Mubi Monday: Afterglow (1997)

Written and directed by Alan Rudolph, someone with an extensive filmography stacked with titles I would at least recommend to the curious (Breakfast Of Champions may not work, but it never feels like anything less than a bold attempt to translate difficult source material into a satisfying movie). Having also worked on a few Robert Altman movies, it’s unsurprising to find that his style could be referred to as Altman-esque. Unfortunately, however, he doesn’t have the same ability to meld the cinematic with the authentic, and the end result, here anyway, is something that fails to resonate.

Nick Nolte plays a handyman named Lucky Mann (yes, that would seem to be his actual name). He is married to Phyllis (Julie Christie), an ex-actress who allows her husband to stray and play around with other women. Jonny Lee Miller is an upright businessman named Jeffrey, married to the neglected and unhappy Marianne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Marianne wants a baby, which leads to her getting things prepared in their home. So Marianne hires Lucky, which leads to some fun and games for them, and Jeffrey, happy to use the situation as an excuse to cut loose and find away to massage his ego, ends up seducing Phyllis, completely unaware that she is Lucky’s wife. Conversations lead to a number of revelations, about love, family, sex, and different gender roles, and viewers know that it’s only a matter of time until the central quartet come together to argue and fight.

Despite the changes in location, Afterglow feels like something that may have started life as a play. There are some other people scattered throughout the film, but it essentially stays focused on the four leads, and everything is based on the dialogue. This is a film that works on a “tell, don’t show” basis, with even the moments that could be purely visual accompanied by dialogue redirecting things back to the featured character of that moment.

Thankfully, the cast are generally excellent. Nolte gives another typical alpha male with the cuddly interior that he has presented in a number of his movies. Miller, wobbly accent aside, is a fantastic flipside to Nolte, mistaking coldness and cruelty for a sexual, macho persona. He oozes insecurity for every minute of screentime, covering it up as much as he can with an attitude of entitlement and indifference, and it’s an enjoyably unattractive performance. Christie is, as ever, a mesmerising screen presence, although she suffers from the script giving some of the worst bits of dialogue to her, and Boyle does great work with the rest of the bad lines, because it is the women here who have to speak the clunkiest and most tone-deaf dialogue.

I would say that anyone who likes any of the main cast members should find this impossible to hate, but that doesn’t stop Rudolph from trying to undo the good work in front of the camera with poor decisions behind it, from the score/soundtrack to the structure of the whole narrative. This is ultimately a film about people who are so hurt, for various reasons, that they are holding themselves back from any chance at real happiness. That only becomes clear in the third act though. While that may have been seen as the best decision for the film, I cannot help thinking that a little bit of reshaping of the script would have changed things for the better. But maybe others will disagree.

The drama works, the comedy doesn’t. The cast works, the writer/director doesn’t. Which leaves this hanging absolutely in the middle, between awful and great.

5/10

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Mubi Monday: Billy Liar (1963)

Adapting the play of the novel, written by Keith Waterhouse (who, along with Willis Hall, also developed the play and screenplay), Billy Liar is a film from director John Schlesinger that holds up as a near-classic. It mixes the dreary kitchen sink drama approach with the daydreams of a character not a million miles removed from Walter Mitty, and the end result is deliciously bittersweet.

Tom Courtenay (who was an understudy of Albert Finney in the stage play) is Billy Fisher, a young man who doesn't see any easy escape from his job and family. He lives at home with his mum (Mona Washbourne), dad (Wilfred Pickles), and grandmother (Ethel Griffies). And his job is in an undertaker's office. Maybe his many flights of fancy will keep him happy as he goes through his daily routines, or the fact that he has a number of women convinced that they are going to be the one he marries. Billy also wants to get a new job, writing for a famous comedian, and thinks he could make a better new life for himself in London. But that may be just as much of a pipe dream as everything else that goes through his head.

An easy film to watch and digest, Billy Liar can be enjoyed simply as a look at someone who cannot help but tell a lie whenever he has the opportunity. Many of us have known people like him, and his tales alternate between being amusing, especially when visualised in sequences that punctuate the standard dreariness of a normal day in the life of a man who feels he's being held back from something great, and being the cause of some distress for those around him. He's in a bit of trouble with his employer (played by Leonard Rossiter), he's exasperated his father, and he's almost certain to upset one of the women that he's dating.

But dig just under the surface and there's even more to chew over. That sense of being entitled to something better, is it the usual male ego or is it something that has grown and mutated through every daydream that Billy has ever had? And where can Billy escape to if he cannot escape himself, which may very well be the biggest hurdle for him to overcome? It's this dilemma that comes to the fore in the last reel of the film, taking a look at how committed people can be when they weigh up the reality around them against the prospects they have dreamed about for many years.

Courtenay is superb in the main role, just managing to be charming and childish enough to stop viewers from hating him for his antics. Washbourne, Pickles, and Griffies are also very good, tolerating (or not) Billy's behaviour in different ways. Gwendolyn Watts and Helen Fraser get to be two very different women romantically involved with a liar, and they both do well with the material, but the standout is Julie Christie, playing a third woman, Liz, who somehow understands Billy better than most. The two of them are similar, but different in at least one crucial way. Rossiter is as brilliant as ever in his role, and there are supporting turns from Rodney Bewes, George Innes, Finlay Currie, and a few others that you may or may not recognise.

This is a film that I meant to see many years ago. It has a reputation that precedes it, and rightly so. I'm glad that I finally got to it, and I can now join in with the chorus of voices recommending it to others. An essential piece of British cinema.

9/10

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Don't Look Now (1973)

Don't Look Now has always been THAT film for me. A much-loved classic that I just don't get. Yet, unlike some other movies that I disagree with people on, this is a film that contains many individual aspects that impress me. It just, somehow, doesn't come together in a way that makes it the modern classic many others view it as.

Most people are familiar with the plot, and many will already know the ending, but I'll still try to keep things as spoiler-free as possible. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play John and Laura Baxter, a couple who spend the majority of the movie in shock and prolonged mourning after the sudden death of their young daughter, Christine. In Venice, because that's where John's work has taken them, they start to experience some strange visions, perhaps portents or perhaps messages from the spirit of Christine.

Based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier, Don't Look Now may have a decent script by Alan Scott and Chris Bryant, but it's very much a film with the fingerprints of director Nicolas Roeg all over it. That's unsurprising, considering what a unique and daring artist Roeg is. All of his movies tend to benefit from masterful editing, unflinching observation of people in bad situations, and scenes that mix grit and darkness with a strange beauty. All of these things are present and correct here.

The editing, in particular, needs to be mentioned again while praising the many plus points that the movie has. One of the most famous sex scenes in cinema history is contained in this film, and it's made all the more brilliant because of the intercutting between the actual lovemaking and the afterglow present in the characters as we watch them getting ready for an evening out. The same technique is used in other sequences, always allowing the events unfolding onscreen to have a bit more impact, thanks to the juxtaposition of imagery and/or excess of visual stimuli being put forward for the viewer.

Sutherland and Christie are both good enough in their lead roles, with the latter being the more believable and enjoyable of the two. Sutherland is saddled with more of the histrionics, and I won't blame him for some of the problems with the script (his overreaction to certain events, for example). Hilary Mason and Clelia Matania certainly spice up the proceedings, playing two elderly sisters who could have wandered straight in from any Lucio Fulci movie. There are many other supporting players, including Massimo Serato, Renato Scarpa and Adelina Perio, but few make much of an impression (except the latter).

See? I can't put my finger on too much that I really want to criticise. The film manages to capture a sense of grief and loss that practically emanates from every frame, and at the same time it reminds viewers of how much worse a situation can seem when you're in a foreign country without the language knowledge required to understand most conversations. And there's another great score from Pino Donaggio. It's a very good film, in many ways, but then it just has so much that doesn't feel either relevant, effective or tense, including a number of scenes in the final third. While it may be unfair to label it in such a way, it has never fully worked for me as a horror movie. I've never found it to be all that atmospheric or unnerving.

Certainly worth your time, and you may well find yourself agreeing with the many people who LOVE it. But it will never be one of my favourites.

7/10

Get this version, for the best picture and sound (to my knowledge) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Look-Now-Special-Blu-ray/dp/B004EMS034/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1411735005&sr=1-2&keywords=don%27t+look+now