X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011 - Cert 12A)

Reboot time again folks. Sorry, prequel, origin story, something like that. X-Men: First Class is the second attempt at looking at what happened before the three X-Men films released during the last 10 years. The first was imaginatively called X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I've got to admit I've not seen it, the poor reviews put me off, but also I seem to recall the first X-Men film being about the origins of Wolverine and how he went from nutcase with an a metal skeleton to hero with a metal skeleton - do we really need to do that again? First Class is a very different beast, stepping away from the era we already know, it's seeks to be part of the 'Grown Up' canon of superhero films and comic book adaptations, more Nolan's Batman than Ghost Rider.



After an unsettling opening to the film in a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War, First Class takes us bto the sixties, which does feel like an interesting novelty, all polar necks and Chelsea Boots, and shows us how the X-Men really started and more specifically how Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Professor X (James McAvoy) went from being friends fighting a common foe, Kevin Bacon's enjoyably over the top Sebastian Shaw, to becoming the enemies that we know so well. It is set against the backdrop of the Cold War, which admittedly is an idea 'borrowed' from Watchmen but quickly becomes increasingly interesting as it gets closer and closer it's finale at the setting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cold War, Nazis, concentration camps, missiles. Even for X-Men, which has always sought to try and tackle important issues in a relatively serious way, this is clearly an ambitious attempt at some serious, hardcore stuff.

Matthew Vaughn (his second crack at an X-Men film having originally been in place for The Last Stand only to pull out late on) got the gig on the back of the success of Kick-Ass and he is reunited with his writing partner for that film Jane Goldman who is quickly becoming a hot property on the screenplay front. A fine ensemble cast of respected actors was put in to place. As well as Bacon, Fassbender and McAvoy, there is also Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, January Jones and Nicholas Holt. Everything seems to be in place for a superhero classic, and it really does almost get everything right. Only almost though.

It's becoming the norm now to have fine actors in these types of film, but even with that the case, you do almost feel spoilt for choice with what First Class serves up. James McAvoy is as superb, and plays the Professor X role in exactly the way that Ewan McGregor should have played Obe Wan in the Star Wars prequels. Wisdom and wit without being patronising or irritating, he also somehow manages to remain watchable and likeable despite spending a lot of the time with fingers on his temples (the standard visual portrayal of mind reading). Fassbender is pure class and as Magneto clearly has the best role of the film, dark edginess and full of vengeance. He avoids the temptation to simply mope about looking hacked off, there is a wry dryness to the way he plays it, adding extra layers of depth that make the character far more interesting. It reminded me of Christian Bale's Batman, serious but only in a knowing melodramatic, comic book kind of way. Kevin Bacon relishes being a villain dressed in flashy, disco-like suits and Pat Sharpe mullet, kind of Ming the Merciless crossed with Beatlemania. The smaller roles support ably with Nicholas Holt and Jennifer Lawrence standing out of the pack in the roles that get the most freedom to be more than just a mutant causing damage/saving the day (see poor old Jason Flemyng).

Another positive is that the film knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything more than that. Yes it does want to be taken seriously but it also knows that it's about mutants in silly costumes and big blue and red monsters. It fits the tone of the previous X-Men films perfectly, not a comedy but playing it's content with it's tongue knowingly but gently poking into it's cheek. There are the usual moments of humour where our characters try to harness their powers to slapstick effect, but there is also playful banter between the characters that echoes the Kick-Ass script (perhaps one of the ingredients that Goldman brings to the table) and a great gag poking fun at the Wolverine character.

One of the things that can be so enjoyable with a prequel is discovering how we get to an ending that we know must happen. The joy is seeing how the blanks are filled in, kind of like algebra on the big screen. We know that Professor X is wheelchair bound, we know that he and Magneto don't continue to be friends, but how do we get from them meeting, becoming united, to that tragic position. It asks us to invest, using our knowledge and the affection held for familiar characters, in what is happening on screen and to get sucked in. I graciously accepted, with bells on. It's also worth saying here that as we reached the conclusion, and what a conclusion, a tremendous cocktail of action, conflict and drama, I was so engrossed in it that I forgot how it had to end and was shocked, and genuinely moved, when it came to a close as it did.

Unfortunately it's not all praise. The main problem with the film is that I think it is a victim of it's own ambition. You have Nazi concentration camps, you've got the Cold War and The Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian leaders, footage of JFK, not to mention the usual themes associated with the X-Men, what it means to be 'normal', racism, society, all of this alongside friendships and relationships. Plus it's a superhero film as well, and there are more than the average amount of characters to include. The concept of taking a real life historical conflict and suggesting that mutants were the cause and the saviour is an interesting one and one that worked very well, but with everything else its all just too much. All of the ideas are touched upon, glossed over, the viewer can do no more than just dip their toes into it.
All of the elements deserve much more time, arguably their own films. It's all results in it feeling crowded and a little more shallow than it should do. I wanted it to have more substance, but it just didn't, like Watchmen, but the difference with that was that it really was style over substance, well all style, no substance. First Class just has too much content, the depth has become diluted. A watered down version of what it set out to be.

I shouldn't dwell on that though, because Vaughn has created a very good film, probably one of the best summer blockbusters of the year. Splendid action sequences (most notably the finale and also Magneto destroying a boat with his powers and a massive metal chain and anchor -he really is making a name for himself, this, Kick-Ass and The Layer Cake) well acted, emotional, and most importantly it's fun. Everything a superhero film should be.

THE GREEN HORNET (2011 - 12A)

They are everywhere. Superheroes. Absolutely everywhere It's getting to the point where, according to cinema, there are more people fighting crime with superhuman abilities than there are 'normal' people idly pottering about their every day business waiting to be saved. Studios are tripping over themselves to get another one made, released and merchandised. The trouble is, the pool of superheroes of which to pick from is beginning to quickly diminish which means that we either have to visit old ground (see Spiderman, Superman, X-men and Batman reboots) or the film makers have to dig out or come up with something original. This is beginning to result in our heroes becoming more and more obscure and less well known.

I didn't know a great deal about the history of the Green Hornet which led me to believe that it was a recent comic book invention that a studio had desperately latched onto in order to keep the superhero cash registers in action, but a quick bit of Internet research quickly proved me wrong. The Hornet, a masked vigilante fighting crime with his martial arts expert sidekick Kato both portrayed as a villains by the media, has been around since the 1930's, appeared on American radio and has been in comic books for years. There's been TV serials and all sorts of references over the years in popular culture to the character. How did it pass me by? It also appears that people have been trying to get a feature film off the ground for almost 20 years. Just looking at the film's far from gospel wikipedia page points to a very protracted and difficult history. It's been one of those will they/won't they films for ages, it's been attached to names such as George Clooney, Greg Kinnear, Jake Gyllenhaal, Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Smith and a script that seems to have had a rewrite every ten minutes. It finally got made, Michel Gondry behind the camera with Seth Rogen as the Hornet and on screenplay duty with Evan Goldberg. So now that it's finally come to light, has it done it's legacy justice.



The truth it's not really a superhero film, in two senses. The Green Hornet isn't actually a superhero, he doesn't have any super powers. He's from the same stable as Batman, a vigilante with lots of cash out to clean up this town. He's just a hero. That's just a technicality though, I'm being a pedant, but now we've cleared that up, the real problem with the film is that it is a million miles away from being a super hero film, in fact it's not even a decent hero film.

The first thing that I noticed was how unoriginal it felt. The Batman comparison I made a moment ago is, I must admit, obvious, but what else am I supposed to say, it is about a bloke who loses his parent/parents which drives him to get revenge and rid the world of the crime that took his parents away. The bloke also has loads of cash because his father was loaded, which he chucks at a whole host of crime fighting toys and cool vehicles. I could be talking about either Batman or the Green Hornet. I am led to believe that the Green Hornet was born about 5 years before Batman was, so I'm not saying it's deliberately ripping off the Dark Knight, it's just that because of the popularity and widespread appeal of Batman, the story of the Green Hornet feels woefully short of fresh.

It's staleness doesn't stop there though. Rogen's script goes after laughs regularly, mostly playing the 'inept hero' card but we've seen this brand of humour already with Raimi's Spiderman films and even the X-Men films to a point. The jokes also aren't very good, they're not funny and old. Not a good combo. A buddy movie has also been attempted. The relationship between Rogen's Hornet and his sidekick Kato played by Jay Chou (a massive star in Asia winning the World Music Award four times) is again something that has been seen many times before (in every single buddy film ever made) - you know the sort of thing, two blokes meet, become friends, fall out, get back together just in time to save the day and have a happy ending. It's been done much better many times elsewhere. Another issue is it's apparent attempt at being a bit edgier, a bit more violent. There are guns and people do get shot, proper shot, with blood and getting dead. It's doesn't have the glossy idealistic atmosphere of Spiderman for example. This is all very good but it comes almost a year after Kick Ass, which is again another instance of something doing it all much much better than the Green Hornet.

So, it clearly isn't pushing any boundaries, but that isn't to say it can't still be decent can it?

Seth Rogen is a watchable presence so he does just about get away with being the lead in this film. He's understandably much more at home with the comedy elements of the role, being a useless vigilante and a selfish pig at the beginning of the film. However once he is required to show some emotion in the serious moments, or towards the end of the film where he has to pull his socks up to save the day, he struggles to convince. Chou is probably the best part of the film, getting the most laughs. There is a youthful feel to his performance, a cheeky boyish look here, a sulky grimace there. It works well and you quickly forget that his slight struggles with the grasp of the English Language affect his delivery of the script. Cameron Diaz's inclusion as the secretary and brains of the operation irritated me hugely. Not anything to do with Diaz herself necessarily but the role itself is clumsily included, clunkily written and there as obvious exposition. Consequently it looks as though Diaz is rubbish, whereas the reality is, actors can only do the best with what they are given. The biggest disappointment of the film is Christoph Waltz, someone who really knows how to play a bad guy. His turn in Inglorious Basterds was a revelation and rightly picked him up an Oscar but he also proved it again in Water For Elephants where, again he was the best thing about the film. So how is his baddie in the Green Hornet, Chudnofsky, so bad? Rogen's script makes Chudnofsky an insecure baddie, constantly worrying about what others think of him and his standing in the criminal world as youngsters try and muscle in on his empire. It is an amusing concept but it isn't transferred well to the screen. The chase for both laughs and scares causes Waltz to lose all of the menace and the madness that was present in Inglorious and Water for Elephants, and before you say he might not be trying to recapture that, he clearly is, talking to victims in that familiar way, with that charming but mental smile, before blowing them away. This film has somehow conspired to make Christoph Waltz not scary, which is some achievement.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Michel Gondry's inclusion as director does have it's benefits. Always daring and creative when it comes to putting something on screen, Gondry deals with the simple stuff well, he knows how to film comedy properly, but he makes the action in the Green Hornet a joy to watch. Kato's skill in the fist fights is shown in brilliant slow-mo with the camera spinning around the action constantly and focusing on Kato's next target, almost taking you inside his instinctive thought process. There is also a fantastic amount of destruction in the finale that Gondry clearly enjoys and handles well.

It's not enough though, A bit of exciting camera work and a few explosions, it can't rescue the film. All in all, it's a huge disappointment, it's not a good comedy, it's not a good superhero film, the acting is passable, the script is poor and becomes overly convoluted towards the end, and although it's not totally predictable, there is no peril, you always know deep down that our heroes are going to win the day. If you want to watch a  superhero film like this, just go back to some of the others I mentioned earlier, because you've practically seen the Green Hornet already.

PREDATORS (2010 - Cert 15)

During my recent, and admittedly overdue, post about Attack the Block I referred to cinema reaching back for the sensibilities that made certain films 20 or 30 years ago so special and trying to recapture that magic. As well as that there has also been a less sophisticated move to do this that has involved either remaking films of this era, 'rebooting' or just simply making a very belated sequel. These releases have had varied degrees of success but one that sparked the most interest in me was Robert Rodriguez's Predators.



I had after all, like most people my age, a real soft spot for the first film. Arnie against an alien with a horrible mouth, dreadlocks and an arsenal of the most ridiculous weapons you could imagine. It was also pumped full of testosterone and channelled a lot of the energy, as well as having the same jungle setting, of Vietnam war films that were around at the same time. What was not to love. Then the obligatory sequel came with the unlikely hero of Danny Glover riding on the crest of Lethal Weapon success and shifting the setting to the city of Los Angeles against the backdrop of a war on drugs. It never really hit the heights of the first film but it still had plenty in it to enjoy, loads of carnage and an interesting ending (including a nod towards the Alien films and sparking rumours of an Alien vs Predator film), all in all enough to suggest that Predator could be a franchise with legs.

That was 20 years ago, and apart from two poor Alien vs Predator films that don't really deserve considering, there was no sign of our favourite extra-terrestrial mercenary. That is until last year when the third film finally arrived, some 15 years later than planned. Apparently, Rodriguez's idea for the film had been first put together back in 1994, which would obviously have better time to release the film as the series would have had momentum. They then had to wait until nostalgia was the en vogue theme in cinema to get it released, and you can't help but feel that the film didn't really need to be made.....

This is mostly down to it's mediocrity (perhaps I'm being too kind with that word). Alarm bells started gong off when I discovered it wasn't actually a Rodriguez film, despite everyone calling it his project. He is only the producer, in fact he doesn't even have a writing credit despite him apparently writing the script back in 1994.

It starts interestingly enough. A load of strangers wake up plummeting to the ground with a parachute strapped to their backs, with no knowledge of how they got where they are. It's not a bad cast, including Adrien Brody growling his way through a very un-Adrien Brody film,  Topher Grace, Rodriduez regular Danny Trejo and Alice Braga. They are all nasty pieces of work with violent histories and tendencies - they have clearly been chosen for something....it's not a spoiler to let you know that they are on an alien planet that is effectively a reserve where the Predators do their hunting. It's a very B-movie set up, which shouldn't be necessarily seen as a negative, that gets everything in place for what should be a violent, monster, action romp. Well, I suspect that was the plan anyway.

The opening segment really attempts to build the tension, you don't see anything for the opening half an hour at least, and I must admit that the slow build up does work. Well it would have worked had what followed been worthy of a tense build up. Instead it's a complete mess. While there are one or two good ideas, including predator dogs that we haven't seen before, it seems that very little thought has been put into the big action reveal of the predators and Nimrod Antal, the inexperienced director (and it shows) Rodriguez put into place, adopts a kitchen sink approach, chuck enough at it and some of it must stick. People die in a flood of gore but you're never really sure what's going on, like being really drunk in a nightclub on the dancefloor. Things rushing around you, no point of reference to help you.

What follows only gets messier and more tedious. The script attempts to give the characters arcs of development which only serve to make me yawn and the bitty action even more fragmented, we get a fairly good cameo from Laurence Fishburne as a clearly mental long time inhabitant of the Predator's game reserve,  but any joy there quickly subsides, we then get a load of scenes that are muddled together that seem to be the result of a brainstorming session of things Predators fans want to see including a samurai sword fight between a Yakuza gangster and a Predator that is completely derivative of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and is devoid of any tension or atmosphere whatsoever, much like the rest of the film.

Apparently the reason this film didn't get off the ground back in 1994 was because the studio said that the budget would be too high. This is ironic because it doesn't appear as though this film has a budget at all. Everything looks cheap. The physical effects look like they have been put together by Anthea Turner with cardboard and sellotape and the CGI effects are only a slight improvement on something you can do on photoshop. I'm not being a snob but I wonder where the budget of $40m went, especially when you consider what was achieved with £8m on Attack the Block.

The film fumbles along to a conclusion that I didn't care about at all, in fact I'm not even sure what happened at the end, that's how instantly forgettable it was.

So, to conclude, as if my opinion was ever in doubt, this film did not need to be made. Predator dogs and Laurence Fishburne being a bit mad are hardly enough to make a film worthwhile. What could have been an opportunity to try and do something interesting and fresh with a monster-movie icon has been completely mis-handled. It should have felt fresh, but it feels tired and worn. The decision to make the planet a jungle landscape thus making it look like the first film may have been an attempt to recreate what made it special, instead it just comes across as lazy and thoughtless.

A huge disappointment.

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011 - Cert 15)

Jealousy isn't an attractive trait. However I can't help feeling a rather large dose in the direction of Joe Cornish. Here is a bloke, granted a very successful and talented bloke, who loves his films just like me. He's older than me but he's a self confessed fan of much of the same type of cinema and from the same era. He often talks about Spielberg as one of his favourites, and how much his films have influenced him (professionally and personally) and now here he is working with the great man on Tin Tin. Someone else involved in that film is Simon Pegg, another fan of the cinema I grew up with who is now making films influenced by and referencing these very films. It's an interesting time, Pegg and Cornish aren't the only two who are doing this. J J Abrahms, the creator of Lost, is making films that are knowingly geeky, Star Trek being a fine example of someone who is a fan of the material but is clever enough to do something interesting with it. Edgar Wright, producer of Attack the Block, is a real modern auteur, daring with flair and imagination and very aware of genres. Films are being made that are playing to our affection of an age where movies had a certain feel, they are harnessing this, echoing it, perhaps even copying it, but it's resulting in flicks that feel at the same time both fresh and familiar.

Perhaps none more so than Attack The Block.



It's something that has aroused a bit of excitement I me. I love Cornish, his TV and radio shows are brilliantly stupid, so a feature length example of his imagination and love of cinema really drew me in. Then it was been billed as 'Sci-fi horror', one of my favourite genres. Chuck into the mix the involvement of Edgar Wright and you've got something that ticks all of my boxes. Which of course means that it would inevitably disappoint. Or would it?

Nope, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, quite the opposite. It took on any reservations I might have and pummelled them into the ground and emerged victorious.

'Inner city vs outer space' is the tag line, and essentially that is all you need to know about the film in it's most basic form. An alien monster film set in a south London council estate, and on that level it works very well. Cornish's direction is remarkably confident and all those years of watching films clearly had effect on him - he knows what he's doing with the camera and seems to revel in being given the opportunity. A sweeping pan across the London skyline opens the film with a statement of intent and he never really looks back from there. There's nothing introverted about what Cornish is attempting, this is his big chance. All of the action and the scares are dealt with very well, there is a physicality to what is happening on screen and Cornish chucks us right in amongst it, kinetic in a way that reminded me very much of Sam Raimi's stuff. The creature design is bold and imaginative, echoes of Critters but scarier and without too much of the comedy of those pesky little hedgehogs, with the added bonus of bright fangs that starkly contrast with their dark fur. A modern creature creation with all the impact of the 'Snakeoids' from Tremors and will stay in the minds of cinema goers for years to come. It scares and catches you off guard as well, Cornish killing of characters, not showing any mercy and clearly determined to make this one hell of a ride. People in my screening were hiding behind their hands, peeking between their fingers which is obviously a good sign.

However, having said all of this, to describe the film with only the above synopsis would be to do it a massive injustice and would undermine the vision and ambition of Cornish. It's so much more than just a monster film, it wants to have a go at social commentary, looking at muggings, cause and effect and what being in a gang is really like, and is helped in this aim by a cracking cast of unknowns. Cornish's script is full of dialect and it's reported that he spent months interviewing 'yoots' to ensure as much authenticity as possible. Now, I must admit, I'm no expert in these sorts of linguistics so I can say it's spot on, but it seemed to me to be very believable and sounds very similar to what I hear on buses and the tube. See, I am down with the kids.

The screenplay works very hard to ensure that it isn't all action, chases and jumps and does succeed. There are plenty of jokes in there and some really good laughs that break up the tension nicely. There is a moral to the story as well and although it does at times feel as though there is slightly too much exposition, I forgave it because I was enjoying it so much and it engages throughout and I did really care what happened to the characters. Of course, for me to care it needs more than just some good words on paper, someone needs to translate that to visuals on the screen. Cornish deliberately went for actors who were untried and unproven, with the exception of Nick Frost and Jodie Whittaker, and has unearthed some real gems. John Boyega as the lead 'hoodie' and anti-hero, Moses, is very good. Surly arrogance quietly portrayed and the film comfortably hangs on such young inexperienced shoulders. He is supported by his crew, including Alex Esmail, Franz Dameh and Leeon Jones all playing different types of character, although always far from cliched, with humour and dramatic awareness. Luke Treadaway as posh-boy stoner Brewis is also worthy of mention.

One final point is the quality of the soundtrack by the Basement Jaxx boys. It's urban, there's hip hop beats in there, but its all interspliced with epic classical strings. It's epic and fits the film perfectly but also works on it's own as my Ipod will testify.

It's not quite of the same quality and doesn't necessarily have the same impact as Shaun of the Dead, which really has taken on the mantra of modern classic, which it will inevitably be compared to, but that isn't fair because it's a brilliant film in it's own right and I'm desperately scratching round for an excuse to go and see it again. I've already mentioned Spielberg but Cornish also refers to John Carpenter and this film being very Carpenter-esque, and I've got to say that in his first attempt he's nailed the vibe of a so-called master perfectly.

Can't believe I'm missing it being shown at Somerset House because of a wedding.....

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010 - Cert 15)

Someone once told me about a book, co-written by a psychiatrist and the comedian John Cleese, called Families and How to Survive Them. My friend at the time told me it was both funny and spot on in it's study of the family and how they can mess you up almost as much as they can shape you into a well-rounded human being. As I watched this low-budget indie-sensibility flick, written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, I couldn't help but think of Cinema's obsession with the institution of the family and what they do to us. When you think about it, it really is the perfect subject matter. With a relatively small group of characters you are able to get love, romance, conflict, anger, heartbreak and a whole range of other emotions. Film makers are able to be ambitious with their ideas but ground the whole thing in something that every cinema goer is (perhaps a little too) familiar with.



The Kids Are All Right is not an insight into the most traditional family set up though. Instead it looks at a family where the parents are both women, lesbian women, played, to much acclaim, by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, and how the very 21st century and stable norm is broken when the the two children, Mia Wasikowska (Alice from the recent disappointing Alice in Wonderland) and Josh Hutcherson track down their 'father' (through sperm donation).

I think that some of the good press that the film has attracted has been because of the subject matter and Hollywood trying to claim that it is liberal and tolerant of anyone and everyone. The other form of praise has been aimed at the quality of the film and even more so the quality of the performances by the cast. With regard to the former point, I firmly believe that to label the film with the 'lesbian' tag isn't fair because that particular element is incidental because it's more about families full stop and different they are now, rather than just lesbian families and how this affects the children. It's a lot more universal than I think many people have indicated.

I'll get off my high horse now and deal with the other positives that have been banded about since the film's release last year, namely the cast. The Oscars recognised their work to an extent, Annette Bening (Best Actress) and Mark Ruffallo (best supporting actor) were both nominated but, as is so often the case when it comes to the Oscars, this only really tells part of the story. Yes, they are both excellent but to compliment the two of them on their performances would be to do a massive disservice to their co-stars.

The family, this modern day 2.4 children model, at the outset is presented almost idyllically, both mothers clearly care about their children and want what's best for them, comically portrayed with nice digs at liberal parenting. The children themselves seem happy, aware of their 'different' upbringing, but comfortable with it at the same time. However, even at the beginning, you sense that all is not as it seems and that the framework the two women have fought so hard to put into place is fragile and built on very uncertain foundations. This brittleness isn't signposted by clunky script, instead it's in the performances. Bening likes to think of herself as in control, but she is at the other end of the extreme, a control freak who teeters on the edge of a drinking problem. Moore seems happy to let Bening think that she is the boss, but is a lost soul herself, drifting through life unsure of the direction her career should take. Both are superb, at times looking touchingly in love, at others at odds with the monotony of life and in danger of colliding with one another at any second. As I said earlier, this is a universal theme and not one that is specific to a lesbian relationship. However, it is totally convincing and I immediately 'bought' them both as the lesbian couple, making this aspect of their relationship almost secondary. The two children play along with the happy family thing but the fact that they both want to meet their biological father suggests that something is missing from their upbringing, something that they feel the need to fill.

So we have this applecart like family that is one nudge away from being tipped over. And that nudge appears in the form of Mark Ruffalo, who is really starting to deliver on the promise that he has previously shown. Small support roles, executed perfectly, and interesting film choices have now evolved into leading roles and 'leading man' shouts. He does everything so effortlessly, and this is no exception. His Paul is free soul who is successful but happy in the reality that he isn't going to marry or have a family. He runs an organic restaurant and has an allotment where he grows his produce. If there is a criticism to be had, it's that Paul is a bit too perfect, perhaps a stereotype hippy-like character, but i must admit that all of that was forgotten once Ruffalo was on screen for a couple of minutes because he is so engaging.

Suffice to say that Paul's arrival on the scene doesn't stay as rosy as it does initially and the family quickly unravels, and all the weak points and soft foundations are quickly exposed. Watching this happen isn't as depressing as it might sound, it's done with gentle, delicate humour and occasional black comedy that ensure it doesn't fall into the trap of melodrama. That isn't to say that there isn't moments where you will shed a tear, how could there not be when people like Moore and Bening are on such fine form.

Lisa Cholodenko needs to get a mention as well. It's a beautifully written film, directed steadily with no frills, although it does have that 'indie' feel that so many films seem to have now (picture Juno without the sketch-like graphics) which may irritate some. It's brave as well in that it film seems to follow certain characters at different points, then it quickly shifts to another point of view. It could feel inconsistent for some viewers but to me it opens up a much more interesting dynamic to the film. I have spoken to three other people who have seen it and all had different views, to me and each other, about each character and who was the real villain of the piece, if indeed there was one. For a film to be able to generate such a variety of opinions when we are all seeing the same thing, shows something with real depth and emotion.

It'll leave you with a smile on your face as well, because, for all it's negativity about families and how they can mess you up, it's ultimately about how your family really are the people who know you best and love you most. A lovely film that would have scooped awards had it not been released in such a strong year against such stiff competition.