www.list.co.uk/film DOCUMENTARY RESTREPO (15) 93min ●●●●●
Filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger present a gripping insight into the experiences of a US platoon in their award-winning documentary Restrepo. The film, shot over the course of one year, follows the group of soldiers as they are stationed in Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley. Restrepo is the name both of a remote outpost that the group build (considered one of the most dangerous in the country) and also that of a fellow comrade killed in action; a lingering reminder of the inevitable fatalities of the war they’re in.
Despite the high media profile of the war in Afghanistan, Restrepo gives a fresh perspective on the conflict through its unflinching front-line footage which focuses on the daily life of the US soldiers fighting in the country. This includes fraught moments when the platoon comes under direct attack but also times of boredom and light-hearted banter. Refreshingly the filmmakers avoid
heavy dramatisation and the film’s strength lies in the fact that it never falls into sentimentality, making it an intelligent work that doesn’t patronise its audience or attempt to make any conclusive comments on war, but instead conveys the human experience behind the headlines. (Gail Tolley) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 15–Mon 18 Oct; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Mon 25–Thu 28 Oct.
REVIEWS Film
ALSO RELEASED
The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud (12A) 99min ●●●●● Modern day matinee idol Zac Efron stars as Charlie St Cloud, a young man overcome by the death of his younger brother Sam. His grief manifests itself in him taking a job as caretaker of the cemetery where his brother is buried. Then, a girl comes into Charlie’s life and he must choose between keeping a promise he made to Sam and her. Igby Goes Down director Burr Steers’ morbid and maudlin little character drama is by turns Capra-esque, gloomy and dull but Efron acts his socks off and brings presence and dreamboat interest to proceedings. General release, Fri 8 Oct. Life As We Know It (12A) 114min ●●●●● Career singles Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Eric (Josh Duhamel) are loving godparents to Sophie. They can’t stand each other but both share a love of their goddaughter. When Sophie’s parents die unexpectedly they find themselves sharing a house and caring for Sophie. Harmless and likeable if predictable and uninspired rom-com. General release, Fri 8 Oct. Vampires Suck (12A) 82min ●●●●● Tedious spoof (pictured) of vampire themed movies (particularly the Twilight saga) from the one trick ponies who gave us the Scary Movie films, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie and Meet The Spartans. The hammy look-alikes include Jenn Proske and Matt Lanter. General release, Fri 15 Oct.
DRAMA/BIOPIC THE SOCIAL NETWORK (12A) 120min ●●●●●
David Fincher’s The Social Network, aka ‘the Facebook movie’, is a film about smart people that arrives with the intelligence to match. Based on a script by Aaron The West Wing Sorkin and inspired by Ben
Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, the film examines how the world’s biggest social networking site came to be and, more importantly, at what cost?
It’s a dazzling history lesson, albeit with embellishments, that says as
much about the society that helped to create the Facebook phenomenon as it does about the men who came up with the idea. Facebook can now command 500 million users, while its co-creator, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, is the youngest billionaire in history. Incredibly, he got there by accident. As Fincher’s film opens, Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) talks his way into
being dumped. It’s clear from the start that he’s ultra-intelligent but socially inept – an uber-geek who does his best work with a keyboard and often when hurt. The germ of an idea is born from this rejection, but with best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) in tow, the seeds are quickly sewn.
With success, however, comes law suits, firstly from a trio of fellow
Harvard students, led by the Winklevoss twins, who claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea, and then from Saverin, who reacts to being betrayed and frozen out after seeing Zuckerberg seduced by the vision and style of Napster creator Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). Fincher’s film bounces between legal disputes, using flashbacks to show where it went right and wrong. It’s a movie defined by irony in many ways – the emotional cost of financial success and of spawning the world’s most popular ‘friends’ site while losing all of your own. But it also cleverly dissects modern society, with all of its contradictions.
Sorkin’s effervescent script tests audiences’ loyalties without being
judgmental, while its performances are fearless enough not to worry about engaging our sympathy. You may not particularly like the people involved, but the journey is everything here. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release, Friday, 15 Oct.
ANTHOLOGY/ROMANCE NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU (15) 103min ●●●●●
The second instalment of the wholly spurious ‘Cities of Love’ franchise produced by Paris, je t’aime creator Emmanuel Benbihy, New York, I Love You feels about as fresh as a piss-stained Pan Am flight bag. It’s a collection of eleven short films all running at ten minutes long, all shot in one of New York’s five boroughs. As with its Gallic predecessor, they interweave a little and the roll call of directing talent is impressive and includes Mira Nair, Yvan Attal, Fatih Akin, Brett Ratner and Jiang Wen. Oh yeah, and a couple of actors who thought it would be a hoot to wear riding boots and scream down a speaker cone for a day (Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, whose segment has mercifully been excised from this cinema release but will be on the DVD).
There are a couple of turgid adaptations of rightly discarded scripts by Israel Horovitz (Author! Author!, Sunshine) staring Hayden Christensen, Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci at the bottom of their collective games, a whole load of pseudo urban Orientalism and some surprisingly decent performances from veterans Ethan Hawke, Cloris Leachman and the mighty Eli Wallach. It’s all about as romantic as a padded card and as sterile as a mule. (Paul Dale) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 8–Thu 21 Oct.
7–21 Oct 2010 THE LIST 53