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Film REVIEWS
PERIOD DRAMA ALBERT NOBBS (15) 113mins ●●●●●
Fifteen years in development, Rodrigo Garcia’s adaptation of George Moore’s short story The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs arrives on the back of two deserved Oscar nominations for stars Glenn Close and Janet McTeer. And while it’s just the sort of film Hollywood likes to embrace, one can only imagine the horrific hash a studio would’ve made of telling this sensitively told tale. Set in Dublin in the 1890s, it is about Albert, a dedicated waiter who works and lives in a hotel owned by the genial Mrs Baker (Pauline Collins). Albert has two secrets: one is a stash of cash hidden below the floorboards in his room, diligently saved to fund a lifelong dream of owning his own shop. The other is that he’s really a woman, a secret ‘he’ has held onto for 30 years. Played by Glenn Close, who first did the part on stage in 1982, Albert find his rigorously ordered life thrown into turmoil when Mrs Baker employs a painter named Hubert Page (McTeer) for a job, and instructs Albert to share his bed with Page for the night. Page swiftly discovers Albert’s secret only to then reveal, quite literally, that he too is a woman (in an unintentionally comic moment that causes Albert to almost faint).
The real shame, after such an intriguing set-up, is that
Albert Nobbs never really pays off. With Albert pining after fellow waitress Helen (Mia Wasikowska), who’s already embroiled with the hotel’s volatile handyman (Aaron Johnson), the script from Close and novelist John Banville lacks real impact in its final act. While this tale of women forced to suppress their very essence is an undoubtedly sad, strange and frequently touching one, it’s also often a very emotionally inert work – as tightly wrapped as Albert himself. And it really doesn’t help that all this cross-dressing makes you think of a bad Monty Python sketch. (James Mottram) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 April.
GOTHIC THRILLER THE MONK (15) 101min ●●●●●
DRAMA MONSIEUR LAZHAR (12A) 94min ●●●●● PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA SILENT HOUSE (18) 85min ●●●●●
It’s been seven years since Dominik Moll’s last film, but the talented filmmaker who made the blackly comic thrillers Harry, He’s Here to Help and Lemming is back with his most ambitious film yet. Sadly, Moll’s adaptation of Matthew Lewis’ 18th century Gothic novel is his least engaging film. Inspirational schoolteachers have been a cinematic staple from Goodbye Mr Chips to Laurent Cantet’s The Class. Monsieur Lazhar avoids treacly sentimentality as it charts how a teacher and a group of schoolchildren find common ground in coming to terms with personal tragedies.
Set in 17th-century Madrid, it concerns a Capucin Based on a play by Evelyne De La Cheneliere,
Friar named Ambrosio (played with unusual but appropriate restraint by Vincent Cassel), who begins life as an orphan abandoned on the steps of a monastery and grows up to become the order’s most admired preacher. Exemplifying – and extolling – extreme rigour and utter virtue, Ambrosio is certain of his safety from temptation. But the pride comes before the fall, which cataclysmic event is precipitated by Satan smuggling temptation into Ambrosio’s monastery in an unforeseen guise. Thematically, The Monk is an obvious choice for
Moll, who dealt with seemingly innocuous evil in his previous films. And with the mise-en-scene inspired by Spanish painting, it is a visual treat. Shame, then, that Ambrosio’s fall from grace generates neither sympathy nor suspense. (Miles Fielder) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 Apr.
Monsieur Lazhar is blessed with some very believable child actors and a beguiling central performance from Mohamed Fellag. His good samaritan arrives at a snowy Montreal primary school like a latterday Mary Poppins. A teacher has committed suicide, leaving pupil Simon (Emilien Neron) to find her hanging from the rafters of a classroom and Lazhar is a welcome solution to an impossible situation. Yet we also learn that he is burdened with grief and is struggling to earn political refugee status. Monsieur Lazhar addresses complex issues of grief, identity and community. There is a sensitivity in the approach of director Philippe Falardeau that invests the material with quiet dignity and emotional integrity. One of five 2012 Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, it is an unexpected charmer. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 4 May.
With Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen proved herself to be a young actor with great potential by persuasively playing a refugee haunted by her experiences with a murderous cult. Silent House features her in a disappointingly similar role, this time as a teenage girl suffering memories of an abusive relationship.
Packaged like a horror film, but actually aiming to be a psychological drama, Silent House opens with Sarah (Olsen) and her family arriving to clean up a lakeside property. Once inside, Sarah finds herself alone and imagines she is being stalked, only to find her memories of past terrors are getting confused with her current, equally frightening, reality.
Based on Gustavo Hernandez’s 2010 Uruguayan film of the same name, and directed by the Open Water team of Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, Silent House retains the original film’s gimmick of appearing to be shot in one continuous take. With a few hidden edits, the illusion just about works, but the on-screen action is far too ponderously slow to maintain the tension, despite Olsen’s undoubted effectiveness as a scream-queen. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 4 May.
26 Apr–24 May 2012 THE LIST 63