The Lady in the Van

This was the final film of our season. Fortunately the DVD release was just in time for us to show it.

Our history shows us that Alan Bennett (The History Boys) and Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotels et al as well as Downton Abbey) have always been popular so the combination of the two was irresistible.

It was also a very good film, although not quite the comedy the poster seemed to imply.

Here are my notes:

The Lady in the Van

UK 2015                      104 minutes

Director:                      Nicholas Hytner

Starring:                        Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Actress Award (Maggie Smith) at the Evening Standard British Film Awards
• Nominations for Best Actress (Maggie Smith) at the Golden Globes and BAFTA Film Awards

“Having come a cropper with his screen adaptation of The History Boys in 2006, director Nicholas Hytner here hits the high notes that distinguished his 1994 stage-to-screen triumph The Madness of King George.”

Mark Kermode

In the 1970s Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) offers the temporary use of the drive to his north London house to a homeless woman (Maggie Smith). She parks her battered van outside his front door – and stays there for 15 years.

The film is based on Bennett’s 1999 stage play which itself derives from the piece he had written about Miss Shepherd in his book Writing Home, and it reunites many people who have worked with him over the years.  Maggie Smith appeared in A Private Function (1984), Bennett’s first screenplay for the big screen and created the role of Miss Shepherd in the stage version of The Lady in the Van. The play was directed by Hytner, who has directed all of Bennett’s recent stage work, mostly at the National Theatre.  Hytner and Bennett’s previous film was The History Boys (2006) and the principal cast members from this production, with the exception of Frances de la Tour who has a supporting role, appear in cameo roles in this film.

As a stage actor Alex Jennings has won three Olivier awards for his work, which has been mostly with the RSC or at the National Theatre.  Here he has worked many times with Nicholas Hytner and first appeared in a play by Bennett when he had a leading role in The Habit of Art.  He subsequently played Alan Bennett on stage in Untold Stories Bennett’s dramatization of one of his autobiographical sketches. He is a skilled mimic, and in addition to Bennett he has played characters as diverse as Prince Charles in The Queen (2006) and President George Bush in Stuff Happens, David Hare’s “history play” about the Iraq War, once again directed by Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre. 

Here is the trailer:

 

The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of the Window and Disappeared

This film has the longest title of any we have screened for a long time - if ever.

I'd missed it at the cinema and did not know the book either, so I approached it with an open mind - and was pleasantly surprised. I think it did show its literary genesis, but as a film it had echoes of both Zelig and Being There. I enjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of the Window and Disappeared / Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann

Sweden 2013               114 minutes

Director:                      Felix Herngren

Starring:                        Robert Gustafsson, Mia Skaringer, Iwar Wiklander, David Wiberg and Jens Hulten

Awards and Nominations

• Won five awards
• Nominated for seven further awards

“What we're left with is a peculiar example of the regional specificity of humour; a reminder that there's nothing so particular as that which makes a nation laugh. While Scandinavian doom and gloom remains a saleable commodity in the UK, Swedish humour appears to travel less well and it seems unlikely that the success that this ambitiously ramshackle picture has enjoyed elsewhere will be matched on these shores.”

Mark Kermode

The title of the film sums up the starting point for the plot: after the old man (Robert Gustsafsson) leaves his retirement home the film follows his adventures as he is chased by drug dealers and the police, intercut with episodes from his long life where, amongst others, he knew Harry S Truman, General Franco and Stalin.

 
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Jonas Jonasson which became a best seller initially in Sweden and then, after translation, globally with total sales of three million. The film was first screened at the Berlin Film Festival and subsequently has been shown in more than 40 countries. It is the third highest grossing Swedish film of all time, beaten only by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and The Girl who Played with Fire (2009). 

Here's the trailer:

 

The Dark Horse

We make the decisions as to what to screen in a democratic manner: any one can suggest anything although it is generally the committee who exercise this right. The only other criterion is that you have to have seen what you recommend: we were all scarred by 35 Shots of Rum.

And so I recommended Dark Horse: I'd read the reviews when it was released but had been unable to find a screening and so bought the DVD. This was excellent and I've passed it on to family in South Wales and in-laws who follow racing, and everyone has really enjoyed it. Our area is quite horsey - just six miles from Newbury - and we managed to attract a good audience, with several people we had never seen before.

The film went down well with everyone, with some of our audience actually having been at the key Newbury race meeting that appeared in the film. We should definitely look out for other documentaries to screen.

Here are my notes:

Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance

UK 2015                      82 minutes

Director:                      Louise Osmond

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Documentary at British Independent Film Awards
• Won Audience Award for World Cinema – Documentary at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
• Nominated for Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival

“With its sheer warmth and likability, this good-natured documentary won my heart – a real-life The Full Monty or Billy Elliot or Pride.”

Peter Bradshaw

This is the true story of a group of friends from a working men’s club in a depressed area of South Wales who decide to breed a racehorse. Initially they stable the horse on a local allotment, and then after choosing a trainer to prepare him for racing the results far exceed their expectations.

 Louise Osmond started her career as a journalist with ITN before becoming a documentary film maker. The subject of her work has been quite varied and her films include Deep Water (2003) about a round the world yacht race, McQueen and I (2011) about Alexander McQueen and Richard III: The King in the Car Park (2013). She had been planning a film about racing and had heard about Dream Alliance, but had been unable to progress discussions until a Hollywood production company, which had already optioned the story, withdrew its interest.

Here's the trailer:

 

What We Did On Our Holiday

This was my sleeper hit of the season. I'd never really watched Outnumbered on TV, but I'd been a keen fan of Drop The Dead Donkey plus the programmes that Andy Hamilton had written for radio.

The casting of the film was intriguing in the mix of the different backgrounds of the key performers, i.e. RSC and Doctor Who, Oscar Nominated Actress plus everything that Billy Connolly has done, but somehow it worked.

It was a black comedy, with definitely touches of Bill Forsyth's work, and iIenjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

What We Did On Our Holiday

UK 2014                      95 minutes

Director:                      Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin

Starring:                        Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller and Amelia Bullmore

Awards and Nominations

• BAFTA Scotland nominations for Best Actor (David Tennant) and Best Film
• London Critics Circle Film Awards Best Actress Award (Rosamund Pike)
• A further nomination for Best Film

“It’s impossible not to enjoy this big-hearted and sweet-natured British family movie from Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – effectively a feature-format development of their smash-hit BBC TV comedy, Outnumbered, which pioneered semi-improvised dialogue from the children. It creates a terrifically ambitious (and unexpected) narrative with a tonne of sharp gags.”

Peter Bradshaw

 

Doug (David Tennant) and Abi (Rosamund Pike) take their children on a trip to Scotland to visit Doug’s elderly father for a family party.  Dog and Abi have decided to separate, but have kept the news secret so as to avoid spoiling the party; their children find it difficult to do the same.

Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin created and directed the BBC comedy series Outnumbered which ran from 2007 to 2014. Before this they were best known for the TV comedy Drop the Dead Donkey (1990 to 1998), although as writers their earlier work included sketches for many comedy shows including The Two Ronnies, Smith and Jones, and Not The Nine O’Clock News. 

Rosamund Pike first made her name playing Jane Bennet in Joe Wright’s 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice. She played supporting roles (and received good reviews) in numerous films including An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010) before securing the lead role (and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations) in the acclaimed thriller Gone Girl (2014).  David Tennant’s career has included both stage and screen work: prior to Doctor Who his most high profile film role was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) but he had already played leading roles with the RSC. Subsequently he returned to the RSC to play the title roles in Hamlet and Richard II (both filmed) as well as teaming up with Catherine Tate (after their brilliant double act in Doctor Who) in a version of Much Ado About Nothing set in the 1980s.  His subsequent TV work has included two series of Broadchurch (with a third series in production) plus the lead role in Gracepoint, its US remake. He also narrated the spoof documentaries 2012 (about the preparations for the London Olympics) and W1A (about BBC bureaucracy).

 Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

Mr Holmes

It's been a bit of a year, and I'm hopelessly behind in posting my notes for the films we have screened.

Way back at the end of January we showed Mr Holmes: Ian McKellen as an ageing Sherlock Holmes. While I enjoyed both the film and his performance, the whole entity did not work for me. I've read too many of Conan Doyle's stories to accept the basic set up of the film. and the long shadow of the BBC's brilliant Sherlock looms large over any attempt to make any film about Sherlock Holmes.

Here are my notes:

Mr Holmes

UK 2015                      103 minutes

Director:                      Bill Condon

Starring:                        Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada and Hattie Morahan

Awards and Nominations

• Five nominations for Ian McKellen  as Best Actor
• A further four nominations

“Like its eponymous hero, the film drifts in and out of focus as it sifts through its deck of memories, a touch broad here, a little undercooked there, sometimes satirical, more often whimsical. Yet Jeffrey Hatcher’s script neatly ties together the interplay between myth and memory – both unreliable and malleable – while McKellen nurtures his character’s changing nature with affection and grace.”

Mark Kermode

After retiring to the South Downs and taking up bee-keeping an elderly Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) is looked after by his housekeeper Mrs Holmes (Laura Linney) and her young son.  As his health declines and he begins to lose his memory he reviews the two cases that made him retire from his role as a consulting detective.

Despite a long, award-winning career on the national stage that began in 1965 Ian McKellen’s screen rolls were for a long time limited to TV and/or specific British films like Richard III (1995), a screen adaptation of the acclaimed National Theatre production that moved the action of the play to a fascist 1930s. It was not until he secured an Oscar nomination for best actor for his portrayal of James Whale in in Gods and Monsters (1998), Bill Condon’s breakthrough film as director, that his international film career began.  Since then his roles as an Oscar nominated Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s two Tolkien trilogies and Magneto in the ongoing X-Men series have meant that he currently stands at 14 in the top 20 of the highest grossing actors in the USA (based on the box office takings of the films in which he has starred) and well ahead of long-established stars such as Robert de Niro and Matt Damon.

Bill Condon started his film career as a scriptwriter for independent films before becoming a director. His screenplay for Gods and Monsters won him an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and he subsequently wrote the Oscar nominated screenplay for Chicago (2002) His subsequent films as director have included Kinsey (2004) and the musical Dreamgirls (2006), for which he also wrote the screenplay, as well The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Parts 1 and 2, the final films of the lucrative vampire franchise. He is currently working on a film version of Beauty and the Beast, a film version of the Disney stage musical starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens - with Ian McKellen as Cogsworth (a character who has been transformed into a pendulum clock).

Here's the trailer: