list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
MUSICAL SUNSHINE ON LEITH (PG) 100 min ●●●●● DRAMA MUSEUM HOURS (12A) 106min ●●●●●
THRILLER THE CALL (15) 94min ●●●●●
If Scottish cinema has become synonymous with dour, social-realist miserablism in recent years, then Sunshine on Leith is the joyous, toe-tapping antidote we have long been awaiting.
A sweeping opening shot asserts the cinematic scope and ambition of the project as a helicopter crosses a night sky. Soldiers in Afghanistan survive a devastating attack before heading home. What happens next? How do you find love, loyalty and get on your way from misery to happiness? These are the big questions facing best mates Davy (George Mackay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) as they return to the welcoming bosom of their grateful families. Rousing, sing-a-long anthems and poignant
Proclaimers ballads are skillfully used to advance the story and underline the hopes and heartaches of the boys, their potential girlfriends and Davy’s parents (Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks). All of the cast can hold a tune and director Dexter Fletcher stages showstopping numbers with aplomb. The Edinburgh and Glasgow locations look fabulous and you will leave with a tear in your eye and a smile on your face. (Allan Hunter) ■ General release from Fri 4 Oct.
In conventional terms not a lot appears to happen in this leisurely feature from experimental filmmaker Jem Cohen. The softly spoken, reflective narrator Johann (Bobby Sommer) is a middle-aged attendant at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, where he spends his days contemplating the gallery’s collection of artefacts and the visitors who flock to observe them. He gets talking to an anxious Canadian tourist Anne (singer Mary Margaret O’Hara), who’s staying in the Austrian capital to visit her hospitalised long-lost cousin and together Johann and Anne begin to wander around the wintry city.
Working with a slender story, Cohen uses non- professional actors and real-life locations, shooting digitally within the museum itself and on Super 16mm for the exterior scenes. Johann and Anne are the sort of emotionally reserved individuals that other films would simply pass over, and thanks partly to the understated performances of Sommer and O’Hara, there’s poignancy to the platonic friendship that gently develops between their self- contained characters. (Tom Dawson) ■ Limited release from Fri 20 Sep.
Since her Oscar-winning performance in Monster’s Ball, Halle Berry’s career choices have seemed fairly random, hitting a new low with last year’s barely released shark-stew Dark Tide. Her latest thriller, The Call, at least starts on surer footing, casting the star as a sassy 911 operator who develops an intense relationship with a kidnapped girl.
After her failure to rescue a teenager from a
vicious child murderer, Jordan gets a chance to redeem herself when she’s patched through to Casey (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin), who has attracted the attention of the killer and now finds herself trapped in the boot of his car as he drives along the highway to his lair. The setting of a 911 operations centre is an
obviously rich source of drama, and director Brad Anderson brings an enjoyable tautness to the first half of the film. But the second half, in which Jordan attempts a one-woman rescue, quickly goes from improbable to ridiculous. Berry is an empathetic enough lead but the serious subject of child abduction and murder isn’t well served by the way Anderson’s film veers into a comic book / vigilante drama. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 20 Sep.
DRAMA LE WEEK-END (15) 92min ●●●●●
Ten years ago, in The Mother, director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi explored the sexual yearnings of a woman in her sixties. They reunited for 2006’s Venus, in which Peter O’Toole’s retired actor is invigorated by a brash but beautiful teenager. Their latest collaboration, Le Week-End, is perhaps more prosaic – though no less enjoyable – as a couple heading towards retirement must contend with the effects of a long-term marriage.
We join them on their way to Paris in an attempt to rekindle their flagging relationship. Jim Broadbent is Nick, a lecturer who – we later discover – is being pushed from his job by the college seniors following a politically incorrect comment he made. Lindsay Duncan is Meg, Nick’s loyal but restless spouse.
Bickering in the way all couples do, upon arrival Meg hates their room so much they switch to a five-star joint on the Champs-Élysées – a trivial matter but one that nevertheless masks deeper resentments simmering away below the surface. Things really come to a head when they bump into Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), an old university chum of Nick’s now living in Paris with a much younger wife. He invites them to a dinner party, in honour of his latest academic publication, setting up a brutal, bitter, but also poignant final act.
Broadbent in particular is on vicious form (even if the scene where he gets stoned with Morgan’s teenage son and gets the giggles is excruciating), while Duncan is a fine foil, her character twisted by her own concerns of a life wasted. With Michell anchoring proceedings in his usual unfussy manner, what stands out most is Kureishi’s perfectly polished diamond of a script. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 11 Oct.
19 Sep–17 Oct 2013 THE LIST 61