Film Reviews by SB

this stately biopic directed by Richard Attenborough certainly gives you value for money in terms of length (this disc is the full version, rather than the two hour version on sale currently). It is by no means as good a film as the same director's 'Gandhi', in part because the subject matter is less interesting and complex, and the story less complete.

Simon Ward is adequate in the name role and so perhaps is Robert Shaw as the gifted but obnoxious Randolph, Winston's MP father. But Anne Bancroft is woefully miscast as Winston's mother American mother Jenny. This is the woman of whom it was said 'there is more of the panther than of the woman in her look'; but here, we have more of a smug domestic cat.

A whole regiment of well-known actors have cameos - among the more ludicrous being tiny, fussy John Mills as Kitchener, who in reality was 6 feet 2 inches tall and a fierce, terrifying figure.

As well as derring-do by young Churchill on the north-west frontier, in Sudan and South Africa, there are also political interludes, but these are not well explained. They are also heavily biased, although unless you know a lot about the period that isn't obvious.

UK domestic locations tend towards Victorian gloom, but outdoor scenes are well enough, although the South African veldt looks suspiciously like Wales. Musical infelicities include the use of two Elgar pieces composed after the date of the events depicted on screen – never a good idea. At intervals, the Churchill parents are seen in mock interviews conducted by an unseen journalist, in a style which they would never have tolerated. This strains credulity and is a crude method of explaining feelings.

The unwary may be caught out by the fact that the disc opens on a completely black screen for several minutes, with only music audible. It is similar at the 'intermission'. Dr Zhivago at least had a still picture and better music in similar circumstances; but then Attenborough was no David Lean.

This is a strange little film, barely one and a half hours long, about a young and attractive American woman adrift in Japan. At first her life is fairly normal but it gradually falls apart, and she increasingly survives only in a netherworld of alcohol and unemotional sex - except for one important figure in her life. It would be easy for such a character to be alienating, but Alexandra Daddario manages to make her sympathetic to a degree, and never sentimental. The film could be said to be about connection and finding our place in the world, but that sounds more portentous than the film really is. Keeps the attention well, and convincingly recreates the various locations, some decidedly unpleasant. Not many tourist shots, though Mount Fuji does put in an appearance.

This film from the mid-70s has in a sense aged well, in that it could easily be much more recent. Based on a Japanese novella , it is about the clash between two opposing forces: on one hand the romance between a widow and a sailor who has grown tired of the ocean he once loved and now seeks domestic bliss, and on the other the disgust felt at this by the woman's teenage son, who has at first worshipped the sailor not only as a father replacement, but also, in the stirrings of his own sexuality, gloried in the sailor's strength and body when he (and we) spy on his mother surrendering herself to the sailor.

When the sailor ceases to be a Superman by revealing himself as just like other men, he is condemned as inadequate like all other adults - and the son has friends, led by 'the chief', to administer sentence. The parallels with other ways in which adults demean themselves to live in the world are evident.

The film is attractively set in an English coastal town (actually Dartmouth) and quite well made technically, of its time. Kriss Kristofferson is a little limited both by the role and his acting abilities while Sarah Miles plays her usual fey woman. The most interesting performance, in more ways than one, is Jonathan Kahn's as the son. Not a film for those squeamish about cruelty to animals.

This is a review of Disc 3, which contains BBC films of two works by Rattigan - 'The Winslow Boy' and 'The Browning Version'. It's important to note that while these are TV films, they are essentially films of the plays rather than attempts to use the filmic medium more fully. So both of them basically take place in one room, with only cursory glimpses of the outside world. This is restricting, but also helps focus on the characters and dialogue.

In The Winslow Boy, Eric Porter gives a fine performance as the determined, principled father who is willing to sacrifice anything to clear his son's name. Some other performances are less convincing but overall, it is a good production. The revelation is Michele Dotrice as the 'new woman' Catherine Winslow, brother of the accused. This is a big role and she carries it off so well that one regrets she was later seen mainly as a comedienne.

The Browning Version does not compare favourably with the classic Michael Redgrave film, but how could it? Ian Holm does well enough as the repressed school teacher, and Judi Dench is convincing as the needy wife. Other parts are adequately played, and it was interesting to see the young Steven Mackintosh as the schoolboy Taplow. But this suffers more than its companion piece from the restricted location, giving little sense of the school milieu, with too much being carried by description. It also means that the final scene cannot be included, so the ending is a little unsatisfactory.

Imogen Stubbs has a cameo role as the eager, beautiful wife of the enthusiastic new master, adding more pain by blithely praising the comforts of the home which their hosts are having to leave. This reminds one that there is an unlikely premise at the heart of this play, which no prodution has ever confronted satisfactorily - which is whether a man in Crocker-Harris' position would really have resigned in favour of an ill-paid job at a 'crammer'. But it is dramatically necessary that he does, for the story to exist at all.

Update:

This is a review of Disc 4, which contains two films. As with Disc 3, these are TV productions but are essentially filmed plays, with no location filming or opening out beyond interiors.

The Deep Blue Sea comes off better, not least because it is much stronger dramatically and is the right length. In this tale of a woman who tries to live (or die) by instinct rather than reason, there are some very good supporting cast performances, and an appropriately seedy 50s ambience. Colin Firth does his trademark baffled but attractive man, unable to deal with his emotions when he can no longer shoot up the Luftwaffe, and Ian Holm is quite good as the deserted lawyer husband, who wants to deny emotion a place in married life. The weak link is Penelope Wilton, who is miscast as the central character Hester Collyer. She is irredeemably domestic, and much better suited to Ever Deceasing Circles. A shame, but the production is still worth watching.

The other film, After the Dance, is both an oddity and a rarity. It tries to show how the lives of some lazy London people, whose main concerns are fashion, alcohol and literary matters, are disrupted by a new arrival in their mind-numbing daily routine. There's an unfortunate feeling that it is cod-Coward, a sort of cheap 'Design for Living'. It is too long, and would benefit from trimming. Anton Rodgers, who seemed at one stage to have cornered the TV market as the unlikely love-object of young women, does well as the bad writer who is convinced by the beautiful and forthright Helen (Imogen Stubbs) that his life can be changed for the better by marrying a passionate young thing. The supporting cast is good, especially John Bird as the very alcoholic friend. Worth seeing, but only once.

This is Nordic Noir with some differences, as it is based in northern Sweden and the plot comes from the culture clash between modern Swedish mining industry, criminals workers within that, and the Sammi people who inhabit the northern parts of Scandinavia. However, it follows the standard pattern of two apparently ill-matched investigators following up a vast array of clues and getting into unwise situations. The identity of the murderers is also revealed well before the end.

The pace is slow at first, you need patience but speeds up and culminates in a taut ending. The two leads make a good, contrasting pair and you can believe in them as outsiders thrown together. Perhaps too much is spent on her past and not enough on his.

A certain amount of disbelief has to be suspended. The plot is frankly rather far-fetched; and it seems that a regional prosecutor and a foreign police officer can roam around doing police work with zero involvement by the Swedish CID, who are mentioned only occasionally (though uniformed police do appear, usually in ways which do not show them in a good light). The involvement of shadowy figures from the French security service seems to be just a gesture, and the children of the leads are deeply annoying. But overall, worth watching.

Even with such fine cast members as Amy Manson and Joanna Vanderham, this is a hopeless offering. The imagined tale of James Herriot's days at veterinary college, the stereotypes (mad professor, evil horse owner, mud, feisty females, eccentric Englishmen) are laid on with a trowel. If you are imagining some believable prelude to 'All Creatures Great and Small', forget that. To add insult to injury, the first disc contains just ONE one-hour episode and a few extras, so it is very poor value in that sense as well.

Very seventies, very violent film set in rural Cornwall. There are some inconsistencies of characterisation and plot, but on the whole this is a straightforward tale of envious have-nothings taking what they believe is their due from people they resent.

The locale and society in primitive, brooding western Cornwall are convincingly shown. The issues of justification for violence and the nature of sexual consent are not dealt with in a complex way, but the film does raise legitimate questions about them.

Hoffman is good as a man who is very intelligent but apparently tone-deaf to emotional matters , and Susan George makes the best of her role as his bored wife torn between two cultures. A very young Sally Thomsett plays the unwitting catalyst of tragedy, a teenage provocateuse, quite well.

but difficult to avoid them when not only is this a remake of a distinguished film from the sixties, but both versions are based on the same stage play, and the scripts of the films are virtually identical (not necessarily a bad thing, because there is some fine language). Although there should have been more scope by 2003, this film does not escape its stage origins much more successfuly, despite lots of shots of the countryside and freezing cold settings complete with mistletoe. The direction is no more than workmanlike.

As for the performances, the three sons are a mixed bunch, with Rafe Spall unrecognisble as the fat, dim and vicious John. Anthony Howard does bring out some of the weakness and vanity which later made Richard I England's worst-ever king. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers actually isn't bad as the not-so-innocent young French king, although a haircut would have been welcome. As Henry's mistress and prospective daughter-in-law Alais, the beautiful Yuliya Vysotskaya (coincidentally, the wife of the director) models some nice clothes and pouts when required.

But this film revolves around the two leads. In Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart, the film has two fine actors and there's nothing very wrong; but for me, there is still a feeling that something important is missing, as if the key ingredient has been omitted from a classic dish. I think that is because they act the parts, quite well; but Hepburn and O'Toole actually elevated themselves beyond the script and in doing so, became these two people for a few hours, as if we were there in that French castle.

Joan Hickson is as reliable as ever in her performance as Miss Marple in this story - the last one by Agatha Christie featuring the village detective (she actually wrote it decades earlier, to be published after her death).

In this story of a murder uncovered from years before, Miss Marple is less active than in other stories, but acts as a sort of mentor to the young married couple who are determined to find out what happened in their Devon home. The supporting cast are all good, and the late 50s period settings and atmosphere excellent. The identity of the killer is perhaps a little too obvious, but that need not spoil enjoyment of this episode.

Whether you will enjoy this film - it is primarily a feast of acting and words rather than action, which goes no further than Peter O'Toole striding about shouting, and his sons waving daggers. The setting is medieval muck in a French castle on Christmas Eve 1183. The script is highly literate, of a sort producers nowadays would run away from, and is the bedrock for the duel of wills between Hepburn's Eleanor of Aquitaine and O'Toole's irascible Henry II, one of England's greatest kings although little known today. The script dances with humour and repartee, but you need to pay attention through 135 minutes to get full benefit from it. There is little concession to those who do not know their history, although it could be said that the details of the situation facing Henry don't matter a lot - this is about people, and it could be any family anywhen and anywhere. As Eleanor remarks after one bruising encounter, 'all families have their ups and downs' - although these are very intense.

Hepburn has the showier yet also more subtle role, and it was right that she got an Oscar, although she is hard to warm to. But then her character, one of the most powerful women in medieval Europe, was not a nice person. O'Toole, bundled up in about 20 layers to make his slim form heavier and bulkier, more like a rampaging bull-king, snarls a lot - but is not without guile and humour. It could be said that this was one of his best performances ever, because he is up against a better one. The roles of the sons offer opportunities to three then-young actors, John Castle, Anthony Hopkins and Nigel Terry, which they take good advantage of. The only other role, the somewhat ancillary one of Henry's French mistress/prospective daughter-in-law Alais, is played quite well by Jane Merrow, whose career did not gain as much thereby as it might have done.

The sound and picture on the restored blu-ray version are excellent.

This is the worst Jane Austen adapatation made in the past fifty years. The novel has been butchered to fit the story into 90 minutes, characters are omitted or altered. Billy Piper is a good actress in some roles, but she is totally miscast in this.

This adaptation has many virtues, but is so far from the original that it might be best described as 'inspired by' Jane Austen's lengthy novel. In order to get down to feature film length, important themes of the book such as landscape and its relationship to literature are omitted in order to concentrate on the core love story alongside the issue of slavery, which assumes a greater prominence here than in the novel. Some characters are also omitted. The script sets a light satirical mood which helps keep the pace up, including a dash of sex Austen would have blushed over - although curiously, the notorious double-entendre Austen did write is excluded.

The settings are good, including the Portsmouth hovel Fanny comes from, and the performances are well worth seeing, especially Harold Pinter, in a rare outing as an actor, in the paterfamilias role of Sir Thomas Bertram. Jonny Lee Miller makes Edmund more personable than is sometimes the case, and the Crawfords have the requisite swagger. Frances O'Connor is a bit of a problem; she is very good, but too old, too feisty and too attractive. She is not Fanny Price, but it isn't her fault.

Although Joan Hickson's Marple is reliably the same as ever, the setting and story are rather different from most of the other films in this BBC series. The setting is 1950s London, and a genteel London hotel, rather than a country village or an isolated house; and as well as murder, organised crime is added to the mix - although in a rather civilised way. The cast and design are excellent, but the viewer needs to be patient before any deaths occur.

I rented this because Minnie Driver has a leading role in it. That was a mistake, on her part as well as mine. It is dismaying to think that someone actually funded the making of this bad, lame film.

This film is short (only just over an hour), very sexually explicit and also violent. The English title is not an accurate translation of the original French, which designates much more accurately what this film is about in psychological and sociological terms.

The story is simple, and shows the last few days of two young women doing unto men (and a few women) what has been done to the two women for all of their lives. The film gains by focussing relentlessly on the women and not what might be happening to catch them. Depending on their mindset, audiences are likely to be either horrified - or exhilarated.