list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
ROMANTIC COMEDY SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (15) 122min ●●●●●
How interesting that a director who’s taken considerable heat for certain issues around personal interaction should hit a creative peak with a film about the roots of shoddy behaviour, and the potential for its forgiveness. Might this be a case of someone actually learning from a mistake? Growing up in public, even? Or is that a monumental assumption based on internet hearsay . . . ? David O Russell was hotly tipped from his breakthrough Spanking the Monkey in 1994, showed the extent of his talent with the brilliant Three Kings in 1999, and scored a hit and a raft of Oscar nominations for The Fighter in 2010 – but his reputation suffered through rumours (and recorded evidence) that he was horrible on-set. His actors, incidentally, defended him, but Hollywood mud can be helluva sticky. Villain or victim, what Russell’s been through hasn’t hurt his art, and might on this evidence have been the making of him.
This tender, quirky tale also gives Bradley Cooper the opportunity to be more than twinkly beefcake, and finds hitherto unglimpsed playfulness in that frosty action fox Jennifer Lawrence. Oh, and some guy called De Niro acquits himself OK, too . . . Cooper plays Patrick, just out of a mental health facility and struggling to balance his determination to be medication-free with his advanced sensitivity and excitability. Most of all, he wants to win back the wife whose infidelity triggered his breakdown in the first place – and for Jennifer Lawrence’s similarly damaged young widow to leave him be . . . The film is somewhat prone to those off-the-cuff deep-and-meaningful revelations that come so much more readily in US indie flicks than in, you know, life; but it manages to positively bleed compassion while remaining light, sexy, dynamic and thought-provoking. (Hannah McGill) ■ General release from Wed 21 Nov.
COMEDY SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (15) 110min ●●●●●
Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to In Bruges is as fiercely violent as its title suggests, and a whole lot funnier. Its film-within-a-film concept finds alcoholic screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) troubled by writer’s block; he’s got a title – Seven Psychopaths – but alas no story. Marty is assisted in developing his script by his dog-napper buddy Billy (Sam Rockwell) who goes so far as to place a wanted ad (bringing deranged bunny lover Tom Waits to their door). To complicate matters, Billy and his partner-in-crime Hans (Christopher Walken) are being pursued by their own psychopath after kidnapping the beloved pooch of crime boss Charlie (Woody Harrelson). While Farrell hardly registers at the film’s centre,
Walken gives a performance of nuanced hilarity and Rockwell is sensational as the unstable Billy – a bouncy ball of deluded, badass energy. McDonagh directs with energy and a masterful grasp on the meta, though fails to quite match
the visual chutzpah of, say, Quentin Tarantino, who the film so clearly emulates. However, a more purely entertaining film you’d be hard pressed to find; Seven Psychopaths is best enjoyed as an unabashed hell-raiser. (Emma Simmonds) ■ General release from Wed 5 Dec.
APOCALYPSE Archives
This month Ben Wheatley’s (Kill List, Down Terrace) macabre comedy Sightseers opens in cinemas. Here he contributes to the Apocalypse Archives and tells us the five films he would save if faced with the end of the world
1 Mad Max II (George Miller, 1981) ‘Apart from it being one of my favourite films it would give me lots of tips on how to survive after the apocalypse. Particularly fashion tips about Mohicans and wearing chaps on motorbikes. There’s loads of good top tips in it like how to fire crossbows and all about collection of fuel and banding together in new age groups to survive.’
2 Heimat (Edgar Reitz, 1984)
‘It’s kind of a German, long form TV series that I don’t know much about but have always meant to watch and I figured I’d have a bit more time on my hands after the apocalypse. I wouldn’t bother watching it normally because it’s such a commitment. It’s like Our Friends in the North set in Germany. There’s loads to get my teeth into.’
3 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) ‘I watch Blade Runner a lot anyway so it’s one of those films I could always go back to. I’ve bought it so many times now in different formats and edits. I just love that film. I always see new things in it so it never gets old.’
4 Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) ‘Again, it’s a film I like watching. It always makes me cry and it’s very long so you get a lot of value. It’s got loads of characters in it and they’re very deftly sketched. Also it deals with geography, which is a thing that seems to be lost in modern action movies, you know where everybody is all the time.’
5 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) ‘It’s set in a weird pseudo-Europe after the apocalypse. Massive robots have burnt the world and now it's covered in these weird plants that are poisonous. I watch it a lot with my son. So after the apocalypse happens hopefully he’ll be by my side watching it.’ (Interview by Gail Tolley) ■ Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers is on general release from Fri 30 Nov.
15 Nov–13 Dec 2012 THE LIST 63