There's something I want to tell you.

45 Years

(2015)

(SPOILERS) If you have the patience to go along with its unhurried, semi-slumbering pace, 45 Years may well creep up on you unawares. Writer-director Andrew Haigh nurtures the same seeds of doubt in the viewer’s mind that grow in Kate Mercer’s (Charlotte Rampling), as her inability to reconcile revelations concerning her husband Geoff (Tom Courtenay) leads to the unravelling of what appeared to be a very solid, very comfortable, very average marriage.

The trigger is news that the body of Katya, Geoff’s girlfriend prior to meeting Kate, has been found in a melting glacier. Geoff becomes preoccupied with reminiscences of decades past and Kate is initially understanding of the situation, albeit jealous of the space this former lover held in her husband’s heart. But when Geoff admits he would have married her, starts looking into travelling to Switzerland to see the body, spends time in the attic going through old pictures, begins smoking again and drinking too much, the burden becomes too much and Kate instructs him not to talk about Katya any more.

There’s something of the Michael Haneke about Haigh’s film, with its spectre of intangible secrets the viewer – like our protagonist – cannot grasp with any certainty. Initially, the underplayed narrative passes almost unnoticed, a non-descript depiction of a retired couple living unexceptionally in rural Norfolk; you wouldn’t be blamed for nodding off along with Geoff. But Kate’s increasing disturbance of mind gradually takes hold, and so Haigh cloaks the picture with an increasingly uneasy atmosphere, as the unrelinquished past encroaches on the present.

It’s thus understandable that some have read more into Geoff’s exhumed history than is intended, namely that he may have murdered Katya, jealous of her flirtation with their German guide, and dumped her in a crevasse (so explaining his nervousness about the glacier melting and eagerness to take a look, lest evidence of his crime be discovered). I don’t think this is the case; rather, it’s evidence that, once the floodgates are opened, and deception preys on the mind, anything seems possible. It’s clear that Geoff has lied to Kate when she views the pictures of the trip on a slide projector; she isn’t wearing the wooden ring he talked about (as a pretence of marriage in a less tolerant time), and most damningly, one photo evidences that Katya was pregnant.

It’s this, rather than any more culpable acts, that is the turning point for Kate; the underpinning of their decision not to have children comes into question, and with it everything she assumed to be real between them. In tandem, Haigh infuses an almost gothic undercurrent. Kate is haunted by Katya’s presence, smelling her perfume, and, as she stands beneath the open attic during a nocturnal wander, the door behind her closes apparently of its own accord.

But, even come their anniversary party (they didn’t have a fortieth due to Geoff’s bypass surgery), it isn’t wholly clear how affected she is. It’s only during the celebrations, as Geoff gives a speech (in which he breaks down, which he never does; earlier, Geraldine James has expressed the view that men always do on such occasions, “I think they just see the world differently to us”, but Kate notes he didn’t cry at their wedding), thanking her for putting up with all his nonsense, that her feelings become evident. Finally, during their dance, to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, she pulls away from her husband when he holds her hand in the air; something has been irretrievably broken.

Rampling wholly deserves her Oscar nomination, probably her highest profile role since she embarked on an affair with a man in a chimp suit in Max, Mon Amour, navigating Kate’s inner conflict with subtlety and nuance. Courtney deserves great praise too, albeit his slightly incoherent, introverted partner is necessarily less readable. It’s Haigh, though, who is the real star of the show, gauging the picture expertly and precisely, leaving the viewer ruminating on events long after the credits have rolled.

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

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Hold the Dark (2018)
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Tomb Raider (2018)
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Phantom Thread (2017)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year's Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he's to be believed) than mass Academy rapture with the picture. Which is ironic, as the relatively unknown Vicky Krieps steals the film from under him.

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Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

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Fearless (1993)
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Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

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Venom (2018)
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A Star is Born (2018)
(SPOILERS) A shoe-in for Best Picture Oscar? Perhaps not, since it will have to beat at very least Roma and First Man to claim the prize, but this latest version of A Star is Born still comes laden with more acclaim than the previous three versions put together (and that's with a Best Picture nod for the 1937 original). While the film doesn't quite reach the consistent heights suggested by the majority of critics, who have evacuated their adjectival bowels lavishing it with superlatives, it's undoubtedly a remarkably well-made, stunningly acted piece, and perhaps even more notably, only rarely feels like its succumbing to just how familiar this tale of rise to, and parallel fall from, stardom has become.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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