list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
HORROR IT FOLLOWS (15) 100min ●●●●●
BIOPIC KILL THE MESSENGER (TBC) 112min ●●●●● THRILLER CATCH ME DADDY (15) 112min ●●●●●
David Robert Mitchell continues his visually arresting exploration of teenage life with a magnificent Halloween-referencing horror that puts its own spin on the slasher. The leafy streets of suburban Michigan in which Mitchell shot his debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, take on a nightmarish quality here, intensified by a throbbing synth score. When Jay (Maika Monroe) hooks up with a new lover, her life is turned upside down as he reveals that he’s infected her with a deadly curse. From the off, as a panic-stricken teen flees the supposed safety of her home, an unsettling ambience is established, which trickles down through every fibre of the film.
Skilful camerawork draws the viewer enticingly in, while the sexually transmitted monster manifests itself as a shape-shifter, determinedly stalking its prey in the same manner as Michael Myers. Though sex forms the start of a fearful journey it is also revealed as a potential saviour, confirming Mitchell’s modern and mature approach. It Follows is spine- tingling cinema that nods at, and lives up to, the masters: it’s both strikingly sensitive and utterly disturbing. (Katherine McLaughlin) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 Feb.
‘Some stories are just too true to tell,’ warns federal prosecutor Fred Weil (Michael Sheen) in director Michael Cuesta’s crime drama, which recounts the real-life experiences of reporter Gary Webb. Played with considerable spark by Jeremy Renner, we watch Webb uncover a series of inconvenient truths relating to CIA activities in South America. Going against the prevailing journalistic apathy to expose these issues triggers a cover-up and a government smear campaign, while pressures mount at home. Cuesta’s choice of title, taken from Nick Schou’s book about Webb, nails the point of the story too easily; rather than focusing attention on government corruption, Webb only managed to turn attention towards himself. Sporting a thick moustache and retro-shades, Renner imbues Webb with the requisite manic energy, and the experienced supporting cast - including Sheen, Oliver Platt, Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta - add to the grimy sense of duplicity. The problem with Cuesta’s film is that, like Webb, it struggles to disengage from the material involved. Kill the Messenger feels too much like a polemic, and too little like a human drama, failing to entertain as well as it informs. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 6 Mar.
Positioned somewhere between a contemporary Romeo and Juliet and a fatalistic film noir, Catch Me Daddy marks a grimly impressive debut from music promo director Daniel Wolfe and his brother Matthew, who co-writes. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan offers a bleak vision of the Yorkshire Moors where teenager Laila (newcomer Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) and her boyfriend Aaron (Conor McCarron from Neds) have taken temporary sanctuary from her disapproving family.
Laila’s brother Zaheer is on their trail, intent on
returning his sister to their father and avenging the family’s honour. Gormless psycho Barry and his coke-sniffing sidekick Tony are also closing in. The first half is rich in atmosphere, presenting an unflinching vision of a broken Britain, of dead-end lives where drugs are a currency and comfort, before the film evolves into a more conventional thriller, peppered with moments of shocking violence. The Pakistani pursuers are little more than one-dimensional thugs and the ending may frustrate, but this is still a debut of great promise from a British duo intent on matching poetic style with gritty substance. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 Feb.
DRAMA STILL ALICE (12A) 101min ●●●●●
‘I wish I had cancer,’ rages Alice (Julianne Moore). The focus might be soft and the music melancholy but, make no mistake, Still Alice is furious. This film from directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland sees a celebrated intellectual ravaged by Alzheimer’s at the age of just 50, destroying every semblance of the indomitable woman she once was.
Dr Alice Howland is a professor of linguistics at Columbia, her specialism making her fate especially cruel. She’s also a superwoman, having raised three children as her career soared. When Alice starts to forget words she consults a neurologist who makes a swift, devastating diagnosis. Husband John (Alec Baldwin) buries his head in work but the news brings her closer to youngest daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart). The focus on Alice denies us insight into the real reactions of
the rest of the family: Baldwin in particular is short-changed as is Kate Bosworth as Anna, Alice’s brittle eldest who has inherited the gene that causes the condition, but whose response to that is tricky to gauge. The film is also hobbled by a naff, TV-movie aesthetic and jarringly mawkish score. Yet Oscar favourite Moore gives us raw heartache, running the gauntlet from fear to fury to powerless frustration before she’s barely there at all. It’s a display of acting alchemy: as the disease digs in, the spark goes out of her eyes.
Still Alice is more than a platform for a great performance: the substantial script ensures that this is a credibly angry tale. It confronts us by showing the merciless, terrifying trajectory of this degenerative disease, acting as a surprisingly incendiary reminder that the fight against it has barely even begun. (Emma Simmonds) ■ General release from Fri 6 March.
5 Feb–2 Apr 2015 THE LIST 61 5 Feb–2 Apr 2015 THE LIST 61