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DRAMA/ROMANCE DEAR JOHN (12A) 108min ●●●●● ALSO RELEASED
COMEDY/DRAMA WHIP IT (12A) 111min ●●●●●
Roller derby may not quite be what painter James McNeill Whistler had in mind when he advised the women’s clubs of America ‘to raise more hell and fewer dahlias,’ — but judging from the current popularity of this grassroots sport — his advice may have finally been heeded.
Nice small town girls, however, have to endure the rite of passage that is the beauty pageant, an act of sacrifice and wanton ambition by many an overbearing mother. Bliss (Ellen Page) is one such daughter and Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) is one such mother. When the quietly rebellious Bliss falls in with the local derby team, and realises she’s good at the sport, she’s on a one-way ticket to confrontation with her Texan firebrand of a mother.
Actress Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut is a pleasant surprise. Adapted by Shauna Cross from her own novel Derby Girl, Whip It is by turns clichéd, silly, old fashioned and a whole load of fun. Barrymore appropriates from the best to give this simple tale of rebellion and ‘otherness’ wings. Roy Baker Hill’s glorious 1977 little league ice hockey drama Slap Shot is an obvious touchstone here (along with Rollerball) with Barrymore attempting (maybe a little too hard) to create confrontations and back stories for the team players. The fact that all this leads nowhere particularly interesting and that the central daughter/mother stand off is resolved much as one would expect is annoying, but the performances are gutsy. Page, Juliette Lewis, Barrymore, Kristen Wig and the hirsute Andrew Wilson give it their all, and the film’s tongue-in-cheek energy is infectious. (Paul Dale) ■ General release from Fri 9 Apr. See feature, page 28.
Director Lasse Hallström has made a virtue of crafting bestsellers into lushly produced, if sentimental movies including Chocolat, The Cider House Rules and The Shipping News. Adapting Dear John from the novel by The Notebook’s Nicholas Sparks might suggest the Swedish director is slumming to reach a teenage audience, but this simple love story is an ideal vehicle for his trademark gloss. Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried
plays Savannah, a student who strikes up a relationship with on leave soldier John Tyree (Channing Tatum), but their romance is temporarily stymied due to his overseas commitments. The lovers communicate in the old-fashioned way by paper and pen, but when Tyree decides to put his military career first after the 9/11 attacks, the inevitable Dear John letter results in mutual heartbreak. While no cliché is left unturned in
Jamie Linden’s script, the likeability of the leads and a strong supporting performance from Six Feet Under/The Visitor’s Richard Jenkins as John’s coin obsessed father make Dear John surprisingly watchable fare. Hallström has successfully fashioned Sparks’ novel into an old-fashioned Hollywood weepy that, while saying little of note about family, politics or war, is well enough tuned to matters of the human heart. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Wed 14 Apr.
Clash of the Titans (12A) 105min (Unable to review at time of going to press) Classic Greek myth gets the modern special effects and 3D treatment. Will be reviewed at www.list.co.uk General release from Fri 2 Apr. Psycho (15) 108min ●●●●● Digital reissue of Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal 1960 exercise in terror. Accept no imitations and witness the birth of the modern slasher/horror film. Selected release from Fri 2 Apr. Shelter (15) 112min ●●●●● Julianne Moore stars as a female forensic psychiatrist who discovers that most of one of her patient’s multiple personalities are murder victims. She investigates and soon wishes she hadn’t. Set in Pittsburgh and directed by Swedish filmmaking duo Björn Stein and Måns Mårlind, Shelter is a solidly made and compelling thriller, which is different enough to hold interest for its duration. General release from Fri 9 Apr. Got an opinion? You can now Comment on all our articles at list .co.uk
DOCUMENTARY SONS OF CUBA (12A) 88min ●●●●●
‘What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans,’ said Cuban Heavyweight Olympic boxing champion Teofilo Stevenson when offered the chance to turn professional and fight Muhammad Ali.
Cuba has been one of the most successful nations at the Olympics at boxing,
partly due to it being against the law to turn professional. So, where great fighters in other nations turn professional, Cuba’s remain amateur and thus still qualify to fight in the Olympics. Andrew Lang’s documentary on the Havana Boxing Academy largely avoids tough questions about the Cuban political regime and its methods. Following a group of talented 10-year olds as they prepare for the Cuban National championships in 2006, Lang concentrates instead on the tough training schedules, only occasionally touching upon the politics of the country caught at a time when Fidel Castro had passed power onto his brother Raul.
His window into Havana is through the family life of three boxers, and although the hardship is evident, the movie feels romanticised. There is no mention of the disastrous Olympic results in 2008 for example, and any hope that this would be a Cuban Hoop Dreams is dashed soon after the first bell rings. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Filmhouse, Edinburgh on Wed 14 & Thu 15 Apr.
1–15 Apr 2010 THE LIST 47