Wild Tales (15)
three stars
Dir: Damian Szifron
With: Liliana Ackerman, Alejandro Angelini
Runtime: 122 minutes
ANGER and plenty of it is in the Argentinian air in this blistering collection of short tales stitched together by director Damian Szifron. From drivers with no manners to brides on the edge of a nervous breakdown, modern life is put through the wringer. While the irritants could be seen as fairly universal, there is a tailored skewering going on here of Argentina, a country where the divides between rich and poor, the political elite and everyone else, are particularly sharp. For those who like their humour red in tooth and claw.
Life of Riley (12A)
three stars
Dir: Alain Resnais
With: Caroline Sihol, Sandrine Kiberlain
Runtime: 113 minutes
VETERAN director Alain Resnais, 92 years young, shows no signs of giving up the cinematic rule bending any time soon. For his latest trick, the director of Hiroshima Mon Amour takes an Alan Ayckbourn play set in Yorkshire, casts the creme of French comedy drama, and puts them all together in a blend of film and theatre. While the latter recipe turns the film rather flat, Ayckbourn's play about love and loss holds up, even if the French pronunciation of such words as "Manchester" and "George Riley" is unintentionally comic.
The Face of an Angel (15)
three stars
Dir: Michael Winterbottom
With: Kate Beckinsale, Daniel Bruhl
Runtime: 101 minutes
TWO young women head off to start term at a university in Italy. One of them is murdered, the other stands accused of her killing. So begins years of trials and appeals that fuel an international media circus. When news of Michael Winterbottom's drama first emerged one could see why some feared it might be exploitative of a real life tragedy. It is not, with Winterbottom exploring the case at a respectful distance through the tale of a director (Daniel Bruhl) making a film with the help of a foreign correspondent (Kate Beckinsale) and a local waitress/student (the much heralded turn of Cara Delevingne). No prurience, then, but what is left amounts to a ponderous, unfocused wander through various subjects, including the breakdown of a marriage (Bruhl's), the state of modern Italy, and press ethics.
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