Cert: 15A; Now showing
2
Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. When those tales are retold in cinema, the traditional story arc involves an event, a bad point in the middle, before a heroic triumph in the face of adversity. What's not to like? Stronger, while adhering to this tried and tested formula introduces enough interesting angles to make it a cut above the genre standard. Original, effective and realistic it is a story built around more than one excellent performance.
Director David Gordon Green and writer John Pollono base their film on the memoir written by Jeff Bauman. In April 2013 Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) was a nice, slightly aimless and feckless 28-year-old who went to the finish line of the Boston Marathon to cheer on and win back his on-off girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Just as she was about to cross the line two bombs were detonated and Jeff lost both of his legs from above the knee. His tight-knit working-class Boston family, led by his hardcore mother Patty (Miranda Richardson), very much embrace the popular notion of Jeff as American Hero. Jeff however, while dealing with the day-to-day difficulties of his new body, struggles with the hero label, an identity forced upon him for other people's comfort.
This works well and Gyllenhaal is great but the film's richness is in Erin, a well-written character given great life by Maslany. Stronger doesn't simplify emotions. Jeff's despair and destructive behaviour are understandable, but presented through the eyes of another they are not simply excused. Erin has her own complex emotions to deal with. Too many stories like this are about beating adversity, this is about living with, and through, it. ★★★★ Aine O'Connor
The Disaster Artist
Cert: 15A; Now showing
James Franco is not an artist who could be accused of predictability. From blockbuster to arthouse, rave review to critical decimation, the actor, writer, director and producer has covered all bases.
His latest offering has received surprisingly even praise and while I am among those who found it very funny, it will leave a lot of people cold.
But few would dispute that it is a great story.
The 2003 film The Room has cult status, mainly for how bad it is but also for its mysterious star and maker, Tommy Wiseau (James Franco).
He first appears in a San Francisco drama class (run by Melanie Griffith) where Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), struggling to emote, is blown away by Tommy's freedom of expression.
Tommy, despite his eastern European accent and somewhat worked face, insists he is 19 and from New Orleans and the two strike up a friendship and move to LA.
Acting work proves elusive so they decide to make their own film funded by Tommy's mysterious millions. The shoot was not simple.
The Disaster Artist faithfully recreates scenes from The Room, stay for the end credits, and although it's not necessary to have seen the original, it does help to YouTube the highlights, James especially is fascinatingly good and I didn't get a sense that they were mocking Wiseau so the tone is not mean.
Cameos include Seth Rogen, Zac Efron and Sharon Stone.
Although the humour is Marmite, the story is good. ★★★★ Aine O'Connor
Brigsby Bear
Cert: 12A; Now showing
It is probably safe to say that no matter what sort of a film you imagine Brigsby Bear to be, it isn't that. This first movie creation for director Dave McCary and writers Kevin Costello and Kyle Mooney, who also stars in the film, is difficult to classify but it feels like a kind of mumblecore hybrid between Napoleon Dynamite, Patty Hearst and Frank. It's funny, sweet and a tiny bit odd.
James (Mooney) lives in post-apocalyptic isolation with his parents Ted (Mark Hamill) and April Hope (Jane Adams). He is 25, an only child who has, because of the danger he has been told lurks in the air, never left his underground home in the Utah desert. James's main outside interest are the episodes of sci-fi bear Brigsby which are delivered to him every week.
A police swoop reveals that there was no apocalypse, it was invented to hide from James that he had been stolen as a baby. Charming detective Vogel (Greg Kinnear) delivers him back to his real family, the Popes (Michaela Watkins and Matt Walsh) and his less than delighted sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins). James is bewildered rather than traumatised by a world in which he has much to catch up on. If there is some parable about millenials being ill-equipped for the real world, the lesson is interesting. However there is a moral peculiarity around sweet old Mark Hamill being the lovable child abductor but the film doesn't pretend to be a serious study, it sprinkles ideas among laughs and works surprisingly well. ★★★★ Aine O'Connor
Better Watch Out
Cert: 16; Now showing
Although it isn't likely to replace It's A Wonderful Life on everyone's favourite festive film list, Better Watch Out will wiggle its way into being a Yule favourite for some horror fans. An interesting take on the home invasion model it's well acted, tongue in cheek, often funny and although not terrifying provides a few jumps and more than the average number of surprises.
The Lerners (Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton) leave their 12-year-old son Lucas (Levi Miller) in the care of his regular, though soon to depart for college babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). Lucas feels it's now or never to put his crush on her into action and hatches a plan. Ashley already has problems with her boyfriend Ricky (Aleks Mikic) but rebuffs Lucas's advances kindly. Then the creepy stuff starts, not least some toxic masculinity.
Chris Peckover directs from the screenplay he co-wrote with Zack Kahn and there's a vaguely comic-book feeling even as it gets more sinister.
It hits all the genre tropes, there's a spoiler built into our feisty heroine's virginity. Fun for subverted horror fans, it's not especially gory or nasty but beware possible trigger scene of hanging.
★★★★ Aine O'Connor
Song of Granite
Cert: G; Now showing
Pat Collins's last dramatic outing, Silence, was a talking point of 2012 that blurred the boundaries between feature drama and film essay. Song of Granite, a biopic of sean-nos guru Joe Heaney, sees the Cork auteur stretch the medium once more in typically mesmerising fashion.
Richard Kendrick's enigmatic greyscale and a heavy emphasis on sound and space prove bewitching as we follow the course of the Connemara singer who brought his impassioned tones to Irish scenes in London and New York. With little exposition and long tracts of punctuating song - the narrative's lifeblood - there is an energy you won't have encountered in the biopic genre. If accepted, Song of Granite's potency will blindside you. Collins's work is now consistently deepening our understanding of this island and its people. ★★★★★ Hilary A White
