Ransom (1996)

Every parent’s nightmare gets tackled in this efficient, smart (but not quite smart enough) thriller from Ron Howard

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Mel Gibson (Tom Mullen), Rene Russo (Kate Mullen), Gary Sinise (Detective Jimmy Shaker), Delroy Lindo (FBI Special Agent Lonnie Hawkins), Lili Taylor (Maris Conner), Liev Schreiber (Clark Barnes), Donnie Wahlberg (‘Cubby’ Barnes), Evan Handler (Miles Roberts), Brawley Nolte (Sean Mullen), Paul Guilfoyle (FBI Director Stan Wallace), Dan Hedaya (Jackie Brown)

There is no greater fear for any parent than losing a child. Doesn’t matter if you are prince or pauper, the same heart-pounding dread is there. But sometimes the risks are greater if you a prince. Because the more money you have, the more likely a kidnapper might think you’d be willing to swop that money to get your kid back.

It’s what kidnappers decide when they take the son of Airline owner Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson). The kidnappers want $2million and no questions asked, in return for his son Sean (Brawley Nolte). Tom and his wife Kate Mullen (Rene Russo) are willing to pay – with the advice of FBI Agent Lonnie Hawkins (Delroy Lindo). But after the first bungled handover, Tom becomes convinced the kidnappers have no intention of returning his son alive. So, he takes a desperate gamble to try and turn the tables, much to the fury of secretive kidnapper (and police detective) Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise).

Ransom is a change of pace for Ron Howard, his first flat-out thriller. And it’s a very good one. Ransom has a compulsive energy to it, powered by sharp filming and cutting and some impressively emotional performances from the leads. It also takes a number of unexpected narrative twists and turns – before it reverts to a more conventional final act – and manages to keep the viewer on their toes.

Its main strength is an emotionally committed performance from Mel Gibson. Taking a leaf from Spencer Tracy’s book, this is Gibson at his best, very effectively letting us see him listen and consider everything that happens around him. Mullen is a determined man who plays the odds, and cuts corners only when he must – but is also convinced of his own certainty. He applies his own business learning – of negotiation and corporate deal-making – to this kidnapping, which is an intriguingly unique approach. Gibson’s performance is also raw, unnerved and vulnerable and he plays some scenes with a searing grief you won’t often see in a mainstream movie. Russo does some equally fine work – determined, scared, desperate – and their chemistry is superb.

Howard coaches, as he so often does, wonderful performances from his leads and from the rest of the cast. Gary Sinise turns what could have been a lip-smacking villain into someone chippy, over-confident and struggling with his own insecurities and genuine feelings for his girlfriend (a doe-eyed Lili Taylor, roped into kidnapping). Delroy Lindo is very good as the professional kidnap resolver and there are a host of interesting and engaging performances from Schreiber, Wahlberg, Handler and Hedaya. Ransom turns into a showpiece for some engagingly inventive performances.

Howard also triumphs with his control of the film’s set-pieces. The kidnapping sequence is highly unsettling in its slow build of the parent’s dread. The first attempted exchange is a masterclass in quick-quick-slow tension, with Gibson and Sinise very effective in a series of cryptic phone calls. The ransom phone calls are similarly feasts of good acting and careful cross-cutting, which throb like fight scenes. Howard understands that this is a head-to-head between two men struggling in a game of deadly one-up-manship, both of them constantly trying to figure out not only their next move, but the likely reaction of their opponent.

For much of the first two thirds of the film, Ransom is very effective in its unpredictability. There is a genuine sense of dread for how this might play out and the radical changes of plan both sides of the kidnap play out land events in a very different place than you might expect at the start. The more hero and villain try to out-think each other, the murkier the plot becomes.

It’s unfortunate that the final third devolves into a more traditional goody/baddy standoff with guns, punches and our hero reasserting his control (and the safety of his family) through the fist and the trigger. But then I guess in the 90s you couldn’t have a Gibson film without a bit of action. But when the film focuses on the thinking, talking, slow-burn tension and the sheer terror of parents who have lost a child, it’s a very effective and tense film that stands up to repeat viewings.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Hope and friendship are put to the test in one of the most beloved films ever made

Director: Frank Darabont

Cast: Tim Robbins (Andy Dufresne), Morgan Freeman (Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding), Bob Gunton (Warden Samuel Norton), William Sadler (Heywood), Clancy Brown (Guard Bryon Hadley), Gil Bellows (Tommy Williams), James Whitmore (Brooks Hatlen), Mark Rolston (Bogs Diamond)

You’d hardly believe it… but the film now routinely listed as one of the most beloved films of all time was actually a box office bomb. The Shawshank Redemption tops many public polls of great films. It’s been the number one film on IMDB practically since the site was built. What is it about it that has had such a connection with people? Perhaps it’s because, under the multitude of genres the film touches on, it’s a film about the strengths of two things crucial to all of us: hope and friendship.

In 1947 Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a mil-mannered bank manager, is imprisoned for life in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. For the next twenty years, Andy will get busy living rather than get busy dying, finding what moments of warmth, friendship and hope he can from rebuilding the prison library to helping his fellow prisoners. But he’ll also face daily danger, from sexual assault from brutal fellow prisoners to the machinations of corrupt warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). During his time in prison, his confidant and closest friend is Red (Morgan Freeman), a smart fixer who has spent decades failing his parole hearings.

This is possibly the finest Stephen King adaptation ever made – the other major contender, Kubrick’s The Shining, has the disadvantage of being loathed by the author – perhaps because it captures both the Dickensian sprawl and sentiment of King’s best work, mixed with his edge and danger. There is a charming shaggy-dog story element to The Shawshank Redemption that helps make it delightful to watch. Not only that, it carefully builds up empathy for two people, both of whom are convicted murderers. It manages this as it turns its prison setting into a universal metaphor for the helpless victim trapped in a system.

Because, for all the pious spouting of the Warden (Bob Gunton at his most hypocritically vile), Shawshank is a place devoid of justice. On Andy’s first night in prison, a fellow new arrival is beaten to death for refusing to stop his terrified whining by head guard Hadley (a terrifyingly blank and amoral Clancy Brown). Abuse of power is pretty much endemic in Shawshank – as Andy discovers as he witnesses the guard’s casual brutality, and his accounting skills drags him into building the corrupt financial empire Norton runs with the slave labour of the prisoners.

Shawshank is all about squeezing hope out of people. It’s nothing less than a dystopian hell hole where there is no right and wrong. That’s Andy’s big impact on the place: for all its hellishness, he helps create some sort of freedom. Darabont wonderfully establishes the crushing dehumanising of the prison, so that moments where people can pretend for a moment they are free carry even more power. Whether that’s drinking cold beers on a freshly tarred roof (inveigled by Andy in return for sorting out Hadley’s inheritance tax problems) or listening to Mozart over the prison speakers. It’s there in the rebuilding of the library as a place prisoners can feel pride in or Andy coaching others to gain their school diplomas. And we feel every moment of it with them.

And that’s not even thinking about how brutish some of the other prisoners are. Much of Andy’s first few years in prison see him dodging gang rape from a group of particularly violent prisoners (led by a sneeringly vicious Mark Rolston). For that opening act, Andy is tossed as low as you can go, Darabont pulling no punches on vicious beatings or terror he has to endure. Hope becomes more powerful when it grows out of despair.

But that suffering is crucial because it gives even more warmth and power to the friendship between Andy and Red. Shawshank Redemption is a beautiful platonic love story, about a deep and lasting bond between friends. The warmth, regard and affection between these two characters, who discover how much they have in common is beautifully paced and supremely engaging.

It’s also helped a great deal by two fabulous performances from the leads. Tim Robbins’ baby-faced inscrutability is perfect for a man who may or may not be a murderer, and looks like he both needs protection and also has the internal strength to see him through anything. You can see why Red thinks, on first meeting him, he might be weak – but also never doubt for a moment that he’s strong enough to wade through the filth of Shawshank.

Opposite him is an iconic, beautiful performance from Morgan Freeman. Darabont’s film uses Freeman’s gorgeous tones to perfection through Red’s narration. Freeman of course gives Red a wonderful world-weary wisdom but also a sort of innocence. Red has worked out perfectly how to bend the rules of the prison – so confidently that he’s an awe of someone who finds out a way to break them completely. This is some of the actor’ finest work, making Red witty, shrewd, self-aware but also in some ways touchingly naïve and scared that he could never survive outside the prison.

Institutionalisation is a major danger in prison: it’s part of the danger of giving up hope, of accepting the status quo that your whole life is those four walls. But then, it’s also the terror of leaving a regimented world, where some decisions are made for you and you can always know your place. One of the film’s finest sequences covers the tragic end for Brooks, wonderfully played by James Whitmore, an educated and respected librarian inside but an irrelevant, old man outside, day-dreaming of one day being allowed to ‘go home’. It’s a danger Red knows could hit him too – after all he’s the best fixer inside, but a man with no such purpose outside.

Darabont’s film understands it. In fact, the film itself encourages the viewer to get a bit institutionalised themselves. The audience enjoys Andy’s triumphs, the commadre between the prisoners, the fun of the tables subtly turned. So much so the viewers can forget that this should be a film about getting out of this hell. (In fact you can argue, after a time, it makes prison look a little like an eternal boys camp). It shakes the viewer up as much as Andy when this status quo we’ve started to enjoy gets shaken up by the arrival of young thief Tommy (Gil Bellows). It’s a moment where the viewer realises that the film made a subtle shift from being a prison drama to a buddy movie where our heroes eek out little wins from the system: not least because this is the point when the system reminds Andy (and us) that it’s not to be messed with.

Darabont’s film reforms into a wonderful caper movie, a super-clever heist, covering Andy’s eventual escape. This is classic Ocean’s Eleven stuff and has the double delight for the audience of paying off Andy’s mistreatment and injustice and also allowing us to really enjoy how ingenious he is. Then the film switches gears effortlessly on a sixpence after this moment of delightful triumph with a low-key, tender, Red-focused coda which taps us straight back into the beautiful warmth of that friendship.

Perhaps this is why The Shawshank Redemption is so universally beloved. It’s a prison film and a buddy film, it’s a caper and it’s a film about a crushing system, it’s a film of hellish suffering and deep hope, all framed around a wonderfully judged, life-affirming friendship. Darabont’ script and direction is perfectly judged and immensely moving and the acting is perfect. It works so well because it constantly brings us back to feelings of hope and friendship. Those are universal feeling and they are beautifully presented in the film. We live with Andy being put through the wringer, and relate to him so much, that we feel as cleansed by the rainfall as he does. It’s that which lies at its success; and the brilliant way it gets you to invest in the fate of its characters.

Almost Famous (2000)

Cameron Crowe turns his youth into a hip coming-of-age film with just enough sting among the sentiment

Director: Cameron Crowe

Cast: Patrick Fugit (William Miller), Billy Crudup (Russell Hammond), Frances McDormand (Elaine Miller), Kate Hudson (Penny Lane), Jason Lee (Jeff Bebe), Zooey Deschanel (Anita Miller), Anna Paquin (Polexia Aphodisia), Fairuza Balk (Sapphire), Noah Taylor (Dick Roswell), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lester Bangs), Terry Chen (Ben Fong-Torres), Jay Baruchel (Vic Munoz), Jimmy Fallon (Dennis Hope), Rainn Wilson (David Felton)

Cameron Crowe fictionalises his teenage years in the warm, affectionate Almost Famous, an endearing, heartfelt riff on the golden years of Rock ‘n’ Roll, when it felt like music could change the world and making the front cover of Rolling Stone was the greatest thing ever. Patrick Fugit plays William Miller (the Crowe substitute), a precocious 15-year-old would-be-music journalist recruited by Rolling Stone to write an article on Stillwater, an up-and-coming new band. Miller adores the music scene and is soon smitten with the lifestyle, Stillwater’s charismatic guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and most of all “Band Aid” (muse not groupie) Penny Lane (Kate Hudson).

Crowe’s film is a glorious reconstruction of the rock and roll scene of the early 70s – and I can imagine anyone with fond memories of it will find much to love here. It’s not just the fashions and hairstyles, but the glorious capturing of a mood. The whole film is a celebration of a time that felt freer and more idealistic, where the actions and words of a rock band could feel like the most important, beautiful thing in the world. The film is not just nostalgia but also a celebration of a mood of hopefulness that embodied an era.

It’s also a coming-of-age story, as a boy-becomes-a-man. Patrick Fugit is very endearing as a kid no one can quite believe is 15, even though every moment seems to hammer home his fresh-faced innocence. But then it’s not a complete surprise since, thanks to his strong-willed mother having moved him up a class at school and led him to believe he is older than he is. Nevertheless, this is the sort of trip that shapes someone, finding friendship, love, belonging, betrayal, righteous anger and acceptance along the way. All of this is backdropped by the shift of rock and roll becoming something corporations used to make a lot of money.

Stillwater are just on the cusp of this, still clinging to the fun of bussing from gig-to-gig, enjoying the mood, the songs and (of course) the girls. The film is also a celebration in a way of their coming-of-age, the tour starting in a ramshackle bus and ending on a sleek private jet, with accommodation switching from the bus to plush hotels. And along the way, they are trying to work out what they hell they are doing as much as William is. Perhaps that’s why the film feels like it captures the era so well – wasn’t everyone flailing around in the 70s trying to work out if they belonged to the hedonism of the 60s or what would become the Reagonism of the 80s?

But it’s still rock ‘n’ roll, best embodied by Billy Crudup’s charismatic turn as Band icon Russell Hammond. Crudup is all grungy magnetism and shuffling emotional gentleness under the surface of rock star swagger. Not that it stops him from moments of egotism, selfishness and pomposity. You can see why tensions are sometimes high in the band, with the rest of its members often seen as jut Russell’s support group (a band t-shirt causes fury when it shows Russell in the foreground with the other four as shadowy outlines behind him). Russell takes William under his wing, perhaps because he recognises the youth and fragility in William. Or maybe he just likes the hero-worship.

Because one of the dangers of getting close to these stars is getting sucked into hero worship. William is after all a journalist who needs to maintain objectivity. He’s even warned about it by his mentor, fabled music writer Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman in a charismatic cameo) that the biggest danger is succumbing to the charms of the celebrity: these are after all, people who have made it their mission in life to be liked. They’re going to be good at it.

Getting in their airspace can be a dangerous place, as discovered by leading Band Aid Penny Lane, played with a luminous, radiant warmth by Kate Hudson. Penny is a devoted fan, enraptured with being part of the scene and with her self-proclaimed role as muse to the artists. Based on a personal friend of Crowe’s – and, one supposes, his real-life first love – it’s Penny who draws William into this life, looks out for him, cares for him (a favour he is to return in kind). She starts an affair with Russell – but is banished when Russell’s girlfriend rejoins the tour, jokingly traded in a card game with another band for a crate of beer (a reveal Hudson plays with a beautiful mix of devastation and valiant nonchalance). It’s not that Russell’s a bad guy, more that he can’t cope with complexities.

So, you can see why William’s Mum – played with a larger-than-life mix of bullish determination, smothering love and control-freak determination by Frances McDormand – is so worried about him. It’s a sign of the film’s overall warmth (and Crowe’s well-adjusted personality!) that McDormand’s character is treated with the same affection and admiration as everyone else and the love between mother and son is never in doubt. She is responsible for some of the film’s highlights, not least a phone call to Russell where her natural authority quickly reduces him to the overgrown schoolboy he is at heart.

And Almost Famous is a very funny film, riffing off various true life rock-and-roll road trip stories, from raucous parties to accidental electrocutions, like a slightly straighter version of Spinal Tap. It’s capped by a hilarious near-disaster plane flight, where the end seems in sight, leading to a series of ‘confessions’ that become more and more heated and factious as they go on. It’s a film that shows some of the warts of the characters – just as William’s article eventually will for Stillwater – but also their many, many beauty spots. People make mistakes and hurt each other, but life goes on – and we take the punches, but they don’t define us.

Perhaps that’s a big part of growing up: and it’s a growing-of-age film for three characters: William, Penny and Russell. All three of these characters find themselves drawn together, all of them spiritually so close. They hurt each other, betray each other, but they all love each other. It’s a hopeful message, a glorious celebration of a time and era.

Rocky (1976)

Doubters and some very steep steps are conquered in the Best Picture winning Granddaddy of Sports movies

Director: John G. Avildsen

Cast: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa), Talia Shire (Adrian Pennino), Burt Young (Paulie Pennino), Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed), Burgess Meredith (Mickey Goodmill), Thayer David (Miles Jergens), Joe Spinell (Tony Gazzo), Tony Burton (Tony “Duke” Evers), Pedro Lovell (Spider Rico)

How many people have run up those steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art? So many, they’ve renamed them “the Rocky Steps” – and placed a statue of Stallone (from Rocky III) there. You can be sure everyone hummed Gonna Fly Now while they did it. It’s all a tribute to the impact of Rocky, the iconic smash hit that led to no less than seven sequels (and counting!) and, arguably, kickstarted the 80s in Hollywood (a decade Stallone would stand tall across with both Rocky and Rambo). The original Rocky mixes genre-defining delights and a feel-good, crowd-pleasing story with a surprisingly low-key setting that deals in a bit of Loachesque reality and social commentary.

Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a journeyman southpaw boxer, fallen on hard times. He’s making ends meet with a bit of loan shark enforcement (although of course he’s far too nice to actually break any bones) and getting seven bells knocked out of him at low-key fights. His trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) thinks he’s wasting his talent, and Rocky spends the day casting puppy dog eyes at Adrian (Talia Shire) sister of Rocky’s chancer best friend Paulie (Burt Young). But Rocky’s life changes overnight when Heavyweight Champion of the World Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) picks him at random as the nobody he will fight in a title bout (to get Apollo some free publicity). Can Rocky dedicate himself to training so he can “go the distance”?

Surely everyone knows by now, don’t they? The big fight only takes up the last ten minutes of the film. What we’ve spent our time doing beforehand is watching possibly the one of the best ever packaged feel-good stories, full of lovable characters and punch-the-air moments, directed with a smooth, professional (but personality free) charm by Avildsen. Rocky genuinely looked and felt like a little slice of Capra, a fairy tale triumph for the little guy struggling less against the world and more against his own doubts.

And it overcame some real heavyweights to win Best Picture: it knocked aside All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver and Network in a shock win. Is Rocky better than those films? No. But is it more fun to watch? Yes, it probably is – and I would be willing to bet many more people have come back to it time and time again. It was also a triumph for Stallone, a jobbing actor, who produced a first draft of the script in three days and fought tooth and nail to make sure he played the lead.

And Stallone’s performance is absolutely central to its success (can you imagine what it would have been like with, say, James Caan in the role?). Stallone gives Rocky exactly the sort of humble, shy, sweetness that makes him easy to root for. Rocky is no genius, but he’s loyal, polite, well-meaning and Stallone taps into his little-used qualities of softness and naivety. Rocky is lovable because, for all the punching, he’s very gentle – just look at him make a mess of money collecting or the way he talks like a little kid with his pets. Stallone has a De Niroish – yes seriously! – quality here: he absent-mindedly shadow boxes throughout and gives a semi-articulate passion to his outburst at Mickey. His romance with Adrian is intimate and gentle. The whole performance feels lived in and real.

Real is actually what the whole film feels like – despite the fact it’s a ridiculous fairy tale of a boy who becomes a prince for a day. It helps that its shot deep in the streets of Philadelphia, on the cheap and on the fly in neighbourhoods and locations that feel supremely unstaged (Avildsen avoided the cost of extras by frequently shooting at night or very early morning). Even that run up the stairs was a semi-improvised moment. Rocky’s world is a recognisable working-class one that for all its roughness, also feels like a community in a way Ken Loach might be proud of (even the loan sharks are easy-going). Day-to-day the film manages to capture some of the feel of a socio-realist film with a touch of working-class charm.

It also makes a lovely backdrop to the genuinely sweet romance that grounds the film: and a recognition of the film’s smarts that a great crowd-pleaser needs a big dollop of romance alongside a big slice of action. Very adorably played with Talia Shire (original choices Carrie Snodgrass and Susan Sarandon were considered too movie-star striking), Adrian feels like a slightly mousy figure (and she is as sweet as Rocky) but also has a strength to her. She’s led a tough life as sister to the demanding Paulie (and Burt Young does a great job of making a complete shitbag strangely lovable and even a bit vulnerable), but it’s not stopped her feeling love. She and Rocky complement each other perfectly – gentle, shy people, who have something to prove to themselves and the world.

Is there a sweeter first date in movies than that solo trip to the ice rink? Cost cutting saved the day here (it was intended to be packed), that stolen few minutes skating while Rocky hurriedly tries to find out a much about Adrian as he can (an attendant counting down the time they have as they go), Adrian both charmed and bashful. It’s a lovely scene and goes a long way to us giving these characters the sort of emotional devotion that would keep audiences coming back for decades.

That and those boxing fights of course. Rocky’s final fight sets a template most of the rest of the films would pretty much follow beat for beat. But it’s still fun watching Rocky go toe-to-toe against all odds. Particularly as we know what is important to Rocky is not victory but proving something to himself. It helps as well that Stallone still looks like an underdog of sorts (over the next ten years he would turn himself into a slab of muscular stone).

Opposite him is Apollo Creed, with Carl Weathers channelling his very best Mohammad Ali. The underdog story makes for fine drama, and Rocky is superably packaged: there is a reason why so many other films essentially copied it. From montage, to an “against all odds” fight to Burgess Meredith’s grizzled trainer (a part you’d see time-and-again in the future from different respected character actors) there is a superb formula Rocky takes and repackages from classic films of the 40s and 50s and re-presents to huge and successful effect.

And it works because it’s so entertaining. Stallone is hugely winning in the lead role – more sweet and sensitive than he would be in later Rocky films (traits he would allow himself to rediscover in the more recent films) and it’s a perfectly packaged feel-good entertainment. But it’s also got a grounded sense of realism and reality, with an affecting love story. It’s one of the first – and best – films of the 80s, where formula and crowd-pleasing would be king.

Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

The backstory of history’s most famous empty promise is explored in this solid historical drama

Director: Christian Schwochow

Cast: George MacKay (Hugh Legat), Jannis Niewöhner (Paul von Hartmann), Jeremy Irons (Neville Chamberlain), August Diehl (Franz Sauer), Liv Lisa Fries (Lena), Sandra Hüller (Helen Winter), Alex Jennings (Sir Horace Wilson), Ulrich Mathes (Adolf Hitler), Anjli Mohindra (Joan), Jessica Brown Findley (Pamela Legat), Mark Lewis Jones (Sir Osmond Cleverly)

It’s 1938 and Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) wants the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Will the British and French say no? The danger is, if they do, it will lead to a war only Germany is ready for. War is feared by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons), who remembers the horrors of the trenches. So, he flies to Munich to make a deal with Hitler. While there, a member of the British legation Hugh Legat (George MacKay) is contacted by an old friend, Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner), a German diplomat now extremely disillusioned by the brutal Hitler regime.

Schwochow’s film is a handsomely mounted film version of Robert Harris’ best-selling thriller. Lots of critics called it a “What if” history film, which pretty much suggests people don’t understand what that term means. The film presents a pretty much a faithful (if compressed) version of the Munich talks, rather than some sort of alternative history. What makes it different is the revised angle it takes on Chamberlain – spiced up with a fictional plot about young diplomats trying to bring down Hitler.

Played with an avuncular, praetorian charm by a perfectly-cast Jeremy Irons, Harris book (and this film) presents Chamberlain not as a naïve idiot, duped by Hitler, but a man very much aware of the nature of his opponent, but who felt duty bound to do everything he could to safeguard peace. Chamberlain speaks with real emotion of the loss of a whole generation in the trenches and his fear that Britain is not ready for another war. Sure, Irons’ Chamberlain can also be arrogant and blinkered, convinced of his own cunning shrewdness, but he’s willing to risk his reputation for peace.

What he’s willing to sacrifice of course are the Czechs – and the film doesn’t give a lot of time (if any) to this screwed nation, that saw huge parts of its country split off and handed over to an aggressive power. The film would have been richer with more content around the debates and discussions at the conference and giving more time – as the novel does – to understanding Chamberlain’s strategic thinking. The film implies Chamberlain’s infamous bit of paper was his effort to clarify where blame for eventual war would lie – but it doesn’t allow us to understand more about what Chamberlain initially intended to gain from the conference or when he decided that he was unlikely to win any concessions from Hitler. We never see a moment of the negotiations, which seems a waste for a film that was designed to re-evaluate Chamberlain.

That’s partly because the film, like the book, gives a lot of time to its fictional plot. And like there, never seems to make this seem as vital or interesting as the historical storyline. Perhaps because, while the Munich storyline presents us with something we’ve not seen before, the fictional storyline feels familiar and derivative. George MacKay and Jannis Niewöhner do good work as slightly naïve young men who feel they can change the world, if they find a way to apply pressure at the right moment. But they feel like narrative devices to spice up the history, to throw in a bit of light espionage and peril to stop it being a film about a conference.

But everything feels familiar: clandestine meetings in crowded bars and pubs (surely anyone watching would hear everything?), meetings in parks, document handovers, pacey walks with people looking over their shoulder… It’s all handsomely done but it doesn’t feel fresh. And somehow, since we know (as this isn’t a What if… movie!) that it all end in failure (our heroes spend ages trying to get a copy of the Hossbach memorandum to Chamberlain who basically ignores it immediately) it doesn’t feel urgent enough.

And more interesting personal stories get short-changed. There is more than a hint of sexual chemistry between Hugh and Paul, that the film does more than hint at in performance, but doesn’t explore. Liv Lisa Fries as a young woman both men fall in love with, ends up shifted into a very stereotyped martyr role. There are some interesting ideas touched upon with the growth of a resistance movement to Hitler, but it never quite tells us enough to understand this. And the film shies away from being too bleak in its ending – even though the fates of both our lead characters must surely be a terminal one as they head into the war (given their chosen paths of anti-Nazi resistance cell and the RAF).

I wish the film – just as I felt when reading the book – had dropped most of its standard espionage sub-plot and instead had focused solely on Chamberlain. Especially with an actor as well-suited to the role as Irons. It would have allowed to focus exclusively on re-evaluating and exploring the motivations of those at the conference and the political and military difficulties they faced. Unfortunately, this gets diluted too much, which means we never quite get our perceptions challenged as much as they should. It’s a well-made film, but settles too often for being traditional rather than daring.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

A court case hinges on a heck of a twist or two in Wilder’s well-mounted Christie adaptation

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Tyrone Power (Leonard Vole), Marlene Dietrich (Christine Vole), Charles Laughton (Sir Wilfrid Robarts), Elsa Lanchester (Miss Plimsoll), John Williams (Mr Brogan-Moore), Henry Daniell (Mr Mayhew), Ian Wolfe (Carter), Torin Thatcher (Mr Myers QC), Norma Vaden (Emily Jane French), Una O’Connor (Janet McKenzie), Francis Compton (Justice Wainwright)

Agatha Christie is better known for detectives who unearth murderers, not lawyers defending those accused in court. But that doesn’t mean Witness for the Prosecution, a very effective courtroom drama, shirks on classic Christie flourishes. Witness has a single stonking twist that huge numbers of people never see coming (the end of the film comes with a sonorous warning entreating people not to spoil the surprises, the sort of anti-spoiler warning that would make Marvel proud).

Leonard Vole (an unlikely Tyrone Power) is the soldier and would be entrepreneur, who stands accused of the murder of a rich older woman (Norma Vaden) who conveniently left Vole her money. Defending Vole is richly-toned, highly-skilled barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton), recovering from a heart attack and doing his very best to dodge the overly attentive concern of his private nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester). Vole’s case looks difficult, with much circumstantial evidence stacked against him and worries about whether his German wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich) will stand by him or not?

Billy Wilder directs with a smooth professionalism – he later modestly claimed of his Oscar nomination, that it was like giving the crew that moved Michelangelo’s Pietá an award for best sculpture – but his real contribution (with fellow writer Harry Kurnitz) was sharpening the dialogue, expanding Christie’s characterisation (in particular adding much more shrewdness and eccentric pomposity to Robarts) and upping the zip of Christie’s original. It certainly met with the approval of the grandé dame of crime who listed this, and Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express, as the only two adaptations of her work she liked.

The film is largely based around the courtroom dynamics, as witnesses are examined and cross examined and facts gently dragged into the light. There is plenty of quality theatrics, not least since Robarts and his opposition counsel Myers (a fearsome Torin Thatcher) are more than a little skilled at keeping things sparky for the jury. There is a hint of cynicism in Witness: Robarts needs to convinces himself of a client’s innocence, but there is a suggestion this is because it helps him work out how to effectively defend them, less because of any moral reasons. And certainly, the entire mechanics of the trial operates largely as a show, an entertainment with jokes and compelling stories offered by both sides.

There is of course no better showman than Robarts. Played by Charles Laughton in one of his last great – and possibly most enjoyable – performance, Robarts is an affectionate, witty performance of carefully studied eccentricity and barking bluffness. But there is also a vulnerability in him: Robarts needs to belief in his own legend and his ability to separate truth from lie (he even prides himself on his “monacle test”, using a reflection from it to shine in suspects eyes, believing a liar will get flustered and trip themselves up – needless to say it turns out to be faulty).

Wilder – with Laughton as a brilliant collaborator – transforms Robarts into a far more forceful and charismatic figure, making the late plot twists even more of a shock. If someone as professionally adept and plugged in as Robarts can be taken in, what chance do the rest of us have? Oscar-nominated, Laughton, a twinkle permanently in his eye, powers through moments of high court theatricality but also heartily enjoys the banter of real life, taking a real delight in his schoolboy mischief as he persists in having his own way.

A large part of that, is a running of dodging treatments and sticking to a diet of things that are bad with him. Wilder’s finest change from the original, in introducing Robart’s ill health and his love-hate relationship with his nurse Miss Plimsoll. Who is, of course, played by Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s real-life wife. The chemistry between these two is spot-on, with Lanchester (also Oscar nominated – and unlucky to lose to Miyoski Umeshi in Sayonara) in particular playing the combination of world-weary exasperation and growing affection for Robarts perfectly.

Combined with those twists, it’s the interplay between these two that is the real highlight in the film – well that and the twists. Many of those twists are bound up with Marlene Dietrich’s character. Dietrich gives one of her most colourful and wide-ranging performances here. The secrecy of the film probably stopped her from landing an Oscar nomination (much to her regret – Wilder even apologised to her). Power is miscast – he lacks the required natural innocence and looks both too old and incongruously American – but fortunately spends most of the film in the dock.

The final twist is a doozy, perfectly delivered by the actors and Wilder. Wilder directs throughout with quiet authority – as well as fine sense of humour, in particular a stair lift scene that sees Robarts using the device as a tool to dodge being told what to do. Laughton and Lanchester in particular are wonderfully funny. It’s got some excellently handled courtroom tricks and you won’t forget how it turns out. It’s a solid example of Wilder’s skill behind the camera – but a very enjoyable film and a must for Christie fans.

Sayonara (1957)

Racism gets exposed at clumsy length in this heavy-handed social issues drama

Director: Joshua Logan

Cast: Marlon Brando (Major Lloyd “Ace” Gruver), Patricia Owens (Eileen Webster), James Garner (Captain Mike Bailey), Martha Scott (Mrs Webster), Miiko Taka (Hana-Ogi), Red Buttons (Airman Joe Kelly), Miyoshi Umeki (Katsumi Kelly), Kent Smith (Lt General Mark Webster), Ricardo Montalban (Nakamura), Douglass Weston (Colonel Crawford)

It’s post-war Japan and the American occupation forces have got very strict rules about what their soldiers are allowed to do with the native population: namely not marry them. Any suggestion of American soldiers finding themselves Japanese wives is frowned on at the very highest level. Something flying ace Major “Ace” Gruber (Marlon Brando) is about to find out when he’s transferred from shooting down commies in Korea. Airman Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) is determined to marry Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki) – and nothing commanding officer Gruber or anyone else can say will dissuade him. Meanwhile, Gruber finds himself falling in love with Japanese actress Hana-Ogi (Miiko Taka) – and facing the exact same pressures to chuck her overboard as Kelly meets.

Sayonara is very much a Hollywood message film: that being interracial marriage is a fact to celebrate not condemn, with a subsidiary message focused on rehumanising the Japanese people for American audiences still holding strong memories of the Second World War. Like a lot of message films from the era though, its also slow, stuffy, self-important and more than a little dull – something its multiple Oscars can’t hide.

Shot on location, it often come across as a sort of Japanese travelogue which, for all its efforts to make the Japanese sympathetic, can only interpret them and their culture through a selection of cliches and generic expectations. The film is a parade of kimonos, lotos blossoms, tea ceremonies and geisha girls, all shot with a laboured flatness by Joshua Logan. Logan’s direction overflows with middle-brow earnestness, pleading for a little love and understanding, while shuffling together a series of stereotypical and predictable plot events. Logan also seems to struggle with the cinemascope frame, which frequently dwarves this intimate story.

It’s all told at a very slow pace: it’s remarkable that such a slim story manages to fill almost two and a half hours. Much of this is taken up with the romantic entanglements of Ace, half-heartedly engaged to General’s daughter Eileen Webster (a saintly understanding Patricia Owens, who practically asks to be thrown over), before a chance sighting on a bridge (of course it’s a soribashi bridge) leads to him falling head over heels in love with Hana-Ogi, hanging around the bridge every day and struggling his way through a Japanese phrase book so he can ask her out on a date (the dates, when they come, are like a travelogue of the most Japanese events you could imagine).

The languid lack of drive isn’t helped by Brando’s curious performance. Sayonara is the perfect example of what a mystifying actor Brando could be: here he was in a project that clearly meant a lot to him personally (he was a long-standing social campaigner), but he drifts through it with a lazy off-the-cuffness that suggests he’s only doing the film under protest. Only Brando could act in a passion project with such surly indifference (allegedly motivated by his lack of regard for Logan’s direction). Brando uses a non-descript Southern drawl, which he uses as an excuse to dial his mumbling up to 11. He slouches and ambles through every scene, barely raising his voice or lifting a finger unless it’s essential.

Because Brando seems so disengaged and bored by the whole thing (the only spark of energy he gives is when he playfully bangs his head on a low Japanese ceiling) it makes the film drag on without the stakes ever seeming to really mount. Ace is told repeatedly that he will have to chuck Hana-Ogi, but he shrugs it off with all the indifference of a laid-back hipster. I think Brando is straining to suggest that Ace has the soul of a poet, trapped inside his father-mandated time in West Point – there is a moment where he airily mumbles something about his dreams as a young man of finding something more. But the overall effect is more of an actor drifting through a long role with minimum effort.

You can’t say the same for Red Buttons, who plays Kelly with a great deal of commitment. Winning an Oscar, this first role was also his best, with Kelly having Button’s good-natured lightness but mixing it in with a fierce defiance and a touching pain when his wife suggests surgery to try and alter her facial features to appear more Western. Umeki also won a generous Oscar for a brief performance which gives her very little scope to do much beyond playing the quiet wife (I suspect the Oscar was partly for the film’s theme and reflects a weaker year of candidates). Miiko Taka is more impressive (and given more scope) as Hana-Ogi, all too aware of the pressures on her not to get involved, torn between her feelings and what she sees as her duty.

Sayonara as a whole though remains a flat, often rather uninvolving film that holds its liberal conscience so close to its chest that it manages to squeeze any trace of life out of it. Its liberalness only goes so far: Logan casts two Japanese actresses but has no concerns about recruiting a pale-faced Ricardo Montalban to play the only Japanese male with lines. It’s exploration of mixed-race relationships is solely focused on white guys marrying who they want. A truly daring film would have thrown in a flirtation between Montalban’s Japanese actor and Patricia Owen’s patrician General’s daughter. A Japanese man marrying the daughter of one of America’s own? Now that is a vision that would have really shook up 1950s America.

It’s not to be though. Instead, this is an overlong, overly serious, pleased with itself melodrama, coated in lashings of social awareness that is cursed with a languid central performance that helps make the whole film seem to drag on forever. Logan is unable to provide either any dramatic or political fire to the film and it settles all to often for safe, picture perfect shots of Japan. While you can admire the motives behind it, there is little to admire in the film itself.

The Turning Point (1977)

Two women struggle to have it all in a film that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 1940s

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Shirley MacLaine (DeeDee Rodgers), Anne Bancroft (Emma Jacklin), Tom Skerritt (Wayne Rodgers), Leslie Browne (Emilia Rodgers), Mikhail Baryshnikov (Yuri Kopeikine), Martha Scott (Adelaide), James Mitchell (Michael Cooke), Alexandra Danilova (Madame Dakharova), Anthony Zerbe (Joe “Rosie” Rosenberg), Lisa Lucas (Janina Rodgers), Antoinette Sibley (Sevilla Haslem)

The demands of ballet are unlike any other artform there is. Complete physical and emotional commitment is needed to master it – so that means you got to make choices. The Turning Point is all about those choices. You might even call them ‘turning points’. DeeDee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) were two young ballerinas who took radically different paths: DeeDee had a child with fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) and left the profession behind; Emma remained with the company to become its prima ballerina. Now DeeDee’s teenage daughter Emilia (Leslie Browne) has joined the company: will she become the new prima ballerina? Or will she decide to focus on a relationship with playboy dancer Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov)? Will Emma and DeeDee resolve the tensions between them – and the conflict from their shared parental interest in Emilia?

The Turning Point was a big hit in 1977. That, and the fact that it was about (and featured a lot of) an artform as graceful as ballet seems to have convinced the Academy it merited a haul of eleven Oscar nominations. Come awards night, the film set a record for most unsuccessful nominations, converting none of them into Oscars. Perhaps that’s because, on closer inspection, The Turning Point is a fairly run-of-the-mill soap opera, that mixes in various clichés from backstage, traditional ‘women’s pictures’ and family drama to come up with a plotline that’s eventually very familiar.

For all its positioning as a female-led drama, it essentially boils down to the same old patterns that for decades such films have circled. Turns out women can’t have it all: you can have that successful career, but forever sacrifice the joy of being a mother or you can settle down and have the family but face a life of career unfulfillment. Twas ever thus, ‘tis one or t’other. Essentially the film boils down into a soapy drama about resentments and illicit backstage affairs and little more than that. It doesn’t even really double down on the fun this sort of set-up could provide, instead framing the whole thing as a very serious drama.

But then, the film was an autobiographical affair for those involved. Emma is based on Nora Kaye, who was married to the director Herbert Ross. DeeDee is based on Kaye’s childhood friend Isabel Mirrow Brown, who made the exact same choice as DeeDee, marrying a fellow dancer (just like Tom Skerritt’s character). Her daughter (and Kaye’s goddaughter) was Leslie Browne, who here plays a fictionalised version of herself based on her own experience of starting her ballet career. Characters based on Jerome Robbins, Lucia Chase and other leading figures from ballet and theatre appear. Only Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Yuri is purely fictional (although the character has more than few similarities with Baryshnikov himself, being a Soviet defector).

It does give an additional layer of interest to the film. Ross also mixes in a host of extended ballet sequences which showcase actual professional ballet dancers, with snippets from Swan Lake, Cinderella and The Nutcracker among others. The dancing is breath-takingly good. Not least from Baryshnikov and Browne, who are given multiple opportunities to showcase their skills. Baryshnikov in particular is at the height of his powers, a graceful artiste who moves with an astonishing finesse. Both landed Oscar nominations, one suspects largely on the basis of their dancing.

The acting is left to MacLaine and Bancroft as the leading ladies. There is something a little perverse that MacLaine, the former dancer, doesn’t so much as trot a step, while Bancroft (totally unexperienced) struts parts of Anna Karenina. However, the two actresses rip into these thinly written parts, giving them a lot more force than the film deserves. MacLaine balances motherly pride with bubbling feelings of something uncomfortably close to envy for her daughter’s success, spending time in New York trying to recapture some of her past (including a brief fling with Anthony Zerbe’s lecherous choreographer). Bancroft balances coming to terms with the end of her career as a ballerina with a growing regret that she has been left without a family. She becomes increasingly close to Emilia, mentoring her, dressing her and coaching her through a performance after relationship problems lead to Emilia getting roundly pissed in a bar before the show.

Needless to say, this unspoken squabble for ownership over Emilia – not helped by Emilia’s fury over her mother’s infidelity – only exacerbates tensions between the two women. It builds towards the film’s true climax (but unfortunately not its actual climax, as fifteen minutes remain for Emilia to be coached for her star-making performance) as the two women down drinks and exchange angry words and slaps, leading to a full blown cat fight outside the theatre. The fight later descends into cathartic giggling – and pity the two actresses who filmed it in ballroom dresses in what looks like a gale – but is acted with a great deal of attack by both, who bounce off each other (literally) hugely effectively.

But the scene is also a further confirmation that what we are really watching is a sort of high-brow family soap, that uses ballet as a backdrop for family feuds, scuffles, sexual escapades and tear-filled reunions. And it boils down to that struggle between career and family, the sort of struggle Bette Davis and Joan Crawford films were dealing with in the 1940s. Which is possibly another reason so many took to The Turning Point: even in 1977 it was an old-fashioned piece of entertainment, that did very little new.

That carries across to its whole execution: Ross competently directs the film (this was his annus mirabilis as he directed two Best Picture nominees, this and The Goodbye Girl) but really it gets all the force it has (and more than it perhaps deserves) from the two leads and a fine supporting cast (Tom Skerritt is very good as DeeDee’s laid-back, understanding father who perhaps masks secrets of his own). It’s a soap opera, solid but not spectacular, that really outside its showcase of ballet, doesn’t stand out from several other films of the same genre.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Young romance in a changing time in Paul Thomas Anderson’s unconventional love story

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Alana Haim (Alana Kane), Cooper Hoffman (Gary Valentine), Sean Penn (Jack Holden), Tom Waits (Rex Blau), Bradley Cooper (Jon Peters), Benny Safdie (Joel Wachs), Skyler Gisondo (Lance), Mary Elizabeth Ellis (Momma Anita), John Michael Higgins (Jerry Frick), Christine Ebersole (Lucy Doolittle), Harriet Sansom Harris (Mary Grady)

Is there a force harder to understand than love? That’s basically the theme of Paul Thomas Anderson’s delightfully whimsical film, which explores an unlikely relationship in Los Angeles in 1973, played out to a backdrop of the OPEC gas crisis. Told with a dreamlike grace and overflowing with affection and warmth for its characters, it’s a deceptively simple film that is a masterpiece of heartfelt craft.

Standing in line to have his photo taken for his High School picture, 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is instantly smitten with cynical photography assistant, 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim). Much to her surprise, his claim to be a child actor in the movies is actually true – he’s co-starring with Lucille Doolittle (Christine Ebersole, in a thinly veiled spoof of Lucille Ball) in a movie. He’s also a budding entrepreneur, setting up a business selling water beds in LA. Alana still doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, but finds herself drawn to Gary, despite her acute awareness of their age difference. The two of them become business partners and drift in and out of friendship, never quite sure exactly how they feel about each other.

Now I guess you might well have checked yourself there at the thought of a romance between a teenager and a 25-year-old. But there is no prurience here, no masturbatory coming-of-age fantasy with an older woman or sleazy grooming. This is instead a very genuine, sweet and moving romance between two people who only really have numbers keeping them apart. It particularly works because Gary in many ways feels about 5 years older than he actually is and Alana often feels about 5 years younger than she is. In many ways they are both twenty-year-olds – and it’s only the fact that they are not which puts a barrier between them being together. As such it becomes very easy to accept their potential relationship, and even root for it.

That’s massively helped by the fact that these two characters are marvellously embodied by two first-time actors. Anderson specifically wrote the role for Alana Haim, member of family rock group Haim (Anderson has directed several of their music videos, and was taught by Haim’s mother). She’s stunning: prickly, quick-witted, cynical but also vulnerable and sensitive. She’s desperate to find some sort of purpose in her life: exploring the role of trophy girlfriend, businesswoman and political campaigner, but always seems like she’s slightly lost, for all her defiance. Haim is also wonderfully exasperated and befuddled by the interest she feels for this younger guy, barely able to acknowledge she might have feelings for him. Haim is superb.

Gary, played by the son of regular Anderson collaborator the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, is equally well bought to life by Cooper Hoffman. Gary’s career as a child actor is coming to an end: as we see through a disastrously over enthusiastic audition, which the casting directors watch out of a polite respect. But Gary has the go-getting hustling skills of someone much older. He’s got an eye for business opportunities – water beds, film productions, pinball machines – that would be the envy of others. He’s smart, confident, frequently cocky, assured – but at times also staggeringly immature (like a teenage boy he’s obsessed with boobs and Alana watches with frustrated despair as he and some friends drag out miming a wanking gag for what seems forever). He’s also still sometimes just a kid: mistakenly arrested at one point, he sits in terror in a police station and, even when uncuffed and released, is too scared to leave the station without Alana’s encouragement.

That arrest scene is yet another moment that reaffirms the deep bond and love between these two people. Wrongly arrested for nominally fitting the description of a suspected killer – “Look forward to Attica!” the police taunt him – he’s hauled from an Expo. Alana follows, running full pelt after the squad car – even though at this point they’ve not spoken for weeks – and then holds him for what feels like forever when he is released (before, of course, slapping him and saying “What did you do?”). Later, when Alana falls while taking part in an ill-advised late-night motorbike stunt, Gary will run the length of a golf course to make sure she is alright (despite, again, the two of them having cut ties before this). Moments like this sing with a real romantic force.

Particularly as this is such a love-hate film. Alana and Gary constantly hurt each other, finding ways to get into perfect sync only to screw it up. Gary is heartbroken when Alana starts to date his older co-star (a smug atheist, played wonderfully by Skyler Gisondo). Alana is overcome with jealousy and pain when Gary flirts and kisses a school crush his own age at the launch of their water-bed business. After auditioning for a movie role, Alana delights in making Gary uncomfortable when he walks into the bar where she is enjoying a drink with the movie’s male star. Through it all, these two are drawn back to each other time and again – and when the chips are down their loyalty and love to each other is absolute, even if they can’t always admit it to either themselves or each other.

Around the two outstanding central performances, Anderson constructs a series of scenes and skits that drift from one to the other. The whole film has a curiously dreamlike transition structure: it’s frequently hard to tell how much time has passed and the narrative omits overly functional scenes, so we frequently see a situation has changed but only an implication of why (example: Gary’s mother tells him she can’t chaperone him to New York for a TV appearance – next shot Alana and Gary are on a plane. How was this agreed? Who cares!). Each of the sequences plays out with a shaggy-dog story charm, directed with the confidence and brilliance of a director who is happy to make it look easy. And let me tell you, very few could pull off something as light and charming.

The film is stocked with delightful cameos. John Michael Higgins is very funny as the owner of a Japanese restaurant, with two successive Japanese wives who he “translates” for by repeating in ludicrously Japanese accented loud English whatever has just been said. Harriet Sansom Harris is very funny as a plugged-in agent. Ebersole is a monstrous attention-hungry star. Sean Penn is funnier than he’s ever been playing a version of William Holden, pissed and barely able to distinguish between his film roles and real life, cajoled by an equally pissed director (Tom Waits on top form as a sort of Peckinpah-Huston combo) to perform a motorbike stunt late at night. Best of all is Bradley Cooper, who burns through his brief scenes as an unhinged Jon Peters, a whipper-cracker of unpredictability and insatiable horn.

But it’s the two leads that give this heart, and Licorice Pizza is an amazingly sweet, tender, endearing and deeply charming love story about a couple who can’t quite understand why they want to be together and spend most of the movie making sure they’re not. Anderson brings it altogether with immense homespun charm – this is almost a home movie, Haim’s family play he character’s family, the cast is stuffed with Anderson’ family and friends – and Licorice Pizza is the sort of delight that shouldn’t work, but very triumphantly does.

The Nun's Story (1959)

A nun struggles to balance faith and duty in this handsomely made, beautifully paced drama

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Sister Luke/Gabrielle van der Mal), Peter Finch (Dr Fortunati), Edith Evans (Reverend Mother Emmanuel), Peggy Ashcroft (Mother Mathilde), Dean Jagger (Dr van der Mal), Mildred Dunnock (Sister Margharita), Beatrice Straight (Mother Christophe), Patricia Collinge (Sister William), Rosalie Crutchley (Sister Eleanor), Ruth White (Mother Marcella), Barbara O’Neil (Mother Didyma), Colleen Dewhurst (“Archangel Gabriel”)

Gabrille van der Mal (Audrey Hepburn) has two passions in her life: her faith and a desire to heal the sick. Dreaming of combining these and working with native patients suffering from tropical diseases in the Belgian Congo, at 19 she joins an order of nuns who specialise in nursing. But the life of nun is far from an easy one, and Sister Luke (as she becomes) constantly struggles to square the circle of her faith, passion for medicine, ambitions and her natural antipathy towards authority. It’s a square she struggles with for almost twenty years, culminating in a crisis of faith during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.

Zinnemann’s gracefully directed film, not surprisingly won the warm support of the Production Code Office, with its faithful depiction of the life and work of Nuns ticking all the boxes of a devout picture. However, The Nun’s Story is a more complex and intriguing film than this. While it finds much to praise in the self-sacrifice and devotion of the nun’s life, it isn’t afraid to look at how this institution (like many others) values obedience over innovation and praises submission over individualism. It stresses, in a way very few other films have done, how strikingly difficult it must be to lead your life in a religious devotion, and how much such orders (by their nature) demand we must put aside our natural inclinations.

Sister Luke is warned from the start by her doctor father (a genial Dean Jagger) that, with her stubbornness and independence, she is likely to find strictures on obedience hard to follow. He’s right. Superbly played by Audrey Hepburn (in her personal favourite performance), Sister Luke constantly finds it a near impossible struggle to submit herself to the authority of the order. Hepburn makes clear Sister Luke’s sincere faith, and her desire to belong, but also her unwillingness to accept that this might involve any compromise on her work as a nurse.

From the first she demonstrates she is unwilling to stop tending to a patient when the bell rings for her to attend prayer. She constantly reproofs herself for her inability to subjugate her personality to the requirements of her religious order. Training in tropical diseases at her medical college, she refuses a request from Mother Marcella to deliberately flunk an exam to prove her humility. As a ‘reward’, the best qualified nun in tropical diseases is dispatched to a sanatorium in Belgium to further learn obedience. Even when she is eventually allowed to work in the Congo it’s only in the “White’s Only” hospital (as they need the staff) and she is reproved for showing off when she makes much needed improvements to the hospitals working practices.

In many ways the film is a fascinating look at how hard it was for a woman to make a mark in the early 20^th century. Clearly Sister Luke should have trained as a doctor – she graduates fourth in her class in tropical medicines – but that door was closed to her, and her only chance of working in Africa was as a member of a religious order. She ends up working in a system where she must constantly make difficult calls between her two passions (faith and medicine) – with her order placing devotion and obedience as the primary goal.

Not that the film is disparaging of religion. The devotion and goodness of the nuns is above question. Their ability to turn the other cheek and forgive is shown as an unparalleled virtue – even a shocking crime in the Congo is patiently forgiven. Many senior nuns are more than capable of balancing Sister Luke’s devotion to medicine with the orders demands. Mother Christophe (wonderfully and warmly played by Beatrice Straight) at the sanatorium, disagrees with the exam choice forced on Sister Luke and supports her to find a balance between her work and her order’s demand for obedience. Mother Mathilde (a matronly Peggy Ashcroft) in the Congo encourages her improvements – with the proviso she is told first. Others – such as Reverend Mother Emmanuel (a gently reserved Edith Evans) – consider it more important that Sister Luke dilutes her individualism in the order.

It makes for a fascinating film, that praises the devotion and self-sacrifice of religious orders, while not shying away from how rigid they often (by their very nature) are. Sister Luke in many ways is an ill-fit for being a nun. She can’t, or won’t, put her own beliefs about what is right second and she has an obstinance and pride (which she admits herself) that should really have ruled her out from the order in the first place. While the film doesn’t quite do enough to give as much space to her faith as it does her passion for medicine, it also makes it clear many characters – most astutely Peter Finch’s coolly professional Congo-based atheist doctor – recognise that she isn’t able to make the ultimate sacrifice that being a nun requires: the full submission of her own will.

Zinnemann directs this with a graceful, careful pace that finds many moments of quiet emotion amongst the imposing world of the order. The film is bookended by beautifully done sequences of departure and arrival, with possessions carefully left-behind and doors opening onto new and radically different worlds (the ending in particular plays out in a powerful silence). The film is beautifully shot by Franz Planer, with a wonderfully restrained score by Franz Waxman. It’s perfect material for this director, who was always strongest when showing the individual struggling within a system that demands they turn against their own nature.

The Nun’s Story is perhaps a little overlong and at times takes it stately pace a little too slowly. But it has a wonderful performance by Audrey Hepburn (who is in nearly every single frame), gorgeous location shooting and is directed with restraint and intelligence by Zinnemann. It also manages the difficult duty of finding things to both praise and criticise in the life of a religious order and both respects and questions the lifestyle and its rules. A middle brow film no doubt, but a fine example of highly skilled and professional Hollywood film-making.