Get ready for a fortnight of flashbulbs, soaking wet red carpets, and increasingly high-profile Hollywood A-listers grimacing through the English weather.
Forget that superfluous veneer, because it’s really about the films, and the 57th BFI London Film Festival has the greatest, most eclectic line up in its burgeoning history. Slap bang in the middle of the festival, here is a rundown of the films that have left an indelible mark on critics, and a series of titles that will hopefully guide you on how to spend some of those impending dark winter nights.
There is a theme of abandonment and isolation about some of the stand-out titles this year, with two films in particular focusing on perils at sea. The opening night gala saw Paul Greengrass put Tom Hanks through the wringer in Captain Phillips, but the more impressive bloke on a boat flick is All Is Lost, which pits 77-year-old Robert Redford against the elements, armed only with a dozen words of dialogue and a sinking ship, in this effective parable on the fragility of life.
From the bottom of the sea to the very top of the universe, Alfonso Cuaron’s much hyped Gravity, takes a similar narrative path, throwing George Clooney and Sandra Bullock across the interstellar skies, as two astronauts cut adrift from mission control after a debris storm destroys their ship. It is unlike anything you’ve seen before, and has to be experienced on the big screen in order to fully appreciate its scope and overwhelming impact. But the technical bravado shouldn’t suffocate a particularly strong performance from Sandra Bullock. Find the biggest screen possible and book your seats now.
Any new Coen Brothers film is worthy of a mention, but what if you were told that it was one of their very, very best? Inside Llewyn Davis is an absolute delight. Featuring tunes penned by Marcus Mumford and also starring his wife, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, and a career-making turn from the transfixing Oscar Isaac, it is a typical Coen-esque tale of a loser beat up by life. Isaac is the titular character, a folk singer in the 1960s who seems content to let opportunities pass him by. Soulful, melancholic, and incredibly funny, this is a love letter to art.
Similarly themed, Alexander Payne, he of The Descendants and Election fame, gently unveils Nebraska, a pitch-perfect tale of an alcoholic man, played magnificently by Bruce Dern, who, in an increasing state of dementia, may or may not believe that he has won a million dollars on a postcode lottery. While he clearly knows it’s a scam, his frustrated son, a wonderfully stripped back Will Forte, decides it might be best to let the old man play out his fantasy. The film is so seductively gentle and perfectly measured, with unforced comedy and an overbearing pathos which sticks with you post-credits. The monochrome visuals, postcard vignettes, and middle-class issues won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re a fan of Payne’s previous efforts, this will exceed expectations.
Aside from Gravity, the one film you’ll hear talked about in exhaustive terms over the coming months is Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. Charting the decade-plus during which a free man, played by Oscar front-runner Chiwetel Ejiofor, was kidnapped and sold into slavery, the film has received unanimously positive reviews from the festival circuit, and backed with an ensemble of Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, and Paul Giamatti, it’s not hard to see why tickets for this were more sought after than a Rolling Stones gig.
Tom Hanks makes his second appearance in the list and bookends the festival with a snapshot into the life of Walt Disney, Saving Mr Banks. Unfortunately it doesn’t depict the more dubious aspects of the man behind the Magic Kingdom, but charts a two-week period during which he had to convince the reluctant Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), that her magical, brolly-twirling nanny wasn’t going to be chewed up and spat out by Hollywood. This is first time Walt has been portrayed on film, and if we’re going to get a sanitised version of a man who helped orchestrate our childhoods, then you can’t go wrong with the charm of Hanks.
Other films of note during this movie-buffs Christmas-come-early, are Jonathan Grazer’s Scottish-set tale of an alien seductress starring Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin, who also appears in Joseph Gordon Levitt’s directorial debut, the enjoyable Don Jon, which is an unconventional love story for the modern man. Jason Reitman attempts to continue his good run of form (Up in the Air, Young Adult), this time with Kate Winslet as his muse, in Labor Day, another odd romance about a single mother who offers a fugitive a ride. We say goodbye to the larger than life, screen enveloping presence of James Gandolfini, in Nicole Holofcener’s, Enough Said, a brilliant dramedy that showcases a gentler side to the late actor, and also provides a long overdue spotlight under which Julia Louis-Dreyfus excels.
Diverse documentaries, short-film entries, Q&As, a new Richard Ayoade movie, and possibly a couple of absolutely rubbish films. Get thee to the West End.
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