Author: BRWC

By Fergus Henderson. “Calvin Lewis, you have a lot of living to do.” It’s true. Calvin (Asa Butterfield) is a terminal hypochondriac college drop-out who works with his dad lugging bags onto airplanes. He keeps a ‘symptom journal’ of his every imagined malady and wastes his family’s dwindling money on taking as many tests as possible to find diseases he doesn’t have. His primary focus is on how likely he is to die, and how soon that might be. It will take meeting Skye (Maisie Williams) at a cancer support group, something his doctor hopes will give him perspective, for him to realise the value of living.

Skye, who does actually have cancer, latches onto Calvin immediately. It’s all down in her ‘to-die list’: one item compels her to help a loser like Calvin out. Luckily, mercifully, the film does not work to make these two late-teen weirdos a couple. It instead makes good on the promise signalled by Skye’s manic pixie outfit and sets about using Skye’s character to unburden Calvin of his chronic awkwardness.

Or so it would initially seem. For its first half Departures breezes along in a series of happy montages in which Skye ticks off some of the quirkier items on her list (acting Hamlet in the park, shoplifting, spraypainting) whilst setting an energetic example for Calvin, rebuilding his confidence so that he can ask out his crush, colleague Izzy (Nina Dobrev). 

If this all sounds a little by-the-books, it is. Calvin, as portrayed by Asa, is a sweet and awkward kid, but the film makes its female characters talk to him in that witty way that certain Juno-indebted films seem to imagine women talk to shy boys, no matter how damp and dull a squib they may be. You begin to worry that the film is simply going to use Skye’s character, played with exceptional vigour and warmth by Williams, in this way for the whole film.

After a little too long in this manner, all emotionally suggestive folk-lite music and even lighter humour, the film does find its feet and refocuses itself on the severity of Skye’s condition, the narrative taking a step back and foregrounding her over Calvin. Characters become more fully fleshed out. The balance of humour and drama is finessed. It begins to make more sense, and becomes a much better film. 

Any conflicts prior to this (Skye’s emotionally distant best friend, Calvin becoming stuck in a lie about his fake cancer with Izzy) feel undercooked. They give the impression of being script contrivances needed to push the story to its eventual tipping point that might have looked good on page but are overshadowed by the heaviness of the film’s premise. You’re basically waiting for the film to feel as if it has truly started.

When it does, everything falls into place. Calvin’s troubled past and his family history are explored. The profound journey that Skye is going on is given proper attention (as are Maisie Williams’ acting chops). Ken Jeong, always a welcome and effortlessly funny presence, makes a few brief cameos as a cop, Officer Al, with an intense emotional investment in Calvin and Skye. I was shocked to find myself genuinely moved by the film’s end, even despite the fundamentally schlocky approach the film takes throughout.

As understandable as it must have seemed, keeping the more serious moments for the film’s final third, if the film could have proceeded from the start within that register and with a more raw tone, it might have been a more satisfying experience. It is let down by an insistence on fast-talking, gentle comedy that will make its intended teen audience smile more than laugh. If it had set its sights on the audience’s hearts right from the off it could have landed on a more resonant note. As it is, Departures is a sweet film. What it lacks in its formulaic filmmaking it makes up for with its strong performances. It just doesn’t have a strong enough voice.

By Simon Lewis.

“Love is an acquired taste” reads the tagline for Little Italy, a Canadian romantic comedy about former childhood sweethearts that find themselves on either side of a feud between their family’s neighbouring pizza parlours. But the latest rom-com from How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days director Donald Petrie would struggle to satisfy even the most forgiving of tastes considering the films tonally imbalanced and oftentimes needlessly crass script. When the best joke in a romantic comedy shamelessly apes on a Gordon Ramsay meme, you’ve got problems. 

Having been rivals as kids and now all grown up, Nikki (Emma Roberts) is a high-flying chef in London while Leo (Hayden Christensen) still works at his father’s pizza parlour.

His dad feuds on a daily basis with his former partner and now next door rival – who also happens to be Nikki’s Dad. Little Italy is a Romeo and Juliet-style love story then, only with marinara sauce and football (for some reason) thrown in.

The two leads are pleasant enough, with Roberts the clear standout offering great charm and the certain sweetness you’d expect from the leading lady of a romantic comedy. Christensen however never really extends past the “good looking guy with a cute smile” schlock – and that’s no fault of his own, it’s just how threadbare and basic the script allows him to be. His Italian aesthetic and accent are both pretty hilarious though. It looks like he was bathing in Hawaiian tropic and bought some Just For Men in bulk. The Italian schtick is so weird – particularly in night scenes lit by generic neon – it appears they’re trying to age the 37-year-old past his years to look like a middle aged mafia man fresh from a stint on the Sopranos.

The Mystic Pizza director takes cues from his past success – using a pizza parlour as the set of most of the action – but unlike Petrie’s late 80s cult classic, Little Italy is completely void of the charisma that made Julia Roberts’ debut launch her into superstardom. Do The Right Thing’s pizza shop owner Danny Aiello also pops up as the jolly granddad of Christensen’s character in another nod to classic pizza-based cinema. But rather than evoke these gems of yesteryear, seeing Sal only makes you yearn for something even remotely close to those classic flicks. 

Trying to garner the flavour of other culinary movies like John Favreau’s excellent Chef, it unfortunately misses the mark when it comes to both the charm and wit Favreau clocked-up with ease from his low-key yet stellar 2014 effort. Unfortunately for Petrie, the comedy in Little Italy is largely low brow with physical comedy skits that should be easy wins but instead come across as forced and oftentimes cringeworthy. A pat down from a middle-aged female police officer is a particular low point, as Anakin Skywalker is inappropriately felt up by a woman twice his age all the while making jokes about his physique as leery bystanders look on laughing.

It’s not just the out of place sexual assault that jars, constant out of touch references to millennials, and being “modern” make for toe-curling viewing on occasion. Nikki tries to strike a chord as a ‘strong independent woman’ but the go-getting career girl character type seems a little unremarkable in the modern age. Not to mention the Indian characters on both sides of the pizza wars, who initially appear as the comic relief but unfortunately come across as a bit low key racist. Not like full blown Fisher-Stevens-in-Short-Circuit” racist, but enough to be classed as dated and borderline offensive – no matter how casual it may be. Even worse is the fact they just completely disappear about half way through. Not Leo’s fake tan though, that’s there for the duration. 

If you had to wheedle some sort of positive from Little Italy, like in a forced kind of way, there are a couple of sweet moments in there to its credit: The secret friendship between the mums draws a smile, and Emma Roberts is actually quite endearing as the prodigal daughter returning home from her high-flying chef job in the UK. She’s more often than not really charming as Nikki, without ever being agonisingly smug or portrayed merely as eye candy, and that is quite refreshing to see. 

Little Italy currently sits at 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s no surprise to see why. The tone is completely all over the place. Shot with a light-hearted, whimsical style, the awfully formulaic script is filled with low brow toilet humour and peppered with profanity for no real reason. The conflict is jarring as a result, and with two pensioners at it like rabbits and a constant leer over Hayden Christensen, it’s an uncomfortable watch for the most part. Awkward parental chats about sex, a visit to a curry house purely to make a lewd pun, and the aforementioned seedy cop pat down are out of touch and completely miss the mark. 

…I am super jealous of Leo’s wood burning pizza oven in his kitchen though. 

Little Italy is released on VOD on the 11^th of March. 

By Fergus Henderson. Winterlong, the directorial debut of David Jackson, is an understated film, full of quiet looks and silent nods. Francis is a gruff, off-the-grid kind of man with a big beard. He lives in a self-made shack in East Sussex, wears bomber hats and drinks spirits straight. Julian, his estranged son (Harper Jackson), is almost non-verbal to begin with, prone as teenagers are to staring with blank intensity. When Julian’s mother abandons him to Francis at the film’s beginning they are forced to learn how to function as family do (or don’t), and to reckon with themselves, until an accident creates yet more trouble for them.

Jackson, stepping from television to film, finds a natural lead in Francis Magee (Francis). It turns out that the two have known each other for a number of years. Jackson wrote the character with an image of Magee in mind. It shows: from the first moment we see him we are in no doubt as to Magee’s investment in and understanding of his role.

Luckily for his fellow actors Magee is a generous player whose easy charm and well-worn humanity gives them ample room to work their characters around, reflecting light onto everyone around. The total realisation of Francis’ character does, unfortunately, leave the other characters, and the narrative at large, lacking in comparison.

The film is ostensibly Julian’s coming-of-age story, his emotionally withdrawn father accidentally teaching him confidence and self-belief as he adapts to his new living situation. Jackson cannot get around his interest in Magee’s character to the extent that Julian is an underwritten character afforded the vaguest of character arcs. Consequentially both audience and film want to return to Magee whenever the plot allows.

Jackson professes a desire to merge poetic filmmaking with the classic British social realism. There are many moments in the film’s middle section in which such an idea could very well have come to fruition. Francis’ tenuous relationship with singer Carole (Carole Weyers), or Julian’s uneasy new school experience and subsequent romance with classmate Taylor. Moments of romance, defiance, self-realisation.

This is the raw material of life that British film poets like Bill Douglas, Andrea Arnold, and Terrence Davies have mined. If their films, to continue the metaphor, are pages filled with stanzas, Jackson appears too timid to allow more than the briefest haiku of filmic poetry. The moments and ideas are very much there but more insinuated than fully expressed.

Which is a shame, as there is a beating heart on clear display here. The film abounds in gentle humour and displays clever, unpretentious decision making. Likewise every actor inhabits their character without the script needing to spell things out. They are sensitively observed and feel true and believable, using the sparse dialogue to satisfying effect. A bad accident late in the film gives the narrative a well-timed jolt that carries it quickly and dramatically to its conclusion.

As a film it is too slight to enter any great pantheon, and feels more like a television film than a truly cinematic one. What it does offer, and its biggest asset, is its tremendous central performance. Francis Magee is without a doubt a worthy actor all too often underutilised by the projects he has been given. In Winterlong he is at last on full display, and it is a wonderful thing to see.