Latest screening: Bright Star

I love the score to The Piano. I’m stating that upfront because it’s about the only positive thing I’ve ever been able to say about a Jane Campion movie. I haven’t seen An Angel At My Table but I hated The Piano, Holy Smoke, The Portrait Of A Lady and In The Cut so you’ll forgive me for not seeking it out.

It was therefore with trepidation that I went to see Campion’s latest Bright Star, but I have heard good things about the stars and familiarity with both Ben Whishaw (significantly Perfume) and Abbie Cornish’s (most notably the powerful Candy) previous work compelled me to give it a chance.

I can say it is Campion’s best work. I can say I liked it more than any of her previous films. I cannot day I liked it. I didn’t.

Bright Star is a typically overwrought, tedious, unconvincing, tiring Campion movie. That this is based on the real, tragic love story of one of the world’s most celebrated romantic poets makes Campion’s talent for wringing all the tedium she can from a subject (see Portrait Of A Lady) all the more impressive. The leads fail to engage on any level. Fanny Brawne (Cornish) is unlikeable, self-absorbed and arrogant. Whishaw’s Keats is irritatingly pathetic. Perhaps these are accurate portrayals but they feel more like a modern idea of what they might have been like and so, even if they are accurate, the film has failed to convey a realism to them.

Where recently lead performances in films like An Education, A Single Man, A Serious Man and Precious, and even bigger more action oriented films like The Hurt Locker and even District 9(!), have seemed entirely authentic those of Bright Star always feel Acted, and yes the capital A is intentional!

That is not to say Cornish and Whishaw don’t try their best, and Whishaw pretty much gets away with it, but they are poorly served by a director who couldn’t stage drama in the middle of the war zone! I just didn’t care about these characters. In fact I’ll further than that, as Fanny is the lead character here you should engage with her, care for her, want her to get what she wants, sympathize when things go awry. Her emotional arch should be yours. In Campion’s inept hands I found myself not only not caring what happened to her but actually happy that such a self-obsessed, silly childish girl saw her “love” end in tragedy.

Part of the problem is that there is zero chemistry between Whishaw and Cornish. In the depressing quagmire that is a Jane Campion movie perhaps chemistry cannot exist, surely any spark would quickly be dampened, but this is supposed to be the love that inspired Keats to some of the greatest romantic poems ever written. This is a real life tragic love story that should lend itself to the emotional rollercoaster that a movie can deliver. It should be heartbreaking, I just found myself happy when the tragic events came about as I knew it was finally nearly over!

I also don’t get all the praise for Cornish. She was fine, doing the best she could, but was all wrong for the part. There are some actors that can play in costume drama convincingly (I hesitate to praise Keira Knightley in any way but she does have a natural look for it) and those that work in any period, modern or old (Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman, Kelly Reilly, Romola Garai, Rosamund Pike). Then there are actresses that are simply too modern looking to convincingly fit in costume dramas, such as Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway or Scarlett Johansson. Cornish is sadly one of the latter group. From the first instant she seems like a 21st century girl playing dress up (not helped by the sometimes so “TV Costume Drama” costumes that even Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist looks convincing). Again Whishaw is aided by his look, he just fits in this world, but Cornish doesn’t.

Equally problematic is she has a distinctly antipodean look. Some people, many people, have an inescapable appearance that makes you know their nationality without them uttering a word. It’s a game you can play down the pub, and it’s all too easy sometimes. It’s no fault of their own and there’s nothing they can do about it. Michael Caine never works as American because (regardless of shakey accents – even his Oscar-winning one for Cider House Rules) he is inescapably British. Keira Knightley has the same problem. You couldn’t cast Thomas Haden Church as British, or Brendan Gleeson as French, or Penelope Cruz as Australian, or Sean Connery as Spanish (wait, hang on a minute – no, Highlander just proves my point!). Cornish looks Australian, it’s that simple. This is a big problem when she has to convince as a 19th century English woman! As a result she doesn’t.

A saving grace is the excellent Paul Schneider as Keats’ suspicious and cynical, but well-meaning friend Charles Brown. Schneider is utterly convincing and the scenes between he and Whishaw are highlight of the film. For me Schneider was the only performance I walked away knowing would remain with me come nomination selection time, but Whishaw may make it depending on competition. Cornish is a no go for me, as it the film as a whole, but no doubt given the British obsession with costume drama it will make a good showing at BAFTA regardless. It was at least nice to see the BIFAs not prostrate at Bright Star’s feet.

It Best Actress terms the beautifully played, naturalistic performances of both Gabourey Sidibe in Precious and Carey Mulligan in An Education run rings around Cornish and it would be a massive injustice if she beat either.

Campion is still zero for 5 in my book.

Latest screening: A Prophet (Un Prophete)

It seems to me that Jacques Audiard just gets better and better as a filmmaker and his latest film A Prophet (Un Prophete) is an assured, powerful work that resonates with you well after you finish watching it.

It the distributor gets their act together on screeners for this one A Prophet could be one of those films that breaks out of the limiting ‘Best Film Not in the English Language’ category at the BAFTA Film Awards and easily find itself with thoroughly deserved best actor and supporting actor nominations.

Tahar Rahim is superb as the lead, a character so real it’s like watching a nature documentary, you want to get in there and help him. Set in a prison this is no Shawshank Redemption although it is curiously uplifting in a strange way! Rahim takes his character from outcast, frightened newbie; to put upon weakling, subservient dogsbody; to crafty go-getter; to self-assured player – and all completely naturally. It is as impressive a performance as I’ve seen this year and deserves to stand along side the more typical English-language performances come awards time. At BAFTA at least he should have a shot.

Niels Arestrup, familiar to Audiard fans as the father in the BAFTA winning The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete), is almost as impressive as the prison heavy, who rules by respect, control and fear, and when called for, violence. Arestrup is the Paul Sorvino Goodfellas character, the gang leader who seems in control and all powerful but deep down is as insecure as everyone else – well aware that not only is he a target for enemies but for ambitious underlings, and that his power is only as strong as his ties to those he controls. Arestrup says so much with just a look here.

A Prophet is Audiard’s best work to date and certainly among the best foreign language films this year, and arguably the best films full stop. The story may not be the most original, often going in directions you imagine it will, but it always feels right, organic, that it should. The prison setting is a familiar one for film goers but it is rarely handled in such a natural way, superbly balancing a sense of honesty, of how such a life would really be, with genuine, driving drama. True life prison story can often be honest but inert. Fiction can be dramatic, uplifting, moving but seldom feels realistic. A Prophet manages in large part to do both.

A truly impressive film.

Along with the Mesrine movies the French have set a high bar this year.

Latest screening: An Education

To those of us who have been steadily tracking Carey Mulligan’s career for several years from her small but key, eye-catching supporting role in the BBC’s Bleak House, to a star-making turn in a one-off episode of Doctor Who title Blink (the best Who episode of the modern series) to a blink-and-you’d miss her scene in And When Did You Last See Your Father? right up to a small role in this summer’s Public Enemies as John Dillinger’s wife it comes as no surprise that in her first lead film role she delivers a stunning, assured performance.

For all the good qualities of Lone Scherfig’s An Education, and there are many, it would be nothing without the luminous, brilliant Mulligan at its centre. If her revelatory guest role in Doctor Who was key in catching eyes in Britain then this is her calling card for Hollywood, and given her upcoming projects is surely already proving so. Mulligan is simply sensational here in the role of 16/17 year old Jenny, a high-flying school-girl and Oxford hopeful who gets swept up by the charm and high-living lifestyle of an older man, who her parents are equally taken with, in the early 1960s.

Her performance is so real that you don’t see a false edge. The character doesn’t feel acted but lived, she so embodies the role. You never doubt the character and that is impressive as this is a character that could so easily have come off false. Jenny is at once, incredibly intelligent, self-assured and seemingly wise, yet insecure and unknowingly naïve. She is too young to be an adult but too smart to be seen as a child. As a girl teetering on the brink of womanhood it is simply one of the best and most believable portrayals I’ve seen. She is assured of a BAFTA nomination for actress and should bag an Oscar one too unless there’s a fix going on.

She is ably supported by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour as her parents. The three have such a genuine rapport together that they feel like a real family. Molina is excellent and deserves supporting attention come awards season. As a conflicted man living in a time on the verge of great change, but from a generation set to be slightly behind the times he is utterly convincing. Molina is a consummate actor but I’m not sure he has ever been as good as here.

Peter Sarsgaard has the tricky role of having to appear both slightly sinister and yet charming and likeable, and manages to pull it off. He can feel a little stilted at times, and I wondered if it he having to get to grips with the accent, but it could easily be read as part of the period setting. That said, it doesn’t play as well alongside the naturalism of Mulligan and Molina.

Cara Seymour compliments Mulligan and Molina as the third point in their failial triangle, and merely on a visual level is smart casting for Mulligan’s mother. Dominic Cooper seems a little unsure of his role in early stages but finds his footing, while the Oxford educated Rosamund Pike enjoys sending up Oxford students and playing an archetypal ditzy blonde – vacant looks abound to great comic effect.

Nick Hornby’s script is as funny, heartfelt and knowing as you would expect from the man responsible for books like High Fidelity, How To Be Good and About A Boy. Here he has found genuine voices for his characters and created a completely convincing world, whether at school, at home or out on the town. The film rushes a little at the end but on the whole the measure of how the script handles each incident and plot point is well paced and smartly thought out.

Scherfig of course deserves praise for realizing these elements on the big screen as well, though I suspect Mulligan and Hornby’s script will be the focus of awards season attention for this film, though a lot depends on the year’s other offerings.

An Education is superbly crafted on every level and as a complete film stands with A Single Man this year as leagues ahead of anything English-language that was on offer in the last awards season.

Smart, funny and genuine a movie as you’ll find this year replete with awards worthy performances, including a star-making turn from Carey Mulligan, you’d be a fool to pass up An Education.

Latest screening: Milk

Yet another case of performance over film here. Milk, like Doubt, is elevated as a film by uniformly excellent performances but the film itself is not great. Comparably to something like Monster or Capote, it is not that the film is bad per se, but that it is fairly forgettable. I challenge people that say it is a great film to remember much of the actual style and delivery of the film itself a month on. I'll bet they will remember little beyond the performances.

Of course such cases and dominating the awards season this year and an ensemble film like this could elevate it to best picture and best director status simply because there isn't a weak link in the actors on screen. See Crash for a recent example of this - the acting and the issue at its core drove its nominations and eventual win not it's actually being the best film of the year (which it plainly wasn't). With the recent hoopla over Prop 8 in California this is incredibly timely and so it does have the issue-ensemble angle that Crash had - it's also a better film.

It's not a great film though. The contrived way around of delivering narration Van Sant uses grated on me from the first instances and some of it was too laudatory i felt. I like me biopics with a sense of perspective and Milk was unashamedly in awe of its God-like (movie portrayal not opinion) subject. No doubt this will go down great in the US but i just didn't buy it, i wanted more from it.

Awards chances: It has the pedigree for Best Picture and Director noms in a slow year (which this is) but Sean Penn is electrifying and completely deserves the Best Actor nomination so is assured. It truly is a fantastic year for Best Actor possibilities this year (the one really hard to call category) and many deserving performances are going to miss out.

I am officially retracting my Josh Brolin prediction though. He's good here but he's just not in it enough. If he had already lost for a robbed central role (like Judi Dench) then it could happen, but his presence at the core of No Country and great turn in W. won't be enough for this.