Go to the Final
28/04/2010 4:08:00 p.m.
At the movies with Dan Slevin
WITH the big budget Hollywood remake already in production (starring Rusty Crowe), Anything for Her looked like it might have had some entertainment potential but I’m sad to report that it never gets up to speed.
The blissful lives of school teacher Julien (Vincent Lindon) and Lisa (Diane Kruger) are, as they say, shattered when Lisa is wrongly convicted of murder. With no possibility of legal redress, and a rapidly deteriorating mental state, it looks like Diane won’t be able to stand 20 years in the big house and Julien has to act to save her and the family – the two of them plus cute little Oscar played by the wonderfully named Lancelot Roch.
Somewhat implausibly, Julien hatches a plan to boost his Mrs from jail and escape the country to somewhere with no extradition. Despite no previous criminal experience, Julien obsesses over all the details until his plan comes together. Advice from a local criminal turned author (“don’t improvise if you don’t have the criminal mindset”) has to be ignored when circumstances change suddenly.
I can see this working with Crowe (and Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson). These sorts of tales told by Hollywood are always barely a step away from pure fantasy and it’s much easier to get carried along by the hokum. The French version is so grounded in a recognisable reality that the plot and characters don’t make any sense at all. Lindon is a great actor. He’s soulful, ruggedly good looking, and deeply intense but, paradoxically, the more real he tries to make the character the less you can believe what’s going on. Because it’s preposterous.
That’s the only review I can offer you this week as I haven’t seen much commercial product, however I have still managed to spend most of my time in a cinema watching all 155 entries in the Wellington leg of the V 48 Hours competition at Reading Cinemas. It’s always a pleasure working on this event (the biggest participatory arts event in the country with over 6,000 people nationwide making films in just 48 hours) and this year is no exception. The Wellington Grand Final is on Wednesday 5 May so I recommend you get a ticket to see the best 12 on the giant Embassy screen. There’ll be some wonderful filmmaking talent on display and a bunch of laughs, too.
WITH the big budget Hollywood remake already in production (starring Rusty Crowe), Anything for Her looked like it might have had some entertainment potential but I’m sad to report that it never gets up to speed.
The blissful lives of school teacher Julien (Vincent Lindon) and Lisa (Diane Kruger) are, as they say, shattered when Lisa is wrongly convicted of murder. With no possibility of legal redress, and a rapidly deteriorating mental state, it looks like Diane won’t be able to stand 20 years in the big house and Julien has to act to save her and the family – the two of them plus cute little Oscar played by the wonderfully named Lancelot Roch.
Somewhat implausibly, Julien hatches a plan to boost his Mrs from jail and escape the country to somewhere with no extradition. Despite no previous criminal experience, Julien obsesses over all the details until his plan comes together. Advice from a local criminal turned author (“don’t improvise if you don’t have the criminal mindset”) has to be ignored when circumstances change suddenly.
I can see this working with Crowe (and Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson). These sorts of tales told by Hollywood are always barely a step away from pure fantasy and it’s much easier to get carried along by the hokum. The French version is so grounded in a recognisable reality that the plot and characters don’t make any sense at all. Lindon is a great actor. He’s soulful, ruggedly good looking, and deeply intense but, paradoxically, the more real he tries to make the character the less you can believe what’s going on. Because it’s preposterous.
That’s the only review I can offer you this week as I haven’t seen much commercial product, however I have still managed to spend most of my time in a cinema watching all 155 entries in the Wellington leg of the V 48 Hours competition at Reading Cinemas. It’s always a pleasure working on this event (the biggest participatory arts event in the country with over 6,000 people nationwide making films in just 48 hours) and this year is no exception. The Wellington Grand Final is on Wednesday 5 May so I recommend you get a ticket to see the best 12 on the giant Embassy screen. There’ll be some wonderful filmmaking talent on display and a bunch of laughs, too.
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