Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

The Two Faces of January is set in 1960s Greece where a rich American couple are visiting the Acropolis and cross paths with a young American tour guide who also happens to be a hustler. Things are not all what they seem with the American couple and by a twist of fate the young American tour guide gets sucked into their murky world.

The premise appears to be an interesting one but unfortunately this film just didn’t follow through. It had an amazing cast: Viggo Mortensen (‘Chester’), Kirsten Dunst (‘Colette’) and Oscar Isaac (‘Rydal’) and the beautiful setting of Greece and it was all wasted.

The longer the film went on the more my hopes of something actually happening aside from the wistful looks between the Colette and Rydal and the smouldering glares from Chester. At last 20 minutes before the end there was an unexpected twist but by which time I was didn’t actually care what happened to the characters.

The screenwriter of this limp film based it on the book by Patricia Highsmith who also wrote The Talented Mr Ripley and the similarities are striking: the couple who meet an outsider, the setting although it is transferred from Italy to Greece etc. However, the one thing The Talented Mr Ripley had was interesting characters who we felt a connection with. The material was rich and the story engaging. The Two Faces of January is a poor imitation and the characters never develop much after the first 15 minutes of the film – what you see is all you get.

Finally why is the film called The Two Faces of January, I actually do not know and I don’t believe it was every explained or if it was I had disengaged by that time.

This is the latest film from the Dardenne brothers which was just shown as part of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

The film follows Sandra (Marion Cotillard) married to Manu (Fabrizio Rongione) as she tries to persuade her work colleagues in one weekend to give up their €1,000 bonus in order to save her job.

It is an interesting premise for a film: how many people in the current financial climate would give up their annual bonus that they have worked and voted for in order to save their colleague’s job who has just come back from a long term sick leave after severe depression. It has to said that whilst €1,000 may not seem a lot for the workers at the solar panel manufacturing plant that they all work at it is a small fortune.

The interactions between Sandra, who is struggling to manage her depression and find the courage to persuade her colleagues to give up their bonus so that she can keep her job is deftly presented on scene. Her struggle is mirrored by her colleagues’ own struggle between keeping the money they have rightly earned and in most cases battling their own internal moral code.

However, whilst the gritty subject matter coupled together with the natural lighting of this film is excellently executed. The film does rest squarely on the shoulders of Marion Cotillard and her version of a nuanced performance. As a depressed victim she plays the character well but her interactions with the actors playing the roles of her colleagues is a little formulaic but maybe that is all part of the what the film is getting at. It is not about the ending but the struggles that she has to overcome to get there and the all too real moral quagmire that individuals face in today’s workplace.

Definitely a film that will have you discussing the “what if” this was happened in my workplace and noting the Dardenne brothers as the French equivalent of Ken Loach with this gritty, social commentary of a film.

The western has seen something of a resurgence in recent years with Django Unchained and True Grit. Now it’s The Homesman which is Tommy Lee Jones’s second film as actor and director based on the 1988 award winning book of the same name by Glendon Swarthout.

It casts Hilary Swank as a 31 year old strong, independent, pioneer, unmarried Mary-Bee Cuddy who draws the lot to take three women driven insane whilst living in a frontier town in Nebraska back to civilised Iowa and placed in the care of a Methodist preacher and his wife. Upon setting off with her load of three women she happens upon George Briggs, the homesman, played by Tommy Lee Jones who is sat on his horse with a noose around his neck as capital punishment for stealing another man’s property. In return for saving his life he agrees to accompany her on her peculiar odyssey back to civilisation.

This is not a Western like any other for a start it focuses on a woman and her strength of character settling in this frontier land and the loneliness of that life without a man even though she wants to get married and how hard life was. It is also part morality tale and social commentary of the time – the way to the West was won and a nation born: the lawlessness, cowboys, the violence, savagery, puritanism, racism, profiteering. Yet all of this is shown with a deftness of touch through sweeping landscape cinematography, moments of comedy and a very strong script with a most unexpected twist.

The film does feel like two distinct parts the first showing us what life on the ‘wild’ frontier land was like and the second half in civilisation and it is up to the viewer to decide which is better and which is worse,

Some themes were not really explored or issues dwelled upon but in a way that is part of the charm of the film gives allows the viewer the freedom to decide: what led the women to their madness and why did Mary Bee Cuddy decide to move West for the money, to escape a past and how did a lone woman manage to survive the lawlessness of such a place. My only criticism of the film is the length I found it a little long but maybe only by 20 minutes but even so it is a gem of movie.

The supporting actors also do a fine job Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, Grace Gummer and Meryl Streep. However this film is really driven home by the performances of Hilary Swank, who is back to her Million Dollar Baby best, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Even if you are a fan of Westerns leave your doubts behind this film will surprise you.

It was shown as part of the Cannes Film Festival 2014 and will hopefully be released in UK cinemas later on this year.

Yves Saint Laurent

When you hear phrases such as Le Smoking, Touche Eclat, Opium, Rives Gauche, the first designer to use a black model in his catwalk shows it evokes one symbol: YSL or to give him his full name: Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent but known to all as Yves Saint Laurent.

This is the first film biopic to be released about his life with the full support and participation of his business partner and at the time of death his civil partner Pierre Bergé.

Therein lies the problem with the biopic, whilst beautifully shot with exquisite shots of Parisian and Moroccan interiors, clothes and wonderful soundtrack it feels all very carefully managed. It could be said as carefully managed as YSL was by Pierre Bergé when he was alive so much so that we have Pierre narrating his version of YSL that he wants to show the world. Of course there are the obligatory falls from grace: the drug taking and the stay in a psychiatric hospital as well as the amazing highs of being appointed the youngest artistic director of a Couture House, Dior, at 21 and creating his own label with Pierre at 26.

Whilst Guillaume Gallienne as YSL and Pierre Niney as Pierre Bergé are both excellent in their roles. This film feels like the annotated version of YSL’s life and there are many gaps and periods of time that are simply erased which is a shame. In my opinion, in this film the character of YSL comes across as indecisive and lost most of the time and for all his stage management the character of Pierre Bergé comes across as possessive and controlling.

If you are a fan of Yves Saint Laurent then this is certainly a beautiful film to go and see but do not expect to gain any greater understanding of his artistic genius or the man that he was.

Out on DVD 14^th July.

A young, poor divorcee responds to an advert for a housemaid to help with chores around the house and look after the child of a wealthy couple soon learns that some tasks aren’t listed in the job description but need to be fulfilled none the less.

The Housemaid version 2010 is a remake by a South Korean director Im Sang-Soo based on the 1960 cult classic of the same name by Ki-young.

The sweeping cinematography, architectural beautiful and austere interior of the rich couple’s house is beautifully contrasted with which the passion develops between the housemaid and the master of the house. As the inevitable consequences of the rich man/ poor servant unfold Im Sang-Soo takes this as an opportunity to make a social commentary on the way in the rich have little regard for their actions as their wealth can protect them from anything or so they think.

The Housemaid is not without it’s faults and the ending rather than being a jarring crescendo of this dark operatic thriller turns into a melodramatic mess. However, aside from this one sour note the film on the whole is engaging and the actress playing the senior servant steals every scene she is in.