FILM | Reviews
BIOPIC – ROMANCE LOVING (12A) 123min ●●●●●
In the still of the night in Caroline County, Virginia, on July 11 1958, the local sheriff’s department entered the home of interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving to arrest them. Their crime was simply being married in an era of intolerance and they were banned from the state, prompting a long legal battle.
Writer-director Jeff Nichols approaches their story with his usual understated assurance. He trusts his actors to quietly convey their rage and paranoia, which in turn creates an uneasy mood. Joel Edgerton completely convinces as Richard with his slimmed-down appearance, cropped hair and stoic swagger. Ruth Negga shines as Mildred too, her pensive stares communicating a multitude of emotion, her growth in confidence subtly relayed. Nichols shows how their relationship shifts under the strain, and how their love prevails against the odds. Observing them is photographer Grey Villet (Michael Shannon), a friendly presence and skilled raconteur. You see him take a picture of the pair laying on their sofa, giggling in front of a comedy show. This joyful image is revealed at the end of the film, where it acts as a wonderful reminder of precisely what the couple were fighting for. (Katherine McLaughlin) ■ General release from Fri 3 Feb.
BIOPIC – DRAMA HIDDEN FIGURES (PG) 127min ●●●●●
COMEDY DRAMA T2 TRAINSPOTTING (18) 117min ●●●●●
‘Nostalgia . . . that’s why you’re here . . . a tourist in your own youth,’ Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) tells a reformed Renton (Ewan McGregor) in Danny Boyle’s long-awaited Trainspotting sequel, although he might as well be talking to us. It’s 21 years since Irvine Welsh’s junkie anti-heroes hit the big screen, but T2 arrives right on time – perfect for an age that’s pining for the past. So is it good? Is it Archie-Gemmill-scoring-against-Holland-good? Yes it is.
Loosely based on Welsh’s follow-up novel Porno, it sees Renton return to Edinburgh from Amsterdam, two decades on from stealing from his mates. Ewen Bremner’s Spud is still on smack. Robert Carlyle’s incarcerated Francis Begbie has just been turned down for parole. And Sick Boy is running his aunt’s knackered pub, scheming to turn it into a brothel. To say more would spoil returning writer John Hodge’s blood-pumping script, aside from
revealing it wholly ditches the porn movie plot from Welsh’s book. With themes of friendship and betrayal present again, resentment and guilt festers away like an open sore. Shot by Anthony Dod Mantle, from Arthur’s Seat to condemned high-rises, Edinburgh is captured in all its beauty and squalor, while footage is mixed in from the original like ghosts passing through.
The major players thrive, though Carlyle shines brightest as he once again dons the tache of the psychotic Begbie. The soundtrack teases us with strains from the first film, combined with everything from Queen to Wolf Alice to Vera Lynn. It isn’t the to-die-for jukebox from before, but how could it be? Far from destroying its predecessor’s legacy, T2 builds on it with characters that are older, sadder and definitely not wiser. Heroin chic is making a comeback. (James Mottram) ■ Out now.
DRAMA FENCES (12A) 139min ●●●●● Denzel Washington gives a towering performance in the long-awaited screen adaptation of playwright August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Fences. Washington, who also directs, knows it like the back of his hand, having played protagonist Troy Maxson in the 2010 Broadway revival. He has reunited the adult ensemble of that production, including Viola Davis as Troy’s long-suffering wife Rose. It is set in 1950s Pittsburgh where Troy is a proud working stiff, full of resentment that he never realised his potential as a sportsman. Wilson specifically articulates the African-
Hidden Figures is the true story of the forgotten mathematicians behind the NASA space programme. That these overlooked boffins were African-American women makes Theodore Melfi’s biopic extra intriguing. His adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s book, penned with Allison Schroeder, is a character-driven drama that handles its racially segregated American backdrop with care and is just as much about sexism in the workplace. Beginning in 1961, at NASA’s Virginia HQ, centre-stage is Katherine G Johnson (Taraji P Henson), a maths genius plucked from the computer room to work with those calculating rocket trajectories. While she’s not even permitted to use the whites-only bathroom, her friends fare little better – with Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) and Mary (Janelle Monáe) respectively denied promotion and education rights.
American experience but the complex relationships will be understood by people everywhere. Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons are ignorant NASA
The film was shot – beautifully – on location in Wilson’s old working class Pittsburgh neighbourhood. What will not be to everyone’s taste is the sense of importance that can weigh heavily, and the running time that Washington seemingly couldn’t bear to cut. However, it is undeniably a work of great compassion, humour and wisdom, enacted with ferocious passion. Washington and the gut- wrenchingly brilliant Davis won Tonys for their performances on Broadway. For this not to get any Oscars love would really be a scandal. (Angie Errigo) ■ General release from Fri 10 Feb.
employees, while Kevin Costner – as Johnson’s ‘colour-blind’ boss, a man desperate to beat the Russians into space – is superb in a role he was born to play. Hidden Figures emerges as an inspirational story about collective triumph – showing that if we all work together, regardless of race or gender, the impossible can be achieved. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 17 Feb.
58 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2017