Film of the
Week
Les
Combattants
(Various
Streaming Services, also on DVD)
You’d be hard
pressed to find a more unusual or satisfying modern love story than the one
contained in this sweet, funny, clever and occasionally spiky French film from debutant
director Thomas Cailley.
Arnaud (Kévin Azaïs) is bored, restless and unfulfilled, and
life as a carpenter in a small coastal town isn’t helping any. Escape arrives
in the form of Madeleine (Adèle Haenel), a feisty, serious but peculiar young
woman convinced some terrible environmental apocalypse is waiting in the wings
for which she must be ready. To improve her survival skills, Madeleine signs up
for a two-week army boot camp and the smitten Arnaud tags along. Neither is
truly prepared for what awaits them there…
Les Combattants (The Fighters) scooped three César awards (the French
Oscars) including Best Actress for Haenel (beating Juliette Binoche and Marion
Cotillard), and the 26-year-old is really the heart of Cailley’s film.
Madeleine’s deadpan seriousness provides Les Combattants’ biggest laughs
(swimming with heavy roofing tiles in a backpack, drinking a raw fish she has
just put through a blender) while her slow acceptance that maybe she’s not
quite as tough as she thinks is one of the film’s many revelatory moments.
Cailley is keen to subvert hackneyed movie gender roles and it’s
refreshing to see a young woman as the more mentally and physically robust partner
in a relationship, her would-be paramour the sensitive, easy-going one following
along just for the chance to spend time with her. Towards the end, when the
merde hits the fan and the pair’s lives are threatened by a forest fire, the roles
revert to something a little more traditional but even that makes sense in
terms of these characters’ development over the course of the narrative.
The film was marketed as a romcom when it hit cinemas in this
country back in June but that description really doesn’t do it justice. It
has far more wit, warmth, vim and vigour than the likes of Man Up or whatever Richard
Curtis-aping bit of middle class fluff is clogging up the multiplexes this
week. One thing, though; whoever decided to re-title the film Love at First
Fight for the US
Rating: WWW
DVD/Blu-ray
highlights...
Charlie Chaplin: The Gold Rush/The Kid/The Circus (Blu-ray) Three Chaplin classics with more to come later in the month.
Blame It On Rio (Blu-ray) Michael Caine and Demi Moore star in this best-forgotten '80s cheese-fest.
Charlie Chaplin: The Gold Rush/The Kid/The Circus (Blu-ray) Three Chaplin classics with more to come later in the month.
Blame It On Rio (Blu-ray) Michael Caine and Demi Moore star in this best-forgotten '80s cheese-fest.
Everly
(DVD/Blu-ray) Not even the great Salma Hayek could save this piss-poor piece of
Poundland Grindhouse from a critical kicking.
Glassland
(DVD) Harrowing Irish drama about a young taxi driver (Jack Reynor) desperate
to help his alcoholic mother (Toni Collette) conquer her addiction. Trailer below
Snow in
Paradise (DVD) A 'special edition' release for the frustratingly flawed British
crime thriller boasting extras not on the original DVD.
View on Demand
highlights...
(from today unless otherwise stated)
(from today unless otherwise stated)
She’s Funny That Way (VSS, also DVD) Rather old-fashioned screwball comedy from Peter
Bogdanovich, the director of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. Imogen
Poots, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston star.
Timbuktu
The Water Diviner (VSS, also DVD/Blu-ray) Russell Crowe directs and stars in this controversial tale of an Australian farmer desperately searching for his three missing sons after the end of World War I.
The Babadook (Netflix
The Swimmer (MUBI, from Sunday) Burt Lancaster oddity from 1968 in which a mentally-ill man whose life is falling apart decides to “swim home” via the pools of his friends and neighbours.
Terrestrial
highlights...
Grosse Point Blank
(23:35, Friday, BBC1) John Cusack is the depressed young hitman back in town to
attend his high school reunion while trying to make amends with the former
girlfriend (Minnie Driver) he stood up on prom night 10 years before. A
classic black comedy.
The Dirty
Dozen (15:20, Saturday, Channel 5) Lee Marvin leads a group of brutal military
prisoners on a suicide mission to attack a chateau packed with Nazis in this
terrific WWII action drama. Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and Donald
Sutherland co-star. Trailer below
Smokey and the
Bandit (13:35, Sunday, ITV) Burt Reynolds stars in one of those
peculiar '70s films about butch men with moustaches and cowboy hats
driving really fast whilst being pursued by incompetent lawmen. There were a
fair few of them, I seem to recall.
Zero Dark
Thirty (21:00, Sunday, Channel 4) Jessica Chastain leads the decade-long hunt
for Osama Bin Laden in Kathryn Bigelow's tense and intelligent thriller.
We Are What We
Are (01:05, Sunday, BBC2) Cannibal horror drama from Mexico
Cable and
Satellite highlights...
War Book
(22:00, Tuesday, BBC Four) Tense but stagey nuclear war drama
starring Sophie Okonedo, Ben Chaplin and Kerry Fox shown to
commemorate the 70th anniversary of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Also in cinemas.
Throne of
Blood (01:40, Tuesday, Film4) Akira Kurosawa's stunning adaptation of
Macbeth, from 1957 (trailer below). Film 4 is also showing the legendary Japanese
director's Seven Samurai this week (23:25, Thursday).
Melancholia
(21:00, Thursday, Sky Arts) Kirsten Dunst stars in Lars von Trier’s extraordinary
tale of mental illness and impending apocalypse. One of the maverick Danish
director’s very best films.
Bridesmaids
(21:00, Friday, Film4) Raucous but smart wedding comedy from director Paul
Feig, starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy.
30 Days of
Night (23:30, Saturday, ITV4) Underrated adaptation of the Steve Niles/Ben
Templesmith vampire graphic novel, starring Josh Hartnett and Melissa George.
Danny Huston steals the show as the genuinely terrifying bloodsucker-in-chief
Marlow.
Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. We Are What We Are begins at 01:05 - technically Monday morning - but is still part of Sunday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.
Ratings
WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthy
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful
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