Mubi Monday: The Falling (2014)

Take a little bit of Picnic At Hanging Rock, add a smattering of The Crucible, and then underpin with the turbulent emotions of a young girl struggling to maintain any kind of relationship with her single mother and you have The Falling, an intriguing drama that benefits from a superb cast, all giving great performances, and a script that keeps diving deeper into darkness as things build towards the end of a particular journey for the lead character.

Maisie Williams is Lydia Lamont, a young girl who is best friends with Abbie Mortimer (Florence Pugh). It comes to light that Abbie is pregnant, which creates a strain between the two of them. A tragedy soon occurs, which then leads to an outbreak of fainting spells throughout their school. Is there something real behind these incidents, or is Lydia somehow influencing all of the other girls around her?

Written and directed by Carol Morley, this is very much a film that keeps digging further and further into a pit of grime, culminating in a third-act that isn't afraid to truly shock viewers, but not in a way that feels like it is being gratuitous or exploitative. Along with the fainting spells, Lydia is falling further further into a spiral of poor mental health, spurred on by her thoughts about her own life and her mother, all to the fore while she has less to distract her from her home situation.

Initially showing a typical clear divide between the girls and their teachers, lines start to blur while the latter characters start to struggle to maintain their composure, either due to the thoughts they start to have about their own lives or the growing show of strength required to try bringing the girls back in line.

Williams is very good in her role, giving a performance full of twitches and meanness that isn't reduced to JUST the twitches and meanness. Pugh has a lot less screentime, but brings her usual charisma to help her character cast a large shadow over all of the proceedings (all the more impressive, considering this is her first film role). Maxine Peake is Eileen Lamont, Lydia's mother, and gives an excellent and nervy turn, and Joe Cole plays Kenneth, Lydia's brother, a young man who makes some absolutely horrible decisions. Greta Scacchi and Monica Dolan are the two main teachers, and both excellent in their roles, and you get decent roles for Anna Burnett, Hannah Rose Caton, Morfydd Clark, and others.

Deceptive, in terms of how far away the feeling of the ending is from the feeling of the start, The Falling is an excellent British drama that manages to feel both traditionally grounded and psychologically complex, probing some very unexpected areas. Recommended.

8/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Sightseers (2012)

If there's one thing you can say about Ben Wheatley it's that he's an interesting, and pretty fearless, director. Moving between genres with ease, although most of his movies certainly have elements that comfortably sit within the realm of horror, he has established himself over the past few years as someone always worth keeping an eye on. Strangely enough, I've always seemed to slightly disagree with people over his movies, tending to enjoy them without loving them, but I would always recommend him to people seeking out something a bit different from the norm.

Sightseers is, as you might suspect, a bit different from the norm. It's a very British version of Badlands, with any ruminations on the thin line between notoriety and fame replaced by items of knitwear and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . caravans. Alice Lowe and Steve Oram are Tina and Chris, a couple who are very much in love. It's been a bit of a whirlwind romance, but Tina and Chris start off the movie secure in the knowledge that their love is strong. And Tina is very keen to get away from her manipulative mother (Eileen Davies). Once they're on the road and enjoying their holiday, it's not long until the fun is overshadowed by some unexpected death. Yes, a tragic accident looks as if it might spoil things for the holiday, but it turns out to be just the beginning. Chris has a bit of a habit of leaving corpses in his wake, and Tina isn't as shocked by it as she should be.

The best thing about Sightseers is the script, from the two main stars (with additional material by Amy Jump). It's not a consistently great piece of work, but almost every scene has at least one great one-liner, even amongst the darkest moments. The other big plus for the movie is the acting, with Oram and Lowe just delightful from start to finish. Eileen Davies also does some great work in her supporting role, and there are solid performances from Jonathan Aris, Monica Dolan, Richard Glover and Richard Lumsden AKA potential victims, one and all.

Unfortunately, and I seem to be in a minority as few others have been bothered by this, the movie is undermined by one big oversight. The fact is that Chris and Tina are rarely ever justified in their actions. Okay, okay, I get that murder is never justified, but when a movie asks you to accompany people who may end up acting a little bit psycho - understatement - then that journey is always easier when there's a teeny tiny bit of wish-fulfilment added to the mix.

The fact that there is no such moral muddying of the waters here is, most likely, a very deliberate thing, and Lowe and Oram deserve even more praise, in some ways, for still making the characters two people that viewers try to keep liking, but it's an ultimately unsatisfying journey, especially during the middle of the movie.

Sightseers is very funny, it's thought-provoking, and it's never boring, but it's also not as good as it could have been. Although there are many people who will be quick to disagree with me.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sightseers-Blu-ray-Alice-Lowe/dp/B00A37SHPU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389612206&sr=8-2&keywords=sightseers