keng5 Reviews

Emma (1972)

The best version of "Emma" so far.

[9/10 · 25 November 2005]

I really enjoyed this version of "Emma" and my pleasure was largely due to the very convincing performance by Doran Goodwin in the central role. She was so much better than Kate Beckinsdale in the ITV version who it seems to me lacked the necessary vivacity and personality to carry the role. This Emma was very expressive, arch and satirical, very much, I Imagine, as Jane Austen must have been herself. And unlike the ITV version, which was abominably miscast (excepting Mark Strong's Mr Knightley), this casting was near perfect.

My only complaint is that too much of the action took place indoors, which made it a little claustrophobic and too much like a stage play. We were not allowed to see the village or any exterior shots of Miss Bates dwelling, just room doors opening and closing. The only time we saw anyone in a carriage was during the trip to Box Hill and that was all too brief.

But the indoor scenes were magnificent and authentic looking, too good I'm sure to be just studio sets; they must all have been filmed on location, perhaps in the very large house pictured in the opening shots.

Family Resemblances (1996)

Family strife.

[9/10 · 30 June 2005]

If like me you like French films, you will like this one. There is no plot to speak of and no time wasted in car-chases and violent action sequences. There is just fascinating dialogue and the interaction of interesting characters, plus the expression of real emotion and nuances of feeling. There is an intimacy with the characters that is typically French and which the Americans rarely achieve. At the end of the film you feel you know and understand these people and are wiser for having known them.

I loved the performance of Catherine Frot in the film. She was delicious and made the character of Yolande incredibly appealing and lovable. What a crying shame she should have shackled herself to such a self-centred, unappreciative husband. He was the luckiest man alive and yet too obtuse to realise it. How appallingly sad.

The high-light of the film for me was the little dance Yolande had with the quiet, philosophic bar-man Denis, played by Jean Pierre Darroussin, who, revealing his kind heart, offered to dance with her when her insensitive husband refused - despite the fact that it was supposed to be her birthday celebration. Denis's skillful dancing surprised them all, and disclosed a whole new aspect of his personality. There is a touching moment at the bar when Yolande, suspecting Betty's romantic interest and trying to encourage it, says to her with a lovely winsome expression; "He's a good dancer." And at the end of the film when Betty and Denis are seen to declare their love for each other, she says delightedly, to the chagrin of her snobbish and spiteful mother-in-law; "You know what this means? It means he's going to be part of the family."

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Pleasantly enjoyable.

[6/10 · 3 June 2005]

A young girl of thirteen is not having a very happy time at school and, after having some magic dust sprinkled on her, wishes she was thirty. Hey presto! she wakes up the next morning to find her wish come true; she's now thirty! But that doesn't mean that she's a girl of thirteen in the body of a woman of thirty; it just means that all those years in between have been erased from her memory. The woman she now is has worked her way to near the top of the tree and is the design editor of an up-market fashion magazine having out-gunned her school tormentor who's in a more junior position.

You have to suspend disbelief a huge amount in this film. Quite apart from the main ridiculous premise, she meets again her school sweetheart, played by Mark Ruffalo, who doesn't recognise her and who we are asked to accept she hasn't seen or spoken to for the past seventeen years, even though he lives just around the corner and works as as fashion photographer in the same business. She tries her very best to make him fall in love with her and they have a nice time together, but unfortunately he is engaged to be married. Does she get him in the end? Impossible too say; the end of the film is a puzzle.

I found all this very difficult to swallow. Why for instance doesn't she show the slightest curiosity about what she has been doing for the past seventeen years? But if you can put all this nonsense on one side, the film is very entertaining and has a very enjoyable dance sequence. However the whole film rests on the brilliant performance of Jennifer Garner and the film is worth seeing for her performance alone.

Irreversible (2002)

If we only new what lies around the corner.

[7/10 · 28 May 2005]

About half way through this film we are made to watch the most loathsome scene imaginable, lasting about nine gruesome minutes, during which the lovely female lead of the film played by Monica Bellucci is raped and then has her lovely face savagely smashed by the rapist's boot, his fists and the concrete pavement. When her boyfriend sees the red pulp that her lovely face has become he is convulsed with anger and goes on the rampage to wreak vengeance on the animal who has done this. And when he finds him he behaves like an animal himself and smashes the rapist face in with a fire extinguisher. And can we really blame him?

The film is shot in reverse, so we are then taken back to before any of this happened, to a time when she was happy and looking forward to a bright future. The last shot of the film shows her on a bright, sunny summers day lying on the grass in the park reading a book in perfect contentment, quite unaware what the future holds in store for her, and surrounded by a group of happy children playing at dodge the grass sprinkler to the music of the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

It's painful to see any kind of beauty destroyed, but when it's the fragile beauty of a lovely young woman, it becomes almost unbearable. Having her face defaced must be a woman's worst fear, though in the course of time all beauty is destroyed, in the course of time her beauty would have been lost to wrinkles and sagging flesh. But to have it destroyed with such brute force and so senselessly is what made the scene so horrific. And all because the thug hated her for being rich!

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Doing justice to Jane Austen.

[10/10 · 23 May 2005]

This is a drama to rave about. I've not seen its like on television before; nor do I expect to see its like again. It was superb. It was almost perfect - though not quite.

It is rare to find a Jane Austen dramatisation that comes so near to being perfect on every level and that stays so true to the original novel. The greater part of the dialogue in the series is Jane Austen's own and every scene is included and follows the same chronological order. The drama departs from the novel in only two instances. In order to extend our knowledge of the characters of Darcy(Colin Firth), and Mr Collins(David Bamber), two scenes are added; to demonstrate that Darcy is not just an effete aristocrat but a real man worthy of Elizabeth's love we are shown him indulging in manly pursuits; fencing, and swimming in his private lake (it puzzles me why so many women seem to drool over his wet-shirt scene); and to demonstrate that Mr Collins is an idiotic, narrow- minded prude we are shown him trembling with embarrassment and horror when he happens to come across Lydia (Julia Sawalha) in a state of dishabille. David Bamber makes Mr Collins deliciously toadying and obsequious. A remarkable piece of acting.

It is its faithfulness to the original that makes this drama so good. No one has ever written a more tightly plotted novel. Its series of climaxes make the novel difficult to put down; just as one plot-line reaches its climactic conclusion, another is building. And the duel of wits and sharp dialogue between Darcy and Elizabeth (Jennifer Ehle) as they get to know each other is entrancing. And then comes that moment. She is at the piano befriending Darcy's sister, Georgiana (Emilia Fox), when he holds her gaze with a silent declaration of his love and admiration. This involved a fine piece of editor-timing; a split second either way, either too long or too short, and the poignancy of that moment would have been lost. It is interesting to compare Colin Firth's Darcy with that of Lawrence Olivier's Darcy in the Hollywood film. Olivier falsely portraits him as appealingly shy and self-conscious. But Darcy was in no way shy, he was just proud, with every reason to have a good opinion of himself. He found it impossible to imagine that anyone in a lower strata of society, living in a small provincial town, could be his equal - until he met Elizabeth!

However, I felt there was one weak link in the chain of superb acting; Alison steadman. Many will disagree but I think she over-acted, turning her Mrs Bennet into a nerve- grating, neurasthenic caricature. But apart from that, I heartily recommend this video. Don't miss it. You'll not see its like again. I must just mention the charming piano music by Carl Davis, so beautifully evocative of a beautiful period in history (for the rich).

Betty Blue (1986)

From the height of happiness to its depths.

[8/10 · 23 May 2005]

This is a heartbreakingly tragic film centred around Betty, (Beatrice Dalle) a beautiful but unstable young woman, whose instability - or madness - becomes progressively worse throughout the film. In the beginning we think she is just an admirably rebellious and fiery person who is over-sensitive to slight and imagined insult. Later she is engulfed by these irrational and self-destructive bouts of hysteria for no perceptible reason. But this happens only occasionally; between times she behaves like a perfectly normal and happy person, as she has every reason to be. It is easy to become impatient with her. She keeps saying she has nothing to live for, that nothing she has ever done has worked out right, but how can this be when she is so much better off than so many millions of others, with beauty, two good friends and a good man who loves her to distraction despite everything? And she loves him in return.

Zorg (Jean-Hughes Anglalde) is an aspiring novelist with a novel in manuscript he has given up all hope of ever seeing published. But she believes in him and, using only two fingers, types out the manuscript with painful slowness, and, with an heroic persistence, continues sending it out to the publishers despite receiving a steady stream of rejection slips. And here-in lies the tragedy ; at the end of the film, when she is dead to the world and past caring, her efforts bear fruit and the manuscript is accepted. How happy knowing this would have made her. But too late.

We leave him alone in his kitchen about to start a new novel, a novel that she will never see, leading to a success and prosperity she will have no share in. My God isn't that sad? "What might have been." the saddest words in the English language.

The pain lies in imagining the long and happy life they might have had together, but for this thing that mad people have, whatever it is, gnawing away inside her mind. No explanation is attempted of why she was the way she was, no revelation of some childhood trauma or of some past bitter experience. We are left to assume that she had some brain or genetic defect. Nor are we given any psychiatric diagnoses. It is mentioned at one point that she is neurotic, but then aren't we all? She mentions hearing voices in her head which is the classic symptom of Schizophrenia, but her other behaviour doesn't fit the pattern. Nor does her behaviour fit the pattern of the Manic- depressive. who, surely, is subject only to mood-swings not to sudden and violently wild outburst of behaviour. So we are left to ponder the nature of madness. It makes you think and it's all interesting stuff.

This is a long film, but with a wealth of interest and by no means depressing; there are many happy sequences and funny moments, and the acting is uniformly excellent.

Full Body Massage (1995 TV Movie)

Those big distractions.

[7/10 · 22 May 2005]

If the point and main interest of this movie was intended to be the philosophic conversation, then Mimi Roger's bare breasts were an unnecessary distraction. I couldn't for the life of me give my attention to what they were talking about when her bare body gave me so much else to think about. And how Bryan Brown was able to concentrate on his acting whilst massaging her voluptuous breasts and body is a wonder to me. Mimi Rogers must be quite comfortable with her body and quite fearless in being willing to subject it to the close scrutiny of cinema audiences. But I'm somewhat disappointed in her. She's such a good actress that I would have thought such a soft-porn movie was beneath her.

He Knew He Was Right (2004)

Another triumph from the BBC.

[10/10 · 10 March 2005]

The BBC have done it yet again; they have taken us back in time in a marvellously convincing manner. It is difficult to find fault with any aspect of this production; settings, locations, costumes and casting are all near perfect and the acting is admirable throughout. From the beginning to the end my attention never flagged for a moment; it is so jam-packed with human interest that I couldn't have enough of it. This is not a melodrama as some have said; taking into account the mores of the time it is totally realistic, with nothing over-played. Yes, it was annoying that the central character should allow his happy marriage to be destroyed by unfounded jealousy and a bit difficult to accept, until you you remember that that wasn't his only source of complaint; he was also annoyed that his spirited wife refused to submit to his unreasonable demands, something which as a Victorian husband he felt he had a right to expect. And she was not entirely blameless; she didn't have to behave in such a flirtatiouus way as to excite her husand's jealousy or to appear to enjoy so much the attentions of her philandering God-father. However, the anger and strife of the two central characters was offset by two other very happy relationships. With so many characters so well realised, well acted and convincing, I was left wanting more - much more.