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| Dark delight is not for the
squeamish |
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES Directed by Atom Egoyan
Certificate 18
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Kevin Bacon, left, as Lanny Morris, Rachel Blanchard as
Maureen O’Flaherty with Colin Firth as Vince Collins
in Where the Truth Lies
|
CANADIAN director Atom Egoyan has been shocking and sedating
us for years but his latest outing is a brilliantly conceived, fully
adult thriller that you shouldn’t take the kids to. (They wouldn’t
get it anyway, hopefully).
Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth star as a team of showbiz nightclub
entertainers a la Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The action stars
out at a 1950s telethon where we learn that the two men are dovetailed
into a deep friendship – one that can withstand almost anything.
Fast forward to the 1970s where a journalist (Alison Lohman) is
attempting to write an exposé on the two, their success and
subsequent bust-up. It seems that part of the act’s scandal
was a hotel maid who ended up dead after serving the duo in their
room. However, the journalist herself has hidden secrets –
sordid, odd and stomach-twisting items that aren’t meant for
polite conversation.
Egoyan has made a feature that not only looks sensational –
every detail from production design, costume right down to hair
and makeup – but that also carries on at a seemingly luxurious
pace when in actuality the story is sprinting away from us almost
too fast to catch it.
There are portions, however, which are not for the squeamish –
including a sex scene which will change your mind about Alice In
Wonderland forever. A dark delight.
A gem of a black comedy
KEEPING MUM Directed by Liev Schreiber
Certificate 12A
Kristin cott Thomas and Rowan Atkinson in Keeping Mum |
A TRULY delicious, fun, tongue-in-cheek, wink-of-the-eye British
comedy in the best sense, Keeping Mum nevertheless had the critic
sitting next to me huffing away, scratching at his pad in fury in
the darkness of the screening. This is not a film for intellectuals
who demand deeper meanings, profound insight or even something that
might not quite make its money back.
Keeping Mum is a crowd-pleaser and it does this extremely well by
focussing on life’s every day irritations: an ever-barking
dog, nosy neighbours, lecherous golf pros and promiscuous daughters,
among other things.
The opener is a flashback to a pregnant woman on a train whose trunk
is leaking blood – and just when you think this comedy is going
to be a thriller, it kicks in with a hilarious scene with Kristin
Scott Thomas, groggy from trying to sleep through the infernal yapping
of a deaf neighbour’s terrier.
A woman both warm and irked, she plays Gloria Goodfellow, a put-upon,
sex-and-sleep-starved wife of vicar Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Aktinson
– here barely escaping his Four Weddings role but escaping
laudably all the same) who are trying to raise their family of lissome
daughter (Tamsin Edgerton) and bullied son (Toby Parkes) in the
small hamlet of Little Wallop.
A nervous vicar at best, it is clear that it is not only the parishioners
have one over on their spiritual leader – and when Gloria claims
that their friends have had sex in every room of the house, Walter
quips, “They have a smaller house.”
Keeping Mum is a real exportable gem. And even if you can guess
who Maggie Smith’s character really is hours away from its
reveal, it matters not.
Director Niall Johnson should be applauded for crafting a wholesome,
flourishing black comedy in the best Ealing sense of the word –
it doesn’t wait around for you to judge it. Just enjoy it.
Also showing
Doom
A glossy, noisy, fun-packed and very silly feature based on the
revolutionary video game, this bang-up hoot of a film stars The
Rock as Sarge, leader of a task force who must jump through space/time
to save a valuable scientific outpost on Mars.
Steamboy
From the creator of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo’s animated feature
is aided by the vocal talents of Alfred Molina (as Eddie Steam,
the inventor of the all-powerful ‘steamball’ energy source),
Anna Paquin and Patrick Stewart. This is a wildly vivid look at
technological struggles of an imagined previous age, with visuals
overtaking plot or story.
2 Young
Jackie Chan’s son Jaycee Fong stars with Chinese singing star
Fiona Sit in this gentle teen romance that echoes Romeo and Juliet.
Young lovers are on the run with both of their families embroiled
in outrage.
Sadly, the lack of chemistry between the leaves what could have
been a sweet, daring film on thin ice.
Tickets
Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach – three ‘arthouse’
or ‘realist’ directors – showcase their talents in
this intriguing triptych film centring on a train heading from Austria
to Rome.
A professor, an older woman travelling with a younger man and three
Scottish football fans make up the characters in this extremely
satisfying experiment.
Pick of the indies
Lower City
Brazilian director Sergio Machado’s steamy, sexy film focuses
on a handful of young men and women who work in Brazil’s ‘lower
city’ – a red light area that features everything one
would expect of such a place – drug deals, women for sale,
guns and crime as well as cock fighting.
Alice Braga stars as the young prostitute Karinna who plans to become
an exotic dancer in the district. To get there, she snags a lift
with two friends who are also burgeoning criminals, Lazar Ramos
as Deco and Wagner Moura as Naldinho.
They are boating over to Bahia themselves. Of course, the trip isn’t
for nothing: they charge her money and they want her to have sex
with both of them as part of the fare.
Rather than things going badly wrong, the three become a trio of
mates with the extra added complication that both of the men fall
in love with the beautiful hooker and she does little to stop them
from venting their passions as they see fit.
Along with the human dynamics, which are played out beautifully
with the three leads putting in intense performances, Machado’s
camera doesn’t just seek out the sordid and torrid. There’s
a vast amount of love, beauty and empathy for these characters as
well as for the real denizens the lower city where inner passions
are so often seen acted out. |
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