Category: REVIEWS

By Halli Burton.

As the saying goes: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. 

The titular character’s Parisian life is blissful. She has an adoring husband, Francois (Martin Swabey), and together they’re raising their cherubic son, Jules. 

And Alice? Portrayed perfectly by the talented doe-eyed Emilie Piponnier, is sweet, timid and trusting.  It doesn’t taken long before she gets a painfully rude awakening, when she learns that the charming Francois is a morally corrupt thief and sex addict who has squandered all of their money on call girls.

Cleverly, the film begins in the family kitchen, the heart of the home, with Alice happily baking while Jules pleads for some chocolate. But this seemingly romantic love story swiftly descends into a tale about lies, deceit and a mother’s fight for survival. After her credit card is declined, Alice visits her bank manager who delivers the devastating news that she is penniless. With the threat of her home being repossessed, Francois going AWOL and zero sympathy from her mother (“Maybe he felt something was missing at home”!), Alice resorts to working for Elegant Escorts, the very same agency that was patronised by Francois.

Her first ‘gig’ is cringe-worthy, you can almost feel her discomfort, but it doesn’t take long to realise that Alice has a steely determination to provide for her child by any means necessary. The one good thing to come out of Alice’s new career, well second, given that she does indeed pay off her debts, is that she meets co-worker Lisa (Chloe Boreham), who becomes her only friend.

Just as things start looking up for Alice…

I commend the entire cast for their solid performances and delivery of a strong and thought-provoking script.

Alice is the well-deserving winner of the Narrative Feature Competition at SXSW.

Writer and director Josephine Mackerras’s debut feature film debut is a lesson in inner strength and second chances.

Abduction 101 is the story about a trio of hot women at a cabin in the woods, isolated from everyone – you know, that old horror chestnut. They hear rumours of a strange cult in the building next to them, and curiosity gets the better of them. Once they investigate they find themselves in a fight for their life’s against horrors worse than they could have possibly imagined.

Abduction 101 admittedly hit me home. I love horror films. Whether it be high-concept creepy thrills (such as It and Scream), or art-house phycological thrillers (The Babadook and The Exorcist), or trashy fun (Suspiria and The Evil Dead), if it’s good I love it.

Because of this, when I was taking a film course in college, whenever I was assigned a film project it was always a horror film. They were always wacky, over-the-top and made to shock. Watching Abduction 101 reminded me of those days. This is both what I loved about it – and what I didn’t.

I’d say there was a huge chunk of this film, I’d say a good part of act one and act three, that made this film feel a lot like a student film. It was very pretentious, especially with scenes concerning the narrator of the film. I’ll be honest, while this character was essentially used to spell out what the point of the film – and the director’s theory on horror films and why we watch them – I don’t think she was necessary for the film.

I felt the film slow down whenever the focus was put on her. I don’t blame the actress, this felt more like an issue in writing. Her dialogue felt very disconnected from what was going on in the rest of the film and felt like philosophy that just isn’t deep or interesting. I feel that this disconnect was deliberate, which makes me beg the question, why?

The third act’s issue was how amateur it felt (for lack of a better word). It felt like the budget of the film was not able to achieve the vision intended, and the director just didn’t do a fantastic job of hiding it. This was the kind of film I would have made back in my college days. The editing was clearly hiding effect changes – distractingly so – and the music was repeated, in your face and very distracting. It just didn’t work for me and had me chuckling as it went along.

All that being said, the entirety of act two, and the later half of act one, was really good. It was trashy fun, full of shock and sleaze, it was also well paced with a good mystery to it and some likable characters. The budget is certainly low, a fact that isn’t too well hidden, but the sets, costumes and even the gore effects are excellent.

The atmosphere is what had me hooked. The mystery of what is happening is intoxicating – even if you guess what’s going on, you’re still hooked to see events unfold. Once the mystery is solved, the atmosphere changes to an unrelenting nightmare. Discomfort is the only word I can use to describe how I felt – but in a good way.

In the way of “God I hope they make it out alive”. For all the film’s issues I have to admit, not many horror films these days achieve such a feat. I hope to see more like this in future. At the end of the day, I will always wish to see something try, maybe not succeed but definitely had me connect with me over a shallow, corporate-made cash-grab like Captain Marvel. At least Abduction 101 has a soul and no small amount of charm.

Inspired by a text, Clément Oberto delivers his newest thought provoking short with Unacceptable Behaviour. Unacceptable Behaviour delves into the balance between childhood and adulthood, the broken promises of youth as well as the loss of innocence and freedom brought on by age and responsibility.

As is becoming trend with Oberto, Unacceptable Behaviour opposes beautiful and immense backdrops with John Tajada’s scores. This team have worked together many times and the balance is nigh on perfect. Yet Unacceptable Behaviour’s beauty and grace truly comes from the combination of star Destiny Nolen and voiceover Georgia Foroce whose beautiful voice oozes childhood dreams and makes the words written by Destiny come to life. I’m hoping I get to see more of Destiny Nolen in the future, whose only feature film so far is The Silk Road as I think she has a uniquely beautiful and resonant feel to her performance.

I’m a lover for short film. 4 minutes is all you need to make an impact, and Oberto certainly makes you think. My only reservation is that I needed a second, or even third viewing to get some of the symbolism which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I wished Unacceptable Behaviour could have made more of an impact first time round. I still remain confused by the nude scenes with a bear’s head, and the meaning of the horns, but I think maybe I’ll just have to watch it a few more times to find out. I love the message of the film, and I love the detail in the script (lookout for a change in pronoun *wink wink*) As someone who wishes many his adult responsibilities didn’t exist the idea of communicating with my childhood self is a wonderful thought and I love the way it was portrayed in Unacceptable Behaviour.

Unacceptable Behaviour is worth a definite look and can be found below

By Fergus Henderson. A lot of people are very worried about the future of romance. They worry that true connection is impossible, too slow and time consuming. The phone in your pocket contains the abstracted faces of a million potential partners. What a venal, superficial world we live in, say those pearl clutching worriers. Along comes Electric Love, the latest from LA up and comer Aaron Fradkin, to remind us that there’s no need to worry.

In an age of alarmist entertainments like Black Mirror and Unfriended which deliver techno-paranoid nightmares to a self-flagellating audience, a romantic comedy like Electric Love is a welcome relief. Sure, it may land on the safe conclusion that taking some time away from our screens to have a proper conversation is the only way to foster a good connection, but it also knows that those screens are just tools that help us reach those moments of connection.

In an LA that is bathed in beautiful neon hues straight out of Risky Business and set to a swooning 80s synth soundtrack, we meet two young aspiring creatives, Adam (Zachary Mooren) and Emma (Mia Serafino). Everybody worth making a film about in LA is aspiring, after all. They are both funny, thoughtful, sensitive people, navigating the disappointments of dating app romance.

Fradkin uses the kinetic exuberance of the 80s aesthetic to maximum effect, propelling Adam and Emma individually through date after terrible date with a series of big-headed blowhards and humourless waifs in an energetic, funny sequence that will ring true for many. He shows great editing flare here and throughout.

Finally, naturally, they match with each other. Technological sparks fly as they text jokes like Harry and Sally through the phone. When they meet up it plays like a contemporary Before Sunrise, the film and the viewer riding a total high as the clear chemistry between Mooren and Serafino fills each frame with promise and joy. But it cannot last forever.

Doubt enters the picture as their past entanglements and paranoias start to eat away at the romance that had seemed so total the night before. Fradkin, with his whip-smart and naturalistic script, does not point the finger at the phone here, at least not completely. 

Adam and Emma are both well-defined characters who don’t just play out a luddite parable in which their technology destroys them. They both have their reasons for doubting, their own histories. Emma might look through Adam’s close friend Stef’s Instagram, looking for clues of past romance. When you find out about her childhood, you understand why. And, of course, this is a romantic comedy. Love will prevail.

This is the film’s biggest strength, its belief in its characters. It shows in both the main story and all the side plots, which in their own way also spell out the need for proper face-to-face communication and trust, and the power of goodness and love. 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWxgjXMUnjg

And the side plots are their own series of heart-warming treats. Adam’s flatmate Dave (Byrne Owens) is growing worried that his long distance girlfriend is losing interest in him. Friend Greg (Matt Bush) is having no luck finding the connection he wants on Grindr. Emma’s podcasting flatmate Charlotte (Misha Reeves) is being trolled by someone who disagrees with her pro-polyamory stance. Each story follows a smart, tech-savvy arc to romantic actualisation. 

Both the well-observed script and the uniformly strong and believable performances make one thing clear: technology is simply facilitating their journeys. If anything, it makes their expression and self-realisation more streamlined and clear. Thank God a filmmaker has finally taken this stance. It seems abundantly obvious and yet apparently it is always preferable to make a film that plays to our most noxious, self-loathing ideas of technology.

Electric Love is a truly romantic, sexy film. Shane Collins’ gorgeous photography creates a vibrant, sensuous world, and Fradkin fills it with beautiful, funny, real characters. It believes in the importance of communication and decency but never falls into sentimentality. It is a joy to experience, and lingers deep in the mind, leaving a warm afterglow. Just like love.

Kathryn Upside Down is a feel-good comedy directed, written by and starring Allie Loukas as Kathryn, a woman in her twenties whose life is going nowhere and she still acts like she did when she was a teenager. Then one day when a stranger visits Kathryn’s life is well and truly turned upside down.

Realising that this stranger, Bob (Christopher M. Walsh) is in fact her biological father, Kathryn has a lot of questions and after a conversation with her mother, Elizabeth (Kim DeJesus) she reluctantly agrees to try and get to know Bob better – and what better way than on a road trip? It says a lot about a writer/director to star in their own film as well but what sets Loukas’ directorial debut apart from other actors is that Kathryn is a pretty unlikeable character right from the start.

Kathryn smokes, drinks too much and has the sarcastic wit of a teenage girl so unless the audience already knows somebody like her then they may find her character a little grating. It’s good to know then that Loukas knows exactly what she’s doing with Kathryn as her performance has enough funny one-liners and a somewhat relatable attitude that the audience does start to wonder if there’s a little more to her character than her first bad impression.

The movie is predictable but I think that’s part of the charm of the film. Kathryn surely cannot stay the way that she is throughout the movie so to see her progression and her character arc is pleasing for the audience as they really want a happy ending for this young woman who has such a hard surface. Walsh is also great to watch and the uneasy chemistry between him and Loukas is endearing, particularly when they start to get to know each other better.

His character of the kind-hearted man who discovers he has a daughter is an interesting spin on the films where he would usually be a deadbeat and learns responsibility through getting to know his offspring and he plays it well. There are a couple of characters who I felt were a little out of place due to their sudden appearance (and disappearance) and one which whose character twist I didn’t fully understand but it may just be me. However, I can’t really think of anything else that I had as much of a problem with and I think that says a lot about a film from a first-time writer/director.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDK0VYyhFI

The writing, acting and direction is confident and its self-proclaimed John Hughes influences weren’t just a boast as the film starts to feel like something Hughes would have written himself with nods to his work throughout. It left me feeling good and the story seemed like something new and original and yet warm and familiar at the same time. It makes me think that with this much talent and the right people around her, Loukas’ film career could take off much further than the movie’s Illinois setting.