Farewell My Lovely - 1975 film review

The 1975 version of Farewell My Lovely, based on Raymond Chandler's novel, is widely acclaimed. The first time I saw it, many years ago, I was underwhelmed, but I decided to give it another try and I'm glad I did. Second time around, I was more impressed by Robert Mitchum's interpretation of Philip Marlowe. Originally I felt he was too old for the part and not quite suited to it anyway. On reflection, I think he does a better job than I realised.

Perhaps I was simply in the right mood for the film this time. Mood and atmosphere are extremely important to the film (which is set in 1941) and the director Dick Richards did a good job on that score. Speaking of scores, David Shire's music is also well-suited to the film. The screenplay by David Zelag Goodman (whose other credits include The Eyes of Laura Mars) avoids falling into the trap of pastiche. 

Quite apart from Mitchum, the cast is very strong. Moose Malloy, the huge bank robber who is crazy about a missing woman called Velma, and hires Marlowe to find her, can't have been easy to cast, but Jack O'Halloran, a former boxer whose first film role this was, does a great job. The famously sultry Charlotte Rampling is good as Helen Grayle, while Sylvia Miles makes the most of a smaller part, the alcoholic Jessie Florian: her performance earned her an Oscar nomination and deservedly so. Fascinatingly, Judge Grayle is played by the legendary hardboiled writer Jim Thompson. There's even a part for the young Sylvester Stallone.

This film isn't in the same league as Polanski's Chinatown, which was released a year earlier, but even though it lacks originality, I now think it's very effective entertainment. As with books, some films definitely improve on a second look.

The Little Stranger - 2018 film review

The Little Stranger is a film version of a novel by Sarah Waters, a writer of great talent. I haven't read that particular book, but I find her evocation of historical periods compelling and the same can be said of Lenny Abrahamson's film, which was scripted by Lucinda Coxon. I felt that ultimately it fell short of the highest calibre, but I found it consistently engaging and interesting and it's regrettable that apparently it didn't do well at the box office.

I suspect the film's relative lack of commercial success is due to the fact that, although it's usually billed as a supernatural or Gothic movie, it's quite low-key, and certainly doesn't focus on melodrama. But it's so well done that I didn't think that mattered, at least under the closing minutes. Much of the credit must go to the actors, who are absolutely excellent.

Domhnall Gleeson is Faraday, a G.P. in rural Warwickshire who is drawn to Hundreds, a manor which fascinated him as a child. It's now quite run down, and is owned by the Ayres family. Roderick Ayres is a former pilot who was physically and mentally damaged during the war. He is cared for by his sister Caroline (Ruth Wilson) and mother (Charlotte Rampling) as well as by a young maid (Liv Hill). We learn that another sister, Suki, is dead, and before long we start to wonder if her spirit haunts Hundreds.

Faraday and Caroline are drawn to each other, but the creepy and oppressive atmosphere of Hundreds seems to cast an eerie spell over everyone. The terrors are under-stated, and although the storyline is very different, I was in some ways reminded of the mood of The Turn of the Screw. My reservation about the film was simply this. It's all very well for a film to be under-stated, but I felt that, artistically, there was a need for a pay-off that was more powerful than that delivered by Abrahamson and Coxon. A climactic scene is reported as a flashback, which struck me as odd - why would a writer choose to do that? And I'd have preferred to know rather more about Suki. So I did feel a bit of frustration at the end, but overall that didn't seriously impact on my enjoyment.

Broadchurch - season 2, episode 1, ITV 1 review

Broadchurch is back. The stand-out television crime drama of 2013 returned this evening, the storyline of season 2 a secret that writer Chris Chibnall has maintained as a closely guarded secret. The first question, of course, is whether revisiting such a superb show, is a good idea. How can it live up to the standards already set? I suppose that, in this day and age (and probably in any day and age) the crucial factor was public demand. Just as fans wouldn't let Conan Doyle kill off Holmes, so people clamoured for more of Broadchurch.

Holmes was never, though , quite the same man after he returned from the Reichenbach Falls, and the need to do something fresh but equally gripping supplied Chibnall with a huge challenge. During the first few minutes of this episode, it crossed my mind that anyone who hadn't seen season 1 would probably be feeling dissatisfied. I recall watching seasoon 2 of The Killing and, to be honest, wondering what all the fuss was about. It was okay, but didn't seem to me to be remotely close to a masterpiece.I felt missing season 1 was a definite disadvantage.

Broadchurch, however, benefits from great writing, from exceptional acting, and a compelling locale. You can't go far wrong with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman, but now we have new characters thrown into the mix, most notably Charlotte Rampling, playing a senior barrister who just happens to have retired to Broadchurch. When the presumed killer from season 1 decides to plead not guilty to murder, will Charlotte agree to the parents' request for help? We can guess the answer...

There is also a new plot strand, reaching back to the last disastrous case of Tennant's character. This seems to me to be a clever development, a really good way of refreshing interest. There were moments of improbable melodrama at the end, with an exhumation attended, bizarrely, by almost all the main characters in the story. And the defence barristers' chambers seemed pretty unrealistic to me, too. But I loved the mysterious "bluebell" clue - reminscent of Francis Durbridge! All in all, the story buzzed along, and despite some reservations, I'll certainly be watching episode two.

Restless: TV review

Restless, a BBC TV two-parter which began this evening is based on a novel by William Boyd, and benefits from a marvellous cast, including Hayley Atwell, recently impressive in Falcon, as well as the eternally entrancing Charlotte Rampling. Add in (among others) the excellent Rufus Sewell and the magnificent Michael Gambon, and you were almost guaranteed something watchable.

And Restless certainly was watchable. Even its sedate pace (perhaps a total of three hours is more than strictly necessary to tell the story?) was fairly appealing. So were the various scenes in Cambridge, one of the most photogenic of cities. It's also a city associated with spies, of course, and Rampling played Eva, who in the 1970s reveals to her daughter that she has another identity; the woman her daughter knows was created when Eva was persuaded to join a branch of British Intelligence at the start of the Second World War.

There are two stories: first, what happened to young Eva (Hayley Atwell) during her career in espionage, and second, what happens to Eva in later life.Tension in the latter story-line builds because Eva is convinced that someone is out to kill her. Why this would be, after so many years, is the great mystery of Restless. I'm hoping for a strong and convincing explanation.

Although I have never been tempted to write a spy story, I do rather enjoy them, if they are well written. Spies trade in secrets, and secrets are always interesting. I used to enjoy Michael Gilbert' spy novels, and his stories about Calder and Behrens, for instance; they deserve to be better known. I haven't read Boyd's book, but the screenplay has me engaged, and I'll be watching episode two for sure.

Deception

Accountants don’t often find themselves taking heroic roles in thriller films, for some unfathomable reason, but Jonathan McQuarry manages it in Deception, a film which came out about a year ago. The fact that the nerdy McQuarry is played by charismatic Ewan McGregor certainly helps. We first meet him when he is feeling lonely during an audit visit to a corporate client. He is befriended by slick lawyer Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) and soon he is discovering that there is more to life than balance sheets.

An accidental (or is it?) exchange of mobile phones plunges our hero into involvement with a mysterious sex club. Strange – but invariably glamorous - women start ringing him up to ask if he is free this evening. They meet at hotels, and after a quick bedroom romp, but no conversation, they disappear out of his life again. One of the ladies thus briefly encountered, amazingly, is the legendary Charlotte Rampliing. Suffice to say, she is still stunningly attractive after all these years. I kept expecting her to reappear later in the film, only to be disappointed. Then McQuarry meets through the game a very pretty blonde girl (Michelle Williams) he has already taken a shine to, and the plot begins to thicken.

Jackman, McGregor and Williams are all excellent in this movie, but although there are plenty of plot twists, some of them are rather predictable, while there is at least one gaping hole in the plot. As is often the case with films of this kind, the first part of the movie, when characters and events are being set up was rather more convincing than the later stages, when disbelief has to be suspended time and again.

All the same, I enjoyed Deception. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s well made, and the actors do a good job with the material. Worth watching.