FILM REVIEW: CERTIFIED COPY

Madman Films

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I'm not familiar with the work of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, which is to say I've not seen any of his films, including his Palm D'or-winning Taste of Cherry from Cannes 1997. Perhaps that's why I failed to grasp exactly what was going on in Certified Copy, Kiarostami's latest film and his first to be made outside of his native Iran.

What starts out as a debate about art – beauty is in the eye of the beholder, original versus copy – soon morphs into some kind of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? in the Tuscan countryside; a battle between intellect (represented by visiting English author, James Miller (William Shimell)), and emotion (represented by Elle, a local gallery owner and ex-pat Frenchwoman, played by Juliette Binoche in a performance that won her Best Actress at Cannes 2010).

Miller, in town to promote his new book, Certified Copy, meets with Elle and accompanies her on a car trip to a nearby village where it soon becomes apparent that they have some kind of relationship. Or do they? And if so, what is its nature? Do they know each other? Or are they merely pretending to know one another; 'copying' the traits of an established but failing relationship?

Kiarostami teases out these questions as the pair walk and talk the village streets, not unlike the characters in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), though Shimell and Binoche are far more prickly than either Ethan Hawke or Julie Delpy.

Shimell, an opera singer making his feature film acting debut, is very much the pragmatic academic who would appear to appreciate the art that he writes about rather than engaging with it on an emotional level. Binoche's Elle, on the other hand, 'feels' everything and can't understand someone – husband? lover? projection? – who doesn't. She's sympathetic and exasperating in equal measure.

The same could be said for the film. Every time I thought I was getting a grasp on Kiarostami's intent, it took another turn and continued to elude me. Reviews for the film from last year's Cannes Film Festival suggest that Kiarostami is having fun with the idea of originality, in art and film, thus the allusions to Linklater's aforementioned films as well as all those rom-coms where ex-pats escape to the Italian countryside.

One could also read Certified Copy as Kiarostami's statement on the current predicament of film: that there is nothing new; everything is a copy of something else. As I stated, I'm unfamiliar with the director's work so can't say whether cynicism (even if warranted, with regards to that last point) is his usual position. But given that the film ends with Shimell's Miller taking a piss, I'm inclined to think he's in a jocular mood, and the joke is on us.

FILM REVIEW: GNOMEO & JULIET

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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One wonders if the creators of Gnomeo & Juliet, an animated version of the Shakespearean tragedy of star crossed lovers, came up with the idea by tossing around variations on the original's title. Not a lot rhymes with either Romeo or Juliet. But with that obstacle cleared – let's make the rival families garden gnomes! – the next challenge would have been to make a children's version of the doomed lovers' tale that didn't end with a double suicide.

Given that the film is credited to nine (!) writers, that task is handled adequately enough which is also the best way to some up the entire enterprise. Animated films are so good these days (and not just Pixar's) that the bar is set fairly high. Gnomeo & Juliet is not in Pixar's class, animation or story wise, and perhaps closer to early Dreamworks (director Kelly Asbury made Shrek 2), but it's reasonably entertaining with enough in-jokes (Shakespearean and cinematic) to give accompanying parents a chuckle or two.

Our eponymous lovers are fixtures in the gardens of warring neighbours, Miss Montague and Mr Capulet; Gnomeo (voiced by James McAvoy) and his ilk donning blue, Juliet (Emily Blunt) and her clan painted red. There's the occasional lawnmower drag race in the back alley between Gnomeo and his red alpha gnome rival, Tybalt (Jason Statham), but it's when Gnomeo meet-cutes Juliet, by moonlight in the overgrown garden of an abandoned estate, that love takes over – it's colour blind, after all.

What ensues is more or less as Shakespeare intended, minus that tragic ending, and all to the soundtrack of classic Elton John; Crocodile Rock, Your Song and Don't Go Breaking My Heart are used to enjoyable if incongruous effect. Elton, along with partner David Furnish, is one of the film's producers, and he and Bernie Taupin have re-worked some of their old hits and written two new tracks for the film (again, for the folks, not the kids).

Sadly, the talented and diverse voice cast, which includes Maggie Smith (Gnomeo's mother), Michael Caine (Juliet's father), Ozzy Osbourne (Fawn), Matt Lucas (Benny), Dolly Parton (Dolly Gnome?!), and Julie Walters as Miss Montague, is used to little or no effect.

Best in show goes to Ashley Jensen as Nanette, a water spurting frog and lady-in-waiting to Juliet, and Featherstone, a Spanish-accented pink flamingo found by our lovers in the abandoned estate. Jim Cummings gives Featherstone enough pathos to offset his potential for irritation; this is one garden ornament who knows what it is to have loved and lost. Special mention must also be made of Hulk Hogan's appearance as the voice of an online advert for the 'mutha' of all lawnmowers, the Terrafirminator.

Gnomeo & Juliet's impressive though modest opening weekend in the U.S. ($25m) points more to the dearth of good family-friendly films than it does the quality of this one; parents have very few options to entertain the young ones at the cinema, even more so between school holidays. There will be a lot worse released in 2011 (Yogi Bear, for starters), and with most animated films slated for release being sequels (Cars and Kung Fu Panda to name but two), it may not get a whole lot better. And that may well prove to be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

FILM REVIEW: INSIDE JOB

Sony Pictures

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Charles Ferguson's Oscar-nominated documentary (it's favoured to take out this year's award) successfully explains what brought about the Global Financial Crisis of late 2008. Not surprisingly, pure, unadulterated greed was the driving force.

Yes, derivatives, subprimes and other financial practises (which this reviewer confesses to know little about, despite being provided with a glossary ahead of the screening) were the mediums through which billions upon billions of dollars were lost to bottom rung investors but not the CEOs of any major companies involved; they still got their million dollar bonuses. But it was the sheer greed and arrogance of the so-called financial experts, on Wall Street and in Washington, who facilitated it.

Inside Job doesn't tell us what we didn't already know – that Wall Street is populated by greedy, soulless assholes – but then again, if it did, I may have missed it given my tendency to tune out during discussions of things financial. Not even the seriously-intentioned narration by Matt Damon could negate my natural antipathy for all things economics (Merrill Lynch? I loved her in Julie and Julia!).

Same, too, for the inclusion of an interview with a New York madam who informs us, rather redundantly, that Wall Street big shots enjoy hookers and cocaine. And so does Charlie Sheen, but that's not what's ruining the economy. Titillating, maybe. Informative, no.

The saddest, most sobering element of Inside Job is, that despite a change in US government following the global economic crisis, little has changed, either in Wall Street practises or those supposedly in charge. President Obama has seen fit to keep in positions of regulatory power those Bush-selected 'experts' who brought about – or turned a blind eye to – the crisis in the first place.

Greed is still good on Wall Street, and as long as big business controls governments, very little is going to change. And even as you guffaw at the hubris – and, often, out and out obliviousness – of these money men (those who dared agreed to be interviewed by Ferguson, that is), you'll feel your spirit waning and your faith in humanity dieing just a little.

FILM REVIEW: HEREAFTER

Roadshow Films

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Clint Eastwood's latest film opens with a tsunami sequence that is as impressive and powerful as anything you'll see in cinemas this year. Sadly, for fans of Eastwood, that sequence is the high point of Hereafter, a contemplative meditation on mortality where “contemplative meditation” is a generous euphemism for “deadly dull”.

That tsunami (of Boxing Day 2004 infamy) sweeps up holidaying French journalist, Marie Lelay (Cecille de France), briefly claiming her life – where she has visions of an afterlife – before she comes spluttering back to the real world. Marie's brush with 'the other side' leaves her changed – haunted and full of questions – and sets in motion a journey that is inevitably linked with two complete strangers.

One of those strangers is young Londoner Marcus, grieving the loss of his twin brother, Jason (played by real life brothers, Frankie and George McClaren). Removed from the care of his drug addicted mother and into a foster home, the lost boy searches for a way to re-connect with his older (by 12 minutes) brother, visiting a variety of psychics who do the clairvoyancy industry a great disservice, and very little for a little boy's faith.

The third stranger is George Lonegan (Matt Damon), a San Francisco dockworker trying to escape his past as a psychic (he is the real deal). This proves impossible given his brother's eagerness to exploit his talent (or curse, as George tells us more than once), and George's inability to control it; the moment he touches someone, he has visions of their dearly departed. It makes any kind of social life difficult and romance, which looks to be in the offing with fellow Italian cooking student, Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard), doomed from the outset.

All three stories unfold separately before they inevitably (and clumsily) come together in the film's third act. But much like the film's overall stance on the possibility of an afterlife (vague and non-committal), Hereafter ends without resolution or answers. Indeed, it leaves you asking, what the f*ck?

Now 80, Eastwood could be forgiven for allowing his thoughts to turn to one's mortality. What can't be excused is a boring film. Some reviewers (those who tend to have a permanent hard on for the man's work) have praised Eastwood here for his classic filmmaking style and his embracing of a European aesthetic. Whatever.

I'm not an Eastwood fan but I believe he's a better director than an actor. I do admire some of his films (Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River, Letters From Iwo Jima) but struggle to understand the high praise for others, like Gran Torino, or even the Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby. For me, Hereafter falls into that latter category.

Equally surprising is that Brit scribe Peter Morgan is responsible the screenplay. Morgan, who penned The Queen, The Damned United and Frost/Nixon, all films about real life figures and recent historical events, seems to be less assured when dealing with an original concept or three stories instead of one.

There's no denying an interesting film is trying to break out of Hereafter, but unlike with Damon's George, that connection requires a hell of a lot of effort to be made. For more involving and entertaining looks at the afterlife, why not try The Sixth Sense, or even the Ricky Gervais comedy, Ghost Town? Neither is particularly insightful about the nature of death but they're also less likely to induce it through boredom.