Category: Films about mental health

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

Classic 80s romance? Or is it, in fact, a searing kitchen-sink drama about class and depression? One of the great mis-remembered films of all time

Director: Taylor Hackford

Cast: Richard Gere (Zach Mayo), Debra Winger (Paula Pokrifki), Louis Gossett Jnr (Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley), David Keith (Sid Worley), Lisa Blount (Lynette Pomeroy), Robert Loggia (Byron Mayo), Lisa Elbacher (Casey Seeger), Tony Plana (Emiliano Santos Della Serra), Harold Sylvester (Lionel Perryman), David Caruso (Topper Daniels)

An Officer and Gentleman is remembered as a sweep-you-off-your-feet romance, with power-ballads underplaying attractive Hollywood stars passionately proclaiming their love. It ain’t anything like that. This proto-Top Gun – a film it has strong similarities to in structure and design – is actually a kitchen-sink drama masquerading as a feelgood movie, with a final romantic image and “Up Where We Belong” leaving a deceptive memory behind. Where Top Gun is loud, brash and fundamentally reassuring and straight-forward, An Officer and a Gentleman is jagged, surprisingly difficult and unsettling. Put it this way: Tom Cruise doesn’t call anyone the c-bomb in Top Gun.

Zach Mayo (one of Richard Gere’s legendary performances, the memory of which guided much of the rest of his career far more than its reality) is a Navy-brat determined to be nothing like his alcoholic, whoring dad (Robert Loggia). He’s going to graduate from Naval Flight Candidate school and become “an officer and a gentleman”. Zach is a damaged soul, defensive, closed-off and selfish, a smarmy, cruel loner interested only in what he can get out of any relationship. The film is about whether Zach will learn to become a sympathetic, caring person, rather than a resentful douche.

There are three influences that might just change him. Firstly, fellow trainee Sid (David Keith), from a Naval officer family, attending because his deceased brother can’t. The second is training officer and uncompromising disciplinarian Sgt Emil Foley (Louis Gossett Jnr). And, finally, factory worker Paula (Debra Winger), one of the local women officer candidates are warned are intent on bagging a husband by fair or foul. Each will play a different role in making Zach a fully rounded person.

Hackford’s film is a tough, hardened one that takes a long hard look at mental health, guilt, suicide, parental resentment and a host of other complex issues. Any romantic moment is matched with one of pain, fury or characters doubled over with guilt and shame. It dives deep into its flawed hero and shows how someone can, almost unwittingly, be reconstructed into something warmer. It does all this in grimy, scruffy settings with characters making desperate choices motivated by poverty and lack of choices.

It opens with a shaggy-haired, scruffy Gere starring into a mirror in a dark motel room while his father is passed out in bed with two prostitutes. We are constantly reminded of Zach’s working-class background, his life growing up trailing behind his (largely indifferent) father after the suicide of his mother, left to fend for himself in the rough and tumble of the Philippine streets. At naval school, the same chippy resentment of how people perceive his roots persists – along with the lessons he has spent his whole life learning: that he should count on no-one but himself.

Zach doesn’t believe he’s worth loving. Facing abandonment issues (of different kinds) from both his parents, he doesn’t give a toss about anyone and expects them to feel the same. He sets up a grift selling pre-polished buckles and boots to his fellow candidates, only helping them for a price. He completes exercises alone, cheats in aeronautical class, and gloats as he passes anyone on physical trials. When dating Paula, he frequently retreats into cold rudeness when conversation turns to anything emotional, and repeatedly claims he wants nothing more than a bit of fun. It all stems – as Paula realises – from a defensive hostility, pushing people away before they can leave him.

His lack of team-playing is identified early by Foley as his Achilles heel. Louis Gossett Jnr won an Oscar for his impressively nuanced work here. At first Foley seems an almost unbelievably horrible man, a bully dropping racist and homophobic slurs with casual ease, who makes it his mission to drive his candidates out of the programme (right down to bragging that he chisels a mark on his swivel stick whenever another one drops out).

However, Hackford and Gossett Jnr skilfully show this is, to a degree, a show: Foley is tough because the military is tough, and deep down he does care. Candidates slowly earn his respect (female candidate Seeger may fail to climb a wall, but goddamn he respects her guts) and he quietly goes to great lengths to support them. Foley’s act is intended to get them to excel – and he’ll be proud of them when they do, just as they will be grateful to him. The strength of Gossett Jnr’s performance mean his scenes dominate the narrative (at the cost of the romance), but this is to the film’s benefit.

Interestingly, that romance is often the least effective part of the film. Gere and Winger have fine chemistry (despite, allegedly, not getting on) but the narrative often takes sudden time jumps. From one scene to another they’ll go from together to split up, and the film never quite manages to show us naturally how this is changing Zach. Instead, it frequently stops to tell us this, with on-the-nose conversations. Winger is good, but the relationship feels forced – as if it a film couldn’t exist without a romance, when actually Paula could be removed altogether and it wouldn’t really change the film.

It’s forced perhaps because what really feels like it changes Zach is the friendship with Sid. Played very well by a sensitive David Keith, Sid is everything Zach is not. Confident, happy to help others, a natural leader and team player. Under the surface he isn’t – doubtful and insecure – but the friendship between them is the spark that changes Zach. Sid is, much like Goose in Top Gun, the sacrificial pal, but this sacrifice promotes real growth in Zach. The parallel romance between Sid and gold-digger Lynette (a fine Lisa Blount) is also an effective commentary on Zach and Paula, both characters being mirror images of the leads.

The film culminates in that romantic sweep-you-off-your-feet moment in the factory: but that feels like it belongs in a different film than the hard-boiled one we’ve been watching of a man confronting his fear of failure and lack of self-worth. Gere, by the way, is very good as Zach – his smirk a defensive screen for a host of psychological problems (few actors would have been willing to be as unlikeable as Gere is here). An Officer and a Gentleman is really a character study in working-class resentments, but somehow is mis-remembered as the quintessential 80s romance. It truly isn’t. Instead Hackford’s film – flawed as it is – is smarter and pricklier than that.

A Single Man (2009)

Grief is at the heart of this moving, beautifully made debut from Tom Ford

Director: Tom Ford

Cast: Colin Firth (George Falconer), Julianne Moore (Charley Roberts), Nicholas Hoult (Kenny Potter), Matthew Goode (Jim), Jon Kortajarena (Carlos), Paulette Lamori (Alva), Ryan Simpkins (Jennifer Strunk), Ginnifer Goodwin (Mrs Strunk), Teddy Sears (Mr Strunk), Lee Pace (Grant Lefanu)

Grief is like a gaping wound that never heals. It’s an unbearable burden LA-based English professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) can’t bear any longer. Distraught after the death of his partner of sixteen years Jim (Matthew Goode), George decides November 30^th 1962 will be the last day of his life. He will spend the day putting his affairs in order, soaking up the isolated intensity of moments, have dinner at his oldest friend Charley’s (Julianne Moore) house, then take his life. Adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s novel, A Single Man follows that one day.

The universal pain of grief and vibrancy of love shines out of one of the most tender gay-love stories ever made (strikingly shot and acted by a straight director and leads). A Single Man is a film that aches in every frame with the desolation of loss and the agony of moments that can never be claimed, touches that can never be made and conversations that can never be had. It studies how empty and overbearing life can feel when we know we must face it alone, without the person who made the world make sense to us.

It is of course a double burden when that loss cannot be acknowledged. George learns of the death of Jim via an awkward phone call from Jim’s brother (a vocal cameo from Jon Hamm) who can’t bring himself to openly acknowledge the love between the two men and tells him it’s a “family only” funeral. George himself can only convey repressed English regret during the phone call, before collapsing into lurching emotional hysteria after it. His loneliness and cool distance from others is all a side effect of man who must always hide his true feelings and who and what he is.

The film gains a huge amount from Colin Firth’s extraordinary performance in the lead role, hiding a seething, raw pain under a genteel and refined exterior. This seemingly cold, precise man – who dresses like a fashion model and is polite to a fault – is a tempest below the surface of loss that cannot be expressed. It’s as much the burden of putting on one face to the world, knowing there is another below the surface, that has crushed George’s spirit over the past years, as the loss of Jim. All of this is captured by Firth with exquisite sensitivity, in a perfectly judged performance.

Even George’s closest confidante Charley – his best friend, and one-time experimental romantic fling, now a depressed divorcee – can’t quite understand George’s feelings for Jim. Played with a wonderful air of domestic, middle-aged tragedy by Julianne Moore, Charley still can’t quite believe a homosexual love can ever really be the “equal” of a heterosexual one – that some part of George would have been happier if he had accepted a ‘normal’ relationship and family with her rather than the more ‘exotic’ relationship he chose. If even those closest to George can’t really see his relationship as legitimate, what chance does his apple-pie neighbourhood have of doing so?

It’s the intense loneliness – no one to share his pain with, no way to really mourn his love – that has finally beaten the will to carry on for George. Ford’s direction reflects his sense of ennui by presenting the world as coldly drained out, rich colours replaced with greyscale-tinged greys and blues. Warm colours only intrude in those moments where George consciously decides to engage, one final time, with the wonders the world has to offer, the frame filling with warmth and colour.

Ford’s elegiac film doesn’t shy away from the coldness of pain and loss. Opening with a (literally) chilling scene, as George imagines encountering Jim’s dead body in the snows, it conveys the functional distance the world can seem to have when we are dealing with life changing internal feelings. George is entrapped into tired conversations about university politics (his gaze drifts to two male tennis players, the screen momentarily filling with colour). Reflecting his fastidious nature, he carefully puts his affairs in order at the bank and catalogues keys, account details and suicide notes on his desk. All of it feels irrelevant compared to the pain within.

But A Single Man is also a hopeful film. Even when the world seems at its bleakest – when we have decided we can’t go on – there is still hope. It’s represented here by Nicholas Hoult, warm, open and honest as George’s student Kenny who intuitively identifies something is wrong with George and goes to huge lengths to try and find out what. The tenderness between the two – and the protectiveness as well as genuine smiles Kenny can promote in George – is a beat that suggests there may still be some chance of happiness in this world where we least expect it.

It’s part of the same warmth and humanity that underlies Ford’s heartfelt film, wonderfully directed. If it was a parade of bleakness, it would have far less effect. But flashbacks to George and Jim together show the joy and comfort of their lives, while the small moments of warmth and humanity in the present constantly remind us of what George’s decision will cost him.

The film’s final dark splash of irony may well be a little too on the nose, sign posted as a possibility a little too heavily earlier in the film. But, in its exploration of grief and intelligent, intense character study it’s a wonderful debut from Ford. And Firth’s extraordinary, career defining role (a year later, after winning the Oscar for The King’s Speech he thanked Tom Ford as being someone who owed a piece of the award to) is one for the ages that speaks to anyone who has ever known loss.

The Prince of Tides (1991)

Past traumas are uncovered and a gentle love story unfolds in Streisand’s extremely effective relationship drama

Director: Barbra Streisand

Cast: Nick Nolte (Tom Wingo), Barbra Streisand (Dr Susan Lowenstein), Blythe Danner (Sally Wingo), Kate Nelligan (Lila Ward Newbury), Jeroen Krabbé (Herbert Woodruff), Melinda Dillon (Savannah Wingo), George Carlin (Eddie Detreville), Jason Gould (Bernard Woodruff)

For many, La Streisand is easy to knock. She developed a reputation as difficult: controlling, demanding and perfectionist. But don’t we praise these qualities in men? Perhaps she has more than a point when she claims complaints against her are grounded in sexism. Her snubbing by the Academy – The Prince of Tides got seven nominations including Best Picture, but none for Streisand bar as Producer – certainly feels like a crusty boys’ club deciding there is no place at their big night for a strong-minded woman. Doubly unfair since Streisand deserves plenty of praise for a film as rich, heartfelt, moving and surprisingly funny as The Prince of Tides.

Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte) is a football coach in South Carolina, where his marriage to Sally (Blythe Danner) is drifting towards the rocks, largely thanks to Tom’s jovial inability to be emotionally open. He’s called to New York when his poet sister Savannah (Melinda Dillon) attempts suicide. To aid her recovery, Tom must talk to her psychiatrist about the traumas of their childhood. But Tom himself is far, far away from putting bottled-up pain behind him. Streisand plays the psychiatrist, Dr Susan Lowenstein, struggling in an unhappy marriage with an arrogant violinist (Jeroen Krabbé, being Euro-smug as only he can) and with a troubled relationship with her son Bernard (played by Streisand’s real-life son Jason Gould). Despite initial uncertainty, will a spark of romance flair up between Wingo and Lowenstein?

Well, if you listen to the luscious score by James Newton Howard for a few seconds, you can be pretty confident the answer will be “yes”. (But it’s fine – Lowenstein’s husband is an arrogant tosser and Wingo’s wife tearfully confesses her own affair; no need to worry about betrayal here.) Officially adapted from his own huge novel by Pat Conroy,working with Becky Johnston (though it was an open secret Conroy frequently confirmed that Streisand wrote the script), it distils a massive novel into a tightly paced, extremely well-made romance that feels, in many ways, a throwback to the “women’s pictures” of the 1940s. (Conroy was thrilled.)

The big difference is that the typical Bette Davis role is here played by Nick Nolte. This is an extraordinarily superb performance by Nolte: never before had I appreciated what a deeply soulful, sensitive performer he is, especially when he is called to play the “gruff” card so frequently. Nolte’s Wingo is a Southern, gentlemanly good-old-boy, a man’s man who laughs off trouble and moves with the physicality of a rough-and-tumble sportsman. But, under the surface, he’s a sensitive, vulnerable a man tortured by past traumas he can barely bring himself to think about and consumed with guilt, self-loathing and the inability to express his feelings.

In nearly every frame of the film, Nolte is sensational: endearing, funny, joyful (his dancing at a house party has a hilarious self-mockery to it) but also stand-offish and self-contained. The film revolves around key meetings between him and Streisand’s Lowenstein, which grow increasingly intense as the taciturn joker Tom, almost against his will, has his carefully mounted defences stripped away. We see nothing, by the way, of Lowenstein’s treatment of Savannah, so tightly focused is the drama on Tom’s story. While narratively sensible, this does mean that Savannah is reduced to little more than a narrative device.

It makes for effective drama, well directed by Streisand. It’s a film that mixes moments of shock – Tom seeing his sister’s bloodstains on her apartment floor or deflate into mumbling incoherence when pushed on his past – with moments of genuine warmth and sweetness. Heck even a heated argument between the two of them segues suddenly into something comic when Lowenstein impulsively throws an Oxford English Dictionary at him, damn near breaking his nose. It should also be noted Streisand unselfishly casts herself in the less showy role – essentially a feed for Nolte – and cedes the finest moments and meat of the film to him.

Perhaps that’s also partly why Streisand’s doctor is the least convincing part of the film. With her diva nails and famous features, no amount of dome-like-glasses ever really makes you forget you are watching one of the world’s icons pretend to be a psychiatrist. (Particularly as the film relies on the magic therapist trope so beloved of Hollywood, where gentle probing and quiet “what do you think” lines lead to huge emotional revelation.) If anything, she’s more convincing and comfortable as the socialite mum struggling with her dreadful husband and resentful son.

Why the son is quite as resentful as he is to his mother, is left a bit of a mystery. Nevertheless, Jason Gould does a decent job as a young man torn between playing the football he loves and fulfilling the musical promise his father expects. (He also has a great father-son chemistry with Nolte, who coaches him in football skills.) Much clearer is why Lowenstein is struggling with her ghastly husband. Jeroen Krabbé is beautifully, smackably, smug and condescending. So much so that I laughed heartedly at the film’s most crowd-pleasing moment, as Tom punishes him for his rudeness over a dinner party by juggling his priceless Stradivarius over the edge of a penthouse balcony.

It makes it easy for us to accept Streisand’s eventual affair – much as Blythe Danner’s Sally regretfully confessing that Tom’s emotional closed-offness has driven her into the arms of another man. Despite the poster’s impression though, this is far from a steamy romance, waiting almost four fifths of its runtime before the two confess their feelings for a cathartic affair. For the bulk of the film, it’s an unspoken mutual affection, driven by Tom’s Southern flirtatious manner and Susan’s half-smiles. Again, it’s a slow-build, carefully paced romance that feels real.

Also because the film’s real build is not towards the two stars converting flirting to grinding, but in uncovering the exact trauma Tom is suppressing and has made him resent his mother (Kate Nelligan very good as an aspirant social-climber, refusing to invest love in her children) almost as much as his violent father (a surly Brad Sullivan). The reveal is, in some ways, expected – but also shockingly unexpected, particularly due to the visceral rawness which Streisand shoots the Nolte-narrated flashback with (Nolte is, needless to say, wonderful in this scene).

It’s part of the surprisingly effectiveness of a film that, in other hands, could have been a sentimental family drama, but is lifted by excellent, committed performances (Streisand is clearly a whizz with actors) and sensitive, patient direction. Streisand resists attention-grabbing flash, carefully letting scenes and emotions build, using subtle but effective camera movements. It comes together into a film that surprised me greatly with its richness. It eventually has a heart-warming message to tell of the power and importance of having the courage to admit your pain and emotions and, in its portrait of a man’s man engaging with his vulnerability, projects a message still powerful today. If Redford or Eastwood had directed it, they would have won an Oscar.

The Fighter (2010)

A fighter has a title shot, in a surprisingly heartwarming film about the importance of family, no matter how messed up it is

Director: David O Russell

Cast: Mark Wahlberg (Micky Ward), Christian Bale (Dicky Eklund), Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming), Melissa Leo (Alice Eklund-Ward), Jack McGee (George Ward), Frank Renzulli (Sal Lanano), Mickey O’Keefe (Himself)

Everyone loves Rocky. We all want to that local-hero-turned-good, the guy who went the distance. Lowell, Massachusetts had that in Dicky Eklund. Eklund, a minor pro-boxer, once went the distance against Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978 (he argues he knocked him down, although many are convinced Leonard slipped). “The Pride of Lowell” then became… a crack addict, tumbling from disaster to let-down, helping and hindering the career of his brother, fellow boxer Micky Ward.

The story of the two brothers – leading up to Ward’s eventual title shot in 1997 – comes to the screen in Russell’s affectionate, if traditional, boxing drama, long a passion project of Mark Wahlberg who plays Micky. Wahlberg kept himself in boxer-condition for years as he dreamed of making the film, recruiting director and cast and producing the film. The fine, sensitive film we’ve ended up with is a tribute to his commitment and producing skills, while the fact that Wahlberg casts himself in the least dynamic part is a nice sign of his generosity.

Because it’s only really on the surface a Micky Ward film. Sure, the film follows the vital events in his life. It opens with him bashed up in a mis-match, filling his role as a “stepping stone” fighter, someone the future champs flex their muscles against. We follow his struggles to escape from under the thumb of his large brash family – above all his bombastic, domineering mother Alice (Melissa Leo). He forms a relationship with ambitious-but-caring Charlene (Amy Adams), moves up the ranking, lands that title shot, fights the big bout. But it never quite feels like Micky is the star.

Because, really, this feels like it’s about Dicky Eklund working out the first act of his life is over, and trying to find if he has what it takes to start a second, more humble, one. The film opens with Dicky followed by an HBO crew for a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Dicky’s convinced himself it’s to chart his boxing come-back. It’s actually about the horrific impact of crack addiction. Dicky is a strung-out, unreliable junkie, living on past glories but screwing up everything he touches, being enabled by the fawning worship of his mother and sisters, who still worship him as the families main event (and continue to do so, even as Micky rises to title shot). The film’s heart is Eklund sinking to rock bottom and realising he has forced the compliant Micky into playing a subservient role in his own life.

Perhaps it feels like a film more focused on the remoulding of this charming but selfish figure because of the compelling performance of Christian Bale. Starving himself down to match Eklund’s wizened, strung-out physique (he’s still got the boxer moves, but his body has wasted away) is a day’s work for a transformative actor like Bale. But this isn’t just a physical performance, but a deep immersion into the personality of a person who almost doesn’t realise until it is too late how fundamentally flawed he is. Bale’s a ball of fizzling energy and electric wit coated in a lethargic drug-induced incoherence. His energy is frantic but uncontrolled, wild and mis-focused. It’s a superb, heartfelt performance of loveable but dangerous uselessness that nabbed Bale an Oscar.

But what makes The Fighter a surprisingly warm film is that, for all his many flaws, selfishness and self-obsession, Dicky genuinely cares for his brother. He wants the best for him, he believes in and loves him. Much of the power of Bale’s performance comes from the fact he never forgets this, even when Dicky is at his worst. In fact, Russell’s whole film works because that warmth and love everyone feels for Micky is never forgotten and never weaponised by Russell into helping us make moral judgements about the characters. Nor does it forget that Micky may sometimes hate his family, but he never stops loving and needing them.

A weaker film would have stressed the trailer-trash greed of Melissa Leo’s Alice. Leo (who also scored an Oscar and famously dropped the f-bomb on live TV, condemning the ceremony to a permanent time delayed broadcast ever since) is in many ways playing an awful character: controlling, nakedly favouring Eklund over his brother, quick to judge, rude and aggressive. She’s never truly likeable – but Russell’s film understands everything she does is motivated by love. She genuinely wants the best for Micky, even while she pushes him into bad fights and never listens to him. She tries to protect him, and expresses this in destructive selfishness.

In many ways she’s just like Micky’s girlfriend Charlene, who recognises early that Micky’s family (who have turned him into a timid hen-pecked type) can’t be trusted to run his whole career, but who also subtly pushes herself into Alice’s place as the leading decision-making influence in his life. Very well played by Amy Adams (who lost the Oscar to Leo), Charlene is smart, sexy, loving but just as determined that it’s her way or the highway.

What Micky needs to do, the film carefully (if rather safely) outlines, is take the best qualities of all his influences. It’s Eklund’s “job” to realise Micky needs everyone he loves singing from the same hymn-sheet. It needs compromise and putting other people first. It makes for a nice little paean to the importance of family relationships, founded on forgiveness and admitting when you are wrong. Micky forgives his mother and brother for their selfishness: they, in turn, acknowledge their mistakes. Eklund is crucial here: Bale is again superb as a man who suddenly realises pride has nearly ruined his life and embraces the junior role in the relationship with his brother.

Sure, none of this reinvents this wheel, but it still makes for engaging and rather sweet drama. Russell mixes it with some neat stylistic flourishes that don’t overwhelm the film. It’s shot with an edgy, handheld immediacy reflecting its street roots. The fights are shot with old TV cameras, so that invented footage can fuse with 90s HBO coverage. Russell of course gets great performances from his actors, as he always does.

The Fighter is in many ways predictable. But it wears its heart very much on its sleeve, and Wahlberg deserves credit for assembling it and for giving a quiet, generous performance at the centre of it. And the film’s commitment to the idea that, no matter the problems in our families, we can all find the courage to admit our mistakes and pull in the same direction remains heartwarming.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)

Questions of intimacy and sex are explored but not in depth in this theatrical two-hander

Director: Sophie Hyde

Cast: Emma Thompson (Nancy), Daryl McCormack (Leo Grande)

A widowed, retired former RE teacher “Nancy” (Emma Thompson), hires a high-class escort “Leo Grande” (Daryl McCormack) to explore the opportunities in life she feels she has missed: namely, any sexual experience that doesn’t involve functional, passion-free couplings with her deceased husband; the positions and acts she’s heard about that he considered “demeaning” to all involved; and, above all, something called an orgasm. Over multiple meetings, the fragile Nancy and the smooth, charming, but personally guarded Leo tentatively explore physical and emotional barriers.

Hyde’s film could very easily be a theatre piece. Largely taking place in a single location – the hotel room Nancy has hired for their meetings – across four “acts”, it’s a film that relies heavily on the skill and chemistry between the two actors. On that front, it’s very blessed to have such skilled performers who play off each other with such generous and dynamic performances.

They’re helped by a witty script from Katy Brand, crammed with good lines. Nancy is a fusspot, sheltered and deeply self-conscious, who approaches everything from a teacherly angle, including drawing up a sexual “checklist” for their session (“attainable goals” as she puts it). Her middle-class, middle-age hesitancy around sex as something to feel ashamed about casts its mark over everything she says and does (“I don’t like anything going in places where things are meant to come out”) and she can’t shake her own shame and fears that she is exploiting someone (she worries she feels like “Rolf Harris” – a reference that hilariously flies over the head of Leo).

It’s a gift of a role for Emma Thompson, who delights in the witty (if theatrical) dialogue, but also sells speeches full of personal discontentment, bitterness and profound regret. Her early nerves – with a little pinch of guilt – at hiring this sex worker, slowly tip into an outpouring of painful regrets. Nancy is a woman who has lived her life by strict rules – rules that have left her deeply unhappy and desperate for a meaningful intimate relationship with someone to confide in.

Thompson, in a way that I’m not entirely sure the film does, also understands that Nancy is not as nice a person as she might believe she is. Her sadness is often counterpointed with bitterness, rudeness and a tendency to judgementalism. It’s a defensive shield for her deep unhappiness within – but it also perhaps suggests why she is as lonely as she is. This is Thompson at the top of her game, effortlessly funny, heart-rending and frustrating almost from moment to moment.

Her unease, and near-Catholic guilt at sexual intimacy and satisfaction, contrasts neatly with the smoothly professional Leo. It can’t be easy for a young actor to go toe-to-toe with a heavyweight, but McCormack plays Leo with a huge subtlety. Eager to put Nancy at her ease in their first meeting, we see him carefully but skilfully move between several different, possible, personas in search of something she will like. Flashes of personal intimacy and friendship he gives her always leave you guessing how much is real, and how much settling on a persona for his client. Brief moments of thoughtfulness show Leo reflecting on his own past – issues that will come to the surface in later sessions. McCormack skilfully walks the tightrope of playing a man with an invented personality, who adjusts his persona from moment to moment to best please someone else.

The main delights of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande are in the (sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes excruciatingly embarrassing) exchanges between these two, as Nancy constantly puts off what she paid for, partly due to not knowing if she wants it and partly being ashamed to ask for it. At its strongest moments the film uses this to explore our own societal feelings about the entwining between sex, shame and guilt.

After all, sex is something we all have very clear ideas about. And, just like we do with our bodies, often end up judging ourselves harshly against some imagined standard. The film gently argues that perhaps a world of high-class, shame-free, professional sex with someone who knows what they are doing – and can help a client enjoy something that many find quite stressful – might not be a bad thing. It says a lot that Nancy’s first assumptions about Leo tie into a fear that he might be being exploited or vulnerable in some way. It’s also interesting that Leo (at least as he claims – he of course may not be telling the complete truth) enjoys his work, because he sees it as a sort of ultimate people pleasing.

It would be a stronger film if it was able to do more of this thoughtful societal commentary. It never quite manages to really grapple with the issues it raises though, partly because it becomes a little preoccupied with the personal hang-ups of its characters (it would have also helped with Leo didn’t have his own past problems to deal with as well, which rather undermine part of the film’s point that we shouldn’t feel ashamed or that choosing a life like this isn’t always linked to past problems).

It also, by making it very clear that Leo is working at the very expensive end of the sex industry, perhaps takes a slightly rosy view of sex work, glossing over the risks and exploitation experienced by others in the industry with a couple of breezy lines. However, it’s also a very strong two hander, well-written with two excellent performances from McCormack and Thompson, both of whom are superb. It just could have been a little more.

Summer Interlude (1951)

Memory, mortality, repression, grief and a little dash of hope: Bergman establishes his themes in one of his earliest film

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Cast: Maj-Britt Nilsson (Marie), Birger Malmsten (Henrik), Alf Kjellin (David Nyström), Annalisa Ericson (Kaj), Georg Funkquist (Uncle Erland), Stig Olin (Ballet Master), Mimi Pollak (Mrs. Calwagen)

On the night of the dress rehearsal for her next production, successful ballerina Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) receives a parcel containing an old diary. It’s thirteen years old and belonged to Henrik (Birger Malmsten), a young man she met and fell in love with while staying with family friends on a small island. The relationship was one of blissful joy – so why then does even the faintest memory of it bring out a cold panic in Marie?

The answer is of course rooted in past trauma in a film that touches on so many themes Bergman would explore in even greater detail later, it’s hard to see it as a film in its own right, like an early draft pencil sketch of a Renaissance master. Themes of memory, trauma, mortality, repression, romance and coming to terms with all of these would resurface time and again in the master’s later work. Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Face to Face, Persona, Fanny and Alexander… They all expand on Summer Interlude. For starters, Marie’s reverie on the island revolves around memories activated by eating strawberries and takes in an ageing priest exploring mortality through chess.

So, you can sort of watch Summer Interlude as a game of inspiration-spotting, keeping a tally of the Bergmanesque pre-homages. But that would do a disservice to a heartfelt, beautifully judged, hauntingly sad film which deals not only with loss but also acceptance. It’s effectively two films in one, straddling the emotionally cold present and Marie’s return to the windswept island, and the glorious summer of carefree romance she shared all that time ago, when everything was possible.

As Marie, Maj-Britt Nilsson is impressive. One of the first of Bergman’s muses – and the first major indicator of his skill and empathy for powerful female-led drama – Nilsson has the difficult job of distinguishing between two versions of her character. Her present day one is muted, restrained and hiding behind her ballet performance make-up, unable to really face the world and unhappy in her own skin. By comparison, the younger version feels like a different person: vibrant, hopeful, excited and youthful. And besotted with Birger Malmsten’s boyish and delightful Henrik, an impulsive but engaging kid.

The flashback to their romance is given the sun-dabbled beauty of memory. They run across beaches and up hills, flirt in beach huts and conduct a sweet engagement ceremony. The company of the other is more than enough for both of them. Gunnar Fischer’s photography captures this with an intense, naturalistic beauty – including a gorgeous shot of a cloud across the sun while we hear the voices of Marie and Henrik below. It also makes for a wonderfully alive contrast to the more static coolness of the present, where wide-open spaces are exchanged for backstage confines.

It’s not a huge surprise to reveal that Marie and Henrik’s relationship end tragically. That after all is the mood we associate with the Gloomy Swede. But what makes the film really work is the hope and joy not only of the memory of that glorious summer – but also in the ability, thirteen years later, of Marie to consider processing it and allowing new joy into her life. To come to terms with what has happened to her and learning to love the person she is today, (literally) wiping away the defensive make-up that has kept her distant from the world.

Much of her defensiveness comes courtesy of “Uncle” Erland (a deeply unsettling Georg Funkquist), the family friend she was staying with that summer. A doctor and psychiatrist, Erland clearly has a unsuitable interest (bordering on obsession) with Marie (something all too obvious to his wife). His desire to help her deal with her tragedy is based more on an unpleasant desire for control as it is friendship. He’s one of the darker figures in Bergman, even more so because he’s so mundane in his corruption.

Memory and past trauma linger over Summer Interlude – and the influence of both is central to the film’s impact. Bergman skilfully intercuts between past and present, without ever overplaying or showing his hand. Both timelines are interspersed with little character flourishes that would be worthy of whole films (and in some cases Bergman explored those himself later!). Henrik’s geriatric aunt, a fanatical chess player, who (correctly) states she will live for decades to come. A priest dwelling on mortality. A ballet master who understands how Marie’s obsession with dancing serves to blot out any other life. A fellow dancer who muses on how long before their time is up.

These ideas are assembled though with a warmth and emotional intelligence that would become Bergman’s hallmark. It’s also a film crammed with invention: a (brief) argument with Henrik over Marie’s obsessive practice, frames her feet in constant close-up as she practices her moves: the film will end with a similar shot, this time with practice married to romance. For a film about tragedy, trauma and torturous memories, it’s surprising how optimistic it is. As Marie smiles for what seems like the first time in decades, you feel there is hope for us all.

Another Round (2020)

Vinterberg’s film explores our complex relationship with alcohol with a surprising lack of judgement

Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Cast: Mads Mikkelsen (Martin), Thomas Bo Larsen (Tommy), Magnus Millang (Nikolaj), Lars Ranthe (Peter), Maria Bonnevie (Anika), Helene Reingaard Neumann (Amalie), Susse Wold (Principal)

Mankind’s most difficult relationship? Might just be with alcohol. Ever since Noah first toppled over pissed, we’ve struggled to balance that delightful buzz a touch of intoxication gives with the destructive impact way too much has. It’s a relationship explored in Thomas Vinterberg’s curious mix of warning and celebration, Another Round, which (slightly obliquely) looks at the positives and negatives of alcohol consumption.

In a gymnasium school in Copenhagen, history teacher Martin (Mads Mikkeslen) has lost all passion and interest in his students (so much so they try to have him removed) and his marriage is stuck in an increasingly distant rut. After a birthday meal, he and three friends – PE teacher Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), psychology teacher Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) and music teacher Peter (Lars Ranthe) – agree to a pact to combat their ennui. After reading a theory that mankind is born with 0.05% blood alcohol content deficiency (and topping it up makes you more creative and relaxed), they decide to experiment with maintaining a certain level of inebriation. At first it has a positive impact; but as they push the boundaries of the experiment, the negatives swiftly multiply.

Vinterberg’s film is notable for not taking an obvious (or firm) stance on alcohol consumption. It’s easy to imagine an American or British film dwelling on the negatives at the cost of everything, or demonstrating deep regret in the friends for ever starting on this journey in the first place. Another Round doesn’t do this. In fact, it rather bravely points out the positives we can feel from the happiness and relaxation alcohol can give. So much so that, at first, it actually improves people’s lives. After all, if it was always all bad – we wouldn’t drink it would we?

This is most notable in the case of Martin. He might stumble in the staffroom on the way to class, but (after a swig of vodka) his teaching becomes more inspiring, electric and engaging. He rediscovers a passion for working with students, dropping the disengaged drawling of semi-confused facts we see him use earlier (where he doesn’t even seem to be listening to himself, randomly drifting from the Industrial revolution to Churchill) and replacing it with insightful parallels, high-energy tempo and fun activities. Whether it’s psychological or something else, being able to relax clearly has a positive short-term impact on his ability to teach.

It’s matched in the others as well. Peter gets his students singing with an intensity and beauty he couldn’t begin to get them to reach earlier. Tommy, in his work with a primary school football team, brings out the skilled footballer in a shy, bespectacled student (although his uncomfortable blurring of the line between teacher and surrogate parent with this boy hints at Tommy’s lack of control, which the film will explore in more depth). Vinterberg echoes the giddy feeling of elation all four feel by subtle use of a free-moving handheld camera, compared to the more staid rigidity of the earlier stable shots.

Martin also dramatically improves his personal life. He starts to reconnect with his family and rebuild passions with his wife. Sure, there are negatives. Hidden alcohol stashes at the school are discovered. It becomes harder to hide their intoxication in the common room. But it still feels good, right? Problem is, Martin makes the mistake many of us have. If a small amount of this makes me feel this good – why don’t I take a large amount? Surely if I up the blood alcohol content even higher, the positives will be all the greater. Sadly, of course, it doesn’t work like that.

Vinterberg’s film is careful not to use labels like alcoholism. But, in the same way it isn’t afraid to show the world-beating confidence a stiff drink or two can give you, it doesn’t shy away from the impact of over-consumption. Deciding, “as an experiment”, to push their drinking to absurd levels for one night only, to get as intoxicated as possible, the four have a fab night. But the next morning? Peter loses all his clothes diving in the sea. Nikolaj wets the marriage bed in a confused stupor. Martin wakes up, face bleeding, on the pavement having tried (and failed) to use his keys on his neighbour’s house, and is carried home by his humiliated children.

This is as nothing compared to the terrible impact of alcohol on Tommy. While all four of the men no doubt become increasingly dependent, it’s Tommy who tips into full blown alcoholism. Beautifully played by Thomas Bo Larsen, its painful to watch this gruff-but-playful bachelor dip increasingly into confused, stumbling, permanent inebriation, living in a home made of finished bottles and unable to hide from colleagues or students his intoxication.

But, for all that much of the second half of the film focuses on these negatives, it doesn’t offer easy solutions. All four realise things have gone too far – but none of them can forswear (or even seem to consider doing so) alcohol. Martin’s marriage collapses and Nikolaj’s nearly goes the same way. But they still gather at the film’s end for a drink. It’s at this point that it can be a little unclear what Vinterberg’s thoughts are on the demon. But then perhaps that is the point: we all know it’s bad for us anyway, so a film that looks at how we balance that desire with a certain level of responsibility is always, perhaps, going to shy away from either easy answers or definitive statements.

It’s perhaps why the film ends with a surprisingly blissful, up-beat ending of hope for the future rather than despair, as Martin explodes into a riotous improvised dance routine. It’s easy to forget Mikkelsen is a trained dancer, and the fact he provides such a striking, memorable ending to the film is fitting as it’s a triumph for him. At first a shambling, sad-sack figure, Mikkelsen’s Martin finds a casualness and relaxation that seemed beyond him (the film is a physical triumph for Mikkelsen – his drunken move through a common room worthy of Gene Kelly or Buster Keaton). Mikkelsen’s work is extraordinary in its emotional complexity – bursts of pained sorrow, rage, guilt, self-loathing, despair and hope flash across his face and he holds the entire film together.

He’s ably supported by Larsen, Millang and Ranthe – all superb – and Vinterberg’s deceptively casual and unobtrusive direction helps craft a film that offers scenarios but not lectures. While I could have hoped for the film perhaps taking a bit more of a stance one way or the other – or give a more unflinching look at the impact on others of alcohol abuse – as a personal story Another Round is vibrant, honest and (strangely) hopeful, for all the terrible impacts it displays. It lingers with you like a hangover.

The Lighthouse (2019)

Undefinable, haunting madness in Robert Egger’s mesmeric film that defies categorisation

Director: Robert Eggers

Cast: Robert Pattinson (Ephraim Winslow), Willem Dafoe (Thomas Wake)

Who’d want to be a lighthouse keeper? Weeks on end, stuck on a rock, with nothing but sea gulls and your fellow keepers for company. The cabin fever might well start to make you feel your grip on reality shifting. You’d definitely think it was a strong chance watching Robert Eggers’ mesmeric, enthralling and undefinable masterpiece, a mix of everything from Victorian shlock to Greek Mythology via MR James and Edgar Allen Poe, by way of Freud and Jung. It’s impossible to work out, horrifyingly clear and deeply, unsettlingly brilliant.

Two ‘wickies’ (lighthouse keepers) in 1890s arrive on an island off the coast of New England. Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) is a (self-proclaimed?) salty-sea-dog and veteran wickie. He tends the light. His assistant, Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), is a former woodworker working on contract, seemingly on the run from something. He is the island’s dogsbody and tends the mechanisms that keep the light on and turning and the island’s fog-horn blaring. These two live cheek-by-jowl, a relationship that oscillates between distrust, resentment and strange warmth.

Things take an increasing turn for the bizarre, as a storm cuts them off from their scheduled relief. Slowly the isolation, supplies failure (gin and beans are seemingly the only food sources left) tap into the psychological flaws in the men themselves. Ephraim becomes ever more consumed by visions of a horrific but sensual mermaid. Wake obsessively guards his sole access to the lighthouse tower – and, Ephraim suspects, the mysteries it contains. Their relationship crosses boundaries of longing, violence and anger.

The Lighthouse is somewhere between parable, modern myth and psychological study. You could call it a horror film – I see it more as a classic ghost story – but you could just as easily call it a survivalist film, a character study or a psychological thriller. Egger’s insidiously unsettling film-making and the sublime acting from the two leads combine to make a film ripe for interpretation, and intensely rewarding on rewatch. It’s an explosion of artistic brilliance.

Shot in a superbly atmospheric black and white – and a claustrophobic academy ratio 4:3 – it’s a film that presents one striking, chilling, unforgettable visual image after another. Inspired by silent cinema – in particular Murnau, Lang and von Sternberg, although I spotted elements of Keaton – but as if moody German expressionism was used to shoot a Rorschach test. The inky blacks, and overwhelming bursts of blinding white light, suggest unimaginable horrors lurking out of sight, while its impressionistic imagery constantly pushes us to question the reality of the film.

It all builds on the superb feeling of isolation Eggers invokes. Rooms are small and crowded with furniture. The island is a bleak rock, shorn of any vegetation. The only wildlife is an army of seagulls. The blare of the island’s foghorn is continuous – sounding like a doom-laden rumble from Hell – that seeping into the viewer’s soul. Every corner of the lighthouse station becomes achingly familiar to the viewer and somewhere you can imagine not wanting to spend a second longer than you have to.

Stretching their vocal muscles around a script (written by Eggers and his brother Max) full of rich, chewy, Victoriania dialogue by way of Beckett and Pinter (in one compellingly funny sequence, the two actors basically shout “what” at each other over and over again) both are superb. Dafoe walks a fine line expertly between realism and Robert-Newton-esque parody, as the saltiest sea-dog imaginable, who can oscillate between surly admonitions and flights of myth-filled, metaphorical fancy. Pattinson dives head first into a man who we are never sure we fully understand: is he a frustrated time-server, a violent monster, a delusional schizophrenic, a little-boy lost? Either way it’s a truly brilliant performance of Day-Lewis level commitment and immersion.

You could have a lot of fun arguing that perhaps both men are two halves of the same fractured psyche (as if Wake is a future version of Ephraim, almost as if the film is him witnessing his own origins story). Certainly, as their film progresses, their personalities and histories begin to merge. It would help explain the curious emotional bond between them: at times they seem to almost hate each other, at another a drunken fight is only inches away from a sexual encounter. They laugh at and loath each other, are mutually dependent, plot each other’s destruction but then pathetically look at each other for reassurance and praise (Wake is heartbroken when Ephraim criticises his cooking, while Ephraim both resents and worships this hard-taskmaster father figure).

It’s a suspicion that could also be incited by the all-pervading weirdness on the island. Ephraim –carrying the burden of secret crimes on the mainland – see visions of a mermaid among logs, in which sexual encounters are mixed with the mermaid’s murderous attempts to drown him. His first-day searches of the house unearth a carving of a mermaid, which seems to fascinate and repel him – he takes to masturbating (joylessly) over it in the workshop. He seems to spy Wake worshiping, naked, the light during his long-night vigils up the tower (suspicious fluids drip down from here, along with half glimpses of mermaid tentacles). In any case, Wake guards his access to the light like a jealous lover, while his faith in sea mythology becomes increasingly less of a mantra and more of a framework to understand the world.

How much is real? Or is it a sign of Ephraim’s fractured, guilty, conscious? We see most of the events through his eyes – a man we know is a thief and, most likely, a killer. There is more than enough evidence that Ephraim is lying about his past as much to himself as he is Wake. Wake too is a liar – telling at least two versions of how he ended up with a gammy leg, enough to make you wonder how much his claims of being a sea-dog are true. As isolation and constant drink – the two spend most of the second half in various states of inebriation first from gin then turpentine – kick in, and they and their surroundings become increasingly dishevelled and fart-stenched.

There are dark powers at work on this island. Echoes of Greek Myths loom – Ephraim has traits of Prometheus, fascinated by a light horded by the Gods, the very light that Wake, Proteus like, is determined to keep to himself. Wake stresses that the gulls carry the souls of dead sailors – and the unsettling persistence these pester Ephraim with, is surpassed only by the violence with which he responds to them. Elements of Victorian ghost stories, hypnotism and gothic fiction combine in every corner of a film where we see very little but get a lot implied (powerful, Eisenstein and Bunuel-style, close-ups of faces and eyes imply powerful horrors out of shot).

The Lighthouse reminds me in many ways of the best of the BBC Ghost Stories of the 1970s in their unsettling, MR James-style unexplained (even unstated) horrors. There is a palpable air of horrific tension around the film, of an unexplained, unknowable force that could somewhere destroy both men – and has perhaps unsettled their minds. The film culminates in a superb, haunting shot as Ephraim comes face-to-face with something unknown that is pure MR James: we never see what caused the horror, only its terrible results. (It’s as terrifying as Whistle and I’ll Come to You or A Warning to the Curious where blind, over-confident curiosity leads to dreadful outcomes).

Eggers film is not a conventional horror film: I believe thinking of it as a deeply unsettling exploration of man’s vulnerability and weakness, ala MR James, is key. This is a story of unseen, imagined, unsettling horrors – but also a claustrophobic relationship drama, playing out like a psychological thriller as two men dance around destroying and seducing each other. It’s a complex Rubrik’s cube that rewards constant thought and attention. Beautifully filmed, superbly acted, compelling in every frame, it can claim to be one of the most unique and powerful American films of the 2010s.

Wild (2014)

Reese Witherspoon finds herself in a film that is more than just Eat, Pray, Hike

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée

Cast: Reese Witherspoon (Cheryl Strayed), Laura Dern (“Bobbie” Grey), Thomas Sadoski (Paul), Michel Huisman (Jonathan), Gaby Hoffmann (Aimee), Kevin Rankin (Greg), W. Earl Brown (Frank), Mo McRae (Jimmy Carter), Keene McRae (Leif)

Ever thought tackling a 1,100 mile hike would be a fun adventure? The opening of Wild might change your mind. Gasp as Reese Witherspoon rips out a bleeding toe nail and then throws her ill-fitting hiking boots down a mountain, screaming abuse at them all the way! Want to grab that back-pack now?

In this adaptation of a memoir about loss and self-discovery, Witherspoon plays Cheryl Strayed who (fairly impulsively) decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995 to try to find in herself the woman her late mother “Bobbie” (Laura Dern) believed she could be. After Bobbie’s early death from cancer at 45, Cheryl had collapsed – ruining her marriage to Paul (Thomas Sadoski) in an orgy of anonymous sex and heroin addiction. Now she wants to make a new start.

Adapted by Nick Hornby with a good deal of skill and emotional intelligence, Jean-Marc Vallée’s film is an interesting character study via the survivalist genre, mixed with a touching exploration of grief, loss and self-loathing. After throwing us into Day 26 with that bloodied toe-nail, the film rolls back to follow Cheryl’s walk: intercut with powerful memories of her relationship with her mother, each memory activated by different encounters along the way and bubbling into her mind along with a distinctive soundtrack (most especially Simon and Garfunkal’s El Condor Pasa) that reflects the music that reminds Cheryl of her mother.

It could have been a sentimental finding-yourself movie – Eat, Pray, Hike anyone? (I also rather like Reese Witherspoon Finds Herself in a Backpack) – and I won’t lie, there are elements of that. But maybe it caught me in the right mood, maybe because I’ve always fancied testing myself with an epic hike, but I actually found it intelligent, sensitive and just the right side of sentimental.

Wild carefully avoids simple points. It’s a film not about a long journey leading to revelation, but a journey that helps you accept all your past decisions, right or wrong. There is a pointed lack of emotional breakdowns, tearful confessions or flare ups of self-anger and revelation. Instead, it’s about the long grind of starting an internal journey towards contentment. Because trekking 1,100 miles is the long haul: there ain’t any easy ways out or short cuts on this trek.

The film’s principal asset is Reese Witherspoon. Also serving as producer, Witherspoon is in almost every single frame and delivers an under-played but very emotionally satisfying performance. She plays Cheryl as quietly determined, having already hit rock bottom and knowing every step she takes from now is upwards. She meets adversity – aside from the odd flash of frustration – with a stoic will and finds an increasing spiritual freedom in the wild that serves as an escape from the horrific wilderness of her self-destructive years. But she never lets us forget the pain that underpins this journey for Cheryl. It’s a very impressive performance.

The reminders of that pain are distributed through the film, which unflinchingly chronicles Cheryl’s escape from grief in the arms of a parade of sleazy men, anonymous hotel sex and (finally) shooting up heroin on the streets of San Francisco. It ends her marriage to Paul – but not their friendship, in the sort of adult emotional reaction you hardly ever see in a movie. Paul – played with warmth by Thomas Sadoski – may not be able to continue his marriage after discovering his wife’s parade of trust-breaking, but it doesn’t stop him from helping a person he loves who is in need.

All of this is nicely counterpointed by the hike itself. Naturally it’s all slightly episodic, as Cheryl moves from location to location, but Hornby’s script makes these vignettes really work. Vallée’s direction also does a fantastic job of intercutting between the long walk of 1995, and Cheryl’s memories of both her mother (played with a vibrancy that makes a huge impression from limited screen time by an Oscar-nominated Laura Dern) and her own emotional collapse after her death.

I also appreciated that Wild doesn’t shirk from showing the vulnerability of an attractive young woman hiking alone. Some potential predators are revealed to be the opposite: others are exactly what they appear to be. But not every encounter is one of potential danger: far from it.

Cheryl is met time and again by people who only appear to support, share their expertise and help her in her quest. At an early station, a man talks her through the huge amount of equipment she’s bought and advises what she can leave behind (Vallée opens the film with the strenuous effort, including rolling around on the floor, Cheryl has to go through just to put this backpack on). She finds a touch of romance with a handsome musician (a charming Michel Huisman). There’s also comedy, most of all with Cheryl’s encounter with a self-important journalist (Mo McRae), who won’t be convinced that she isn’t a female hobo.

This is all packaged together in a quiet, un-pretentious way that culminates in a thought-provoking monologue about the value of self-acceptance and putting aside regrets. Others would have layered on the sentiment, but here the balance is just right. With Witherspoon at the top of her game, Wild is a well-made and involving road trip that also makes you think.

The Lost Daughter (2021)

Motherhood, loss and guilt are at the heart of this over-extended drama that doesn’t feel like it focuses on the right things

Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Cast: Olivia Colman (Leda Caruso), Jessie Buckley (Young Leda Caruso), Dakota Johnson (Nina), Ed Harris (Lyle), Dagmara Dominczyk (Callie), Paul Mescal (Will), Peter Sarsgaard (Professor Hardy), Jack Farthing (Joe), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Toni), Athena Martin (Elena), Robyn Elwell (Bianca), Ellie Blake (Martha)

Leda (Olivia Colman), a professor of Italian Literature, holidays in Greece. That holiday is disturbed by the arrival of a noisy, aggressive family from Queens. A member of that family, unhappy young mother Nina (Dakota Johnson) loses her daughter on a beach. Leda finds her, but it triggers her own unhappy memories of motherhood (Jessie Buckley plays the young Leda). She impulsively steals the child’s beloved doll, as her paranoia and mournful reflections grow.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut is a confident, assured piece of film-making, but I found it a cold and slightly unsatisfying film. There is a fascinating subject here, that the film fails to really tackle. One of life’s great unspoken expectations is that everyone should find being a parent – especially being a mother – hugely rewarding. This film studies a woman who didn’t, but still wants to reassure us of the love and happiness found in the bond with a child, no matter your mistakes as a parent. In doing so, it marginally ducks an important societal issue and reaches conclusions that feel predictable, for all the ambiguity the film ends with.

Colman’s expressive face and ability to suggest acres of unhappiness in a forced smile or gallons of frustration with a single intake of breath, are used to maximum effect. Leda is a woman comfortable with her own company, forced and uncomfortable in conversation, her eyes flicking away as if looking for an exit. She seems confused about how to respond to the quiet advances of handyman Lyle (a gentle Ed Harris) and increasingly resents the intrusion into her holiday of outsiders.

How much is this slightly misanthropic, isolated view of the world her natural personality, and how much has it grown from her choices in the past? Flashbacks reveal her struggles as a mother – and the strained relationship with her children today – and it’s clear Leda is a bubble of confused emotions, uncertain about what she thinks and feels.

That past, to me, is the real area of interest, rather than the distant, cold woman those choices have created. I’d argue a stronger film – and one that would feel like it was really making a unique point – would have focused on the younger Leda. Expertly played by an Oscar-nominated Jessie Buckley –brittle and growing in claustrophobic depression – she loves her two girls. But, most of the time, finds them overbearing, all-consuming and more than a little irritating. She’ll laugh at their jokes and be terrified when one of them gets lost, while still resenting their domineering impact on her life.

When she wants to work, they demand attention. When her daughter has a small cut on her finger, Leda is repeatedly asked to kiss it better like a broken record. Leda gives her other daughter her own childhood doll – and then throws it out of a window in fit of hurt fury when the daughter covers it in crayon and says she doesn’t like it. The kids get in the way of everything: be it work (she retreats behind headphones to focus), holidays, sex with her husband or even masturbation.

Her feelings go beyond post-natal depression. She is someone who genuinely loves her children, but can’t bear the idea of mothering them. This is the meat of the film, far more than the present-day narrative. Gyllenhaal sensitively tackles a rarely discussed topic: what can we do if we find parenthood was a mistake? Knuckle down or give up and run away? A film exploring this could have been compelling: but it only takes up a quarter of an over-extended film.

Instead, by focusing on the maladjusted present-day Leda, the film presents her motherhood difficulties as the root cause of her problems. Leda sees a potential kindred spirit in young mother Nina – a brash and exhausted Dakota Fanning – who seems equally frustrated by parenting. But Leda is so insular and self-obsessed, is she only seeing what she wants to see? If she thinks Nina is also failing as a mother, will that make her feel better about her own failures?

The Lost Daughter is an unreliable narrator film – and Gyllenhaal expertly suggests much of what we see are Leda’s perceptions rather than necessarily the truth. The menace from Nina’s loud and aggressive extended family is a constant presence: but is it real, or just Lena’s paranoia. Does the family really cover every tree with a missing poster for a child’s lost doll, or does it just that way to Leda? Does Nina share Leda’s own resentments with motherhood, or does Leda just want her to?

It’s a subtle ambiguity that continues until the film’s close. It leaves many questions unanswered and open to the viewers interpretation. Different viewers will take very different messages from it. But for me, the film wasn’t quite interesting enough – and shied away from exploring the questions of guilt and doubt about parenthood. At no point does Leda even voice the possibility that she regrets having kids – for all that she surely does – which feels odd. For me the film takes a long time to not quite say as much as I feel it could have done.