The Greatest Trick

Stardust, the seminal novel from fantasy author Neil Gaiman, is, in the author’s own words, a “fairy tale for adults”. Although certain elements have been watered down to keep this adaptation within the confines of a PG certificate, its still really not a film for children. The primary audience is fantasy obsessives (of which I am one), although those who are merely curious will be rewarded with an enjoyable romance, whilst being reminded of old favourites such as The Princess Bride and Terry Gilliam’s lighter films (especially his recent film The Brothers Grimm).

Young shop boy Tristan promises Victoria, the girl he thinks he loves, that he will bring back for her a fallen star from a magical realm that exists beyond a wall near their town. Once inside this parallel world, Tristan discovers this star is in fact a beautiful girl, Yvaine. He insists she accompanies him back to his world to show Victoria, but before long she begins to fall in love with him. However, Yvaine is in great danger. She is in possession of a jewel that Lord Stormhold’s three living son’s (Primus, Secundus and Septimus) vie for in order to claim his throne (the ghosts of their four dead brothers amusingly comment on the action from the afterlife like a Greek chorus). Even worse, three witches, led by the monumentally nasty Lamia, wish to capture Yvaine so they can cut out her heart and use it to regain their youth.

Performances are a mixed bag. Charlie Cox and Claire Danes are fine as Tristan and Yvaine respectively, but Sienna Miller is not the radiant Victoria I imagined from the book (a young hero might perhaps be prepared to brave the Boxing Day Next sale for her, but recover a fallen star? Nah, she’s not worth it). Jason Flemyng, Rupert Everett and Mark Strong are all good as Primus, Secundus and Septimus respectively. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Lamia is an absolutely superb villain, but Robert De-Niro’s camp sky pirate Captain Shakespeare is seriously misjudged. Peter O’Toole and Ricky Gervais have enjoyable but pointless cameos and Ian McKellen narrates the start and ending in appropriate fairy tale fashion.

Screenwriter Jane Goldman make a decent fist of adapting Gaiman’s unique brand of romantic wit, and director Matthew Vaughn’s foray into the fantasy genre is by and large a successful one. If nothing else, the Isle of Skye locations are used to tremendous, majestic effect (if occasionally enhanced by CGI). Oh, and for the pop music apologists out there (of which I am one) Take That’s song on the end credits is really good (a future number one perhaps).

From a spiritual perspective, the pros and cons of the romantic worldview are present and correct. As usual, the moral seems to be “follow your heart” – a flawed idea that goes against Biblical thinking (“The heart is deceitful above all things”, Jeremiah 17 verse 9). If I always followed my heart, I’d end up in serious trouble. However, it’s equally foolish to disregard one’s heart entirely (“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”, Psalm 37 verse 4). Such theological musings will probably not cross your mind when viewing Stardust, but nevertheless, in spite of some objectionable ideas, the irony of Tristan’s quest is as pertinent here as it was in the book. All in all, the lessons he learns are worth heeding.

Simon Dillon, October 2007.

The end credits of Ratatouille proudly announce that “no motion capture or other short cuts were used in the making of this film. 100 per cent guaranteed real animation.” One can entirely understand why those involved in the production would want to announce this. Mere superlatives have long since been inadequate when describing the insanely high standard of Pixar’s animation, and Ratatouille’s technical merits are so astounding that one wonders if they are somehow cheating.

In fact, Ratatouille is such an unmitigated joy from start to finish that it would take a psychic to spot anything that indicated its troubled production history. Pixar were worried about how the film was shaping up, so Brad Bird was called upon to lick it into shape. Bird (who directed my favourite Pixar film The Incredibles, and my favourite animated film of all time The Iron Giant) is so revered in the animation world that the studio clearly hoped that the harnessing of his phenomenal skills could result in the alchemy that sometimes turns lead into gold. In this case, their hopes were not in vain.

Remy is a young rat living in the French countryside who dreams of being a gourmet chef. His father and brother do not understand his curious ambition, and discourage it. But when the rat colony is forced to suddenly flee, Remy is left alone in the centre of Paris next to the restaurant founded by his now-deceased cooking idol. After sneaking into the restaurant to get a closer look at gourmet cooking, a series of bizarre and hilarious events ensue, the upshot of which is that Remy makes an unusual alliance with the restaurant’s new garbage boy Linguini, who wants to cook but can’t. Remy, who it transpires is a naturally gifted chef, agrees to help him by pulling on his hair and operating him like a puppet to help fulfil his ambition. The witty screenplay explores this absurd idea to superb effect, and somehow manages to not only make it work but make it brilliant.

As I’ve already mentioned, the mind-boggling attention to detail is reason alone to make this a must-see. From autumnal French countryside to dark gurgling sewers and beautiful Paris cityscapes, every detail is so visually astounding that one cannot help wondering if the Pixar animators suffer from some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder in their continual determination to excel themselves.

On top of this, the vocal talents are excellent – Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Lou Romano, Brad Garrett, and Janeane Garofalo are all outstanding in their various roles. But by far the most interesting character in Ratatouille is cynical acid-penned restaurant critic Anton Ego, superbly voiced by Peter O’Toole. One scene involving his character is a profound, disarming, and surprisingly moving exploration of how taste can be inextricably entwined with a specific time and place, causing those eating to relive past experiences and recall long lost innocence. As an aside, I couldn’t help wondering if Ego was created in response to the critical reception received by the previous Pixar film, Cars. Personally, I thought Cars was superb, but like Anton Ego, many critics inexplicably knocked off a star or two (so to speak) in their reviews. However, I can almost guarantee that star will be back for Ratatouille.

The film doesn’t just have things to say about food and critics. Familiar but worthy messages about being true to oneself, friendship, loyalty, ambition, the price of fame and prejudice are explored in pleasingly subtle fashion. One understated but hugely effective scene has Remy’s father showing him a shop window filled with rat poison and traps in an effort to dissuade him from associating with humans. Remy however refuses to accept life will always be that way, and wants to change things.

If that makes Ratatouille sound heavy, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s light as a feather, frequently hilarious, and contains several superbly exciting set pieces reminiscent of Chuck Jones or Tex Avery cartoons. Remy dodges coming to a nasty end many times inside the restaurant and the film ingeniously shows what potential death traps kitchens are for rats. Chases also spill out onto the Parisian streets and even into the Seine (in one particularly hysterical subplot involving a jealous chef who is determined to catch Remy). One scene where the rats come together at the end to help Remy prepare the eponymous Ratatouille is such a delightful, surreal, whimsical sequence that its narrative implausibility (even allowing for suspension of disbelief) becomes an irrelevance.

To sum up, Ratatouille is easily the best family film of the year, not to mention Pixar’s most technically proficient work yet, and confirms Brad Bird’s emerging reputation as the Steven Spielberg of animation. Please, please go and see it at the cinema, as the beautiful use of widescreen will inevitably suffer on television. It only remains for me to warn parents that your children may well demand pet rats after watching this. As the RSPCA would say, a rat is not just for Christmas.

One final thing: don’t arrive late and miss Lifted, the sublime cartoon before the main feature. It’s the funniest Pixar short film to date.

Simon Dillon, October 2007.

I have always been a huge fan of Joy Division and New Order, so had high expectations of this long awaited biopic of Ian Curtis, who tragically committed suicide at just 23 in 1980. Thankfully, director Anton Corbijn’s wonderful film does not disappoint.

Ian Curtis grew up in Manchester in the 70’s listening to the likes of Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Following the punk scene, he and fellow teenagers Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris decided to form a band called Joy Division, provocatively named after a Nazi brothel (they also used some Nazi inspired artwork that caused certain sections of the press to mistakenly label them right wing). Needless to say, anyone who knows pop music history knows Joy Division went on to produce some phenomenally influential albums, but Ian Curtis wasn’t ready to be thrust into fame so quickly. A combination of epilepsy, the drugs he was taking to combat the epilepsy, and anguish over being in love with two women ultimately caused him to take his own life.

All of which makes this film sound immensely depressing, and to a point it is. But screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh’s adaptation of Deborah Curtis’s autobiographical book ensures the story is laced with dark humour and humanity. Shot in stunningly beautiful monochrome, cinematographer Martin Ruhe brilliantly recreates the look and feel of the British “angry young men” films of the early 1960’s – A Taste of Honey, This Sporting Life, Billy Liar et al – not to mention some of the most memorable images from Joy Division’s all too brief existence as a band.

The cast are all superb, especially Sam Riley as Curtis whose performance dominates the entire film. The decision for him to sing instead of lip-synch to the Joy Division’s most memorable tracks proves as good a decision as it was for Joaquin Phoenix to sing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Off stage, he is also utterly convincing – by turns kind, cruel, remorseful, hypocritical, angry and utterly conflicted. The gradual realisation that he doesn’t want to be famous but thinks he has no choice is as brilliant a portrait of tormented musical genius as could possibly be hoped for. Those familiar with Joy Division’s music will know that their lyrics whilst poetic are astonishingly complex and dark. Certainly their best known song, Love will tear us apart, speaks of emotions no 23-year old should have to experience (Curtis couldn’t make up his mind whether his early marriage was a mistake, but didn’t want to leave his wife Deborah in spite of also being in love with his mistress Annik).

The rest of the band don’t get a huge amount of screen time, although their screen counterparts – Joe Anderson, James Anthony Pearson and Harry Treadaway as Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris respectively – do well with limited roles. Admittedly, Bernard Sumner gets slightly more scenes, since he went on to front New Order with the surviving members following Curtis’ suicide. New Order went on to become one of the greatest bands of the 80’s and early 90’s.

Elsewhere, Samantha Morton is surprisingly effective as Deborah, essentially a fairly thankless role. Alexandra Maria Lara provides a good counterpoint in Annik, Craig Parkinson is fine as Factory Records producer Tony Wilson (although not as good as Steve Coogan’s portrayal of the same character in 24 Hour Party People), and Tony Kebbell adds fine support as Rob Gretton, Joy Division’s amusingly foul mouthed manager. I should add that the film contains extremely strong language throughout.

As is often the case with such films, it is ultimately impossible to truly get inside the head of someone as enigmatic as Ian Curtis. However, Control is by no means a failure. It is best viewed as a cautionary tale about the trappings of fame, and Curtis’ slide into despair is profound, haunting and deeply moving.

Simon Dillon, October 2007.