Stoker - creepy and atmospheric

Today sees the UK launch into cinema's of Stoker and I was lucky enough to get to go to a preview screening this week. Loved the name and assumed (quite wrongly) that this was another vampire-esque film given the writer of Dracula was one Bram Stoker.

Absolutely nothing to do with the original Stoker, this piece of cinema is haunted and haunting but is more of a psychological thriller akin to The Shining than Twilight.

Starring Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre), Matthew Good (Watchmen) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours, Moulin Rouge) the story is of a young girl whose father dies in a tragic accident on her 18th birthday. She lives in a secluded estate - the film was all shot on location in Tennessee - with her mother, and it is only now that she discovers that she has an uncle, the long-lost brother of her recently deceased father.

Uncle Charlie appears at the funeral and moves in with India Stoker and her mother Evie who is as wonderfully unstable as Uncle Charlie. It's a film of languid colours, beautiful editing and some stellar performances which rely on stillness and quiet to build on the creepiness of the story and action. But don't be fooled, this film is not too slow because of this. Tension is released little by little and as the story unfolds and the family secrets become apparent you are transfixed and completely hooked.

Director Park Chan-Wook directs a script by Wentworth Miller who also wrote The Human Stain and this is his first English language film. Park has admitted being heavily influenced in the past by filmmakers like David Lynch, David Cronenberg and writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins. All masters of the hidden revealed and the ability to tell a creepy story well and with atmosphere.

It's the atmosphere of the whole film which is left with you for a long while after, along with the most striking scene where India plays a piano duet (written for the film by Philip Glass) with Uncle Charlie which is almost, but not quite, demented.  This film could quite easily become a classic and is definitely one to be seen on the big screen.

Stoker (97 mins) from Twentieth Century Fox is nationwide from today and is certificate 18.

Check out the trailer.

Best films of 2013 - what's coming up

We've launched Handpicked Media TV which is very exciting and I must share with you this great interview with Hey You Guys who are a brilliant film site and who we managed to get to give us some exclusive insight into what's coming to a screen near you soon...

I can't wait for the new Star Trek movie - but what are you going to be booking cinema seats for this year I wonder - do let me know!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel book vs film

Certainly hyped up recently, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel seems to be an aquired taste. My younger colleagues in the office simply loved it and thought it hilarious, but I should have taken note of my colleague who is nearer me in age who was left singularly unimpressed, before heading out on Saturday night to my local Vue cinema.

Films are rarely if ever as good as the book - and it probably didn't help that I finished the book on Saturday afternoon so it was fresh in my memory, but still, what on earth had they done to the storyline?

Okay it's still set in a hotel in Jaipur and the characters are roughly the same but they have swept aside the subtle back stories of each character and in some cases rewritten their story entirely. And not to the films advantage either! Without spoiling either the book or the film too much for you (though I fear I've already spoilt the film) leaving out the integral reason for each character being the way they are and allowing you more insight into the family dynamics they have left behind, means that the film is a slightly patronising, thin, rom-com that doesn't stretch the wonderful caste in any way and relies heavily on the obvious in terms of characters. Indians are portrayed as either headwaggling lower-caste extras from It Aint Half Hot Mum or highly educated and desparate to learn more about England (because let's face it England is so wonderful isn't it). And why is the hotel set up in the first place? This is an integral part of the book and isn't even covered in the film...

I can watch Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton until the cows come home and really it's only their wonderfully warm and real performances that elevate this film at all. It is beautifully shot but it certainly aint no Monsoon Wedding.

Read The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel if you want a great story and characters that engage and that you will actually care about. If you don't read the book then wait for the film on DVD or Sky is my advice. Beautifully shot but a bit of a missed opportunity alround really...

Jane Eyre - a remake of a classic

The new film version of Jane Eyre is the stuff of Sunday evening TV - all comfy sofa and a large glass of red. Not a freezing screening room in the much-hyped and to be honest, greatly disappointing W hotel off Leicester Square. But I shouldn't complain as the film more than made up for the temperature of the screening room.

Tackling any great classic which has had so many incarnations is always going to be a tough call but I do believe that this latest incarnation from director,Cary Fukunaga, although not destined to necessarily be a great in it's own right, plays fair service to other adaptations and the book. Fans of Charlotte Bronte may feel they have left some of the depth of the story out, but overall the characters and the setting keep you enthralled for the full two hours.

For those of you who haven't read the book or seen one of the numerous films then Jane Eyre (the adult Jane played by Mia Wasikowska) is the story of a girl raised by her aunt Sarah after her parents die of typhus and shipped off to a dismal boarding school as punishment for her perceived insolence. Both her and her classmates suffer at the hands of the strict school staff. Turning 18 she leaves and finds work as governess for the ward of Edward Fairfax Rochester (played by Michael Fassbender). Rochester falls for her but on her wedding day she discovers his dark and awful secret....

Jane Eyre hits our cinemas on 7th September. Go for the cinematography which is beautiful, for the romantic storyline and the ubiquitous appearance in any costume drama of Judy Dench as the housekeeper... Michael Fassbender is brooding and magnificent, Mia Wasikowska is pale and ghostlike but brings an inner steel to the character. Worth a look....

Beautiful Lies with Audrey Tautou

Sweltering though the evenings may be I am not one to turn down a screening after work especially when it's the latest film featuring Audrey Tautou, Beautiful Lies. So Monday night saw myself and the Editor of Beautyandthedirt sitting in a comfortable screening room with a glass of pink wine and a crisp to see the latest offering from French Director Pierre Salvadori (director of the extremely funny Priceless).

Due to hit a cinema near you (with English subtitles), Beautiful Lies is the story of a provincial hairdresser Emilie (Tautou) who runs her hair and beauty salon and doesn't like to take 'no' for an answer. When Arab handyman Jean is discovered to speak five languages fluently and isn't what he seems, she is put on the back foot and immediately fires him. Why she does this is unclear but seems to be a running theme throughout the film.

Emilie is unaware that Jean, played by Sami Bouajila whose performance is soulful and measured, is madly in love with her and writes her an anonymous letter stating his feelings. She copies this out and sends it to her depressed mother (Nathalie Baye who played Leonardo di Caprio's mum in Catch Me If You Can) who has been abandoned by her father some four years previously. This is where the fun begins with misunderstandings and mistakes worthy of a Shakespeare play only just keeping to the sane side of farce.

Although I didn’t exactly fall in love with the female characters myself, this film is fun to watch. Shot on location somewhere in the South of France it’s a light-weight girly movie that does leave you with a few ponderables. Why is it okay for the romantic lead to be used as a chattle between the libido’s (one strong the other non-existant) of mother and daughter, and why does no-one question the morality closer (I’m not giving too much away if I say mum sleeps with romantic lead). Only in France I suppose...

Go with your best girlfriends, sisters, mum – leave boyfriend or husband behind, I really don’t think he’ll like it unless he’s a little in love with Audrey Tautou himself.


Check out the trailer here...

Release date August 12^th 2011, certificate 12a, running time 104 mins.