The Congress - Review

Director: Ari Folman Writer: Ari Folman Studio: Drafthouse Films Cast: Robin Wright, Danny Huston, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Sami Gayle Release Date (UK): 15 August, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 123 min

Ari Folman’s bold and ambitious but flawed vision of the future as seen in “The Congress” is a vision of two halves. The first half sees Robin Wright, star of such films as “The Princess Bride” and “Forrest Gump,” playing Robin Wright, star of such films as “The Princess Bride” and “Forrest Gump.” Only here, in an alternative present, she’s a little more washed up than in our reality: introduced as her agent, played by Harvey Keitel, chastises her poor career choices and difficult attitude, she’s out of work with no one willing to offer her a role. Jeff Green (Danny Huston), the slithering bigwig of the mischievously named Miramount Studios, gives her an offer: in exchange for a hefty sum, her body will be scanned, and her image, her voice, her emotions, and her very being will be uploaded into a computer system, to be used to star in any film they choose. The catch is that while the computer-generated Robin Wright stars in everything from sci-fi blockbusters to Oscar contenders, the real Robin Wright is not allowed to act in anything again for the rest of her life.

The second half sends us 20 years into the future, where an older Wright takes a drug and enters a strange cartoon world, a 2D-animated, psychedelic, pop culture dreamscape where people are not so much people as fantasy avatars. Take a stroll through this hand-drawn gallery of famous faces and you will see such surreal sights as the jackal-headed Egyptian god Anubis walking the streets alongside Elvis Presley and Queen Elizabeth I, a Tom Cruise caricature who’s nothing but a pair of sunglasses and a toothy grin, and Ron Jeremy motorboating Marilyn Monroe. This world, it transpires, is an illusory escape from the bleakness of reality, where many are starving and living in horrible poverty. The people of the future are given a choice: await death or hallucinate something better. Understandably, most choose the hallucination -- and who can blame them when Michael Jackson is serving up lobsters?

I’m not certain that these two halves fit together very well: the film begins as a scathing take-down of the Hollywood system and the soulless direction it’s supposedly headed, then once the animation kicks in, it suddenly shifts gears to a commentary on such topics as the inequality gap, dictatorships, celebrities as products, and the American healthcare system. Combined, they make for a film whose themes are rich but jumbled and whose structure is uneven. Individually, however, they’re fascinating. The second half, in particular, is enthrallingly berserk, an absorbing, kaleidoscopic head trip that’s crudely drawn yet has a fluid, luscious beauty. The first half is also absorbing, a sharp, subtly sci-fi inflected big-studio satire well performed by Wright, Huston, and Keitel, who together make up the three pillars of Hollywood: the actor, the studio, and the agent in between. For a follow-up to “Waltz with Bashir,” Folman’s animated documentary about his experiences as an Israeli infantry soldier, “The Congress” is certainly unexpected, though like it, it shows him as an innovative director with a vision that’s unique, uncompromising, and well worth a watch.

Rating: 7/10

Boyhood - Review

Director: Richard Linklater Writer: Richard Linklater Studios: Universal Pictures, IFC Films
Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater Release Date (UK): 11 July, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 166 min

Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" is a soaringly epic yet deeply intimate journey through the life of a boy from age 5 to age 18 that is completely immersive and unmistakeably human. Filmed over 12 years with the same actors, it's an extraordinary achievement in movie-making and unlike any film I've ever seen before. Filmmakers the world over aspire to the level of human truth which comes so naturally here, and in such high and heavy abundance; as an ode to human nature, it's simply breathtaking.

Linklater has, in the past, shown an interest in how people change over time; his engrossing "Before" trilogy provided us with glimpses at the evolving relationship between two lovers over the course of almost 20 years. Here, he invites us to watch as young Mason grows through the years, and as he transforms from a watchful young boy into an awkward teenager into a confident young man with his whole future ahead of him. Mason is played by Ellar Coltrane, and he plays him at 5 years old, and he plays him at 18 years old, and he plays him at everything in between. Coltrane gives one of the great child performances, and one of the great teen performances, too; he's completely natural, which makes his 12-year transformation all the more enthralling.

As the film progresses, we watch as Mason goes through the various stages that come naturally with growing up: we watch as he stares at the sky in wonder, as his mother reads Harry Potter to him and his big sister Samantha, as he goes through a long hair phase, as he becomes curious about sex, as his voice changes, as he experiments with drugs and drinking, as he gets his first job washing dishes at a diner, as he has his heart broken for the first time, and as he leaves home to go to college. And we watch as the world changes around him too; not just in terms of technology, politics and culture (though that's definitely in there -- as the years pass by, PS1s turn into Nintendo Wiis, Bush turns into Obama, etc.), but also in terms of his homelife: he moves house three times throughout his childhood; he lives under the roof of three stepfathers of varying fatherly quality; he switches primary schools, goes to high school and then finally is whisked away to college. It's these which shape Mason's character throughout the years, and ultimately shape the man he is to be. And it's all beautifully, but crucially not intrusively, captured by Linklater, who watches this boy's life experiences from his ever-evolving perspective.

It's not just Mason who we watch evolve through the years. His mother Olivia, played by Patricia Arquette, we see raising Mason and Samantha both on her own and with various boyfriends as she puts herself through college. His father Mason Sr., a slacker musician played by Ethan Hawke, we see taking Mason and Samantha bowling, out for a meal and to football games every other weekend, all the while he deals with his own lack of responsibility. And then there's his sister Samantha, played by Linklater's daughter Lorelei, at first a lovable little brat whose mischievous qualities we see fade the more she becomes interested in boys. Along with Mason Jr., these people age, mature and develop before our eyes, and their development tells a story: the story of time, and how things change over time, and more specifically how people change over time -- and it's as riveting, moving and, most importantly, human a story as any you'll see this year.

At 166 minutes, the film is a mere 60 seconds longer than the new "Transformers" movie. But while Michael Bay's vacuous explosion-fest is at the very least a whole hour too long, I would have very happily sat and watched "Boyhood" for another hour or so. If you grew up on the planet Earth, you owe it to yourself to see this movie: somewhere in here is something that will deeply resonate with you, be it through distant memories of your childhood or the one you're experiencing right now. I know that it resonated with me, and I know that it's my favourite film of the year so far. If there's a better film released in 2014, I'll eat my own foot.

Rating: 10/10

The Fault in Our Stars - Review

Director: Josh Boone Writers: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber Studios: 20th Century Fox, Temple Hill Entertainment Cast: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Willem Dafoe Release Date (UK): 19 June, 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 125 min

Lotsa snifflin’. “The Fault in Our Stars,” the new teen-oriented cancer weepy, is, like most teen-oriented cancer weepies, mawkish and manipulative. The difference with this, however, is that unlike most teen-oriented cancer weepies, it earns the right to be mawkish and manipulative. It earns this through the relationship between its central pair of sick (and getting sicker) lovebirds: Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort), two sharp-witted teenagers who meet at a cancer support group in Indianapolis. Hazel has terminal thyroid cancer and walks everywhere with a tube up her nose and an oxygen tank at her side. Gus has osteosarcoma, which is in remission, but it has taken his right leg. Bonding over their sicknesses, they become good friends, then more than friends, even as death approaches their doorsteps.

Like “Marley and Me” (but good), “The Fault in Our Stars” is a film you go into bracing yourself for the emotional sledgehammer. A love story between two cancer patients can end only in tear-soaked tragedy. We know this, so when introduced to Hazel and Gus, some may attempt to resist getting swept away in their doomed romance as a means of self-defense. But resistance is futile: Woodley and Elgort are so good together, and their conversations so enjoyable, and their blossoming romance so engaging and believable, that getting swept away is the only option. Before you know it you’re warming to them, you’re going on an emotional journey with them and you’re falling in love with them. Then the sledgehammer hits, and you’re a blubbering wreck crying on the floor.

Me, I got teary eyed and I was sniffling away, and may have had to blow my nose a couple times. And while yes, the film achieves this partly through the saddest of piano riffs playing in the background, I didn’t feel cheated: the film had allowed me to grow to care about the characters and laugh with them and care about what happened to them in a way that felt natural rather than forced. As far as I’m concerned, the film absolutely earns the right to turn all weepy and sappy towards the end: if you're gonna try and make me cry, first make me care, and “The Fault in Our Stars” did make me care. It’s manipulative, to be sure, almost cruelly so, but it allows us to fall in love with Hazel and Gus in a way that’s anything but.

Rating: 8/10

Devil's Knot - Review

Director: Atom Egoyan Writers: Paul Harris Boardman, Scott Derrickson Studios: Image Entertainment, Worldview Entertainment Cast: Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Mireille Enos, Dane DeHaan, Kevin Durand, Bruce Greenwood, Alessandro Nivola Release Date (UK): 13 June, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 114 min

“Devil’s Knot” has an astonishing story based in fact, but as a drama it fails to satisfy and it adds little of anything new or worthwhile to an already thoroughly traversed case. Its inspiration is a child murder case from 21 years ago: on May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boys went missing from their neighbourhood in West Memphis, Arkansas; the next day, their bodies were found in the woods nearby. A month later, three local teenage boys, apparently part of a devil-worshipping cult, were arrested for the murders, though they strongly professed their innocence. In Atom Egoyan’s film, private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth, sporting an Arkansas twang), a fictional character, becomes embroiled in the subsequent trial, strongly suspecting that the three accused are in fact innocent.

The case of the West Memphis Three has been widely covered since the trial in 1994, with countless news specials, documentaries and publications made over the years. Famously, there’s the extraordinary, in-depth “Paradise Lost” trilogy, and most recently, Amy Berg made a terrific investigative documentary on the subject called “West of Memphis.” Anyone looking to learn anything new about the case in “Devil’s Knot” is looking in the wrong place. As is anyone looking for an absorbing crime drama akin to “Zodiac:” sadly, the film seems more concerned with the inner workings of the trial rather than the people that surround it. What this really could have done with is a David Fincher type who’d give it a mood, a style, a drive and some insight into the characters; in the hands of Egoyan, it’s like a made-for-TV special airing on a Sunday afternoon. If you’re interested in the topic, do yourself a favour: skip “Devil’s Knot” and watch the riveting “Paradise Lost” instead; it tells the exact same story in much more depth and does so with extraordinary real-life footage.

Rating: 4/10

Dallas Buyers Club - Review

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August: Osage County - Review

Director: John Wells Writer: Tracy Letts Studios: The Weinstein Company, Smokehouse Pictures Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Margo Martindale, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Misty Upham, Abigail Breslin Release Date (UK): 24 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 121 min

“August: Osage County” is a film swamped in melodrama: a darkly comic domestic drama set somewhere hot and sweaty outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, it centres on the reunion of the most dysfunctional family in our known universe — these people make the Griffins from “Family Guy” look like the Brady Bunch. Of course, melodrama is to be expected from Tracy Letts, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play the film is adapted from: William Friedkin’s film adaptations of Letts’ previous plays “Bug” and “Killer Joe” did after all feature Michael Shannon pulling out his own teeth with a pair of pliers and Emile Hirsch having his skull caved in with a can of pumpkin puree.

There’s nothing quite so violent here, but in amongst the ferocious screaming matches and smashed dinner plates you get the sense that we’re not far from it. The estranged Weston family — among them Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor and Juliette Lewis — are reunited by crisis when patriarch Beverly (Sam Shepard) suddenly disappears without a trace. At the rural Weston country house the whole family comes together to support Beverly’s wife, the loopy, depressant-addicted Violet (Streep). As the Westons bicker and tussle it’s not long before there’s some harsh “truth tellin’” around the dinner table and dark, long-buried secrets finally come to the surface.

As the drugged-up, sharp-tongued matriarch of the family, Streep obliterates all that surrounds her, including her ensemble of co-stars — bewigged, unhinged and sporting the darkest of sunglasses, she’s like Bob Dylan in drag as played by Nicolas Cage. The only one who walks away unscathed from Streep’s piercing glares and maniacal cackles is Julia Roberts, and that’s purely through wrestling Streep to the ground to snatch her pills away. Others try — Benedict Cumberbatch gives it a good go as the cripplingly shy screw-up of the family — but it’s a losing battle; this is Streep’s show, and there’s just no topping her.

As I said before, “August: Osage County” is swamped in melodrama, with big, loud, sometimes shrieking performances and prickly one-liners howled with pointed fingers. This leads me to believe that it might’ve worked better on-stage. This is not to say that it’s a bad movie — its performances and dialogue are too enjoyable for that — but all this yelling is exhausting and there’s something rather stage-bound about it; watching it I couldn’t help but feel that its true home is not on the cinema screen but on broadway. Though I enjoyed it, mostly for Streep and her drug-infused madness, I frankly struggled to picture it winning the Pulitzer for Drama — I assume the reason is much more evident in the original stage production.

Rating: 6/10

The Wolf of Wall Street - Review

Director: Martin Scorsese Writer: Terence Winter Studios: Universal Pictures, Red Granite Pictures, Appian Way Productions, Sikelia Productions, Emjag Productions Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler Release Date (UK): 17 January 2014 Certificate: 18 Runtime: 179 min

Jordan Belfort is an asshole: a straight up, full-on, coke-snorting, money-swindling, wife-cheating asshole. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he is the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and he is also a real person: a Bronx-born ex-stockbroker and fraudster, Belfort swindled his way into millions of dollars on the Wall Street market in the 1990s, all the while cheating on his wife with a seemingly unlimited supply of prostitutes and snorting anything and everything he could fit inside his nasal cavities. The film is based on his self-aggrandising memoir, and Scorsese has come under fire for depicting Belfort’s deplorable assholery with nary a judgemental eye; apparently showing Belfort being an asshole isn’t enough, Belfort must be punished as well, as narrative formula dictates. In reality, Belfort never truly was punished — though he was nabbed by the FBI, his 22 month sentence was spent in a minimum security prison where he was made very comfortable — and this I believe was Scorsese’s point: this asshole and his associates got away practically scot free, and ain’t that just infuriating.

An epic, darkly comic character profile which runs for three hours without ever stopping for breath, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is very much in the tradition of Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” and “Casino” and it is his best work since the latter. At 179 minutes, it’s Scorsese’s longest film and also his sweariest; wikipedia has it at a staggering 569 uses of the word “fuck,” topping “Casino”’s very admirable 422. It’s remarkable how Scorsese and his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker can make three hours whoosh by in what feels like half that time — though it must be said, time flies when you’re watching a man blow cocaine up a hooker’s rectum.

That, coming roughly three minutes in, is one of the countless unforgettable sights on display as Belfort, and indeed DiCaprio, dives nose-first into a cesspool teeming with drugs, money, pussy and tons upon tons of money. Did I mention the money? Belfort has so much money he has sex in a bed of banknotes. And did I mention the drugs? It’s a wonder Belfort is still alive, considering the amount of dangerous illegal substances that have made their way through his system. Crack, cocaine and something called a Quaalude: a little white pill which sends its user into a practically comatose state if they are immobile and hyper-mania if they are active. Belfort informs us that it has since been made unavailable. I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

Scorsese charts Belfort’s rise to infamous, crooked multi-millionaire from his brief stint as a junior stockbroker at a doomed Wall Street firm, where he quickly learns that the Wall Street stockbrokers don’t just say, “Pass me the phone,” they say, “Pass me the cock-sucking phone.” While there, he finds himself seduced by his chest-thumping boss (Matthew McConaughey), who advises him to live a life of debauchery if he is to be successful in the financial industry. And so he does: when the company collapses on Black Monday, Belfort starts up his own company, the respectable sounding Stratton Oakmont, with a team of ambitious, money-hungry brokers — among them Jonah Hill’s delightfully goofy crack addict Donnie Azoff — whom he teaches to manipulate stocks and cheat customers out of thousands of dollars over the phone. Those that succeed are rewarded with crazy parties, the finest of strippers and in-office midget-tossing shows. Those that don’t get their goldfish eaten by Donnie.

Soon enough, Stratton Oakmont begins to resemble a modern-day Roman empire, with Belfort a shrieking, mic-swinging Caligula and the sea of stockbrokers that stand before him his worshipping crowd. You oughta see the orgies — a mile high they are. Here, Scorsese must walk a fine line between glorifying and condoning, showing Belfort’s lifestyle of excess for the unending fun it undoubtedly was yet tut-tutting its morals (or lack thereof). In fact, there’s not much tut-tutting going on, and for good reason: we’re in Belfort’s head, listening to Belfort’s smug narration and among Belfort’s friends, thus Belfort’s wild partying is nothing but exhilarating and hilarious in its madness. The tut-tutting must come from us; Scorsese steps back and allows us to be the judge. No judge ever got to properly punish him in court — maybe our judgement is his comeuppance.

As Belfort, DiCaprio is absolutely in command, deliciously manic and equal counts loathsome and roguishly lovable. It’s his best performance to date. It also turns out he’s an unprecedented master of physical comedy — a moment in which he, having a delayed reaction to an overdose of Quaaludes and sent into what he calls the “cerebral palsy phase,” drags himself across a country club car park to his car is positively Chaplin-esque in its slapstick delivery. This scene, along with the scene that follows in Belfort’s swanky home where a drugged-up Donnie chokes on some ham, is like Scorsese doing “Dumb and Dumber” and it had me in hysterics.

Eventually, “The Wolf of Wall Street” achieves a sort of fever-dream madness where we can no longer tell if what we’re watching is real, a Quaalude-induced hallucination or a figment of Belfort’s self-aggrandising imagination — did he really watch a rescue plane burst into a fireball when a seagull flew into the engine? Whatever the case, this is magnificently entertaining: a gloriously fucked up ride through the mind and experiences of a lowlife living the high life that’s riveting in the most intoxicating of ways. Jordan Belfort is an asshole, unpunished and proud, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a blast watching him be one.

Rating: 10/10

12 Years a Slave - Review

Director: Steve McQueen Writer: John Ridley Studios: Summit Entertainment, Regency Enterprises, Film4, RiverRoad Entertainment, Plan B Entertainment Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt Release Date (UK): 10 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 133 min

The brutality of Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” is merciless, as it should be. The slave masters showed no mercy in the treatment of their slaves — why should McQueen? For we the audience’s comfort? For the sake of our squeamishness? Or perhaps because such depictions are, say certain individuals, inherently cruel and sadistic? Some have complained that the film’s depiction of this ugly time in American history is “too much,” that it should be toned down. To hell with that — this is the hard and painful truth, and McQueen portrays the terror and the pain in all its grim detail.

This is a tough watch, partly because the violence is so uncompromisingly graphic and visceral, partly because we know that these atrocities truly did occur and on such an enormous scale and for such a long period of time. It’s based on an extraordinary true story, that of Solomon Northup, a free-born African American carpenter, violinist and family man who in 1841 was drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery in New Orleans. Stripped of his identity and forced to pick away at cotton fields, he faced horrors and inhumanities no man should ever have to face: lynchings, whippings, beatings, for twelve whole years. In 1853, Solomon wrote an account of his horrifying ordeals in his memoir “Twelve Years a Slave,” and now Steve McQueen brings his story to the big screen.

Solomon Northup is an unsung hero of history, for what he suffered through, for how he endured and for how he shared his story — how he’s not remembered alongside Anne Frank is a mystery to me. Here, he’s played by the great British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who fully inhabits Solomon’s strength, hope and dignity, and how they are slowly but surely beaten out of him throughout his time working on the plantations of the South. Ejiofor is an immensely versatile actor — he’s always terrific, be it in rom-coms or sci-fi flicks — and here he gives his best and most nuanced performance to date; it’s astonishing how much emotion he can project with just a glance, a quiver of his lips or a determined stare down the camera lens.

On a ship on the way to New Orleans, a fellow chained slave advises Solomon to keep his head down, to feign illiteracy and avoid attention if he wishes to survive. “I don’t want to survive, I want to live,” is his stern response. Initially, Solomon is sold to the slaver William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who, compared to other slavers, seems relatively nice; he recognises that the slaves are human and appears to sympathise with them, even if he does have them slaving away on his field. But after a confrontation with Paul Dano’s cruel and racist farmhand — whose taunting, hand-clapping rendition of Run, Nigger, Run haunts the mind long after viewing — Solomon is sold to the maniacal Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a proud “nigger breaker” whose beating and lashing of his slaves is, according to him at least, God’s will. Surviving, it seems, may be Solomon’s only option.

I’d call Epps terrifying, but he seems the sort who’d revel in such a description, so instead I’ll call him psychotic; he’s prone to fits of uncontrollable rage and is the epitome of the evil, the sliminess and the hate we associate with slave owners; Fassbender, as you would expect, is brilliantly diabolical. Each night, Epps sneaks into the bed of the young slave girl Patsey and forces himself upon her; later, he strips her, ties her to a post and savagely whips her. Patsey is played by Lupita Nyong’o, a Kenyan actress in her first film role, and she is a revelation. We all know of the skills of Ejiofor and Fassbender, but not of this newcomer, who is sensational in portraying her character's initial sturdiness and increasing fragility. The scene in which she is whipped is one of the most heartbreaking scenes I have ever witnessed — it is one of many in the film.

Epps is sadistic, and in depicting his and his ilk’s sadism, McQueen himself has been accused of being sadistic. This is wrong; while it is true that McQueen dwells on his characters’ pain — as he does in an unflinching and unblinking take in which Solomon, barely standing on the tips of his toes, hangs by the neck, choking on his breath while the daily life of the plantation continues on behind him — he does not revel in it. He is merely depicting what must be depicted. Take, for example, the scene in which Patsey is whipped; McQueen makes a clear point of turning the camera away from Epps and Solomon to instead watch Patsey, specifically the skin of her back as it is torn apart by the force of the whip. McQueen is not gaining sick pleasure from this; rather, his camera looks upon it with horror. But it does not look elsewhere; McQueen knows that it is his duty as a storyteller to show what happened as it happened, no shying away. It’s tough to face (I for one could barely stand to witness it), but this, McQueen says, is real history in all its inhuman horror.

I’ve said several times in this review that “12 Years a Slave” is often difficult to watch, and it is. But this is not a torture porn movie, as the buffoon Armond White has ignorantly asserted; Ejiofor’s performance is far too moving, the story is far too powerful and the brutality cuts too deep for the film to sink to such murky depths. This is a film that must be seen, for its truth, for its passion, for its beauty, but most of all for its raw power. If there’s one flaw, it’s that at the film’s end there appears text outlining the events in the aftermath of Solomon’s imprisonment; how, pray tell, does McQueen expect me to read this when I have tears in my eyes?

Rating: 10/10

American Hustle - Review

Director: David O. Russell Writers: Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell Studios: Columbia Pictures, Annapurna Pictures Cast: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence Release Date (UK): 1 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 138 min

David O. Russell gets his Scorsese on in a fiercely enjoyable, fact-based crime caper about con artists working with the feds in 1970s New Jersey. Mimicking Marty’s sweeping camera, sprawling storytelling techniques and jet-black humour to gloriously entertaining effect, Russell makes the best film Scorsese never made, and would’ve got a Scorsesian full house if he’d thrown a few Rolling Stones tracks in there — maybe we’ll get those from the big man himself in the upcoming “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Like “Goodfellas” and “Casino” before it, “American Hustle” is loosely inspired by a true crime story, that of the “Abscam” sting, and is nostalgically narrated by one of its key figures: Irving Rosenfeld, a lowlife conman played by Christian Bale. Bale has had some startling physiques in his career — most memorably his nightmarish skeletal frame in “The Machinist” — but this one’s a little different; here, he’s sporting a beer belly the size of a wrecking ball and a hideous comb-over rightly described by his mistress as “elaborate" (its process involves square patches of fuzz and a prit-stick).

With his mistress Sydney (Amy Adams), a smart and seductive ex-stripper who masquerades as a British countess, Irving runs a loan scam business in which down-on-their-luck clients naively hand over $5,000 and receive nothing in return. When they’re nabbed by the FBI they’re offered a deal: if they help the bureau entrap some corrupt politicians in an elaborate sting operation they’ll get off scott free. They accept and along with Bradley Cooper’s ambitious, curly-locked Agent Richie they scheme to catch the crooked public figures red-handed, among them the super-quiffed Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner). You might notice I’m mentioning the hairstyles a lot; it's nigh impossible to discuss “American Hustle" without talking about all the outrageous ’dos on display, along with the stunningly garish ‘70s fashion and Amy Adams' ever-visible cleavage — it’s her character’s alluring method of misdirection and seduction and, well, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work (watching the film, it’s hard to remember her as Princess Giselle in Disney’s “Enchanted;” Adams is great that way).

Things get tricky when Irving’s unstable young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) enters the equation to play a part in the sting; described by Irving as “the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate,” she’s a born trouble-maker and regularly sets fire to her kitchen with various household appliances. Things get even trickier when a love triangle starts to blossom, with Sydney straddling the top and Irving and Richie both clamouring for her from the bottom. Always a delight in Scorsese’s gangster movies was the interaction between the wild and colourful characters, and here Russell wrings belly laughs from his central quartet’s merciless banter and ferocious screaming matches. I damn near laughed my head off when, during an argument, Richie ruffles Irving’s comb-over out of place, to which a frozen Irving reacts with an intense, mortified stare — and that was only 5 minutes in.

Part of the joy of watching “American Hustle” is predicting how exactly they’re going to derail the operation: Lawrence’s unpredictable Rosalyn is the obvious loose cannon but really, they’re all loose cannons ready to blow at any second; there’s Sydney with her identity crisis and ever-changing accent; there’s Richie with his increasingly manic behaviour and the poor fiancée he’s cheating on (or at least striving to cheat on); and then there’s Irving with his mounting doubts about the operation and his growing friendship with one of the operation’s key targets (who might not be such a bad’un after all). You wonder when the whole thing’s gonna collapse in on itself; and then they bring out the Mexican to play the part of the Arab sheikh, and you can’t help but cackle.

The central story of dodgy deals and crooked politicians is less interesting than the characters that surround it, but Russell keeps the hustle always moving forward, and the characters are performed with such energy and ferocity that it’s impossible not to be reeled in by their undeniable, scene-thieving presence. Lawrence, in particular, is a force to be reckoned with, and her frantic, hoover-wielding rock-out to Wings’ Live and Let Die stands tall as one of the most memorable movie moments of 2013 — just you wait for the gifs!

Rating: 8/10

Parkland - Review

Director: Peter Landesman Writer: Peter Landesman Studios: Exclusive Media Group, American Film Company, Exclusive Media, Playtone Cast: Paul Giamatti, James Badge Dale, Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Welling, David Harbour, Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden Release Date (UK): 22 November 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 94 min

“Parkland” is a missed opportunity, the opportunity being to tell the story of the assassination of JFK in a way that is human. There’s great potential for that here: a historical ensemble piece, it looks at the assassination from the perspective of the seemingly insignificant supporting players it impacted, the ones who watched from the cheering crowds as President John F. Kennedy was shot dead and the ones who were listening to their radios and watching their TVs when they heard that their President had been murdered. Writer-director Peter Landesman’s film looks at a familiar story from an unfamiliar angle, which might’ve been more interesting if the usually glossed-over individuals on whom it shines a light weren’t still in wanting of some serious fleshing out.

The supporting players, here standing in the spotlight, are are such: Abraham Zapruder, whose much-scrutinised 8mm home movie of Kennedy’s motorcade passing by inadvertently captured the moment Kennedy was shot; the doctors and nurses who tried in vain to resuscitate Kennedy’s body at Parkland Memorial Hospital; the Secret Service chief in charge of protecting Kennedy; the two FBI agents who discovered they had the chance to catch shooter Lee Harvey Oswald and flubbed it; and Oswald’s older brother Robert, who on November 22nd, 1963 heard on the radio that his little brother had shot and killed the most important man in the world. For 90 minutes, we jump back and forth between their experiences throughout that dark day and the days that followed. The result is skilfully edited and shot with urgency by Barry Ackroyd, but as a drama it leaves much to be desired.

I went into “Parkland” thinking, “This’ll be interesting, I don’t know much about these people.” And you know what I thought when I came out of it? “I still don’t know that much about these people.” It’s well performed by the likes of Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton and James Badge Dale (each of whom give affecting performances while playing cardboard cut-outs), but Landesman fails to get underneath their characters’ skin and find what makes them tick. Zac Efron’s Dr. Carrico is particularly empty, Efron required only to look a bit dazed when Kennedy’s body is wheeled into the operating room and then upset when Kennedy flatlines.

Landesman’s script has insight, but not into who these people are/were, only into what they did. It all feels like a news report, ticking off all the important facts but struggling to wring out much compelling drama or suspense — I wasn’t too surprised to learn after viewing the film that Landesman was in fact a journalist. If one were wishing to commemorate Kennedy’s memory with a movie, Oliver Stone’s “JFK” would be a safer bet: it’s a full-blooded drama with real meat on its bones. By comparison, “Parkland” feels like a half-heated microwave dinner.

Rating: 5/10

The Butler - Review

Director: Lee Daniels Writer: Danny Strong Studios: The Weinstein Company, ShowmakerWorks Pictures, Laura Ziskin Productions, Windy Hill Pictures Cast: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo Release Date (UK): 15 November 2013 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 132 min

The previous movie from prestigious master of excess Lee Daniels, namely the polarising 2012 Cannes splash “The Paperboy,” was a most bizarre and rather intoxicating concoction, a thick blend of blood, sweat and Floridian swamp gunk. Relatively speaking, his latest movie, the newly released supposed Oscar candidate “The Butler,” is a much more conventional affair, but in its own little way it too is rather strange, if ironically for reasons that are altogether more unconventional (“The Paperboy” being more conventionally weird, most notably thanks to an already infamous scene in which Nicole Kidman pisses on Zac Efron’s face).

“The Butler” is strange in the sense that it wishes to be two different movies with two different ambitions: on the one hand, it wishes to be a gentle, warm-hearted story about a White House butler, played by Forest Whitaker, who watches his country change around him as he serves seven US presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan — the sort of light, Academy-friendly film that’ll play well on a wet Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, it also wishes to be a hard-hitting history lesson exposing the grim and violent realities faced by backers of the civil rights movement, as seen through the eyes of the butler’s political activist son, played by David Oyelowo. The mix is a peculiar and uneven one but not without charm as Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong explore the entirety of the turbulent African American experience in the 20th century through the lives of and tension between a butler and his son.

The film, as it so proudly states in its opening, is inspired by a true story, that of former White House butler Eugene Allen, who served eight, rather than seven, American presidents over the course of 34 years. Here, his name has been changed to Cecil Gaines and his story has been tinkered with, fictionalised for dramatic purposes. For example, the film begins with a young Cecil working in a Macon cotton field in 1926 when the white landowner, played by Alex Pettyfer, rapes his mother and murders his father. It’s a powerful scene, but one that has been made up for the movie — Allen grew up on a cotton field in Virginia, not Georgia, and he did not watch his mother being raped nor his father being murdered.

In his teens, Cecil learns the fine art of serving white folks, waits tables at a swanky hotel in Washington D.C. and in 1957 lands a job at the White House as a butler. Here, for over three decades, Cecil serves cookies and slices of toast and stands silently in the corner while the President discusses pressing issues concerning the rights of African Americans. Sometimes he gets to speak with the President about these issues, and sometimes his words have an influence on the course of history. As happens when Cecil has a brief conversation with Eisenhower, played by a bald-capped Robin Williams, about his son attending an “all-coloured” school, after which Eisenhower feels compelled to enforce racial integration in a Little Rock high school.

This happens time and time again throughout the movie: walking into the Oval Office with a tea tray in hand, Cecil witnesses first-hand pretty much every significant political decision concerning civil rights. You can practically see Daniels and Strong sticking a flagpole in each of the relevant historical events and then planning out how to get Cecil to reach each point and how he will effect or be effected by them. These parts of the film are essentially “Forrest Gump” in the White House, only without that film’s jokey sense of humour about its various historical contrivances but instead with a treacly sincerity.

These scenes are also marred by a series of increasingly silly cameos by Hollywood stars who come in one by one latexed up as the various Presidents of the United States — Williams as Eisenhower, James Marsden as wonder boy JFK, Liev Schreiber barking orders from the toilet as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Cusack as the ever-perspiring Tricky Dick and Alan Rickman as a barely human Ronald Reagan (but curiously no Ford or Carter). Smothered in prosthetics and looking like they’ve turned up to a fancy dress party, their caricature performances threaten to undo what drama is present in these scenes (though Marsden’s JFK impersonation is spot-on).

I found myself more interested in the more intimate moments at the Gaines household, with Oprah Winfrey sublime as Cecil’s long-suffering wife Gloria, and the sub-plot focused on Cecil’s fiercely liberal teenage son Louis, who, against the wishes of his father, heads down south to fight for racial equality. From the latter, Daniels wrings a handful of very effective and emotionally powerful scenes: e.g. a peaceful sit-in at a segregated Nashville diner which turns sickeningly violent and another scene in which Louis and his friends are viciously attacked by Ku Klux Klan members while travelling on a bus to Alabama.

These are shocking scenes, made more so by the fact that the events they depict really did happen 50 years ago (only here with the fictional Louis dropped in; apparently he was by Martin Luther King’s side in his hotel room right before he was shot dead). Comparatively, the scenes at 1600 Penn, which make up the bulk of the movie, seem awfully tame and lacking in a certain dramatic heft. Carried along by Whitaker’s wise and restrained performance and not much else, they feel a little empty, much as Rodrigo Leao’s sweeping, triumphant score tries to convince us otherwise.

I did like “The Butler:” its message of fighting for your rights is inspiring, it’s elegantly directed by Daniels and the performances of Whitaker, Winfrey and Oyelowo are very fine indeed. But after the trashy, unhinged melodrama of “The Paperboy” and the harsh, emotional rawness of “Precious,” this does seem like awfully safe territory for Daniels, too schmaltzy for its subject matter and, if I may be so blunt, quite Oscar-baity. Indeed, it has travelled across the US and now the UK accompanied with Winfrey singing its praises, a tactic which may well catch the Academy’s attention. Hopefully it does for the film’s performances, but as for the film itself, I’ve heard that a certain Steve McQueen drama also about African American hardships is more deserving of attention.

Rating: 6/10

Drinking Buddies - Review

Director: Joe Swanberg Writer: Joe Swanberg Studios: Magnolia Pictures, Burn Later Productions Cast: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston Release Date (UK): 1 November 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 90 min

“Drinking Buddies” wasn’t what I expected. Looking at its poster, in which the four attractive leads sit pulling faces together on the floor of a bar with a drink in hand, and reading the title, I assumed that it would be a breezy comedy set mostly in a bar as our leads converse about life, sex, their past and their future over a few too many beers. I was wrong — what I ended up getting was much better and far more interesting than that sounded (and, unlike in the poster, features “New Girl" star Jake Johnson sporting a fuzzy beard).

Writer-director Joe Swanberg’s indie dramedy, impressively his fourteenth film since his 2005 debut “Kissing on the Mouth,” is instead a bittersweet, maturely handled story about unspoken romance between two best friends who are in relationships with other people. It features terrific performances from Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson as Kate and Luke, co-workers at a Chicago brewery and close pals, as well as Ron Livingstone and Anna Kendrick as their respective partners, Chris and Jill.

The plot, loose but directed with focus by Swanberg, follows the friendship of Kate and Luke, seemingly perfect for each other, as it develops slowly and silently into romance — this, in spite of their supposed commitment to their oblivious partners. Things take a turn after a double date at a remote cabin by the beach, where a kiss in the woods (I won’t say between whom) and a night alone by the shore (again, I won’t say between whom) suggest that the film is going in the expected direction, but then... maybe not.

I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that much of the dialogue was improvised by the cast: their performances are so natural that at no point do they appear to be reading from a script. Swanberg, deliberately restrained, steps aside to let his actors fill the screen, and rightly so: with a firm grasp on their characters, Wilde, Johnson, Kendrick and Livingstone are a joy to watch, their interaction completely authentic, their chemistry undeniable.

What I liked most about “Drinking Buddies” is that it displays bona fide human emotion shared between characters in whom we absolutely believe. These aren’t Hollywood stereotypes in a formulaic rom-com: they’re real people, complex and flawed, and of the sort that we can recognise from our own daily lives. Some have complained that they found the four main characters unlikeable. I disagree: I found them genuine, compelling and, much like the film, refreshingly, endearingly human.

Rating: 8/10

Rush - Review

Director: Ron Howard Writer: Peter Morgan Studios: StudioCanal, Exclusive Media, Revolution Films, Working Title Films, Imagine Entertainment, Relativity Media, Cross Creek Pictures Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara Release Date (UK): 13 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 122 min

One of the best films of the year is “Rush,” director Ron Howard’s mesmerising chronicle of the heated rivalry between legendary Formula 1 race car drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. And two of the best performances of the year come from Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl as Hunt and Lauda, respectively, who are so perfectly cast in their roles that in the film’s closing moments, when stock footage of the actual Hunt and Laudu are presented to us, we can barely tell them apart from their real-life counterparts.

For a film about cars going around in circles, “Rush” is oddly, stupendously riveting. It opens on the fateful date of 1 August 1976, when the heavens opened up to pour down onto the Nürburgring track at the German Grand Prix, before jumping back to 1970 when a risky manoeuvre by Hunt on a Formula Three track results in Lauda's defeat and sparks their six-year tug of war. Their differences are immediately noticeable: Hunt, a prep schooled Brit, is an arrogant, blonde-locked hunk (not a world away from Hemsworth’s role in Marvel’s “Thor”) always surrounded by fawning admirers; Lauda, an Austrian engineering wiz, is a loner, coldly calculating and generally unlikeable, and is described by Hunt, not inaccurately, as having rat-like features.

Their attitudes towards racing differ greatly. Hunt believes that all that is required is simple speed, while Lauda, criticising Hunt for being too aggressive, believes there's so much more to it than that: “To be a champion, it takes more than just being quick,” he says. "It's the whole picture." But they have their similarities: both are rebels, racing against the wishes of their wealthy families, and both are brilliant racers who wish to become the F1 World Champion, no matter the cost. Screenwriter Peter Morgan, Oscar-nominated for “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon,” charts their rivalry as they compete against each other across the globe, both usually finishing first or second, as well as detailing their shaky love lives — ever the womaniser, Hunt has a fling with a nurse played by Natalie Dormer and later weds supermodel Suzy Miller, played by Olivia Wilde, while Lauda falls for socialite Marlene Knaus, played by Alexandra Maria Lara.

Howard, who propels the story with roaring horsepower, recreates each race, and indeed each crash, with breathtaking intensity. We are given front-row seats, watching the action through both racers’ helmets, listening to their calm, controlled breathing over the almighty roar of the engine and watching them swiftly calculate their every last-second move — we the audience feel like we are racing in their cars with them, and boy, what a rush it is. Perhaps my lack of prior knowledge concerning the true events aided in my immersion: knowing that every corner of every lap is a potential death trap and that any minor miscalculation could mean a driver's fiery end, I feared for their lives at every turn, waiting for that fatal error — if there was to be one — to finally be made.

It’s of note that the film doesn’t pick a side. The posters, flaunting Hemsworth’s golden good looks, would have you believe that it is Hunt who is the hero and Lauda who is the villain. On the contrary, there is no clear hero or villain in this fact-based sports tale, the film instead leaving us to choose who to root for as these two petrol heads go head to head. I found myself rooting for Lauda: of the two, he suffers the most throughout the story, of which his side is the most tragic. It's to his credit that in playing such a humourless, uptight character, Brühl earns our sympathy. I'll be surprised if he's not up for an Oscar this coming February.

Here we have a powerful study on the nature of obsession. Hunt and Lauda are men obsessed: obsessed with beating each other and obsessed with winning the top prize, risking their lives for the sake of a trophy and their name on the top of a scoreboard. Towards the film’s end, a breaking point is reached, and here the film breaks from Hollywood formula: is the quest for gold really worth risking your life, the film questions, and the answer, surprisingly, is rather ambiguous.

I walked into “Rush" knowing next to nothing about the true story of James Hunt and Niki Lauda and without the slightest interest in motor racing. I walked out feeling exhilarated and eager to find out more about this remarkable piece of sporting history. This is studio entertainment at its finest, and like the extraordinary 2010 documentary “Senna,” also about a Formula 1 legend, it had my heart pounding and made me shed a tear at the races. Who knew watching cars going around in circles could be so emotional?

Rating: 10/10

Upstream Color - Review

Director: Shane Carruth Writer: Shane Carruth Studio: ERBP Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth Release Date (UK): 30 August 2013 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 96 min

Multi-talented indie auteur and all-round filmmaking whiz kid Shane Carruth follows up his confounding, shoestring-budgeted debut feature “Primer” with another fascinating, head-spinning sci-fi guaranteed to turn viewers’ brains to scrambled eggs with its bonkers, high-concept premise and impossible-to-follow narrative. Yet for all its mind-melting similarities to Carruth’s cult time travel drama, which deservedly bagged the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, the long-awaited “Upstream Color” is a horse of a different colour: while “Primer” was cold and distant, and intentionally so, as it whizzed its way through its nigh-incomprehensible technical jargon and complex plotting, “Upstream Color” makes for a much more intimate and emotionally engaging viewing experience, even if its uncommonly abstract storytelling proves alienating at times.

Like “Primer,” Carruth’s second feature is an enigmatic and original sci-fi which invites us to solve a puzzle. The story concerns a young, successful graphics production designer called Kris, played by Amy Seimetz, who is one night drugged and kidnapped by a thief (Thiago Martins). Reduced to a catatonic state by a parasitic, identity-absorbing grub, she is coerced into handing over thousands of dollars from her savings account before awakening several days later with no memory of the past week. Months later, she meets Jeff (Carruth), a handsome stranger on a train who, like her, is a lost soul with a troubled past and with whom she shares a growing connection — a connection which may not just be emotional but also mental, with Kris and Jeff discovering soon after starting a relationship together that they share past experiences and forgotten memories.

Close-up, Terrence Malick-inspired images of nature, such as the snouts of pigs trotting about a farm and microscopic views of multiplying cells, will remind many of 2010’s “The Tree of Life,” while the skin-crawling sight of a giant worm visibly slithering its way underneath Kris’ skin call to mind the early body horror of David Cronenberg. But this is Carruth through and through, and the singular, uncompromising vision of a filmmaker unchallenged by tampering studio heads. Self indulgent it certainly is, Carruth’s aggressively exposition-free storytelling resulting in bouts of head-scratching confusion, but it’s fascinating both to watch and contemplate afterwards.

The film’s technical merits are nothing short of sublime: the rhythmic editing, the electrifying score, the impeccable sound design and the crisp, absorbing cinematography mesmerisingly operate together in perfect harmony, which only makes sense when one realises that they were all handled, impressively, by Carruth himself. Figuring out the inner workings of the plot is borderline impossible on first viewing, so repeat viewings are a must if one is attempting to solve the film’s puzzle. And this really shouldn’t be an issue, for to go along with the bewilderment, there’s a great deal of truth and beauty in “Upstream Color” well worth revisiting. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to let this sensuous, visceral experience wash over you rather than getting too caught up in the minor details of the frankly baffling plot. Even then, you might still end up scratching your head to the bone.

Rating: 8/10

Pain & Gain - Review

Director: Michael Bay Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely Studios: Paramount Pictures, Platinum Dunes, De Line Pictures Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris Release Date (UK): 30 August 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 129 min

Shifting gears from the clunky mechanics of his deafening “Transformers” cash cows, blockbuster maestro Michael Bay momentarily ditches his rock-'em sock-'em CGI robots to tell a stranger than fiction tale of steroids, blood money and barbecued human hands in fact-based crime comedy-drama “Pain & Gain.” Inspired by the horrifying true story of a gang of Miami-based body-builders who kidnapped, tortured and butchered their way to fortune in the mid-1990s, it stars Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Anthony Mackie as a trio of dimwitted fitness freaks willing to get their hands dirty — and their toes blown off — to achieve the American Dream.

Tony Shalhoub is unashamedly unpleasant as their supposedly deserving victim: slimy, millionaire scumbag and self-made entrepreneur Victor Kershaw (real name and general demeanour changed for artistic purposes), who’s abducted, held captive and forced to sign over his every cent and possession to these scheming knuckleheads. Ed Harris is the retired private investigator tasked with aiding Kershaw’s case when the incompetent crooks’ multiple attempts to kill Kershaw, now crippled, fail miserably and when the authorities refuse to buy a single word he says — after all, who’d really believe that this drunken asshole was actually kidnapped and extorted by a bunch of crazy weightlifters dressed as ninjas?

There’s potential in this strange, almost surreal story for a great, biting satire displaying the futility of short-cutting your way to the so-called American Dream, but Bay is too concerned with the film’s flamboyant stylisation to care about cultural satire — whatever meaningful criticism the film has is murky at best, the film instead settling for flashy, excessive entertainment. Bay’s leery eye for the female figure remains problematic, as does his troublingly mocking attitude towards the homosexual community, plus here we have a truly horrific real-life story, grisly details and all, being told in a bafflingly comedic, lighthearted manner.

But wipe your memory of the real-life case, if your conscience allows you to do so, and “Pain & Gain” is a ton of darkly comic — if utterly tasteless — fun, bolstered by spirited performances from both its central muscle-head anti-heroes and its supporting players — Johnson in particular is an absolute joy as a coked up, bible-bashing ex-con attempting to set his life straight, all the while stealing and murdering his way to the top. Bay’s reliably high-octane direction keeps the story moving forward at an energetic speed while Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s sharp, funny script revels in the increasing ridiculousness of the situation (“Sometimes God just fucks up your order and you gotta chow down on that shitty shame sandwich,” narrates Wahlberg as he’s run over by a police cruiser). Morally repugnant it may well be, but it’s Bay’s most all-out entertaining film since 1996’s “The Rock” and, in one of many memorable highlights, it features the glorious sight of Tony Shalhoub’s taco-spewing face being tasered in slow motion — I'll take that over Optimus Prime action any day of the week.

Rating: 7/10

Lovelace - Review

Directors: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman Writer: Andy Bellin Studios: Millennium Films, Radius-TWC Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Adam Brody, Juno Temple Release Date (UK): 23 August 2013 Certificate: 18 Runtime: 92 min

Co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman struggle to conjure a compelling human drama from the fascinating life story of legendary adult actress Linda Lovelace in this bog-standard, ironically impotent biopic of the ‘70s porn sensation. Based on Lovelace’s 1980 biography “Ordeal,” it casts Amanda Seyfried as the foxy, freckle-faced Floridian who, at the age of 23, became a pop culture icon when she starred and showed off her — ahem — keen oral skills in the 1972 adult movie theatre phenomenon “Deep Throat.” Epstein and Friedman’s film charts her overnight rise from shy, suburban unknown to world-famous household name, along the way chronicling her increasingly troubled relationship with her controlling and abusive husband/manager Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard).

Seyfried is well cast in the title role, boasting both the fragility and sensuality, if not the girl-next-door looks, of the real-life Lovelace, while Sarsgaard initially charms before frightening in later scenes when Linda rebels against Chuck’s domineering ways and he viciously bites back. The true nature of their relationship is revealed quite cleverly, when the film rewinds itself halfway through to show us that earlier, ostensibly lighthearted events on- and off-set may not have been as pleasant — nor, indeed, as voluntary —as they first appeared.

It’s an intriguing story, and one littered with contradictions over the years, but there’s little on show here that you won’t already find on Lovelace’s Wikipedia page. Andy Bellin’s script tries but fails to get underneath Lovelace’s skin, instead portraying her as a one-dimensional victim, and whatever insight it has into the ups and downs of the ‘70s porn industry was already explored with much more power and panache in Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic and enthralling “Boogie Nights.” “Lovelace” is certainly not terrible — Seyfried and Sarsgaard’s performances are too good for that — but it’s too basic to be fully satisfying and too “TV movie of the week” to really do justice to such a fascinating figure.

Rating: 5/10