The Final Portrait (2017)

 

Films exploring the challenges of the creative process of other artistic mediums can be a challenge in themselves, the challenge being how to explore that process without having characters just sitting at their typewriters or canvasses, scowling, swearing, and smoking endless cigarettes.

The Final Portrait fails in this respect, and is not helped by a showy, distracting turn by Geoffrey Rush as famed artist Alberto Giacometti, and a bland and forgettable performance by Armie Hammer as real-life writer and art scholar James Lord.

The story revolves around Giacometti offering to paint a portrait of Lord, something that should only take an afternoon, but ends up dragging on for over a fortnight. With each day, Lord gets dragged further into the artist's world and the people in it, such as his brother Diego Giacometti, and his long-suffering wife Annette.

Unfortunately, writer/director Stanley Tucci gives us no insight into why Giacometti is so utterly obsessed with painting Lord and why Lord puts up with the constant delays, which come at great expense and inconvenience to himself.

Instead, we get some heavy-handed characterisation showing Giacometti drinking, cavorting with a prostitute, unsure and uncaring as to where to hide a huge pile of money, and repeatedly shouting "Ow Faaaak" at the canvas as his latest attempt to paint Lord runs into trouble. We get it. He's an artist. He doesn't care about money or other people's feelings. He can't make his mind up about his art. As to why any of this is the case, no idea.

Having said that, the film looks great, and while the characters are not convincing, the boozy, shabby chic world of 1960s Bohemian Paris that they live in most definitely is.

It Comes At Night (2017)

Maybe there is something in the air, but there seems to be no shortage apocalyptic films and TV shows. The trailer for It Comes At Night seems to be selling it as a cross between The Shining and 28 Days Later, but in reality, it is a low key, claustrophobic and highly disturbing look at ordinary people crumbling under extraordinary circumstances.

As a deadly and highly contagious disease has lays waste to the outside world, Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis lock themselves away in their country home. When a stranger breaks into the house, they grudgingly let him and his wife and new born baby stay with them. But have they let also in something more than just the people?

The three leads are thoroughly convincing, both individually and as a family, with Joel Edgerton giving Paul a grim, ruthlessly practical intensity. Kelvin Harrison Jr. excels as Travis, a teenager having to grow up fast and having to see things nobody should have to see.

Director Trey Edward Shults builds an oppressive world, and slowly ramps up the paranoia and tension. Much of the action takes place in the family home, but even when they venture further afield the forest they live in becomes an overbearing oppressive place, where we rarely see the sky or much of the world beyond the woods. In fact, few clues are given to the cause or nature of the outbreak, and the only backstory we get about Paul and his family comes from brief shots of family photos on the walls of their home, a throwback to happier days. That so much is left unexplained does not hinder the film as the focus is on the here and now, rather than how they or the wider world got to where they are.

Brian McOmber's soundtrack is a perfect accompaniment, an unsettling mix of synths, strings, and relentless percussion, which blends well with the heightened sound design.

If anything, It Comes At Night might be a victim of its own success, at least when it comes to recommending it. There is no let up from the grim fight for survival, and even as the characters trying to keep and air of normality and civilisation, there is a feeling that this is only staving off the inevitable, and the thought of the teenager and the baby having to grow up in this world is tragic. This is an intense and brilliantly executed piece of work, but don't expect to come through it feeling good about the world.

Prevenge (2017)

Shot in 11 days while writer / director Alice Lowe was herself heavily pregnant, Prevenge is a bold and taboo busting piece of work that subverts many of the patronising stereotypes society still has around pregnancy, while still being a dark and funny thriller.

Lowe plays Ruth, a woman heavily pregnant and hell bent on revenge on the people who she blames for the loss of the father of her child. Both her script and performance manage the tricky balancing act of making Ruth sympathetic enough to be interesting, without ever condoning her actions, although the focus is never on whether or not she is going to be brought to justice.

The episodic structure and fast pace of the story means we are introduced to her victims just minutes before they are dispatched. It is a credit to the likes of Kate Dickie as a heartless job interviewer and Tom Davis as a hilariously sleazy DJ that they make a real impression and flesh out what could have been in other hands, rather two dimensional roles.

Prevenge is also very funny, although in a jet black way and many of the laughs comes from the voice in Ruth's head that commands her to kill, a voice she attributes to her unborn child.

As a writer, Lowe has a great ear for dialogue, capturing the sometimes banal feel of modern life and the condescending advice dished out by experts, both qualified and self-appointed. As a director, I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.