F
www.venue.co.uk/subs 0117 934 3741 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW MONTHLY VENUE – JUST £2.99
For film listings and more reviews visit venue.co.uk/film
Review Beginners (15) “I hate to have to break this to you, but you’ve just had the dog’s dinner”
USA 2011 104 mins Dir: Mike Mills Starring: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic // Mike Mills has said that he loathes terms like ‘quirky’ and ‘indie’ being applied to his films. Perhaps he should have thought about that before making his definitively indiequirky debut, ‘Thumbsucker’: a drama
about a sensitive, dysfunctional 17-year-old suburban wuss, soundtracked by suicidal singersongwriter Elliot Smith. Six years on, this semi-autobiographical follow-up seems much more promising, being the story of Oliver (McGregor), whose recently widowed, 75-year-old father Hal (Plummer) announces that he’s gay. What’s more, Hal insists that
he has no intention of being merely “theoretically gay”; he plans to indulge his belatedly acknowledged homosexuality to the full. Plummer is on vintage form as the spry, newly light-in-the-loafers twilight years clubber who acquires a devoted young lover (Visnjic) looking for a father figure and conceals from him the fact that he has terminal lung cancer. Had this been the focus of ‘Beginners’, as the advance publicity implied, the film might have been more enjoyable than it is. Instead, Mills proceeds to get – you guessed it! – indie-quirky on our asses with a non-linear narrative and a painfully cute relationship developing between glum graphic artist Oliver and French
actress Anna (Laurent), who do such achingly indie-quirky things as rollerskating down hotel corridors with Hal’s talking Jack Russell (he speaks in subtitles, obviously). They also have pals who indulge in spray painting cod-meaningful indie-quirky graffiti like ‘YOU MAKE ME LAUGH BUT ITS NOT FUNNY’ (their punctuation). To be fair, anyone who made it through ‘(500) Days of Summer’ without feeling slightly queasy may find themselves beguiled; everyone else will probably yearn for more of Hal’s lust for the life that is ebbing away from him. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
with the tobacconist’s wife. There’s no shortage of contenders: an old flame (Cavalli), momma’s buxom carer Kristina (Cepraga), the hot party girl neighbour (Prandi) whose dog he walks… But Gianni is alarmed to find that advancing years bring with them an invisibility to young women, and those who do notice him treat him as a grandfatherly figure. There’s much male menopausal disappointment to enjoy here, but it isn’t quite as focused as ‘Mid-August Lunch’, being more episodic and veering in tone from bittersweet to the kind of broad comedy that wouldn’t be out of place in a US teenflick: notably
Gianni denying enjoying stereotypical male fantasies
at Boston Zoo decide to help him out, breaking their code of silence to reveal that they have the voices of the likes of Cher, Sylvester Stallone, Adam Sandler, and so on. But while the animals are sharing their mating rituals, Griffin fails to notice Miss Right in the lovely form of co-worker Kate (Dawson). Yep, it’s a film about a fat bloke who falls over a lot, making him
mysteriously attractive to a brace of hot women. While this might fulfil the fantasy needs of a section of the accompanying dad audience, restless kids are likely to feel shortchanged. When a miserable gorilla in solitary confinement asks, “Is TGI Fridays as incredible as it looks?” it’s difficult to decide what’s more depressing: the unfortunate ape being robbed of his dignity or the astonishing product placement that develops into a five-minute commercial. (Robin Askew) HHHHH
website focusfeatures.com/beginners Now showing
Review The Salt of Life (12A) Italy 2010 89 mins Subtitles Dir: Gianni Di Gregorio Starring: Gianni Di Gregorio, Valeria De Franciscis, Alfonso Santagata, Elisabetta Piccolomini, Aylin Prandi, Teresa Di Gregorio, Kristina Cepraga, Valeria Cavalli // Less solipsistic and annoying than his self-consciously upmarket fellow countryman Nanni Moretti, who operates in similar territory, writer/ director Gianni Di Gregorio won a heap of international film festival awards for his 2008 directorial debut, ‘Mid-August Lunch’. In this sequel of sorts, Di Gregorio plays another frustrated and put-upon middle-aged gent named Gianni,
who remains firmly under the thumb of his imperious mother (played, as before, by redoubtable 95-year-old Valeria De Franciscis). That’s where the similarities end, however, as this Gianni is a retired, married chap with a teenage daughter (Teresa Di Gregorio - yes, his real-life daughter). We first meet him trying to hoodwink the profligate yet sharp-witted old crone into signing over control of her property. Gianni’s silver-haired lothario of a lawyer, Alfonso (Santagata), then suggests that what he really needs is an affair. After all, everybody’s at it. Even the unappealing, tracksuit-wearing old barfly down the road is carrying on
Gianni’s inadvertent acid trip and his desperate race to find a brothel before his Viagra-induced erection subsides. (Robin Askew) HHHHH website www.corriere.it/giannieledonne/ Opens: August 12
Review Zookeeper (PG) USA 2011 102 mins Dir: Frank Coraci Starring: Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Ken Jeong // Every summer brings a talking animal movie. It’s the law. But it’s not necessary for them to be quite as feeble as this huge, steaming pile of loquacious beast excrement, whose five (count ‘em!) credited scriptwriters appear to have taken ‘Dolittle’ as an instruction as well as an inspiration. It’s a vehicle for charmless chubster Kevin James - he of ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop’ - boasting a blend of pratfalls and sickly sentiment that effortlessly lives down to the low standards of
venuemagazine
Film Reviews 971.indd 45
Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company. James plays Griffin Keyes, whose snooty girlfriend Stephanie (Bibb) rejects his proposal of marriage because he’s a lowly zookeeper. Five years on, he’s still moping. His brother then tempts him with the offer of a car dealership job, which is more likely to be a hit with shallow Stephanie. So the inmates
Kevin denied using the animals for sexual gratification
website www.zookeeper-movie.net/ Opens: July 29
august 2011 // 45
26/07/2011 18:17:55