Film REVIEWS
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COMEDY HOPE SPRINGS (12A) 100mins ●●●●●
Omit the Men In Black trilogy, and there aren’t many films that Tommy Lee Jones has been funny in. The stone-faced Texan looks as if he hasn’t laughed out loud since 1953, but that’s not to say he won’t tickle you in this gentle marital comedy from David Frankel. The director of The Devil Wears Prada reunites with Meryl Streep, who plays wife Kay to Jones’ husband Arnold. Married for 31 years, their relationship has gone stale, stultified by routine and a lack of intimacy. Desperate to rectify the situation, Kay persuades Arnold to attend a week-long intensive therapy session in a quaint coastal town called Great Hope Springs. Their counsellor is the renowned Dr Feld (Steve Carell), who attempts to re-ignite their long dormant passions.
It’s refreshing to see a film that exam- ines sexual frustrations and emotional problems felt in a long-term marriage seriously. However, younger viewers shouldn’t merely dismiss this as ‘one for the parents’. There’s much to enjoy, even if the incessant upbeat soundtrack and picture-postcard locales add a slightly too-jaunty sheen to three fine central performances. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 14 Sep.
COMEDY COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES (15) 88mins ●●●●● THRILLER SHADOW DANCER (15) 101min ●●●●●
Films that boast tell-all titles – think Snakes on a Plane, Hot Tub Time Machine – usually struggle to overcome their look-at-me concept. Pitching East End geezers and a smattering of old codgers against a zombie plague, this is one horror film that has to work super-hard to go beyond its eponymous pitch. For a while, it does. Harry Treadaway, Rasmus Hardiker and Michelle Ryan
play a family of would-be bank robbers, looking to loot their local branch to help save their grandfather (Alan Ford) and his soon-to-be-closed retirement home. Meanwhile, a local building site excavates a tomb, unleashing the undead on London’s East End. While Moran’s script is consistently inventive when it comes to showing us how to maim and kill zombies, there’s only so much you can watch without getting bored. The plot, which sees the group try and get to the OAP home, just isn’t strong enough to carry us through. It doesn’t help that, lacking the humour and emotion of Shaun of the Dead, you couldn’t care less about who lives and who dies. (James Mottram) ■ Selected release from Fri 31 Aug.
Like Alan Clarke’s remarkable television film Elephant, which depicted a series of senseless killings in Northern Ireland, director James Marsh’s Belfast-set drama shows sectarian murders being perpetrated in domestic suburban locations.
Andrea Riseborough excels in the role of Colette, a member of an IRA active service unit in 1993, who is arrested by the British authorities in London. She is given a stark choice by Clive Owen’s MI5 officer Mac: either she returns to West Belfast and secretly informs on the movements of her own IRA-combatant brothers (Aidan Gillen and Domhnall Gleeson), or she will be sent to an English jail, and thus separated from her young son.
Restraint is the key word here, not just in the ensemble performances, but also
in the slow-burning pacing and the film’s precise mise-en-scène, with its muted colours and claustrophobic interior settings. Although this story takes place at a specific historical moment in Ulster, before the peace process has been officially announced, its portrait of an individual coerced into betraying everything they hold dear possesses a universal relevance. (Tom Dawson) ■ General release from Fri 24 Aug.
23 Aug–20 Sep 2012 THE LIST 53