FILM REVIEW: SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN

Roadshow Films
Now Showing




In terms of great Quixotic follies committed in films -- floating a glass church down river, or building an opera house in the South American jungle -- introducing a species of cold water fish to the deserts of Yemen doesn't seem all that ambitious or dramatic. But it sure is expensive.

About 50 million pounds worth. At least, that's the ludicrous sum fisheries expert, Doctor Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), comes up with, mostly as an act of contempt for said fisheries project, and aimed at dissuading Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt).

She's the PR consultant to the Yemeni millionaire, Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked), whose ambitious plan it is to introduce English salmon into his country's waterways for the purposes of practising his favourite sport of fly fishing. Seems you really can have too much money.

But when the UK government's press secretary, Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas, relishing her time away from dramatic roles in French films) gets wind of the project (a positive spin on Anglo-Arab relations), seems Dr. Jones has little choice in the matter. Ironically, he has to go with the flow, unable to swim against the tide, or the current, or whatever it is salmon like to throw themselves up against (crazy fish!).

By all accounts, Paul Torday's 2006 novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, is a clever satire on modern day political bureaucracy. But in the hands of screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy, and director, Lasse Hallstrom -- neither strangers to feel good territory -- the film has opted for whimsical over scathing, and romance over reality.

Which is a shame, because Beaufoy (who penned Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and 127 Hours (2010)) and Hallstrom (1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) are capable of so much more. Admittedly, it's been a while since the Swedish director, responsible for Oscar-nominated fare The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000), brought his A-game to a film set.

For their part, McGregor and Blunt make for a perfectly fine couple even if Dr. Jones and Harriet aren't as quick to embrace the idea as the audience is (he's married, while her soldier boyfriend of just three weeks is M.I.A. in Afghanistan).

I've been enjoying McGregor's revival of late (I Love You Phillip Morris, The Ghost Writer, Beginners), and his Dr. Jones, hovering between OCD and Asperger's, and speaking with a light Scottish brogue (it's been so long, Ewan!) is a strangely charming creation.

And Blunt, doe-eyed and plum-voiced, is as lovely as ever. But I'm still waiting for the day when the Brit actress is given something meatier (the forthcoming Your Sister's Sister, perhaps?) to sink her teeth into. That meat, unfortunately, is not Salmon.

While there are less enjoyable ways to wile away 107 minutes (and fly fishing, anywhere in the world, would be one of them), there are also plenty more memorable things to do with your time than catch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

FILM REVIEW: THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

Hopscotch Films
Now Showing




Robert Smith: Nazi Hunter. That's one glib way to describe the odd yet oddly intriguing This Must Be The Place, a road movie of sorts with a Sean Penn performance unlike any other.

Penn plays Cheyenne, a one-time pop star who, despite his retirement from the music scene and his self imposed exile in Ireland, has kept his rock and roll wardrobe; a goth-drag combination which would appear to be modelled on The Cure's frontman, Mr. Smith, by way of Edward Scissorhands.

Cheyenne's comatose-like speech and movement, however, would suggest that Penn is also channelling present day Ozzy Osbourne. It's this distinct way of speaking -- a crackly whisper, if you like -- which some may find off putting, even annoying, but stick with it; Cheyenne will prove to be one of the most original and endearing characters of cinema 2012.

Filling his days wandering around his mansion, playing a variation of handball in the emptied swimming pool with his fire fighter wife, Jane (a too little seen Frances McDormand), and hanging with the young Mary (Eve Hewson), whom he attempts to play matchmaker for, Cheyenne also attempts to keep at bay the guilt over the death of a band mate who didn't make it out of the heady days of the early 1980s music scene.

But Cheyenne's life is taken in a whole new direction when he is called home to New York to see his estranged, ailing father. He's too late (travelling by boat rather than flying) as it turns out, but Cheyenne decides to take up his father's life long mission: hunting down the Nazi guard who humiliated him during his internment in Auschwitz.

It's here that Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's film (named for the Talking Heads song; front man David Byrne appears in the film) takes on the form of a road movie, as Cheyenne travels cross-country in pursuit of his man, experiencing a variety of encounters and connections along the way, including Nazi hunter, Mordecai Midler (Judd Hirsch), and single mum, Rachel (Kerry Condon).

Sorrentino, making his first English language film (co-written with Umberto Contarello), says he started with the idea of the life of an elderly Nazi criminal and worked backwards from there; someone to hunt for the Nazi and the unlikeliest person to do so. Hence, Cheyenne. Not just a pop star but one seemingly in a child-like state and floating through life; tethered only by a small suitcase on wheels which he takes everywhere. Yep, this guy has baggage!

But Sean Penn makes this man with the mousy voice and the androgynous look so appealing, so endearing that any doubts -- said voice and look -- are soon forgotten. And Penn, not surprisingly, manages to balance humour and pain almost effortlessly, rendering Cheyenne as human and not a mere gimmick.

Beautifully shot by Luca Bigazzi (the film's final scenes in Utah are stunning), This Must Be The Place has an almost dream-like hue to it, adding to the overall surreal quality of both the story and its protagonist.

And if like a dream, it doesn't necessarily make complete sense, the film, and Cheyenne, won't be so easily forgotten.

FILM REVIEW: TITANIC 3D

20th Century Fox Films
Now Showing




"Are you ready to go back to Titanic?" Hells yeah! Some 15 years after its original release, and in time for the 100th anniversary of the cruise liner's infamous maiden voyage sinking, James Cameron's Titanic returns this month to cinemas -- in 3D.

And while the 3D is unnecessary -- it doesn't muddy the colour palette but it adds nothing to the viewing experience -- it's great to see the film back on the big screen where it belongs; as much an old style Hollywood spectacle as it is a classic romance.

Everything that was great about Titanic -- Kate Winslet's performance, the second half of the film, beginning with the iceberg and culminating in the ship's sinking -- remain so. And those elements that were troublesome the first time around are there too.

Namely the screenplay, which has always been the film's own iceberg, preventing Titanic from achieving true greatness. Cameron would have been wise to have someone else pen his screenplay (or at least doctor it, uncredited), for as Rolling Stone's Peter Travers remarked in his 1997 review, the director has "a poet's eye for visuals and a tin ear for dialgoue".

But enough of the bad, let's celebrate the positive i.e. Kate Winslet. Having already broken out in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994), and securing her first Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actress) the following year in Ang Lee's Sense And Sensibility, Titanic presented Winslet with her first Hollywood leading role. And she shines.

Winslet has gone on to give far greater performances than this, but in the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater, the young woman engaged to be married to a rich but soulless man (Billy Zane), and who finds love with the poor but passionate Jack Dawson (Leonardo Dicaprio, looking younger than ever), she has never been more luminous.

She spends the second half of the film wet and bedraggled, yet Winslet is undeniably beautiful; whether her face is brightened by a distress flare or flushed with, what I believe to be genuine fear, when attempting to outrun a flood of water below decks. She is also refreshingly full figured.

Rose is also tough. She may be a lady but she a has resolve of steel. Full credit to James Cameron, who may not be a wordsmith but knows how to write strong females.

Cameron is also a perfectionist, and he went to great lengths to ensure the look of Titanic was authentic; the production design, the costumes, even the fine china seen in the film was produced by the same company which originally created the dinnerware for RMS Titanic.

Of course, the director comes into his own with the sinking of the ship. Visual effects and CGI have come a long way since 1997, but the vision of the great ocean liner as it cracks, up-ends and finally descends below the icy Atlantic remains an impressive spectacle. The ocean alive with passengers, flailing and screaming -- a literal sea of humanity -- is also quite affecting.

Titanic won 11 Academy Awards including Best Director for Cameron, and Best Picture (Winslet was nominated for Best Actress, and Gloria Stuart, who plays the elderly Rose, for Supporting Actress). Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential probably should have won Best Picture, but the Academy voters were understandably smitten with this throwback to epic, romantic old Hollywood.

Audiences certainly were. Until Cameron's Avatar (2009), Titanic was the highest grossing film of all time, and I'd imagine a great many of those people who saw it in 1997 will, like me, be eager to revisit it, 2D or not.

Note: Until November 2012, the Australian Maritime Museum, in partnership with 20th Century Fox, is hosting an exhibition, Remembering Titanic - 100 Years.

DVD REVIEW: PERFECT SENSE

Madman Entertainment
Available now on DVD and Blu-ray




In terms of recent apocalypse-themed films -- Melancholia, Conatagion, Take Shelter -- the loss of one's taste buds as the pre-cursor to the end of days hardly seems dire. Unless, of course, you happen to be a chef.

But in David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense, Glaswegian chef Michael's (Ewan McGregor) sudden inability to distinguish between filet mignon and a fillet-o-fish is the least of his, and the world's problems.

Seems a pandemic is sweeping the globe which one by one robs the victims of their senses. First, smell, then taste, hearing, and finally sight; each loss preceded by an inexplicable and involuntary emotional outburst.

The disease has the international medical community baffled, including Susan (Eva Green), a Glasgow-based virologist who lives for her work and whose apartment just happens to neighbour Michael's restaurant.

As the world slowly begins to unravel -- the loss of their senses sees most of the human race also lose its common sense -- these two lonely souls find each other. And let's be honest: if you're going to face the end of the world, what better way to spend it than in the arms, or bed, of either McGregor or Green?

Penned by Kim Fupz Aekeson, Mackenzie's Perfect Sense shares thematic territory with Steven Soderbergh's Contagion -- an inexplicably virulent disease grips the globe and brings forth the best and worst in humanity -- although all involved are working on a considerably lower budget than that star-filled disease flick.

Still, Perfect Sense manages to convey a real sense of fear and loss, and unlike the cool, forensic-like Contagion, it works on an emotional level. McGregor and Green's relationship in the face of impending doom is quite affecting, especially in the film's final moments when silence has fallen and darkness is about to.