown himself in its attempt to take a different approach to the music bio-pic.  But it doesn’t come off and you find yourself wishing that Taylor had taken a slightly more straightforward approach to film and re-directed some of that courage in his selection of leading man.

 

Get On Up is on general release from Friday, 21 November.