Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
"How we are in the future will be founded on how we behave today."
I’m not entirely sure what inspired me to watch United. Maybe because I’ve been a Manchester United fan my entire life and heard names like Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, Matt Busby, and Bobby Charlton from my granddad, but this certainly expanded on my knowledge of the club. The tragedy the film explores happened over forty years before my birth, but even a tangential relationship with the club makes this a difficult watch in places.
As a piece of film, it’s quite rudimentary, employing the first technique you’d think of to create a particular effect on its audience. It’s not entirely surprising given that it’s a debut feature, made for BBC2 television in 2011 – not exactly screaming for mega-production value and months of planning for intricate blocking or cinematography. It is why it falls a little flat for some of its longer dramatic sequences, especially given an unimposing performance from a very young Jack O’Connell and an alien interpretation of ‘tracksuit manager’ Matt Busby as a patriarch boardroom manager. The best performances holding this together are the always underappreciated David Tennant as Jimmy Murphy and Sam Claflin, supporting as Duncan Edwards.
Regardless, great football movies are next to non-existent, and this is right up there amongst The Damned United and Escape to Victory as the most engaging. It’s a tragic tale, something the film treats with careful consideration and dwells on well in the final third. I’ll never see United again, but I think it’s a valuable resource, even just as a relic of English history and as a cultural landmark for Manchester United fans across the globe.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion has very few spoilers: some set up from the first act, a general idea of the narrative at hand.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
"Who can spy on the spies?"
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the serial nominees/winners at the first Oscars and BAFTAs I was aware of. It’s a film title that has always been in the back of my curious mind and decided to finally give it a shot, despite knowing next to nothing about it bar its British lineage. It’s an enjoyable text; espionage without the gadgetry and gunplay of James Bond or Jason Bourne.
This is a 60s spy movie – think The Spy Who Came in from the Cold or office-room intelligence movies as I like to think of them – made in 2011. It doesn’t concern itself with intensifying pacing for the interest of a mass audience, which can be to its detriment at times, and it doesn’t force in a misplaced handgun battle. It shoots for engaging performances that force you to question every action and interaction, to make judgement calls on whether statements are truthful or deceitful, all whilst providing you with conflicting ideas about who could be an undercover mole. It’s impressively done, causing my level of trust to hit an all-time low and change allegiances multiple times.
I love the telephoto shooting approach from Tomas Alfredson, with this almost zoomed-in aesthetic, as though every conversation is one we are eavesdropping in on. It’s such a nifty way of making every inch of film feel uncertain and taut without making an overt effort to do so. Again, the pacing is a little distracting at times; it’s easy to see how someone could glance at their phone during one of its slower periods, but the final act is intensely dramatic and really pays dividends to those who had the patience to engage with its intricate clues.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is what I really wanted it to be. It’s a low-key spy movie that focuses on the intelligence battle of opposing secret services rather than the operatives of those organisations. A stacked British cast consisting of Oldman, Firth, Hurt, Hardy, Cumberbatch, Strong, Hinds, and Graham, all with stellar performances only makes this a stronger experience, too. Genuinely fun and probably a credit to la Carré’s original novel.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion features some important narrative information that could spoil the text for you. It does not necessarily spell out the film’s conclusion, but it does talk about events in detail.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
"I never said we could fix things."
I was exhausted after work today and couldn’t face a heady horror or intense drama and fancied something light and fluffy. Enter About Time, which I had remembered as an interesting twist on the rom-com with ample laughs and cutesy writing. I remembered that correctly; this is a very enjoyable and digestible text. It is also gutwrenchingly mellow in spots, which, in my weariness, I was not totally prepared for.
Regardless, I do find the film to be an enjoyable experience. Domhall Gleeson isn’t your typical leading man, particularly for rom-coms. He has great chemistry with Rachel McAdams, who is also having tremendous fun with the film. Bill Nighy and Tom Hollander are consistent scene stealers – with Nighy working perfectly as the emotional core to the third act, dwelling on themes of letting go and moving on with more care and effectiveness than I realised the first time I watched it.
About Time remains my favourite Richard Curtis production. Even though it still has those remnants of his infuriating writing style, it is mostly subsided by a loose concept that doesn’t concern itself with the usual worries that time travel brings around. It knows to have fun with what it has, and thanks to an ensemble of high-quality cast and crew, it comes across as so on the screen. Still good fun, even such a short time after the last time I watched it. Quirky and cute; I can’t hate anything about this one.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion features no narrative spoilers. You can see it as more of an objective take on the quality of the text in question.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
"Cut."
Joanna Hogg’s continuation of her brilliant The Souvenir with Part II is every bit as distantly magisterial as that first taste of her semi-autobiographical tale. It’s always such a pleasure to see British talent like Hogg getting the light of day and given the opportunity from brands like the BBC and A24 to have their best work seen on a scale as wide as this.
Honor Swinton Byrne and matriarch Tilda Swinton return as Julie and Rosalind in the spellbinding roles that they originated just two years ago. Honor is particularly standout because we’ve seen Swinton be a powerhouse for nearly forty years now – having someone as young and unblemished, or unrecognisable if you will, go toe to toe with such a legend of cinema is impressive. It’s always fun to see the criminally underused Richard Ayoade in a dramatic role; he also sees the best of the stellar costume work.
Hogg’s distant vision is still slightly jarring simply because only the likes of Ozu and Rohmer have committed to it as strongly as she has. She constantly shoots without cuts or movement and lets her screenplay loose. She still also manages to make it look beautiful with lots of very intentional blocking throughout her lengthy takes. I love that grainy film texture and desaturated look the film provides – really adding so much to that 1980s British setting.
I really enjoyed The Souvenir: Part II; its self-reflexivity on both its first instalment and being about a film within a film manages to avoid being extremely obnoxious and doesn’t tread familiar ground like you might assume it would. It is very carefully put together, blending seamlessly into Part I and still remaining an excellent standalone feature in its own right.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion has very few spoilers: some set up from the first act, a general idea of the narrative at hand.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
"There will never be another first Olympics for climbing."
The Wall: Climb for Gold was a welcome bite-sized cure for my amateur appetite for rock climbing. It’s a pretty standard documentary in terms of format that gets a little lost in where to place its focus but focuses on a niche enough topic to keep you entertained for its duration.
I think the film needs to lose some of the material that it gets both right and wrong and put in so much more of the stuff it nails dead on. What I mean by this is that the film spends much of its time with the climbers and their families, rather than the act of them climbing. It gets a little lost in attempting to make the Olympic finale climactic, with each climber losing confidence or ability in a fabricated timeline. Instead, the Olympics is about as climactic and tense as it comes and should have been more than enough to serve as the film’s last act. As a result, the Olympics barely takes up any time in the text itself, and when that is implicated in its title, it becomes something of a disappointment.
It is a fantastic thing then that the four participants in the documentary, Shauna Coxsey, Janja Garnbret, Miho Nonaka and Brooke Raboutou, are so engaging and remarkably different. From the golden child of American rock climbers to hometown hero to blazing star to UK pioneer (and Runcorn native). They all have had such different paths to this point in their careers, and so have such unique outlooks on what they want to achieve. It is very nicely done.
The problem with The Wall is that it just doesn’t focus enough on the actual sport of rock climbing. It takes a general knowledge from its audience for granted but is nowhere near technical enough for avid fans of the sport. I know next to nothing about it, and even I wanted some more close-ups on intense holds or just longer uncut sequences of different events. I would actually recommend just seeking out replays of the Olympic event itself – you get just as much excitement and tension whilst also seeing the strengths and weaknesses of the participants in this documentary at the same time.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion has very few spoilers: some set up from the first act, a general idea of the narrative at hand.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
"She knows all the words to Gangsta's Paradise. She's one of the special ones."
British radio DJ Reggie Yates has been making short films (that I have never seen) for nearly a decade now, and the BBC rewarded him with a small budget to make his debut feature, Pirates. It’s a nostalgia comedy set at the turn of the new millennium in London that is difficult to dislike but similarly impossible to love.
Indeed, Yates’ screenplay is enjoyable to a certain extent. I was born about five months after this was set, so the Moschino gear and dreadful facial hair aren’t so nostalgic and more lovingly recreated. I am certain that people who were into the clubbing scene in 1999 or even vaguely remember the late 90s will get a kick out of seeing what Yates gets these characters to do.
It’s all quite charming – especially given Elliot Edusah, Jordan Peters, and Reda Elazouar provide likeable and believable performances as this trio of mates desperately searching for one last big night out in London together. I just wish the film managed to keep up its decent quality for its entire 80-minute procedure because it gets a little lost towards the end of the second act and that lethargy continues until the climax of the third. Its washed-out cinematography isn’t all that appealing, notably so in certain shots where the sky is indescribably ugly for some bizarre reason.
Pirates is harmless fun; I really can’t say it’s valueless because I think that seeing this multicultural perspective of 90s Britain in a feel-good comedy is pleasing (particularly when you realise that it definitely wasn’t being shown at the time). However, at the end of the day, I don’t care much for the music scene shown in the film, and this will eventually go down as a niche feel-good film for the select few that remember it. That’s a good thing – it reminds me of Spike Island in that way.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
"You've got to make the right decision, and you've got to make it right now."
I knew absolutely nothing about Boiling Point prior to tonight. I had seen the poster at my local cinema, but it was hardly promoted as an independent British one-take movie with one of the most defining performances of the year. It’s a pretty unbelievable thing to watch; perfected and crafted within an inch of its existence, Barantini and his team turn a stressful Christmastime restaurant service into an anxiety-ridden thriller to remember.
I can only recommend this because it is such a brilliant execution of an idea so rarely committed to at this level. The likes of Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman or Sam Mendes’ 1917 are only edited to appear like they are made in one continuous take, to maybe the best standard in cinematic history. I cannot fathom the level of skill and intricate planning it took to make those movies, never mind one that doesn’t have those briefly hidden cuts. Barantini manages to create such a relentless level of tension by simply following the drama wherever it may go, not letting you rest if one person has a quiet moment and shifting to a rude customer berating their young waitress or the dessert chef’s rolled-down sleeves.
Stephen Graham is indelible as head chef Andy, an unreliable patriarch going through more than one crisis at the same time. He retains his native Kirby accent for the role, swearing and sweating his way through undodgeable conflicts. As the film begins to grow and grow to its chaotic peak, Graham only becomes more and more believable. The film really dedicates a huge portion of itself to capturing what he does, including an ending almost entirely dependent on his brilliance. Everyone is great, but Graham is undoubtedly the element you’ll be talking about next to the filmmaking when you finish it.
Boiling Point, fever pitch, terminal velocity – all these breathless terms would be suitable to describe this inflexible, ever-moving monster of a movie. Stephen Graham proves again why he is one of the north-west’s finest products and always manages to choose British products you feel will have a lasting impact á la Snatch or This Is England. I really enjoyed this one; well worth a watch if you’re seeking an exciting idea executed to the standard you deserve in ninety minutes.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
"I feel as if I'm losing all my leaves."
Florian Zeller’s The Father was the 2020 release I avoided intentionally simply because it looked too heartbreaking from the trailer alone. I just felt like I couldn’t continue not seeing it, though, after all of the wonderful acclaim it received and Hopkins’ much-discussed performance; it felt like a piece of art I was purposefully ignoring. I changed that today and despite how heavy my heart is, it’s the best kind of sadness you can get because Zeller and everyone involved here has manufactured it with immense time, skill, and passion.
The best thing about The Father that elevates it above something like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom from the same year is that it goes to great lengths to be remembered for something more than its performances. The barebones cast is magnificent. Hopkins turns in an utterly captivating performance that will leave a persistent lump in your throat for ninety minutes. He’s so charming in the cheerful moments but equally captures how lost and upsetting his character’s dementia is. Olivia Colman has really had the most brilliant opportunities in the last decade and hasn’t spurned a single one of them. The few remaining supporting roles are certainly secondary to those two, but everyone executes their jobs in this sprawling, snarling maze of a movie.
The reason I find this to be something beyond those performances is because of how the format shapes them. Zeller and Christopher Hampton’s screenplay moves scenes around without specifically telling you so until you realise they’re out of place towards the end, connecting them with an earlier scene or making sequences circular in dialogue. It’s absolutely mind-bending; it utilises film in the best possible way it can. The constant confusion and unsure footing each conversation starts with is because of the unsettling atmosphere created within the very first act. You are never quite sure where or when scenes are taking place, not sure which versions of characters are going to appear or if there’s going to be someone new you don’t recognise. It’s genius; I never thought I’d be in the mind of an old man with dementia, but this does a spectacular job of inserting you into that very vulnerable and upsetting mindset.
The Father may well be one of the saddest films I have ever seen, easily wiping out a box of tissues with its closing few scenes that made me honestly terrified to see my family grow older. Films like this are few and far between; if you’ve got the stomach for it, I couldn’t recommend it enough. It’s so much more than a drama about families dealing with dementia. It’s a gripping and quite brilliantly crafted drama that leans into thriller elements to convey living with dementia unlike anything else out there. It throughout enjoys plaguing your mind as it plays with time and space so well that it makes you forget how scary getting old is until it stops playing around and just makes you want to cry. A wonderful advert for how powerful filmmaking can be.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion features no narrative spoilers. You can see it as more of an objective take on the quality of the text in question.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
"None of them realised how strong and powerful the music was."
The 2007 rendition of Joy Division, in documentary form, came highly recommended from a good friend, and having seen New Order not long ago, called out to me. It is, admittedly, of its time with some rough-around-the-edges editing and rudimentary forms of communicating information. However, as a huge fan of the band, it was also incredible to hear the mindsets of the band members, discussing the legacy of a group that helped shape the culture of a city.
There also happens to be this dual-pleasure in watching this since so much of the Joy Division story happens where I have lived for the past four years. Grant Gee employs these very basic Google Maps type shots to show iconic locations in Manchester touched by Joy Division and how they look in the present day. It shows roads that I have driven down in Salford, likely listening to Unkown Pleasures; it shows images of the road that I live on and what it looked like fifteen years ago. It’s strangely satisfying in a way.
Otherwise, this is flooded with some of the most vital music to ever come out of the United Kingdom, so listening to these fascinating stories backed by She’s Lost Control, Transmission, Isolation, etc. is fun. The interviews with Peter Hook, Bernard Summer, Stephen Morris, Tony Wilson and Annik Honoré are probably the most consistently interesting as the people who had the most meaningful contact with Ian Curtis before his death. The inserts of Deborah Curtis’ book are frequently helpful in entering the mindset of Ian’s troubled mind and home-life.
The documentary is, of course, more than Curtis, but what I love most about it is that it skips over the tour antics and boyish lack of responsibility. The film is really about the relationships within the band and the few important to their growth, the way that Manchester grew in that time and how the two correlated with each other. It’s a fantastic cultural timestamp, and I’m glad it exists.
Spoiler Warning: This discussion contains some spoilers. It could be an entire gag from a comedy or an in-depth conversation concerning events in the second act.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
"I don't want to go on the roof; of course, I don't want to go on the roof."
Get Back is probably the best piece of media that I have seen this year, or indeed in a long time. The film (or short series) is unlike pretty much anything I have seen in my lifetime, the 8 hours of virtually untouched footage of The Beatles is the remedy to a cold winter that any die-hard Beatles fan needs. I loved every second of it, providing precious time with the greatest band to ever do it and four of the best musicians of all time at their creative peak, but also reaching their wit’s end with one another. It made me laugh all the time, cry once or twice, smile persistently and constantly sing along to tracks from Let It Be. I think I already can say with confidence that it’s the best documentary I have ever seen.
I love The Beatles, without a doubt, my favourite band of all time and, for the last decade, have been my most played artist on pretty much any format capable of producing sound. So, for me, hearing these raw, shapeshift versions of Beatles classics like Don’t Let Me Down (countless times in this), One After 909, Let It Be, and the titular track is a dream. I think the real credit of the film is how unbroken and authentic the footage is – basically just cutting around the 60 hours of footage and 150 hours of audio captured in 1969. Peter Jackson, who directs this new film, understands the audience perfectly, deciding to include as much footage as possible to dispel the myths about the band at this time that have accumulated over the years whilst also providing a clear and functional story. The Beatles fanatic inside me couldn’t help but smile at all this newly restored footage of the band.
If it isn’t obvious by now, if you have no prior vested interest in The Beatles and how some of their final recording sessions went, their ultimate demise as a group, and the politics going on behind the scenes, this isn’t going to be the film for you. It’s on the brink of eight hours in length; whilst it wouldn’t be a tough watch to a complete outsider, there are a few mentions of names like Allen Klein, and Bob Wooler (rather uncomfortably dropped by John Lennon), George Harrison’s burgeoning solo career, and musical sections that won’t mean much. Otherwise, if you like anything by The Beatles, this is an intense but wonderful experience. Watch it as soon as you can because it is worth the single month’s admission to Disney+ for this alone.
Everyone has their favourite Beatle, and the film makes sure that you’ll get your fix for any one of them. It’s relatively difficult to talk about in its three parts, so I’d much rather talk about them across the entire span of the film. Harrison is the easiest and maybe the most fruitful to discuss. He is the member who was coming into his most creative era as a songwriter, was the most unsatisfied with his position in the band, and the most willing to do something about it. The first two-and-a-half hours of the band in Twickenham are the epicentre of that displeasure with George’s infamous and short-lived exit from the band ceremoniously christened with “I think I’ll be leaving the band now… I’ll see you ’round the clubs.” It’s actually astounding it was captured on film. I also adore his moments in the spotlight – on the fringe of writing Something, figuring out the chords to Old Brown Shoe, assisting Ringo in his arrangement of Octopus’ Garden, that quiet insecurity about his skills in comparison to Eric Clapton. It’s all magic.
Ringo, whilst the quietest of the quartet in the film, and certainly the sleepiest, still gets his moments as the funniest guy in the band. His effortless backing to Let It Be appears out of the blue, and he’s always the most eager for the band to continue working. You can’t help but love him over the course of the film, from his sincere sadness at George departing to his apparent joy on the rooftop gig that concludes the musical epic. John, whilst swinging into controversy, at times even here, is surprisingly much less aggressive than the stories would suggest; it seems like his conflict came in the Abbey Road sessions, as he is often peacemaker in Get Back. He’s remarkably funny, providing some of the weirdest moments, but is generally the source of much wholesomeness. It’s clear that he and Paul are no longer on the best of terms, but special moments like the two singing Strawberry Fields and dancing around in the recording booth is the kind of content people needed. Indeed, much of the film is like this, mostly just a montage of very good friends recording wonderful music and trying to work their way through each other’s compositions on a tight time schedule. Paul is the de facto leader and is very much the primary voice on Let It Be; his piano ballads and harmonic ad-libs dominate the album. He’s the member most focused on the music and seems to have a slightly inflated ego in the very first section. It’s only as the film continues where I started to come back around to Paul because it’s really difficult to dislike a man who literally composes one of The Beatles’ greatest songs on film in a matter of minutes.
Get Back is an orchestra of joy for anyone interested in The Beatles later, more experimental, years as the band tapered into four solo artists. It’s a miracle that they agreed to be filmed constantly for as long as they were and that Peter Jackson has brought that footage to us now. It’s not a film I see myself coming back to for a while given its mammoth length, but it’s given me a stronger love for the final album, and the new footage is invaluable these days. I think the final rooftop concert, in its complete form, is pretty remarkable, edited really nicely, and made me realise that there’ll never be another band like this. The people in the streets, of all ages and cultures, realised then and there they were listening to probably the best band to ever do it. Jackson knows what fans want, hours of these guys playing new songs, old hits (Love Me Do was a real surprise), and random rhythm and blues tracks from years before them. It’s an environment, a culture, a time, that will never be captured this authentically again.
Connor Clarke Film 