FILM | Reviews
BIOPIC MOLLY’S GAME (15) 140min ●●●●●
Although she’s revisiting old ground here, Jessica Chastain freshens it up enough to make this just about worth your while. As in Miss Sloane, Chastain plays a woman who is better than she seems. Based on the memoir of competitive skier turned ‘poker princess’ Molly Bloom, it’s the directorial debut of wonder-scribe Aaron Sorkin.
We watch Molly pick herself up after a career-ending sports injury before establishing a hugely profitable poker game, which ultimately gets her arrested. By keeping things strictly professional, Molly irks some of her male associates, while others find her success an affront. We learn as much about poker as our protagonist in a film that’s shamelessly indulgent and therefore runs a little long. Much can be forgiven due to the pleasure of listening to Sorkin’s machine-gun fast, target-obliterating dialogue, which Chastain and Idris Elba, playing Molly’s attorney, make fly. Sadly, the feminist skew is undermined by the script’s preoccupation with Molly’s daddy issues; the sight of a twinkly eyed Kevin Costner imparting patronising pearls of wisdom is unwelcome, but Molly’s Game should still be cheered for putting a dysfunctional yet dignified female at the fore. (Emma Simmonds) ■ General release from Tue 26 Dec.
BIOPIC STRONGER (15) 119min ●●●●● David Gordon Green’s dramatisation of Jeff Bauman’s rehabilitation following the Boston Marathon bombing avoids many of the usual pitfalls of the ‘road to recovery’ film. Bauman (played here by Jake Gyllenhaal) is waiting at the finish line for his on/off girlfriend Erin Hurley (Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany) when a bomb explodes, resulting in the amputation of both his lower legs. John Pollono adapts Bauman’s memoir with a focus on the huge range of emotions experienced by both Erin and Jeff. Green doesn’t shy away from the practical consequences of Jeff’s injuries, with Gyllenhaal’s physical commitment as impactful as his ability to communicate inner turmoil. Maslany shines in a juicy role, playing a young woman in her prime craving freedom and wrestling with her conscience. Miranda Richardson is great too as Jeff’s mother Patty, who pressurises her son to appear on talk shows while he defiantly resists his new role as a symbol of strength. The impressive performances have the potential to attract awards nominations and deservedly so, yet as Green and Pollono move focus away from these characters to take in the bigger picture, their story assumes a more conventional shape. (Katherine McLaughlin) ■ General release from Fri 8 Dec.
DRAMA HAPPY END (15) 108min ●●●●●
Michael Haneke has spent more than 30 years mercilessly exposing the fears and hypocrisies of the middle classes. Slow-burning ensemble drama Happy End is no exception as it focuses on a powerful, privileged family living near Calais, who are seemingly oblivious to everything that is happening right on their doorstep.
Haneke is never one to spell things out and here he proceeds through the lives of the
Laurent family like someone trying to tiptoe through a minefield. Every once in a while there is a small narrative explosion in which a character is revealed more sharply, or we gain a different perspective on events. Key plot developments sometimes happen off screen and there are confrontations and conversations that are seen from afar but never heard. There is a constant sense of unease at what we might learn next. We do know that 12-year-old Eve (Fantine Harduin) is capable of murder and that 85-year- old patriarch Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) wants to commit suicide. Once we meet the rest of the family it is easy to understand why. It says a lot about a Haneke film that Isabelle Huppert as Georges’ daughter Anne seems to be the most straightforward character. This is a family mired in dirty little secrets and self-absorption, where Anne’s guilt-ridden son Pierre (Franz Rogowski) may be the only one with a conscience. He creates the toe-curling moments at family gatherings, drunkenly describing servant Jamila (Nabiha Akkari) as their ‘Moroccan slave’.
Happy End doesn’t have quite the hypnotic intensity of Haneke’s Palme d’Or winners Amour and The White Ribbon but it is bleak and pitiless, combining black comedy and brutal satire as it showcases the horror of bourgeois complacency. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 1 Dec.
DRAMA BEACH RATS (15) 96min ●●●●● There is an old-fashioned feel to Eliza Hittman’s moody second feature Beach Rats, a film that immerses itself in the lives of young, inarticulate boys who drift through an aimless summer in Brooklyn. Teenager Frankie (rising British star Harris Dickinson) has the ‘sad, blue eyes’ and chiselled looks of an Abercrombie & Fitch model. As his father dies of cancer, Frankie hangs out with his mates, scoring drugs, chasing girls and surrendering to the tawdry delights of Coney Island. He also starts to spend time in internet chat rooms, meeting up for after-dark
trysts with older men. Hélène Louvart’s grainy, low-lit cinematography lends an anxious, furtive quality to the night scenes, while a fleeting image of the Statue of Liberty hints at bigger themes. Our hero’s tale is a timeless one of the struggle to be true to yourself, intensified by a world in
which he feels pressure to conform to macho values. Self-loathing plays a part in Frankie’s search for his heart’s desire and you suspect that this will end badly. Hittman strains to avoid that cliché and the impressive Dickinson brings just enough anguish and confusion to his performance, making Frankie a character you decide to care about. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 24 Nov.
88 THE LIST 1 Nov 2017–31 Jan 2018