willthind Reviews

Clapham Junction (2007 TV Movie)

A big disappointment from an otherwise very talented writer

[3/10 · 24 July 2007]

This is the kind of drama that I suspect will be loved by straight television critics and loathed by gay men. It would be easy to say that it holds up a mirror to ourselves and that we simply don't like the reflection, but my reasons for disliking this drama run somewhat deeper than that.

On the plus side, it's universally well performed and often well directed. London feels magical, but it's hardly authentic. The biggest problem is characterisation - or that lack of it. Characters are reduced to ciphers - they are stand-ins for a series of situations and issues. I don't need to love characters (and indeed, there's absolutely no one to love here), but I do want to engage in their lives and concerns. I want to get under their skin, to understand them more by the end than when I started watching two hours previously.

The drama takes place over 24 or so hours in the life of 7 (or maybe 8) gay or bisexual men and youths. Different story lines are juggled and the various characters find their lives engaging with others - often by the most spurious and improbable of coincidences.

It's as if writer Kevin Elyot wants to throw in every concern and thought he's ever had about gay life into a single drama. As a result, nothing seems satisfyingly explored and only the surface of some very big issues is scratched.

Is Clapham Junction bad? No, but from this otherwise talented writer it's a very big disappointment. I can't help wondering who he and Channel 4 thought that they were making it for.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (2007)

Dull, vapid and wholly misjudged adaptation of Wilde's classic.

[1/10 · 5 April 2007]

Last night I witnessed something quite extraordinary - Oscar Wilde's masterful, urbane 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' reduced to something artless, woefully pretentious and, most miraculous of all, crashingly dull.

The promising opening 2 minutes very quickly evaporates like an unreliable memory as soon as the real business is introduced. Narrative is sketchy to say the least and even a knowledge of the novel is not enough to get you through 90 of the longest and most incoherent minutes I can remember.

The film is tolerably well acted and populated by very pretty people. There's a particularly well-judged performance by Christian Camargo. But it's as if the cast have as little sense of where the film is going as the director himself. Tone and pacing are clueless. I'm sure that the director believes that his film is a potent comment on empty, drug-fueled lives, but unfortunately there is nothing on screen that ever rises above the predicable and tedious.

With many of Wilde's most famous aphorisms picked out for our amusement, in this director's hands they fall flat like lead balloons. It's a completely humorless piece. One joke about Wagner raised a laugh, but the majority of the laughter was of the unintentional variety.

To add to the general unpleasant feel of the film was a scene near the end set in a crack den inhabited entirely by African American people - the only African American people in the film until this point. It's a long time since I've watched a race reduced to a stereotype as blatantly offensive and ignorant as this.

Just as offensive is the director's portrayal of AIDS - signaled by the word written in a title that fills the screen in giant letters in case we are too stupid to guess what's going on. Here AIDS is presented as nothing more than a bad case of acne. Seeing Dorian with a face full of spots does not quite present the horror you'd expect of the infamous portrait in the attic.

The director gives himself more credits than you could shake a stick at. There was a Mexican wave of laughter along my row when the director's ego enabled him to receive solo credits for production design and executive producer (now, that's desperate) above the title.

The film was shown as the closing night of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and watched by an audience who clearly didn't get it. As the end credits rolled there was an exodus of biblical proportions, desperate to escape before the director returned to stage to bore them some more.

Afterlife (I) (2005–2006)

A series of un-realised potential

[9 November 2005]

Afterlife is a series of un-realised potential. I watched two episodes and both adhered to the same odd mix: excellent set-up, surprisingly complex characterisation, but absolutely no time whatsoever to develop plot. Watching both episodes made me think that they must have been edited down from something much longer and more worthwhile.

What makes Afterlife worth grabbing, whatever its faults, is a remarkable performance from Lesley Sharp. The writer has given her a fantastic role - a medium who teeters on the edge of mental health - and Sharp fills the part with quite extraordinary humanity. It's a shame that Andrew Lincoln turns in such an unconvincing performance as a psychology lecturer. He seems to struggle to convince that he would even get into university, let alone be able to teach.

De-Lovely (2004)

De-Bloody-Awful

[1/10 · 5 September 2004]

A stinker of the highest order. Don't know where to begin really, but as Julie Andrews once said, let's start at the very beginning... Well, the structure of De-Lovely is risible - ancient Cole (clearly on death's door) watches his life re-enacted on a cheesy stage by a group of 3rd-rate thesps and a very uncomfortable-looking Jonathan Pryce as MC. When we are mercifully taken away from this bargain basement Bretchtian nightmare, it is only to face one dreadful song and dance routine after another. Famous singers are shown in a poor light (Mick Hucknell can't sing a note in tune - shocker, eh?) in woefully inauthentic interpretations of Porter classics. What were the producers thinking of? The film is clearly aimed at gramdmas, but what they get are singers of the caliber of Lemar warbling tunelessly in 21st century settings. The film's handling of Porter's homosexuality is a bit of a joke, too. We get the odd scene in which we get to know that he has an eye for the boys, but the film likes to think that it's a romance between Porter and his wife, Linda (Ashley Judd in comedy latex make-up). I could go on, but I suspect that you've got the point. A film for the undiscriminating.

Merci Docteur Rey (2002)

A masterclass in how not to direct a movie

[1/10 · 13 January 2004]

Almost a masterclass in how not to direct a movie. From the misjudged, often incomprehensible script onwards Dr Rey builds on a series of poor decisions that make the film an excruciating viewing experience. Sadly the film never rises beyond a kind of old fashioned, almost misogynistic gay camp in which women are over-wrought, OTT and middle aged and the men are young, vacuous and forever on the hunt for sex. The director was unable to pitch either the tone of the film or the level of the performances.

There is certainly a great deal of 'acting' going on. Dianne Wiest slips into a pale impersonation of her Bullets Over Broadway performance and poor old Jane Birkin flounders in her attempt to give a comic performance. Though you have to pity her as there is very little real comedy here. The whole thing feels like a very low rent version of Merchant Ivory's Le Divorce which, to be quite honest, wasn't very good, either.

Bright Young Things (2003)

Fast, furious and very shallow

[1/10 · 21 September 2003]

Stephen Fry's film hasn't got a clue where his film is going or who it's for. It's a bit like MTV with period dress. Fry seems to hope that the film's complete lack of substance has been disguised by its fast and furious style. I was kept going my the endless checklist of cameos, but even some of these were too much to take. It should be made law that all of Simon Callow's performances are deposited on the cutting room floor. Paying audiences should not be subjected to his hammy preening.

The Republic of Love (2003)

Deepa Mehta's limited vision

[1/10 · 19 September 2003]

The Republic of Love sadly confirms my suspicion that Deepa Mehta is a director of limited talent and vision. The film is dramatically and emotionally inert - a far, far cry from Carol Shields source novel. Certain sequences - for example, the lamentable nonsense about mermaids in the museum - are little short of embarrassing, with Mehta seemingly unable to construct convincing relationships. Certain sets look as if they were built on very limited budgets. The whole thing isn't helped by weak decisions in the casting department. Emilia Fox is cold and fails to convince us of any of her character's passion. Bruce Greenwood struggles to convince us of his heterosexuality. And Edward Fox is - well - just plain terrible. His accent sounds as it was trained at the Dick Van Dyke School of Elocution. A major misfire. Avoid.