www.list.co.uk/film DRAMA/COMEDY LYMELIFE (15) 94min ●●●●●
DRAMA/MYSTERY TETRO (15) 126min ●●●●●
The success of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now means it’s easy to forget that director Francis Ford Coppola was once a radical and gifted independently minded screenwriter and director. His return from a decade-long directing hiatus was a bewildering adaptation of Mircea Eliade’s novel Youth Without Youth in 2007. With Tetro – Coppola’s first original screenplay since 1974’s The Conversation – the famed ‘New Hollywood’ director moves to the familiar theme of the failure of the family unit, with a black and white palette of his 1983 brat pack benchmark Rumble Fish. Vincent Gallo plays Tetro, a once promising writer residing in Buenos
Aires with his girlfriend (Maribel Verdu), who is annoyed when his younger brother Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) suddenly appears asking questions about an unfinished play that Tetro was working on when he suddenly left America. The opening shots of Bennie arriving look like a perfume commercial and seeing Gallo hobble around on a leg cast (he broke his leg as filming was about to commence) only adds to the sense of Tetro being a broken man. Bennie by contrast is the Holden Caulfield type, unaffected by his own torrid relationship with his domineering father (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who feels that he can reignite his brother’s lust for life. Alas, Coppola’s tendency for over-indulgence takes over, with colour
flashbacks that are poorly shot, a preposterous twist, and a storyline that runs out of steam at the production of a burlesque play. Still Tetro is a welcome return to some kind of form for the bearded behemoth. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Cameo, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 25 Jun. See feature, page 43.
The deep-seated malaise that slides through American suburban life is a popular subject in American cinema. The makers of these films (The Ice Storm and American Beauty among them) delight in showing the dark side of the American dream. Writer/director Derick Martini has used Robert Redford’s 1980 Academy Award winning familial tragedy drama Ordinary People as his template in this tale set on the outskirts of New York in 1979. Like Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, the story is told through the eyes of the youngest and most naïve character as he loses his own innocence. 15-year- old Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin) witnesses the marriage of his parents (Alec Baldwin and Jill Hennessy) disintegrate just as an outbreak of Lyme disease sweeps through the community. No one knew what the disease is, and so Charlie (the excellent Timothy Hutton) is misdiagnosed and as his health deteriorates his wife (Cynthia Nixon proving there is life beyond Sex and the City) looks elsewhere. Completing this merry-go-round, Scott has a crush on their daughter Adrianna (Emma Roberts). Whilst it does always hold interest, at times Lymelife suffers from an inability to escape the clichés of the genre and a plot that is all too predictable. A case of familiarity breeding contempt. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Selected release from Fri 2 Jul. See profile, listings.
HORROR THE COLLECTOR (18) 86 min ●●●●●
Reviews Film
ALSO RELEASED Breathless (A Bout De Souffle) (PG) 89min ●●●●● François Truffaut’s still gloriously playful 1960 debut re-released on new digital print. GFT, Glasgow and selected release from Fri 25 Jun Kicks (15) 82min ●●●●● Wannabe Liverpool WAGs Nicole (Kerrie Hayes) and Jasmine (Nichola Burley) are two teenagers who bond over a mutual obsession for Premiership footballer Lee Cassidy (Jamie Doyle). Fuelled by their fantasy of meeting him, they track him down and before they know it their dream has become a nightmare. Solidly made and quite gripping low budget stalker horror. GFT, Glasgow and selected release from Wed 30 Jun.
When You’re Strange (15) 85min ●●●●● Thoughtful, well assembled and pretty thorough assessment of The Doors and their legacy, featuring contributions from Johnny Depp and the surviving band members. Writer/director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede, The Real Blonde) delivers his first documentary feature with the ease of an old pro. GFT, Glasgow and selected release from Fri 2 Jul.
Horror is constantly searching for icons, figureheads and antiheroes. It celebrates its directors (the John Carpenters, Wes Cravens and Tobe Hoopers) like no other genre and worships its villains, with the likes of Freddy, Jason and Leatherface becoming unlikely pop culture idols. The Collector is the latest in a long line of films that hope to gives shock cinema its latest villain of choice. Josh Stewart is a handy man/desperate father/petty criminal who inadvertently breaks into his rich client’s home the same night as the leather masked Collector calls. A brutal and intelligent serial killer who sets elaborate death traps for his victims, turning their own home into a gamut of trip wires, knives and razor blades. Torturing the owners with his unique brand of extreme home invasion. Sealed within this improvised torture chamber Stewart desperately attempts to escape the clutches of this masked maniac, played with silent, imposing menace by Juan Fernández
Sharing many of the aesthetics of the Saw series (the lighting, the tight close-
ups, the gruesome and sustained violence) it comes as no surprise that writer Patrick Melton and writer/director Marcus Dunstan have worked on the aforementioned series (parts IV-VII). The Collector perhaps takes itself too seriously and falls for some of horror’s most enduring clichés (the thunder, the omnipresent killer, the jarring sound effects), but Stewart makes a likable down on his luck everyman while the gore is exquisitely crafted. There’s depth and mystery to the Collector character that could certainly sustain a new franchise. (Henry Northmore) ■ General release from Fri 25 Jun.
24 Jun–8 Jul 2010 THE LIST 47