In Cinemas Thursday [PG]

Director: Saul Dibb

Runtime: 110mins

One can be forgiven for perhaps yawning at the notion of yet another period piece showcasing the refined talents of mannequin/actress Keira Knightley, but as a very fresh 18^th Century period piece, The Duchess richly succeeds.

Born two centuries before her distant descendant Princess Diana, Georgiana – The Duchess of Devonshire (Knightley) – is the subject of this intimate costume drama, with her turbulent marriage to the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) of particular focus. Upon entering high society through the marriage, The Duchess becomes a historical fashion icon, a political activist and a compulsive gambler; all of which are highlighted, but are not the emphasis for this story, which centers more on love and entrapment. While the Duchess is young, beautiful and idealistic, the Duke is harsh, unfeeling and generally loathsome, bringing into play the strengths in the film’s casting. Fiennes’ public misdemeanours, coupled with his stern performance, make for an appropriate Duke indeed. While he had many open affairs in the marriage, which the Duchess never contested out of guilt over not being able to produce a male heir, it was his open introduction of a mistress into the household that sent the Duchess into emotional turmoil (explaining the film’s tagline, ‘There were three people in her marriage’).

The Duke’s mistress (Hayley Atwell) started out as a dear friend of Georgiana, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that the Duke always gets what he wants, often at the expense of his wife. In losing this dear friend, The Duchess leads herself into temptation in a public affair with her long time love Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper). As a result of her husband’s stranglehold over her, her children, and ultimately the welfare of Grey, the Duchess is forced to sacrifice her love.

The Duke’s affairs and public rejection of his three daughters successfully lead the viewer to identify with the Duchess while creating a platform for Knightley’s very credible and poignant performance throughout.

Based on a true story and on the 1998 biography of the same title by historian and novelist Amanda Foreman, The Duchess embraces the harsh truths of its narrative and characters, making for a very emotional and empathetic viewing experience. While Knightley and Fiennes offer mature, standout performances, Atwell as a relative newcomer is also impressive, seducing the Duke, the Duchess and the viewer simultaneously. One of the film’s only downfalls however is its relatively understated portrayal of the Duchess’s flaws and transgressions in complying with the film’s PG rating. In doing so, her affectionate relationship with Atwell’s character is not explored nor explained and her gambling, drug addictions and other affairs are also heavily downplayed. But this aside, The Duchess is unexpectedly impressive and moving, offering perhaps Knightley’s best performance to date.

****

MICHELLE MANENTI

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In cinemas now [M]

Director: David J. Caruso

Runtime: 117mins

David J Caruso’s latest smash-’em-up blockbuster Eagle Eye opens with one of those US military screw-ups we’re lead to believe happen all the time: front-line troops are ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to launch a brutal strike on a funeral somewhere in one of the axes of evil. While there’s only a 51 per cent probability of the target being one of terrorism’s Mr Bigs– he only pokes his head up every few years – take him out now, or never. Collateral damage? Several dozen innocent mourners. So sets the stage for a massive conspiracy that draws in more innocents, and features an obscene bodycount… But there’s a message of course. It may be wielded by a blunt instrument in the ham-fist of Caruso, but it’s there, all the same.

Jerry Shaw – played by Shia LaBeouf, who also appeared in Caruso’s much more sophisticated Disturbia last year – is a twentysomething slacker who, for most of his adult life, has avoided the shadow of his much more successful identical twin Ethan. When his brother is killed in an accident, Jerry attends the funeral and returns to his shabby flat to find it filled with all the tools of the terrorist trade: small arms, night-vision goggles, and a significant quantity of ammonium nitrate. Within seconds a strange woman rings on his mobile and says he has moments before the FBI arrives. Across town, Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) sees her son off on a school trip; later that night, as she hits the town with her girlfriends, Rachel receives a similar phone call from a mysterious woman: “Do as I say, or your son will die.”

Caruso isn’t covering any new territory here; Johnny Depp trod similar steps more than a decade ago in Nick Of Time, and Colin Farrell spent almost a whole movie trapped in a Phone Booth by a mysterious caller. But Caruso tries mixing it up with topical themes like terrorism, incursions into our privacy, and our fascination with and over-reliance on technology to make decisions for us. The annoying thing for those who like to dig a little deeper into films, is that Caruso’s little tale about the implications of the US Constitution is riddled with holes that make the overall plot irrelevant and extremely frustrating. For all his posturing about privacy and technology – and at times, Eagle Eye is shamelessly derivative, stealing plot devices from everyone from Kubrick to Hitchcock – Caruso lets the big bangs and flashes disarm the message to the point where I was wishing the conspiracy all went to plan. This is one for those who can live with just the bangs and booms.

**½

TIM MILFULL

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Screens exclusively at the Blue Room Cinebar, Rosalie, from Thursday  (M15+)

Director: Eric Guirado

Runtime: 96mins

The Grocer’s Son is a delightful French drama that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The story begins when Antoine’s (Nicolas Cazale) father is hospitalised after having a heart attack. Antoine lives in Paris in a cluttered and dingy apartment. He is unemployed and going nowhere. Reluctantly he agrees to leave the city behind and return to the village in Provence where he grew up. He promised himself ten years ago that he would never return, but his mother’s plea to help her with the family’s grocery delivery service is enough for him to make the journey. Antoine begins his trip to the countryside, but he is not alone, he has convinced his neighbour, Claire (Clotilde Hesme) to come along too. She is a struggling student looking for some peace and quiet to study for her exams and so she jumps at the opportunity.  

While his mother minds the small grocery store and Claire hits the books, Antoine is in charge of driving the grocery delivery van. Antoine is impatient and sarcastic to the elderly residents of the surrounding countryside that he delivers to. He shows no interest and hates it at first, however his opinion changes when Claire decides to come along one day. Her enthusiasm and positive attitude excites him and shows him that he might actually enjoy the job. The daily drama of old men in caps buying a single tin of peas and widowers hunched over their baskets after purchasing two eggs, salami, and radishes is more than Antoine ever had back in Paris.

The trajectory of the story is pretty obvious, however it’s not really the destination that makes this a charmer; it’s the journey there. The audience is taken mostly by grocery van through some of the most spectacular landscapes. The film flows along at a languid summer pace and Antoine learns the healing power of country life and good food.  He is able to re-connect with his family and the girl he is interested in. 

The Grocer’s Son celebrates the simple pleasures in life and the gentle pace of the film unfolds the story beautifully. By the end you will feel relaxed and refreshed as well as craving some fine wine and crusty bread with cheese. Mmmm.

****                                                            

GEMMA MUMFORD

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In cinemas now [PG]

Director: Gurinder Chadha

Runtime: 101mins

Being over twice the age of the target market of the film you’re meant to be reviewing makes for an interesting experience. Do you attempt to look at the film with the eyes of a 14 year-old (that’s if you even know any 14 year-olds as a basis to emulate…), or do you wade in like a cynical old film buff with half a dozen Tarkovsky DVDs in your collection, and lay waste to the movie like any old codger would be expected to? Hmm…

Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging is unashamedly a film for teenage girls – based on diary-style young adult novels by Louise Rennison, it’s a Bridget Jones Diary minus any suggestion of sex (although it does have some big knickers), and while that might sound like a nightmare to any sophisticated filmgoers, there’s actually quite a lot to be enjoyed here.

Centred around 14 year-old Georgia (Georgia Groome), a girl living in the British seaside town of Eastbourne, the film light-heartedly follows her trials and tribulations with boys, dorky parents (including Alan ‘Jonathan Creek’ Davies), and plans for an epic fifteeth birthday party. We first meet Georgia dressed as a giant cocktail olive, attending a party where, unbeknownst to her, her friends have opted out of a planned hors d’ouvres theme in favour of party frocks. Yes, it’s embarrassment number one, and there’s plenty more to come. When Georgia spies a ‘sex god’ new boy at school – Robbie (Aaron Johnson), bassplayer in ‘The Stiff Dylans’ – it’s on for young and … well, young. Kissing must be perfected (in a funny scene involving a Hugh Grant-obsessed snogging coach from Georgia’s year), thong-wearing blonde girlfriends must be gotten rid of, and the correct way to use fake tanning products must be learnt.

(And who’s Angus, you might ask at this point? He’s Georgia’s ‘half Scottish wildcat’, and spends most of the film being dressed in undignified costumes by Georgia’s little sister – who looks like a tiny Bjork. Really, that’s it.)

Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha took time out from a big screen adaptation of TV’s Dallas to make this film, and it looks like she thoroughly enjoyed it – the locations look wonderful, Groome is suitably silly and clever, and the remaining performances are mostly endearing (two exceptions being Eleanor Tomlinson as Georgia’s BFF Jas, a googly-eyed and annoying Keira Knightley substitute; and Aaron Johnson – whose acting abilities are in inverse proportion to his looks). A very hip soundtrack – Stiff Dylans’ massacre of the Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen In Love aside ­– helps keep the pace high, and the injection of post-Juno teenspeak keeps it current – that is, provided British teens speak that way. Don’t they all carry knives these days?

The only real complaint this codger has, is with the ending. Three minutes after the film begins you know this isn’t an exercise in British Social Realism, but the wildly over-the-top wish fulfilment ending is so chokingly saccharine, any drama that did exist in the film is rendered completely inert. Reality is kicked so far out the window it ends up in France, and you feel like you’ve just watched a dream sequence rather than the climax to a film that had been, until that point, quirky and funny enough to be believable.

That aside, it’s fun and easy viewing. Just don’t go in expecting Love, Actually or Judd Apatow-style gags and you’ll be OK … as much as you can be without being female and under 20, which is the only real way to avoid suspicious looks from cinema ushers.

***

TOPHER HEALY

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In Cinemas Now [MA15+]

Directed By: Adam McKay

Runtime: 98 minutes

Another week, another Apatow-produced comedy in the cinema. Even as people are beginning to tire of them, they’re still the best thing happening in the genre right now. Step Brothers is a rather funny, original comedy that, even at it’s most juvenile, will be more worth your cinema admission then a thousand bad ‘<Blank> Movie’ parody films. It has some of the usual Apatow line-up, with the addition of Will Ferrell, who brings his own style of comedy to the film.

 Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (John C. Reilly) are two middle-aged loafers, unemployed and still living at home with their lonely parents. When Brennan’s mother and Dale’s father marry, they become something of a dysfunctional Brady Bunch, and the reluctant new step-brothers attempt to assert themselves as ‘boss of the house’ in elaborately childish ways.

The feuding children eventually come together when Brennan’s successful younger brother offers to sell the house, forcing them both out of the nest.

By working together they begin to realise how alike they are and begin form a strong friendship. What follows is a series of increasingly funny and oddly warm moments, which will have you going against your better judgement and backing the anti-heroes.

 It’s hard not to find Will Ferrell funny, and John C Reilly belongs in comedy and away from minor roles as cuckolded husbands. Mary Steinbergen plays (surprise) a ‘nice mum’, and Seth Rogen (also, surprise) pops up for a moment in one of the more immature scenes. With Ferrell and Reilly penning most of the script, the laughs are frequent and as usual, the film is up to the Apatow standard – full of good humour and likable characters. The leads have a very good on-screen chemistry, and while Step Brothers doesn’t eclipse films like Anchorman, it’s still pretty great.  

If all else fails to interest you, you might care to know that censors refused to allow Ferrell to expose his testicles on screen so a very expensive set of doubles had to be created, and they look alarmingly realistic. So much so that Will Ferrell decided he should keep them. 

****

BROOKE BURGESS

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In cinemas Thursday [M]

Director: Jonathan Ogilvie

Runtime: 104mins

On paper, The Tender Hook must have been an attractive prospect, based on a series of shady characters who tramped the streets of Sydney in the twenties and thirties. All the elements are there for a good film too: great costumes, beautiful sets – this was the art deco period, after all – a talented cinematographer, some innovative use of archival footage, and an interesting cast led by two of Australia’s most talented actors – Rose Byrne and Hugo Weaving. So what went wrong? The blame should probably lay at the feet of writer-director Jonathan Ogilvie, whose thin script and ordinary direction must have let his cast reeling like the boxers their characters hung around with.

This is vintage film noir territory, with a wicked villain, a flawed hero, and a complex femme fatale. Weaving plays the nasty McHeath, a Sydney identity whose penchant for singing in his own jazz bar hides a darker side that involves dodgy boxing promotion, extortion, and booze-running. His moll Iris (Rose Byrne) is happy to be kept on a velvet leash, as long as the bling and pretty clothes are kept in constant supply. But both of them are distracted by Art (Matt Le Nevez) who shows promise for McHeath in the ring, and promise in the sweat-soaked sack for Iris. Art is quickly hired as McHeath’s new golden-haired boy, and begins training with the disgruntled aboriginal punchy Alby (Luke Carroll), who can’t fulfil his own pugilistic potential because of his skin colour.

Supporting characters include McHeath’s constantly bickering henchman – staunch monarchist Ronnie (John Batchelor), and radical socialist republican Donnie (Tyler Coppin) – and the ditzy flapper-slapper, jazz/boxing groupie Daisy (Pia Miranda), who drives the heavies into crazy competition with her flirty disposition.

Ogilvies’s plot interleaves all the standard noir plots, including double-crosses, double-dealing, devious deaths and taking the odd dive as betrayals, murders and mutilations are handed out. But there’s nothing really new here; the fare served up is painfully stale, and the only really interesting things on offer are McHeath’s jazzed-up cover versions of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan tracks, or the muted political arguments between Ronnie and Donnie. Sadly, all of these are few and far between. The rest is a little like next morning’s bubble-and-squeak: rehashed leftovers that leave you wondering a few hours later why you bothered heating them up.

**

TIM MILFULL

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