Jasmine Sarah

My Week with Marilyn is the true story of a young man whose persistence and enthusiasm landed him a lowly position on the set of Laurence Olivier’s film The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). A dreamer, Colin Clarke (Eddie Redmayne) finds himself caught up in an unlikely, short-lived affair with the film’s star, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).

At 30 years old, Marilyn is shown kept on a steady diet of pills by her controlling management, newly married to her third husband, Playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), painfully insecure, desperately wishing to be taken seriously and as stubborn as her patronising co-star and director Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh).

As Colin beautifully sums up, the heart of the problem between the unreliable Marilyn and the increasingly enraged Olivier reflected the changing tides of acting technique during this time: Olivier was a great actor who wanted to be a movie star and Monroe was a movie star who wanted to be a great actress.

The superb cast at first comes across as a cluster of high-class actors playing dress ups, but you find yourself sucked in by their confident performances in spite of yourself. The usually no-nonsense Judi Dench is just beautiful as the seasoned actress Dame Sybil Thorndike and Julia Ormond is truly heartbreaking as Olivier’s wife Vivien Leigh, whose mature age causes her to doubt her husband’s love and lament the loss of her leading lady status.

Michelle Williams is simply glorious as Marilyn. She sings, dances and breaks your heart and fills it with joy and wonder simultaneously. If a girl, you want to be her friend, if a man, her lover. By her own admission, Michelle struggled through school and jokes that she has made up for it by studying Marilyn: “I woke up with her every morning and I went to bed with her every night.” To get the “wiggle”, she practiced walking with a belt tied around her knees. “Watching Michelle become Marilyn is by far the greatest experience of my career,” said director Simon Curtis. She captures the vulnerable side of Marilyn and what makes the performance most wonderful is its subtlety: one little look conveys so much.

My Week with Marilyn is but a glimpse of the real Marilyn’s perhaps surprisingly multi-faceted true self but it is a fascinating portrayal nonetheless. It works because we see Marilyn the way Colin saw her: briefly, intimately, and, most importantly, lovingly. 

I took my Dad to see This Means War and we had a really good time. True, the studio seduced us with free drinks and comfy cinema chairs, but I’m certain the movie seduced us, too. My first thought in the seen-it-a-million-times opening action scene which establishes Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as wise-cracking CIA agents was, “Uh oh… this is dumb.” Thankfully, the rest of the film largely steered away from all that in favour of the relationships. I genuinely laughed. I also cringed. I mostly enjoyed it. So sue me.

The story follows the two agents and best friends, who are shocked when they figure out that they have both started dating the same girl (Reese Witherspoon). At first, they agree that no woman should get in the way of their friendship but their competitiveness soon takes over as they go to extremes to outdo one another with increasingly ridiculous dates and attempt to thwart each other’s attempts to seduce her.

I really wanted to dislike Chris Pine, who was playing a character I’ve seen so many times before, and whose sharp suits were perfectly matched to his arrogance, but his persistent, easy charisma eventually earned my begrudging respect.

Tom Hardy was the easy part. Hailed as a genius based on his UK indie roles? Made me cry in Warrior? Picked to follow in Heath Ledger’s steps as the next Batman villain? Hot English accent? Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick. In fact, he was the main reason I didn’t walk into this movie with a foreboding sense of doom.

Reese Witherspoon seems to have ditched her pre-Oscar attempts at credibility in favour of earning the big bucks. I’m not complaining. I like her in whatever she does, and she manages to flirt her way through the film, though I have heard whispers that she is “too old” for the part (tough crowd!). She does her best to be bright and funny but it’s clear the boys have been given the most to chew on.

A little more character development wouldn’t have gone astray in some of the smaller roles (including perhaps one of the most one-dimensional bad guys in recent memory) and I’m sure I’m not the only one who found Reese’s vulgar best friend painfully unfunny. This Means War often teeters on the brink of terrible, but manages to keep its head above water with its aggressive star power and some truly funny moments.

I’ll bet Nicholas Sparks is just kicking himself that he didn’t think of this one: Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum) are deeply in love until a tragic car accident causes Paige to lose her memory. The last four years of her life a complete blank, Paige has no idea who her husband is and he sets out to make her fall in love with him all over again.

Easier said than done, especially when Paige’s overbearing parents (Sam Neill, Jessica Lange) arrive to whisk her back to her old life, which she (conveniently for them) thinks is still her current life. It’s hard to believe that Paige barely questions the fact that she had been estranged from her family and ex-fiancé by her own choice and doesn’t seem to possess a single long-term friend who could testify for the past 4 years. It takes her a good half the movie to finally look at some photos of these missing years, up until which point I had been repeating over and over again, “Why doesn’t she just look at her Facebook!?” …Oh yeah, dramatic effect.

I love Rachel McAdams (The Notebook, Midnight in Paris) as much as the next girl (or guy, based on many of my friends) but her character Paige feels underwritten as a free-spirited artistic type and almost unnecessarily just plain mean post-accident. Plus, she sports arguably the worst hairstyles yet of her onscreen career. Tatum (Dear John), though nothing special, manages to be surprisingly personable and even a little funny, making the role his own. He wasn’t as bad as one audience member claimed- “Why do directors cast this no talent, retarded, ape, caveman in anything? This is proof that the world is going to end in 2012”- although Hollywood can’t seem to help itself, writing another too-good-to-be-true leading man. If I had woken up from a coma and been told that this fun, sensitive and generous man was my husband, there wouldn’t have been much protest on my behalf. But then there wouldn’t have been be a movie either, would there. This does make it frustrating when Paige constantly rebuts his earnest attempts at reconciliation.

As for the love story, sure, McAdams and Tatum have chemistry, but the charismatic McAdams could have chemistry with a mailbox if she wanted to and it doesn’t even come close to the kind she shared with co-star Ryan Gosling in The Notebook.

Michael Sucsy (with only a TV movie- Grey Gardens- to his name) directed and co-wrote The Vow alongside a bunch of other writers whose credits include Valentines Day. Keeping that information in mind, it’s safe to say that it certainly could have been a lot worse. Based on a true story, it stays true to the real-life couple’s experience in its ending, a touch I greatly appreciated and respected. A better example of its genre, with decent performances, see it if the premise makes your heart melt. …Or if your girlfriend forces you to.

The year is 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) has Hollywood in the palm of his hand. A mega-successful movie star at the top of his game and beloved by his audience, he is seemingly invincible. However, despite his sunny disposition, he cannot ignore the fact that all is not well at home. His volatile marriage causes him to be more than a little enamored when he literally bumps into aspiring dancer Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a chance encounter that gives Peppy the courage to try out for a bit part in George’s latest film. Sparks continue to fly, and George encourages her star potential.

Sure enough, his advice takes her all the way to the top: when talking pictures are introduced, Peppy emerges as their darling. George, however, refuses to make the transition and laughs at the “talkies”, exclaiming, “I’m not a puppet, I’m an artist!”

And so begins his descent into obscurity and depression. George’s stubborn refusal to adapt destroys his career, his lifestyle and, ultimately, breaks his spirit. His pride keeps him from accepting Peppy’s help. While George idealises the past, Peppy has genuine hope for his future.

Directed and written by Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist is a silent, black and white film. But that is no reason to dismiss it; in fact, it is pure movie magic, drawing favourable comparisons with the joyful classic Singin’ in the Rain (1952). ”Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces,” says Hazanavicius of silent cinema. “It was important not to think of [‘The Artist’] as an ‘old movie’. It’s now, it’s new. But you have the benefit of this neglected format which gives you some exciting options as a storyteller.”

Dujardin’s performance drives The Artist. His smile is infectious and charisma appears to ooze out of his every pore. The perfect leading man, he is utterly convincing as both the joyful, successful star and the washed-up, lonely, heartbroken failure.

Berenice Bejo’s lovely Peppy is filled with youthful radiance and a fighting spirit. The rest of the cast includes John Goodman as a shrewd film executive who embraces the changing times, Missi Pyle as George’s easily irritated diva co-star and George’s movie sidekick and faithful companion, a Jack Russell terrier who never abandons his master, even coming to his rescue during the lowest point of his life.

For a charming, entertaining, and visually beautiful experience, you need look no further than The Artist.

Young Adult is a deliciously dark and clever character study, starring Charlize Theron as the dysfunctional Mavis Gary, a middle-aged train wreck who, as the title suggests, never really grew up.

Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) has collaborated with Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody (Juno) for the second time to produce this drama/comedy. 

Living alone, Mavis’s only real interactions are with her pint-sized dog and the characters in her favourite reality television shows.  Her problems range from narcissism to alcoholism, and she is shown disturbingly plucking the hairs on her head out one by one in a ritualistic manner.

As she struggles to write the last volume of a failing young adult book series as well as deal with a divorce, Mavis decides that as a teenager, she was in her prime and returns home to relive her glory days and win back her high school sweetheart, Patrick Wilson. The only problem is, he is happily married with a new baby.

As Mavis crashes toward an inevitable meltdown, she makes an unlikely friend, former classmate (Patton Oswalt) whose high school experience was decidedly different. Crippled from a brutal beating by bullies, he still hasn’t recovered physically or mentally and his wry observations and lonely state are the perfect accompaniment to Mavis’s self-centred destructiveness. Being a compulsive liar living in a constant state of denial, Mavis only reveals her true self to him.

Mavis is a devious, extremely unlikable protagonist, and as a result Young Adult is largely joyless. However, Charlize Theron’s performance is so spot on that you may find yourself amazed as you begin to invest in such a despicable, shallow character. Theron’s and Oswalt’s comedic capabilities married with Diablo’s razor sharp script results in plenty of black humour as well as unbearable social tension.

Certainly not for those who favour conventionality, Young Adult is a confident and realistic take on unhappiness. It can be a little slow at times but the relatively short running time helps counteract this.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is set in 1973 during the height of the Cold War. George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a member of the Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, (M16), code-named ‘the Circus,’ is forced into early retirement alongside the Head of the Circus, ‘Control’ (William Hurt) who is punished for sending Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Hungary for a mission that goes terribly wrong.

The mission was to uncover a spy- a “mole”- who has been leaking information to Britain’s Soviet enemies.  When new evidence calls Smiley out of retirement to catch this spy, he enlists the help of young insider Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch). They discover that Control narrowed the suspects down to four high-ranking intelligence officers: code-named Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poor Man. The trail is cold until rogue agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) appears with a story to tell…

Based on the novel of the same name, John le Carre wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with great authority, being a former member of Britain’s M15 and M16 and having worked undercover during the Cold War. He relinquished a great deal of creative control of the adaptation of his book, requesting only that the film be a period piece with a fresh interpretation.

And who better to bring that freshness, than emerging Swedish Director Tomas Alfredson? Having breathed new life into the vampire genre with his critically acclaimed Let the Right One In (2008), Tinker Tailor is his first English film. He describes it as, “a film about loyalty and ideals, values that are extremely relevant- perhaps mostly because they are so rare nowadays?”

The stellar acting, direction and photography alone make Tinker Tailor a must-see for cinephiles and lovers of the genre. It is, however, confusing at times, and can be difficult to follow so concentration is required to fully appreciate this film. That factor as well as the relatively slow pace means I would not recommend going into it tired. That being said, at least keeping track of past and present is easy when you take note of which pair of glasses George Smiley is wearing.

At its best, Tinker Tailor is a clever, tense tale of espionage, crowned by Gary Oldman’s incredible, slow burning performance as George Smiley. The acting ensemble showcases some of Britain’s finest talent, from the scene-stealing William Hurt to Colin Firth who is by far the most fun of the agents, to younger stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy who hold their own.

Not your average spy movie, Tinker Tailor deviates from spectacle to become a story about ordinary men who have an extraordinary job. Director Tomas Alfredson mused that, “all of the musclebound guys, they go and they join the army. And the nerds, they are the spies.” Solving the mystery is important, but what’s more important is discovering why: everyone has a motive and something to hide. 

Many argue that Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli (the people behind Oscar-winning Spirited Away, 2001) understands animation better than any other studio currently working. Favouring traditional hand-drawn 2D animation over the myriad of 3D animated movies; they continue to boldly express their true love of animation as an art form.

Arrietty is their latest offering; an animated delight based on Mary Norton’s classic novel The Borrowers. Arrietty (voiced by the supremely sweet Saoirse Ronan) is the 14-year-old, fearless daughter of the Clock family, little people (“borrowers”) who are four inches tall and live undetected beneath the kitchen floor of an old home and survive by borrowing things the humans won’t miss. Their simple, contented life is interrupted however when a seriously ill human boy named Sho (Tom Hollander) comes to stay and spots Arrietty. The two strike up a forbidden friendship, endangering the borrowers, who fear they may be the last of their kind…

Studio Ghibli’s visionary mastermind Hayao Miyazaki originally suggested adapting The Borrowers because he found the idea of “borrowing” intriguing: “It fits in perfectly with the way things are today. The era of mass consumption is coming to a close. We are in a bad economy and the idea of borrowing instead of buying shows very well the direction [that] things are headed.”

Set in a modern-day, leafy Japanese Koganei neighbourhood, the illustrations of the garden, house and life of the Clock family are breathtaking. The simplicity of every day life becomes marvelous when viewed from the perspective of the little people.  Arrietty and her parents are clever and resourceful, creating marvelous mechanisms that are a wonder to behold. There is great beauty in the simplicity of their lifestyle and they all embody fine qualities such as bravery, determination and a fierce love for one another.

Arrietty is Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s directing debut. The veteran animator has worked on Studio Ghibli Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008) and is considered the Studio’s best.

Yonebayashi’s gentle hand ensures that Arrietty manages to retain the enchantment and innocence of its beloved source material despite being modern and relevant. It is a moving, masterfully crafted, and often-funny gem of a film, and it is Miyazaki’s wish that Arrietty “will offer comfort and courage to the people living in these chaotic, unsure times.”

By Jasmine Edwards and Samuel Edwards

Arrietty is in Cinemas now