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Film REVIEWS
ROMANTIC COMEDY RUBY SPARKS (15) 104min ●●●●●
The directors of Little Miss Sunshine deal once again with the clash between romantic idealism and vulgar, messy reality, in a thoughtful, engaging romcom that draws great work from its central pairing. Paul Dano plays novelist Calvin,
who’s been long-term blocked since a phenomenally successful first publication in his teens. Lonely and in search of inspiration, Calvin begins to write about his ideal woman: Ruby, who’s the sort of quirky, perky, hipster free spirit known to Hollywood as ‘a Zooey Deschanel type.’ Ruby, despite being a silly male fantasy, proceeds to manifest in the physical world and Calvin must deal with his ideal for real.
Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the script, is persuasively maddening and adorable as Ruby, and Dano’s Calvin is tremendously watchable, sympathetic and funny. The film beats the life out of its Charlie Kaufman-style high concept somewhat, running out of ways for Calvin to manipulate his situation, and overplaying the scene in which Ruby comes to comprehend hers. But the charm of the performances carries it over its rockier parts, and it’s pretty astute about the dangerous tendency of the introspective and over-educated to turn lovers into idealised abstractions. (Hannah McGill) ■ General release from Fri 12 Oct.
ACTION HIT AND RUN (15) 100min ●●●●● PERIOD DRAMA HYSTERIA (15) 100min ●●●●●
GANGSTER DRAMA KILLING THEM SOFTLY (18) 97min ●●●●●
Hollywood hunk Dax Shepard bites off more than he can chew in Hit and Run, writing, co-directing (with David Palmer), and starring in this lightweight action movie sporting wilfully loquacious dialogue a la Quentin Tarantino. Boasting a story that’s based on true, albeit improbable, events, Hysteria is a period drama with a helping of sex comedy, travelling under the skirts of Victorian ladies with its irreverent look at the invention of the electro-mechanical vibrator.
Shepard casts himself as Yul Perrkins whose Hugh Dancy plays Mortimer Granville, a
troubled backstory as a getaway driver leads him to relocate to the sticks via a witness protection scheme. Yul’s girlfriend Annie, played by Shepard’s real-life fiancée Kirsten Bell, has a prospective teaching post lecturing in non-violent problem solving at a university in LA, and he reluctantly agrees to chauffeur her to her destination in his pristine car. Her jealous ex-boyfriend Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) gets wind of the couple’s plans, and notifies Yul’s arch-enemy Alex (Bradley Cooper) who sets off in pursuit. Violent problem solving ensues. As a vehicle for Shepard, Hit and Run is a write- off, far too derivative of other people’s work to give any real sense of his talents. While he’s a likeable enough leading man, Shepard may regret spurning his chance to demonstrate whether he has a genuine cinematic voice. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 12 Oct.
young, earnest doctor whose interest in modern methodology is thwarting his career. Mortimer lands a position in an upmarket practice, specialising in the treatment of ‘hysterical’ women. There he’s under the tutelage of Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) administrating intimate massages to thrilled patients. Mortimer falls for Robert’s sweet, obedient daughter Emily (Felicity Jones) but their prim courtship is jeopardised when he develops feelings for her firebrand social reformer sister Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Representations of female sexual pleasure are still little seen in commercial cinema so this is a welcome, if fluffy, foray into taboo territory. Relentlessly euphemistic rather than explicit, Hysteria is considerably milder than the title and subject matter suggest. (Emma Simmonds) ■ Selected release from Fri 21 Sep.
Andrew Dominik’s third film following Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is a bleakly humourous gangster flick with an underlying commentary on modern day moral bankruptcy.
It begins with small time crook Frankie (Scoot McNairy) emerging into the litter-strewn streets of a polluted America. It’s 2008 and Obama and McCain’s faces loom large on billboards. Frankie and his drug-addled mate Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) agree to do a job for local criminal ‘Squirrel’ (Vincent Curatola). The hold-up goes to plan but it is not without repercussions, which is where professional hitman Jackie (Brad Pitt) steps in.
Something of a variable beast, Killing Them Softly initially impresses with its audacious cinematography. However most of the film relies on dialogue-heavy sequences that aren’t quite witty or insightful enough to keep up the momentum. And, with such verbose characters and fondness for style it’s hard not to see Killing Them Softly as sitting in the shadow of that other attitude-driven genre piece, Pulp Fiction. (Gail Tolley) ■ General release from Fri 21 Sep.
20 Sep–18 Oct 2012 THE LIST 65