list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
DRAMA PHILOMENA (12A) 97min ●●●●●
BIOPIC LOVE, MARILYN (12A) 107min ●●●●● ACTION ESCAPE PLAN (15) 115min ●●●●●
What with The Look of Love, What Maisie Knew and the big-screen outing for Alan Partridge, it’s been a fruitful year for Steve Coogan. Yet top of the pile might just be Philomena which has already seen him and co-writer Jeff Pope awarded Best Screenplay at the recent Venice Film Festival. Based on political journalist Martin Sixsmith’s book
The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, and directed by Stephen Frears, the crux sees Sixsmith encounter Philomena (Judi Dench), an Irish Catholic who has kept a secret for fifty years. As a teen Philomena fell pregnant and her family had her put away in a convent. After the birth, the nuns forced her to give her child up for adoption. Sixsmith finds himself helping Philomena look for her son and what they discover is both surprising and touching. Frears directs events in his usual unfussy,
unpretentious manner, letting the actors explore the scenes to the max. What will surprise most, perhaps, is Coogan’s thoughtful turn as the impartial newsman who becomes incensed by his discoveries. Dealing with issues of faith and forgiveness, the film may lack the potency of Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters, but in its own quiet way, Philomena is just as powerful. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 1 Nov.
Half a century after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains a source of fascination, speculation and myth-making. Using a recently discovered hoard of personal papers, Liz Garbus’ documentary tells the Monroe story with a mixture of well-chosen archive interviews (Jack Lemmon, Arthur Miller, Laurence Olivier, Billy Wilder etc) and staged readings of her journals and correspondence by a stellar (although sometimes surprisingly stilted) cast that includes Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Marisa Tomei, Lindsay Lohan and Uma Thurman. The film goes some way to giving Marilyn a voice
in her own story. The diaries and journals reveal a woman desperate to read more, work harder and become a better performer. They are also heartbreaking in the sense of loneliness, insecurity and unhappiness that is conveyed. Although a little mannered in places, Love, Marilyn comes vividly alive in some of the readings, with Oliver Platt on fine form reading Billy Wilder’s letters and Jeremy Piven enjoying himself as a chatty Elia Kazan. It doesn’t provide blinding new insight into Monroe’s life but it is filled with less familiar newsreel footage and decent movie clips and has some brief, invaluable glimpses of a troubled inner life. (Allan Hunter) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 25–Sun 27 Oct.
Having once been fierce box office rivals, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are fast becoming inseparable co-stars. Following hot on the heels of The Expendables, Escape Plan places the two ageing action icons front and centre. And their engaging double act almost papers over the cracks of a heavily flawed movie. Stallone plays prison escape expert Ray Breslin
who reluctantly agrees to an off-the-books government offer to test a new facility for the world’s most dangerous criminals. Once there, however, he finds himself double crossed and at the mercy of the prison’s sadistic warden Willard Hobbes (Jim Caviezel). In order to get out, he must team up with fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who has also been singled out for special attention by the warden for his links to a criminal mastermind.
Mikael Hafstrom’s film would have you believe it’s more intelligent than it really is because of the puzzle-solving nature of Breslin’s predicament, but much of it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. A colourful supporting cast, including Sam Neill, Vincent D’Onofrio and Amy Ryan, lend extra gravitas but Escape Plan is ultimately disposable, even expendable, hokum. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Fri 18 Oct.
THRILLER CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (12A) 133min ●●●●●
British director Paul Greengrass is something of a specialist when it comes to recreating fraught real life events – whether it be the Northern Irish massacre in Bloody Sunday or the 9/11 plane hijacking in United 93. His latest film, Captain Phillips, is also based on a true story – albeit of a lesser-known kind. Set in 2009, it follows what happens when a Mombasa-bound container ship, led by one Captain Richard Phillips, is boarded by Somali pirates.
After a brief prologue, the bulk of the film is set at sea. It doesn’t take long for the pirates – led by the ruthless Muse (Barkhad Abdi) – to appear, despite the resourceful Phillips initially trying to repel their lightweight sea vessel with water cannons. Boarding the ship, they arrive armed, dangerous and on very short fuses. For all of the film’s intense exchanges between Phillips and his
captors, it doesn’t quite measure up to A Hijacking, the Danish- made drama released earlier this year, which wrung every ounce of drama out of the tense negotiations between the kidnappers and the shipping company owners. Here, the second half moves into more confined territory, as Phillips’ actions lead him into a scenario that fans of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty might appreciate.
No stranger to solo outings like Cast Away, even amid the grandstanding, Hanks is well equipped to carry the film, and his showdowns with Abdi are particularly riveting. One notable scene, close to the end, sees an emotional outpouring that betters virtually anything he’s done on screen. Matching this, Greengrass’ ever-probing camera work lends the film a documentary-like urgency – even if the movie rarely stops to consider the moral and social implications of piracy. In the end, it’s all about the drama on the high seas. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 18 Oct.
17 Oct–14 Nov 2013 THE LIST 69