Film review: DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée

8/10

No film featuring Marc Bolan’s “Life Is Strange” can be called a bad film, but Jared Leto. Matthew McConaughey’s heroics cannot be underestimated either, but Jared fucking Leto. Talentless wimp, cute Angel Face biding time in acting business? No, that’s not him anymore, and the question is where exactly did that come from?

Dallas Buyers Club is a very grim film, you have to be prepared for that. Even at the very beginning, when Ron Woodroof still doesn’t know he has AIDS and 30 days to live – the film seems too heavy to handle. Casual sex, muddy rodeo, cocaine, Dallas Buyers Club looks dark even before the real darkness sets in.

Oddly, it gets better. Woodroof (stylish and depressing performance by McConaughey, who of course had to drop 23 kilos to play the role (that’s your fully used checked-in baggage next time you fly, by the way); Leto dropped 14, which is quite remarkable in his case), an electrician and a homophobe leading a hedonistic lifestyle, has fantastically droll sense of humour that brings a certain amount of relief to the proceedings. Nothing too bright, of course, but what would you expect from a film with this subject matter?

The film is based on real events that happened between 1985 and 1992, when little was known about AIDS and even less about drugs that could help. “Dallas Buyers Club” was set up by Woodroof to sell drugs (illegal according to the FDA) he smuggled into Texas. The queues are endless, people are desperate, with unlikely business partners Woodroof and Rayon (Leto), both HIV-positive, at the centre of love, hate and controversy. 

McConaughey’s performance is deserving of an Oscar, no question about it, but watch Jared Leto play a transgender woman (Woodroof hates faggots, remember) with such warmth and conviction that you might accidentally think those 30 Second to Mars records had some value after all (no). Besides, Rayon is a fan of Marc Bolan. There’s a scene in which McConaughey’s character tears Bolan’s posters off the wall believing that is actually Boy George. That’s a terrific scene, and it helps make the heavy and devastating Dallas Buyers Club so memorable and enjoyable. It’s a film that stays with you, and times being what they are – what could possibly be a bigger compliment?..

SONG OF THE WEEK #135: Little Feat - "Willin'"

They recorded and re-recorded "Willin'" again and again, even before Lowell George's death, but the orginal version was always the one I loved best (Little Feat, 1970). One of the most perfect songs this world has known. If you don't like it, I'd advise to stay away from music altogether.

Film review: A FIELD IN ENGLAND

Directed by Ben Wheatley

9/10

There is no dross like left-field dross (no pun intended). When something so decidedly non-mainstream fails, it’s not just bad. It’s offensively bad, and every time you just want to write a long and vicious essay decrying how postmodernism spoils good art. Is A Field In England good art? I don’t know, but “I find pages easier to turn than people” is a line to kill for. The film has lots of good lines.

Circles, too. And squares. A Field In England is a classic far-out experience that sees its characters consume mushrooms in hallucinogenic quantities, die twice and have a thing called ‘pissing disease’. If your stomach is too small, stay away. This is black-and-white, old-school horror, psychedelia, Waiting For Godot, and lovely 17^th-century styled folk music all rolled into one and messing with your brain. A trip in every sense of the word.

The English Civil War is in full swing, but the film is set in a field separated from the battle by a long hedge. Four men desert and decide to go to an ale house. The ale house is pretty much Kafka’s castle in that it’s out there somewhere yet getting to it isn’t really on the cards. Then an Irishman called O’Neill appears (“It does not surprise me that the Devil is an Irishman, but I thought that perhaps he would be a little taller”) who assumes control over the group and commands them to dig out some kind of treasure buried somewhere in the field. This is the case where you just have to hang on and look straight: because it’s quite engaging in its own absurd way. 

And you have to love the characters. There’s a refined man called Whitehead (good name) who is all about science and books. There’s one who seems to have every disease but plague. There’s one without a brain (no, not literally). The chemistry between the actors is amazing. Hell, the whole thing is amazing. It’s highly allegorical and it’s open to interpretation. And as the psychedelic fog disappears and your frail ideas slowly drift away, only one thing stands as a clear fact: Ben Wheatley is a major talent. 

Film review: HER

Directed by Spike Jonze

8/10

God knows few things are more tedious than discussing the great dangers of the Internet. How it corrupts. How it vitiates your moral principles. How easily it lets you target your sexual desires (relevant in this instance). There’s a reason why all this talk is so tedious, and the reason is its total, glaring pointlessness. It’s not like you will log off the Internet altogether and donate all your money to a local school.

And yet haven’t we all become emotional perverts who would rather post a picture than put it in words? Her asks this question. It isn’t tedious because it isn’t didactical and doesn’t try to split your head with a hammer. It’s actually very understated, and there’s an awkward, quirky love story on top of it – a sort of deeper Ruby Sparks without the cloy cuteness.

The film is set in the future where some of those great dangers are a fully realized reality. It’s computers all around, of course, and Jonze’s future looks like a depressing candyland inhabited by emotionally confused, often frustrated people who don’t wear belts and who do odd things for a living. Theodore Twombly (a good if unrevelatory performance from Joaquin Phoenix), for instance, writes love letters for those who can’t express their feelings. He also mourns the death of his own relationship. Enter his new operational system that can be customized according to his own preferences and desires. The OS is called “Samantha” and talks like Scarlett Johansson, and he finds himself addicted and in love. Johansson’s voice can do that. 

The supporting cast includes Amy Adams and Rooney Mara, so you know you’re in good hands. It’s never quite overwhelming, the sound of Arcade Fire’s “Suppersymmetry” (they are responsible for the soundtrack) playing in the background captures the mood perfectly. Her  is a very meditative, slow-paced film that looks like a therapy course that brings no relief. A fairy tale for grown-ups. A lovely romantic drama with an edge. Stylish but maybe too nice.

Film review: GRAVITY

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

9/10

Art should impress. If art doesn’t impress, it’s pretty much weak tea with no milk or sugar. And all snobbery aside (this particular reviewer is highly susceptible, but he’s giving it a miss this time), Gravity is simply breathtaking. So much so that you really do have to have some personal issues or inherent anti-hype agenda to keep going on a tedious, never-ending loop of “where’s the plot?” and “Sandra Bullock can’t act”.

Let’s get a few things out of the way. Sandra Bullock can’t act. Well, that may very well be the case (she was good in The Heat though, if that counts for anything), but she certainly doesn’t in any way spoil Gravity.  The acting is overall very minimalist, never hammy, and when she has to hold the screen – she does it well. The story is indeed very simple, but did anyone really need twisted embellishments in a survival story set in space?..

There are but two characters and a striking image of the Earth as a background. Trying to describe the impressive visuals, you will soon run out of superlatives. It really is overwhelming, the ultimate 3D experience that just begs for an overpriced iMax outing. The space is infinite, something goes wrong, and that’s all complication you need. The very basic nature of the story makes you follow it with truly dogged dedication. But of course: Cuarón being Cuarón, he throws in a fair amount of smart symbolism: the string connecting astronauts to the spaceship becomes umbilical cord, curled up Bullock looks like an embryo, and there’s of course the final sequence that manages to be both straightforward and absolutely irresistible. 

Final thought. In a world going for overkill it is refreshing to have a Hollywood film lasting just over half an hour. And not a second wasted.