Thursday 5 December 2013

Don Jon

Friday last I went to see Don Jon.  In some countries I think it's Don Jon's Addiction, which is kind of film titles for simpletons.  Don Jon = Don Juan, innit?  So it's got to be a film about this great lover.  (You have to say "lover" in a sarcastic tone, and roll the R.)

To say I've been waiting months for this film would be nothing short of the absolute truth.  I couldn't find it sequestered online on some dodgy site where they keep telling you about Live Cams and to be honest, I wanted to wait for the cinema release here.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is such a stand up sit down good guy it would have felt wrong watching it in pirate style.  If you don't mind I'll abbreviate Joseph Gordon-Levitt to JG-L to save my fingers.  And he isn't to be confused with John Gordon Sinclair.  Which you probably hadn't done, until now.

You may remember JG-L as the little stripling alien in Third Rock from the Sun.  Or as a stripling ado in Ten Things I Hate About You.  Or as any number of good things that followed.  JG-L also has an open collaborative production company called Hit Record where 'Writers, musicians, illustrators, photographers, video editors — artists of all kinds are invited to contribute their work...Once on the site, the hitRECord community collaboratively edits, builds upon, develops and remixes each others work'.

JG-L wrote, directed and stars in Don Jon, and he's a stripling no more.  The little alien has been eating his Weetabix and there is considerably more prime meat on him than before.  OK, I'll stop, it's a bit unseemly.  Along with the outfit of musculature, he has put on a character so far removed from any previous he has played that it seems almost to be another person.  I guess that's what acting is, huh.  But some actors, Bruce Willis for example, whom he played and played opposite in Looper, only ever play themselves.  Not a stretch.   Even I could play Bruce Willis.

I believe (although it's just a guess from the accents) that the film is set in New Jersey, which is sort of like parts of Essex by the look of things.  Scarlett Johansson's character Barbara would probably fit in fine down the Sugar Hut.  She snares Jon with the pneumatic promise of sex down the temporal line  which she holds like a carrot while talking him into "improvements" to his life.  He goes along with all this because he wants the carrot.  Only the carrot is always a disappointment to him and he looks for virtual carrots online.  In fact he prefers the online carrots because he can totally lose himself in carrot.

I will not give away the rest of the plot as it's quite a short film and I'm sure JG-L would prefer you to see it than read what I have to say about carrots.

All the supporting actors bring their A game (look at me, getting all American) but Julianne Moore is just luminous and lifts the story off the screen.  See the film, immerse yourself in a tale of carrots and marvel at how one little boy can grow to be such a man.  You know, he even speaks fluent French?  I actually want to be Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

Don Jon (2013)
Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Writer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Brie Larson.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Secret Smile

Bit of a hiatus in my reviewing of stuff.  I think my brain atrophied after recent surgery but it seems to be back now.

The last couple of nights I treated myself to Secret Smile, a psychological thriller from 2005 that is sort of Bridget Jones with stalking and domestic violence.  Based on a Nicci French novel, the two-parter is on Youtube in several snatches, each of ten minutes.  Until recently on Youtube this was normal – like watching an old movie in several reels.  Fortunately you don’t have to load up a new spool to your projector, you just faff around until you find the next bit.

Perhaps this disjointed nature of viewing helped with the sense of unease.  The female protagonist is Kate Ashfield out of Shaun of the Dead, playing much the same character, with a frown so deeply creased between her eyes it looks like she had been pressed in a book.  Her presence is rather overshadowed by the pre-Doctor Who David Tennant, playing an utterly charming, right nasty bastard called Brendan Block, whom everyone thinks is so wonderful that Kate Ashfield must be really foul, jealous or mad not to like him.

In a nutshell, Miranda (Kate) shags our pre-Doctor and when he turns out to be limpety and lets himself in to her flat after the briefest of relationships and reads her diary, dumps him.  “Bitch”, he says, and then proceeds to wreck her life and that of a few others. 

The problem lies herein:  it’s all a little bit far-fetched.  Nobody believes Miranda when she says Brendan is an evil, calculating bastard, not even her best friend or her mum.  They trust him and love him as if he were Jesus.  If I were Miranda I would have fucked off and left them to it, not walked around looking like a bruised flower, trying to persuade people otherwise. 

Without spoiling the ending I will tell you that Miranda appears to come to a sticky end.  Her parents seem only to be mildly put out by this, as if they had missed the first day of the Harrods sale.  Brendan really does come to a sticky end, and the final shot as he starts 22 years in prison is of him giving good sulky cheekbones against the prison wall while the other prisoners play a jovial game of footer. 

The comments on Youtube were revelatory.  Most of the viewers had stumbled upon Secret Smile via their fanboy/girl obsession with the Doctor, and thought Brendan was terribly hard done by, because 'The only thing we know Brendan is guilty of is sexual harassment, rape and domestic violence'.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Obviously their view is affected by the fact that David Tennant is a nice bloke and played (in the future) a nice Timelord, so they have conflated the characters and wrapped them in worship.  Therefore “his” punishment looks harsh. 


This gives us an interesting parallel with the way Miranda’s family is taken in.  Whilst I have no doubt that David Tennant is a lovely and splendid chap in real life, anyone who has ever been on the Mumsnet discussion boards will have seen that “nice guys” can also be secretly abusive, which is how they often get away with it.    





 
Secret Smile (TV Movie) 2005
Director: Christopher Menaul
Cast: Kate Ashfield, David Tennant, Claire Goose