Boyhood.

It’s an intriguing objective to shot a feature film over a twelve-year period[1] using the same actors. But you can’t help wondering if the cast and crew got their salaries in instalments or did the poor things have to wait 12 years until the film was finally completed? 

 

Ageing twelve years. 

Richard Linklater’s time-lapse study Boyhood (2014) has a very simple synopsis, to watch a boy and his family and friends age 12 years. We follow Mason from the beginnings of his school life at six right up until he arrivals at college some twelve years later. When we first meet Mason and his older sister Samantha their mother and father have just gone through a divorce and mum is expected to bring up the two children as a single parent, Dad turns up every couple of weeks acting like the cavalry and takes them out in his fancy Pontiac. Although a hard working and devoted mother Olivia subjects her two kids to various drunk and abusive ‘live in’ male partners. Therefore having to change location/school/work after realising yet another failed relationship with the current “Mr Wrong”. Nothing really exciting happens and this is how the movies exceptionally long running time of just under three hours transpires, which to be honest gets a little monotonous.

 

Sister Samantha.

Michael Winterbottom made a much more interesting job of a time lapse study when he made Everyday (2012) over a five year period but this dealt with a family that was coping with father being locked up in prison and how it effected them over this period. And we all watched Daniel Radcliffe and co get older in the Harry Potter franchise. But my main problem with the film was my dislike of the main character who appeared to be such a twat and I spent a great deal of the movie wishing that this grubby looking individual would take a shower and wash his greasy hair!

 

Mum and....

....Dad.

The film stars Ellar Coltrane as the boy, Linklater’s daughter Lorelei as Mason’s sister Samantha with Patricia Arquette as their mother and Ethan Hawke as Mason Snr. There is within the film an amusing hypocritical reflection on modern day America when Mason receives, for his 15^th birthday, a Bible from his grandma and a shotgun from his grandfather!

                                                                                                  

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[1] Linklater was actually only shooting for a total of 39 days.

The Woman in the Fifth.

Tom meets the elegantly beautiful Margit Kadar.

Based on a book by American novelist Douglas Kennedy, who also wrote the novel the French film The Big Picture (2010) was based upon, The Woman in the Fifth (2012) relates a story of a beleaguered American professor who falls in love with a strange women who isn’t quite the person she seems.  The film stars Ethan Hawke as Tom Ricks a University Professor who travels to Paris to see his estranged daughter. 6-year-old Chloe is living with her French mother who has taken out a restraining order to stop Ricks from associating with them. On arrival in France he is mugged and loses both his luggage and his wallet, which forces him to take a room in a run down lodging house and accept work as a bizarre night guard for the low life landlord Sezer who owns the seedy Hotel. Movie Ramble favourite Kristin Scott Thomas plays Margit Kadar who Tom meets at a literary evening and with whom he starts a passionate affair but is only allowed to meet her at specific times! When Tom needs her to give him an alibi in connection with a murder the local police think he’s involved with, he discovers some rather unnerving facts about this elegant, mysterious Hungarian widow.

6 year old Chloe uses the same optician as her Dad!

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski  (Last Resort 2000, My Summer of Love 2004) this menacing psychological thriller is a rather strange intriguing movie with an inconclusive ending?  Although it’s quite enjoyable with some credible acting, it does leave viewer with an awful lot of unanswered questions, perhaps another viewing would help!

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Warmest thanks to Julie Russell for allowing a Film Club In House evening to take place in her, and daughter Megan’s home along with a big thank you for some fine food and drink. The evening started with a re-showing of the tribute film for Darren Conner that Alec Barclay produced for the final film of the last session of the RBC film club on Monday 27^th June. Following some refreshment’s we started the main feature. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007) the last directorial duty of Sidney Lumet’s before he died in 2011. This crime drama was written by Kelly Masterson, a former Franciscan Brother who left the seminary just short of his ordination in order to pursue a career in the theatre. The movie features a highly proficient cast including such well-known names as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Morisa Tomei, Amy Ryan and Spider-Mans mum Rosemary Harris.

Its non-linear plot starts with a nerve-racking robbery at a family run suburban jewellery store, which goes disastrously wrong.  What follows is an investigation into how close family members are affected by this crime. The film is more intriguing than your average crime drama due to it’s strong story line and how it goes back and forth in time allowing us an insight into the reasons for the robbery and demonstrating the pressures and frustrations that affect each member of the family.  A fine evenings entertainment coupled with some great conversation that ended with a discussion on the films of Doris Day!!!