list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
R E N R E W Z T E O G
DRAMA WHAT MAISIE KNEW (15) 99min ●●●●●
MYSTERY UPSTREAM COLOUR (12A) 96min ●●●●● DOCUMENTARY THE GREAT HIP HOP HOAX (18) 88min ●●●●●
In an upmarket Manhattan apartment, rock singer Susanna (Julianne Moore) and her art dealer partner Beale (Steve Coogan) are having an explosive argument. The camera moves to an adjacent room, where the couple’s infant daughter Maisie (Onata Aprile) is doing an impressive job of zoning out the shouts and insults, eating pizza with her young nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham). This is the starting point for Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s contemporary retelling of Henry James’ 1898 novel, and it sets up the child’s-eye perspective from which they proceed to tell this story of family break-up. This is a film that deals in subtle details, and
its value lies in the way the filmmakers draw out small moments of surprise or truth from the familiar scenario. Both Moore and Coogan acquit themselves well, equally good is Alexander Skarsgård as Lincoln, the unsuspecting new boyfriend of Susanna. But it’s Onata Aprile as Maisie who really shines here, a young actress blessed with the kind of naturalism that many professionals five times her age still struggle to find. (Paul Gallagher) ■ General release from Fri 23 Aug.
‘I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun,’ unhelpfully explains a mysterious character in writer / director Shane Carruth’s highly anticipated follow-up to indie sci-fi puzzler Primer. Such elliptical dialogue might sound strange, but proves to be as typically inscrutable as every other aspect of this fascinating, beautiful and well-nigh impenetrable drama.
Providing any synopsis of Upstream Colour is like piecing together a dream; at the start, the narrative appears to be science fiction and concerns Kris (Amy Seimetz), who is forced to ingest some kind of micro-organism that controls her mind and forces her to sign off her possessions to a man known as The Thief (Thiago Martins). Another man, called The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), transfers the organism to a pig, while Kris finds solace in a relationship with Jeff (Caruth himself) who seems to have had a similar experience. Admirers of mainstream cinema need not concern
themselves with Carruth’s work but for those prepared to go with the abstraction, Upstream Colour is a rewarding and mind-blowing experience. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Limited release from Fri 30 Aug.
Not quite the grand affair the title suggests, Jeanie Finlay’s documentary tells an intriguingly obscure story about deliberately mistaken identity. Featuring two young Scots who passed themselves off to music industry insiders as Californian rappers, it’s a bittersweet reflection on the dangers of stardom. Finlay’s film quickly establishes a miserable
Scottish cultural wasteland from which Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain emerge circa 2004. A trip to London for an audition leaves them with nothing but a lack of faith in how their Scottish accents were received. Reinventing themselves as Silibil N’ Brains, Boyd and Bain were soon touted alongside the likes of Muse before the pressure of maintaining character caused their friendship to burn out. Although the unfamiliar quality of the story gives The Great Hip Hop Hoax some narrative drive, it also diminishes the stakes; the most significant figure who bought into the con is no less august a figure than James Bourne from Busted.
The Great Hip Hop Hoax is interesting while the deception is in play, but Silibil N’ Brains are ultimately revealed as nothing more than cheeky blaggers who took a blag too far. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Limited release from Fri 6 Sep.
ACTION RUSH (12A) 126min ●●●●●
Forget discipline, training and mental fortitude. The greatest spur to sporting achievement is a deadly rival that you yearn to crush beneath the heel of your own glorious victory. That’s the philosophy that underlines Rush, an entertaining account of the fierce rivalry that flourished between James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the wild west years of Formula One in the 1970s. Oscar-winning director Ron Howard is often considered a safe pair of hands, bringing a diligent professionalism to mainstream, middle-brow projects. In Rush, he seems more engaged by material that echoes his frequent fascination with men testing themselves against their limits. It has an energy and commitment that makes for surprisingly absorbing viewing and a script by Peter Morgan that captures the complexities of both men rather than painting them as one-dimensional figures.
You suspect Hunt would have heartily approved the choice of handsome hunk Chris Hemsworth to play him. Hemsworth does a fine job of capturing Hunt’s voice and his swashbuckling, devil- may-care approach to life. Daniel Bruhl is equally impressive as the ambitious, obsessively dedicated Lauda, a man whose only pleasure appears to have been in winning. They offer a striking study in extreme contrasts during the legendary Formula One season of 1976 when the prospect of death was a constant shadow on the racing circuit.
The focus on the two men leaves the women in their lives as sketchily drawn bystanders, but once the film takes to the race track nothing matters except the roar of the engines and the bloody-minded determination of two very different but equally charismatic individuals. Even if you run a mile from Top Gear, this is still exciting stuff. (Allan Hunter) ■ General release from Fri 13 Sep.
22 Aug–19 Sep 2013 THE LIST 55