list.co.uk/film REVIEWS | FILM
SPORTING BIOPIC THE KEEPER (15) 119min ●●●●● HOSTAGE DRAMA BEL CANTO (15) 101min ●●●●●
Historically footie flicks do not fare well, presumably because enthusiasts of the beautiful game prefer watching football. So, writer-director Marcus H Rosenmüller has thrown everything and the kitchen sink into his fanciful biopic of Bert Trautmann (played by David Kross from The Reader), a German paratrooper who, on his release from a Lancashire POW camp, chose to stay in England, eventually becoming goalkeeper for Manchester City. What starts off in prisoner-of-war territory morphs
into a story of forbidden love, with English rose Margaret (Freya Mavor), until Bert’s prospective father-in-law (John Henshaw) gleefully capitalises on Trautmann’s skills to change the fortunes of the pitiful local team. Then, it’s a straight run to football glory when City sign Bert amid furious protests, before his miraculous saves turn the jeers to cheers.
It’s reasonably pleasant for about 90-minutes, yet goes on and on as tragedies strike and things culminate in a ludicrously melodramatic turn. Kross is very good and he and Mavor make an attractive couple but the film fudges their romance. The truer and better story to have dwelt on is the reconciliation between enemies, brought about by a love of the game. (Angie Errigo) ■ General release from Fri 5 Apr.
Inspired by a real-life hostage crisis, Bel Canto is a tale of terrorism shorn of Hollywood heroics. Based on the award-winning novel by Ann Patchett, the first surprising thing to learn is that the director of American Pie, Paul Weitz, is at the helm. Set in an unnamed South American country, it begins as opera singer Roxanne Coss (Julianne Moore) arrives to perform at a diplomatic dinner. Despite her slight disdain for the gig, she’s been specially requested by incoming Japanese industrialist Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe). No sooner has she started warbling than a bunch of armed rebels invade the house, demanding the release of political prisoners. Weitz and his co-writer Anthony Weintraub clearly want us to sympathise with the captors as much as the captives and, while this makes for an intriguing dynamic, the execution is flawed. Moore may be a fine actress, but her lip-synched vocals really don’t work. And, turning a taut terrorist drama into a love story as characters pair off and passions flow is not without its problems. Despite adeptly handling a multi-lingual storyline, Weitz can’t seem to decide what kind of film he wants this to be, although the haunting finale still hits home. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 26 Apr.
DRAMA HAPPY AS LAZZARO (12A) 127min ●●●●●
The protagonist in Alice Rohrwacher’s gorgeous Italian fable is too good for this world, so good, in fact, that he simply disappears at one point. The other characters whisper his name as if he is a mystical being, and Adriano Tardiolo evokes such innocence and purity through his gentle performance – playing a peasant manipulated by a cruel employer – that you can’t help but feel protective of him. Rohrwacher’s previous feature The Wonders
blended nature and fantastical elements but never shifted its focus away from the perils of modern life and how it works its way into tranquil rural settings. Here, she places her characters in a peculiar position with a resurrection of sorts. Around the midway point it is revealed that Lazzaro and his colleagues have been working as slaves and they are saved. However, when we meet them a decade later they are still being exploited, this time in an urban environment.
Happy as Lazzaro is occasionally a little on the nose but, thanks to the empathetic presentation of its saintly protagonist and Rohrwacher’s knack for depicting convincing and intimate communities, this journey through a broken economy is an emotionally engaging triumph. (Katherine McLaughlin) ■ Selected release from Fri 5 Apr.
WESTERN THE SISTERS BROTHERS (15) 122min ●●●●●
Bad blood runs in torrents through The Sisters Brothers, both in the violent altercations that are part of daily life in the expanding American West, and in the themes of revenge, responsibility and redemption.
As a pair of guns for hire in 1850s Oregon, brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly, both excellent) stake their lives on the might of their reputation and accuracy of their gunmanship. While they are two very different people – Charlie thrives on the cutthroat nature of their business, Eli longs for a more peaceful life – they are tied together through bonds of family and shared experience. The brothers are tasked with tracking down Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), an unassuming chemist who has invented a foolproof method for panning for gold. However, their plans are thwarted when their supposed ally John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal) teams up with Warm and goes on the run.
The western might seem like a strange fit for French director Jacques Audiard, after low-key works like A Prophet and Rust and Bone. Yet his first English-language film – an adaptation of the beloved novel by Patrick DeWitt – provides him with a perfect landscape. This spit and sawdust world is the ideal prism through which to explore the ways that place and tradition shape character and masculinity, ideas that have been central to his earlier works.
Underscoring its themes, and shooting in breathtaking CinemaScope, cinematographer Benoît Debie hews close to genre traditions, while taking care to capture the often agonising intimacy of the story. Similarly, Alexandre Desplat’s energetic, wistful score reverberates, like the film itself, with both hopeful optimism and resigned melancholy. (Nikki Baughan) ■ General release from Fri 5 Apr.
1 Apr–31 May 2019 THE LIST 79