FILM | Reviews
BIOPIC MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM (12A) 146min ●●●●● DRAMA A LONG WAY FROM HOME (12A) 80min ●●●●●
Let’s get the cliché out of the way first. Yes, it’s been a long walk to bring Nelson Mandela’s autobiography to the big screen. Countless directors, writers and actors – including Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington – have come and gone. But finally, after almost two decades, Mandela’s story arrives in the cinema.
Entrusted with this precious gift is British director Justin Chadwick. Working
from a script by Gladiator’s William Nicholson, Chadwick deserves credit simply for attempting a cohesive story that spans 50 years of personal and public history. There are times when the film can feel too whistle-stop, blasting through years and events as South Africa becomes mired in the apartheid regime and Mandela (Idris Elba) and second wife Winnie (Naomie Harris) lead the fight against racial segregation. Inevitably, when Mandela is arrested and imprisoned on Robben Island, the film slows down, with Chadwick uncertain how to handle the shift from breakneck events to emotional anguish. If he too often labours under the weight of responsibility and history, in Elba and Harris the director has two supreme actors who carry the film through its stickier patches. Both add a human touch to a story that threatens to become engulfed by politics. They alone make this worth a watch. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 3 Jan.
Dreams aren’t always as idyllic when played out in reality. This is the harsh lesson that the two central characters learn in BAFTA-nominated writer Virginia Gilbert’s feature debut, A Long Way From Home.
The film centres on the casual meeting of two couples: Joseph (James Fox) and Brenda (Brenda Fricker), who are living out their dream of French country life after retiring; and Mark (Paul Nicholls) and Suzanne (Natalie Dormer), a young couple who have come to France on holiday. In meeting, the couples’ hidden desires and regrets trickle to the surface and they realise that life in the French countryside isn’t all that their English romanticising has made it seem.
Gilbert sets out to create a tense psychological drama played out within beautiful French surroundings but A Long Way From Home falls short of its intentions. While it might aspire to the work of filmmaker Eric Rohmer, he was able to infuse his characters with both charm and infatuation, whereas Gilbert only succeeds in leaving a bitter taste, as the unsubtle gaze of James Fox uncomfortably looms over his infatuation. Throughout there are also visual devices and refrains which hammer home several clichés, telling us ‘a dying animal should be spared of misery’ and ‘the grass isn’t always greener’. Gilbert’s full length debut isn’t a complete shambles but where passion and tumult should exist, there is only a misguided intent to be found. (Alan Laidl aw) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 20–Tue 24 Dec.
HISTORICAL DRAMA 12 YEARS A SLAVE (15) 134min ●●●●●
In 1841, Solomon Northup, a free man living in New York state, was drugged, imprisoned and sold into slavery. After his release in 1853 he wrote a memoir detailing the 12 harrowing years he spent incarcerated. Steve McQueen’s (Hunger, Shame) film adaptation is a
powerful portrait of this horrifying period of history. Masterfully directed, elegantly shot and with fantastic performances across the board, 12 Years a Slave has justifiably been accumulating critical praise since its premiere last August. For his third feature McQueen has assembled some of the most interesting actors of our time: Paul Giamatti is the cold- blooded slave dealer who Northup meets when he’s offloaded in New Orleans; Paul Dano is the agitated, vindictive carpenter Tibeats; and Brad Pitt appears as one of the few likeable characters, thoughtful labourer Bass. Most astounding of all are the two lead roles: Michael Fassbender as the sweaty, drunken and explosive plantation owner Edwin Epps, a sadistic bully who embodies everything abhorrent about the era; and Chiwetel Ejiofor whose restrained performance in the lead role communicates Northup’s tragic circumstances through stony features, measured responses which break down in heart- wrenching moments of desperation. Steve McQueen’s cinematography is subtly subversive. In the
scenes of beatings his camera never cuts away, forcing the audience to look at the horrors which Northup went through for far longer than we’re used to. If 12 Years a Slave sounds like a brutal viewing experience
then you’d be right, but in eschewing sentimentality and striving for honesty in the storytelling it is also a powerful, essential drama. (Gail Tolley) ■ General release from Fri 10 Jan.
80 THE LIST 12 Dec 2013–23 Jan 2014