Author: Alistair Nunn

I, Tonya (2017)

Margot Robbie triumphs as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya

Director:  Craig Gillespie

Cast: Margot Robbie (Tonya Harding), Sebastian Stan (Jeff Gillooly), Allison Janney (LaVona Golden), Julianne Nicholson (Diane Rawlinson), Bobby Carnavale (Martin Maddox), Paul Walter Hauser (Shawn Eckhardt), Caitlin Carver (Nancy Kerrigan), Bojana Novakovic (Dody Teachman)

In 1994, Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) is the bad-girl of ice skating. From a working-class Portland background, with a domineering mother (Allison Janney), she struggles to be accepted in the upper-class world of ice skating. After some success, including becoming the first American ice skater to complete two triple axel jumps, she constantly finds success undermined by her own failings and indiscipline, and the influence of her wastrel, abusive husband Jeff (Sebastian Stan). When competing with rival Nancy Kerrigan for a place on the 1994 Winter Olympic team, Tonya encourages her husband to send Kerrigan threatening letters to put her off. What happens instead is an attack on Kerrigan that breaks her knee – and the fallout will have devastating consequences.

I,Tonya is much more than a film about an attack on a rival skater. Tonya (in the film) complains that the event (which she claims to have had so little to do with) has overshadowed her whole life, but that’s not a mistake the film makes. The film is instead a brilliant deconstruction of class and media in America. Tonya struggles in the world of ice skating because she comes from a working-class, trailer-trash background. This leads her to grow up with several chips on her shoulder, aggressively acting out against judges and fellow competitors, because she wants to belong but never feels she does. In a country that likes to pride itself that it doesn’t have the sort of class system the UK has, it’s a striking commentary on how Tonya completely fails to escape the impact of her poor, violent background – and uses it as a justification and excuse for everything that happens to her in the film.

Her background also makes it every easy for the media to cast Tonya as a villain, first as the difficult punk of ice skating, later as the Machiavellian arch schemer of a vile plot. The worst part of this is – like the reality stars of the 00s who would follow her – Tonya feels she needs to keep playing a role in order to “stay in the public eye”. In turn, the media – largely embodied here by Bobby Cannavale’s delighted media commentator, who gleefully recounts every key moment of the film in a smug series of talking head interviews – keeps the pressure on, puffing her up into whatever it requires her to be to fill a 24 hours news cycle. It’s surely no accident that the film ends with camera moving away from Jeff’s house, while news of OJ Simpson’s arrest plays on the television.

And why does Tonya fit herself into this role? Because, the film suggests, she is a victim who has confusingly absorbed her victim status into her personal relationships and self-value. Treated appallingly be her domineering mother, and hit constantly by her worthless husband, Tonya clearly believes that she is personally of very little worth. If she is so used to being an angry, raging punchbag at home, is it any wonder that she settles into that role publically? To the extent that, throughout, Tonya constantly sidelines or pushes away the more supportive people around her, like Julianne Nicholson’s (who is very good) dedicated coach.

The film handles this range of complex psychological and social themes with aplomb. In a neat touch, the film acknowledges that the events of its narrative are so controversial that everyone in it has a different view. The film is framed through a series of talking head interviews with the leading players (played by the actors) twenty years on. Each of them tells a contradictory version of the story and around the “incident”. The film, bravely, gives some weight to all these viewpoints. It’s brilliantly handled, as we see certain scenes from the perspectives of different characters, which makes them much easier to relate to. Gillespie also has a lot of fun with the film leaning on the fourth wall – frequently characters turn to the camera mid-scene for a few words of commentary, sometimes to stress a point, other times to deny the thing we have just watched ever happened. 

The eclectic and dynamic storytelling works an absolute treat, and Gillespie gets the tone absolutely right. While dealing with serious themes, the film is also blissfully funny. Much of the fourth wall humour is brilliant. While taking the characters seriously, the film is also written with a real dark wit. And (once you remind yourself that Kerrigan’s career was not seriously affected by the attack), the build up to the scheme itself, and the feeble cover up, is hilarious. Everyone in the chain of events is stupider than the person above them. Tonya is no genius, her weak husband is a clumsy fool, his friend Shawn an idiotic fantasist, the men hired to attack Kerrigan almost unbelievably stupid. The inevitable crumbling of the plot is hilarious in its disintegration.

It works as well because of the strength of the acting. Margot Robbie is superb as Tonya. She fills her performance with empathy for Tonya, but never lets her off the hook – Tonya never takes responsibility at any point for anything she does. Robbie gets the balance just right between the “little girl looking for love” vulnerability of Tonya, mixed with the bitterness and rage that always lurks just below the surface. She acutely understands the messed up psychology of someone who has been treated badly by everyone around her, and then finds it impossible to form a healthy relationship with the world.

On Oscar-winning form, Allison Janney rips into the sort of part that must have (rightly) looked like a total gift on the page. It’s a scene-stealing role: Harding’s mother is a foul-mouthed bully whose every other line is a zinging put down or resentment-filled burst of cruelty. Janney, however, keeps the part real: there is always a sense that somewhere in there, she genuinely feels she is doing what’s best for her daughter, even if her methods are completely misguided. Sebastian Stan is equally good as Tonya’s weak-willed, not-too-smart husband and Paul Walter Hauser is hilarious (as well as a remarkable physical match) as Shawn. 

I, Tonya is a very smart, very funny piece of social satire mixed with tragedy. While being very funny, it’s also sad and rather moving. It has some terrific acting in it and is directed with confident, but not overly flashy, aplomb by Gillespie. As a commentary on the media it’s well judged, and as a look at the impact of class at America it feels fresher than ever.

Zulu (1964)

Michael Caine and Stanley Baker are under siege in classic Zulu

Director: Cy Endfield

Cast: Stanley Baker (Lt John Chard), Michael Caine (Lt Gonville Bromhead), Jack Hawkins (Reverend Otto Witt), Ulla Jacobsson (Margareta Witt), James Booth (Pvt Henry Hook), Nigel Green (Colour Sgt Frank Bourne), Patrick Magee (Surgeon Major James Reynolds), Ivor Emmanuel (Pvt Owen), Paul Daneman (Sgt Robert Maxfield), Glynn Edwards (Cpl William Allen), Neil McCarthy (Pvt Thomas), David Kernan (Pvt Fredrick Hitch)

There are some films so well-known you only need to see a frame of them paused on a television to know instantly what it is. Zulu is one of those, instantly recognisable and impossible to switch off. A few notes of John Barry’s brilliant film score and you are sucked in. Zulu has been so popular for so long, it’s almost immune to any criticism, and deservedly so because it’s pretty much brilliant.

The film covers the battle of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu War of 1879. Rorke’s Drift was a small missionary supply station, near the border of Zululand with the Transvaal. The British had instigated the Zulu war with a series of impossible-to-meet ultimatums (the Natal government wanted to restructure Southern Africa into a new confederation of British governed states and Zululand was in its way). The British had of course massively underestimated the disciplined, dedicated and organised Zulu armies and the war started with a catastrophic defeat of the British (nearly 1,500 killed) at Isandlwana by an army of 20,000 Zulu (who lost nearly 2,500 killed themselves). Isandlwana took place on the morning of the 22nd January – and by the afternoon nearly 4,000 Zulus had marched to Rorke’s Drift, garrisoned by 140 British soldiers.

The film opens with the aftermath of the Isandlwana defeat (with a voiceover by Richard Burton, reading the report of the disaster written by British commander Lord Chelmsford). The camera tracks over the bodies of the British, as the Zulu warriors move through the camp (the film omits the Zulu practice of mutilating the bodies of their fallen opponents, which is just as well). Action then transfers immediately to Rorke’s Drift where Lt John Chard (Stanley Baker), a Royal Engineer temporarily assigned to the base to build a bridge, is senior officer by a matter of months over Lt Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine – famously billed as “Introducing Michael Caine”). Chard takes command of the preparations to repel the siege, building fortifications, arming the walking wounded, and carefully making the defensive line as tight as possible to cancel out the Zulu numbers (the exact opposite of what happened in Isandlwana).

Zulu is drama, not history. Much has been changed to make for better drama. Chard and Bromhead were not as divided along class lines. Nigel Green (excellent) plays Colour Sergeant Bourne exactly as we would expect a Colour Sergeant to appear – a tall, coolly reassuring martinet “father to his men” – so it’s a surprise to learn the real Bourne was a short 24-year old nicknamed the Kid (the real Bourne was offered a commission rather than a VC after the battle). Henry Hook, here a drunken malingerer with right-on 60s attitudes towards authority, was actually a teetotal model soldier (his granddaughter famously walked out of the premiere in disgust). Commissioner Dalton is a brave pen pusher, when in fact it was he who talked Chard and Bromhead out of retreating (reasoning the company wouldn’t stand a chance out in the open) and then fought on the front lines. Neither side took any prisoners – and the British ended the battle by killing all wounded Zulus left behind, an action that (while still shameful) is understandable when you remember the mutilation the Zulus carried out on the corpses of their enemies at Isandlwana the day before.

But it doesn’t really matter, because this isn’t history, and the basic story it tells is true to the heart of what happened at Rorke’s Drift. Brilliantly directed by Cy Enfield, it’s a tense and compelling against-the-odds battle, that never for a moment falls into the Western man vs Savages trope. Instead the Zulus and the soldiers form a sort of grudging respect for each other, and the Zulu army is depicted as not only disciplined, effective and brilliantly generalled but also principled and brave. The British soldiers in turn take no joy in being there (Hook in particular essentially asks “What have the Zulu’s ever done against me?”), admire as well as fear their rivals and, by the end, seem appalled by the slaughter. (Chard and Bromhead have a wonderful scene where they express their feelings of revulsion and disgust at the slaughter of battle.)

It’s a battle between two sides, where neither is portrayed as the baddie. We see more of it from the perspective of the defenders of the base, but the Zulu are as ingenious and clever an opponent as you are likely to see. The opening scenes at the court of Zulu king Cetshawayo’s (played by his actual great-grandson) allow us to see their rich culture and their own fierce traditions, grounded in honour (and spoken of admiringly by missionary Otto Witt, played with an increasingly pained then drunken desperation by Jack Hawkins, as he begs the British to flee and prevent bloodshed). Many of the Boer soldiers in the base compare the British soldier unfavourably with his Zulu counterpart. The film goes out of its way to present the Zulu people as a legitimate culture, and a respected one.

But its focus has to be on the British, as this is a “base under siege” movie, and to ratchet up the tension successfully it needs to chuck us into the base, playing the waiting game with the rest of the men. The Zulu army doesn’t arrive until over an hour into the film – the first half is given over entirely to the wait, the hurried preparations and the mounting fear as the seemingly impossible odds start to seep into the British. The men react in a range of ways, from fear, to anger, to resentment, to grim resignation. The first half also plays out the tensions between Chard and Bromhead, one a middle-class engineer, the other the entitled grandson of a General. 

Caine is that entitled scion of the upper classes, and he plays it so successfully that it’s amazing to think it would only be a couple of years before he was playing Harry Palmer and Alfie. Caine nails Bromhead’s arrogance, but also the vulnerability and eventual warmth that hides underneath it. Set up as a pompous obstruction, he demonstrates his bravery, concern and even vulnerability. It’s a turn that turned Caine from a jobbing actor into a major star (Caine originally auditioned for Booth’s part as the working-class Hook. Booth later turned down Alfie). It also meant that Stanley Baker’s excellent turn, in the drier part as the cool, controlled Chard, buttoning down his fear to do what must be done, gets unfairly overlooked.

The film never lets up the slow build of tension – and then plays it off brilliantly as battle commences. Perhaps never on film have the shifts and tones of proper siege combat been shown so well. This is perhaps one of the greatest war films ever made, because it understands completely that war can highlight so many shades of human emotion. We see heroics, courage, self-sacrifice and unimaginable bravery from both sides. We also see fear, pain, horror and savagery from both. Several moments of bravery make you want to stand up and cheer or leave a lump in your throat (I’m a sucker for the moment Cpl Allen and Pvt Hitch leave their wounded bay to crawl round the camp passing out ammunition).

Enfield’s direction is masterful, the first half having so subtly (and brilliantly) established the relative locations and geography of everything at Rorke’s Drift, you never for one minute get confused about who is where once battle commences. The combat after that is simply extraordinary, a triumph not just of scale and filming but also character and storytelling. We are brought back time and time again to characters we have spent the first half of the film getting to know, and understand their stories. Eleven men won the Victoria Cross at Rorke’s Drift (more at one engagement than at any other time in history), and each of the winners is given a moment for their courage to be signposted. All of this compelling film-making is scored with deft brilliance by John Barry, with the sort of score that complements and heightens every emotional beat of the film.

Strangely some people remember this film as ending with each of the garrison being killed – I’ve seen several reviews talk of the men being “doomed”. Perhaps that impression lingers because there is no triumphalism at the end of the film. After the attack is repelled, with huge casualties, the soldiers don’t celebrate. They seem instead shocked and appalled, and simply grateful to be alive. After the final deadly ranked fire of the British, as the smoke clears to show the bodies of their attackers, the men seem as much stunned as they do happy. Bromhead talks of feeling ashamed, Chard calls it a “butcher’s yard”. Duty has been done – but the men were motivated by wanting to survive. The film doesn’t end with high fives and beers, but people quietly sitting, gazing into the near distance. There are small moments of dark humour from the survivors, but never cheers.

It’s all part of the rich tapestry of this enduring classic. Historically, many believe the celebration of the victory at Rorke’s Drift was to deliberately overshadow the catastrophe of Isandlwana (and that the number of VCs handed out was part of this). But, even if that was partly the case, it doesn’t change the extraordinary bravery and determination to survive from the soldiers. And the film doesn’t even try to get involved in the politics of the situation. The men must fight “because they are there” and the rights and wherefores of the war (which the film ignores completely) are neither here nor there. Instead this is a celebration of the martial human spirit, packed full of simply brilliant moments, wonderfully acted and directed, and an enduring classic. It allows you to root for the besieged but never looks down on or scorns the besiegers. It pulls off a difficult balance brilliantly – and is a brilliant film.

The Falling (2014)

Florence Pugh and Maisie Williams deal with tedious coming-of-age antics in The Falling

Director: Carol Morley

Cast: Maisie Williams (Lydia Lamont), Maxine Peake (Eileen Lamb), Monica Dolan (Miss Alvaro), Greta Scacchi (Miss Mantel), Mathew Baynton (Mr Hopkins), Florence Pugh (Abigail Mortimer), Joe Cole (Kenneth Lamont), Lauren McCrostie (Gwen)

Any film set in an all-girls school that succumbs to hysteria, with ominous goings-on that might be supernatural or might all be allegories for coming of age and emerging sexuality, is inevitably going to get compared with Picnic at Hanging Rock. But few films seem to be so desperate to be that film as The Falling does. 

Set in an all-girls school in 1969, at the cusp of the sexual revolution that will soon engulf the whole country, Lydia Lamont (Maisie Williams) and her elder brother Kenneth (Joe Cole) are both obsessed with Lydia’s charismatic classmate Abigail Mortimer (Florence Pugh) – feelings of emotional and sexual dependency that Abigail knowingly encourages and flirts with. After Abigail’s sudden death connected to her pregnancy, Lydia becomes increasingly disruptive at the school and finally becomes “patient zero” in an epidemic of fainting that afflicts the school.

Based on a true story, you can tell that this film is keen to conjure up some sort of deep-rooted mystery at the heart of the girls’ actions, questioning whether they were truly in control of their own actions at this time or under the influence of something else. Is this linked directly to the tragic fate of Abigail – is she in some way possessing the girls, driving them towards this fainting? Or is the fainting just a sort of acting out, as Lydia tries to get over her grief at the loss of her friend?

Frankly, who really cares? It’s pretty hard to get invested in a film that is working so hard to be meaningful that it overshoots the mark and just becomes tiresome. Yeah I get it, teenage relationships can have this unhealthy intensity to them. They can spin out into self-destructive elements. And maybe, if the film had focused more on that rather than trying to suggest some unsettling mystery it might have got further. But with every shot of the British countryside around the school, or the lingering shots on the girls writhing on the floor, or the unsettled terror of the teachers, you feel the film’s attempt to invest these events with meaning.

What you actually end up feeling, throughout this overlong and puffed up film, is impatience at the indulgence of these children. Far from a mystery, the fainting appears to be a tiresome, attention-seeking effort from young girls unable to express and process emotionally the things that have happened to them. There isn’t a single element of the film that makes you seriously consider some ghostly or psychical explanation for the events – they seem, clearly and throughout, to be manufactured by the girls involved. It’s hard to watch it without unsympathetically suspecting that if the adults around them stopped indulging all this nonsense, they’d miraculously recover soon enough. It’s possible to speculate over whether the girls are doing it deliberately or if this is the work of their overwrought subconscious – but while that could form a good premise for a film interested in group psychology, this film seems more interested in pretentious shots of trees. 

As if realising halfway through that it’s not come up with anything compelling yet, the film hastily throws in a poorly developed incest plotline, which is unsettling, illogical, and springs from nowhere. Not content with that, it then shoe-horns a rape into the backstory of a character late on, in a way that is clearly meant to be a dark reveal, but is in fact a really clumsy “obviously this caused all the problems” solution to the questions of the film. The character’s mental health problems and inability to bond with her closest family could have made for a complex and challenging character (and she’s certainly played by an actor who could’ve handled that material). Instead, rape is casually chucked in as a glib explanation for “oh and this is why she’s troubled – ta-da”. It’s cheap and lazy. But then that is on a par with all the sexual awakening content of the film, which is clumsy, clunky and often misguided. It wants to suggest an unsettling fascination with sex, and tie that in with dangerous, subversive ideas. Instead, it just ends up looking like standard teenage experimentation, filmed with a certain amount of style.

This is not to say the film is badly made as such. It looks good and it’s put together well. It’s just trying way too hard. The acting is very good. Maisie Williams is never anything less than watchable as Lydia, and creates a well-drawn character as a girl who goes from easily-led hero worshipper to the troubled centre point of disruption at the school. Florence Pugh is also a revelation as Abigail – a charismatic presence that you instantly believe would be obsessed over by everyone who knows her. Joe Cole is also very good as the creepy, sexually exploitative brother. There are some good performances from the adults, not least Maxine Peake as Lydia’s nervous, agoraphobic mother. 

But none of this cancels out the laboured pretension of the rest of the film, which always wants to let you know how clever it is, and how much it wants you to question the impact of all that dark sexual awakening. Instead, for all the sturm und drang,it ends up looking rather like a collection of silly girls who are acting out. The idea that obsession with Abigail draws rebellious and transgressive feelings from Lydia seems painfully obvious and unoriginal, and the flirtation with incest, rather than invested with meaning, instead feels like a film straining to shock.

The Falling wants to be a great cult classic. Neither of those words can be applied. It’s a well-made but empty spectacle, living in the shadow of other much better films. For all the skill of Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh, it misses the greater depth it is aiming for and settles for being a rather shrill would-be ghost story and a plodding attempt at social commentary.

Creed II (2018)

Sylvester Stallone and Michael B Jordan take to the ring once more in Rocky IV/Creed remake Creed II

Director: Steven Caple Jr

Cast: Michael B Jordan (Adonis Creed), Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa), Tessa Thompson (Bianca Taylor), Dolph Lundgren (Ivan Drago), Florian Munteanu (Viktor Drago), Phylicia Rashad (Mary Anne Creed), Andre Ward (Danny “Stuntman” Wheeler), Wood Harris (Tony “Little Duke” Evers), Brigitte Nielsen (Ludmila Drago), Milo Ventimiglia (Robert Balboa), Russell Hornsby (Buddy Marcelle)

After eight films, in a franchise that has been running for over 40 years, you have to ask if there are any original stories left to tell in the Rocky universe. The answer? Yes there probably are. Does this film tell one? Well no not really, even if there are moments where you feel it wants to. Instead it basically gives us the formula we expected going into it.

Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) is finally heavyweight champion of the world – but why is he so glum? Maybe because he still can’t seem to shake off the shadow of his deceased father Apollo Creed. So he finds it hard to resist when Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the man who killed Apollo, emerges from disgrace in the Ukraine (I’m not sure the makers of this film realise that the Ukraine is different country to Russia). Drago brings with him his super-fighter son Viktor (Florian Munteanu, virtually mute for the whole film) who challenges Adonis to a title fight. Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) doesn’t approve and wants nothing to do with it. Adonis’ pregnant wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) isn’t sure it’s a good idea. But Adonis gives it a go – and is left hospitalised after a mauling, though Viktor is disqualified in the fight on a technicality. Adonis has to rebuild his confidence from nothing, lay to rest his daddy issues and, of course, take on Viktor in a rematch – stop me if you have heard any of this before.

Because you almost certainly have. This is a film that repackages themes from Creed, the basic plot structure of Rocky IV ,and mixes in elements from several other films to come up with a sort of Frankenstein’s monster that feels familiar rather than fresh. Practically every beat can be predicted in advance, and there are no surprises or challenges to your expectations. Essentially everything plays out so closely to what you might expect, and is so clearly signposted in the film, that it’s almost impossible to spoil. 

Which is a shame as there is a better, more intelligent film in here which is thrashing around trying to get out. There was a film to be made here about the shadows fathers cast over us. After all, Adonis and Viktor are basically fighting the battles of their fathers and adopted fathers rather than their own. For Adonis in particular, his struggles to live in the shadow of his father is hammered home with decreasing subtly as the film goes on. Director Steven Caple Jnr was clearly so pleased with his framing of a shot where Adonis trains while a window with a picture of his father towers above him that he repeated it several times in the film. It’s as far as the film goes to questioning the wisdom of these people being weighed down by legacies.

Because this is a film that is trying to have its cake and eat it. All of the characters close to Adonis oppose his first fight with Viktor – Rocky even tells him it’s not his fight – but come the second fight all these characters are cheering him on in the rematch. It seems the only way to escape your father’s shadow… is to climb deeper under it. (Interesting note: all references to Creed being the son of a girlfriend of Creed’s rather than with his wife are deleted in the film, which feels odd.)

You know what would have been interesting? Perhaps Adonis thinking he doesn’t need to win the fight to match his father’s achievements. Or perhaps Adonis deciding that fighting alone proved his point, and he didn’t need to match Rocky’s success in Rocky IV. Or deciding that he didn’t need to rise to the bait. Instead the film shows him pushing against his father’s legacy – and finally doubling down on it in order to create his own legacy. Thinking about it doesn’t make a load of sense.

It would also have been nice if the intervening years had changed Ivan Drago in some way – but he’s established very early on as a villain, and that’s it. Of course this is partly due to Lundgren’s limitations as an actor – wisely it’s nearly half an hour before Ivan speaks, and he does only one scene in English – but it would have been nice if Drago perhaps expressed some regret to suggest he has changed in some way since 1986. Viktor has an equally unclear trajectory – Ivan’s determination to reclaim glory via his son seems to be leading towards some bust up between them, but it never does (is it just me or does Viktor seem like he almost hates his domineering father?). The film tries to pay this off with a moment of familial affection between the two but it comes from nowhere and seems unclear.

So the story is predictable. So predictable by the way, that the film seriously sags in the middle as we wait (with no tension) for Adonis to decide he will get into the ring again and fight Viktor. It also has a slightly manipulative relationship between Bianca and Adonis (Tessa Thompson is wasted again in a bit of a nothing role – and her musician character is saddled with some of the worst music you’ll ever hear). But it’s still a well made film. The fight scenes in the ring are of course excellent as always. The main actors are all good – Jordan is very convincing and Stallone continues to get a load of pathos from the ageing Rocky.

But it’s just a little bit dull and familiar. There is too much of the same old same old here. Where are the new ideas? Even all these father themes were explored to a conclusion in Creed – why retread it all again? What does this do that is new and different – nothing really. It’s another chapter in their lives. But nothing else. And with the birth of Adonis’ daughter we’ve got to get ready for a whole new series of films in 30 years, as Amora Creed takes on Clubber Lang’s grandson’s nephew in Kid Creed. Or something like that.

Suspicion (1941)

Is Cary Grant plotting to murder Joan Fontaine? Oh the Suspicion.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Cary Grant (Johnnie Aysgarth), Joan Fontaine (Lina Aysgarth), Nigel Bruce (Gordon Cochrane ‘Beaky’ Thwaite), Cedric Hardwicke (General McLaidlow), May Whitty (Martha McLaidlow), Isabel Jeans (Helen Newsham), Heather Angel (Ethel), Auriol Lee (Isabel Sedbusk), Leo G Carroll (Captain George Malbeck)

What do you do when you suddenly start to believe you might be living in a murder mystery? When you begin to think that the person you are married to might just be planning to dispatch you as well? That’s the big suspicion that haunts the mind of Lina Aysgarth (Joan Fontaine), a shy and meek heiress who has been charmed into marrying waster Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant), a lazy spendthrift and playboy. After they elope together, she quickly finds out that Johnnie has no work ethic or talent at all other than spending money. As real estate deals fall through, and Johnnie steals money from his employer to cover his debts, Lina starts to worry that her life insurance is looking more and more tempting to Johnnie.

Suspicion is a decent, middle-of-the-road Hitchcock thriller, which deals with familiar themes of doubt, dread and (of course) suspicion, but with Hitchcock very much in second gear. He’s not helped by the neutering of the source material. The original novel is very much a story of a woman who works out that her husband is definitely trying to kill her. The producers here, however, couldn’t abide the idea that CARY GRANT could be plotting to kill his wife. So the story is rejigged at the end to turn Lina into a silly, paranoid woman and Johnnie into, well yes a playboy, but also one who has been treated badly because of the suspicion thrown at him. This may have flown in 1941, but it’s impossibly sexist today. Plus it means the whole film basically builds towards – well – nothing.

Hitchcock throws in the odd decent flourish – most famously the carefully lit glass of milk that Johnnie carries up the stairs near the film’s end, which may or may not be poisoned. But far too often the story seems to be taking place in a fairytale England, of horses riding to hounds, country villages, Agatha Christie style authors dispensing accidental poisoning advice, and careful class structures. For all the odd moments of danger, the film is safe, contained and as unthreatening as it can get. But the rest is Hitch on autopilot, which feels at time as a remix of the director’s earlier Oscar winning film Rebecca.

That mood carries across to Joan Fontaine as well in the lead role. Fresh off working with Hitchcock on Rebecca, Fontaine essentially recreates the same role again here as the timid, shy, would-be dutiful wife who wants to see the best in a husband who in fact seems dangerous and unknowable. Fontaine won the Oscar for this film – but it feels as much like a compensation award for her previous defeat for Rebecca as it does for Suspicion. Really she does very little here that lifts the film, or stretches her as a performer from her previous role. It’s a retread, and while it’s a trick she does well, it’s a trick she has done before.

A far more challenging performance comes from Cary Grant, who uses the role as a clever meta-commentary on his own persona. Johnnie has all the charm and engaging bonhomie of Grant himself, but all subtly twisted with a selfish superficiality and wastrel greed. Grant walks a very fine line of a man who could be plotting to murder his wife or could just be a greedy chancer – and walks it very well indeed. You always see that Johnnie is bad news, while also understanding why Lina finds him so engaging. It’s a terrifically skilled performance, a lovely riff on Grant’s own screen persona, that shows he’s a far better actor than people often give him credit for – and you feel he is only too willing to embrace the chance to play a weak-willed, opportunistic murderer with little conscience (except of course it turns out he isn’t a murderer). 

It’s a shame that nothing else in the film really rises to the occasion in the same way (although Nigel Bruce gives a very good performance as the gentle, ageing playboy Beaky). The film itself never really seems to be heading anywhere – it even takes a good two-thirds of its runtime before Lina begins to wake up to the fact that Johnnie is far from being the sort of husband women should dream of. It’s a bit slow, a bit too safe, and it largely lacks the element of danger. For the final few scenes, logic seems to evacuate the film as all the clues and hints we’ve had building towards us are shown to be – nothing more than red herrings and the inferences of a silly woman. Because, after all, CARY GRANT can’t be a murderer can he? No matter what he wants.

Jason Bourne (2016)

Matt Damon swings back into action in after-thought Jason Bourne

Director: Paul Greengrass

Cast: Matt Damon (Jason Bourne), Tommy Lee Jones (Director Robert Dewey), Alicia Vikander (Heather Lee), Vincent Cassel (The Asset), Julia Stiles (Nicky Parsons), Riz Ahmed (Aaron Kalloor), Ato Essandoh (Craig Jeffers), Scott Shepherd (Edwin Russell), Bill Camp (Malcolm Smith), Vinzenz Kiefer (Christian Dassault), Gregg Henry (Richard Webb)

They say you should never go back. Producers had been begging Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon to get back together again and make another Bourne film. After all, there was hardly anyone asking for a sequel to that Jeremy Renner one was there? But Jason Bourne seems like a film that’s been made after Greengrass and Damon ran out of reasons for saying no. I can’t decide if we can blame them for that or not. But their making the film at all suggests they aren’t really losing any sleep about whether people feel this half-hearted effort has an impact on the legacy of the others.

Anyway it’s ten years later. The world is an increasingly technical place, with people living in an era of increasing social unrest and anti-government fury. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), recovered from his amnesia, now lives off-the-grid – until of course he’s unearthed by his old colleague Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). Parsons is now working with a hacker commune in Iceland, and has unearthed more evidence about the shady CIA programme, Treadstone, that Bourne used to be a part of, and about Bourne’s own recruitment into it. Meeting in Athens in the middle of an anti-government riot, Parsons is killed and Bourne is set on a collision course with the CIA as well as finding out more about the mysterious death of his father 20 years before. 

Jason Bourne is basically going through the motions. There is an attempt to add another layer of mystery around Bourne’s background, but it barely seems to add much to the hinterland of Bourne we’ve already learned about in the last couple of films. Furthermore, I’m uncomfortable with a Bourne here who goes increasingly on a rampage of revenge. Part of the charm – or rather what makes Bourne different – in the previous films was that he was a man who lived in a world of violence, but didn’t care for it himself. He used brutal force only when it was absolutely necessary, and several times chose not to take a personal revenge. Here however, he dispatches at least three people, which doesn’t seem to square with the character as we’ve previously seen him.

Furthermore, the film seems to be struggling to reclaim Bourne as one of the formal good guys, a patriot and American hero. Again part of what made him different in the original trilogy was that he stood outside the government and nations, that (as Greengrass once said) “he’s on our side”. Here he’s clearly less than sympathetic to anti-government forces, and strongly opposed to exposing CIA secrets. In fact he ends up feeling rather conservative here to be honest, and more like the faceless killer that he started as rather than a renegade. 

It’s not helped by the fact that the plot is pretty meh, a remix of different elements from previous films, carefully ticked off to make sure we get everything we could expect. So we get a reworking of various car chases, fights, tense meetings in public locations etc. etc. The film-making is very well done – Greengrass rewrote the book on how to make films like this, and he carries that on here, brilliantly mixing twitchy editing, handheld camera work, immersive film-making and gloomy silences to create a really wonderfully done viewing experience. It’s just more of the same from the originals. The film just ends up living in the shadow of the originals, rather than really forging something out on its own.

Greengrass tries to tap into contemporary ideas. We get the sense of anti-establishment clashes and Internet data scams – but it never really feels like it goes anywhere or coalesces into any real point at the end of it. What is the actual message of this film? There are hints that Tommy Lee Jones’ gravelly CIA Director and Riz Ahmed’s Mark Zuckerberg-lite tech expert are planning some sort of mass intrusion on people’s privacy – but the film never explains this or explores it. It never even makes Bourne aware of it – and since Bourne is our “window” into this world, that means we never understand it either.

I mean, the film is fine other than that, but that’s all it really is. Matt Damon still hasn’t lost it as Bourne – and blimey he should have some inverted award for how little he speaks in this film – and he has not only the physicality but also the worn-down, haunted look of a man who has seen way, way too much. There are professional performances from the rest, but nothing that stretches any of the actors here, with Alicia Vikander particularly under-used as an unreadable CIA agent. 

But that sums up the whole film. Despite all the attempts to build in a modern “torn from the headlines” angle to the story, it feels more like Greengrass and Damon are quite happily (and with some enthusiasm at least) going through the motions in order to pick up a cheque. And I guess that’s fine. It just means we are probably not going to rush to see this again.

School of Rock (2003)

Jack Black triumphs in high-school comedy School of Rock

Director: Richard Linklater

Cast: Jack Black (Dewey Finn), Joan Cusack (Principle Roz Mullins), Mike White (Ned Schneebly), Sarah Silverman (Patty DiMarco), Miranda Cosgrove (Summer Hathaway), Joey Gados Jnr (Zack Mooneyham), Kevin Clark (Freddy Jones), Rebecca Brown (Katie), Robert Tsai (Lawrence), Maryam Hassan (Tomika), Caitlin Hale (Marta), Brian Falduto (Billy)

The early 2000s saw the rise of a new force in American comedy films: rotund, rock ‘n’ roll, John Belushi-light Jack Black. Following his breakout role as a music-obsessive with purist tastes in High Fidelity, School of Rock saw the legend of Jack Black hit its peak. And it deserves to, as School of Rock is the sort of perfectly-formed treat that achieves everything it sets out to do.

Dewey Finn (Jack Black) is the sort of slacker man-child beloved of indie filmmakers, who has never grown up from his dreams of being a rock star. The only thing really holding him back? Fate and his own selfishness. Dewey’s expelled from his own band, due to his penchant for extended guitar solos and distracting stage antics, and his old bandmate-turned-respectable-supply-teacher, Ned Schneebly (Mike White, also the film’s writer) is pressured into finally asking Dewey for his share of the rent by Ned’s domineering girlfriend Patty (Sarah Silverman). Desperate for money, Dewey impersonates Ned and takes a role as a supply teacher for a group of 12-year-olds at a prep school. At first Dewey just wants to leave the kids to their own devices and pick up his cheque – but when he hears his new students in their music classes, he suddenly has a brainwave: they could be his new band, and help him win The Battle of the Bands competition. 

School of Rock is an immensely heart-warming film that manages to never sell out to become sentimental or depend on its characters learning “lessons” that improve them. Sure lessons are learned, and the film is very sweet, but it manages to wear this all with a cool lightness. In fact the whole film becomes a rather touching paen to the transformative power of music, and the way it gives people confidence and a voice. 

Linklater directs with a breezy cool, drawing some fantastic performances from the whole cast (I can’t give enough praise to a director who gets such relaxed, natural and funny performances from children as Linklater does here) and totally embracing the clichés of the “inspirational teacher” genre, with a comedic bent. The kids are the expected combination – the precocious ambitious one, the shy ones who hide skill, the brash wannabe bully who finds the joy of being part of the group – but they are all portrayed with such freshness and energy that the clichés hum with joy.

Linklater’s real stroke of genius is letting Jack Black rip in the lead role. The part is so perfectly tailored to Black that it feels like almost an extension of his own personality. Black is a force of nature in the role, a perfect combination of showboating and carefully thought out character work – and he works brilliantly with the kids. He’s hilarious as well, first as a wannabe rock star layabout, later as a band leader for the kids who discovers in himself a work ethic and ability to inspire. 

The character works because, deep down, under the selfishness and laziness, Dewey is basically a pretty decent guy. He cares about people’s happiness and he has a romantic view of rock and roll as a source of self-expression and celebration of life. (Although fortunately for the film, he’s no fan of the whole drugs side of many of the musicians he worships – having no time for the “poseurs” who attempt to impress the kids with the smoking and gambling at one Battle of the Bands audition.) And he’s so passionate about this that he can actually turn himself, if not into a teacher, at least into the sort of inspiring mentor who can bring his students out of their shells.

And he does this without really changing fundamentally who he is. Sure he’s touched by the kids, just as he’s touched them (to slightly misquote the film’s cheeky paedophile misunderstanding gag, when Dewey is busted by his charges’ parents!), but the warmth under the bluster is there all the time. And Dewey doesn’t suddenly turn into a high achiever or perfect guy – he just learns to channel his enthusiasm into encouraging musical skills in others (and there is something really sweet in his genuine, warm enthusiasm for talent from the very start). The film even allows the headmistress of the school (very well played by Joan Cusack as an under-pressure uptight woman yearning to cut lose a little) to be a spiritual ally and well-meaning obstacle rather than an opponent.

It’s this good natured warmth that runs through the whole film, and which at the end finds every character contented and united. (Well nearly every character – the film can’t shake its love of wistful man-childishness sufficiently to resist turning Ned’s girlfriend into a humourless, nagging shrew, in the film’s only real misstep). Plus the film rocks really well, and seeing the band together and perform is both fun and really sweet. No one puts a foot wrong here, and a lot of its success is due to Linklater’s ease and Black’s dynamic, verging just the right side of cartooney, comic tour-de-force at the centre.

The Book Thief (2013)

Sophie Nelisse is The Book Thief in this worthy, dull adaptation

Director: Brian Percival

Cast: Geoffrey Rush (Hans Hubermann), Sophie Nélisse (Liesel Meminger), Emily Watson (Rosa Hubermann), Nico Liersch (Rudy Steiner), Ben Schnetzer (Max Vanderberg), Heike Makatsch (Liesel’s mother), Barbara Auer (Ilsa Hermann), Roger Allam (Death)

Every year you get prestigious film versions of novels that have soared up the bestseller lists. Some of these are good or even great films. Other are so lifeless, listless and lacking in spirit they leave you wondering what on earth people got so fussed about the original for. That’s the case here with The Book Thief.

In late 1930s Munich, young Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) is fostered with a local decorator Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and his wife Rosa (Emily Watson). Liesel has a fascination with books – despite not being able to read and write – and soon Hans is teaching her literacy. Liesel has a compulsion to “borrow” books – first from a burning pile of Nazi forbidden tomes, then from the library of the wife of the local mayor. But it’s dangerous to draw too much attention to the family, particularly when they are hiding a young Jewish man, Max (Ben Schnetzer). 

I’ve not read The Book Thief. I can’t say that I feel the need to dash out and do so after this bland, middle of the road picture that makes Fascist Germany seem very picturesque. The film largely fails, like so many films before it, to translate the joy of reading into a visual language so the whole “book thief” concept of the title quickly gets pushed to the margins in favour of a series of episodic events based around Nazi Germany and Second World War tropes that already feel a bit tired. 

Percival’s award-baiting film doesn’t seem like it wants to bring (or is capable of bringing) something unique or interesting to the setting, instead going through the motions as prettily as possible. And the film does look great, I will give it that. It also sounds pretty damn good, not least through a playful and rich score from John Williams (his first original score for a non-Spielberg film for decades). But it never really gets anything special from the content. In fact, that very chocolate-box beauty of the film seems to run contrary to the setting of Nazi Germany. The awards-friendly beauty envelops the film like treacle.

The book was written from the prospective of Death, but, the film seems to drop this unique aspect as soon as it possibly can. Again, it’s a sign that the film cannot reproduce what worked in the book – by stripping out its most unique and interesting point, it makes the film feel as generic as it possibly can. Roger Allam is a wonderful choice as the richly voiced narrator – but he’s so rarely used in the film that when Death talks about how fascinating he found Liesel you are simply left wondering why. 

In fact that why is a real problem with the film – it’s what you’ll be asking all the way through. Why? Why is anything really happening? Why is Death telling us how different and striking this story is when everything we see in the film feels pretty familiar? What is the point of this film or the message it is trying to give us? For a film that tackles war, fascism, persecution of the Jews, and childhood innocence, it seems empty all the time.

And that’s the problem with the film. It’s all about the pretty presentation. The characters speak with forced German accents that make it feel even more like a pretty Hollywood Golden Age film. (By the way the bad Germans, like the Nazis, they speak only in German. Make of that what you will.) The acting is pretty good, Sophie Nélisse is a great find as the heroine. But there is nothing special about it at all. It’s seemingly made entirely as a prestige product for potentially winning Oscars. Any of the depths of uniqueness of the book seems to have been shaved off in service of that, and we’ve been left with a chocolate box that feels like it’s lacking the sweet richness you’d expect to find in it.

The African Queen (1951)

Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart on a sweaty romantic river cruise in The African Queen

Director: John Huston

Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Charlie Allnut), Katharine Hepburn (Rose Sayer), Robert Morley (Reverend Samuel Sayer), Peter Bull (Captain of the Königin Luise), Theodore Bikel (First Officer of the Königin Luise), Walter Gotell (Second Officer of the Königin Luise), Peter Swanwick (First Officer of Fore Shona)

John Huston’s The African Queen is a beloved classic – so much so its odd-couple romance in tropical climes has been endlessly ripped off and riffed on practically ever since it was made. It’s a gentle, enjoyable travelogue of a movie where (truthfully) not much happens, other than we sit back and watch two masters of cinema acting go through the paces with consummate skill.

In 1914 in German East Africa, missionary brother and sister Samuel (Robert Morley) and Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) plough their lonely furrow bringing God’s word to the disinterested natives, their only contact with the outside world being drunken Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), captain of the steam ship The African Queen, who delivers their supplies. Their world is turned upside down when Charlie brings news of World War One. The Sayers plan to stay, until German soldiers burn down the mission and assault Samuel who swiftly dies of fever. Charlie agrees to take Rose out of danger on his steam boat – but on the dangerous journey Rose develops a plan to use The African Queen to sink a German gun boat preventing British access to Africa, and Charlie and Rose find themselves – much to their surprise – falling in love.

Truth be told, nothing happens in The African Queen that you will find remotely surprising if you’ve ever seen a film before. Not even in 1951 could anything in this film be said to be pushing the envelope or offering something different to hundreds of studio epics past. Two people who seem to have nothing in common come together only to find, by heck and by jiminy, they actually are perfect for each other. Obstacles are put in place for them to struggle against but eventually love (and our heroes) triumph over all. Hip hip hoorah! You can see why the picture is so widely loved – it’s in many ways totally unchallenging and familiar.

John Huston seems to know this and just sits back and allows the film to almost tell itself with a professional, unfussy precision. The African Queen is an extremely well made film, sumptuous to look at, and never overstaying its welcome. It’s been boiled down to its barest necessities, and as such it works extremely well. There’s nothing extraneous in there – heck the film only really has three characters and one of them dies in Act One. Huston’s demands to film the entire thing (more or less) on location in the Congo is totally validated by the immersive filth, sweat and heat that reeks off the picture and seems to have soaked into the skin of the actors. 

Huston also understood that the real gold here was the acting – and the chemistry – of his two beloved stars. Tales of the making of the film are legendary – Bogie brought along Bacall, who helped out on catering, Hepburn refused to join the Bogart/Huston drinking sessions and became the only one to get ill from drinking the water, all four became lifelong friends. The script originally demanded Allnut to be a chippy cockney and Rose to be a prim schoolmistress type. The parts were re-written, Allnut into a “Canadian” (yeah right) while Hepburn reimagined Rose as, by her own admission, a sort of Eleanor Roosevelt in the jungle.

But it works a treat because both stars are on fire in this vehicle. Bogart perfectly mixes drunken awkwardness and defensiveness with a roguish charm, and what grows into a sprightly delight at being taken seriously for the first time in his life. Allnut is besotted with Rose from early on – even if he can’t admit it – and his whole personality seems to flourish and grow from her attentions, while never losing that slight “little boy lost” air. Mind you, Rose is as clearly attracted to Allnut early on as he is to her – but with her ideas of standards she would never allow herself to explore those feelings except in extreme circumstances.

Hepburn is such a gifted actor that you always know Rose is a far more intelligent, interesting and dynamic character than the one we are introduced to playing piano at one of her brother’s interminable sermons. Shaking off – with Allnut’s help – her shock at his death, she swiftly displays a head-girlish determination and pluck,that extends from rolling up her sleeves to steer the boat to laying out a plan to torpedo a German gun boat. Far from domineering Allnut, she flourishes and grows just as he does from her attention, and Hepburn suggests worlds of feeling and engagement opening up in Rose that she has never considered possible before.

The chemistry between them is scintillating and extremely warm, while the burgeoning romance is very sweet. I love the gentle way they switch form formal address to “Rosie” and “Dear”, the first few times each with that gentle hesitation that half expects rejection and anger. The film is also surprisingly daring about its depiction of sex (it’s pretty clear Rose and Charlie get jiggy in the boat at least twice while cruising down the river). The film mixes this touching stuff with some generally winning comedy – Rose pouring away Charlie’s huge whisky reserve after a particularly drunken display early on is a highlight – that really plays off the odd-couple combination of the two of them. It also helps play into the sweetness of the romance: Charlie impersonating a hippo to a delightedly bemused Rose is also very sweet.

It’s obvious stuff really – and Huston intersperses a few too many shots of crocodiles and hippos, as if he was keen to hammer home that they actually went on location – and there isn’t much in the film to surprise you or that you might not expect. It’s really all about the success of the two stars working together – and their natural chemistry and warmth spills out of the screen. Really it’s Bogart and Hepburn just doing their thing – but when their thing is as good as is this, you can certainly sit and watch it for ages.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Hepburn, Tracy, Poitier and one awkward meal: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Director: Stanley Kramer

Cast: Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton), Sidney Poitier (John Prentice), Katharine Heburn (Christina Drayton), Katharine Houghton (Joey Drayton), Cecil Kellaway (Monsignor Mike Ryan), Beah Richards (Mrs Prentice), Roy E Glenn (Mr Prentice), Isabel Sanford (Tillie)

Stanley Kramer’s films today are quite easy to knock. In fact, to be honest, they were pretty easy to bash back then. Kramer was a man with immense social conscience, and his films carry the same liberal agenda. They were about “Big Themes” and they had a “Message” that they very much wanted the viewer to take home with them. You can see why so many of them were littered with Oscar nominations. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is perhaps the most famous of his liberal films, and while we’d love to think the theme it covers today – interracial marriage – isn’t still an issue, I  think many people would say it still was.

Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton) returns to the home of her liberal parents – Matt (Spencer Tracy) a newspaper editor and Christina (Katharine Hepburn) an art gallery owner – with Dr John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) whom she announces as her new fiancé, after a whirlwind romance in Hawaii over the past two weeks. Her parents, Matt in particular, are hit for six – and their doubts are shared by John’s parents (Beah Richards and Roy E Glenn). Can the older generation overcome their concerns to celebrate the happiness of the younger? 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a sensitive, very carefully handled film, whose liberal earnestness practically drips off the film. It’s so hand-wringingly liberal in its outlook it’s almost impossible not to mock it a little bit. Not least because John is so ridiculously overqualified – a professor of medicine, one of the world’s leading experts on tropical diseases, a nominee for the Nobel Prize – that you can’t help but wonder what he sees in her not vice versa.

This over-qualification was, by the way, an intentional move by Kramer, who was keen that the onlypossible objections to John could be the haste of the engagement and the colour of his skin. It’s the latter point that becomes the main discussion point, with some hand-wringing concerns around the attitudes of the wider world, and Matt Drayton in particular being moved to question whether he can practise the liberal agenda he preaches. It’s no real surprise to say that eventually all the characters sit down to the eponymous dinner in blissful harmony, but the film is delivering a positive message here.

You could say that it would have been more daring to make John, at the very least, a middle ranking accountant or something at least. But, let’s be honest, at the time this film was made interracial marriages were literally illegal in 17 US states (as the film name checks). Saying that though, the possibility that a BAME male may feel uncomfortably out of place in liberal White America has hardly gone away. It’s one of the reasons why I think the film still works and carries a message today – because if we want to think that these problems have gone away completely today, we are kidding ourselves.

Therefore, however right-on the film may be, it’s still relevant today and it’s still got something to teach us. The world we live in now may well have pushed some of the views and issues expressed in this film underground – we certainly don’t (I hope!) bandy around the word “Negro” as often this film does – but they are still there. So Kramer’s hopeful message of reconciliation and overcoming knee-jerk prejudice is still one that packs a punch. It’s that message that brought such an amazing cast on board, not least Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as the Drayton parents. Tracy was extremely ill at the time of the film’s production – he died 17 days after filming completed. Tracy was so fragile – as can be clearly seen at several points – that he could only film for three hours in the morning, and only on intermittent days. The film was only made with him because Kramer, Hepburn and Tracy agreed to take no up-front fee, as Tracy could not be insured to finish the film. Hepburn in particular – Tracy’s partner for over 20 years – nursed him through the film, helping with his lines and carefully watching to make sure he was not overcommitted. Not a single shot of Tracy was taken on location due to his ill-health, and a number of scenes were cleverly shot to avoid Tracy having to be on set as often as possible.

Despite all this, Tracy is magnificent. His underlying warmth and humanity work so well for the part that you constantly warm to him, even while you are as frustrated as many of the other characters  with his lukewarm reaction (bordering on hostility) to the wedding. You totally feel empathy for his situation, while at the same time wanting to give him a slap in the face. And man Tracy knows how to react – he is marvellous in a scene with Richards, where all he does is stand, half turned away from the camera and listen. But in this scene you see Drayton think and reassess everything he has considered in the last 24 hours.

But the whole film is building towards the final 10 minutes, which is nearly a complete Tracy monologue – and this is extremely emotional, not least as we are watching a great actor, aware he is dying, knowing that this is his last acting moment, talking emotionally of his love for his fictional wife, while his real life partner of 26 years sits tearfully in shot. It’s that extra level that really creates the emotional force.

Very good as Hepburn in, it’s clear in many scenes that her mind is more on Tracy than her performance – but she still has many wonderful moments, with similar emotional force. She also has one of the film’s funniest moments, where she imperiously dismisses a gallery colleague for barely hiding her racist disgust. Hepburn won the Oscar but stated she had never watched the film, finding the memory of making it far too raw.

The rest of the cast are also good – you can tell their commitment to the film – with Poitier conveying both human decency and firmness of character. Kellaway is very good as the only person in the film who expresses open-minded joy at the union. Richards has a wonderful emotional speech about the value of love, while Glenn conveys all the awkward frustration of a father who cannot understand his son. 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a very worthy film – and boy it knows it – but it’s got a sort of innocent idealistic purity about it. Its makers clearly believed that they were making a film that would contribute towards changing attitudes in society. And for all its heavy-handed liberalism, you can say it did to a certain extent – but not as much as it would like to. For that reason, there is a sort of additional poignancy to watching it, knowing that an issue the film makers clearly hoped would be gone for good in 30 years would in fact still be with us 50 years on. So for all its flaws, you can’t help but respect and even feel affection for it.