Jeune Femme / L'Amanat Double (both 2017)

Some weekends it's seeing Solo twice, others I end up seeing nothing but French language films.

C'est la vie, as they say ... somewhere.

Jeune Femme is also known by the international title of Montparnasse Bienvenue (because Jeune Femme was so difficult for international audiences to pronounce?). It's chiefly a character study of Paula, a young (she would argue with this definition) woman trying to find her place in the world after being dumped out of her cushioned existence by her photographer ex-boyfriend.

She's introduced to the audience while head-butting a door and screaming at her boyfriend, and she's pretty much full-on from that point.

Self-absorbed, spoiled, and apparently without a useful survival skill in the world, she doesn't start as the most sympathetic character, but the film peels away at her layers, even as she tries to put more on as she tries out different identities, and with its climax gives a sense of what happened to throw her life so off course in the first decade of her adult life.

It's a smartly-made film. Definitely won't appeal to all, but it's rewarding to those for whom it will.

L'Amant Double (the Double Lover) is on a completely different level. A mind-bending, lurid, psychosexual thriller, it's been described by some as Hitchcockian, but I'd call it more De Palma-esque, as it's at least two degrees removed from Hitchock.

It's a film that probably requires two sittings, just to try and figure out where all the joins are. While I was watching, I developed at least five different theories about what was going on, and in my scattershot approach actually managed to pick-up on some of the clues that were layered into the film.

Again this definitely doesn't have broad appeal. It's an insane, exploitative, slow-burning piece of cinema with emotionally-distant characters. On the positive side, its completely bonkers execution and twisty-turning plot can be a lot of fun.

Red Sparrow (2018)

I've read a number of articles comparing Red Sparrow with Atomic Blonde. Both are violent spy thrillers with a female protagonist.

It's a lazy comparison.

Atomic Blonde for all its insistence on visceral violence that leaves its scars is a comic book movie. Its "realistic" portrayal of people getting hurt means having the actors wince a lot, but ultimately being as indestructible as in any James Bond film.

Red Sparrow is not a comic book film. It's still an unrealistic twisty-turny thriller, but for sheer gut impact it's a far superior piece of work.

I don't know if I liked the film, but I did admire the craft that went into it. In terms of knowing where the plot was going, it kept me guessing between the possibilities that Jennifer Lawrence's character was a double agent or a triple agent. It delivered a character who when presented with two options would keep picking a third one, and as a result managed to keep surprising me throughout. And it delivered one of the most painful looking moments in recent cinema history - I think I audibly gasped at this moment.

There's also the debate over whether the film is sexually exploitative or sexually liberating. After all the lead character is taught to use sex as a weapon, there's a "voluntary" rape scene (it's a little more complicated than calling it one or the other - both people are in the wrong - the man far more so), but these are not treated as being good - so are they exploitative and likely to set back the feminist cause, or are they deliberately provocative and worth discussing? Or will not enough people see the film to actually care?

Ultimately, I think it's a film that will alienate too much of its potential audience to be a huge success. 

Happy Death Day (2017)

Something strange happened while I was watching this film.

Happy Death Day has been described as Groundhog Day meets Scream. It's the story of a college student who keeps relieving the day that she is murdered with the reset occurring at the point of death.

As the film was most of the way through the second iteration of the day, the picture cut out for a few seconds. When it cam back again, we were watching the moments leading up to the main character's death again. Only she had gone out of her way to avoid the events of that particular death, so how did we get back here in those few missing seconds?

The scene continues to play out exactly as it has before: she died, woke up, and then ran through the events of the previous day, being the only person who knew that the day was repeating. Except she only had the memory of the first day, not the second. This wasn't a continuation of the film - it was the film ten minutes ago.

Was I experiencing my own death-induced timeloop? If so, I only had ten minutes to solve my own murder.

Or I could wait and hope that the film didn't repeat again.

Fortunately, it appears that it was only a temporary technical malfunction, and aside from having to watch ten minutes of the film twice over, I haven't experienced any further repeating time.

Anyway, the film was good fun. It won't necessarily appeal to the hardcore horror fans - it's more comedy-thriller than slasher movie - but for anyone who isn't tired of films about time loops with a bit of stalkery murder thrown in for good measure, it's a decent watch.

The Snowman (2017)

Firstly, this is the film adapted from the Jo Nesbø thriller, not the Raymond Briggs children's book. It's definitely not something for all the family, unless your family happens to be one that appreciates bleak, sometimes gory, Scandinavian crime fiction. 

Which I do.

At least I've enjoyed the Bridge (more correctly Bron|Broen, which is a much more elegant title, in my opinion), a bit of Wallander (although I've only seen the English version), Trapped, and Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.
I haven't read the book that the film was based on, so I have no idea of whether it was a faithful adaptation. However, it felt as if the film was a presentation of the highlights of the book, throwing out the narrative logic that strung those highlights together

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The end (and no direct spoilers) provides a couple of twists, but no real surprises, and even worse doesn't really supply much in the way of an explanation, beyond a bit of pop psychology. There's an explanation of why the killer kills, but not a real explanation of why he did what he did. The set-up implies that there is some plan, some rational behind certain actions, but then drops it all in favour of randomness and coincidence.
There's also the unpleasant undercurrent of nasty things happening to women throughout the story, which is briefly addressed at one key point, but overall didn't do enough to wipe the grubby treatment of the the female characters.

On the plus side, the scenery is gorgeous and the photography makes the most of it, and the actors (particularly Fassbender and Ferguson) generally make a decent job (although I'm not sure what to make of Val Kilmer's rather weird appearance).

Atomic Blonde (2017)

I'd slept about four hours (too much to drink the night before) when I went to see Atomic Blonde, so I wasn't sure that I would be able to stay awake for the whole film. Surprisingly though I did manage to avoid dropping off - although based on my experience of the film, I'm not sure that was necessarily a good thing.

The trailers I'd seen for the film left me in two minds about what I was going to get - on the one hand it seemed to be setting up a stylish action-thriller, smart quips, 80s retro feel, but on the other it seemed a little dour in its choice of colour pallet, hearkening back to the cold war thrillers of that time.

What was delivered was a great soundtrack for the 80s aficionados, some really well choreographed fight sequences, a dour style, little in the way of decent quips, and the dullest characters this side of a timber yard.

The film comes across like the child of The Bourne Identity and Kick-Ass - if The Bourne Identity and Kick-Ass were going through a messy divorce and Atomic Blonde couldn't figure out which parent it wanted to live with.

What would have been preferable: more character, a plot where you actually cared about the twisty machinations, and perhaps a little less objectification of women in a film which looks like it's trying to create a female-led spy franchise.

La mécanique de l'ombre aka Scribe aka The Eavesdropper aka The Mechanic of the Shadow (2016)

I was a bit confused about which of the two English titles to use for this film with Google insisting that it was called The Eavesdropper - but the subtitle of the film's title card disagrees, so it appears that I watched something called Scribe instead. Although the literal translation of the French title should be something like The Mechanics of the Shadow/Shade (or possibly, to use what I imagine the closest UK-English equivalent to be, The Mechanics of the Spook (i.e. spy for American-English readers)).

Having seen the movie, I'm not entirely sure what the point of it was. The basic plot is that an accountant, (presumably) fired from his job because he has a drinking problem, is given a job transcribing tapes of various wiretaps. One thing leads to another and he's trying to extricate himself from a situation where he's being played by two different sides, while falling in love with a woman he's helping from his AA (the alcohol one, not the motoring organisation) support group.

As the title suggests, this is a French film.

The Americans do this so much better. As do the Brits.

To be fair, so do the French.

For what purports to be a political thriller, it doesn't feel very political or very thrilling. There's a neat little turn in the final act, which sort of plays in with the whole listening-in theme, but I'm not sure if that was intentional or accidental. Generally the story feels a little cobbled together, the moments of it quite insignificant, and the final denouement is something of a 'So what?'

Perhaps being French would have helped. But somehow I doubt it.

What the film did remind me as I was watching it were that there are plenty of other eavesdropping thrillers that deal with their subject matter so much better - The Secret Lives of Others, The Conversation, Enemy of the State - and I think I'd have found more value in watching one of those again instead.

Best Films of 2017 (So Far)

If it's good enough for Mark Kermode, it's good enough for me to offer my top ten favourite films of 2017. It isn't a halfway through the year list, as I have a couple of July releases on the list.

Starting off in January with the first film I saw in 2017 is A Monster Calls. Adapted from his own novel by Patrick Ness, it's a story about a boy coming to terms with his mother's cancer through the stories that are told to him by a giant tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson). It's a wonderfully told story and when viewing, a large box of hankies is strongly recommended.

Hidden Figures, which was my favourite of the Oscar Best Picture nominees, is about the contribution of African-American women to the space race. As well as covering an important issue, it's also a fun, entertaining movie.

Beauty and the Beast for my money was a much better musical than La La Land. Some outstanding performances from the likes of Kevin Kline, Luke Evans and Josh Gad - and decent enough jobs done by most of the others. It's difficult to see past the animated version, but there are some nice additions song-wise, a decent expansion of the Belle-Beast love story with a subplot side trip to a Parisian windmill, and I watched it seven times at the cinema, so I must have liked it.

The Handmaiden was a Korean retelling of Sarah Waters' novel The Fingersmith. A very cleverly mounted production with a nice twisty plot and some gorgeous design. Erotic scenes mean that it's probably one that you don't want to watch in the company of elderly relatives.

Their Finest - a Second World War dramedy set around the production of propaganda films by the British Ministry of Information. Funny and moving with Bill Nighy chewing the scenery like the professional scenery-chewer he is.

Wonder Woman - aside from the climactic battle, one of the best superhero movies made. Can hold its head up with the likes of Superman the Movies (which also has a bit of a ropy ending).

A Man Called Ove - if you still have that box of tissues from watching A Monster Calls, you might need it for this. Very funny and touching film.

Spider-Man: Homecoming - the Spider-Man remake that no one thought we wanted. Only it turned out (in my book) to be one of the best of the Spider-Man films, and certainly the best Spider-Man actor we've ever had (and I'm including Nicholas Hammond).

War for the Planet of the Apes - Andy Serkis is brilliant. The film is great. That's all I think I need to say.

Dunkirk - pure cinematic joy.

It Comes At Night (2017)

It Comes At Night is a subversively effective thriller. I don't know that I personally would want to see it again, but it's the type of film that I can imagine film students going to town on as they discuss what it's really about.

Set in a single location, it's the tale of a family who have fortified themselves in a house in the woods in an attempt to survive an apocalyptic plague.

It's an adult tale. The gruesome nature of some of the events is not dwelt on, but the themes are serious, as are the questions it asks.

The remainder of this post offers potential spoilers (although fairly obscure ones), but if you want to go into the film with no preconceptions then stop reading.


Its outlook on human nature, or at least the nature of the humans in the film, is a cynical one. Paramount to the characters is the family unit, and the film explores the lengths to which people will take this.

At times it also reads as a ghost story. It uses the language of haunted house movies at time, and the dreams of one of the characters could be read purely as visualisations of his inner worries, or they could be indicative of something else. It's a film that allows space for interpretation, although it can be read as a completely straightforward, realistic piece.