Film Reviews by SB

This is another of Verhoeven's films featuring a woman whose motives and personality are ambiguous (cf. Basic Instinct, Black Book and most recently Benedetta). But with an apparently more mundane context. The story is set in modern Paris, in middle class society, and we are spared all but a few tourist shots of the city. Isabelle Huppert is on screen virtually all the time, and she does a fine job of playing Michele, who is...what? The victim? A strong woman with agency? A woman whose need for dangerous sex is overwhelming? A control freak? Maybe all of these things, and one of the film's achievements is to show that motives can genuinely be very mixed.

Amongst a competent and believable supporting cast, Virginie Efira shows in her small role of Rebecca, the spiritually luminous wife who knows more than others think, the qualities which led Verhoeven to later cast her in the lead for 'Benedetta'.

Like another reviewer here, my blu-ray disc had a picture, at the start anyway, which seemed somewhat misty. But not enough to detract from enjoying the film.

Disc 1 is based on the worst of Henning Mankell's Wallander stories, Firewall, which has an overblown and confused plot about financial domination and African redemption. The director and scriptwriter obviously struggled to make sense of this. In the title role of the Swedish detective, Rolf Lassgard's dour and untidy performance has thankfully long been eclipsed by Krister Henriksson's definitive Wallander in the later series. Only view if you are a completist.

Although on a somewhat hackneyed theme (unhappily married woman finds herself in France), this film is reasonably worth watching for at least its first half. We are in executive estate provincial southern England. Our heroine Tara, played very low key by Gemma Arterton, has a husband who after fathering two children with her, has revealed himself to be a typical man – insensitive, no emotional intelligence, sexually selfish, given to peevish outbursts, good with the children if he can pretend to be a child himself, drives a silver BMW. Dominic Cooper is perfectly cast in the role. Tara feels herself to be a bad mother because she has little emotional empathy with the children - not surprising in the case of the boy, who is modelling himself on his father. Tara''s mother, a hard-boiled working class single parent, declares that it is all 'just a phase'. It isn't. One wonders how much of Tara's angst is the fault of her mother.

Tara finds 'art' in a rather undefined way after buying a book during an escape to London's South Bank, but still no satisfaction in life. One morning, after a trivial domestic upset once again reveals her husband in his true colours, she rushes away and boards the Eurostar from Ashford to Paris. It is in this second part that the film descends into cliché, with a lack of ideas by the director and scriptwriter. Tara wanders around Paris dazzled with its foreignness and takes a room in an anonymous hotel. She manages to track down the museum and tapestries which she had seen in the book (the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in the Musee de Cluny) and somewhat unconvincingly thought of as giving meaning to life. The man who then seduces her by cunningly talking about tapestries and the meaning of life (in a Parisian park, naturally) can be spotted by the alert viewer in the street even before he gets near her. After their tryst back at her hotel she finds that he is married, and dismisses him. Things go downhill from there , but eventually, still in Paris but rescued by a deus ex machina, Tara is reunited with her still puzzled-looking husband, and goes back to England. How this all resolves is not shown at all; we are apparently meant to hope for better things as Tara walks across a park with a half smile on her face.

The blurb speaks of Tara finding herself, through a series of 'risky and incendiary encounters'. Forget that. There are only two, only one is even mildly risky, and neither is at all incendiary.

This brief (64 mins) Japanese 'Pink' film combines vampirism and sex in a way that makes Dracula films seem positively pallid. Framed around a post-murder police interrogation, this is the tale of a hapless man who falls foul of two female vampires in modern Japan. Very low budget cast and shooting. The many sex scenes, straight and lesbian, are energetic and explicit rather than erotic. There is a good twist at the end. Worth watching in a spare hour if you want something different.

Rather strange little film based on a girls' boarding school just before WWII which caters exclusively, it seems, for the daughters of leaders of the Third Reich. Confused storyline with the main story mixed up with a spying one which never goes anywhere. There are a few plot twists, but nothing original. The period settings seem okay (though it is all too obvious that it was not filmed in the East Sussex setting), and there are several good performances, notably from Nigel Lindsay in the lead and Carla Juri as fanatic Ilse. The improbability count is high, and there are various gaffes such as the unrealistic way the girls are lined up for an aircraft landing. Okay for a spare 1hr 36 mins. This is another DVD starting with trailers for other films and the names of production companies twice over, no wonder streaming is gaining ground.

This ITV-made six episode series is markedly better than the sixties film of the same title. The story has been expanded somewhat but is still credible, and the period settings are well done. The first half is perhaps slightly better than the second, perhaps because the American element becomes a little tiresome toward the end. There are really three lead performances. Tom Hollander is believable as a 'good' but naive spymaster, while Joe Cole, despite cheekily wearing similar glasses, erases memories of Michael Caine's very different persona in the film. Lucy Boynton is the epitome of the cool efficient woman surviving in a male world, but also displays a human side. Five hours in total, but time well spent.

This is a rather whimsical film about a woman who is an academic and working (somewhat unconvincingly) on a folklore thesis, and believes herself to be a realist. She comes, through having to take care of an evacuee in the early day of WWII, to believe that there may be something 'beyond' . Gemma Arterton, very de-glamorised, is quite good in the lead role but Lucas Bond as the teenage boy is better, and so is Dixie Egerickx as his very sharp friend. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, over-glamorised, has the underwritten role of the woman who precipitates all the action. Tom Courtenay does a 'turn' as the village school headmaster.

The last twenty minutes of the film have a hectic and somewhat forced quality which is not good.

The film has been criticised for being very unrealistic about wartime conditions; and so it is. I think this was partly for budgetary reasons, and partly to have more freedom of action – all those drives to the cliffs and walks on the beach.

This Swedish film is unusual and also brave, because despite its '12' rating, it tackles themes which mainstream films mostly do not. The main story is that of two late teenage young women who meet through participation in an equine display team and become friendly, then sexually attracted to one another. But their relationship is also riven by a struggle for control. There is a parallel story of the seven year old sister of one of the leads, who is trying to understand her own body and self in relation to her female elders and in relation to men. It is this latter aspect of the film which is very unusual and is handled very deftly. The acting is good throughout, particularly from Mathilda Paradeiser in the lead role, at once fascinated and angry with her friend. The film achieves some highly erotic moments even though nothing more than kissing ever happens.

The film is shot in muted tones and is highly realistic throughout.

This film about the family and social pangs of a turning-15 schoolgirl in Eastbourne manages to strike a quite good balance between humour and angst, and is certainly a welcome change to the 'American High School' genre. Most of it is very realistic and credible, except for the last 20 minutes which stretches things a lot. Boys are presented as kissable but weird rather than chauvinist pigs. The adult performances are adequate; Georgia Groome is alright in the lead, but is overshadowed by Eleanor Tomlinson who plays her best friend, and in one of her earliest roles already shows star quality.

Made in the 1980s, this BBC adaptation of Christie's novel keeps the main plot but alters some things. In particular, Miss Marple's role is considerably amplified so that she is there virtually from the start - whereas in the novel the injured pilot Jerry Burton is the protagonist. A few minor characters are deleted, and the police are portrayed in a rather unsympathetic light. But the period village setting is very well done in a low key way, and the performances are mostly fine, including of course Joan Hickson's definitive Marple. An enjoyable hour and a half to appreciate a good English murder.

At just over two and a half hours in length, this version has the space to be a better adaptation of the Christie novel than the later ITV version. The period setting is also more natural, and the performances less strained for effect. Joan Hickson is the quintessential Miss Marple and John Castle gives a fine performance as an unusually sympathetic and intelligent police inspector. Amongst a host of strong supporting performances, those of Samantha Bond, Paola Dionisotti and Nicola King stand out. Well worth watching.

This everyday tale of lesbian lives in Glasgow is curiously unScottish. It also suffers from the usual inattention of TV drama to many of the everyday things that govern real lives as well as external events like sport, politics etc. There is a hefty use of stock characters – the uptight OCD female architect, the office lothario (male), the emotionally destructive woman with a heart, the chaotically disorganised actress, the autocratic male boss, the all grownup and dominant policewoman, the wet brother, the dishonest estate agent, the glaswegian hardman, the token black character, etc etc. Nonetheless it is quite effective on its own terms – the interaction of characters feels natural and never forced, and events are fairly credible. Most of the sex scenes are energetic rather than erotic. One thing that links the characters is that they are nearly all alcoholics, which makes the fuss over one episode of drug use seem a bit ironic.

Rupert Graves is not an actor I care for much, but he is good in this film as William Shakespeare, having to eternally make money and using that as an excuse to escape domestic life. This is all shown through a story about what might have been the motivation behind the writing of the Sonnets, which are one of the finest achievements in English poetry. The story is credible, although of course there are many theories about the issue. The period settings were very believable, and in contrast to a number of films about the era (eg All is True) the dialogue was easily audible and understandable. Amongst other performances, Tom Sturridge makes a devious pretty boy, and Indira Varma is very good as the mixed race prostitute Lucie, making her way in a world which will use her even as she uses the men. Camilla Arfwedson manages to make an impression in a single thirty second scene, and Zoe Wanamaker also has an effective cameo.

The three tales on Disc 1 vary widely. James Nesbitt is excellent in the Miller's tale as a conman and chancer who finds several victims in a village. It never tips over the edge of unbelievability. In The Wife of Bath's Tale, Julie Walters treads a line line between being ridiculous, unlikeable and sympathetic at the same time, and gets away with it. The last episode, The Knight's Tale, is less satisfactory although Chiwetel Ejiofor shows early signs of promise as a very good actor. Keely Hawes is wasted.

On Disc 2, Indira Varma glitters as the beautiful and amoral wife of a shady businessman, defying the conventions of her community in The Sea Captain's Tale. The other two Tales, although well cast, are not worth watching.

Forget the blurb – there is no carnal dance, no erotic heights. This is a bleak film, at times savage in its nihilism, about whether it is ever possible for human beings to truly connect with one another. Marlon Brando is profoundly unlikeable here, but very right for this character. Maria Schneider, who at the time had practically no acting experience, doesn't act, she simply exists and reacts as a young woman might in this situation where she is caught up with someone who is going through an existential crisis. Yet she conveys a profound sense of certainty about herself. There is a good portrayal, slightly tongue in cheek, of her boyfriend as enthusiastic young French film-maker. The settings now appear somewhat seedy but in the early 70s were just Paris as it was then, slightly exotic and where anything might happen.