FILM | Reviews
DRAMA LUCKY (15) 88min ●●●●●
An elegant, deeply moving meditation on life and death, Lucky is made all the more bittersweet following the passing of its star, Harry Dean Stanton. As a eulogy, it couldn’t be more i tting for an actor who played a chameleonic range of characters, but was always resolutely recognisable. Stanton is proud, poised and utterly perfect in a role based around his own worldview. Cantankerous yet charming, Lucky is a committed atheist who takes a quiet pleasure in life – and, indeed, in causing some mischief – while coming to terms with his own end.
The i lm does little more than follow Lucky as he goes about his well-worn daily routine. If some moments work better than others – the sharing of stories with Tom Skerritt’s fellow army veteran, a hilarious strand involving the missing turtle of Howard (David Lynch) – the interactions combine to create a richly textured portrait of a fascinating man. With his directorial debut, character actor John Carroll Lynch avoids the temptation to introduce any major arc. Instead Lucky’s success rests largely with Stanton’s wonderful central performance. The i lm is a true celebration of a life well-lived, both for its protagonist and its incomparable star. (Nikki Baughan) ■ Selected release from Fri 14 Sep.
DRAMA THE WIFE (15) 100min ●●●●●
The tradition of thanking one’s spouse when accepting an accolade becomes quite the provocation in Björn Runge’s gripping marital discord drama, adapted by Emmy-winning writer Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s novel. Built around a gloriously contained performance from Glenn Close that bristles with resentment, it sees a relationship unravel in tandem with the audience’s assumptions.
The i lm follows acclaimed novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan
Pryce) as he travels to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. By his side is stalwart spouse Joan (Close); although describing herself as a ‘kingmaker’, the strain of living in the author’s shadow, tending to his needs and making small talk as he basks in the adoration is starting to show. If the l ashbacks are less persuasive than the main narrative
(Close’s daughter Annie Starke plays the younger Joan but her performance is, by comparison, a touch l at) they do at least form a crucial part of the puzzle. The Wife crackles with contemporary angst, with lines bemoaning old men declaring the genius of other old men, while i rst impressions are left in tatters in a i lm that delights in letting the scales slowly fall from our eyes. (Emma Simmonds) ■ General release from Fri 28 Sep.
ROMANCE COLD WAR (15) 88min ●●●●●
The love of a lifetime takes everything you have in Cold War, an exquisite heartbreaker from Ida director Pawel Pawlikowski. Dedicated to his parents and shot in ravishing black and white, it offers a stunning marriage of haunting imagery and heartfelt emotion.
Beginning in the rubble of post-war Poland, the i lm feels like being given privileged access to a cherished album of family photographs. In 1949, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is among those charged with establishing a propagandist music and dance academy that will celebrate the country’s folk traditions. He is struck by the i ery spirit and vocal talent of Zula (Ida’s Joanna Kulig).
It is the giddy spark that lights a passionate relationship which unfolds in music halls and hotels – from the repressive, melancholy gloom of Soviet domination to the high- risk freedoms of a jazzy, smoke-i lled Paris in the 1950s. Jealousy, betrayal and eternal devotion all play their part in a romance that is constantly at the mercy of the era’s politics but also rel ects wider tensions within the country.
Steeped in song, this could almost be a musical: dance numbers are staged with
exuberance, jazz club performances smoulder, lyrics sigh with emotion. It is a treat for the eyes, with shots of a ruined church in Poland, a languorous night-time trip on the Seine, or anxious i gures silhouetted against a window having the quality of something Murnau might have composed in silent-era Hollywood. Kulig is the heart and soul of the i lm with her emotion-charged singing and ability to
convey the i re and frustration of a woman for whom love becomes the most dangerous act of all. Every bit as beguiling as its Oscar-winning predecessor, Cold War is one of the i lms of the year. (Allan Hunter) ■ Out now.
GHOST STORY THE LITTLE STRANGER (12A) 111min ●●●●●
Things go bump in the night but not as frequently as you’d expect in this convention-defying take on the ghost story which weaves toxic masculinity into its prim 1940s setting. Based on the novel by Sarah Waters, it’s directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Room) and features startling, career-best work from Domhnall Gleeson. We meet Warwickshire doctor Faraday (Gleeson) as he befriends impoverished nobles the Ayres family, with whom he has long been infatuated, visiting them i rst professionally and then in pursuit of Caroline (Ruth Wilson). His efforts are overshadowed by the appearance of a supernatural presence with links to a family tragedy. Abrahamson resists the desire to rev things up dramatically or skip to the scares.
Wilson is mesmerising as a sensible country lass, even if references to her being dowdy are ludicrous. And yet the show is stolen by Gleeson, who nails the growing resentment behind the good doctor’s stiff, sensible exterior as the i lm cleverly dismantles Faraday’s sense of romantic entitlement and i xation with the upper-classes. Those expecting a Woman in Black-style histrionic chiller will undoubtedly be disappointed but it does deliver some haunting performances. (Emma Simmonds) ■ General release from Fri 21 Sep.
62 THE LIST 1 Sep–31 Oct 2018