New on Curzon Home Cinema is Zeina Durra’s Luxor. Hana (Andrea Riseborough), a doctor who works for an aid agency travels back to the titular city for a break. As she explores she tries to come to terms with the horrors she has seen and the choices she made when she was previously in Egypt.
I have given away more in my description than Durra really does in this pretty obtuse film. Riseborough, though, manages to convey a lot in a look or an expression in a fine performance. Whilst frustrating at times, I got a lot more out of it than the superficially similar, wandering around a city movie, Monsoon, recently.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Now available to rent is the refreshing indie drama, Saint Frances, written by and starring the talented Kelly O’Sullivan. She plays Bridget a 34 year old, slightly feckless, single woman. At the same time she unexpectedly secures a job as a nanny – to a six year old daughter of a lesbian couple – she even more unexpectedly becomes pregnant. After having an abortion, she has to cope with both the physical and mental pain that causes, whilst her job helps her find a new purpose in life.
This is not either as gruelling or as cloyingly sentimental as the plot suggests. The topics, such as a woman’s right to choose and post natal depression, are covered with a real lightness of touch thanks to O’Sullivan’s smart screenplay. I also thought initially that I would find Bridget annoying, but I soon warmed to her, and became really invested in her story.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Much more straightforward is the nasty revenge genre pic, Ravage. Harper (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), a photographer, stumbles across a man being murdered in a remote part of Virginia. She tries to report the crime but the police either don’t believe her or are on in the crime. And when she gets captured, she has to use her ingenuity to escape.
This is reasonably efficiently presented in just a 77 minute run time. But I couldn’t help but feel it had been done better before now. A woman fighting pursuers against the odds could be seen in the wittier The Hunt a few months ago. Crazed rednecks can be seen to better effect in 2003’s Wrong Turn, or, of course, the classic Deliverance.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
My final Amazon rental this week was I Used to Go Here. Gillian Jacobs stars as Kate, a newly published author who accepts an invitation to speak at her old college. Once there, she becomes involved in the lives of her students. This a lightweight, completely inoffensive watch that is pleasant enough viewing, with a good turn from Jacobs, But it also totally lacks any substance.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Lastly a couple of films available for free to Amazon Prime Members. I finally got round to watching Borat: Subsequent Movie Film. As shown in my review of Trial of the Chicago 7, I can be fan of Sacha Baron Cohen’s work, but that does not extend to his grotesque characters he masquerades as. I was left cold by the original Borat film, and had the same feelings this time around. As much as it is nice to see the ludicrous Rudy Giuliani skewered this sort of comedy is much better suited to a prank TV show rather than extended into a feature length film.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
Whilst I had low expectations for Borat, I was expecting much better from the documentary Time. A woman, Fox Rich, strives for the release of her incarcerated husband, Rob, who was sentenced for 60 years for an armed robbery. The punishment was ridiculously harsh but the film sheds very little light on why the couple committed the crime, other than to say they were “desperate” or why Fox took a plea deal and was released comparatively early and Fox did not. The treatment of black people in the prison system has been dealt with much better, in say The 13th and at the end of this, I didn’t feel any more enlightened. Also, the insistent plinky-plonky piano score is very irritating.
Rating: 4 out of 10