petrol station cashier (Aurelia Petit) enjoy a playful flirtation. (Tom Dawson) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Mon 27–Thu 30 Dec; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 31 Dec–Thu 6 Jan. DRAMA/MUSICAL/ROMANCE BURLESQUE (12A) 119min ●●●●●
Burlesque is the type of film that made musicals go out of fashion. It plays up the kitsch in order to cover its many deficiencies. At best the film has curiosity value as it features the acting debut of Christina Aguilera, who also contributes three new songs to the soundtrack. Perhaps director Steve Antin thought he’d play it safe when giving the pop star the quasi- biographical role of small town girl who quits her job as a waitress to make it big in Los Angeles as a singer, but then she is not helped by the need to deliver clunky dialogue, laughably burst into song from time to time and then incredulously outsmart cynical property developers as part of a ridiculous side plot. Cher returns to the screen after a seven-year hiatus to play a former dancer who is now the owner of a burlesque club facing bankruptcy. From the moment that Cher makes her entrance popping up on stage from behind a gaggle of girls there is a self-mocking tone to her performance – intentional or not – that lifts the tone of proceedings whenever she is on screen. It’s a fun role but sadly neither of these girls can rescue this run-of- the-mill dross. The side-story involving gentrification and unrequited love is laughable in Antin’s ill-advised directorial debut. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ General release from Fri 17 Dec. See feature, page 63.
Film REVIEWS COMEDY/DRAMA ON TOUR (TOURNEE) (15) 111min ●●●●●
‘France is going to love you,’ declares television producer turned impresario Joachim (Mathieu Amalric) to his American troupe of ‘new burlesque’ dancers, whom he is leading on a tour of French coastal towns. Voluptuous characters such as Mimi Le Meaux, Dirty Martini and Kitten on the Keys find that local audiences warmly receive their colourful striptease acts, which they define as ‘women doing shows for women’. Joachim promises his performers a Paris show, but when he heads for the capital and tries to call in some favours, he discovers his past misdemeanours haven’t been forgotten.
Freely switching between English and French dialogue, star-writer- director Mathieu Amalric’s loosely structured film operates on several levels: it’s a road movie of sorts, it’s an authentic portrait of provincial show business, and it’s an enjoyably meandering character study of its protagonist, the seedy-looking, chain- smoking Joachim. We only get to see excerpts of the burlesque routines, often from a behind-the-stage perspective or from the sidelines, and these sequences are photographed in wide-shots rather than close-ups. Nor, with the exception of Mimi (Miranda Colclasure), do we learn much about these tattooed, peroxide performers, except the contrast between their public personas and the ordinariness of their everyday interactions. It’s Amalric’s performance which keeps this particular cinematic show on the road, even when Joachim is clearly out of his depth. There’s an appealing unpredictability to the actor, best illustrated in the wonderful scene where he and a
64 THE LIST 16 Dec 2010 – 6 Jan 2011
SCI FI/ACTION/ADVENTURE TRON: LEGACY (PG) 125min ●●●●●
‘The game has changed,’ announces the poster for Disney’s blockbuster offering for 2010, but despite 3D and innumerable upgrades, Tron: Legacy remains a very similar proposition to 1982’s super-culty box-office flop. With dialogue that only a motherboard could love, derivative plotting and the airless atmosphere of Steven Lisberger’s original, director Joseph Kosinski faithfully recreates the original film. This rehash of the life-as-a- computer-game theme, however, has the saving grace of dazzling 3D that makes the original look flat in comparison.
The film picks up with Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the son of missing games designer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), finding himself disassembled in his father’s arcade, only to pop up inside an immense virtual world. Once there, Sam is forced to take part in a series of gladiatorial video games, including the familiar Frisbee tennis and light-cycle races his father once played. Sam also finds himself a pawn in a virtual war between his father and Clu (also played by Bridges), the vicious programme his peace-loving father invented. Father and son soon join forces to stop Clu’s virtual army from taking over the real world.
Any synopsis that makes sense of the incessant babble of Tron: Legacy’s plot runs the risk of giving it too much credit. Sporting a labyrinthine back- story that defies understanding, there’s none of the simple accessibility of Avatar’s ‘cowboys and aliens’ scenario, and even the character of Tron itself barely gets a mention. Yet for much of the time, the lack of a coherent centre doesn’t matter; Kosinski and his army of CGI-animators have splurged some $200m on a visually sumptuous production that boasts extravagant 3D action scenes. Light cycles shatter the glass walls of huge virtual vistas, opponents crumble into shards of glass, and Jeff Bridges is ingeniously rendered as both his youthful self and his current grizzled appearance. A working definition of state-of-the-art, Tron: Legacy is a gaudy, meaningless confection, buoyed up with a few breezy jokes and a thunderous Daft Punk soundtrack. It’s certainly a must-see for fans of the original, but most will leave wishing that such Herculean efforts had gone into upgrading a more worthwhile property. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release, Fri 17 Dec.
THRILLER CHATROOM (15) 97min ●●●●●
Young British acting talent is out in force in this drama set in an alternative cyber reality. Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray and Daniel Kaluuya are the rising Brit stars who meet in a chatroom that has been created by Johnson’s William, the son of an author. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, there is already something dated about meeting in a chatroom, however the confined space and locked off world is a perfect excuse for creating an alternative reality where teenagers can come and say what’s really on their minds.
An episode of Skins or the Inbetweeners has far more insight into the young psyche than any moment in Chatroom, which veers into thriller territory with predictable results. It’s strange that a movie so lacking in substance arrives with such pedigree. It’s based on a play and adapted for the screen by Hunger scriptwriter Enda Walsh and sitting in the director’s chair is Hideo Nakata, who directed the Ring films, Japanese and American versions. Still Jon Henson’s sparse but thoughtful production design gives a chilling sense of foreboding and a sense of the otherworld. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Selected release from Fri 24 Dec.