SHERPA

Writer/director: Jennifer Peedom.

Rating: 4.5/5

For all the mountainous visual majesty her lens captures, it is director Jennifer Peedom’s soulful, stirring depiction of the human spirit that allows her feature, Sherpa, to truly soar.

Envisioned as an examination of the tensions that led to a highly publicised clash between European tourists and Sherpa guides in 2013, Peedom contextualises the inequalities suffered by the Sherpa workers with some deftly handled backstory involving the lopsided mistreatment of the most famous Sherpa of all time, Tenzing Norgay, after he guided Sir Edmund Hillary to the peak of Mt Everest in May 1953.

But the Australian director suddenly found her already daunting production in the midst of an event that, at the time, represented the largest singular instance of loss of life in Mt Everest history. On April 18 2014, a 14.5 tonnes sheet of ice dislodged from the wall of the treacherous Khumbu Icefall and a team of Sherpas, transporting camping and trekking equipment for international tourist operators, were crushed; 16 locals died in the disaster, with three bodies never recovered.

In chronicling the events with an as-it-unfolds immediacy, Peedom and her high-altitude co-director Renan Ozrturk afford their audience a first-hand visual account of unfettered human emotion at its most raw. The heartbreak that accompanies images of the deceased being helicoptered to base camp cannot be overstated, nor can Peedom’s deeply respectful depiction of the rescue and recovery efforts and, most importantly, the overwhelming grief that swept the region.

The central conflict remains constant – the global commercial interests invested in the Mt Everest tourism industry versus the relationship the indigenous population has with the mountain – but the stakes soar and the issues deepen in the wake of the tragedy. Certain to divide audience sympathies is trek operator Russell Brice, whose business depends on a trustful working relationship with his carriers but who finds himself facing agitated clients when militant Sherpas, tired of their cultural history and modern needs being disrespected by tourists and local government officials alike, want the climbing season abandoned.

The film’s true ‘star’ is experienced guide Phurba Tashi Sherpa, father of two and husband to a wife whose anxiety grows with every expedition. Having lived for generations in the shadow of his beloved Sagarmatha, Tashi shares a bond with the mountain that only locals can comprehend; it is this affinity with the landscape and its legends that places the softly-spoken Sherpa at the centre of the us-vs-them conflict, however reluctantly.

Peedom has a long history with Nepal and the Himalayan terrain; key production roles on such landmark small-screen achievements as Miracle on Everest (2008) and Everest: Beyond the Limit (2007) allowed her unprecedented access to the local people and their customs. This intimacy and shared understanding of the region imbues Sherpa with an immensely empathetic warmth. The access afforded her camera – flashpoint instances at the height of negotiations; achingly sweet moments inside Phurba Tashi’s family home – is a testament to a filmmaker of unquestionable integrity in the eyes of her subjects and whose subsequent vision is instinctive and heartfelt.

Donations to the Nepal Earthquake aid efforts can be made at via the following organisations:
RED CROSS (AUSTRALIA)
UNHCR
UNICEF

THE CRITIC'S CAPSULE: SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL, VOLUME 1.

Each and every film scheduled into the 62^nd Sydney Film Festival deserves the standard 500+ word appraisal we usually publish here at SCREEN-SPACE. But, in an effort to offer as many opinions as possible while the festival is in full swing, we have introduced 'The Critic’s Capsule’ – short, sharp insight into as many of the Sydney screening highlights as we can muster. Three days into the 2015 event, here is our opening volley…. 

DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: THE STORY OF THE NATIONAL LAMPOON (Dir: Douglas Tirola / USA, 93 mins / pictured, above)
No one influence has shaped the American comedic landscape in the last half century more than the satirical publication, National Lampoon. The lovechild of Harvard’s privileged intellectualism and the late 60’s counter-culture fearlessness, the magazine (and, subsequently, brand) became a multi-million dollar industry. Douglas Tirola’s account of the Lampoon heavyweights that cut a swathe through American society with their brand of barbed, hilarious satire is both a glorious celebration of the lunatic fringe (led by wild-child Doug Kenney) and a cautionary tale of the destructive impact of fame and fortune. Hilarious accounts of the surreal life led by those at the Lampoon ensure big laughs; not so expected, the tearful moments of memory and regret.
You’ll talking about…: The Murray brothers, Belushi, Ramis, Radner, Guest, Aykroyd, Chase and many more, all in their twenty-something pre-stardom prime.
RATING: 4/5 

MY LOVE DON’T CROSS THAT RIVER (Dir: Jin Mo-Young / South Korea, 86 mins / pictured, right)
Unforgettably poignant moments captured during the final years of a 70-year marriage imbue Jin Mo-Young’s achingly sweet, funny and insightful documentary (a theatrical blockbuster in its homeland). The story of Cho Byeong-man (98) and Kang Gye-young (89) captures the exquisite simplicity of their vast life together (they wed when she was 14), most notably their affinity with the surrounding riverside landscape and interactions with their extended family. The authenticity of some early scenes is questionable, but the inevitability of one’s mortality is dealt with in a deeply respectful, entirely truthful manner.
You’ll be talking about…: The final farewell.
RATING: 3.5/5 

BEING EVEL (Dir: Daniel Junge / USA, 100 mins / pictured, above)
A vivid, vibrant celebration of the famed motorcycle daredevil, Daniel Junge’s exhaustively researched profile credits the rough-hewn Montana native and the commercial phenomenon he spawned as the dawn of the modern extreme-sports industry. Despite teetering on the edge of gushy hagiography for much of the first half, the darker psychological shades of the man himself keep the film on track – unlike some of Evel’s (in)famous jumps, captured here in all their bone-crunching glory. Superbly cut by Davis Coombe under Junge’s assured guidance; no surprise that Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine, the ‘minds’ behind Jackass are on-board as producers.
You’ll be talking about…: Junge’s slow-motion analysis of the less-than-graceful landing that Knievel (barely) survived when he leapt the Caesar’s Palace fountain in Las Vegas.
RATING: 3.5/5

DEATHGASM (Dir: Jason Lei Howden / New Zealand, 85 mins / pictured, right)
For those convinced heavy metal music in all its forms is the tool of Satan…well, you’re right. Such is the premise of debutant Jason Lei Howden’s ridiculously splattery horror/comedy Deathgasm, named after the thrashing four-piece that conjures Hell’s minions from a garage in Greypoint. As deliriously OTT as the claret-soaked carnage is, the tropes of the no-holds-barred, dismemberment genre are beginning to fold in on themselves; one sex-toy inspired sequence aside, the influence of Jackson, Raimi and Gordon is all too evident. Where Howden earns his stripes is in his handling of the very funny cast of characters. A star is born in Milo Cawthorne as headbangin’ loner Brodie, who exhibits great comic timing and an every-dude charm, especially in his efforts to woo the wonderful Kimberley Crossman.
You’ll be talking about…: Death by dildo probably, although the first decapitation gag (that’s right, the first) got one of the film’s biggest laughs.
RATING: 3.5/5 

THE POSTMAN’S WHITE NIGHTS (Dir: Andrei Konchalovsky / Russia, 101 mins / pictured, right)
Journeyman Russian filmmaker Konchalovsky (Tango & Cash, 1989; Runaway Train, 1985; Dyadya Vanya, 1971) bounces back from the mega-budgeted 2010 flop The Nutcracker 3D with a pastoral character study set amidst a remote northern Russian village on the banks of Kenozero Lake. Binding the vodka-sodden community is sober mailman Aleksey Tryaptisyn, playing himself alongside a fellow non-pro cast in a narrative that captures a yearning to fulfil one’s dreams as traditional rural living clashes with encroaching and corrupt officialdom. The director’s understated naturalism may be too muted for some, but others will draw a heartbreaking universal relevance from the plight of Konchalovsky’s real-life protagonists.
You’ll be talking about…: The tale of the river witch Kikimora, related so vividly by Tryaptisin to his pre-teen travel buddy Timur (Timur Bondarenko) as to render the child hysterical with fear.
RATING: 3.5/5

Visit the Sydney Film Festival website for all ticket and venue information.

ENTOURAGE

Stars: Adrian Grenier, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, Billy Bo Thornton, Haley Joel Osmant, Perrey Reeves, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Rex Lee, Debi Mazar, Ronda Rousey and Emily Ratajkowski.
Writer/Director: Doug Ellin.

Watch the trailer here.

Rating: 3/5

The Y-chromosome fever dream that is the world of Entourage heats up from frame 1 in series creator Doug Ellin’s bigscreen adaptation of his hit property.

A barely-clad Nina Agdal, the most current incarnation of supermodel hotness on the planet, gives a sly grin as her binoculars focus in on Turtle (Jerrry Ferrara), Drama (Kevin Dillon) and E (Kevin Connolly) speeding towards the multi-million dollar party-cruiser moored in the azure playground off Ibiza. The boat belongs to Vinnie (Adrian Grenier), who has bounced back from a fleeting flirtation with marriage by bedding Agdal.

The supermodel knows that, like all of us who have followed the lads through their LA adventures over eight HBO seasons, Vinnie is really only a complete man when conjoined with his ‘bros’. When the lads are unified, this long-in-development, short-on-narrative feature is at its best, too; like much of the west coast movie scene, it is high on boisterous personality and lavish adherence to base instincts.

But Ellin’s more expansive take on Hollywood life has not transitioned to the 2.35:1 scope seamlessly intact. The punchy energy and ironic verve that was the trademark of the 30-minute episodes is gone, replaced by some meagre plotting that sees the boys seeking the sweetness of romance and ushering them into the responsibilities of growing old.

Vinnie’s $100million directing debut, a wannabe-tentpole called Hyde has been shepherded through production by ex-agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), who has graduated to studio head and rolled the dice on his old client’s vision of a blockbuster. None of this rings very true, which is at odds with the insider smarts that was one of the most endearing traits of the series. Needing fresh funds to finalise the film, Gold heads for Texas to woo financier Billy Bob Thornton, who puts his scumbag son Haley Joel Osmant in charge of the decision-making. Contrived machinations (mostly to do with the allure of it-girl Emily Ratajkowski) threaten Vinnie’s film and Ari’s job, as is to be expected.

As Vinnie’s business manager and first-time producer, Connolly’s E does very little of either, instead lumbered with a ‘babies vs boobs’ subplot that introduces some down-home moral goodness into the seething immorality of everyday A-list excess (perhaps to appeal to a broader movie-going base than the basic-cable followers of the series). Detractors who have wanted to nail Entourage for some borderline misogyny over the years get plenty of ammo in the form of two sexy starlets, who connive to frighten E into thinking he has fathered an unwanted child and caught an STD in the process.

Turtle romances cage-fighter Ronda Rousey, playing herself; Drama gets a few laughs doing what Drama does, struggling to build a career in the wake of his hotter, younger brother (as good as Dillon is, this should be the last time he plays an idealistic acting hopeful). Other series regulars (Emmanuelle Chriqui, Rex Lee, Perrey Reeves, Constance Zimmer, Debi Mazar, Rhys Coiro) are all shoe-horned in; celebrity cameos abound.

Just as Time Warner resurrected its other HBO cash cow, Sex and The City, so to it does with Entourage. Given the general mediocrity of both, their bigscreen re-emergence hardly seemed warranted; only time will tell if Entourage earns its existence as Sex... did. Marketers will reaffirm that this “is one for the fans,” and it certainly is warmly familiar (and, yes, this three-star review is unashamedly seen through the rose-coloured glasses of a fanatic). The brand will gather a second wind, DVD box-set sales will get a jolt, and Vinnie’s crew can now fade into the pop-culture ether.

One hopes they don’t make the same sequel-mistake as Carrie and the ‘girls’ made. The next real-world step for these ‘boys’ will be settling into the comforts of their wealthy west-coast lifestyles, firming up career opportunities and foregoing their wild ways in favour of maturity. If they don’t, it would be sad. And I wouldn’t want to watch it.

POLTERGEIST

Stars: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, Jane Adams, Kyle Catlett, Kennedi Clements and Saxon Sharbino.
Writer: David Lindsay-Abaire.
Director: Gil Kenan.

Watch the trailer here.

Rating: 2.5/5

If Gil Kenan’s remake of Tobe Hooper’s (or, if you believe the scuttlebutt, Steven Spielberg’s) 1982 spectral spectacular Poltergeist is remembered at all, it will be as further evidence of Hollywood’s disregard for the horror genre in its pandering to the PG-13 demographic.

Robbed of the upwardly mobile, early 80s spunk that imbued leads Craig T Nelson and the great Jobeth Williams with such warm personalities, whiny smart-alec Sam Rockwell and an anaemic Rosemarie DeWitt star as Eric and Amy Bowen, two career-less strugglers mired in an America of foreclosed suburban blocks. In 1982, The Freelings earned our affection with funny and familiar family moments that remain fan favourites (the burying of the dead bird; giving the pool guys the finger; the battle for remote control with the jerk-neighbour); in 2015, The Bowens are introduced in a static single shot, bundled together in their bland people mover and shrilly yelling over each other to be heard. In modern screen parlance, writer David Lindsay-Abaire’s lazy opening represents ‘establishing character.’

Those rich characterisations that ensured emotional investment in the plight of the all-American nuclear family are but one of the many assets exorcised in this shallow retelling, but it is arguably the most crucial omission. The narrative’s dramatic impetus has been taken away from the mother; the tormented focus that the grief of losing a daughter to supernatural forces and the desperate determination to get her back provided Williams with meaty maternal material. Alternatively, DeWitt is largely a nonchalant bystander, barely registering a furrowed brow as her youngest navigates ‘The Great Beyond’. Similarly, Rockwell’s father figure seems annoyed by the overall inconvenience of the spiritual invasion; any comparison to Nelson’s crumbling emotional wreck is really no comparison at all.

Otherworldly heroism falls to middle-child Griffin, played by an ok Kyle Catlett (moms can’t be heroes in 2015 franchise reboots); his role is essentially a live-action version of the animated tyke director Kenan conjured in 2006’s Monster House.  Teenage sister Kendra is played with an ultra-modern ironic detachment by Saxon Sharbino, who can’t be jolted into any kind of emotional life no matter how much the ethereal denizens of her home try; the abducted moppet made famous by the late Heather O’Rourke is ably realised by Kennedi Clements, easily the best of the ensemble. Jared Harris and Jane Adams are reduced to naff comic relief in roles that carried dramatic weight 33 years ago when played by Zelda Rubinstein and Beatrice Straight, respectively.

If the human elements are left wanting, there is some meagre joy to be had in the prerequisite frights. The most successfully rendered reworking of an original element is the clown that freaks out Griffin (although how it comes to be in his room at all represents an implausible disregard for new home owner due diligence); based on the high profile that the clown has in all the marketing material, the producers are aiming for the ‘creepy doll’ audience that PG-13 hits The Conjuring and Annabelle brought in. Also relatively effective are CGI-heavy re-imaginings of the iconic ‘Killer Tree’ sequence and the ‘Wardrobe to Hell’ portal to the homes’ heart of bi-location.

To list further failings in Kenan’s remake would begin to sound churlish – the financial hardship the Bowens find themselves in means no backyard pool sequences; no E-Buzz, the family dog whose animal instincts first sensed the true nature of the house; no discernible music score, unlike Jerry Goldsmith’s orchestral masterwork. Also, blaming the atmospheric ineffectiveness on the tinny digital sheen that has replaced the rich, deep shadows and vibrant colours provided by film stock is a moot point; film production is what it is in the modern industry.

Fact is, Poltergeist 2015 was not made to honour its source material. Nor will the PG-13 audience for which it was created be all that familiar with its origins (or, for that matter, what a poltergeist even is). It should be judged on its own terms; in that regard, it is a tepid, mid-range effort, lacking in logic and derailed by one-note characters servicing a narrowly focussed B-movie storyline. It’s just that little bit sadder that proof exists indicating it could have been so much more.

PIKU

Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Irrfan Khan, Balendra Singh and Moushumi Chatterjee.
Writer: Juhi Chaturvedi.
Director: Shoojit Sircar. 

Watch the trailer here.

Rating: 4/5

Bollywood’s biggest stars revel in life’s smallest moments in Piku, Shoojit Sircar’s sweetly insightful family ‘dramedy’/road movie. As the ailing patriarchal figure, the legendary Amitabh Bachchan brings both dramatic heft and lightness of touch to a showy role, but it is Deepika Padukone who emerges as the film’s heart and soul.

Bachchan plays proud Bengali-born 70-something widower Bashkor Banerjee, a cantankerous shut-in suffering from a severe bout of constipation. The passing of a stress relieving ‘motion’ has become the soul focus of his life, much to the chagrin of his daughter, Piku (Padukone). An architect on the verge of earning partnership status in a top firm, her life has become increasingly consumed by her father’s needs, both medicinal and psychological.

When the opportunity arises for the pair to travel cross-country from their Delhi base to the family home in Kolkata, they employ cab company owner Rana (a very fine Irrfan Khan) to drive them. The 1500 kilometre journey allows for many truths to be explored, the destination representing a spiritual home for both father and daughter. The frankness of Juhi Chaturvedi’s script and the skill with which she forms naturally free-flowing and over-lapping dialogues keeps the film buoyant and energised. The sparse use of lowbrow humour in a film that that explores potential cures for Bashkor’s condition ensures the three key cast members never stoop to puerile scatology.

Still exuding the towering, screen-consuming personality that embodied his iconic character Vijay in Yash Chopra’s 1975 classic Deewaar, a boisterous Bachchan fearlessly goes that extra yard in the name of both truth and laughter; he is a joy to watch. But Padukone, too often lumbered with the ‘pretty girl’ role in recent films, matches the great actor beat-for-beat in occasionally fiery dramatic moments. It seems entirely plausible that the pair have been living together for too long, and that the clashing stems from a very real fear that they will soon not be together anymore. Despite the drama feeling slightly over-extended by the middle of the third act, the tears shed and romantic developments feel very real.

With his fourth feature, Kolkata-born Sircar solidifies his reputation as a filmmaker with an assured touch across a variety of genres. After his 2005 debut Yahaan, a contemporary warzone romance, he enjoyed a critical and commercial hit with Vicky Donor, a smart farce that found favour with international audiences drawn to its ‘sperm-donor’ premise. In 2013, Sircar explored counter-espionage techniques and fervent nationalism in Madras Café, an ultra-realistic action thriller set against the Tamil Civil Wars of the 1980s.

Sircar enters a gentler realm with his narrative here, the likes of which is synonymous with auteur James L Brooks. The Oscar winner’s skill at scripting bittersweet, deeply human moments is honoured in the structure of Piku. It recalls both Terms of Endearment, in which a put-upon daughter (Debra Winger) struggled with an eccentric parent (Shirley Maclaine); and, As Good As It Gets, which posited a churlish curmudgeon (Jack Nicholson) in a car with mismatched travel buddies (Greg Kinnear, Helen Hunt).

Filled with top tech contributors, of particular note is the lensing of DOP Kamaljeet Negi (working with Sircar for the third time). The angles he achieves within the confines of the vehicle aid the character drama immeasurably; a sequence shot in the riverside town of Banaras, captured just after ‘the magic hour’ has passed and lamps are beginning to illuminate the waterfront, evokes a dreamlike, romantic ambience that is particularly beautiful.

INFINI

Stars: Daniel MacPherson, Grace Huang, Luke Hemsworth, Bren Foster, Luke Ford, Dwaine Stevenson, Louisa Mignone, Tess Haubrich and Kevin Copeland.
Writers: Shane Abbess and Brian Cachia.
Director: Shane Abbess.

Watch the trailer here.

Rating: 2.5/5

When a director draws upon so many genre reference points as Shane Abbess does in his coarse, shrill sci-fi shocker Infini, there needs to be somewhere in the mix a bolt of blazing originality that sets his work apart from its inspirations.

Set ostensibly on an ‘off-world mining colony’, Abbess’ story (from an idea hatched with his music composer, Brian Cachia) focuses on an elite military unite sent on a search-and-rescue mission when all contact is lost with a deep-space outpost. Title-cards spend unnecessary time explaining ‘slipstreaming’, the process of data-encrypting living tissue so that long-distance interstellar travel becomes possible. It is how tough-talking grunts of the future undertake deployment, foregoing hyper-sleep (and providing a meagre point of difference from James Cameron’s Aliens).

Finding a corpse-strewn maze of steely corridors and abandoned workstations (echoing John Carpenter’s The Thing, both narratively and visually), the unit stumble upon lone survivor Whit Carmichael (Oz TV staple Daniel MacPherson), only to realise that whatever caused the population to off themselves in horrible ways still infects the site. Systematically, each soldier descends into an infectious delirium that manifest in bouts of loud, rage-filled histrionics followed by gruesome expiration (in effect, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon with a little Resident Evil flavour when required).

Abbess rocked the local film world in 2007 with his warrior-angel thriller, Gabriel. A lean genre work shot on a shoestring (nabbed by Sony Pictures for the world market), it was a vision that nodded a lot to such films as Gregory Widen’s Prophecy and Alex Proyos’ The Crow but brought with it a compelling style, cool leading man in the late Andy Whitfield and slick narrative that lifted it beyond its conventions.

His return to the local low-end budget/high-end production milieu he previously tapped so well is a frustrating disappointment. While his intention may have been to construct a psychological thriller that thematically employs the lonely, disassociated setting and his characters’ yearning for human connection, the overuse of long, talky scenes that call upon one-dimensional military stereotypes to wallow in pop-psych emoting never hits a convincing note. An ok MacPherson is drawn into a series of interminable yelling matches with his co-stars as they succumb to the airborne alien madness; one such encounter, with two-time AACTA Award winner Luke Ford no less, plays like an improv acting class exercise.

Script and storytelling shortcomings aside, it is the overarching familiarity of Abbess’ visual cues that derails his ambition. As our hero contemplates his lot in life while taking in the future world cityscape from his apartment balcony, the savvy sci-fi viewer will recall it is a near-exact rendering of the same scene from Len Wiseman’s recent Total Recall remake. The cooling vents and steam jets of the mining colony are pure Ridley Scott/James Cameron; the planetary surface and external structures of the mining outpost resoundingly echo LV426. So reminiscent of and reliant upon Aliens is Infini, the very definition of ‘homage’ is put to the test.

Some narrative freshness emerges in a third act that posits Infini as a type of ‘…Body Snatchers’ clone; the same developments, however, also recall (one assumes unintentionally) Ghostbusters 2. But, at an unforgivably lengthy 110 minutes, patience and tolerance for the director’s indulgences have worn thin. Abbess is clearly a technically gifted filmmaker, able to conjure impressive visuals, but Infini suggests the services of an experienced script editor and a purging of his DVD collection should be high priorities.

THE CROW'S EGG (KAAKKA MUTTAI)

Stars: Aishwarya Rajesh, Ramesh Thilaganathan, Ramesh and Vignesh.
Writer/Director:  M. Manikandan.

Watch the trailer here.

Reviewed at the Opening Night of the 2014 Brisbane Asia-Pacific Film Festival; the full details of the Sydney Film Festival programme are available here.

Rating: 3/5

M. Manikandan’s debut feature The Crow’s Egg is a child’s-eye tale of exuberance and kinship that only loses its focus when it wants to play grown-up.

Set against the dire conditions of Chennai’s slum metropolis (approximately a third of the population of the South Indian city live in crude shanty communities), The Crow’s Egg tells of the vibrant lives that two pre-teen brothers forge for themselves. Known only as ‘Big Crow’s Egg’ (Ramesh) and ‘Little Crow’s Egg’ (Ramesh Thilaganathan) due to their penchant for raiding bird’s nests for a quick snack, the pair indulges in good-hearted mischief as a means by which to procure a spare morsel of food or some meagre cash.

In their meanderings, they encounter glimpses of a middle-class life they realise they will never know. All this changes when corrupt developers level their only play area and build a ‘Pizza Stop’ fast-food outlet. Having nagged their harried but loving mother (Aishwarya Rajesh) into purchasing a well-worn television set, they glimpse ‘TV advertising’ for the first time and set about saving enough rupee to buy the cheapest menu item - a single slice of what is truly horrible looking pie.

Confidently embracing feature-length storytelling after his critically acclaimed 2010 short ‘Wind’, Manikandan finds joyous rapport amongst his key cast who soar in the film’s first half. The sense of family and the boy’s giddy interaction with the frantic city life in which they exist are two of The Crow’s Eggs strongest assets; the other is beautiful beige puppy that steals scenes with its very presence alone.

Less assured is a class-based subplot that boils to the surface after one of the boys has his dreams shattered with a swift, brutal slap from the pizza store owner. As phone-video footage of the incident goes viral, Manikandan’s sweet, rousing character-driven plotting becomes mired in boardroom bickering, as corporate suits and street-level franchisees argue as to how best handle the PR mess. These scenes are a miscalculation; a long section of the film jettisons the boy’s story altogether, recovering just in time for the fanciful if undeniably feel-good fadeout.  

Shooting in his native Tamil language, Manikandan shrewdly eschews the traditional Bollywood dance interludes in favour of a selection of swiftly-edited musical montages that achieve the required upbeat effect. Lazy marketing that posits the film as the Slumdog Millionaire sequel-of-sorts that apparently we have always wanted is doing Manikandan’s bittersweet gem a disservice; The Crow’s Egg lacks the polished veneer of Danny Boyle’s crowd-pleaser, but delivers a far more faithful and resonant depiction of the spirit and integrity of the Indian downtrodden than the Oscar winner ever gets close to.

LOVE & MERCY

Stars: Paul Dano, John Cusack, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti, Jake Abel, Kenny Wormald, Brett Davern, Erin Darke, Johnny Sneed and Bill Camp.
Writers: Michael A Lerner and Oren Moverman.
Director: Bill Pohlad.

Watch the trailer here. 

For 2015 Sydney Film Festival screening information, click here.

Rating: 4.5/5

The ‘musical biopic’ often adheres to a narrative that captures the subject’s life like a Wikipedia page. This approach is actor-bait; it allows for moments of life-defining drama from which a committed thespian can milk grand emotions. It is why everyone remembers Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles or Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline or Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis, but also why no one remembers much else about Ray or Sweet Dreams or Great Balls of Fire.

Love & Mercy, Bill Pohlad’s refreshingly daring take on the life of Brian Wilson, transcends the biopic conventions. Finding kindred spirits in scripters Michael A Lerner and Oren Moverman, the director never settles for a ‘crib note’ version of the life of the Beach Boys creative centre. Pohlad captures the vibrancy of Wilson’s artistic peak, that early 60’s period of musical production that led to the Pet Sounds album, as well as his highly publicised and crippling mental health issues in the 1980s. Intercutting between decades, the film (named after Wilson’s 1988 comeback single) evokes the elusive brilliance that defined young Brian’s extraordinary songwriting talents as much as his descent into depression, and his re-emergence from a prescription drug-addled haze as middle age approaches.

The band’s rise to super-stardom has levelled out by the end of an exhilarating opening credits montage. As the brothers and bandmates jet-off to Japan, young Brian sets about constructing what would become the definitive record of the ‘California Sound’ era. Baulked up to play Wilson at a time when his weight gain signalled the early stages of dependency behaviour, an enigmatic Paul Dano pulses with the manic energy of a musical genius in the thrall of his talent. The young actor has already established an impressive resume (There Will Be Blood; Little Miss Sunshine; Ruby Sparks; Meek’s Cutoff), yet every new performance feels revelatory; Love & Mercy is his most warmly engaging work to date.

The ‘modern day’ Brian is introduced distractedly buying a new car, suggesting his life is now one of dull modern routine and scant creativity. But this low-key set-up develops into a beautifully realised ‘meet-cute’ between John Cusack’s gentle, over-medicated Wilson and Elizabeth Banks’ tarnished angel, Melinda Ledbetter. As the woman that would wrestle Wilson from the grasp of enabling drug-doctor, Eugene Landy (a full-tilt Paul Giamatti), Banks is the best she has ever been. Alongside Cusack, contributing his most nuanced and incisive character work in years, the actress brings a warmth and strength only hinted at previously.

The ‘two Brians’ plot device culminates in a fitting sequence for a story that combines the trippy SoCal surf-&-drug culture of the Sixties with the navel-gazing self-help LA mantra of the Eighties. Pohlad stages Wilson’s moment of inward realisation with Kubrick-ian clarity, particularly striking given the otherwise sunny, naturalistic ambience of DOP Robert D. Yeoman’s camera. Like the blackness of acute depression itself, the manifestation of which left Wilson infamously bedridden for years, the denouement creeps up on the film before fully enveloping it in its entirety. 

With only one directing credit to his name (the little-seen 1990 drama, Old Explorers), Pohlad’s industry credibility stems from his producer credits; his directorial eye has been honed in the presence of Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005), Doug Liman (Fair Game, 2010), Terence Malick (The Tree of Life, 2011) and Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, 2013). His recent collaboration with Jean-Marc Vallee on the Reese Witherspoon true-life drama, Wild (2014), imbues his storytelling here. These films alternate seamlessly between recollections filled with both promise and regret and a present day journey filled with hope.

As Wilson’s dense instrumental experimentation consumes studio time, an increasingly frustrated Mike Love (Jake Abel) barks, “You’re not Mozart, man!” Yet, in ‘musical biopic’ terms, it is Milos Forman’s Amadeus that Love & Mercy most closely resembles. Like Mozart, Brian Wilson is portrayed as both driven and doomed by a talent that was all consuming, saved time and again from the brink of self-destruction by the unwavering commitment of his soul mate pairing. All the while, he created music that defined an era and changed lives. In succinct and sublime tones, Love & Mercy convinces that God only knows where American music would be without Brian Wilson.

THE AGE OF ADALINE

Stars: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn, Kathy Baker, Amanda Crew and Anthony Ingruber.
Writer: J. Miles Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz.
Director: Lee Toland Krieger.

Rating: 4/5

After his acid-tongued, ultra-contemporary take on burdened romance in 2012’s Celeste and Jesse Forever, director Lee Toland Krieger embraces a far more fantastical and glowingly cinematic incantation of fateful love with his follow-up, The Age of Adaline.

Boldly departing from her small-screen persona in her first film-carrying lead role, Blake Lively plays Adaline Bowman, a well-to-do turn-of-the-century 29 year-old whose life appears cut short when her car plunges into river waters turned freezing by a freak North Californian snowfall. Taking its mystical cue from the likes of Back to the Future and The Natural, a bolt of lightning strikes her over-turned vehicle and affords Adaline the apparent virtue of eternal youth.

A soothing voice-over smartly imbues the premise with credible fantasy and a lovingly cinematic extended montage (recalling the weepy opening from Pixar’s Up) leads to the modern day, where the still 29 year-old Adaline lives a work-focussed life in a very photogenic San Francisco. After eight decades, she no longer indulges in notions of romance; her blessing has become a curse, her life spent alone, bar the companionship of her now aged daughter, Flemming (Ellen Burstyn). But Adaline’s existential defences are worn down by the persistent romancing of rich philanthropist, Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman, very charming), who whisks his dream girl off to a family get-together on their lush estate.

The second-act kicker brings added emotional depth, when Ellis’ father William lays eyes upon Adaline and both are gripped by overwhelming memories of the soulful romance they shared 50-odd years hence. As William, Harrison Ford emerges as Krieger's trump card; the moment when they reconnect, and William’s intellectualism is confronted by a torrent of emotions, represents some of Ford’s best ever frames of film. It is a raw, vulnerable performance that ensures the film soars and draws fresh reserves out of Lively (the definition of 'Supporting Actor', surely); their scenes together are deeply moving, transcending any ‘fantasy genre’ trappings. (Kudos, too, to the casting department for finding Anthony Ingruder, whose physical and vocal rendering of a twenty-something Ford in flashback is uncanny).

Krieger’s vivid, melancholic melodrama emerges as a major work in the tough-to-pull-off ‘romantic fantasy’ genre subset. The cult fan base that fondly recall Jeannot Szwarc’s Somewhere in Time, the Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour weepie from 1980 in which self-hypnosis brings together lovers born 100 years apart, will adore the narrative boldness that Krieger employs and the visual richness that DOP David Lanzenberg paints with to sell the premise. Nor will they bat a tear-sodden eyelid at the multi-generational leaps in logic that scriptwriters J. Miles Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz slyly ask of their audience.

Revelling in the role that will come to define her transition from tabloid starlet to bigscreen A-lister, Lively exhibits maturity beyond her years and recalls the incandescent bigscreen presence of the likes of Jessica Lange, Eva Marie Saint or Françoise Dorléac. The Oscar-worthy work of Australian costumer Angus Strathie (Moulin Rouge, Catwoman) never overwhelms the star, although it has every right to. Fittingly, all below-the-line department heads - Claudia Pare’s production design; Martina Javorova’s art direction; Shannon Gottlieb’s set decoration - on The Age of Adaline bring their A-game.

MANNY LEWIS

Stars: Carl Barron, Leanna Walsman, Damien Garvey, Roy Billing, Simon Westaway and Richard Green.
Writers: Carl Barron and Anthony Mir.
Director: Anthony Mir. 

Rating: 2.5/5

Not the giddy rom-com romp its marketing would have you believe, Anthony Mir’s Manny Lewis is a rather more darkly-hued look inside the fractured heart and self-obsessed mind of that unique breed, the stand-up comedian. Baring his psychological all in the service of the script he co-wrote with his director is Carl Barron, stepping into the leading man role with a pleasing, if occasionally too understated dramatic ease.

Barron upped his profile from pub comic to stadium filler via appearances in the mid 1990’s on the blokish television hit, The Footy Show, and has carved a profitable, much-loved niche for himself in the Aussie showbiz landscape. His off-centre observations often involved his formative years as a misunderstood young man and later-in-life failings as a romancer; in that regard, Manny Lewis is Carl Barron, albeit a version of the man gripped by a stark loneliness and hollow-eyed depression that will take many of his followers by surprise.

So mopey is his persona, it is hard to gauge why Manny is popular at all (other than the passers-by yelling, “Hey, love you Manny!”). He has amassed considerable fame out of exploiting childhood memories, most notably ripping apart the parenting skills of his father (Roy Billing, too warm a screen presence for this role), yet is suffering through an existential crisis that is putting all he worked for at risk. The comedian is on the verge of signing a massive US deal and has a live primetime concert set to air, but baulks at any interaction with his fans and phones sex-worker hotlines when gripped by insomnia.

It is via one such anonymous hook-up that he connects with ‘Carolyn’ (Leanna Walsman), a voice with whom he can share his (many) woes. When ‘Carolyn’s real-life alter ego, Maria, stumbles across a) her phone-john’s true identity, and b) the man himself at the local café, a bumpy romance blossoms. These scenes should play with a lightness of touch that skims over the less plausible beats of the narrative, yet much of the first act plods. It is to Walsman’s credit that the tropes play with any conviction at all; her dramatic acting chops are the film’s key asset and explain away the absence of a ‘comedienne’ as the female lead (achieving a similar balance to that Paul Thomas Anderson created by casting Emily Watson opposite Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love, though all comparisons end there).

Barron and Mir (directing his first feature since 2003’s You Can’t Stop the Murders) never seem entirely invested in the romantic machinations of their story. They are far more concerned with the psychological framework of those that seek a career plying the stand-up craft. Yet the revelation that most comics are desperately yearning for the approval of their parents and are so self-absorbed as to not see the goodness of the world before them is not exactly groundbreaking. Fans will recognise that Barron is also retiring some old material; a bit he’s been doing for most of the last decade, the “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” routine, is central to a third-act meltdown that all but ensures it won’t be dragged out for any Leagues Club encores in the future.

The ‘sad clown’ genre is filled with far more skilfully realised examples (Judd Apatow’s Funny People; Billy Crystal’s Mr Saturday Night; David Seltzer’s Punchline; Chris Rock’s Top Five), none of which take the sombre, maudlin route employed here. Unlike the bigscreen transition of such popular local comics as Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee), Jimeon (The Craic) and Mick Molloy (Crackerjack), Carl Barron’s brand of moody introspection and manufactured romance is unlikely to connect with old fans or win over many new ones.