Review- 2017 London Film Festival
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting London for (among other things) the 61st London Film Festival. After going last year and seeing an early preview of Black Mirror, I knew I had to return again this year, even with the far longer train journey ahead of me and instead of going to one event, I got to go to three. My plan with this post is to review the three films I saw which were (in chronological order) Beast, Ingrid Goes West and Good Time, as well as talking about the Q and As I got to see for the first two. So, with that sorted, lets get into the first and most niche film, Beast.
Beast is easily the film here that you're least likely to have heard of but is a story about a 27 year old woman (Moll) living in Jersey who has no purpose in life. On the day of her 27th birthday, she leaves the party and wanders the island alone before meeting a mysterious and enigmatic stranger (Pascale). Slowly, the two begin to fall in love but matters are complicated by the fact that on the night they met, there was another in a series of murders, committed by a man whose alibi seems to match perfectly with Pascale. From here, the film becomes a two hander, as it both tells the story of the love blossoming between these two while also being an investigation into who could have comitted these moments. The film isn't afraid to go dark, nor is it afraid to be ambiguous and while the ending certainly points strongly in one direction, the director Michael Pearce said afterwards that he wants people to interpret it in different ways. Certainly, the plot and its unraveling is one of the great joys of this film.
There's a great ensemble surrounding the film but really, there are only two performances here that need to be talked about and they're both excellent. Johnny Flynn plays Pascale and he is what drew me to the film as I'm a huge fan of his Netflix sitcom Lovesick. In Beast however, he plays a completely different character. Essentially, in Lovesick, he's this lovable and instantly relatable character who acts as your way into the cast of characters whereas here, he is the polar opposite: he's an unknowable character who, while having some charm, also has darkness in him in some form. Watching Flynn drop these little hints into his performance is a joy and discovering the intricacies of his character. The real star of this film however is Jessie Buckley as Moll, impressive considering this is not only her first lead performance but actually her first role in a live action film. She portrays a woman who has nowhere to go and buys into this enigma of a man, willing even to ignore the potential darkness hiding inside him just to escape. One moment late in the film is particularly memorable where she is lying in the ground and putting herself in the shoes of another character. In this moment, she embodies all the emotions you've seen so far in the film and more you hadn't even considered. This is a performance that easily marks Buckley out as one to watch.
What I liked most about the film was its willingness to linger on moments and keep the audience guessing. I know that's not exactly an original thing for films to do but Beast does it really well. As I said earlier, the ending points in a certain direction but Pearce stated that there is no definitive answer to some of those questions we have at the end of the film. On a similar note, Pearce also did a great job balancing the duality of the tones and genres in the film. At the Q and A afterwards, he talked about how he saw the film as a mix of a love story, a serial killer drama and a fairytale and they each take turns to shine birghtly. Moments with the police highlight the serial killer elements, a stunning scene on the beach in the second act brings out the romance stunningly and the ending is an absolute fairytale, seeming to exist in a world outside of our own. As a directorial debut, it could have been a juggling act too far but Pearce nails it.
Of all these films, Beast is the one you'll have to wait longest for but the wait will be worth it. I highly recommend going to see it when the film comes out next year. The pace won't be everyone's cup of tea but for a slow and gripping exploration of two characters trying to discover the hidden darkness in each other, you can't do wrong with Beast. That's why I give it a
Now for the review of... a new Robert Pattinson movie? Hang on, the guy from Twilight? At a film festival? Oh, this will be good.
Good Time is a complete disappointment for me because it's excellent and I therefore can't make a joke about the title. In fact, the name down sells itself, it's a great time. It's exactly the kind of plot I like in that it is very self contained. A bank heist pulled off by two brothers goes wrong, one gets captured and the other has to source the money to rescue him from prison. That's the general outline and this narrative thrust keeps the film moving along constantly. Things happen that shift the plot onto slightly different straights but that remains the main plot. With that said, I was never sure where the plot was going from moment to moment and I give credit to the directors, the Safdie Brothers, for playing with the audience. At one point (without giving away the moment) I thought that a certain event may have happened but looked at the events on screen and saw that it couldn't happen. About ten minutes later, the Safdies pull out that rug and that exact thing happens.
One performance is at the centre of Good Time but the supporting cast around that performance are great so I'll talk about them first. Barkhad Abdie (the "I am the captain now" guy from Captain Philips) pops in for a little more time than he got in the new Blade Runner and it's just nice to see him getting work because he is a surprisingly versatile actor. Jennifer Jason Leigh also turns up for a bit and again, she's a great actress so her three scenes are great fun to watch. There's one character whose name I don't remember so I can't look up the actor but basically, there's a character with a messed up face who is really funny to watch and I want to see more of him and his hilarious accent. Benny Safdie (one of the directors) plays the brother character and considering he has to act as a character with a mental disability, he did so in a way that was believable yet very sensitive. You're waiting to hear about Robert Pattinson though so lets do it: he's amazing. At no point in the film did I see "The guy from Twilight", I didn't even remember he was British. It was just a completely seamless transformation into the performance and from an actor, you can't really ask for much more.
I've never seen a movie from the Safdie Brothers before but after this, I'll be checking out their next film. Good Time carries this style that sets it apart from most thrillers of a similar nature, through both the cinematography and the score. I'll go for the score first because I really love the cinematography. It's a pulsating synth score that excites and intrigues which, even days after seeing Blade Runner 2049, felt like an original use of synth. My biggest problem with it is that I haven't been able to find the score online anywhere yet so the sooner this gets released, the better. What I ended up falling in love with though was how it was shot. Generally, films shot with handheld cameras annoy me but they were used well and actually with some skill. Plus, there were many shots that stood out to me throughout, from some shots with neon lights reflected in the actual lens and one particular shot that stuck with me of a birds eye view of a character running for about a minute. Basically, the film looks and sounds bloody great.
Yeah, okay, another hearty recommendation but what can I do when these films are all so great? With Good Time, what you're getting is a thriller that will keep you guessing, on edge and in awe of some real talent on both sides of the camera. It just all made me want to go and see the film again and I will definitely be there for the wide release. The pace wasn't always perfect but that is pretty much my only complaint, meaning that yet again, I give the film a
Finally, we reach the last film and I don't want to overplay my hand but this was easily my favourite of the batch. Time to go south (down, scrolling ideally) for Ingrid Goes West,
Ingrid Goes West is a pitch black satire, comedy, maybe a little bit of a social horror film? It's a mix of genres but it's definitely funny, provocative and flips the mirror back on society. The story is about Ingrid, a woman who obsesses over an Instagram celebrity named Taylor. The obsession gets to such a point that Ingrid heads to L.A. and attempts to befriend Taylor. Once there, the acts of obsessive following get progressively creepier and more extreme, blurring the line between fandom, friendship and stalking. Some may be able to spot the route the plot takes and while certain elements appeared clearly to me, most of the time I was kept guessing what Ingrid would do next and how the people around her would react. It's an interesting story that is terrifying in how it could very easily be real, with an escalation that is a delight and an ending that is emotionally ambiguous, still leaving me unsure of how to feel about it. One thing is for sure, the plot is superb.
You're going to be hard pushed to find a single weak performance in this entire film due to great supporting roles and excellent lead performances. In the supporting cast, there's great work from Billy Magnussen as Taylor's brother, a coke addict with a lot of other problems but is somehow the most perceptive character, Wyatt Russell as Taylor's boyfriend, a man who prides himself on being real despite being as two dimensional as everyone else and O'Shea Jackson Jr as Ingrid's landlord, a Batman obsessed, hopeful screenwriter who offers a scrap of real human connection for Ingrid to push away. The two leads here though are what need most commending. First there's Elizabeth Olson who is having a hell of a year after the excellent Wind River and now this. Her performance in that was gripping but due to the totally different one of Ingrid, she pulls off a completely different character, one who is in herself a perfect performance until the script demands that she let her guard down. More than anyone else though, this film belongs to Aubrey Plaza. As Ingrid, she takes the adorkable nature of April from Parks and Recreation, mixed with the darkness of Lenny from Legion to create a character who is as despicable as she is compelling. We watch Ingrid do worse and worse things to everyone yet because of the genuine believability in Plaza's performance, we remain on board with her, maybe not agreeing with her motives but unable to leave her side. In a just year, she'd be a Best Actress contender but sadly that seems unlikely.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Ingrid Goes West juggles tones and does so in a way that would make even Beast blush in embarrassment. Primarily, the film is a comedy and it was shown in the Laugh strand at the festival so if it has one genre, it's that. The comedy is often incredibly dark though. Sure, there's jokes about Batman having sex in there but there's also a whole punchline about what your deepest issue is. Regardless of the tone of it, there's comedy all over this film and that's where it most easily falls. Satire is probably the next most obvious category as all the characters are comical and exaggerated versions of the kind of people we have in our modern, social media obsessed world. That's what's so terrifying, these people on screen, the ones who are vaccuous monsters, these are versions of the people we know. The hipsters who call themselves artists, the Instagram "celebs", the ones who obsess over them. All are people we know and Ingrid Goes West stands up, points them out and says "Why aren't we doing anything?" which takes me onto the last genre I'd place the film in; horror. I'm going to sneak around spoilers as much as possible as the film isn't out yet but what is terrifying is for how long Ingrid is able to get away with what she does. Someone soon realises but even then, she's unstoppable, the people around her too absorbed in their screens or their self image to see the truth. The ending can either strengthen or weaken that gut wrenching feeling, depending on your interpretation of it but for me, it was sickening in all the right ways.
This film may not end up being the favourite film of everyone who saw it at the festival and indeed, I feel like many will enjoy Good Time more. For me though, it hits every note I want a film to hit. It's funny, smart and scary in how accurate a depiction of the world this fiction is. It's like if one of the funnier episodes of Black Mirror was set today instead of tomorrow, so all seeing is it. Not only was it my favourite of the festival, Ingrid Goes West has made a strong stake at being one of my favourite films of the year and therefore gets a
Beast is easily the film here that you're least likely to have heard of but is a story about a 27 year old woman (Moll) living in Jersey who has no purpose in life. On the day of her 27th birthday, she leaves the party and wanders the island alone before meeting a mysterious and enigmatic stranger (Pascale). Slowly, the two begin to fall in love but matters are complicated by the fact that on the night they met, there was another in a series of murders, committed by a man whose alibi seems to match perfectly with Pascale. From here, the film becomes a two hander, as it both tells the story of the love blossoming between these two while also being an investigation into who could have comitted these moments. The film isn't afraid to go dark, nor is it afraid to be ambiguous and while the ending certainly points strongly in one direction, the director Michael Pearce said afterwards that he wants people to interpret it in different ways. Certainly, the plot and its unraveling is one of the great joys of this film.
There's a great ensemble surrounding the film but really, there are only two performances here that need to be talked about and they're both excellent. Johnny Flynn plays Pascale and he is what drew me to the film as I'm a huge fan of his Netflix sitcom Lovesick. In Beast however, he plays a completely different character. Essentially, in Lovesick, he's this lovable and instantly relatable character who acts as your way into the cast of characters whereas here, he is the polar opposite: he's an unknowable character who, while having some charm, also has darkness in him in some form. Watching Flynn drop these little hints into his performance is a joy and discovering the intricacies of his character. The real star of this film however is Jessie Buckley as Moll, impressive considering this is not only her first lead performance but actually her first role in a live action film. She portrays a woman who has nowhere to go and buys into this enigma of a man, willing even to ignore the potential darkness hiding inside him just to escape. One moment late in the film is particularly memorable where she is lying in the ground and putting herself in the shoes of another character. In this moment, she embodies all the emotions you've seen so far in the film and more you hadn't even considered. This is a performance that easily marks Buckley out as one to watch.
What I liked most about the film was its willingness to linger on moments and keep the audience guessing. I know that's not exactly an original thing for films to do but Beast does it really well. As I said earlier, the ending points in a certain direction but Pearce stated that there is no definitive answer to some of those questions we have at the end of the film. On a similar note, Pearce also did a great job balancing the duality of the tones and genres in the film. At the Q and A afterwards, he talked about how he saw the film as a mix of a love story, a serial killer drama and a fairytale and they each take turns to shine birghtly. Moments with the police highlight the serial killer elements, a stunning scene on the beach in the second act brings out the romance stunningly and the ending is an absolute fairytale, seeming to exist in a world outside of our own. As a directorial debut, it could have been a juggling act too far but Pearce nails it.
Of all these films, Beast is the one you'll have to wait longest for but the wait will be worth it. I highly recommend going to see it when the film comes out next year. The pace won't be everyone's cup of tea but for a slow and gripping exploration of two characters trying to discover the hidden darkness in each other, you can't do wrong with Beast. That's why I give it a
Now for the review of... a new Robert Pattinson movie? Hang on, the guy from Twilight? At a film festival? Oh, this will be good.
Good Time is a complete disappointment for me because it's excellent and I therefore can't make a joke about the title. In fact, the name down sells itself, it's a great time. It's exactly the kind of plot I like in that it is very self contained. A bank heist pulled off by two brothers goes wrong, one gets captured and the other has to source the money to rescue him from prison. That's the general outline and this narrative thrust keeps the film moving along constantly. Things happen that shift the plot onto slightly different straights but that remains the main plot. With that said, I was never sure where the plot was going from moment to moment and I give credit to the directors, the Safdie Brothers, for playing with the audience. At one point (without giving away the moment) I thought that a certain event may have happened but looked at the events on screen and saw that it couldn't happen. About ten minutes later, the Safdies pull out that rug and that exact thing happens.
One performance is at the centre of Good Time but the supporting cast around that performance are great so I'll talk about them first. Barkhad Abdie (the "I am the captain now" guy from Captain Philips) pops in for a little more time than he got in the new Blade Runner and it's just nice to see him getting work because he is a surprisingly versatile actor. Jennifer Jason Leigh also turns up for a bit and again, she's a great actress so her three scenes are great fun to watch. There's one character whose name I don't remember so I can't look up the actor but basically, there's a character with a messed up face who is really funny to watch and I want to see more of him and his hilarious accent. Benny Safdie (one of the directors) plays the brother character and considering he has to act as a character with a mental disability, he did so in a way that was believable yet very sensitive. You're waiting to hear about Robert Pattinson though so lets do it: he's amazing. At no point in the film did I see "The guy from Twilight", I didn't even remember he was British. It was just a completely seamless transformation into the performance and from an actor, you can't really ask for much more.
I've never seen a movie from the Safdie Brothers before but after this, I'll be checking out their next film. Good Time carries this style that sets it apart from most thrillers of a similar nature, through both the cinematography and the score. I'll go for the score first because I really love the cinematography. It's a pulsating synth score that excites and intrigues which, even days after seeing Blade Runner 2049, felt like an original use of synth. My biggest problem with it is that I haven't been able to find the score online anywhere yet so the sooner this gets released, the better. What I ended up falling in love with though was how it was shot. Generally, films shot with handheld cameras annoy me but they were used well and actually with some skill. Plus, there were many shots that stood out to me throughout, from some shots with neon lights reflected in the actual lens and one particular shot that stuck with me of a birds eye view of a character running for about a minute. Basically, the film looks and sounds bloody great.
Yeah, okay, another hearty recommendation but what can I do when these films are all so great? With Good Time, what you're getting is a thriller that will keep you guessing, on edge and in awe of some real talent on both sides of the camera. It just all made me want to go and see the film again and I will definitely be there for the wide release. The pace wasn't always perfect but that is pretty much my only complaint, meaning that yet again, I give the film a
Finally, we reach the last film and I don't want to overplay my hand but this was easily my favourite of the batch. Time to go south (down, scrolling ideally) for Ingrid Goes West,
Ingrid Goes West is a pitch black satire, comedy, maybe a little bit of a social horror film? It's a mix of genres but it's definitely funny, provocative and flips the mirror back on society. The story is about Ingrid, a woman who obsesses over an Instagram celebrity named Taylor. The obsession gets to such a point that Ingrid heads to L.A. and attempts to befriend Taylor. Once there, the acts of obsessive following get progressively creepier and more extreme, blurring the line between fandom, friendship and stalking. Some may be able to spot the route the plot takes and while certain elements appeared clearly to me, most of the time I was kept guessing what Ingrid would do next and how the people around her would react. It's an interesting story that is terrifying in how it could very easily be real, with an escalation that is a delight and an ending that is emotionally ambiguous, still leaving me unsure of how to feel about it. One thing is for sure, the plot is superb.
You're going to be hard pushed to find a single weak performance in this entire film due to great supporting roles and excellent lead performances. In the supporting cast, there's great work from Billy Magnussen as Taylor's brother, a coke addict with a lot of other problems but is somehow the most perceptive character, Wyatt Russell as Taylor's boyfriend, a man who prides himself on being real despite being as two dimensional as everyone else and O'Shea Jackson Jr as Ingrid's landlord, a Batman obsessed, hopeful screenwriter who offers a scrap of real human connection for Ingrid to push away. The two leads here though are what need most commending. First there's Elizabeth Olson who is having a hell of a year after the excellent Wind River and now this. Her performance in that was gripping but due to the totally different one of Ingrid, she pulls off a completely different character, one who is in herself a perfect performance until the script demands that she let her guard down. More than anyone else though, this film belongs to Aubrey Plaza. As Ingrid, she takes the adorkable nature of April from Parks and Recreation, mixed with the darkness of Lenny from Legion to create a character who is as despicable as she is compelling. We watch Ingrid do worse and worse things to everyone yet because of the genuine believability in Plaza's performance, we remain on board with her, maybe not agreeing with her motives but unable to leave her side. In a just year, she'd be a Best Actress contender but sadly that seems unlikely.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Ingrid Goes West juggles tones and does so in a way that would make even Beast blush in embarrassment. Primarily, the film is a comedy and it was shown in the Laugh strand at the festival so if it has one genre, it's that. The comedy is often incredibly dark though. Sure, there's jokes about Batman having sex in there but there's also a whole punchline about what your deepest issue is. Regardless of the tone of it, there's comedy all over this film and that's where it most easily falls. Satire is probably the next most obvious category as all the characters are comical and exaggerated versions of the kind of people we have in our modern, social media obsessed world. That's what's so terrifying, these people on screen, the ones who are vaccuous monsters, these are versions of the people we know. The hipsters who call themselves artists, the Instagram "celebs", the ones who obsess over them. All are people we know and Ingrid Goes West stands up, points them out and says "Why aren't we doing anything?" which takes me onto the last genre I'd place the film in; horror. I'm going to sneak around spoilers as much as possible as the film isn't out yet but what is terrifying is for how long Ingrid is able to get away with what she does. Someone soon realises but even then, she's unstoppable, the people around her too absorbed in their screens or their self image to see the truth. The ending can either strengthen or weaken that gut wrenching feeling, depending on your interpretation of it but for me, it was sickening in all the right ways.
This film may not end up being the favourite film of everyone who saw it at the festival and indeed, I feel like many will enjoy Good Time more. For me though, it hits every note I want a film to hit. It's funny, smart and scary in how accurate a depiction of the world this fiction is. It's like if one of the funnier episodes of Black Mirror was set today instead of tomorrow, so all seeing is it. Not only was it my favourite of the festival, Ingrid Goes West has made a strong stake at being one of my favourite films of the year and therefore gets a
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