DR. CRIPPEN **

Poor "Dr. Crippen". As the character himself says, he's gone down in history as some kind of monster, not that far removed from Jack the Ripper. Robert Lynn's simple, sober film sets out to redress the balance. painting Crippen as more sinned against than sinner. Yes, he killed his wife and dismembered her corpse but did she drive him to it and was the killing itself an accident as he ultimately claims? There is no doubt as to which side Lynn's film is on.

It's an intelligent little picture if, in the end, not a particularly exciting one and it's very well played by Donald Pleasence, (Crippen), Samantha Eggar, (Ethel Le Neve, his uncomprehending mistress) and Coral Browne, (his shrew of a wife). The fine black and white cinematography is by Nicholas Roeg.

DARKEST HOUR *

When Meryl Streep won her third Oscar for playing Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" it was as much for her make-up as it was for her acting, (it's actually one of her least interesting performances; more mimicry than anything else). The same can't be said of Gary Oldman's turn as Winston Churchill in Joe Wright's "Darkest Hour". It's a phenomenal performance that demolishes all previous Churchills. Yes, he looks the part thanks again to his hugely talented make-up artists and he has the voice off pat, but more importantly he gets inside Churchill's heart and head which is, perhaps, something of a surprise considering the material he's been given to work with is really rather third-rate.

Wright's film, which simply covers the month of May 1940 when Churchill was elected Prime Minister and saw the evacuation at Dunkirk has every cliche in the book including a disastrous scene when Winston decides to ride the Underground for the first time in order to gauge public opinion. This sequence is positively embarrassing though Oldman just about manages to carry it off. Elsewhere the film is very unevenly acted. The men have the best of it with both Ben Mendelsohn and Ronald Pickup impressing as the King and Neville Chamberlin respectively. On the other hand, Kristin Scott Thomas isn't given enough to do as a rather genteel Clemmie and Lily James makes for a very dull secretary. So then, very much a hit and miss affair worth seeing for Oldman's Oscar-winning performance, (they may as well put his name on it now), providing you are prepared for another lame history movie and Wright's poorest picture to date.

IRMA LA DOUCE **

When "Irma La Douce" first came out it was critically mauled and it hasn't fared much better since, (it's generally regarded as Wilder's worst film though that's a distinction I've reserved for his version of "The Front Page"), and while I agree it's no masterpiece it's much better than its critical reputation might suggest. It's funny in a very naive kind of way and it's a lot less cynical than we might expect from Wilder; you may even say it has an innocent charm. It's based on a play by Alexandre Breffort that in turn became a Broadway musical. Wilder's version leaves out the songs though Andre Previn's score keeps the themes.

Irma is a Parisian prostitute and Lemmon is the policeman who, after losing his job (for being too honest) becomes her pimp. They are played, excellently, by Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon, less frenetic here than usual, and there's a lovely supporting performance from Lou Jacobi as the owner of a local bar. Unfortunately it's a very artificial looking movie which takes away from the overall effect and the plot, (Lemmon gets jealous of Irma's success in her profession and disguises himself as a rich English lord so he can be her only 'suitor'), isn't up to much, ('reality' isn't the film's strongest point), but it's a hard movie to dislike. It's unlikely it will ever make anyone's list of ten best Wilder movies but maybe it is time it was reassessed.

OCCIDENTAL no stars

"Grand Hotel" this most certainly isn't. Set in an expensive if rather seedy looking Parisian hotel on a night when student riots are taking place in the streets outside it's a kind of metaphysical thriller whose air of mystery is portentous to say the least but perhaps that is only down to a lack of coherence in the script. The cast mope about as if in a trance, (possibly they were), and nothing of any significance happens. It's less than 80 minutes long but it feels interminable and if I see anything as bad in the next eleven months I may abandon cinema altogether.

LION **

"Lion" is the kind of inspirational movie I normally shy away from but first-time director Garth Davis treats the material with a harder edge than I expected. The potential for sentimentality is, of course, high in this true story of a five year old Indian boy separated from his family by 1600 kilometers when the train he is sleeping in 'accidentally' takes him to Calcutta forcing him to live on the streets until a kindly Australian couple, (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham), adopt him and raise him to adulthood in Tasmania.

As a child he is played by the remarkable Sunny Pawar and as an adult by the equally remarkable Dev Patel in a film full of fine performances. The tragedy of the early scenes are that they will immediately remind you of Dickensian London, (complete with a Fagin and a Nancy), though mercifully these children encounter as much goodness as they do evil. This is, after all, a film about hope

.
Of course, one of the risks involved when Western filmmakers make movies in such 'exotic' locations as India is the temptation to prettify them out of all recognition. This is fine in a movie like "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" but a movie like this needs to look at least more 'realistic' and Greig Fraser's excellent cinematography does go some way to rectifying the problem; there is a darkness here, literally and metaphorically. Ultimately this is a moving and intelligent picture that could easily have been so much less; a film in which even the obligatory romantic entanglements, (here involving a fine Rooney Mara), work. Hardly Best Picture material but worth seeing nevertheless.

THE MOLLY MAGUIRES **

Martin Ritt's movie "The Molly Maguires"is about Irish immigrant coal-miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870's and it doesn't have the same reputation as the movies he made with Paul Newman, yet it's a solid job of work nevertheless, if not totally convincing. The Molly Maguires of the title are an underground (bad pun) 'terrorist' organization sabotaging the mines as a means of improving conditions. Walter Bernstein's script never really explains why they believe their actions will improve their working conditions; rather it becomes a tale of an agent provocateur planted in the organization to ferret out the leaders. He is Richard Harris and the main leader of the Maguires is Sean Connery and they are both very good, (Harris, particularly so), but again Bernstein never really fleshes out their characters which remain resolutely one-dimensional. The obligatory woman, (whom Harris falls for), is Samantha Eggar who is also very good, though again in a part that is never fully developed. The most one-dimensional character of all, however, is Frank Finlay's crude caricature of a policeman who is much too obviously a sadist. The real star of the film is James Wong Howe whose images convey something of that terrible beauty we have all heard about and yet even these images look too clean-cut and manufactured; black and white might have suited the film better. Enjoyable then, but Ritt has done better.

ELLE ***

A woman is raped in her home by a masked intruder. She doesn't report it to the police but decides to deal with it in her own way. She also happens to be the daughter of a psychopath now in prison for slaughtering 27 people. The director is Paul Verhoeven, now 78 but just as keen to court controversy as he ever was and "Elle" may be his masterpiece.

It's also as far from your conventional rape revenge fantasy as you can imagine. For starters, it's often very funny albeit in the blackest possible way while working as a genuinely thrilling whodunit; the initial attack is only the beginning. It's also a disturbingly frank study of a warped psychology; in the end are the victim and the perpetrator that much different?

It helps, of course, that the woman is Isabelle Huppert, perhaps the only actress fearless enough to take on the role. She's magnificent but then when isn't she magnificent. I don't think there is anyone working in mainstream cinema today who can touch her. And with Huppert in the lead you may be reminded of Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher", another classic study of a dysfunctional sexual relationship. Will it win her the Oscar? Almost certainly not; the Academy seldom embraces anything this dark but when they do pass her over the loss will be as much theirs as it is Huppert's.

PHAEDRA no stars

High camp. Jules Dassin's updating of the Greek tragedy "Hippolytus", now called simply "Phaedra" after the central character, to modern times works only intermittently. It's mostly a shallow picture about shallow people and for that reason you never really care what happens to them; watching rich people suffer isn't much of a past-time although when it's done as badly as it is here it can be fun. On a more positive note, it looks good and the leads offer good, if hysterical, value. Mercouri is ... well, Mercouri. Like Magnani she was more a force of nature than an actress and she's all over the shop here. Unfortunately Anthony Perkins could never shake off the shackles of Norman Bates and he's a very unconvincing lover for stepmom Melina. He throws so many tantrums you begin to worry in case any of the cast decide to take a shower. Even if you are unfamiliar with the original you know it's all going to end in tears, or in this case in a lot of weeping and wailing.

THE SALT OF LIFE ****

Gianni Di Gregorio's "Mid-August Lunch" was one of my cinema-going delights of the past few years. It was a 'little' film in which very little happened. A middle-aged man, played by the director and living with his ancient mother, is tasked with looking after a few other old ladies for the night. Next day he makes them all lunch and that, as they say, is that but there was a joie de vivre to the film rare in movies today.

In "The Salt of Life" the director again plays a middle-aged man, also called Gianni, and again with mother problems, (the magnificent 97 year old actress, Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni, who played his mother in "Mid-August Lunch", is again his mother here), who decides to have a final fling with a younger woman. Of course, things don't go according to plan.

As a writer and director, (and indeed as an actor), Di Gregorio has a wonderful Tatiesque sense of the vagaries of life. There is a lot of comedy in the small everyday things he encounters, and virtually no dramas at all. He is the gentlest of movie-makers and one of the most affectionate. Life may frustrate Gianni but he never lets it disturb him. He makes movies designed to make you smile and I grinned like the Cheshire Cat all the way through "The Salt of Life".

HACKSAW RIDGE ***

To say that "Hacksaw Ridge" is Mel Gibson's best film so far may not be much of a stretch since Gibson has never really been in the front rank of international directors. However skilled he may be as a film-maker his choice of material has always remained suspect. Did he choose to make "The Passion of the Christ"and "Apocolypto" simply so he could dwell on the excessive onscreen violence or, in the case of "The Passion of the Christ", was he simply displaying an overt 'Christian' ethos bordering on Anti-Semitism?

"Hacksaw Ridge" isn't necessarily free of these charges either. His hero is Desmond Doss, a real-life conscientious objector who nevertheless went into battle and became the only man ever to win the Medal of Honour without firing a shot so it does, to a large degree, play to Gibson's Christian beliefs and by virtue of its being a war film is also extremely violent. However, it also has a strong narrative and feels, (if only marginally), less like torture porn than we might be used to from Gibson, (though if you pay close attention to those battle scenes you may be inclined to disagree with that last statement). These may be the most realistic battle scenes ever filmed or they may simply represent the best use of special effects.

As Doss, Andrew Garfield continues to show why he is considered one of the best young actors in movies today even if, on a psychological level, this role is a lot less demanding than his part in "Silence"
while technically the film is something of a marvel. Like Gibson or loathe him this is his show and his achievement here has its own grandeur. He may still not be able to handle scenes of simple domesticity but on the battlefield he is his own master. The events in this film may have actually happened. Whether or not they happened quite like they do here is entirely a different matter but on this occasion I am willing to allow Gibson his poetic licence.

THE LAST STATION ***

"The Last Station"is a wonderful film that never really received the critical attention it deserved. It's about Tolstoy, yes, the same one who wrote "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", as an old man, (though in Christopher Plummer's brilliant and buoyant performance he's as sprightly as a young foal), caught in a battle of wills with his wife over the property they own and which he wants to give away and it's very funny in the way a good comedy should be, its humour stemming  directly from the plot, (it's full of references to the present day and how celebrities are hounded by the paparazzi), and it's very subtle; there are some scenes that may remind you of "The Cherry Orchard".
The director, Michael Hoffmann, keeps his own very fine script bouncing along, (it's based on the novel by Jay Parini), and has drawn first-rate performances from his cast. Plummer is, of course, wonderful as is Helen Mirren as the frustrated countess, (she treats the comedy in the material with the seriousness it deserves), and they were both nominated for the Oscar but there's lovely work, too, from James McAvoy as the wide-eyed innocent who became Tolstoy's secretary and especially from Paul Giametti as the schemer determined to separate Mirren from her inheritance. The luminous cinematography is by Sebastian Edschmid.

THE BROWN BUNNY no stars

The opening credits of "The Brown Bunny"tells us that it was written, directed, produced and edited by Vincent Gallo, (we also learn it was photographed by him, too, and badly), and he is the first person we see. In fact, we see a lot of Vincent Gallo in this movie which you might consider a vanity project were it not for the fact that he does nothing to ingratiate himself with his audience. If anything he keeps us at a distance, though not far enough for my liking, as he dispenses with anything as simple as a plot as he pays homage to, presumably Monte Hellman, as he drives to California occasionally stopping to chat to a few women on the way, one of whom, Chloe Sevigny, gives him a blow-job. Well, better a blow-job than no job, I say, for Mr Gallo is a drifter and this terrible movie drifts very, very slowly for about 90 minutes or so to its, ahem, climax. Excruciating.

ASHES OF TIME REDUX no stars

Another visually stunning, emotionally arid, impossible to follow and highly pretentious film from Wong Kar Wai, "Ashes of Time Redux"
is a lot like Grand Opera stripped to its most basic level; imagine the sets being taken down and even the music held in abeyance with the characters left alone on the stage where even the action scenes seem devoid of 'action'. Yep folks, this is the kind of art-movie for which art-houses were built and many people take this kind of thing very seriously indeed. Others may look at Christopher Doyle's gorgeous cinematography and see a painted canvas and then feel they are watching it dry.