A French romantic comedy about immigration? Seeing Samba in election week may not be on Nigel Farage’s to-do list, but that should not deter anyone else. Based on a novel by Delphine Coulin, this is an affectionate and touching look at the absurdities of life as an illegal, and at its heart are two charming performances.
A New York blizzard so intense that people can't get out the front door traps a random couple who have hooked up online into a rather longer mating dance than they had anticipated. That's the essence of Two Night Stand, the debut film from director Max Nichols (son of the late, great Mike, who died in November) that prolongs a wearyingly cute premise well past breaking-point.
For a Christmas-weary Brit who's already had it up to here with commercial bonhomie and festive schmaltz, there were going to be barriers to overcome. Here is an avowedly sweet American play – actually nine playlets – on the subject of love, set in snowy Maine, in a small town "that doesn't quite exist". In John Cariani's two-handers, lovers most often – although not quite always – overcomes disappointment, misunderstandings or awkwardness to reach mini-happy endings.
François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a classic. Not only is it one of cinema's best films and a foundation of French New Wave, it also affectingly and rivetingly depicts an anomie-filled childhood. Released in 1959, it was a comment on French society which pulled no punches yet had warmth at its core. The magnetic star was Jean-Pierre Léaud, playing the then 13-year-old anti-hero Antoine Doinel with a panache which seemed as though he was refracting his own persona.
Pretty in Pink featured an interesting example of female friendship between a teenager and a grown woman. A record shop owner imparts motherly advice to her employee while also getting to grips with her own identity. In a similar manner, Lynn Shelton’s indie comedy (which was written by YA author Andrea Siegel) pairs up Keira Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz, but shifts the focus away from teen angst to tackle the quarter-life crisis from the point of view of a woman who decides she needs to find herself 10 years after graduating from high school
When Anthony (Mark Webber) proposes to Megan (Keira Knightley) due to nothing more than an overwhelming desire to fit in with the rest of their group of friends, he starts a chain reaction which leads Megan to seek refuge with erudite teen Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz). Sent into a tailspin at the prospect of getting married, Megan tells Anthony she needs to take a week-long retreat but instead ends up crashing at Annika’s place and reaching back to her youth. Megan in turn finds a new friend in Annika’s father Craig (Sam Rockwell, pictured below), to whom she openly admits all her worst secrets.
Megan runs away from her close-knit group of friends who are all either settling happily into married life or on their way there and , though Siegel does poke fun at the conveyor belt marriage, she is surprisingly generous with her supporting characters. Knightley's energetic performance is entirely endearing; she bounces around in a beautifully shot wedding scene - which boasts the backdrop of Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle - like Lewis Carroll's Alice learning all manner of shocking new things.
Knightley shows off her comic chops as the cynical and neurotic Megan and she’s really rather funny. Siegel has written a witty, charming character for her to have some fun with and at the same time explore female arrested development. Likewise, Moretz is given a role that allows her to flourish. The two have great chemistry together. Rockwell brings his usual charismatic flair to his turn as a single father and chatty divorce lawyer. Previously, Shelton has directed from her own shorter scripts, in films such as Humpday and Your Sister's Sister, and left her actors to improvise. This marks the first time she has worked from someone else’s script and its traditional structure results in some loss of her usual naturalistic style yet still allows her to craft convincingly intimate moments.
Despite sticking close to formula, Say When makes a refreshing alternative to the man-child shtick of Adam Sandler. The simple gender role reversal and an eccentric lead performance which doesn't rely on cheap gags only further highlight the desperate need to shake things up. Shelton and Siegel make a great writer/director team who skilfully blend mainstream comedy appeal with genuine warmth and prove to be a positive addition to the romantic comedy genre.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for Say When
Zombies have feelings too. That's the message at the heart of writer-director Jeff Baena's debut Life After Beth, which begins its life as a sensitive indie comedy with a winning deadpan shtick and ends up salivating and snarling after developing an appetite for riotous, blood-splattered slapstick. Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza bags the bizarro role of a lifetime and this quite brilliant comedienne attacks it like a man-eater tearing flesh from bones with only its teeth. She also quite literally does that.
An ageing misanthrope is given a new lease of life and a fresh outlook by a pretty, young woman. Woody Allen wheels out this tired old trope for his 44th feature film set in his favourite era on the French Riviera with a light romantic yarn between Colin Firth and Emma Stone playing out as predictably as one might imagine. Thankfully this old fashioned unravelling mystery proves to be a far more enticing affair than anticipated due to the striking backdrop of glitzy 1920s fashion, sparkling evening soirees and expertly curated jazz accompaniment.
For an actor whose post-Potter CV has been so wide-ranging - an Irish cripple on stage one minute, a young widowed lawyer in a period horror film or the poet Allen Ginsberg the next - Daniel Radcliffe has developed a highly distinct acting style: self-effacing, somewhat shy, his head often downturned as if to deflect attention away from someone who, after all, was catapulted into stardom before he had even reached puberty. And then there's the stubble, itself an apt visual reminder that the onetime boy wizard is now a man.
In what is undoubtedly one of the earlier recorded examples of the single entendre, the original ad campaign for Some Like It Hot yelled “Marilyn Monroe and her Bosom Companions”.
This low-budget Parisian dramedy about doctor-patient relations is as odd, timid and well-intentioned as its socially maladjusted protagonists. Miss and the Doctors is writer-director Axelle Ropert's second feature after 2009's The Wolberg Family.