FILM | Reviews
SCI-FI ELYSIUM (15) 109min ●●●●●
Having dazzled with his breathtaking debut District 9, director Neill Blomkamp returns in equally emphatic fashion with Elysium. Bigger and more spectacular, courtesy of the extra budget afforded to him in the wake of the success of his debut, the film still manages to retain an intelligence that is increasingly lacking from mainstream cinema as well as some superb action set pieces. Set in 2154, a polluted and decaying Earth has been left to the poor by the rich, who now live in a space station (the Elysium of the title) hovering above the planet. The film follows ex-con Max (Matt Damon) as he attempts to get to Elysium in order to save his own life, which has recently been compromised. Pitted against him are various businessmen and women (William Fichtner, Jodie Foster) and a psychopathic sleeper agent (Sharlto Copley), all of whom have their own agenda.
Blomkamp’s film adopts the same gritty, no-nonsense feel that he employed to such
notable effect in District 9, while also revisiting some of that movie’s themes – most notably attitudes towards immigrants and the divide between the world’s richest and poorest. After introducing the film’s many characters, he also employs a genuinely exciting race against time scenario, with Damon’s muscular Max becoming an unlikely saviour not just to himself but the rest of the planet.
If there are some problems, they mostly stem from the sheer weight of the film’s
ambitions, which occasionally undermine its emotional impact as Blomkamp attempts to pay lip service to them all, while nods to other sci-fi classics are clever but unnecessary and threaten to make the film feel more generic. But for the most part, Elysium is a thrilling blockbuster that marries intelligence with spectacle to striking effect and confirms Blomkamp as the new king of the genre in the process. (Rob Carnevale) ■ Out on general release now.
RE-ISSUE PLEIN SOLEIL (PG) 115min ●●●●●
Patricia Highsmith was spot on when she remarked that René Clément’s 1960 adaptation of her novel The Talented Mr Ripley was ‘very beautiful to the eye and interesting for the intellect’. Filmed on location in Rome, Naples and islands off the Italian mainland, and featuring glorious sun-drenched cinematography by Henri Decaë, watching Plein Soleil (or Purple Noon) is a transporting experience. No doubt Highsmith was also referring to the beauty of the film’s male lead, a young and impossibly handsome Alain Delon, whose looks and ice-cold turn as the killer Tom Ripley made him a star.
Clément’s film of Highsmith’s book also gives us plenty to think about. The plot, in which the talented
but impoverished Ripley is hired by the wealthy American father of an old friend to bring the rich kid home from Italy, serves to highlight the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Once Ripley realises his friend, Philippe Greanleaf (Maurice Ronet), has become bored with his company, he hatches a plan to murder him and assume his identity. Plein Soleil is a masterpiece. It defined the career of its director, who became known as the
French Hitchcock. Now restored (to celebrate Delon’s career at Cannes this year), Decaë’s photography and Nino Rota’s alternately cool and chilling score look and sound superb. (Miles Fielder) ■ Limited release from Fri 30 Aug.
56 THE LIST 22 Aug–19 Sep 2013
ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT TIME (12A) 123min ●●●●●
Things weren’t looking good for Richard Curtis for a while there. Love Actually was tepid slush and The Boat That Rocked sunk. The witty scribe behind Blackadder and Four Weddings appeared to have lost his mojo whenever he occupied the director’s chair. Happily, About Time bucks the trend. An out-and-out
romance with equal helpings of comedy and drama, it follows Tim (an eminently likeable Domhnall Gleeson), who learns from his dad (Bill Nighy) that he’s capable of time travel. Armed with this new skill, Tim embarks upon a quest for love – and believes he’s found it in the form of Mary (Rachel McAdams).
The presence of certain Curtis hallmarks – a charming if slightly bumbling Englishman; a free-spirited American love interest; a strong supporting cast of assorted upper-middle class eccentrics – verge on over-familiarity, but they provide a solid contrast for the time travel stuff.
The thing that really raises About Time above its romcom contemporaries, though, is the equal weight given to Tim’s two great loves. His relationship with Mary is charming and delightful, but his interactions with the exuberant Nighy are what gives the film its considerable heart. (Niki Boyle) ■ General release from Wed 4 Sep.
DRAMA LOVELACE (18) 93min ●●●●●
‘Can we start with an easier question?’ asks our subject, when compelled to confirm that her name is Linda Lovelace. Linda Boreman became Linda Traynor when, in her early twenties, she wed shady strip club proprietor Chuck Traynor. She adopted her most famous identity when she began appearing in porn films, including Deep Throat, a hardcore flick with a mainstream-friendly comedy narrative which would become the most famous porn film of all time. After leaving both Traynor and the sex industry, she told her grim version of the Deep Throat story in a book entitled Ordeal. This long-gestating biopic covers all bases by starting with a groovy, Boogie Nights-style take on the Lovelace story before switching perspective to show Linda in a state of relentless degradation at Chuck’s hands. It’s a somewhat simplistic dichotomy but Amanda Seyfried does a good job managing the contradictions of her character, and her co-stars Sharon Stone and Peter Sarsgaard keep the pace. It’s just that taking a sensational swoop from one extreme to another is an approach that doesn’t tell us much about a very complicated case of coercion and collusion, pleasure and profit, sex and politics. (Hannah McGill) ■ General release from Fri 23 Aug.