WICKED LITTLE LETTERS
(15) 102mins
★★★☆☆
IT is always funny hearing a sensible person swear.
An uptight teacher or stoical grandfather blurting out a bad word without thinking will get anyone sniggering.
Which is what makes the first few minutes of this film very funny indeed.
Spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) is sitting in a dingy, sad-looking front room with her strict, religious parents (Timothy Spall and Gemma Jones) reading a letter out loud.
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It is laden with the filthiest, foulest words, including phrases like, “You foxy-assed old whore”, and, “You want f***ing in the nose holes, you old beetle”.
Silly script
All of which make the women gasp and clutch their crucifixes in horror.
The juxtaposition of the prim and proper people swearing like sailors makes this scene, at first, funny.
But as the minutes roll on and the tsunami of profanities continues, the laughter turns to a titter. Which then turns to silence. Yet the “joke” keeps going and going. And going.
This is the remarkable true story of a poison pen campaign that occurred in the sleepy town of Littlehampton in the 1920s.
Godly Edith has been receiving the abusive letters and her father contacts the police. He thinks he knows the culprit immediately; their loose-lipped — and hipped — neighbour, Rose (Jessie Buckley), who is a single mum living with a new boyfriend. Oh, and she swears like a trooper.
But Rose is adamant she is not the author, even when thrown in prison for the crime. And some other locals believe her, including Ann and Mabel (Joanna Scanlan and Eileen Atkins).
So they start their own sleuthing, which sees a lot of hiding behind post boxes and bad impressions of Miss Marple.
The local police that appear are bumbling idiots, apart from “woman” police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) — who is, naturally, considered hysterical by all her male colleagues, but solves the crime.
While this is a perfectly pleasant British film with a stellar cast, the feeling these top actors are wasted with the silly script and cartoonish crime capers is very noticeable indeed.
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Spall’s is the only standout performance, while Colman and Buckley put in a decent enough shift, but there is simply not enough for them to spread their expert wings on screen.
However, if you like swearing, then you will f***ing love it.
PERFECT DAYS
(PG) 123mins
★★★★☆
IT would be wrong to describe Perfect Days as a must-see movie, but mainly because it is the ultimate anti-Fomo story.
German director Wim Wenders’ latest project focuses on Tokyo toilet cleaner Hirayama, who is quite content scrubbing lavatories and living alone.
Happy with his routine of having lunch in the same park, listening to the same albums on tape and dining at the same spots, this middle-aged man has no fear of missing out (Fomo).
Now and then, other people interrupt his order, such as his runaway niece and colleague’s girlfriend, but Hirayama takes it largely in his stride.
It requires a wonderfully understated performance from actor Koji Yakusho, which won him Best Actor at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Somehow Perfect Days manages to be as soft as an Andrex puppy, without being sickly sweet.
If you are looking for action or drama then Wenders, whose previous works include Paris, Texas and Buena Vista Social Club, isn’t your man.
On the other hand, if some meditative de-stressing is in order, this couldn’t be more perfect.
- Grant Rollings
SHOSHANA
(15) 119mins
★★☆☆☆
AS we know, violence is never far away in the region of Palestine. But the history of the problems is not always known. Director Michael Winterbottom’s new political thriller explores this.
It begins with a succession of archive footage, narrated by Shoshana (Irina Starshenbaum) – the daughter of a Russian Marxist and member of Jewish paramilitary group Haganah’s territorial army.
It’s the 1930s and the efforts of the growing Jewish population in Israel have seen terror attacks from both sides – with the British called in as peacekeepers.
They include Thomas Wilkin (Douglas Booth), who strikes up a romance with Shoshana.
Along with the brutal Supt Geoffrey Morton (Harry Potter’s Harry Melling), the pair get deeper into the crossfire of the fractious situation. Winterbottom doesn’t seem to know what he wants from this film.
The love affair is not intense enough and Shoshana doesn’t shine through as the lead character.
Booth’s performance is a little wooden and there feels an excessive amount of scenes of men in suits running up staircases to stop bombers.
Style without the soul.
