list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
RE-RELEASE THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS (15) 101min ●●●●● ARTHOUSE THE STOKER (15) 87min ●●●●●
ROMCOM POPULAIRE (12A) 111min ●●●●●
‘In the fun house how do you know who’s really crazy?’ That’s the pertinent question in The King of Marvin Gardens, Bob Rafelson’s third film, a financial flop from 1972.
Jack Nicholson is sublimely subtle as depressive talk radio DJ David Staebler. He’s called to Atlantic City by his older brother Jason (Bruce Dern), an excitable crook who’s mixed up with mobsters. Jason has plans to open a Hawaiian island resort named ‘Staebleravia’. As Jason plots, he and David hole-up in a boardwalk hotel where they’re joined by aging beauty Sally (a mesmerically manic Ellen Burstyn) and her companion Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson). Revelations emerge regarding the unstable foursome’s relationships and the situation teeters on the brink of exploding. As David says, ‘thin gs around here are pretty
weird’ and with Jason at the helm they keep getting weirder. Yet, rather than cranking up the madness, Rafelson plays it down, his laidback direction at odds with the colourful chaos. The King of Marvin Gardens reminds us of the diversity and dynamism of New Hollywood. How odd it is that a largely forgotten film should feel so utterly unforgettable. (Emma Simmonds) ■ Limited release from Fri 31 May.
Edinburgh’s beloved Filmhouse cinema has chosen an unusual and intriguing curio for its first release as a distributor. It’s 1990s Russia, and transformation is in the air, with mafiosos and other money-minded entrepreneurs blazing in where only the State used to tread. Also blazing is the oven tended by the titular stoker, Skryabin, a ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’, who asks conveniently few questions about just what people want to shove into his flames. Strange, dark and clever, with a sense of Rabelaisian excess and moral murkiness that’s tempered by an ambiguous but unexpectedly forceful moral message, the film addresses personal responsibility, cruelty and creativity in shady times, via characters who are colourful but never caricatured. Fires crackle ominously throughout, and they aren’t the only constant: the madly perky soundtrack rarely lets up either, whatever’s going on onscreen. A habit of director Alexey Balabanov’s, this musical restlessness might strike some as a point too forcefully made. But it does reflect his themes of lives continually interrupted, peace of mind disrupted, and the inescapable trivia that serves to distract us all from life’s more solemn and testing questions. (Hannah McGill) ■ Limited release from Fri 17 May.
This immaculately styled French period romantic comedy signals its pedigree with a colourful cartoon credit sequence reminiscent of Hollywood comedies circa the 1950s and 60s. Set in 1959, co-writer and director Régis Roinsard’s feature debut opens with shop girl Rose (Déborah François) securing herself a position as a secretary in a minor insurance firm run by dapper boss Louis (Romain Duris). It swiftly becomes apparent that Rose is hopeless,
but an ability to type very quickly prompts Louis to take her under his wing and enter her in a series of speed typing competitions. During the course of Rose’s rapid rise to fame, protégé and mentor predictably fall for one another. And, equally inevitably, their path to love is rocky.
Roinsard is concerned with gender roles at a point in post-war history when they were on the cusp of change. Somewhat disappointingly, the social and sexual commentary is sidelined by the film’s typing competition-focused action – admittedly handled with real aplomb – and is otherwise buried beneath the inarguably beautiful period dressing. Television’s Mad Men covered similar territory and successfully combined dramatic sophistication with good looks. But Don Draper and co this ain’t. (Miles Fielder) ■ Limited release from Fri 31 May.
CRIME THE ICEMAN (15) 105min ●●●●●
Is there no film Michael Shannon doesn’t excel in? Here the star of Take Shelter plays real-life New Jersey hitman Richard Kuklinski, who – upon his arrest in 1986 – is thought to have committed over 100 assassinations. Directed by Israeli-born filmmaker Ariel Vromen, Shannon delivers a masterclass in cold- blooded volatility in a movie that feels more indebted to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas than to David Chase's The Sopranos. The rub here is not just how Kuklinski rose from being a
humble back-street porno movie pirate to a feared contract killer, but how he managed to keep it all secret from his wife Deborah (Winona Ryder), his children and neighbours in the NJ ’burbs. If ever there was a man able to compartmentalise, it’s Kuklinski, who could dispatch his victims in all manner of hideous ways before coming home to kiss his kids goodnight.
Yet as shown by this script, drawn from a 1992 documentary and Anthony Bruno’s true crime novel, not even a man as unemotional as Kuklinski can keep killing without the paranoia spilling over. Driven by Shannon’s man-of-steel turn, the cast is uniformly excellent: from Captain America star Chris Evans as an ice-cream van-driving fellow assassin to James Franco’s wheedling victim and Ray Liotta as a thuggish crime lord.
Shot in a gloomy palette of browns and blacks, Vromen resists the temptation to pander too much to the era: although there are nods, from co-star David Schwimmer’s handlebar ’tache to a fine disco moment as Kuklinski claims a victim on the dance floor to the strains of Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’. What truly impresses, though, is how the narrative is punctuated with violent flashpoints. As ultra-efficient as its sociopathic subject, The Iceman knows exactly when to pull the trigger. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 7 Jun.
16 May–13 Jun 2013 THE LIST 71