Afternoon Delight

I don’t think I can succinctly demonstrate how opposed I am to this film’s title. Properly qualifying as one of the most disappointing cinematic experiences in this year’s festival is this offering from Jill Soloway. For many reasons, only some I will discuss here, this film left me cold. Not just cold but also angry. Thus another example of female-centric film not understanding neither it’s subject nor its audience. They are made by females trying to impress male minds, then which basically end up not appealing to anyone. This film strives for honesty and truth about the complexities of womanhood but it’s incompetence makes the whole thing fraudulent and it’s rhetoric strangely outdated.

My first main issue concerns the jarring tone in what is a very broad premise. This unfocused film can’t decide whether it wants to be a black comedy, a family drama or a commentary on life for women in the 21st century. It fails in all attempts. In a perfect example of ‘indie quirk’ over solid story, the film is not a complete disaster due to the lead performance of Kathryn Hahn, who I will talk about later. Hahn’s Rachel is depressed about her life and while trying to spice up her sex life with her husband Jeff ( Josh Radnor) visits a strip club (as you do) and encounters young stripper/prostitute McKenna ( a wasted Juno Temple) who she befriends and eventually decides to take under her wing.

My second main issue that irked me the most about this film was it’s depiction and treatment of depression. I’m no expert on depression but I am aware that it’s not a condition reserved for the 1%. Depression doesn’t discriminate, no matter how much Hollywood likes to perpetuate the idea that only the financially comfortable have the time and resources to feel real melancholia. The rest of us are too busy being aspirational and fighting poverty and what not to truly experience the depression that grips privileged lives such as that of titular character Rachel (Kathryn Hahn).

I roll my eyes at the apparent complete lack of understanding that the film and Hollywood as a whole seems to have when it concerns depression. The flippant ignorance the film has for the subject is mind-blogging. Initially I thought that maybe this was a satirical piece about white privilege and the prevalent melancholy that saturates drama about these types of people. It became quickly obvious this was a film trying to garner sympathy from the audience for Rachel. Throughout the screening, I wanted to scream at the screen “GENERAL DESPONDENCY ABOUT YOUR LIFE CHOICES IS NOT DEPRESSION”. Feeling a bit shit about stuff is not depression. The fact that Rachel’s depression is essentially ‘cured’ over a couple of nights of self reflection and some sex goes to prove the film knows nothing about it’s character or the wider contexts the film attempts to explore.

What stopped me walking out of the film was Kathryn Hahn. Since her hilarious turns in TV shows and films such as Parks & Recreation and Anchorman, poignant performances in Revolutionary Road, Hahn has proven to be on the cusp of leading lady status for so long, I never thought it was going to happen. So I was thrilled when I first heard about Afternoon Delight. For the most part she is more than game for the heavy burden before her. She carries the film with her loveable turn as Rachel. Played by any other actress it would have been easy to be turned off by the annoying quirks of Rachel, but the perfect comedic timing, witty and relatable and cracking one-liners, style typical of Hahn, doesn’t make her character wholly terrible. Even sympathetic in parts.

That is until the last twenty minutes of the film. The inconsistency of tone finally derails the film as any warmth towards Rachel is quickly diminished as it’s revealed that she’s is just like all the other over privileged idiots she shares the screen with. The feeling at this revelation? Revulsion and the sense that I’d just wasted an hour and a half of which I would have preferred to have been at work.

That is how much I disliked this film.

There is nothing much more to say about this nothing of a film other than it ending is completely bland as the film resolves itself to finish in as cliched a fashion as possible. Also that apart from Hahn there are no real interesting characters, people like Jane Lynch are generally underutilized,  apart from maybe Michaela Watkins as Jennie who happily embraces privileged yuppie to such a degree that I ended up liking her more than any of her judgmental counterparts. Oh and I was deeply insulted by the film’s treatment of Juno Temple’s prostitute McKenna, who in the trailer is portrayed as central to the story, but is actually less of a character, more of an object to serve the purpose of making Rachel and Jeff more self righteous than they already are.

This film is dross. See it at your peril.

Starred Up

On the other end of the spectrum is this marvel Starred Up. A gritty drama (British film can only do gritty. Or shiny. Like Love Actually)  about an explosively violent teenager Eric (an excellent Jack O’Connell) who’s behavior has him moved from juvenile prison to adult prison where he meets his match in his own father, lifer, Neville.

This film doesn’t offer anything necessarily new in terms of story. You have your archetypes such as the crooked prison officers and your self described savior counselor (a welcome return to the big screen by Rupert Friend even if his character is a little redundant). But what elevates the story is the lead characters particularly that of Eric. There is dimension to the leads which sometimes seems at a cost of other character development but overall roundness of the character makes them magnetic even if their actions are reprehensible. the shifting dynamics between father and son is particularly well done, relying on actions rather than words to explain their history that shaped where they are now.

As already mentioned. British film does gritty well as this film highlights. The atmosphere of the film is reminiscent of Hunger. The claustrophobic surroundings of the cells and prison grounds and the depth of field shots of corridors of bars give a visceral feel to the atmosphere of prison. In the penultimate scenes, this realism is almost ruined by the shift in stylization. I did feel as if I was suddenly watching a Nicholas Wending Refn film, a la Bronson, with the mise en scene suddenly pulsating as if in a living painting. It was so disorientating that I thought the third act was a dream sequence. Done with reasonable finesse, I still think it was an unnecessary attempt to raise stakes that weren’t really needed.

This tonal shift never really reverts back to the realism that proceeded it as the film ends rather abruptly and with a rather sloppy attempt to tie loose ends. What happened to the prison officers obviously found to have nearly committed murder? Does Oliver (Friend) ever return to his Christ like position? Won’t the other prisoners seek retribution for what Neville did? I could go on. But I won’t because that would mean giving away the whole plot of a film that I would still  recommend.

This is the first time I’ve seen Jack O’Connell and I have to say I was thoroughly impressed (and not just because he looked good too) and looking at his filmography he is carving out quite a career in British film, which I hope continues to flourish.  Ben Mendolsohn whom I recognized from The Place Beyond The Pines, gives another commendable performance as the conflicted Neville. Here’s a man trying to be a father and teach his son there’s still time for redemption while having absolutely no clue how to demonstrate this beyond violence and intimidation. He is still however, a man with at least some foresight to see his son’s path to true self destruction and his commitment to make whatever necessary sacrifice to change that course.

That is essentially the heart of the film. It is a family drama set in a prison. It is an exploration about what it means to be a man in the most harshest of environments and despite some of the obvious flaws within Starred Up, it remains a highlight of the festival.

Electro Chaabi

While not as offensive to me as Afternoon Delight this is as bad as Afternoon Delight. It’s seeming lack of ambition makes it difficult to define it as a film. A music documentary about an Egyptian phenomenon called “chaabi” – a form of Egyptian hip hop infused with traditional folk music, the film (for what seems an eternity) incoherently leaping between showcasing the pioneers of chaabi performing at raves with interviews with said pioneers, DJs, performers and fans as they discuss how for them chaabi is more than music but a tool for youth of Egypt to fight the oppressive customs and laws of Egyptian society.

For a moment this all sounds promising. We might actually get a rare insight into Egyptian culture, what life is like for people my age in a culture so different to mine. What are the relationships between this movement and other more political movements like the Arab Spring?  All this promise is quickly vanquished as the documentary quickly reveals itself to be nothing more than a hodge podge of repetitive scenes of interviews of people saying the same empty or confusing rhetoric, demanding to be heard but with nothing to say. At the end of the day empty interviews where people are never asked to elaborate or explain themselves intermixed with home video style raves does not a documentary film make.

To be frank during the whole screening I thought I was living Lost In Translation. The disconnect from the audience to the film was so profound it made several people walk out the screening. For a documentary its fundamental rule was broken. I learnt nothing from what I saw. I felt as alienated from the people on screen as if I had never seen the film in the first place. In a deliberate attempt to showcase the talent of this movement rather than to delve into how Egyptian society has disaffected people so much they’ve created a sub-culture is a big misstep, particularly when 90% of the film refers to the youth of Egypt fighting to be heard. What do they have to say? The audience never knows. When some of these artists claim they have finally found their voice and achieved avenues in which to be heard across all of Egypt. What do they have to say? The audience never finds out.

One of the other big missteps, which some could say is arguably the biggest faux pas the film is the film’s omission that the youth movement Chaabi refers to is strictly a male membership. It becomes quickly apparent that half of this group are excluded. Girls and women. It seems that Chaabi represents dissension against Egyptian traditions for its young boys and men. But these boys and men are not against all traditions it seems. Misogyny is alive and kicking amongst Chaabi fans and move-makers. The rave scenes has literally no women in sight and and while women get ample mention in Chaabi, it appears only in a negative light. Performers joyously rap together about how harassing girls is funny and that any sexual violence that happens to the girl is strictly her fault and her fault alone for daring to be alone without a male family member. While misogyny in hip-hop is nothing new, it was disappointing to see that that this was the closest glimpse the audience would get to seeing what society’s like for an obviously absent but omnipresent group.

What was more shocking to find was that the film’s director, Hind Meddeb, is herself a woman. And while I can understand she was not striving to make a documentary about the inequalities and social injustices of Egyptian women, it would have improved the film immensely if she had at least, given some screen presence to any young women, and if that was not permitted, at least questioned the attitudes of her films protagonists. However, as I type this, it leads me back to the film’s fundamental flaw. It’s refusal to question anything or anyone creates such a lack of depth I felt this would have been better suited as a segment on BBC World News.  It seems the Meddeb well-meaning attempt at objective observation has created a mass of vagueness. This is  unilluminating fare. Its shallowness makes it boring and worst of all disappointing. This film had so much potential in subject matter but not the heart to follow through.

Nebraska

One of my favorites of the festival and a surprise one for me as I was so not a fan of the Descendants and I don’t mind Sideways. A visually arresting film with the immense widescreen landscape reminiscent of a classic Western, shot in black and white, my initial skepticism that the film was jumping on the band wagon of film nostalgia, following the likes of Frances Ha where filming in black and white doesn’t really add anything to the film other than to make it look hipster vintage, the movie equivalent of Instagram if you will. Instead the monotone look creates a poetic flare that I fell for and thought entirely appropriate for this family drama.

Like Descendants, Nebraska is all about the dysfunctions and loves of one family, but while Descendants was a victim of mis-marketing – advertised as a comedy/drama George Clooney vehicle when in actuality it was an intimate family portrait of loss, revelations and healing undermined by the big name presence of George Clooney, who in my mind can’t really play a befuddled formerly henpecked husband. Nebraska is a subtle, well-balanced and ultimately warmhearted journey (it is a family drama and road movie) and commentary on the strength of family ties and bonds, regardless of how infuriating family can be. The premise is basic: Will Forte’s David somehow get’s roped into driving his quasi-alcoholic estranged father  Woody (Bruce Dern) from Montana to Nebraska so his father can claim a million dollar prize from a mega Sweepstakes. But the payoff is beautiful.

Nebraska is a return to form for Payne. It reminded me of the sharp wit and smart direction of Election. While obviously not as dark, the quickness is still there. I was also reminded of how well Payne can direct actors. All seem in their element, special mention goes to Bruce Dern and June Squibb. Dern’s Woody Grant although the titular character has very few lines, but he is not the strong silent type a la Robert Mitchum you’d expect from this pseudo western set voyage, but is instead an extreme introvert, silenced by experiences of war and the weathering of life. Initially he’s presented as pathetic and unlikable;  he’s a drunkard, emotionally withholding and seemingly selfish to his family, in particular his children. But during the course of the film and the father/son road trip, Woody’s son David (Will Forte also giving a good performance) finds that under the wasted pathetic figure of his father is a fundamentally decent man, forever taken advantage of from those closest to him, a man aware of his past mistakes and current flaws driven to leave a decent legacy.

June’s Squibb as Kate Grant is the other outstanding performance. As the antithesis of her husband, loud and brash she too could have easily been a caricature. Like Woody there are layers to her character, subtly revealed by the rich script and actin, it’s completely believable why Kate is the ways she is and why such a marriage could endure as it has. Without having to resort to flashbacks of extensive exposition, the audience understands, appreciates and relates to this family and its history.

Please go see this film.

Next Up:

LFF Round-up Part 3! Includes: Computer Chess, Teenage, Let The Fire Burn and Drinking Buddies