Film Reviews by SB

This film, ostensibly British but made in the USA in the darkest days of WWII, is the story of Emma Hart's rise to being Lady Hamilton and then mistress of Nelson, but is also a propaganda piece about Britain's role in securing liberty etc (no mention of the British Empire' s history here). The settings are typically Hollywood-lavish (especially in the Italian section), and the sea battles might have been better not attempted, but it all moves along at a fair pace. The acting laurels must go to Vivien Leigh who is not just beautiful but also vivacious and believable as the street girl turned ambassadress, and also perhaps to Alan Mowbray as her devious but put-upon husband. Laurence Olivier plays Nelson and a dull dog he is too, a major casting mistake - although no doubt there were marketing reasons, and pressure from Ms Leigh for personal reasons.

This film of Ronald Blythe's book about the labouring poor in a Suffolk village uses an amateur cast drawn from the area. It is spare and poetic, and totally unsentimental, using one actor to portray three generations of a family. The transitions between the time periods are many and virtually seamless, and the authenticity of setting unrivalled. In many ways this film was ahead of its time in both techneque and the way it was financed. Peter Hall's career in film was much less iillustrious than in the theatre but this work alone justifies his involvement in the former industry.

This film is thought-provoking, but also irritating in a number of ways. The plot is simple: local government bureaucrat (not civil servant!) Bill Nighy gets terminal diagnosis and decides to live a little in his last six months and thereby reveals that he is not quite what his colleagues thought, ie Mr Zombie.

By coincidence, in my very early working days in a similar bureaucracy the team I was in had a similar situation but involving two men; a man who had cancer in January and was dead by May, and a team leader who appeared dessicated but had a hidden fire in the shape of his passion, quite well concealed, for a beautiful young married woman in our team. However, the man with cancer just stayed at home and faded away; and the team leader never got further than intimate little talks with her in his office. But nonetheless, Mr Williams' behaviour in the film is fairly believable except his initial absence from the office after the diagnosis; someone like him would have arranged leave and then gone away to 'find himself', in the modern jargon.

The film raises questions about 'what is living' but answers them rather unsatisfactorily since what he proceeds to do is so mundane (including singinmg in a bar and getting a playground past planning constraints). The office and its inhabitants are also shown as a sort of dead zone, whereas in reality such places were full of emotion and undercurrents, rivalry and jealousy, whatever the surface appearances.

So far as casting goes, Nighy's performance is good, and less mannered than sometimes occurs . He is far too old at 70+ for the role; someone in his role at the time (early 1950s) would have retired at 60. Aimee Lou Wood is good as the young colleague whom he confides in. The rest of the cast of colleagues and family etc are adequate.

But there are considerable irritations at the poor period detail, and other lapses. The likelihood that all these people working in one office in central London would all have travelled from the same railway station outside London would have been zero. The railway line filmed is certainly not a line into London; and although Waterloo station is shown, the route from there to County Hall (the declared setting) is done wrongly. Men in local government then would not have worn bowler hats, which were much more for men in the City; if he wore a hat at all, Williams would have worn a trilby (which he does acquire once he goes off the rails). There is far too little smoking, with just an occasional nod to the prevalent habit (to take one example, the office they work in would have been full of smoke).

In my view the film's lapses arise partly from imposing modern values on the film but also from having a director and writer who had no experience of England in 1950s.

This film about Mary Queen of Scots takes an unusual approach to historical drama, concentrating much more on the inner Mary than on externals. In consequence some familiarity with her reign is useful.

Camille Rutherford, the bilingual actress who plays Mary, does well even though she can appear impassive. The supporting cast, all unknown to me, are good - especially the actor who plays Rizzio. The urge film directors have to stage a fictitious meeting with Elizabeth I is resisted, and having Elizabeth appear only as a rather bossy puppet is effective.

Clearly not filmed in Scotland, the locations are nonetheless apt, usually far from sunny, and costuming is mostly sombre. There is a good attempt to show Mary's very close relationship with her 'four Marys', her ladies in waiting, better than in other films. The relationship with Bothwell is too romantic but that is not particularly significant. The film omits all of the long years of exile in England save for an execution scene.

Large parts of the film are in French, with English subtitles. Some have objected, but why? French was effectively Mary's first language. And it is good to have a European rather than an Anglosphere perspective on Mary.

A dishonest politician marries into a wealthy family and later has an affair. In gaining her revenge, his wife reveals herself to be even more dishonest and even nastier. The happy couple are well played by Trevor Eve and Juliet Stevenson, with good support from the rest of the cast, especially Ian Bannen. There are some unlikely turns in the plot, but it is a decent enough evening's viewing if you have the stomach for politicians being politicians. A few slips in the filming (eg one scene is too obviously shot in London's County Hall although not meant to be there). Minnie Driver, in an early role, is cool yet earthy as the only honest person in the story.

'At Bertram's Hotel' is a complex book and somewhat out of character for Christie, being set in a London hotel and involving organised crime. Any resemblance between that work and this ITV 'version' is purely coincidental, with the story mangled, new characters inserted and a general air of chaos. Even Louis Armstrong appears. The producers clearly have no idea about the sort of exclusive hotel Christie was writing about. The cast struggle, especially Geraldine McEwan as a somewhat bewildered Miss Marple. Mary Nighy and Emily Beecham add some class; Polly Walker and Francesca Annis do not. Martine McCutcheon is typecast as a common but clever chambermaid. To be avoided at all costs.

I have incresed the rating from one to two stars after seeing 'Towards Zero'. The novel is not a Miss Marple book at all, but features only the police and is a superbly plotted whodunit. The TV production has dropped Superintendent Battle, substituted a not very clever policeman and inserted Miss Marple into the action, albeit having her on a somewhat improbable sketching holiday. What we are left with is a fairly traditional whodunit among a small circle of characters. The cast is quite good, and the settings lovely without the excessive prettiness which sometimes mars this series. The clues are a lot more obvious than in the book, but it is still worth watching.

This might be called 'The tale of the psychiatrist, his wife, her lover and the other psychiatrist'; there aren't many laughs apart from the occasional witticism. Hugh Bonneville plays a smug and unimaginative shrink newly appointed to a secure hospital for the criminally insane which he hopes to take over one day. Another psychiatrist (Ian McKellen, all bustle and unctuous concern) notes that Natasha Richardson's bored wife has started an affair with a rough but artistic inmate, and decides to have them both for himself, while using the opportunity to destablise the opposition. He encourages the affair but obstructs the prisoner's rehabilitation, until, driven wild, the prisoner escapes and the wife then follows him to London. In the ensuing imbroglio, the marriage of shrink No 1 is all but destroyed, and the scandal gets shrink no 2 accelerated into the top job, where he promptly dismisses shrink no 1. There follow shenanigans in north Wales, where shrink no.1 is now working with wife and son unhappily in tow. When the madman locates them, events descend into black tragedy and a certain suspension of disbelief is required. The wife then becomes a patient at her former residence and shrink no.2 makes his play, perhaps a little too precipitately; the outcome is unhappy for everyone.

Query: after the lovers' first tryst on the very messy potting shed floor, her white dress remains like the driven snow as she leaves. Symbolic, or just careless direction?

The book is better, but the film is worth watching.

Local beauty goes walking daily through a poor Sicilian town in WWII; teenage (barely) boy gets a crush on her. The war progresses; the boy grows up and the woman survives many vicissitudes.

A somewhat strange film with an interesting technique; all behaviour except that of the woman is exaggerated to show up the primitive, hypocritical nature of Sicilian society and the unreasonable nature of human beings. The performances are good, and the atmosphere well-evoked. Monica Bellucci hardly speaks; she is just a body. Even her face hardly matters. That in itself says something. In some ways, this is quite an unpleasant film even though it has many 'funny' scenes. I wonder whether it would have been seen as acceptable had the sexes been reversed and a twelve year old girl seen lusting after a 27 year old man, with all that follows.

This review refers to Series 1 only, which takes the story of Catherine of Aragon from her jourrney to England to marry the ill-fated Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1501, to the accession of his younger brother Henry VIII and their marriage, in 1509. I don't think I can bear to watch Series 2.

Philippa Gregory, the author of the source novels, is notorious for her historical inaccuracy, and when film producers get their hands on this material, things get worse. So do not look for the truth here. Perhaps the biggest howler is the initial presentation of 'Prince Harry' as a strapping and lustful young man already taller than his elder brother, and clearly interested in Catherine. In reality, Henry was only ten years old when Catherine's marriage to Arthur took place, and a good deal of nonsense springs from this deliberate falsification.

Other problems are many. For example, the constant harping on about England's poverty (it was certainly poorer than the European powers, but under Henry VII had become much more financially stable); the presentation of Henry VII, arguably England's best ever monarch, as a querulous indecisive man dependent on his wife Elizabeth and his mother; and the clear implication that Catherine lied about the consummation of her first marriage. The marriage of Margaret Tudor, Henry VII's elder daughter, to the King of Scotland, is depicted with political correctness rather than accuracy, in particular in the way she is shown as being treated by her parents. And it then promptly disappears from any mention.

Episodes 5-7 are an improvement on what has gone before and are quite interetsing, except that too much screen time is given to Catherine's ladies, probably to pad out the lack of dramatic material in the main story. And even in these there are one or two things which stretch credulity - for example, Catherine and one of her ladies ride unaccompanied to Margaret Pole's home in the West Country....not only would they have had absolutely no idea how to find their way there, they would also have been in enormous danger. Instead they are seen having a meal on the grass outside a pub on the way back.....

Episode 8, showing the death of Henry VII and its consequences, descends into farce.

The scenic and costume design are satisfactory, and some of the performances are good, including Charlotte Hope as Catherine (she looks the part, as Catherine was not dark haired, as sometimes portrayed in films), and especially Harriet Walter as Margaret Beaufort, the very strong-minded mother of Henry VII. Laura Carmichael is somewhat irritating in the over-inflated role of Margaret Pole (though one has to blame the script for some of this). Alba Galocha is eye-catching as Catherine's unstable elder sister Joanna. The supporting cast is mostly fine, except for the insult dealt to the Moors by deliberately casting actors who are not Arabic/North African in origin as Catherine's Moorish attendants and guards.

If it gets four stars , this is mainly for the cinematography and the way the Dorset landscape becomes part of the story, shown at all seasons and in a realistic way. THe script is not savage enough for Hardy and although the main unpleasant episodes are there, it is as if there is a need to get them out of the way. Julie Christie, her beauty deliberately damped down, plays Bathsheba perhaps too innocently, and in her first film role Prunella Ransome as Fanny is given too little screen time. Of the men, Peter Finch is most impressive as the ultimately tragic Boldwood. Alan Bates has too much gravitas and solidity as Gabiel Oak - yes, this is suggested by his very name, but he is too calm. Terence Stamp was never a good actor and although he has the showiest part, it is all artifice and suface dazzle - he is as meaningless at the end as the beginning. To some extent that is the point, but he does it uncomfortably easily. The supporting cast and period evocation are all very good.

Well worth seeing for the visuals alone, then, but for a truer psychological fulfilment the much later Carey Mulligan version is better even if it was made much more 'on the cheap'.

Rupert Everett is, I fear, no Alistair Sim, and is perhaps the weak link in this tale of criminally-inclined schoolgirls updated from the mid 20th century. The story is perhaps more focussed than in the earlier films and the impetus is kept up to the end. A continuous stream of gags and bad jokes. Colin Firth is suitably pompous as the education minister with a too-personal involvement, and Stephen Fry hams it up as a quizmaster. Tallulah Riley is effective and quietly sexy as the new pupil who transforms from obedience to one of the worst, and Gemma Arterton naturally makes a bombshell - if rather mature - head girl. Short, but okay for an evening when something undemanding is needed.

I wouldn't call this so much of a horror film as suspense, except maybe for the last twenty minutes. It is well made – the innocuous beginning on the Spanish coast, and the weirdness of the island which the married couple visit only very slowly ratcheted up.

Two things that struck me as improbable were the sheer number of children on the island compared with the very few adults we see dead or alive; and the lack of concern displayed by the husband for his very pregnant wife in what rapidly seems a bizarre situation. Perhaps that was meant to be a comment on men.

The film is certainly in period – the husband wears clothes that are very mid-seventies and now seem rather ridiculous. Lewis Flander's performance in this role is adequate. Prunella Ransome is much better as Evie, his wife. It is a great pity that her career was not as illustrious as she deserved. Looking back, I suspect that her rare strawberry blonde 'English rose' beauty was not what producers and directors of the time thought fashionable.

This film about a youngish Frenchwoman who finds love with a married woman but is then confronted with reality for perhaps the first time in her life, is a confection rather than a serious work of art. It has all the usual French ingredients and plenty of cliches including the love scene on the beach. The performances are adequate and charming. Some things are a bit unbelievable – would anyone put this woman in charge of a literary symposium? - but like its heroine, the film gets away with it by never standing still. It's not as exhausting to watch as 'Run Lola Run', but then it's more lightweight.

This Channel 4 drama is in four episodes of about 1hr 40 mins each, and covers a decades-long time-span from the 1920s onwards. This means that the onward momentum is maintained but inevitably some of the rich texture of the twelve novels by Anotony Powell is lost. Period settings in Oxford, London and the country are well evoked.

Performances are mostly good, although some are little more than cameos (John Gielgud, Frank Middlemass for example). Because of the vast numbers on view, the device of the narrator (James Purefoy in the first three episodes) is probably necessary if we are to keep our bearings. The quivering heart of the series is Simon Rusell Beale's superb Widmerpool, whether he is a pompous ass at school, slithering through a party as he ascends the social ladder, involved in murky spy stuff or denouncing 'the system' as a slightly mad university chancellor. Around him people come and go, and the death rate in the last two episodes is very high. The other standout is Miranda Richardson's Pamela Flitton, a true 'belle dame sans merci' who eats men for breakfast. It is not clear why John Standing replaced Purefoy as narrator in the last episode; he is far too old at the start of it compared with the rest of the cast. However, Joanna David as his 'new' wife is an upgrade on the previous somewhat bland model.

Given that it is so lengthy and has so many characters you need to be prepared to sit down and concentrate, but if you do, then the rewards are considerable – though slightly depressing, to think that such a shower were (and in many respects still are) running the country. Anthony Powell's memoirs are themselves quite interesting in that regard as well.

This Hollywood version of Philippa Gregory's already inaccurate source novel about Mary Boleyn and her more famous sister Anne manages to be even less faithful to history – usually for no good reason. For instance, it positions Anne as the older sister and invents scenes to effect this.

Of the acting performances, the only ones with any subtlety are Scartlett Johansson as Mary and Mark Rylance as the ambitious but weak father of the sisters. Natalie Portman is one-dimensional as Anne, and as for Eric Bana as Henry VIII – well, he is very tall, as Henry himself was.

The 12 certificate is well-deserved – the film is notably prudish when it comes to sex. This is no 'Tudors' romp.

The costuming and locations etc are all very well done, as one would expect with this budget, except when we move away from court. Mary several times rides unaccompanied through countryside which looks more like the Scottish Highlands than Kent, and when naughty Anne is summoned back from exile in France she inexplicably lands on a beach. Gorgeous photography, but they did have harbours in 16th century England – though that would have cost more, I suppose.

The 2003 BBC version, made with a much lower budget, is better though no masterpiece.