list.co.uk/film
Film REVIEWS
DRAMA THE BEAVER (12A) 90min ●●●●●
Just when it seemed that Mel Gibson would never work in Hollywood again, The Beaver proves that he might have a future after all. A string of tabloid scandals suggested that Gibson had pressed the self-destruct button on his career. Ironically, the very public nature of his meltdown works to the advantage of his performance as a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown in this uneven but surprisingly engaging blend of black comedy and marital melodrama. Jodie Foster’s third film as director has echoes of Bruce
Robinson’s How To Get Ahead in Advertising and the recent Bertrand Blier comedy The Clink of Ice. In all three films emotional crises manifest themselves in unconventional ways. Every aspect of his life depresses Gibson’s Walter and the seemingly inevitable break-up of his marriage to Meredith (Jodie Foster). After an accident, he regains consciousness with the belief that a beaver hand-puppet is an extension of his personality able to voice what he really feels and maybe even turn things around. From now he will only speak to his family through the puppet.
The central conceit of The Beaver works much better than it sounds, with some genuinely funny moments and a committed performance from Gibson that really sells the idea. The film is less successful when the focus strays elsewhere, notably the son Porter (Anton Yelchin) and his relationship with a cheerleader played by Winter’s Bone’s Jennifer Lawrence. Foster also hasn’t done herself any favours with the underwritten role of Meredith. It almost doesn’t matter here because Gibson is the story channelling the manic, edgy qualities of his established screen persona and his personal woes into a performance that encourages you to give him a second chance. (Allan Hunter) ■ General release from Fri 17 Jun.
DOCUMENTARY LIFE IN A DAY (12A) 94min ●●●●● DOCUMENTARY THE PIPE (12A) 83min ●●●●●
COMEDY/DRAMA PROM (U) 103min ●●●●●
This film is the result of a massive YouTube project, directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott, that asked people around the world to make a film of their life on a specific day, 24 July 2010. From the 80,000 videos submitted (a mind- numbing 4500 hours of footage), Macdonald and his army of editors have meticulously crafted this unique and entertaining hour and a half glimpse at one day as lived around the world.
A lot of the material flashes by in quickly-cut montages, throwing up some powerful stand-alone images – a cow being slaughtered is particularly shocking, as is footage of people tragically crushed at Germany’s Love Parade. Macdonald’s over- reliance on music to create mood and connect clips together occasionally feels manipulative; much more effective are the moments that he allows one individual’s story to develop and speak for itself, from a Peruvian shoe-shine boy, to an American cancer-sufferer, to a charismatic round-the-world cyclist. Interestingly, the perspectives offered on humanity are overwhelmingly positive, indeed joyful; audiences will find themselves laughing often out of a sense of recognition and connection with these disparate lives. (Paul Gallagher) ■ Selected release from Fri 17 Jun.
In 1996 natural gas was discovered off the west coast of Ireland. Shortly afterwards, Shell UK announced plans to run a pipe through the waters and land of Rossport in County Mayo to an inland refinery. Risteard O’Domhnaill’s remarkable film tells what happened next. The community came together to save the destruction and pollution of the fishing grounds, peat bogs and the natural beauty of their home, while Shell, backed by the Irish government, fought to push the project through.
O’Domhnaill’s unobtrusive camera catches every disturbing moment, as groups of passionate rural souls with Father Ted accents make the journey to being classed as terrorists by the state and their corporate paymasters.
Their multi-pronged campaign is a marvel of
community activism and it runs the gamut from direct blockade action and a hunger strike to complex legal action that takes them to the courts of the European Union. The people of Rossport are the real action heroes. This is a Take One Action presentation. To find out more visit takeoneaction.org.uk (Paul Dale) ■ Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 27–Mon 30 May. A Q&A with the director will follow the 8.15pm screening on Sat 28 May.
After the huge success of the High School Musical franchise, Disney has been quick to cash in on the teen genre, and Prom is based on another event from the school calendar upon which it hangs a familiar story. But despite the assured direction of tween specialist Joe Nussbaum (Sleepover, Sydney White), Prom proves blandly generic. The film centres around popular girl Nova Prescott
(Aimee Teegarden), who is in charge of organising the titular end-of-year celebration of her fellow high schoolers. But when a fire throws her plans into chaos, Nova is forced to work alongside her nemesis, hunky bad boy Jesse (Thomas McDonell). Unsurprisingly, initial aggression between the mismatched creatives gives way to tentative romance, leading to a slow-mo musical finale. Avoiding clichés is hardly vital when aiming at a
youthful audience, but even the most gullible will find Prom’s sugar-sweet shenanigans to be gratingly predictable, with Katie Wech’s script offering none of the wordly smarts of an average Glee episode. Anxious teenagers might be drawn to the bright, shiny packaging and the attractive-if-somewhat- overage cast, but this is hardly worth renting a tux for. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 3 Jun.
26 May–23 Jun 2011 THE LIST 83