Thoroughbreds - BFI London Film Festival

As the film is one of the last performances of the late Anton Yelchin, gone too soon, there was some intrigue surrounding what this film had to offer. The title bascially screams what type of people will be portrayed but doesn't give much away in the way of story.

With the terrible tag line as 'good breeding gone bad', which I found out after the film, it puts the film in a bit of hellish light. That line is cheap and tacky, exactly the opposite of what these two lead teens are or rather meant to be. While the film is meant to have us engulfed in the wealth that surrounds the two leads, I barely took note that this was the whole point of the film. Two spoilt 'messed up' selfish teens not getting their way so they take revenge. But I wanted to think beyond this stereotype as I saw it as a 'basic' film noir just in the wrong setting.

Amanda and Lily, former friends have drifted apart over the years but they brought together by a rather awkward forced bribed 'play date'. Amanda is awaiting trial for animal cruelty after she killed her horse. Lily has been expelled from school and is on thin ice with her step father who she hates. After the girls put the past behind them and Amanda reveals she can't feel and barely show emotions, the two restart their friendship. After Lily finds out she is being sent to a strict school enforced by her step father, she and Amanda plot to kill him off. Of course, Amanda doesn't know the real reason why Lily wants him gone.

Both Amanda and Lily are gloriously blank faced throughout, despite the fact that only Amanda is the one who can't feel. Both menacing and comical at times, the blank faced friends are committed to their crime, intendung to frame someone else, enter Yelchin as the local wannabe drug mogal who they try to blackmail into doing the deadly deed. With the lead up to the crime, the film is suspensful, drawing in on the film noir aspects, with two femme fatales, but when the climax never happens, the slow burning ending loses its shock factor and becomes slightly flat, even with that amount of blood.

The two leads, despite some fault with the story, which actually started life as a play, explaining a lot of location choices, Brits putting excellent American accents, Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy are brilliant, especially the former. The twist of who's actually the monster shifting from start to finish is well executed and the main reason why the film stays focused. Not quite sure if this will be enjoyed by all, but hearing the comparisons to other such genre films is amusing.

Amant Double - BFI London Film Festival

I've been an admirer of director François Ozon's work for sometime so whenever I see that he has a new film out or (even better) at the festival, I immediately go to the cinema. Amant Double, like Ozon's previous films explores sexuality, trust, mystery, melodrama and something new, cannibal twins, which isn't what it sounds like.

Chloé has been having stomach pains, for a really long time and she doesn't know why. She thinks its connected with her extranged mother or to do with her issues sleeping. She tells this all to her psychoanalyst, Paul, whom she falls in love with. Eventually starts to feel normal again and she stops being his patient. When the two move in together, strange things start to occur. First Chloé finds Paul's passport with another name, then she sees a man that looks exactly like Paul on the street. He insists he has no brother but Chloé investigates further, meeting Louis, also a psychoanalyst and Paul's twin brother. As she has an affair with Louis, trying to keep the secret from Paul, she delves deeper into the twins' history, pushing her over the edge.

Falling into the erotic thriller zone, the fascination with twins is the main focus point of the film. In love with one and sexually obsessed with the other, Chloé can't stop seeing both. At first its just a curiosity about her boyfriend and trying to find out what secrets he's hiding, but with the affair, it turns into a morbid fantasy where she is excited by being with both twins. There is also rather a large hint at the possibility that Chloé herself is harbouring a secret sister, which may be the reason for her stomach pains. The term cannibal twin is brought up, describing how twins are made and the dominant twin literally devouring the other within the womb. A disturbing image and an even more uncomfortable feeling.

The film ramps up its melodramatic moments and loses the smooth edges of a thriller as the story progresses and as Chloé descends further into her own madness. The museum where she works part time clevery mirrors her distorted mindset with its sometimes grotesque 'art' exhibitions and somewhat illustrates better what stage the film is at than the characters do. It follows a similar pattern to Ozon's dramatic genre with a thriller like twist but Amant Double loses pace as the story continues.

Ingrid Goes West - BFI London Film Festival

Is social media 'bad' for you? Well, yes and no is the answer. But is social media 'bad' for you if you have a certain personality? To the point you obsess about something or someone? Or how about it pushes you so far off the edge that you loose all sight of who you are as you are so absorbed into being someone else? In these cases, you might want to step away from social media. Ingrid is one these people.

Ingrid Goes West is a about Ingrid, played to perfect borderline psychotic precision by Aubrey Plaza. Ingrid has an obsession with Instagram, her main supplier as well as other social media sites. Having just lost her mum who died of an illness, she is alone and seeks comfort in the pretty pictures and people posting on Instagram. When Ingrid discovers Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), she moves to California with nothing but her inheritance her mother left her. She finds her way into Taylor's friendship zone, finding out that her persona isn't quite as authentic, but by now Ingrid is in too deep.  

The comedy part of the film does an excellent job, intentional or not, or poking fun at those hipster Cali types and those who are super superficial, pretending to be ahead of the curve when being nice to people, fake smiling all the way through. The film explores these types of people and those who are just being themselves, such as Dan Pinto (O'Shea Jackson Jr) who really loves Batman Forever. He is actually someone Ingrid connects with without the use of her phone showing that she can live without her obsessions and there is hope for her yet.

 

At the Q&A after the film a couple of people  asked about mental illness having an impact and director Matt Spicer pointed out that to say Ingrid was suffering with an illness and nothing else wasn't what the film was exploring. This is more about the effect social media has in a negative and positive way (wait for the ending). Plaza fully immerses herself into Ingrid's mind set and although she does some very questionable things, she isn't dangerous but can be pushed too far when cornered. All Ingrid wants is a friend she can admire and that appreciates her too. There is of course a back lash as Ingrid's real personality is defined about others and things and doesn't break through very often. 

BFI London Film Festival: Beast

Like it's title, the film is a rare and strange 'beast'. Part of the First Feature Competition at the London Film Festival, it is expected to be raw, something that is hard to ignore and bursting with talent, which the film certainly is. There is uneasy feeling that channels throughout the story, making you questions the characters motives, whether they are telling the truth for truths sake and will passion win over instinct, all these elements have you on the edge of your seat.

Mol lives on Jersey with her overbearing and heartless mother, she lives at home to take care of her ill father and works as history tour guide which she is unsatified with. She is overlooked and blamed for most things tha go wrong. She leaves her birthday party (that wasn't really for her) to escape and dance. After a long night she ends up on the beach where she meets Pascal. The instant their eyes meet, something ignites them. Throughout the lustful first love to obsessive devotion, these two damaged souls, harbour secrets that don't burst out but graudually break and seep into their lives. At first in the background then brought to a crashing conclusion, a murderer is loose on the island, with the police closing in on their number one suspect. 

Aside from the brilliant chemistry between Mol (Jessie Buckly) and Pascal (Johnny Flynn), the stop start ending(s) started to wear thin and loose momentem BUT this is a first feature and feels as if some things were being tested out, which isn't a bad thing.

Director Michael Pearce has created a pyschosexual thriller that excites and terrifys, making you questions whether you want these two people to 'come clean'. With some brilliant scenes, particular the couple in question letting the waves wash over them and rather disturbing scene where Mol climbs into a dug out grave (I'll say no more), the story and characters are unervingly bursting at the seams with desire, hate, love and a sinister edge that keeps everything together. Hoping this get a release date soon.

BFI London Film Festival: Racer and the Jailbird

The first official film of the festival for me (press screenings to be released later on VultureHound) and I was super excited to be back in the Embankment Cinema. A fantastic construction with a huge pleasing screen complete with red carpets and a welcome bar and box office, all a stone’s throw away from the river. Rather upset I won’t get to go back there during the festival. As this was a matinee, no special guests popped up to intro the film, which is always a nice touch at the festival, alas not this time.

Racer and the Jailbird or Le Fidèle as it’s known as in France, is the Belgian thriller drama about a gangster and racing car driver who fall in head fast in love, with one of my favourites Matthias Schoenaerts and Adele Exarchopoulos (of Blue is the Warmest Colour fame) as the title characters. They are the glamorous couple, Gigi (Schoenaerts) and Bibi (Exarchopoulos) who seem fun, exciting and passionate. Their relationship is put to the test more than once, sometimes with devastating consequences. The two actors are perfectly cast and well matched with screen presence that isn't taken more by the other, they are of exact equals in the story.

 

From a distressful childhood to a dangerous adulthood, Gigi lives life on the edge but does enjoy the thrill of the chase when it comes to robbing banks with his band of violent criminals. But when he meets Bibi, infatuated from the second he sees her, he starts to want another life and starts to pull away from his friends. But the its the ‘one last job’ trap where something is bound to go wrong does. Gigi no longer is thriller by the jobs anymore, he loses interest but goes along with it all out of loyalty. There is no doubt that Gigi is in love with Bibi and the sense that she represents freedom, a theme that is brought up a few times, and with her he can give up being a gangster. Bibi is given th harder task of having to prove that she is loyal and can be trusted despite having to turn Gigi in, most likely against her will, as she wants to run away with him. Bibi is no damsel in distress, she is a talented driver and can handle herself in the face of danger.

Split into three section, 'Gigi', 'Bibi' and 'No flowers', we get to see the relationship development, obverse the lies and witness the crumbing of their time together and apart. Each section shows a different part of their lives beginning with new love and intrigue to the fall out when love and passion takes over but doesn't win the day to desperate times with a looming tragedy that feels too quick. And yet, the ending, although odd and slightly mysterious, is almost its own section of the film, sepcualting a passing teasing question could in fact be true, I hope it is as it would shine a whole new light on the story.

#racerandthejailbird 

#MatthiasSchoenaerts 

#LFF2017

#EmbankmentCinema 

Around the World: Mexico

I am a sucker for a Gael Garcia Bernal film and this romantic comedy was exactly what I needed to watch. The film was shown as part of the Raindance Film Festival, which I had hoped to see more at but I was rather limited by time and work, which is such a shame as there were so many great films, but if I could only pick one I'm so glad I got to see 'You're Killing Me Susana'.

In Mexico City, Eligio, an actor stuck working on a soap opera, goes out drinking til late with his friends and screws around with the make up artist on his show, while his wife Susana, teacher and aspiring writer is losing her patience with her husband. One day Eligio wakes up to find that Susana has left, disappeared. He searches everywhere for clues for days, while Susana moves on with her life. Eventually he find out she's in Iowa, USA and immediately quits his job and sells his car to buy a flight to see his wife. Susana won a grant to a writers workshop and decided this is what she wanted and fed up with Eligio's behaviour thought that he'd forget about her. What follows is a mixture of culture clash, romantic and comedic moments as well as bitter realisation and more than one heartfelt reunion.

The clash of many cultures is felt and even uncomfortable at times. Particularly when everyone keeps calling Eligio 'that Mexican'. He's first treated with suspicion at the airport when he arrives in the US and then ends a taxi journey with a racist driver by skipping out on the fair. He makes friends with Susana's Spanish speaking classmates who continously say 'aw you Mexican man'. He is seen as someone new and exciting by one of the American classmates who flirts with him even though she knows he's married. Eligio's experience at the University with Susana comments on people's discrimnations as well as showing clashes aren't always obvious, particularly, between Eligio and Susana's Polish classmate she has been sleeping with. Speaking of Slawormir, the Polish poet, he doesn't say one word throughout the film, he just looms uncomfortably in various scenes. Compared to the loud, social and passionate Eligio, Slawormir is a cold fish, but it is obvious, even before Susana confirms this, that she was only attracted to him, she doesn't go into detail about much else.

Moving on.

Having the bulk of the film set in USA, a place completely out of Eligio and Susana's comfort zones automatically made the couple closer. Despite their past (and future) mistakes, they have a close bond and do love each other, even though Susana doesn't say it out loud until the end unlike Eligio who says it all the time. Eligio and Susana, Gael Garcia Bernal and Spannish actress Verónica Echegui make a perfect pair. The chemistry between the two no matter what the scene is brilliant. Switching from hopelessly romantic one moment to tragic the next, they are passionate pair.

 Next up... check out all the films HERE