Tag: Rupert Everett

Dance with a Stranger (1985)

Hell is other people in this Satresque version of the life of Ruth Ellis

Director: Mike Newell

Cast: Miranda Richardson (Ruth Ellis), Rupert Everett (David Blakely), Ian Holm (Desmond Cussen), Stratford Johns (Morrie Conley), Joanne Whalley (Christine), Tom Chadbon (Antony Findlater), Jane Bertish (Carole Findlater), David Troughton (Cliff Davis)

Hell is other people. Dance with a Stranger is the tragic story of how Ruth Ellis (Miranda Richardson in an electrifying screen debut) became the last woman hung for murder in Britain. But it’s also a terrible Satre-like tale of three people stuck a destructive cycle, loathing each other but unable to imagine their lives apart. Ellis is fanatically, obsessively in love with feckless David Blakely (Rupert Everett) who blows hot and cold on her and is nowhere near consistent in his feelings as middle-aged Desmond Cussen (Ian Holm), s so besotted with Ruth (who treats him like a benevolent uncle) that he drives her to her assignations and pays rent on the apartment where she sleeps with Blakely.

All three cause each other immeasurable harm in Newell’s cool, bleak, well-made true-crime story that is far less interested in the moments of violence and retribution, than the sad and sorry cycle that leads to them. Tellingly, we never see a single moment of the trial or punishment of Ruth and the film effectively concludes in long-shot as we watch the fatal shooting of Blakely from afar. But who needs the close-up of this inevitable ending, when we’ve had front row seats to the catastrophic relationships that led up to it.

Like many British films, it’s at least partly about class. In 1950s London, we’re still on the cusp of the sort of cultural levelling out of the 1960s. This is a post-war, Agatha-Christie-like London. Blakely and his friends are Waughish Bright Young Things, living on Trust Funds and driving racing cars for fun. Their evenings are spent in drinking clubs aiming for glamour, staffed by those yearning to jump up a notch on the ladder like Ruth Ellis. Such women are of course for dalliances (and casual screws) not for marrying. Ruth’s back-up lover Desmond is an RAF-veteran who misses the war, an overgrown besotted schoolboy and middle-aged bachelor who accepts he is only worth other men’s cast offs.

Blakely’s friends encourage him to mess Ruth around because she’s a working-class strumpet. Ruth is at least partly willing to forgive him because marriage could lift her once and for all out of the working classes. Desmond is of less-interest, because a loveless middle-class marriage of sexual duty simply isn’t as attractive. Neither does Ruth love – or lust after – him the way she does the dynamic, sexy, little-boy-lost Blakely. A man she finds herself so uncontrollably drawn to that, no matter what he does – not turn up, mock her in front of his friends, push her down the stairs or punch her in the face in public – she comes crawling back. Often with Desmond in helpless tow, ignoring his adoration while demanding he drive her to another confrontation with the selfish Blakely.

Dance with a Stranger finds intense sympathy, to various degrees, with all three of its leads. But most strongly it turns Ruth Ellis, who could be a historical statistic, into a figure of real tragedy. Richardson is superb as a woman who is confident, assertive – even arrogantly dismissive – in so many areas of her life except one: her compulsive, obsessive and destructive love for Blakely. Dance with a Stranger charts effectively her mental collapse: from a woman who flirts confidently in a bar, to a quivering, weeping mess standing in the streets staring up at her lover’s window, screaming abuse, smashing up cars and babbling incoherently and inconsolably.

The film charts the same deadly cycle, showing Blakely’s ill-treatment and selfishness having ever more deadly impact on Ruth’s mental well-being. In it all, Blakely isn’t always malicious, more immature and easily led. Everett’s performance is perfect at capturing this playboy easiness under a fundamentally weak personality, a man who has been handed everything on a plate and is unable to respond in any adult way to Ruth’s love for him. Nevertheless, his stroppy behaviour gets her fired from her job and his behaviour fluctuates from gifts of framed pictures and promises of devotion, alternate with angry outbursts and emotional and physical violence.

And Desmond Cussen picks up the pieces time and again. Ian Holm is wonderful as this hen-pecked sadomasochist, impotent and all-too willing to debase himself, hurt time and again by seeing Ruth returning time and again to the dismissive Blakely. Holm makes Cussen small, weak, moody and frequently pathetic. He limply follows where she leads and suffers with weary, besotted patience every one of her preoccupied complaints against Blakely. This is man who almost sado-masochistically puts himself in painful situations, can’t be angry with Ruth for more than a few minutes and gets into impotent scuffles with Blakely outside pubs.

But it’s also Cussen who has the gun – and the film at least suggests the possibility that his openness about its location might well have been a factor in Ruth’s later decision to use it. The killing is, deliberately, the least interesting part of the film. What matters is the mental state that led Ruth to this killing. The self-delusion and desperation to believe that she could form a relationship with Blakely, the same obsessive blind-spot that leads to her closing the film writing a condolence letter to Blakely’s mother. Ruth is a victim here as much as him (perhaps more?) a mis-used woman who cannot give Cussen what he wants and can never get what she needs from Blakely.

Newell’s direction is sharp and sensitive and while the film’s cycle of destructive behaviour – Blakely and Ruth row, break-up, Cussen picks up some pieces, rince and repeat – can become overwhelming, it is partly the intention. And it cements the feeling for the audience of being as much trapped in this hell as everyone else. Holm is superb, Everett perfectly cast but Richardson is mesmeric as Ruth, vivid, vibrant, vivacious, vulnerable and victimised in a film that goes a long way to humanise the suffering behind what seem open-and-shut cases.

The Happy Prince (2018)

Rupert Everett excels as Oscar Wilde in his passion project The Happy Prince

Director: Rupert Everett

Cast: Rupert Everett (Oscar Wilde), Colin Firth (Reggie Turner), Colin Morgan (Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas), Emily Watson (Constance Lloyd), Tom Wilkinson (Father Dunne), Anna Chancellor (Mrs Arbuthnot), Edwin Thomas (Robbie Ross), Beatrice Dalle (Café manager), Julian Wadham (Mr Arbuthnot), John Standing (Dr Tucker)

Rupert Everett has long felt an affinity for Oscar Wilde. He saw Wilde as one of the first great martyrs of the gay community, sacrificed early to the hypocrisy of conventional society (who loved everything about this flamboyantly camp, witty man right up until they found out what he got up to in bed). He spent ten years trying to find the money to film his script about Wilde’s final days in exile in Europe. (Everett eventually recounted all this in a book, To the Ends of the Earth).

The final end result is a well-made, interesting, decent film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel or radically change our perceptions or knowledge of Wilde – but does plenty of credit to Everett. He directs with an assurance and a surprising amount of visual flair. The film is attractive and uses urgent, hand-held camerawork with a great deal of skill, giving even the most basic scenes a real spark of life. There are some intelligent and intriguing visual cuts and transitions and he gets good work from the cast (Firth, an old friend, loyally did the film for nothing to help it get made). There is enough here to make you keen to see Everett have a go at another film (although I suspect, from reading the book, that’s highly unlikely to happen).

Everett also plays the lead role, and that’s the film’s main interest. He honed his performance as Wilde after the best part of a year on stage (to huge acclaim) in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss. Not to mention Everett has a natural affinity for Wildean dialogue, having proven on several occasions that maybe no actor alive better captures Wilde’s wit and pathos. His Wilde is a shattered husk, slowly realising over the course of the film that his life is effectively over. This happens not so much as a raging against the light, but the slow deflation of a man who died at a very early age (barely mid 40s), collapsing into depression, alcoholism and repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

The most prominent of those mistakes being taking up again with his lover (and root cause of his disgrace the first time) Bosie, played here with preening, incandescent selfishness by Colin Morgan. During a long sojourn in Naples, these two flirt, fight and fuck until the money runs out – like an appalling unfunny screwball comedy couple who keep being dragged back together because fighting each other is better than talking to anyone else. Bosie then turns up in floods of tears at Wilde’s grave – having cut all ties with him or face disinheritance, fobbing him off with a few hundred quid of “thank but piss off” money.

Wilde’s loyal friends stick by him – but in that typical blinkered way we sometimes behave when we are in love, Wilde oscillates between being sickeningly dependent and dismissive of them. Everett isn’t afraid to make Wilde often preening, sponging, selfish and deluded or to stress how easily his wit and intelligence could be turned cruel. Edwin Thomas is heart-breakingly earnest as Wilde’s devoted friend Robbie Ross while Firth gives sterling support as the equally loyal Reggie Turner.

The film follows Wilde into some pretty dark places and plays some quite daring cards when exploring Wilde’s psyche. Everett plainly shows Wilde deeply regretted the end of his relationship with his children, and the damage he caused them. But he isn’t afraid to show him taking on potential substitutes for them in a teenage boy and his prepubescent brother – while still paying for sex with the older brother (eagerly pimped by his street-smart younger brother). Despite this there’s something very sad about Wilde settling down to tell these kids the same stories he told his own. Or his gentle longing for the family he left behind that we hear in his voice when he sees them.

Where the film is strongest is in showing the prejudice and rage Wilde met and the suffering he endured. Wilde is spat at, chased through the street by drunken poshboys on tour (finally physically confronting them in a church with a foul-mouthed fury), threatened and generally treated like dirt by nearly everyone of any social standing. Scenes of him at his pomp show the same traits now treated as disgusting signs of his sexual preference, were celebrated as evidence of his charm. The Happy Prince has an angry and rage to it that I almost wish Everett had committed to more.

Saying that, it’s shot and edited with such pace and urgency that the film still works. If at the end it never quite coalesces into a clear message, it’s still a fine tribute to Everett’s efforts to bring it to the screen. And his own performance is a marvel – beautifully judged, empathetic but not hagiographic, critical but sympathetic, funny and also moving, angry but gentle. Its best legacy is the opportunity Everett the actor is given by Everett the director (as he confesses in the book one of his principle reasons for writing the script in the first place) and if the film is a little too much of a one-man showcase, it still has plenty of interest to it.

An Ideal Husband (1999)

Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver and Rupert Everett do the best in this Wilde mis-fire An Ideal Husband

Director: Oliver Parker

Cast: Rupert Everett (Lord Arthur Goring), Cate Blanchett (Lady Gertrude Chiltern), Minnie Driver (Miss Mabel Chiltern), Julianne Moore (Mrs Laura Cheveley), Jeremy Northam (Sir Robert Chiltern), John Wood (Lord Caversham), Peter Vaughan (Phipps), Lindsay Duncan (Lady Markby), Simon Russell Beale (Sir Edward), Nickolas Grace (Vicomte de Nanjac)

I have a theory that Shakespearean comedy rarely translates well to screen because what makes it work is its theatricality and how it encourages laughter by interacting directly with the audience. I think you could say the same for Oscar Wilde. Certainly, this film version of An Ideal Husband looks lovely and never misses a single Wildean bon-mot. But it’s overlong, drags rather in its final third and, above all, isn’t particularly funny.

The plot has been freshened up and adjusted in places to make for a more filmic narrative, but the principles are the same from the play. Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam) is a pillar of the establishment, famed for his unshakeable dedication to principle and adored by his wife Lady Gertrude (Cate Blanchett) who sees him as a paragon. But all that could be shaken up when Mrs Laura Cheveley (Julianne Moore) re-enters his life, bringing with her shocking revelations that could destroy Sir Robert. So he turns to help to his best friend, the witty and debonair Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett), who is himself in love with Sir Robert’s sister Mabel (Minnie Driver). How will events play out as they start to spiral out of control?

Oliver Parker’s film is cautious, safe and – for all that it tries to open the play out with scenes in parks and Parliament – conservative and safe. You can imagine Wilde himself would probably have wanted something a little more daring had he been involved. As it is, things that work very well on stage (the farcical elements of mistaken identity and a house with a different character hiding behind every door) don’t really work on film. These ideas are inherently theatrical and depend on the heightened unreality of theatre – in the cold hard harshness of cinema, they feel out of place.

Put frankly, the big thing the play misses is the live audience. You can imagine this cast going down an absolute storm in the West End. The lines that demand a wink to the audience, bits of business that invite laughter, just fall flat here. They are rendered lifeless by the demands of being fit into a film, or having to take place in a world that seems real, when Wilde’s plays are all about a sort of bizarre ultra-Victorian world of form covering up a suggestive naughtiness. When the characters go and watch The Importance of Being Earnest at the theatre (a sign of the film’s clumsy opening out, and its lack of wit when left to its own devices) the dialogue style that doesn’t really work in the “real world” of film suddenly feels perfectly natural when we see people speak it on stage.

Parker’s film fails to bring any particular inspiration to events. Instead it seems determined to package Wilde as a heritage product, the sort of thing you can imagine people considering a safe thing for the whole family to sit down and watch. There is no sense of cheek, sex or danger in this like you can get in Wilde. Instead it’s all about attractive actors in period-drama drawing rooms, going about their work with skill. All made to look as pretty as possible with some lovely costumes. It’s Sunday tea-time viewing.

But despite this, some of those performances are spot on. I’m not sure there is an actor alive today better suited to Wilde than Rupert Everett. His imperious drawl, his sardonic wit, his louche manner (not to mention his ability to suggest an illicit wickedness under the surface) make him absolutely perfect. Everett has shown time and again – on film and in the theatre – he has an affinity for the dryness needed for Wilde, as well as being able to communicate the intelligence without smugness. All the successful scenes of the movie revolve around him, and he invariably brings out the best from his co-stars. He’s also far-and-away the funniest thing in the film.

The rest of the cast are more mixed. Cate Blanchett is the stand-out in (sadly) the least interesting main role, the rather stuffy Lady Gertrude (you wish you’d been able to see her let rip as the more wicked Mrs Cheveley) – like Everett she “gets it”. Jeremy Northam also does excellent work in the straight-man role of Sir Robert, but his characteristic dignity and intelligence do very well in the role. Julianne Moore though seems oddly constrained by the period setting as Mrs Cheveley (strange that she did this at the same time as her superior work as a restrained Englishwoman in The End of the Affair) while Minnie Driver lacks impact as Mabel. John Wood and Peter Vaughan – two old pros from the theatre – bring much of the energy and wit in supporting roles.

An Ideal Husband is fine. But watching it you’d wonder what all the fuss about Wilde is about. And that can’t be a good thing. If Wilde wrote a review of it, it would be funnier than anything in the film.

The Madness of King George (1994)

Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren excel in this masterful adaptation of Alan Bennett’s classic play

Director: Nicholas Hytner

Cast: Nigel Hawthorne (King George III), Helen Mirren (Queen Charlotte), Ian Holm (Dr Willis), Rupert Everett (Prince of Wales) Amanda Donohoe (Lady Pembroke), Rupert Graves (Captain Greville), John Wood (Lord Chancellor Thurlow), Geoffrey Palmer (Dr Warren), Jim Carter (Charles James Fox), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Duke of York), Julian Wadham (William Pitt), Anthony Calf (Captain Fitzroy), Adrian Scarborough (Fortnum), Struan Rodger (Henry Dundas), Caroline Harker (Mrs Fitzherbert), Roger Hammond (Dr Baker), Cyril Shaps (Dr Pepys)

Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III allegedly changed its name for the film adaptation because producers worried American audiences would feel they missed the first two films in the series. It’s not actually true, but it was a lot of free publicity for Nicholas Hytner’s film debut – a marvellous, accomplished and brilliant theatrical adaptation that will always take a firm place on my list of favourite films. It’s an excitingly well-made, hilarious and heartfelt film that captures forever Nigel Hawthorne’s greatest ever performance.

In 1788 King George III (Nigel Hawthorne) is still fuming over the loss of “the colonies” (the film front and centres talk of the plucky United States, to help sell the film in the land of the free) and the behaviour of his ambitious oldest son George (Rupert Everett). Happily married to his wife Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren), and the father of 15 children, George is a stickler for form and duty. So imagine the shock of his ministers when his behaviour becomes impulsive, irrational and finally obscene. With the king talking non-stop and impossible to control, the Prince of Wales schemes to become Prince Regent. Desperate, the king’s ministers call in Dr Willis (Ian Holm), a professional doctor of the mad, who claims he can (with time) cure the king. But will it be in time to prevent the regency?

Nicholas Hytner has rather charmingly claimed that he knew so little about film-making he didn’t realise the difficulty of many of the things he asked for, and if he had known he would never have asked. He gives much of the credit to the seasoned pros working on the film pulling out the stops to give him what he asked for. The end result is a brilliantly paced, lusciously filmed epic that is both a wonderfully moving personal story of a crotchety but lovable monarch and a witty look at regency politics. Several scenes are shot with an imaginative brilliance, from shots that throw themselves into the middle of scuffles at court with the unbalanced king, to sweeping landscape shots that make it look like the thing cost millions of dollars.

The other advantage of bringing in Hytner (director of the original stage production) was his brilliant understanding of Alan Bennett. Bennett’s script is superb, crammed with sensational lines and brilliant jokes that never get in the way of the humanity. Bennett is always more than radical than his cosy reputation suggests, and King George is a witty deconstruction of the purpose of the Royal family (politicians frequently comment on their pointlessness and George defines it as “smile and wave” and to act as “a model family”). It’s got a great understanding of the frustrating waiting game of long-serving heirs (being Prince of Wales “is not a position, it is a predicament”). The film even lands a cheeky gag at the end with the suggestion that the King’s condition was hereditary.

Hytner’s film uses the trappings of royalty brilliantly, contrasting them to great effect with the later degradation of the king – in an inspired moment, George’s first “enthroning” in the restraint chair Willis uses to condition him into behaving is soundtracked to Handel’s Zadok the Priest. George’s court is an uptight, staid place where people can’t relax (or even sit – George is so adamantly opposed to people sitting in his presence even a heavily pregnant woman is not exempt during an interminable bell-ringing version of Handel). George is a constrained figure – so it’s no wonder his insanity displays itself as an increasingly loose-lipped lack of inhibition.

The question of madness is richly handled. As Willis says, many of the mad consider themselves kings, so what does a king fancy himself as? And how can you tell what is normal for a king anyway? George is an eccentric from the start – and even his recovery at the end is basically eccentricity with an element of self-control rather than a full recovery. The film never shies away from making you invest in the rough treatment the king undergoes to wrestle him back to sanity. The doctors get short shrift, either incompetent or scheming (“When will you get it into your head that one can produce a copious, regular and exquisitely turned evacuation every day of the week and still be a stranger to reason” Geoffrey Palmer’s wonderfully dry Warren tells a toilet-obsessed colleague).

The film is slightly more confused about Willis. Strongly played, with a twinkly chippiness, by Ian Holm (who is just about perfect) the film can’t quite decide if Willis is responsible for the king’s recovery or not. It’s a battle of wills, but is Willis ahead of his time or as medieval as his colleagues? Does Willis’ aggressive conditioning (punishing bad behaviour with restraints) force the king back into sanity? Or is it George’s love of his wife that provides the final push? Or is the king naturally on an upcycle where madness expresses itself in eccentricity rather than incoherence? It’s not clear (maybe this is deliberate) but Willis’ regime of punishment and reward has a slight air of quackery.

What’s pretty deliberate was Bennett and Hytner’s insistence that only Nigel Hawthorne could play the king. Thank god they did, as Hawthorne is simply brilliant. Cheated of the Oscar in 1994, Hawthorne is compelling. He also conveys the natural authority of a king, and the “grumpy old man” side of the king is mined for brilliant comic effect. But it’s also a beautifully heartfelt and hilarious performance, running the gamut from delight in obscenities to teary fury and fear at the treatment from his doctors and loss of mental control. Such a sublime performance.

And it surely inspired some top work from the brilliant cast around him, many of whom revived their roles from the stage production (chief among these Wadham’s wonderfully dry Pitt). Helen Mirren is warm, proud and eventually desperate as Charlotte, while Rupert Everett mines the Prince of Wales for all the comic pomposity and childishness he can. Rupert Graves is excellent as a loyal equerry, while John Wood, Jim Carter and Geoffrey Palmer also excel. You’ve rarely seen such a strong cast of British stage notables, and it’s not surprising they were attracted to perform in a script that has as many good lines as this one.

It’s accomplished and luscious, is brilliantly shot and designed, and is packed full of wonderful sequences. It wears its intelligence lightly, with George as a proto-Lear struggling to hold onto his marbles. The characters even sit and read Lear at one point (“Is that wise?” questions Thurlow. “I had no idea what it was about” says the little-read Willis). George may recover his wits in time, but it’s unclear whether this makes him more or less of a human being. In many ways at the height of his insanity, he’s a warmer, friendlier person (if out of control), then he is as his buttoned-up, stickler-for-duty self.

The Madness of King George is the sort of film all theatre adaptations wish they could be, brilliantly cast, opening out into something that not only feels compelling to watch but also brings out the great depths of the original play. What is monarchy for? How can we tell if the all-powerful are mad or not? What is sanity anyway? All this and with some superb jokes, and a story that really involves you. With Nigel Hawthorne’s simply brilliant performance at the centre, this is one for the ages.

Stardust (2007)

Claire Danes plays a star and Charlie Cox a village boy in charming adventure fairy-tale Stardust

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Cast: Claire Danes (Yvaine), Charlie Cox (Tristan), Michelle Pfeiffer (Lamia), Mark Strong (Prince Septimus), Robert De Niro (Captain Shakespeare), Sienna Miller (Victoria Forester), Jason Flemyng (Prince Primus), Rupert Everett (Prince Secundus), Kate Magowan (Una), Ricky Gervais (Ferdy), Peter O’Toole (King of Stormhold), Joanna Scanlan (Mormo), Sarah Alexander (Empusa), Nathaniel Parker (Dunstan Thorn), Henry Cavill (Humphrey), Dexter Fletcher (Skinny Pirate), Ian McKellen (Narrator)

Stardust is loosely adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name, an adult fairy tale refashioned into a crowd pleasing family film: a warm and genuine adventure story, stuffed with romance, excitement and drama.

Tristan (Charlie Cox) is a dreamy young man in the village of Wall, which neighbours the mystical and forbidden world of Stormhold. In love with the selfish Victoria (Sienna Miller), Tristan vows to travel to Stormhold and bring her back a fallen star. However, the star has landed in the form of a beautiful young woman, Yvaine (Claire Danes), and the two of them find themselves on a difficult journey to return to Wall. Along the way they must dodge the witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) who wishes to sacrifice Yvaine to regain her beauty, and the surviving sons of the late king of Stormhold, particularly the ruthless Septimus (Mark Strong), who need Yvaine’s necklace to claim the throne.

What works about Stardust is that it has an air of whimsy about it, without ever feeling whimsical or corny. It’s a grown-up fairy tale, in the sense that it has some black humour and acknowledgement of sex, but really it’s more of a charming adventure story in a fantasy setting, which manages to keep its tongue in its cheek and not take itself too seriously. Matthew Vaughn’s direction has a very light touch and never allows this soufflé of a film to either puff itself up too much, or to deflate. Instead it rolls along with a giddy charm, with a delightful odd-couple love story at the centre. It’s a film that totally gets its tone spot-on, helped by confident direction and a wonderful score.

Charlie Cox plays romantic lead Tristan with a great deal of charm and really captures the romance at his centre. He also manages that extremely difficult task of being likeable – you can’t help but warm to him despite the fact that his self-awareness is completely off for a large chunk of the film. Claire Danes is equally good as the prickly Yvaine, hiding a great capacity for emotion and longing under a defensive exterior. Their romance is of course highly traditional – they bicker because they love each other! – but both actors carry it off with a great deal of style. You can’t help but want them to get over their problems and get together.

The romantic plotline is also never overwhelmed by the faintly Pythonesque comedy that surrounds it, particularly from the ghostly chorus of deceased Princes of Stormhold. Vaughn produces a great cast of comic actors for this group, while entrusting Mark Strong with the lion’s share of the screentime as the dashing decoy antagonist. In fact, the construction of the film’s narrative is rather neatly done, as this plotline of the inheritance of Stormhold is largely kept separate narratively from the romantic Tristan/Yvaine storyline, with the intersections only occurring at key points.

The real antagonist of the film however is Michelle Pfeiffer’s witch Lamia, Pfeiffer offering a neat portrait of vanity intermixed with cruelty. It’s a very decent inversion of a “movie star” glamour performance, and Pfeiffer’s heartless ruthlessness is a very nice contrast with Tristan’s altruistic openness. In fact Pfeiffer is very good in this film: she gets the balance so right that Lamia constantly keeps you on your toes as to how villainous or not she may be. I’m not quite sure that the film quite manages to completely bring the two characters plot lines together to provide a really effective narrative drive to the film, but she certainly works as an effective antagonist.

The film’s structure is a combination shaggy dog story and classic quest structure, which allows each sequence to take on its tone and structure, from thriller to comedy, depending on the characters involved. What threads this together is the growing (and very sweetly structured) love story between Tristan and Yvain which keeps the momentum up as the film moves from location to location, with cameo roles sprinkled throughout, without the film losing momentum (though it is probably 15 minutes too long). The film’s comfort with letting it sequences expand is clear with Robert De Niro’s Captain Shakespeare, a feared cloud pirate whose secret desires are not so secret as he might think. The film delights in essentially extended jokes like this – but it gets away with it because these jokes manage to be quite funny (De Niro in particular turns in a very good comic performance).

It’s a film that manages to remain distinctive and original, while appealing to a wide audience, which is quite some trick to pull off. It also manages to do this without losing its distinctive rhythm, which is both endearing and enjoyable. The “rules” of its world are clearly established, and while many of the actors are slightly tongue in cheek, they never laugh at their characters but only gently tip the wink at the audience. This freedom largely comes from the conviction and honesty Danes and Cox endow the central characters with, to ground the film. It alsohas a great sense of emotional intelligence to it, and brings a lot of depth to the characters. It also helps that it’s brilliantly designed, looks ravishing and is full of several delightful performances.

There’s lots of terrific stuff in this film, with a very sweet story at its centre. In fact this sweetness is probably the secret of its success: it never takes itself very seriously, it dances lightly from scene to scene and never allows itself to become too overblown. It’s got a terrific cast and is well directed, with a snappy bounce. At moments it does feel a little long, and some sequences overstay their welcome a bit too much – but the central characters are so winningly played that you don’t really mind. Sure this is not a masterpiece, but it has a sort of magic about it, the charm, excitement, adventure and romance, all mixed together with such confidence that it’s a pleasure to watch.