Category: Romance

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer have a love that cannot survive the morals of society in The Age of Innocence

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis (Newland Archer), Michelle Pfeiffer (Countess Ellen Olenska), Winona Ryder (May Welland), Miriam Margolyes (Mrs Mingott), Geraldine Chaplin (Mrs Welland), Michael Gough (Henry van der Luyden), Richard E. Grant (Larry Lefferts), Mary Beth Hurt (Regina Beaufort), Robert Sean Leonard (Ted Archer), Norman Lloyd (Mr Letterblair), Alec McCowen (Sillerton Jackson), Sian Phillips (Mrs Archer), Jonathan Pryce (Rivière), Alexis Smith (Louisa van der Luyden), Stuart Wilson (Julius Beaufort), Joanne Woodward (Narrator), Carolyn Farina (Janey Archer)

In 1870’s New York, Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), is a fastidious connoisseur of the arts, part of the super-rich elite of New York society. He’s engaged to be married to young May Welland (Winona Ryder), but finds his world view and values turned upside down when he meets May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Ellen is a scandalous figure, a woman separated from her philandering European husband, trying to make her way in New York society. Newland and Ellen are irresistibly drawn together, but do they have a chance to be together in the oppressive society of the New York upper classes?

That’s one question. The one more people were asking was: how would Scorsese follow up Goodfellas? Probably very few people would have bet on an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. In fact, in 1993, there was more than a little annoyance among some viewers at the idea of the master of gangster movies, the guy who directed Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, turning his hand to the realm of Merchant Ivory. The film bombed at the box office – but did it deserve that reaction? Was Scorsese a director out-of-place?

Well the reaction is slightly unfair, because The Age of Innocence is a marvellously filmed, exact, brilliantly constructed piece of film-making, that so lays on the opulence and wealth of New York society that it turns everything in the film into feeling like a gilded cage. That’s a cage carefully controlled and monitored by the inmates, with their strict, inflexible rules about every single social interaction, unbreakable rules of decorum and etiquette covering everything, with any deviation from these rules met with instant expulsion. Put it like that, and this doesn’t sound a million miles away from the gangster families Scorsese is more associated with.

Inspired by the films of Powell and Pressburger in its intricate construction, and flashes of artifice in filming and editing, as well as its rich colour palette, with touches of everyone from Visconte, Ophüls, Truffaut to name but a few, this is a film-maker’s love letter to cinematic classics. A beautiful sequence of Newland watching Ellen from behind and a distance on a jetty, yearning for her to turn around before a boat passes a lighthouse, using that landmark as the point when he will stop looking and accept something is not to be. The scene is bathed in a Jack Cardiff-ish red, with the objects in the light given a sharp definition in contrast to the colours. It’s a beautiful image, and one of several that run through the film. Inspired by paintings of the era, Scorsese also layers in Viscontish scenes of opulence, with The Leopard very much in mind as every detail of the vast wealth, and huge accumulation of objects in every room of these people’s houses, seems to crush and entrap the people in them. The rooms themselves become metaphors of the oppressive, rule-bound society the characters are trapped in, like the people have been designed to fit into the rooms rather than vice versa. The one exception is Ellen’s rooms, which have a sense of personality to them.

This marvellous construction – with its beautiful photography, inspiring design and costumes – contains a storyline of frustrated love, a love triangle between three people where the man has to make a choice between what he wants and what is expected of him. Newland Archer clearly loves Ellen in a way he can never love May – indeed, he is dismissively cruel in his thoughts towards May, who he clearly considers nothing more than an extension of the mindless gilded objects of beauty around him, a woman he sees as lacking an imagination or daring. In Ellen, he sees far more opportunities for a world of change, of difference, or being something he does not expect. She is far more of a free-spirit, a more bohemian figure, confident in herself and something far more modern than May, who is very much a product of her time and place.

The film, carefully demonstrates the growing unease and unsettlement of Archer as he begins to feel things he has never done before, to start to react and aim for a style of living he would never previously consider. All his life before now is a careful studying and collection of moments, or savouring experiences in the way that a collector would place them in a glass box. From seeing only the moments of plays he wishes to see, to carefully collecting shipments of books from London and reading the choice moments, Archer is a coldly controlling figure who believes he guides and directs his own life. Ellen not only demonstrates to him that in many ways he is as conventional as anyone else, but also that there are other options in his life. Archer struggles to build the emotional language that he needs in order to express these feelings bubbling in him – key moments indeed seem reminiscent of the operas that this New York society spends so much time watching, and it is only late in the film in little, genuine moments of affection can he find something real.

Scorsese’s film artfully and carefully shows this developing affection between the two, a love that the two of them speak of surprisingly early, but fail to find a genuine way of expressing it. The film captures the attempt by New York society at the time to be more British than the British, and the hidebound restrictions this brings. Scorsese uses cinematic tricks to show Archer’s striving to escape. Spotlights zero in on Archer and Ellen in the middle of society, as if to drain out all other moments. Letters from his respective love interests are delivered with the actors addressing the camera, as if speaking to Archer direct. Flashes of screen colour cover key cuts, as if all this colour was just on the edges of his life but he is unable to access them. He is a man who feels himself trapped and committed to one form of life, but who still feels the longing for another.

The Age of Innocence is a beautifully made film, but there is a coldness to it. Perhaps this is why it doesn’t quite capture the heart in the way of other films. So much as Scorsese captured the cold and restrictive world of this society, that it seems to permeate the film and make the whole thing somehow colder and more restrictive. There is such artistry and effort in the film-making, that the film seems a coldly detailed piece of art. Perhaps this is why the use of narration – beautifully spoken by Joanne Woodward – becomes overbearing here in the way it doesn’t in other Scorsese films. It’s another distance from the entire experience, as if the film is keeping the audience at arm’s length as much as society is. 

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is expertly assembled, a masterful, brilliantly observed, intricately detailed masterclass in micro-expression, of layered frustrations and repression. But it’s such a marvellously constructed, detailed and well observed performance that it feels a masterful piece of art to be admired rather than loved. For all the film centres Archer in the story, he is a hard man to care for or invest in. Pfeiffer gives a wonderful performance as the far freer, intelligent and daring Ellen – but there is a slight lack of spark between them, for all the brilliance of both actors the feeling of an overpowering, obsessive love just doesn’t quite come out of the picture.

This coldness of the construction, carries through every frame. It is perhaps an easier film to admire than love, for all its brilliant construction. It is perhaps too successful in establishing the sharp rules of its society, and does not invest enough time in looking at the raw passions that bubble under the surface of its characters. It never quite explores the inner life of its characters, and they remain slightly distant objects from us. To be fair, this works very well in some cases: Winona Ryder as May carefully plays her hand throughout the film, so that it is a shock in the final scenes where she reveals depths of determination, strength of character and manipulation that far dwarf anything Archer is capable of. Where he is a man with a wistful longing for what he wants, but lacks the will to take it, she knows what she wants and is determined to take it.

The film uses its mostly British cast very well, their understanding of period and these sort of society rules crucial to its success. Margolyes, Wilson and McCowen in particular are very impressive as very different types of society bigwigs. Scorsese’s film contains many other things to admire, but it’s such a wonderfully made piece of film-making, so overburdened with intelligent interpretation of the novel that it fails to make a real emotional connection with the viewer. You will respect and enjoy scenes from it, but perhaps find its running time as overbearing as the characters find the society they are in, and eventually find yourself needing to come up for air.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in an unusual love story Silver Linings Playbook

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Bradley Cooper (Pat Solitano Jnr), Jennifer Lawrence (Tiffany Maxwell), Robert De Niro (Pat Solitano Snr), Jacki Weaver (Dolores Solitano), Anupam Kher (Dr Cliff Patel), Chris Tucker (Danny McDaniels), Julia Stiles (Veronica), Shea Whigham (Jake Solitano), John Ortiz (Ronnie)

David O. Russell is a director it’s easier to admire than fall in love with. I can see why actors come back to work with him time and again – he’s clearly an actors’ director who crafts stories that give them chances to shine. But his films often have an archness about them, while I find too many of them settle for a sort of middle-of-the-road quirky cool. I’ve never really, truly, loved any of them – even if I have enjoyed them while watching them. The closest I think I’ve got is Silver Linings Playbook.

Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) is released from psychiatric hospital, after being confined for assaulting his ex-wife’s lover, into the care of his parents Pat Snr (Robert De Niro), unemployed now making a living as an underground bookmaker, and Dolores (Jacki Weaver). Suffering from a host of compulsions connected to his bipolar disorder, Pat is fixated on winning back his wife. To do so, he enlists the help of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), the widow of a policeman who died in a road traffic accident, who has her own borderline personality disorder and has been dealing with her grief through a parade of casual sexual encounters. Together they enter a dance competition – Tiffany because she always wanted to, Pat because Tiffany has offered to take Pat’s letters to his wife if he says yes and because Pat wants to prove to his wife that he has changed. But is there more than mutual convenience between the two?

Silver Linings Playbook is an unusual romance, that also explores themes of mental health and compulsions and how thin the lines can be between what we consider healthy and not healthy. When does obsession tip over into something that should be treated? Pat is the sort of guy who wakes his parents up to furiously denounce the Hemingway book he has just finished reading in one sitting (a scene played exuberantly for laughs – including Pat smashing a window by throwing the book out of it) but it quickly tips into danger when in a similar mania he awakens the entire neighbourhood at 3am tearing the house apart for his wedding video, accidentally hits his mother, and ends in a tear filled scuffle with his dad. Similarly, Tiffany’s tendencies towards aggression and self-destruction frequently put her in situations both funny and dreadfully damaging.

But just as close to this, we have Pat Snr’s addiction not only to gambling, but also to a raft of superstitions designed to better his chances of winning (and which dominate large parts of his life). Dolores seems obsessed with maintaining peace and order in the family. Pat’s brother has an almost savant tendency to speak his mind, causing more harm than good. Every character in this seems to have their own psychological hang-ups, with resulting problems.

But the film marries this up with an actually quite sweet romantic story between two damaged souls, both very well played by Cooper and Lawrence. This was the film where Cooper repositioned himself as a major actor of note. His performance here is a perfect mixture of charm, pain, confusion, frustration, insight and self-destructive monomania. He’s both funny and deeply moving, sweet and also slappable, gentle but with a capacity for unpredictability. He’s a terrific performance, deeply affecting. It also helps he has fabulous chemistry with an Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence’s Tiffany is a vulnerable soul, desperate to appear as tough and impossible to harm as possible and not caring about any of the collateral damage. She’s as brittle as she seems rigid, and as desperate for affection as she pretends to be uncaring about it.

The film throws these two together with an obvious spark from the start, and brilliantly uses their preparation for a dancing contest to show them growing closer together physically and emotionally, as well as adding a purpose to their lives and giving them a common goal to work towards. There is a rather nice gentleness, amongst all the chaos of this film, that something as simple as taking up a new hobby can help to ground two people.

The film builds the romance gently, carefully showing it developing organically and leaving us to guess at what point the bond between these two enrichens and deepens from an instant connection to something more profound. It’s sure got a lot to overcome, with Pat’s obsessive focus on his wife and Tiffany’s compulsion for meaningless sex and her own desire to destroy promising relationships (she almost immediately alienates the surprisingly gentlemanly Pat with an offer of casual sex on their first meeting). With a gentle slow-burn, the film builds towards something that ends up being rather moving.

Russell’s adaptation of the original novel is well-structured and entertaining and his unfussy, stylish direction brilliantly creates an enjoyable mode. De Niro (in what many people called a joyous return to form) and Weaver are both very good as the parents (both were Oscar nominated – this is one of the few films to be nominated in each acting category) and there is hardly a weak beat in the cast. After several quirky, indie-cool, rather distant films, this is possibly the most fun and the most heart-warming Russell has ever been. It’s a career high. Heck even Chris Tucker is really good. And I’d never thought I’d say that.

Brooklyn (2015)

Saoirse Ronan excels as an Irish immigrant in the USA, torn between two loves

Director: John Crowley

Cast: Saoirse Ronan (Ellis Lacey), Emory Cohen (Tony Fiorello), Domhnall Gleeson (Jim Farrell), Jim Broadbent (Father Flood), Julie Walters (Mrs Kehoe), Brid Brennan (Miss Kelly), Eva Birthistle (Georgina), Fiona Glascott (Rose Lacey), Jane Brennan (Mrs Lacey), Jessica Paré (Miss Fortini), Emily Bett Rickards (Patty), Nora-Jane Noone (Shelia), Eve Macklin (Diana), Jenn Murray (Dolores), Eileen O’Higgins (Nancy)

In the 1950s, Irish immigrants flocked to Brooklyn to build themselves a new life. Those who made the move often found themselves torn between two worlds – the lure of the new life they were building across the water, and the pull of the land of their fathers. Brooklyn, based on a successful novel by Colm Tóibín, places this conundrum in an intensely dramatic context by making the conflicting calls on its central character as much romantic as they are emotional.

Ellis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) is our homesick young woman, eager to build a new life in America. Sponsored by kindly priest Father Flood (Jim Broadbent, with more than a passing resemblance to Tóibín) and living in the boarding house of kindly-but-no-nonsense Mrs Kehoe (Julie Walters, in a role surely written for her) she finds work in a department store and trains at night as book keeper. She meets and falls in love with a sweet Italian American plumber Tony (Emory Cohen), but when tragedy occurs back in Ireland, on her return there she is strongly drawn to her homeland and to kindly, handsome Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson). Which life will Ellis choose?

You can see why Brooklyn was so popular with Oscar voters, and why it struck such a chord with so many people. It’s reassuringly, warmly, old-fashioned, a big-hearted, brightly filmed, gorgeously mounted “woman’s picture”, the sort of story that Hollywood studios churned out in the 1940s and 1950s (you know, those sort of “who will she choose!” films). Crowley pulls the material together however with real emotional force, married with an interestingly different (if gently touched upon) theme of the immigrant experience.

Helped by a very good script by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn is not only emotionally moving but also much funnier than you might expect. Part of this is deliberate choice, expanding parts of the novel (particularly the dry humour of Mrs Kehoe, seized upon with relish by Julie Walters) that bring the funny, but also from the warmth, regard and humanity it invests its characters in. Ellis is a character so well drawn, whose feelings are so real, that we end up feeling deeply invested in her, and all the more ready to respond to her quick intelligence and dry (but gentle) wit. 

It’s a gift of a part for Saoirse Ronan, who is quite simply outstanding as a quiet, sheltered woman who grows, changes and decides to create her own destiny before our very eyes. (Helped by Hornby’s script again, which uses the Ireland-USA-Ireland structure to pinpoint many dramatic bookends and contrasts that Crowley subtly, and not forcefully, brings to the screen.) Ronan’s intelligence and her conflicting desires are clear in every scene, while her eyes seem able to communicate reserves of emotional depth. In two cultures where it isn’t easy for a woman to define her own destiny, Ronan brilliantly shows the difficulties many woman had in understanding or expressing what they want, in a world where they haven’t been set-up to think like that.

The film also doesn’t make it easier for her by making her two suitors – while radically different men – both such charming, lovely guys. Cohen’s Tony is a boyish enthusiast, full of hopes and dreams, who seems to represent everything that America has to offer Ellis. Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim is decent, honourable, kind, old-fashioned man who represents everything that she realises her Irish culture has for her – tradition, decency and a sense of self. It also speaks to how well drawn Ellis is by the film, and how deeply well-though out Ronan’s performance is, that it makes perfect sense that these two very different men would be drawn to her, and that both bring out different parts of her personality, which never feel contradictory.

It works as well because we’ve lived through everything Ellis has. She is present in nearly every scene in the film, and we see her change from a shy, scared, frightened woman on the boat from Ireland who needs to be cared for by an experienced emigrant fellow passenger (a very good cameo from Eva Birthistle) to a woman who flourishes in her new surroundings and the opportunities she is given. We need to feel that connection with her, since some of her behaviour (if it came from a man) would probably be seen as quite shabby indeed. But because we have such an understanding of her inner life – and because Ronan has such an empathetic and expressive face – we understand the reasons for her conundrum.

It’s that conundrum that lies at the centre of the film, and to be honest what dominates it. It works because it is done with such emotional truth (aided by Michael Brook’s excellent, heart-string tugging score that mixes American sounds with Irish folk to glorious affect), but the film is primarily a nostalgia romance. While it’s very setting makes you think about the immigrant life, it has very little to say really about either the cultural phenomenon or the impact it has on either the USA or Ireland (a charity Christmas meal for former Irish railway workers now all homeless is as close as it gets to talking about long-term integration). It doesn’t really matter, because the central story sweeps you up so much, but it does make the film more of a romance than the grander claims made for it by some as some sort of commentary on Irish immigration.

But there’s nothing wrong with such a handsome, romantic, emotional drama, or one that feels so reassuringly old-fashioned, even as it is made with touches of wit and confidence. Making some welcome comments on feminism, and led by Saoirse Ronan at her finest, it’s still a triumph of old-style, romantic, women’s pictures that you’d have to be pretty cold not to feel some sort of warming in your cockles by the end of it.

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer are lovers drawn together in Call Me By Your Name

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Cast: Timothée Chalamet (Elio Perlman), Armie Hammer (Oliver), Michael Stuhlbarg (Professor Perlman), Amira Casar (Annella Perlman), Esther Garrell (Marzia), Victoire Du Bois (Chiara)

First love is a story everyone can relate to. Call Me By Your Name unfolds an engrossing early romance, where precocious 17-year old Elio (Timothée Chalamat) discovers his bisexuality through his deep attraction to his professor father’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) summer research assistant, 24-year old Oliver (Armie Hammer). An attraction which, over a long hot summer in Northern Italy in 1983, finally leads to a deep romantic and sexual bond forming between the two.

Refreshingly, Guadagnino’s film is relentlessly positive and devoid of tension or disapproval. You’d expect a romance such as this – especially a gay one – to lead to an eventual outburst of furious disapproval from someone or tear-filled remonstrations that what the couple have isn’t wrong. These are avoided completely, for something that feels intensely real and convincingly grounded, especially as it follows Elio’s stumbling attempts to identify his own sexuality and understand how his feelings affect him. 

This is also a showcase for acting, a film like this living or dying on the chemistry between the two lead actors, and Chalamet and Hammer have this in spades, suggesting from the very start a deep bond, that grows in emotional intensity. The relationship is a slow dance, with both of them blowing hot and cold at different times. Oliver’s first tentative approach is resoundingly rebuffed by Elio, only for Elio’s fascination with Oliver to grow into a deep unexpressed longing, which Oliver is nervous about responding to for a host of factors, from the age difference to his residence in Elio’s parents’ house. Even after the two come together, Elio’s confusion about his own feelings leads him to turn colder before the two finally find an equilibrium that works. 

It’s also a classic coming of age story, as Elio moves out of adolescence and into adulthood. Elio never feels like a traditional teenager in the first place, a musical prodigy and talented autodidact who seems to have read nearly everything (“Is there anything you don’t know?” Oliver jokingly says at one point after Elio explains the detailed history of a war memorial). But in other ways he is the same as any other teen: sex-obsessed and confused, spending a lot of time with two female friends who he seems to be unsure of his feelings are towards, indulging in explorative sexual fantasies and fumbled exploration of his own and others’ bodies, working out what he likes and what he doesn’t.

It leads to a superb performance from Chalamet (youngest ever nominee for Best Actor at the Oscars), who perfectly captures both the intelligence of Elio, and his confused lack of understanding of who or what he is. Chalamet’s body language – a mixture of awkward teen and assured adult, is a perfect physical expression of his part-adult, part-child psyche. Like any teenager, he’s at times selfish, greedy or plain annoying. But at many others he’s sensitive, delicate, vulnerable and desperate to express his love. Chalamet juggles all these competing emotions and hormonal drives brilliantly, and his face is a true instrument of expression, a sliding kaleidoscope of confused urges that compels your attention.

It’s a perfect match-up with Hammer, who is superb as just the sort of boisterous, confident, exciting and sexy presence you can imagine being drawn towards. But Hammer also laces Oliver with a tenderness, a concern and a gentleness beneath his joie de vive that really expands the character’s soul and makes him not just a force of vibrancy but also a genuinely lovely man. Hammer is very careful (as is the film) to avoid the possibility of Oliver being seen as a seducer, and it does this by giving him a touching restraint as well as manipulation-free openness, an honesty and an emotional freeness that helps make him more often the pursued rather than the pursuer.

Guadagnino lets this gentle love story unfold over a luscious, gorgeous Italian summer, with his camera drifting contentedly around the two lovers and their environment, as much a part of the dance of their initial attraction. The film is resolutely “in the moment” and has no flashbacks, flash forwards or any real reference to any narrative events outside of what we see on screen. It unfolds gracefully and naturally, with the camera work largely taking an unflashy but still warm view on everything we see.

Guadagnino deliberately treats much of the central romance element with reserve, avoiding too much nudity and panning discretely away from sexual encounters between the two. (I will say though, that he has no such reserve with Elio’s heterosexual encounters, where female nudity and sex are shown in full.) It does successfully preserve a sense of innocence and purity in the relationship – and keeps the focus on the fact that this love between the two is about them becoming better people, who understand themselves better, through the relationship. 

This positive message is reinforced by the acceptance of Elio and Oliver from all in the film, including Elio’s parents. Michael Stuhlbarg in particular has a scene near the end of the film of wonderful power – cementing his status from this film as a dream dad – with a speech to his son so full of acceptance, encouragement and love that you’ll feel your heart melt. Both Elio’s parents are very aware of the relationship and tacitly encourage it: according to this film at least, if you’re young and gay, growing up in a Bohemian, academic household does make your life easier! (Even Oliver comments that Elio has no idea how lucky he is.)

This film is also refreshing for its lack of casualties. Sure the two girls Elio and Oliver flirt with are disregarded swiftly, and the film gives only a little time to their rather shabby treatment, but generally it’s a film about learning who you are by spending time with someone else. And if that includes a few moments of teen awkward sexual exploration that are almost unbearable to watch (a scene with a curious Elio and a peach is a case in point, replete with queasy sound effects) then so be it.

Call Me By Your Name is a terrific coming-of-age tale, emotionally honest, true and mature and directed with a graceful ease and unshowy skill that is a testament to the deep confidence and grace of its director. With two superb performances and some excellent support work, it’s a glorious summer movie of love that will speak to you regardless of sexuality.

Cold Mountain (2003)

Nicole Kidman and Jude Law are souls in love separated by war in Cold Mountain

Director: Anthony Minghella

Cast: Jude Law (WP Inman), Nicole Kidman (Ada Monroe), Renée Zellweger (Ruby Thewes), Eileen Atkins (Maddy), Kathy Baker (Sally Swanger), James Gammon (Esco Swanger), Brendan Gleeson (Stobrod Thewes), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Reverend Veasey), Natalie Portman (Sara), Giovanni Ribisi (Junior), Lucas Black (Oakley), Donald Sutherland (Reverend Monroe), Cillian Murphy (Bardolph), Jack White (Georgia), Ray Winstone (Teague), Melora Walters (Lila), Charlie Hunnam (Bosie)

There was no difficult novel Anthony Minghella couldn’t adapt for the big screen. Cold Mountain is as beautiful and handsome a film as any he made, and his masterful scripting of a complex story is testament to his skill. So why is Cold Mountain not more loved? Is it because it’s almost too well made, too handsomely mounted, too literary and intelligent? Is it, actually, trying a little too hard? Is it a Cold Mountain itself, a giant structure of beauty but with an icy heart?

Based on Charles Frazier’s novel, set in the final days of the American Civil War, confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law), knowing the war is lost, deserts to return to the woman he loves, Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman). The two of them have only spoken a few times but they feel a deep personal bond. During the years of war, poverty has hit preacher’s daughter Ada, although she has crafted a life-changing friendship with 18th century trailer trash Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger) which has helped her survive. As Inman’s odyssey home leads to him encountering a number of different vignettes that show the despair Civil War has brought to America, Ada struggles to survive and avoid the sinister attentions of home guard enforcer Teague (Ray Winstone).

There is so much to admire in Cold Mountain I want to start there. The photography is beautiful, and the film is assembled with a striking grace and skill. Walter Murch’s editing and sound design is perfect, with each shot of the film being fabulously composed and each carrying a specific message and purpose that contributes to the overall impact. The use of music – a collaboration between T Bone Burnett and Gabriel Yared – is perfect, a series of wonderful period compositions and impactful orchestral pieces. 

Everything about how Minghella captures the feel of the time, the mood of the South heading into war, and the disintegration of social conventions as the war takes hold and lays waste to the land, rings completely true. From the celebrations of the young men at the film’s start, to the increasingly haunted, tragic look of Jude Law’s Inman as he discovers new horrors at every point in his journey, you know war is hell. Minghella ironically opens the film with a catastrophic defeat for the North – but the slaughter disgusts Inman, and his burial under mounds of rubble during an explosion leads to a spiritual rebirths with Inman deciding senseless killing isn’t worth the candle any more. In a war of willing volunteers, how do we respond when these volunteers don’t want to keep fighting?

And why should they, as each of the various vignettes Inman walks through is a wasteland of moral collapse? From a sex-obsessed preacher (an amusing performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman) who has lost his morals to a tragic widow desperately trying to feed her baby (Natalie Portman, effectively stealing the whole show with an intense performance of utter desolation), everything Inman sees shows that nothing is worth all this. The film gets a very good sense of the drive that pushes Inman forward: constantly moving, he’s rarely seen sitting or resting. Each of the Odyssey-inspired stories gives him something to reflect on, or another opportunity for moral and emotional torment , from dragging bodies in a chain gang to avoiding the lustful advances of a group of hillbilly sirens who trap deserters for money.

Meanwhile, things ain’t much better on the homefront, where corrupt bullies like Teague (a slightly too obvious Ray Winstone) are enforcing their own law at the expense of justice. Poverty is also the impact of war, and poor Ada suffers hugely from this, as supplies run low and eventually out. Minghella’s swift and skilful establishment of character shows from the start how Ada is a stranger in a strange land, a middle-class town girl who is completely unsuited for country life and utterly unready to fend for herself when the chips are down without support. 

Is it any wonder in this world, that Inman and Ada cling to memories? Part of the film’s effect depends on how you respond to the romantic bond between these two clinging to a few brief moments (a few exchanges and one immensely passionate kiss on the day of Inman’s departure). It’s an old-fashioned, sweeping, love story and it depends on you relating to that old-fashioned mythic love story. I’m not sure that the film quite sells this as effectively as it could do. Somehow, perhaps because Inman is so insular and Ada a little too difficult to relate to, the passion between them can’t quite carry the sweep that the film demands, even as Minghella skilfully intercuts between them.

Nicole Kidman in particular feels miscast as Ada. Kidman is too intelligent, too determined and strong a performer to convince as a woman who is unable to look after herself and nearly succumbs to fear – she’s just not an actress I can picture cowering in fear in front of an angry rooster. Kidman does her best, but the character never really wins the sympathy that we need for the performance to work. Jude Law has much more to work with as Inman, brilliantly communication a whole world of feeling with very little dialogue. 

What works less well with Law is that his plotline just doesn’t quite grip enough. The vignettes are often entertaining, but feel like episodic sketches, and the sense of a building picture of the despair of the South doesn’t quite come into shape as much in practice as it does in theory. Frankly, after a while, you are ready for Inman’s journey to come to an end and for him to intersect with Ada’s plotline back at Cold Mountain (which is built around a consistent group of characters who engage our interest).

In the home front storyline you’ll be relieved with the entrance (almost an hour into the film) of Renée Zellweger’s blowsy Ruby, a loud-mouthed, trailer-trash woman with a heart of gold and a mastery of farming who effectively saves Ada’s life. It’s a loud, big, Oscar-winning performance from Zellweger that plays with being a little broad, but is skilfully balanced by the slow reveal that this personality is a cover that Ruby uses to hide her own pain. Added to this depth, her heart-warming presence carries such simple pleasure and colour compared to the more muted performances from the leads that you welcome it. 

Because Inman and Ada don’t quite work as a romantic couple. There is something slightly cold about them, slightly hard to relate to. And for all the intense and brilliant construction and filming of the film – and the mastery of Minghella’s writing and direction – it never makes them into the sort of classic romantic couple you care for. You want to connect with it more than you ever really do, and whether that is down to miscasting or the lack of intense chemistry between them I’m not sure, but it means Cold Mountain never becomes the great romantic tragedy it should be. You want a film this good to be as good as it feels – and it never quite is.

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)

Jean Louis-Barrault mimes up a storm in French masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis

Director: Marcel Carné

Cast: Arletty (Claire “Garance” Reine), Jean-Louis Barrault (Baptiste Deburau), Pierre Brasseur (Frédérick Lemaître), Marcel Herrand (Pierre-François Lacenaire), Pierre Renoir (Jéricho), María Casarès (Nathalie), Louis Salou (Comte Édouard de Montray), Gaston Modot (Fil de Soie), Fabien Loris (Avril), Marcel Pérès (Director of the Funambules), Pierre Palau (Stage manager)

Les Enfants du Paradis is France’s Gone with the Wind or Casablanca – a beloved classic that holds an unshakeable place in any list of great French films. And you can’t argue with that, this is the sort of gem of a film that should be watched and seen by anyone who loves movies. Carné’s magisterial epic hums with a mix of romance and drama, comedy and tragedy, hope and despair. It not only captures the magic of theatre, but also the different shades and variations of love and lust. A totemic expression of art and life, it opened immediately after the liberation and ran for 54 solid weeks in Paris.

Set in the Parisian theatre scene of 1820-1830, the film charts not only the early foundation of French theatre, but also four very different men who all share a love for one enchanting, elliptical and magnetic woman, the mysterious Garance (Arletty). These men (all fictionalised versions of real people, except de Montray) are pioneering mime artist Baptiste Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault), aspiring classical actor Frédérick Lemaître (Pierre Brasseur), ruthless artiste and criminal Pierre-François Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand) and arrogant Comte Édouard de Montray (Louis Salou). The lives and feelings of these five characters clash and interweave over ten years.

In many ways, it’s a miracle that Carné’s film exists at all. It was shot on a high budget in occupied France. Filming was disrupted by the war and the peace – the actor originally playing small time hustler Jéricho was sentenced to death for collaboration and fled the country to be replaced by Pierre Renoir (son of the painter, brother to the director) – and its star Arletty was in prison for having an affair with a German Luftwaffe officer when the film was released. The film was split into two as Nazi rules prevented any films from being longer than 90 minutes. Half the vast number of extras were members of the Resistance using the film as cover. Its skilled art director Alexander Trauner and composer Joseph Kosma were secret Jews (Trauner was living under a false name with Carné). Filming delays struck the production time and time again. How did this get made?

Well it’s a wartime miracle, and a gift to any film-lover because Carné’s film is a magisterial achievement, a beautifully paced epic that mixes spectacle with human emotion. It looks simply sublime. Trauner’s set and design are astonishingly ambitious and real, beautifully bringing to life both the streets of Paris and the theatre of the early nineteenth century. The detail and costumes are sumptuous and the world it invokes all-consuming. You can see why the film was considered an almost unbelievable folly to mount during wartime. But it creates the perfect bustling, real life drama for Carné’s poetic story to be built around. 

Carné worked with Jacques Prevert, possibly France’s greatest screenwriter, on the script and crafted a romantic epic that manages to seem timeless. In its sweep and detail it shows every stratum of French society, and shows the same human emotions drive us all from high to low, no matter the background. On top of that, it mixes a romantic sweep with a real understanding of the selfishness, greed and flaws of humanity. Prevert’s script juggles the narrative balls of all these characters and uses each of them to show different facets of the passion and obsession of love. 

Carné’s camera works beautifully, exploring Trauner’s set brilliantly to recreate beautifully the beginnings of French modern theatre. He knows when to keep the camera simple, and when to use extravagant shots: his opening crane shots through the bustling streets of Paris are superb, as is the carefully static camera that captures Barrault’s early mime routine. He has a wonderful understanding of the backstage world of theatre: very few other films have captured the mood and atmosphere of life behind the scenes. He also is perfectly at home with Prevert’s literary and witty script, packed with good lines. There are superb scenes from start to finish – despite its length, everything feels essential and the pace never slackens, because each moment teaches us something about character or deepens our understanding of their relationships and the world of the film. This is possibly one of the paciest and leanest three-hour films you will ever see.

At the centre of all this is Arletty as the mesmerising Garrance. Arletty juggles a hugely difficult role: Garrance is, in some ways, with her desire for liberty, her strong will, her mysteriousness, her desire for independence clashing with her sense of being bent to the will of men, an expression of France herself, following in the footsteps of Delacroix’s Liberty or Joan of Arc. Arletty’s performance is fine, playing up to this legendary unknowability, although I will say she is (whisper it) at nearly 50 too old for the part (in high definition she looks noticeably older than most of the men courting her). I must confess re-watching it that I would have loved the astonishingly talented María Casarès to play the role (she is exceptionally heartfelt and tragic as Baptiste’s devoted but unloved wife-to-be), but it’s a very hard part, a role that has to be everything to all the men in the film, but also whose true desires (under the masks she must wear) are hard to know. 

Arletty’s slightly stagy and theatrical, mannered performance is perhaps shown up as well by the more genuine and enjoyable performances around her. As mentioned, Casarès is sublime as the tragic Nathalie. Pierre Brassuer is extraordinarily entertaining and larger-than-life as Lemaître, a bon-vivant with ambition but who is willing to accept that life moves on and relationships change. Marcel Herrand is wonderful as Lacenaire, a character of immense shades of grey, part ruthless crook, part bitter cynic, part romantic. Lacenaire’s actions defy characterisation but constantly feel true, and Herrand plays the role with a sly wit tinged with danger that I love.

Jean-Louis Barrault, himself a famous mime artist, is physically perfect as Baptiste – his mime sequences are extraordinary in their detail and grace – and he makes for a fascinating nominal lead. A romantic in some ways, a nervous young pup who idealises Garrance (while Lemaître sees her more as an equal partner, Lacenaire a kind of protégé, and the Comte as property who can be brought and sold) who turns down advances offers from Garrance due to his idealised view of her, his development is fascinating. Starting as our romantic lead, Prevert and Carné slowly reveal that the years turn him into someone approaching a selfish obsessive, barely able to function when Garrance is near, who jilts his wife and child in a heartbeat when he has the opportunity to see her, an obsessive who will sacrifice others without a thought to feed his fire. 

Does Garrance return this love? Perhaps yes, it’s one of the mysteries of the film. This is, after all, a world abounding with actors and liars, where people take on personalities all the time. A blind beggar gleefully shows his disability is a façade when someone buys him dinner. Pierre Renoir’s hustler Jéricho has as many nom-de-plumes as he does dodgy deals. Garrance perhaps recognises in Baptiste the only one of her potential lovers who has no desire to bend any part of her to his will – Lemaître will place his ambition first, Lacenaire would have her a partner in crime, the Comte would control her every move – and maybe this is what draws her to him. 

But the romance in the film is never that simple: instead it’s as likely to cause harm as happiness. Carné’s beautiful and wise film shows love is never simple and romance is never as harmless as we might like to think. The dialogue is perfectly assembled, the acting superb and every shot of the film is beautiful. Les Enfants du Paradis is a classic must for lovers of film, but also for lovers of theatre – its recreation of early nineteenth-century theatre is perfect – and a film that you can watch and enjoy time and time again.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

He hates sand you know. Anakin puts the moves on Padmé in Attack of the Clones

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), Natalie Portman (Senator Padmé Amidala), Ian McDiarmid (Chancellor Palpatine), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett), Frank Oz (Yoda), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Kenny Baker (R2 D2), Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa), Ahmed Best (Jar Jar Binks), Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker), Joel Edgerton (Owen Lars), Silas Carson (Nute Gunray/Ki-Adi-Mundi)

Nothing could be as bad as The Phantom Menace. Surely? Well, umm, Attack of the Clones is pretty bad, but it’s not quite as stodgy and racist as the first one. It really isn’t. But don’t get me wrong, it’s still tone death, poorly written, crappily directed, poorly assembled, textbook bad film-making disguised under a lot of money.

Anyway, ten years have crawled by since Phantom Menace. Padmé (Natalie Portman) is now a senator campaigning against a revolutionary Separatist movement in the Republic, led by mysterious former Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee). After a failed assassination attempt, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his Padewan pupil Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christiansen) are assigned to protect her. After another assassination attempt throws up a strange link to a mysterious planet of industrial cloners, Obi-Wan investigates leaving Padmé in Anakin’s care: but the two of them are falling in love, strictly against the rules of the Jedi order.

Sigh. Attack of the Clones is once again a mess, overly computer engineered, badly directed by a director with no knack for visual storytelling other than throwing special effects at the screen. It has a densely disinteresting plot about shady dealings around a mysterious Clone army that eventually the film doesn’t bother to resolve. Lucas shoots the entire film in a shiny, sterile, entirely computer generated environment that looks worse and worse the older the film gets. It builds towards a series of clashes at the end that have impressive spectacle on first viewing, but are hugely empty viewing experiences the more you come back to them. But all this isn’t even the film’s main problem.

First and foremost, the most egregious problem with this film is the romance at its heart. This romance, whose impact is meant to be felt through every film is to come, is as clumsy and unconvincing as anything you are likely to see. Not for one second are you convinced that this couple could ever actually be a thing. For starters Anakin is a whiny, preening, chippy rather dull man who over the course of the film murders a village full of people. Hardly the sort of character to make women swoon. On top of this, his romantic banter and tendency of staring blankly and possessively at Padmé has all the charm of a would-be stalker, mentally planning out the dimensions of the basement he’ll imprison his love in. 

Padmé is hardly much more engaging. Her way of handling this love-struck young man, who she claims she doesn’t want to encourage? To flirt with him in a series of increasingly revealing costumes, while constantly telling him “no we can’t do anything” – for unspecified reasons. But then as she says “you’ll always be that 12 year old boy to me” (Oh yuck George!). Portman looks she can barely raise any interest in holding Anakin’s hand, let alone conceiving future generations of Skywalkers. The desperate attempt to create a sense of “love across the divide” falls flat, flat, flat with all the sweep of a Casualty romance of the week. Put it frankly, we are never ever given any reason at all for us to think that they have any reason to be in love.

Despite all this the film desperately tries to throw them together into a series of clichéd romantic encounters, from candle-lit meals to gondola cruises around the lakes of Naboo. Jesus the film even throws in a flirtatious picnic (in which, true to form, Anakin espouses the benefits of totalitarianism, hardly the sort of thing to get a young girl’s heart fluttering!) followed by a roll around in the long grass after a bit of horseplay. To be honest it’s sickening and all the fancy dressing in the world never disguises the utter lack of chemistry between either characters or actors. And you’ll suffer with the actors who are trawling through the appalling “romantic” dialogue. The infamous “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth” sums it up – especially as Anakin ends it with stroking Amidala’s exposed shoulder possessively. Late in the film Padmé says “I’ve been dying inside since you came back into my life” – I know how she fuckin’ feels.

But then to be honest nothing really works in this simply terrible film. Of course a lot of the blame rests with Lucas whose overwhelming ineptitude as a writer and director is exposed in scene after scene. Most of the dialogue lacks any wit or lightness at all, constantly straining for a grandeur it can’t deliver and reads like George simply knocked out the first draft and left it at that. As for his directing: the camera positioning lacks any imagination what-so-ever. Most scenes that don’t have lightsabers feature characters sitting talking at each other to fill in plot details (I’m not joking here, there are so many different designs of chairs in this film it’s like strolling around IKEA). Sometimes George spices it up by having characters work slowly and aimlessly from A to B telling each other the plot (I’m failing to resist saying this is a pretty decent metaphor from the film).

The film shakes this up with a few action sequences which either tediously ape things we’ve seen before, but not-as-good (a chase through an asteroid field smacks of Empire Strikes Back) or having a computer game realism to them that never involves you. A prolonged sequence in a battle droid factory literally looks like a computer game from its hideously shiny lack of realism, to its logic, to the way George shoots it with the conveyor belt moving relentlessly forward visually like a dated platform game.

In fact computer game is a pretty good way of thinking about this film. When making this film, Lucas was convinced this would be the start of a new age: that only dull, traditional directors would be building sets and that all the cool kids would make everything in computers. Watching this film today in hi-def blu-ray does it no favours. Lucas’ computer generated sets (in most shots everything except the actors and their costumes are not real) look ridiculously shiny and unrealistic. There is no weight and reality to anything. Instead it all looks like some sort of bizarre, wonky computer visuals. How can you invest in anything in this film when even the goddamn sofa they are sitting on is a visual effect? How can anything have any weight or meaning? Compared to the lived in appearance of the Millennium Falcon, nothing looks realistic or carries any weight at all.

George Lucas isn’t really a director of action either. It’s hard not to compare the epic battles here with the style and substance of the (equally effects filled world) of Lord of the Rings being released at the same time. There, the battle scenes not only carry real emotional weight and peril but also have at least some sense of tactics and story-telling. This is just a collection of special effects being thrown at each other, like an exploding fart in a special effects lab. This makes for events that look impressive when you first see them, but carry no lasting impact: when you revisit the film, nothing feels important or dangerous or coherent – instead it’s just a lot of stuff happening, loudly.

This goes for the famous Yoda-Dooku light saber duel. Sure when I first saw this, seeing a computer generated muppet take on a stunt double with an octogenarian’s face super-imposed on his felt really exciting. But again, on repeated viewings, it’s just a load of wham and bang that kind of leaves you cold (not least because the fight is a showy bore-draw). It’s as ridiculously over-made and over stuffed as half a dozen other fights in the film. It’s almost representative of how crude these prequels are: a character always defined by his intellect and patience in Yoda reduced to a bouncy special effect for a moment of cheap “wow” for the fans. I’ll also throw in the lousy fan service of turning Boba Fett (a character who has a fascination for a lot of fans for no real reason) into an integral part of the Star Wars backstory – as if George intended this character at any point to be so popular, until he released the merchandising opportunities…

Lucas’ direction fails time and time and time again. Even small scenes fall with a splat or feature moments that get the wrong type of chuckles. The moment where Anakin embraces his dying mother? Forever ruined by the snigger worthy collapse of Pernilla August’s Shmi in his arms, looking like a primary school child miming playing dead (tongue out and all) in a school play. Obi-Wan and Anakin’s chase through the skies of Coruscant packed with “jokey” attempted buddy cop lines that never ring true. The film has even more skin crawlingly embarrassing scenes than Phantom Menace, from a sickeningly cutesy room of “younglings” learning Jedi skills to Obi-Wan’s bizarre encounter with a greasy alien in some sort of American diner. There is precisely one moment of wit in the film (Obi-Wan using the force to tell a drug dealer to “You want to go home and rethink your life”). Other than that – nope, it’s poorly made, poorly written, poorly assembled rubbish.

None of the actors emerge with credit. Pity poor old Hayden Christiansen, left to his own devices by Lucas’s inept, direction free, direction. But he is absolutely, drop-down, unreedemably awful in this film. In fact Anakin, far from being a jumping off point, was the death-knell of his career. Was there really no other young actor with charisma who could have stepped in to take this role instead? Portman fairs a tiny bit better, while at least McGregor, Jackson and Lee have enough experience to take care of themselves. But there is no sense of relationship between any of these characters. The two most important relationships Anakin has in the film contain no chemistry: he and Padme and he and Obi-Wan (neither of whom seem to particularly like each other).

Attack of the Clones could never be as disappointing as Phantom Menace (what could?) but it’s far, far, far away from being a good film. It’s got a simply terrible script, is directed with a dull flatness that all the CGI flair and shouting can’t distract you from. There is nothing in there for you to invest emotionally in. It’s built around a relationship that quite frankly doesn’t work at all on any levels. It builds to a random ending that feels like George ran out of ideas rather than because it meets any thematic reason. How could it all have gone so wrong?

Shadowlands (1993)

Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins sublime in the moving Shadowlands

Director: Richard Attenborough

Cast: Anthony Hopkins (CS “Jack” Lewis), Debra Winger (Joy Davidman), Edward Hardwicke (Warnie Lewis), Joseph Mazzello (Douglas Gresham), John Woods (Dr Christopher Riley), Michael Denison (Harry Harrington), James Frain (Peter Whistler), Julian Fellowes (Desmond Arding), Peter Firth (Dr Craig), Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Dr Eddie Monk)

“We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That’s the deal”. It’s a sentiment that runs through Shadowlands, a beautifully made, deeply heartfelt, incredibly moving tear-jerker based on the (largely) true story of how the man who invented Narnia, CS Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), fell in love very late in life with an American poet Joy Davidman (Debra Winger) only for her to succumb to cancer early in their marriage.

The story had a been a life-long investment from William Nicholson, who had developed the story first into a radio play, a TV drama (with Joss Ackland and a BAFTA winning Claire Bloom) and then a stage play (which won Nigel Hawthorne several awards in the lead role, including a Tony Award) and finally into this film. A wonderfully tender, profound and genuine exploration of the not only grief but the joy and delight that opening yourself up to love can bring you, Nicholson’s Oscar nominated script was brought to the screen by Richard Attenborough.

Looking back over Attenborough’s CV you immediately notice the vast majority of films he directed were massive, all-star, huge scope epics – A Bridge Too Far, Gandhi – which were as much triumphs of logistics and studio managements as they were displays of directing. Shadowlands is one of the smallest scale, most personal films he ever made – and it’s enough to make you wish that Attenborough had allowed himself to make more intimate chamber pieces like this. It’s a wonderful reminder, not only of how skilled he is at pacing and story-telling, but also what a sublime actor’s director he is. Dealing with material that in lesser hands could have become sentimental, Attenborough turns out a film that is realistic, tender, sad but also laced throughout with a warmth and (figurative and literal) Joy.

And of course the involvement of Attenborough also meant the involvement of his regular collaborator Anthony Hopkins. At the start of the 90s Hopkins was in such a run of form he could plausibly claim to be the best actor in the world. In all of this though, Shadowlands might be one of his finest accomplishments. Superbly detailed, perfectly restrained, gentle, tender, hugely vulnerable and intensily scared (under it all) of connecting with the wider world or allowing himself to feel genuine emotions, Hopkins’ CS Lewis is simply exceptional. With all the discipline of a great actor he never once goes for the easy option, but gently allows emotions to play behind his eyes (the eyes by the way that he can hardly bring himself to settle on other people until half way through the film). And those moments where he weeps – three times in the film, and each increasingly more emotional – are simply beautiful in every way from acting to filming.

Lewis is bashful and repressed, so it’s all the moving to see his face start to relax into excitement and joy when he spots Joy in the audience at a lecture he is giving, or him simply enjoying the intelligence and challenge that she brings to her conversation with him. Debra Winger as Joy Davidman matches Hopkins step-for-step, in a sublime performance of prickily New York attitudes at first out of touch in Oxford, but whose humanity shines through. It takes her time perhaps to feel the love Lewis does (but can’t admit too), but when she does start to feel more for Lewis, she has no patience for his repressed unwillingness to acknowledge them. On top of which, Winger is very funny in the role – she has little truck with the sheltered, clubbish snobbiness of some of Lewis’ friends and takes a wicked delight in shocking the stuffy, unchallenged intellectuals.

The chemistry between these two actors is sublime, and the slightly autumnal relationship between the two of them that builds feels wonderfully genuine. Nicholson’s script makes an astute examination of Lewis’ personality and Christianity. Throughout the film, we are brought back again and again to a lecture Lewis gives – with increasingly less and less disconnection – on why God allows suffering and pain in the world. Pleasingly Lewis’ faith in the film isn’t challenged – only his rather pleased-with-itself lack of doubt and his complacent lack of experience. Experiencing love and loss himself, makes him question the views he has held – and leads him to develop a richer, more genuine understanding of the world.

Which all makes the film sound very heavy, and it’s not. It’s a delightfully light done story that never once leans too hard on the tragedy. Instead it punctures several moments with touches of humour (much of it from Joy’s American clashes with high-table Britishness) and moments of sweet affection. The film gains a lot of balance from Edward Hardwicke’s delightful performance as Lewis’ Dr Watson-ish brother Warnie, a bluff ex-army officer turned academic who reveals himself over the course of a film to have a great deal of hidden love, affection and empathy. It also has a delightful performance from Joseph Mazzello as Douglas Gresham, a child performance that brilliantly avoids all cloying sweetness and feels very real as a shy, nervous boy dealing with his mother dying.

But then, Lewis is also a shy nervous boy (both he and Warnie never really got over the death of their mother as boys – a moment that both wordlessly acknowledge while observing Joy with her son at the hospital), and the film follows him becoming something more than that, a man wh has loved and lost and can deal with it. A neat subplot around James Frain’s difficult working-class student demonstrates his growing ability to relate and empathise with others. A large chunk of the film builds towards Lewis’ tearful outpouring of grief (a scene impossible to watch dry eyed), a reaction that seemed impossible in the opening moments.

But then that’s what the film is saying: We have to accept that the joy of loving people, the wonder and warmth that they bring to our life, will inevitably one day lead to us losing them. Allowing us to experience love and joy is counter balanced by the pain we will feel when they go. It’s a deal – and if it is a deal, it’s the price we pay for having our life enriched. Attenborough’s simply beautiful, romantic film covers all this gently and brilliantly: it’s a film to treasure and hold tight.

My Fair Lady (1964)

Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison cover how to speak proper in My Fair Lady

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle), Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins), Stanley Holloway (Alfred P Doolittle), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Higgins), Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy), Mona Washbourne (Mrs Pearce), Isobel Elsom (Mrs Eynsford-Hill), Henry Daniell (British Ambassador)

My Fair Lady is possibly one of the most popular musicals of all time. A singing-and-dancing adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, a satire on self-improvement and sexual politics, the original Broadway production ran for over six years and 2,717 performances, while the original cast-recording album was a smash hit bestseller. It was a question of when rather than if a film version would be made. When it finally happened, the film was garlanded with Oscars aplenty, not least Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

The musical follows the story of Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a cockney flower girl in Victorian London, whose life is changed after a chance encounter with linguistics genius Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). Higgins has a bet with his colleague Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) – he can change Eliza’s accent and manners so much that the shrill cockney girl will pass for a society belle. The bet will not only change their lives, but also those of Eliza’s father, sage-like binman Alfred (Stanley Holloway), and lovestruck romantic young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett). 

From the start, producer Jack L Warner wanted to develop a new verison of the film, fresh and different from the stage production. George Cukor, the esteemed director from Hollywood’s Golden Years, was brought on board as a safe pair of hands – but it was clear Warner was calling the shots. How to put your own stamp on a massive hit musical? Well you start by getting a fresh cast in. Julie Andrews had made the role her own in the original production, so Hollywood was stunned when she was overlooked for the part. Instead Audrey Hepburn was hired – while Julie Andrews got the consolation price of being able to accept Disney’s offer of the role of Mary Poppins. Warner knew who he wanted for Higgins – and Cary Grant was swiftly courted for the role. But Grant refused, allegedly responding that he wouldn’t even see the film unless Rex Harrison was retained in his signature role.

So Harrison owes him a drink or two, because the film allowed him to leave a permanent record of a stage role he had played over 1,000 times on Broadway and in the West End. Harrison had taken a revolutionary approach to musicals, by basically not singing. Instead he sort of spoke the songs rhythmically – an approach that every other performer of the role has stuck to. The film is a brilliant capture of this unique and authoritative performance, and while Harrison is not exactly fresh he’s certainly charismatic, delivering every scene with confidence and well-rehearsed bombast.

Harrison’s steely lack of willingness to compromise also lead indirectly to a revolution in sound recording in the movies. Harrison refused to obey the custom at the time to lip-sync on set to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Harrison insisted that his performance was subtly different every time so he could never lip-sync accurately. Instead the technicians were forced to invent a sort of wireless microphone that could be disguised in the over-sized neck ties Harrison wears. This also means that at least one musical number has the bizarre situation of Harrison singing live, Hyde-White lip-syncing and Audrey Hepburn being dubbed.

Ah yes Hepburn. If there is one thing everyone remembers about Hepburn’s performance in this film, it is that she doesn’t sing a single note of the final film. Her actual singing was quickly considered by Warner to be not up to snuff, and so she is replaced by voice-double-to-the-stars Marnie Nixon. It’s always a mark against Hepburn, whose performance is often rather shrill, stagy and (whisper it) even a little bit irritating. In fact, she’s pretty much miscast as the cockney flower girl, never convincing as a bit of rough from the streets, and is so horrendously misstyled throughout that she also jarringly looks like a 1960s fashion icon floated into a period film.

Having hired the male star of the Broadway production – not to mention Stanley Holloway also being retained from the original cast after James Cagney refused to be drawn out from retirement – the film quickly settles down into being a straight Broadway musical captured as faithfully as possible on the big-screen. My Fair Lady is a film crushed under the pressure of its design, and watching it today it looks unbearably studio-bound and flat. In every scene you can never forget you are watching the action take place on enormous sets, with the camera pulled back to try and get as much of the expensive soundstage work in frame as possible.

As a dance musical, it’s pretty flat – Holloway’s numbers in particular are strikingly lifeless in their dancing, which makes you regret even more that Cagney couldn’t be lured to star in it – and much of the singing feels forced or over-performed. Even Harrison’s numbers feel pretty by-the-numbers from Harrison’s constant repetition of them. Even the more impressive scenes – such as the race track sequence – feel artificial and over-designed, the money chucked at the careful period detail and over-elaborate costumes and set (designs courtesy of Cecil Beaton, who allegedly drew the designs and then disappeared to leave them to be interpreted by others) seeming more and more dated as the years pass by.

But then this was a film that probably felt dated at the time it was made – it beat Dr Strangelove for best picture, and in five years’ time Midnight Cowboy was lifting the Oscar – never more so than in Cukor’s direction. One wonders at times what Cukor really did: Warner cast the film and led on the design and staging. Harrison and Holloway had played their roles literally thousands of times already. The camera work is as conservative and unimaginative as you can expect, with the film dryly set up to give you the perfect view from the stalls. Several touches – such as the staging (complete with blurry focus edges) of Eliza’s fantasies of the domineering Higgins being punished by firing squad – are clumsy and obvious. It’s a film made with no real independent personality whatsoever.

Not to mention the fact that it completely fails to draw any chemistry from the Higgins/Doolittle relationship whatsoever. It’s an odd one, as the musical takes on a romantic ending of the two characters together – an ending, by the way, that Shaw famously hated when a suggestion of it was added to the original Pygmalion production. Here, this comes from nowhere, and feels unbelievably forced and artificial as Harrison has demonstrated no interest at all (other than irritation) for Hepburn, and she in turn offers little back. When they come back together it’s hard to care.

But they cared back then as this was a huge box office smash. It’s very odd to imagine it now – because this isn’t a great film, it’s a decently done one that carries some charm but never finds an identity for itself as film away from its musical roots and never brings anything unique and imaginative to the table. It’s extraordinarily flat as a piece of film-making and seems increasingly more and more dated in its performances, its atmosphere and its staging. It’s got some charm, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough.

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.