CERTAIN prime cinema going seasons are obvious. There is the pre-Oscars period, when the studios bring out the stuff in the locked cabinets for the Academy’s approval, and Christmas, when the blockbusters come out to play. Then there is Lucky Dip August.
This sees the release of smaller pictures that might otherwise be overlooked in the rush. More often than not, they turn out to be keepers, the kind of film you will remember fondly long after the sugar rush from the latest superhero movie has gone. Three such titles are out this week.
The first is the endlessly sweet drama Hearts Beat Loud. Nick Offerman (TV’s Parks and Recreation) plays Frank Fisher, owner of a vinyl record shop in Brooklyn. The single father is doing his best to face up to two losses: his business is going under and his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons) is heading off to medical school. Sam’s real passion, one she shares with dad, is music. But she is the sensible one in the family, the one who knows you cannot pay the rent with dreams of making it big in the music biz.
It sounds like the sort of hippy dippy, sub-Fame/Glee mush. But courtesy of Offerman and Clemons, Hearts Beat Loud is a beautifully played study of the lengths to which any decent parent will go to make sure the kids are all right. If you need any more recommendation, the supporting cast includes Ted Danson as a bar owner. That’s right, Sam from Cheers is back behind a bar.
Sicilian Ghost Story (15) **** hails from Italian writer-directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, makers of the strange and wonderful crime drama Salvo (2013), a Cannes winner about a Mafia hitman. They are in the same territory here with this tale, based on a true story, about the disappearance of a teenager. Guiseppe’s classmate Luna thinks she knows what has happened to him, and why, so why are the villagers doing nothing about it?
Grassadonia and Piazza mix reality and dreams, romance and hard-hitting drama to deeply moving effect, and the two youngsters, Julia Jedlikowska and Gaetano Fernandez, play their hearts out. An unforgettable wander into the dark past of a beautiful place.
Gemma Arterton has played a Bond girl (Strawberry Fields, Quantum of Solace), a fantasy princess (Prince of Persia), and the head girl at St Trinian’s. It has long been obvious that there is a seriously talented actor in there who is too rarely given a chance to come out. She is given such an opportunity in The Escape (15) ****, and man alive she takes it.
Arterton plays Tara, a stay at home mother to two young children. Tara has got it all according to her mother,including a husband (Dominic Cooper) who is crazy about her. So why is she crying all the time?
Written and directed by Dominic Savage (Love + Hate, 2005), The Escape deals with the everyday matter of a marriage collapsing under the weight of one party’s misery, yet the handling of the subject is anything but mundane. Cooper is on typically watchable form as the husband out of his depth, ditto Frances Barber making a brief but compelling appearance as Tara’s mum. Arterton, however, is simply magnificent. The camera cannot get enough of her, and you will hopefully feel the same as she puts her character through the mill with the utmost delicacy. Arterton once played the title role in Gemma Bovery, a comedic spin on Flaubert’s classic. Here, she shows herself up to playing the part of one of literature’s greatest tragic heroines for real, she is that good.
Hearts Beat Loud: GFT and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, till August 9; Macrobert Arts Centre, August 10-16; DCA, August 17-23; Eden Court, August 24-29.
Sicilian Ghost Story: GFT till August 9; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, August 17-23; Macrobert, August 24-30.
The Escape: Macrobert till August 7; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, till August 9; GFT, August 10-16; Eden Court, August 10-15.
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