Willis and Pfeiffer give their best, but they can't save this film
The Story Of Us (15) 95mins it at
Freud famously remarked that every trme a man and a woman make love, there are four people in the bed: he, she, hrs mother, her father. Rob Remer's melodramatrc romantic comedy tops this wrth an Oedipal gag: When Bruce Willis and Mrchelle Pfeiffer hrt the matrrmonral sack, in fantasy they are jorned by his parents on one srcle and hers on the other.
erlrs and Pferffer's Ben and Katie Jordan are a couple whose relationship has grown stale. After frfteen years of marriage, their once attractive qurrks have hardened rnto irrrtatrons. He’s an Irresponsible romantic, she’s a pragmatrst. He yearns for spontaneity, she’s the marrrage's ’desrgnated driver’. Desparrrng of then future together, they pack therr krds off to summer
camp and agree to a trial separation. But is there any juice left in the marrrage?
Wrth The Story Of Us, Reiner is attempting to go beyond the blissfully romantic fade-out of When Harry Met Sally . . . and show us what happened after they married. He's reprised some of the earlier film’s comic schtick. Ben and Katie are qurrky opposites: he's a TV sitcom writer, she devises crossword puzzles; they deliver pseudo— documentary interviews to camera; and drssect their relationshrp with same-sex confidants. But where Nora Ephron’s dialogue crackled with urbane wit, Alan Zweibel and Jessre Nelson's script for The Story Of Us rs glib and Superficial. Willis and Pfeiffer grve of their best, but whatever the prospects for therr marrrage, they can’t save this film. (Jason Best)
I General release from Fri 27 Apr.
'Prepare yourself for a stream of erection gags'
Kevin And Perry Go Large (12) 82 mins A hrg-screen spur-off for one of the sketches from TV’s Harry Enfield And Hrs Chums, Kevin And Perry Go Large follovxs rts two teenage characters on a guest to lose their virginity and become top DJs. Prospects are looking farrly hleak for Kevrn (Harry Enfield) and Perry (Kathy Burke) in dreary England, but suddenly they're presented xvrth the opportunity of a fortnight's cluhhrng rn lbrza. There’s one snag though, Mr and Mrs Patterson (James fleet and Loursa Rip) wrll lie accompanying them to the Balearic rsland. As Kevrn bleats: 'lt's just so unlarr'.
lhe track record of Brrtish small screen corneclres berng turned into feature frlrns is far from rmpressrve, and Kevin And Perry Go large struggles
to justrfy its 80-plus minute running time. The key rnfluences here w0uld appear to be the Carry On series -— there’s lot of talk about ’doing it’ but little m the way of consummation except from the parents -- as well as the gross-out antics of the Farrelly brothers.
Prepare yourself for a stream of erecjtron gags, the inevitable pissing in the sea Incident, vomit pOuring down over Our hapless heroes, and pus berng discharged from various sores in preparation for a night on the trles.
There are some enjoyable performances from Burke and Laura Fraser as an Essex Girl clubber, yet given the various merchandrsing tie-ins, there’s a nagging sense that, with this predictable satrre, Enfield and chums are milking a cash-cow.
(Tom Dawson) I General release from Fri 27 Apr.
l l r l
new releases FILM
EEnnuI
(18) 120 mins Ht 1: *
Whatever Alberto Moravia’s literary reputation, this post-war Italian novelist has been well served by cinema. Previous adaptations include, perhaps Godard and Bertolucci’s finest films; Le Mepris and The Conformist, respectively.
Cedric Kahn’s film doesn‘t rank quite that highly, but it’s a suggestive, quirky study of amour fou, as dissatisfied philosophy professor Martin (Charles Berling) loses srght of himself rn the warm and fatty folds of the teenage Cecilia (SOphie Gurllemrn). An occasronal artrst’s model and full-time working class girl, Cecilia cheerfully takes off her clothes but seems cerebrally covered up. As she obeys Martrn's every sexual whrm, he wonders, somewhat paradoxically, whether she really cares for hrrn at all. Is she just a girl on the make, or a girl with secrets to hide?
Of course, an (often) older man falling in love With a mysterious (usually younger) woman is the subject of much French cinema, and rs at the heart of frlm noir, but Kahn’s achievement is to play it less as tragedy than Indeterminate rrony. If Martin may wonder what’s going on inside Sophie's cranrum, we mrght wonder what's going on in his. What does he see rn this plarn Jane?
Kahn asks us to look inside Martin’s head rather than srmply at the leadrug lady's figure, thus suggesting we look for psychologically interror motives rnsteacl of the usual sexually ulterior ones. (Tony McKibbin)
I Edinburgh: Fi/mhouse from Fri 27 Apr.
Astérix And Obélix
Take On Caesar (PG) 110mins in“:
‘a suggestive, quirky study of amour fou'
Lrve action versions of cartoons are often hrt and miss affarrs; the very fact that the sketch and rnk medium allows a cartoonist so much freedom rs what proves to be the very SOurce of a frlm maker’s trauma — tryrng to recreate that on frlm.
Asterrx and Obelrx are the loveable cartoon Gauls who over therr 41 years in exrstence have sold over 280 rnrllron comrc books in 77 countrres, rn S7 drfferent languages suffrce to say they're pretty much up there with TrnTin as French cartoon legends.
Chrrstran Clavrer and Gerard Depardieu lead the way as the film's (lyrlarrrrc duo, jurced up on therr secret-super-strength givrng polron, clrspensrng ‘.‘.’llll the Roman army in a slapstrck and downrrght chrrpy way. There rs also a dollop of hamly Carry On humour and occaSIonal rude word, but not so much that your Granny would mrnd. Roberto Benrgni also pops up as Roman army crook Detritus, \.‘.li()'s plan rt rs to overthrow Caesar. Unfortunately for hrm he has to get passed the exc rtable (iauls frrst.
The plot is slight, but the sense of energy and fun overrrcles any gaprng holes and this nrps along at a heady pace. It gets a brt too untrcly towards the end and the jokes peter out a Irttle but Aster/x can take hrs place alongsrde Batman and Superman as one of the few successful cartoon conversion jobs. (Mark Robertson:
I Now showing
From The Edge Of The City
(18) 90 mins *** t
i " - ‘a dollop of bawdy Carry On humou
l
Superficially, this is another drug- buddy movie in the vein of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, promoting itself wrth the tagline: 'Urban youth . . . separated by language . . . united by drugs’. But Constantinos Giannaris’s Greek language film is distinguished by its socio-political dimensions and the powerful performances from its actors, many of them non professionals.
The city is Athens, the melting pot of southeastern Europe, where vastly disproportionate levels of wealth collide. On the edge of thrs huge spr'a\.‘.‘lrrrg crty in the depressed suburb of Menidr, a gang of young Russran rmrnrgr'ants dream by day of a better life while at night they descend rnto the city to steal, score drugs, pimp and turn tricks.
The innovative camerawork keeps up with the fast pace of the lrlrn, and the destructive nature of the thrill-seeking keeps you guessing just how many of the boys are going to see it through to the credits Among them, r'eal-lrfe street urchin Stathis Papadopoulos delivers a first-class performance as the gang's leader, Sasha. Like Larry Clark's Kids, this frlm makes voyeurs of rts audrence rr‘. rts unsettling fusion of fact and fiction and creates an extremely powerful and hard— hrtting exploration of life on the edge in contemporary Greec e.
(Catherine Bromley) I Edinburgh: Fi/mhouse from Fri 74 Apr:
Makes voyeurs of its audience in its unsettling fusion of fact and fiction'
13 2/ Apr flan-r) THE UST29