'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'Inside Llewyn Davis', and 'August: Osage County': review round-up + A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

'The Wolf of Wall Street' - Dir. Martin Scorsese (18)

Funnier than most straight comedies, Martin Scorsese's biopic of stockbroker Jordan Belfort is consistently entertaining over its daunting three hour running length. In many ways it's very similar to 'Goodfellas', albeit following a different (less physically violent) type of criminal, but the beats are the same and the same questions remain, namely "why would somebody choose to live this life?" - with the suggestion made that we will all envy the Belfort even as we come to despise him as a human being. And despicable he is. For all the moral panic about the film failing to condemn its protagonist, Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio paint a picture of a charismatic but morally bankrupt figure, ultimately without any real friends or meaningful human connections. He's an out of control, drug-addicted monster by the film's final third, punching his wife (Margot Robbie) and driving his young daughter into a wall. If you think the film doesn't make his life seem unappealing enough, or that it doesn't show the dark and sinister side of his character, then I don't know what version of the film you saw.

The performances are great across the board, with DiCaprio getting to demonstrate a deft comic timing and lightness of touch we haven't seen in years, whilst physically he's also required to do some incredible and very odd things. Yet the star performer is Jonah Hill as his business partner and supposed best friend Donnie Azoff, who owns the best moments and generates the biggest laughs in a film full of them. Matthew McConaughey is typically brilliant in what amounts to an extended cameo at the start and Kyle Chandler is similarly memorable as the straight-laced, incorruptible FBI agent seen in just a few key scenes. I also have to mention how enjoyable and inspired the casting of Rob Reiner is as Jordan's hot-tempered father - a force of nature who blusters into several key scenes to great comedic effect.

It's typically slick and punchy from beginning to end, carried briskly along by DiCaprio's playful narration and it never really stops for air. That Scorsese continues to make such dynamic, exciting and contemporary films in his 70s (long-serving editor Themla Schoonmaker is showing the likes of 'Spring Breakers' how it's done at 74) is quite something and possibly part of what makes his a unique and enduring voice.

'Inside Llewyn Davis' - Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen (15)

A slight and deceptively simple entry into the Coen canon, in the mould of the criminally underrated 'A Serious Man', Oscar Isaac stars here as the title character - a struggling folk singer, moving from couch to couch in the Greenwich Village of 1961. As he bumbles from sometime lover to casual acquaintance we're introduced to a number of strange and variously pathetic and/or unlikable characters, given life by a half-dozen impactful cameos from the likes of John Goodman, Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. In the Coen tradition all of them seen to have some measure of private sadness, whether it's a hidden box of unsold records, a crippling drug problem or a decision to sell-out artistically and settle down in the suburbs. Llewyn is vaguely contemptuous of nearly all of them and yet he is simultaneously beholden to them as he endlessly rotates through his New York contacts for places to stay or people to hitch a ride with.

Llewyn is an interesting character. Superior, aloof and prideful - refusing to sell out his artistic sensibilities, living hand to mouth and playing 'real' folk music with thankless results and no commercial future. A user and a man without responsibility or attachments. Yet he is on occasion, paradoxically, upstanding and decent in his quiet way. Both humble and egotistical. Emotionally detached and yet harbouring his own grief and inner turmoil. A complex and nuanced character perfectly suited to Isaac's intelligent and introspective demeanor. He's not a hero in any sense; he's infuriating and maybe a little pretentious - but he's entirely human. The Coen's get criticised often for not liking their characters enough, but this kind of nuanced depiction of people - with all their faults and idiosyncrasy - to my mind comes from a place of empathy and understanding. I think they understand people very well, but they aren't afraid to admit that we're all basically a bit rubbish.

'August: Osage County' - Dir. John Wells (15)

I imagine a slight variation on this short conversation accounts for every single factor behind the making, distribution and ultimate viewership of 'August: Osage County': it goes "hey, Chris Cooper! We got a great part for you." "Yeah?" he replies "What's the movie about?" "Well, I'm glad you asked, Chrissy boy. It's an adaptation of a stage play about a dysfunctional mid-Western family dominated by a cruel matriarch and rocked by incest, substance abuse and general misery." "Oh, I dunno" replies Mr. Cooper "that sounds kinda interesting but I think I'll pass." "That's a shame, pal, because Meryl was personally extremely interested in you coming aboard with us." "Excuse me? Meryl?" "Yeah, didn't I mention Meryl Streep is taking the lead part?" "Oh my lord! Meryl Streep!? Where do I sign! This is going to be amazing!"

I think that's an accurate transcript of how this film came to be and the sum total explanation of why audiences are going to see it, in spite of the fact that it's a hoary old bag of cliches adding up to a glorified episode of 'Eastenders'. Though it's easy to see why Meryl Streep took the role: she's this out of control, bitchy, shouty monster of a mother, parading around in a bad wig with a drink in one hand and a fag in the other - falling over, maniacally cackling and not so much chewing the scenery as violently chomping it to within an inch of its warranty. It's a role and performance preconfigured to make audiences say "oh, how brave!" And as Meryl Streep sprints over the top, all of the other actors race to join her - most notably Julia Roberts, whose "eat the mother-fucking fish, bitch" rant rivals that bit in 'The Paperboy' (where Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and David Oyelowo watch Nicole Kidman masturbate) for shear "oh my god, what am I watching and is it really happening?"-ness.

There's one very nice father and son sequence between Chris Cooper and Benedict Cumberbatch, which is the closest the movie comes to feeling genuine and intimate. Then there's the film's real stand-out performance, delivered by Julianne Nicholson who plays Streep's meek and downtrodden youngest daughter with tenderness, vulnerability and genuine heart. But the rest is all histrionics and 'dark heart of the rural American family' tropes that we've all seen a thousand times before in better movies. Maybe Tracy Letts' play works better on the stage, where hammy excess is often part and parcel of the experience - but this big screen adaptation borders on ridiculous as it goes from one melodramatic family revelation to the next in all its plate-smashing pomp.

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Finally, I've been saddened by the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman - a man who could legitimately have claimed to have been the actor of his generation. He was certainly one of my all-time favourites and I'm upset that we won't be seeing whatever he might have gone on to do as an actor and director. As an actor he was always believable and could be relied upon to be the best thing in the rare bad movie that he appeared in. He was one of those talents that elevated bad material and made great material really sing. There is no such thing as a bad Philip Seymour Hoffman performance, at least not that I've seen.

In tribute, below are some clips of my favourite of his roles.








A good scene (and great performance) from a less than great movie...

  

And one from the best film ever made...



I'm genuinely going to miss this guy.

Pretty much sums up last night's Oscars for me...

The above celebration - recorded in an excitable Iranian household - of the Best Foreign Language Film win for 'A Separation' mirrors my feelings about last night's festivities. I'm pleased Woody Allen won the original screenplay category for 'Midnight in Paris', but would have preferred to see Asghar Farhadi's film triumph there too. Also raising a smile is the Best Supporting Actor win for Christopher Plummer and 'Beginners'.

I didn't stay up to watch last night's telecast, mainly because the prospect of staying up until 4am in the company of Billy Crystal to see 'The Artist' crowned the year's best movie just wasn't doing it for me. I'm not an Oscar hater at all (or even a Billy Crystal hater), for what it's worth. It's just that not being especially enamoured with 'The Artist' and doubting the chances of 'Hugo', 'The Descendants' or 'Moneyball', I fancied it would be a long night riddled with sighs and perhaps featuring a "thank you" to Margaret Thatcher.

That tribute to Thatcher didn't materialise though Streep did win the award as anticipated, whilst 'The Artist' scooped up Best Picture, Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin) - along with two others. Best Supporting Actress went to 'The Help' star Octavia Spencer. Scorsese's lovely 'Hugo' scored five technical awards. On the positive side, a win for 'The Artist' does contradict those troubling reports last month that the film might suffer a backlash from voters for being non-American, with the campaign told to play down the movie's Frenchness. Happily that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Meanwhile, on a tangentially related note, I fear for Sacha Baron Cohen, who "stole headlines" when he arrived on the red carpet as the character from his upcoming comedy 'The Dictator'...



It's not that I'm bothered on any level by that stunt, but just that Cohen's new character isn't particularly inspired and raises uncomfortable questions about national stereotyping. I thought 'Borat' was really funny because it seemed prejudice was the target of the jokes, with people's willingness to think the character was real being in some way an expose of ignorance. Yet "the dictator" is just a guy with a funny beard and an accent that wouldn't be out of place in those dreadful meerkat adverts. Hope the film proves me wrong.

'The Iron Lady' review:

There are few political figures hated more vehemently than Margaret Thatcher. She has her defenders, but even twenty years after being forced from power by her own party, Thatcher's name provokes strong emotions. Perhaps now - with public services again being cut as the country lives through recession and mass unemployment - isn't the most sensitive time to release a biopic celebrating her life. And yet here comes 'The Iron Lady', courtesy of writer Abi Morgan and Phyllida Lloyd, the director of 'Mamma Mia!'.

The film - as everybody surely knows - stars 16-time Oscar nominee Meryl Streep as a softer, prettier, more smiley version of Thatcher, who exists somewhere under ten pounds of make-up. Taking power in 1979 she comes over as something like Julia Child (the ungainly, nasal TV chef Streep impersonated in 'Julie & Julia') with pre-emptive missile strike capability and big hair. More effective are the scenes in which Streep plays a modern day version of the former leader: an old lady grappling with dementia alone in her flat. It'd be difficult for even the most ardent socialist not to see the humanity here, which in some respects makes the film resemble 'Downfall' - the German film that chronicled the final days of Hitler.

It's strongest in these moments, as frequent backflashes through Thatcher's political life are oddly neutered in a way which should infuriate her supporters and detractors in equal measure. Possibly mindful of the divisive nature of her politics, this Weinstein-backed Oscar bait prefers to see her life through a less complex prism: one of the first female leader of a Western power - an undeniable watershed achievement, even if she did little to aid working women during the 80s. But with Thatcher's social policies still felt by Britain's poorest communities, making a film predominantly about Thatcher's gender - and her girl power rise to the forefront of a male dominated world - feels roughly equivalent to focussing on Hitler's vegetarianism.

There is some stuff here about whether or not she was so guided by principle and singular conviction as to be obstinate (a word she gets right away in a crossword), whilst Morgan's screenplay even deserves some credit for its framing of the sinking of the Belgrano as a terrible decision which prolonged the Falklands war and caused the deaths of many British serviceman (as well as 300 Argentine sailors). But otherwise, beyond presenting protesters and Labour MPs as red-faced shouty men, the film tries very hard to run away from politics. Prominent Tories have been irked by the film's portrayal of Thatcher's mental decline, with the leader shown going very clearly mad during a cabinet meeting (the film's strongest sequence), but it's overall unlikely to offend anybody too severely.

How you feel about Streep's Thatcher will no doubt have more to do with your politics going in than anything in the film itself, which isn't helped by its tepid ITV drama atmosphere. Perhaps the most damning indictment of 'The Iron Lady' is that it isn't even attempting to be as incendiary as its subject. We might have expected a film that would, at the very least, provoke discussion. I'd be very surprised if too many audience members found themselves thinking about this disposable pap too long after the fact. Though it should go without saying by now that Olivia Coleman is brilliant as daughter Carol, while Jim Broadbent, who plays husband Dennis, is good value as ever - only Streep's reputation and inevitable Academy Award nomination (and possible win) are keeping this film from cultural oblivion.

'The Iron Lady' is on a wide release now and rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'The Iron Lady' trailer:

I recently pondered next year's Oscar race and completely forgot about 'The Iron Lady' - potentially next year's 'The King's Speech'. Another British historical drama with the backing of the Weinstein brothers, this time helmed by Phyllida Lloyd - the director responsible for the huge box office success that was 'Mamma Mia!'. This is probably enough on its own to suggest Oscar nods for the Margaret Thatcher biopic, but then you add the fact that the former Prime Minister is being played by none other than Meryl Streep and you've got to expect the Academy will love this.

I sincerely hope this isn't a celebratory film about "one woman's brave stand in a male dominated world" or some such. But with the great Jim Broadbent cast as husband Dennis, I can't see how life at home with the Thatchers is going to be anything other than sympathetic. I know it won't be critical or satirical of Thatcher (this is a British establishment movie if ever I've smelt one), but let's at least hope it isn't an insufferable whitewash. Chances are however that politics will be sidelined almost completely and it'll be a the story of a strong leader finding her voice in a time of great social upheaval (ring any bells?).

In any case, Streep's performance could be interesting regardless. There is a trailer out today, exclusively at The Guardian, so take a look.