Movie#2: Yesterday. An unsuccessful musician is about to give up when he is hit by a bus and wakes up to find that no one has heard of the Beatles (and a few other things). Well, you can guess what happens next at least up to a point. Ed Sheeran is involved. The direction is by Danny Boyle and the screenplay is by Richard Curtis so, ya, it's very good. Himish Patel is very good in the lead role. Lily James is great as his friend and road manager. And Kate McKinnon steals every scene as Patel's music company rep after he becomes famous. So what happened to the Beatles? You'll get some answers if you see this nice film. There is an amazing scene toward the end.
This a fab documentary featuring, prominently, Morrison talking directly to the camera. It takes a fascinating look at her books and their origins, and also, the importance of her "other" job as an editor at Random House. Lots of Oprah, Angela Davis, and Fran Lebowitz.
The title sort of says it all. A young woman who is overweight and has self-esteem issues, decides to change her life by starting to run. But it's way more complicated than that. Definitely a dramedy, this film has a some nice moments, but is a bit rough around the edges. A typical first-time writer/director effort.
This film (in French with subtitles) is a modern bedroom farce. After Abel and Marianne have been living together for 3 years, she tells him that she is pregnant but the baby is not his. She has been having an affair with his best friend. She leaves him. Eight years later, the best friend dies and Abel and Marianne reconnect. Now there is her son who thinks his mother murdered his father, and the best friend's sister (played by Johnny Depp's daughter), also in love with Abel. Who knows why a schlub like Abel is a love god, but this is a French comedy. There are some funny moments but not enough to give this a thumb's up.
Like A Faithful Man but much more serious. A couple with two teenage daughters breaks up when the husband reveals he has a girlfriend and a baby. Lots of love, hate, anger, and sadness between all the characters. Very good.
I just love Awkwafina. She was the best thing in Crazy Rich Asians. She has the lead role here, playing a young woman who mostly grew up in the US, who is returning to China with her family because her grandmother is dying. But this is mostly a comedy so the family is trying to hide the medical news from the grandmother. No spoilers. You have to watch the ending. Awkwafina is fab as usual and has a nice group of supporting actors. Sort of heart warming.
I loved this film. It tells the story of the "friendship" between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. The film contains many of the letters they wrote each other and is filmed at Sackville-West's actual home. Gemma Arterton (Vita) and Elizabeth Debicki (Virginia) really heat up the screen. The supporting cast, particularly Isabella Rossellini (Vita's mother), Peter Ferdinando (Leonard Woolf), and Emerald Fennell (Virginia's sister) are all great. Rossellini is ferocious. Try to see this when it opens in August.
Another first time writer/director Annabelle Attanasio has produced a very intense little film about a high school senior in a small town in Montana whose father, a former Marine with PTSD, is an alcoholic and drug addict. The parent/child relationship is reversed and the daughter (Camila Morrone) feels she can never leave her father even though she has been accepted to college in California. Morrone is very good as the daughter who is trying to be both a kid and a mother.
This is a "true" story about a British spy (Keira Knightly) who leaks a memo that she believes will prevent the Iraq War. She confesses and is arrested. Her lawyer is Ralph Fiennes so how could she lose? In fact the UK government dropped the charges rather than release damaging documents. This film is pretty good but maybe a bit overly dramatic. Also, it was very disconcerting to see two characters from Game of Thrones (Ellaria and Varys) dressed like normal people.
Two words that strike fear into the hearts of the average moviegoer, Shia LaBoeuf. Yes, he is one of the eclectic group of actors in this strange but heartwarming movie. Also featured are Bruce Dern, Dakota Johnson, John Hawkes, and Thomas Haden Church. The film follows the story of a young man with Down Syndrome (Zack Gottsagen) who is living in a retirement facility (hilariously rooming with Bruce Dern) because the State doesn't know what to do with him. He escapes to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler and is befriended by a good-for-nothing fisherman (LaBoeuf). They build a raft and float down a river like Huckleberry Finn along with Gottsagen's caregiver (Dakota Johnson). The film goes from one bizarre scene to another, but it does grow on you, and Gottsagen's performance is very compelling. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Peter Sarsgaard makes a lot of weird and wonderful movies and this one gets added to the list. He is a House Tuner. This isn't Feng Shui. He listens to the sound of your fridge (B flat) and your toaster (G major) and solves your life issues. He believes this is scientific and is always trying to get his paper published. Rashida Jones also stars as a client whose toaster has the wrong key and makes her tired all the time. Like I said, weird but wonderful. The direction is nice and slow and often silent.
This is the biggest disappointment of the Festival. I was really looking forward to this retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view, starring Daisy Ridley (Ophelia), George MacKay (Hamlet), Clive Owen (Claudius), and Naomi Watts (Gertrude). But it was awful. It was definitely not written by Shakespeare plus they change all the lines from the play to the vernacular which makes it worse. And they don't add much. Ridley is good but Ophelia remains a cipher. And Hamlet and Ophelia spend very little time together. Watts as Gertrude is at least a character with some depth, but Owen is just having a bad hair day. They invent some strange stuff like Gertrude's identical twin sister who is a witch, and add some plot elements from Romeo and Juliet. But, it just doesn't work. I was also deeply disturbed by the fact that Laertes was being played by Draco Malfoy.
This is a fabulous documentary telling the story of the first all-female crew to participate in the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989. There is lots of actual footage taken during the race itself as well as interviews with the crew from the present day. Until you watch the film, you may have forgotten how revolutionary this was even in 1989. No one thought that women could actually do this. Spoiler alert. They do it and do it well.
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