Film
DRAMN‘COMEDY THUMBSUCKER (15) 95min m
Justin (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a charming 17-year-old who still sucks his thumb. This embarrassing trait means he has no hope of picking up the girl of his dreams (Kelli Garner). and also angers his testosterone-changed father (Vincent D’Onofrio). His mother and confidante (Tilda Swinton) is far more understanding, but Justin wants to become a man. He is hypnotised by his orthodontist (Keanu Reeves) into abandoning his thumb. but instead becomes addicted to a variety of drugs. in the process turning into another disaffected teenager.
Graphic artist and music video virtuoso Mike Mills' adaptation of Walter Kirn's novel is primarily concerned with characters and their interaction with each other. rather than the transformation of Justin from mild mannered teenager into school debating team star and back again. With several sequences that look like they‘ve jumped straight from Mills' Air music videos onto the big screen. Thumbsucker has a disjointed feel that taps perfectly into the mindset of a teenager going through growing pains. thus giving the film an ethereal quality.
The only time Thumbsucker goes off the rails is in the middle section where Justin. under the guidance of Mr Geary (Vince Vaughn), becomes a confident and popular pupil. These scenes of adolescent joy lack the dynamism and insight that are prominent features of the rest of the film — Mills seems to be a filmmaker far more adept at showing emotional turmoil. DeSpite some minor quibbles this is a fine debut.
(Kaleem Aftab) I General release from Fri 28 Oct.
ACTION/ADVENTURE INTO THE BLUE (15) 109min 00
There‘s apparently 86 billion worth of treasure waiting to be discovered on the floor of the world‘s oceans. and professional divers Jared (Paul Walker) and Sam (Jessica Alba) regularly delve deep into the octopus' garden in pursuit of it. While investigating the ancient pirate shipwreck. our intrepid duo find a crashed plane loaded with cocaine that leads to some unwelcome attention from both the local drug-lords and some killer sharks.
42 THE LIST 20 Oct 3 Nov 2005
THE IDOLA'I'ER
INTERVIEW
CARLOS REYGADAS, the 34-year-old Mexican filmmaker pretentiously explains why he declared a Battle in Heaven.
‘I don’t know if all cinema should be challenging, but that’s what I like personally. But I’m not trying to give lessons. What I’m interested in primarily in this film is how a man in conflict can find a way out. I wondered what happens to a man who goes around killing people and does not give a shit about it. If he did not have guilt, which is an intellectual procedure. Would he rot inside? I’m not saying this would be the case for every human
being, because I’m not a moralist.
‘After I make a film I psychoanalyse myself retroactiver so that I can give explanations to journalists. But I don’t believe in those explanations myself. You can see films with beautiful men and women aged 18 to 25, but I’m interested in all kinds of people and I’m interested in something inside of people. So, I don’t care whether people are fat, thin, young, old. The energy people radiate is what I care about. Directors have a view of the language they are proposing in a film and a view on life connected to that. But if you ask an actor what he or she thinks of politics, well, it’s ridiculous, they are just doing a job. It’s curious; we really need idols. We are idolaters.
‘The things that are scandalous, like sex and violence, are just a price to pay for what I think is important. I have to portray them in the film, to be loyal to the context. In my opinion, people who only see the scandal, that’s a question of insight. Very often people see my film Battle in Heaven and then they meet me, and they say, “I expected an older, bigger, fat man.” Why do people carry with them so many pre-iudgements?’
(Interview by Miles Fielder)
I Battle in Heaven opens at GFT, Glasgow and Cameo, Edinburgh from Fri 28
Oct. See review, page 39.
Director John Blue Crush Stockwell has mustered a handsome. high gloss production that compensates for its narrative inanity with lush photography of emerald-green seas and endless Crotch level coverage of Alba‘s swimwear.All of which is hardly enough to sustain the film's unnecessarily long running time. Also. the overly tanned Walker and Alba are hardly leading star material. their uncharismatic presences sink Into the Blue like a couple of freshly bagged corpses.
(Eddie Harrison) I General release from Fri 2i Oct.
DRAMA
PUSHER 2: WITH BLOOD ON MY HANDS
(18) 99min 0000
Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen. excellent). the
simpleton small time hood from Nicolas Rein Winding’s first Pusher film, has just been released from jail. A good natured if hedonistic skinhead. Tonny returns to
his kingpin gangland father's warehouse. thinking he can pick up where he left off, but life is never that easy. especially when there is no honour among thieves.
Made (along with the brilliant forthcoming Pusher 3) to help Refn's company Jang Go Star out of bankruptcy alter the cornrnercral failure of his underrated psychological thriller Fear X (starring John Turturro). Pusher 2 is nevertheless a deeply accomplished piece of filmmaking. lenny's descent into a kind of smoky. coke-snorting. beer-chugging. low life hell comes
quickly but for the viewer the pleaswe is in the burgeoning realisation that Tonny is a man-made fuck up and that man may just be brutal old daddy. DiVisively a circular Oedipal revenge tragedy with necessary links into the other two films in the trilogy. Pusher 2 is so instinctively and energetically structured that the obvious finale. when it comes. still surprises.
For all intents and purposes. this is a Western. and one that Siegel. Eastwood or Boetticher. had they been born in Denmark. w0uld be happy to put their names to. (Paul Dale)
I Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 2 i - Thu 27 Oct only GFT. Glasgow from Tue 25— Thu 27 Oct.
MARITAl DRAMA THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS
(15) 105min eeee
To chance two quotes about marriage (see Corpse Bride review) in the same issue is quite frankly asking for it. but hey. what the hell. I got a formula going on here.
Dentist Dr Dave Hurst (Campbell Scott) has just fOund out that. in the words of writer Beverley Nichols. marriage is a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose“. He's seen his beloved wife Dana (Hope Davis) with another man. Instead of confronting her he carries on behaving like the perfectly solid and dull husband and father he is. The trouble is. he is being besieged by memories and bad thoughts and also seems to have acquired himself a stalker/alter ego in the shape of a disgruntled client (Denis Leary).
Director Alan Trouble in Mind Rudolph and screenwriter Craig Longtime Companions Lucas' slow. painful essay on the horrors of modern marriage has been sitting on the shelf awaiting distribution for the best part of three years and it's not difficult to see why. For although this is based on a bestselling American novella (Jane Siniley's The Age of Grief) the sentiments are so non-conformist they actually dare to question the sacrilege of the family unit. Having thrown off the Altman mantle (Rudolph trained under him) this fascinating director is now working on a level of sophistication and intelligence rare amongst his coritemporaries. Comparisons. for instance. can be made here to both Claude Sautet's brilliant dyspeptic detailing of one petit bourgeoisie's nervous breakdown. [es Choses de la Vie. and Arcand Decline of the American [flip/('0. like a bad marriage. this is also a film that tends to linger long in the memory. (Paul Dale)
I GI l. Glasgow from Fri 2i--/t/lon 24 Oct only.