I Got You Babe

 Great love stories are hard to come by. Especially those that have the power to cause an audience to emote to the point of tears. Even when there is awful drunk old man swearing very loudly and flashing his phone light all over the room.

I've always been a Chaplin fan so never really watched Buster Keaton and only a few bits and pieces of Laurel and Hardy, but with word on the grape vine or through emails at one of my previous jobs, I found out there was going to be a biopic of sorts about famous comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

The film focuses on their 1953 tour of the UK and Ireland, which doesn't quite go as planned. Staying in dingy hotels and playing to barely an audience. The understanding is that they are doing the tour until they start shooting their next film, a spoof of Robin Hood, which Laurel has been in talks about with a producer in London, who's name Hardy continuously gets wrong. Dealing with the decline in popularity, decline in health, past arguments which they both still hold on to and their lifelong partnership, take a toll on the two comedians but not their unbreakable friendship.

Starting with a fantastic opening scene, where Stan and Ollie, at the height of their fame in 1937 walk across the studio to their set, with their backs to the camera for most of the scene, we hear them casually talking, we know exactly who they are and instantly understand what the two men are like. The film then picks up in 1953 in dreery North England where the duo are about to start a tour. The empty theatres, a sign of the times and a question of whether they should keep going. Their age, health and status are always in question, even they start to do a bit of publicity bringing success and sold out audiences. The most charming a brilliant scenes are when the two friends are alone, going over new material Stan has written or simply just comforting each other after Ollie, or as he is more affectionatly called, Babe, makes a shattering decision.

Heart aches and breaks that these two friends have shared aren't really about their many marriages, but with each other. Notably, when Hardy made a film without Laurel while the latter was in a contract dispute with the studio owner, Hal Roach. This felt like a betrayal to Laurel which comes out after a successful performance when the duo argue. But this is not a spectacle of an argument, this is quiet heated angry words followed by the throwing of bread roll. The heightened emotions of the film are gloriously understated, no dramatics, just real heartbreaking moments. With a brilliantly cast John C. Reilly as Hardy and Steve Coogan (who deserves more praise than I've seen/read) who really does morph into Laurel. Their wives Lucille and Ida, played by Shirley Henderson (always a delight) and Nina Arianda are also an amusing pair, as said in the film, two double acts for the price of one.

A great love story doesn't have to be about romantic love, the friendship of Stan and Ollie is a great love story and we get to see just a glimpse into it through this film.

The Sisters Brothers - London Film Festival

Based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt, the Sisters Brothers isn’t the typical western. Directed by Jacques Audiard, his keen eye for unexpected tender moments amid a trail of blood and money, makes the story and characters more humane than the standard hired guns. 

Eli and Charlie Sisters are hitmen who work for their wealthy proprietor, the Commodore. When they are sent after Hermann’s Warm, a prospector who is accused of stealing a formula, the job turns into more than they bargained for. 

A late edition to the JOURNEY strand of the festival, among the person and literal journeys taken by characters, ‘The Sisters Brothers’ although an actual journey from Oregon to California in the old west, the brothers, Eli and Charlie, go on an emotional journey of their own. While Eli wants this to be their last job for their boss, the infamous Commodore, and Charlie is very happy to continue ‘doing what they were made for’, they each travel a different path. Eli believes he is still a good man who is only there to protect his younger violent, often drunk brother. Charlie believes that its in their blood to be killers, so may as well get paid to do it. John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix complement each other. Both brilliant actors, Phoenix is the master craftsman able to play out a display of emotions with a slight change of expression and Reilly, underrated, his filmography muddied with mediocre frat pack comedies so much that his better roles are buried. 

The events of the past weigh heavy on Eli whereas Charlie has chosen the bottle, possibles to numb any feeling at all. The brothers have a few emotional moments but none as affecting as the other duo in the story. Warm and John Morris meet while the latter is meant to be keeping him for the Sisters brothers, the two form a friendship on the road and share a passion for a better world. Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal unexpectedly become the heart of the film, while the brothers are the muscle. As secondary characters they don’t have as much screen time, but after a tragic incident, there are hints at their deep friendship their a painful few words.

Going against the what is expected of a western, the brothers’ journey takes a turn in an undramatic way, continuing on to the end where a short but sweet cameo from Carol Kane wraps up the story. There is a feeling that you don’t have to go ‘big’, you can just go home and this too makes for a satisfying ending.  Audiard’s film isn’t about greed, despite gold being an incentive, its not about killing people, although the brothers’ history of violence makes them behave in different ways, its not just about brothers and unexpected friendships, it doesn’t even go downhill when the fateful words ‘our last job’ are uttered. ‘The Sisters Brothers’ is a difficult tone to pin down so perhaps it is all about the journey than the destination and who’s with you through it all.