Red Sparrow

Dir: Francis Lawrence

2018

***

It’s been quite a while since the last really good Cold War thriller has been made, and while we’re told the Cold War is over, the film does suggest that it never really ended. While it might sound like political nonsense and a ‘what if’ scenario, we should remember that the novel on which it is based on was written by ex-CIA agent Jason Matthews. The Red Sparrows do in fact exist, so while the story is fictional, there is some truth to it. Matthews said the idea of sparrows and a sparrow school was based on State School 4 in the Soviet Union, though Russian "sexpionage" is now done by women contracted outside of spy agencies. The Russian concept of kompromat (compromising material about a politician or other public figure used to create negative publicity, for blackmail or for ensuring loyalty) was also influential. Director Francis Lawrence worked on adapting Matthews' book in 2015 (two years after its release), and has said that at the time, he had reservations about the timeliness of a Cold War story. I believe the release of the book was timed perfectly. Screenwriter Justin Haythe reduced the number of narrators and shifting perspectives in the novel, concentrating on Dominika. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who appears in the novel, was also cut from the adaptation, due to Lawrence's belief that it would be a distraction to have an actor play the highly public figure and frankly, the world the way it is in 2018, it was probably best avoided. That said, some might suggest that Matthias Schoenaerts’s striking resemblance to the President could have been why he was cast – this has been denied of course but either way, he’s great in his role. Matthews has said he based his book on his experiences in the CIA and was also hired as technical adviser, to supervise the accuracy of the depiction of espionage. It certainly made the film a more authentic experience in my opinion. The story focuses on Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), a famed Russian ballerina who has supported her ill mother since the death of her father. Following a career-ending injury, Dominika is approached by her uncle, Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts), the Deputy Director of SVR. She is tasked with seducing Dimitry Ustinov, a Russian gangster who took  shine to her during one of her last performances, in exchange for her mother's continued medical care. Dominika agrees but is unprepared for what happens. Help doesn’t come as soon as she expects and Ustinov rapes her, before he is killed by Sergei Matorin, an SVR operative authorized by Ivan. Ivan offers Dominika a choice to begin working for the SVR, or be executed so there are no witnesses to Ustinov's death. With little choice and for the protection of her mother, Dominika is sent to State School 4, a specialist training schools for 'Sparrows', SVR operatives capable of seducing their targets. Dominika excels in her training, despite some friction with her trainers, particularly the Matron (Charlotte Rampling), and she is assigned to Budapest. Meanwhile the SVR has been tracking a CIA agent called Nash (Joel Edgerton), and hopes to find out the identity of the SVR mole he has been meeting with. Dominika's assignment is to gain the trust of Nash, and reveal his contact. Things get a little complicated from there on, as the CIA find out exactly who Dominika is and she doesn’t do anything to stop them. Supposedly working now as a double agent, it is uncertain what her intentions are until the very end. I thought the conclusion was quite good, unexpected, if a little convoluted. On the whole I really enjoyed the story, and as much as I thought Francis Lawrence’s direction was strong, I think the structure of the movie was all wrong. I see the story as something far more Kubrickian than the finished article. It’s a long film but all the important aspects of the story felt rushed. I believe the first third of the film should have been about the ballet and the assassination, the second act should have just been about State School 4 and then the last chapter should have been her first assignment. Not enough time was spent in State School 4, it felt like she was only there for a couple of days, so I was never convinced by any of her methods. She went from ballerina to Sparrow in no time at all, which is pretty ridiculous. I think they should have gone Full Metal Jacket on the story and had distinctly different chapters. The performances are all very strong and Jennifer Lawrence clearly pushed herself to the limits in several scenes. I’m not sure they got all of her scenes right though, her sexual scenes in particular. By the end of the film there had been so many shocking scenes that they began to have less impact. I felt that the intrigue of the story lessened dramatically and I was only half as thrilling as it could have been. I don’t feel there was convincing chemistry between Lawrence and Edgerton either. The torture scenes also fell a bit flat – I’m not really into torture but when it is unconvincing as it was here, the sense of dread and danger is lost, and these are key components of a film such as this. The story should have been simplified for full effect but it certainly isn’t without merit. It’s entertaining and kept me guessing right until the end.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades
Dir: Kenji Misumi
1972
*****
The Lone Wolf and Cub series (known as ‘Wolf taking along his child’ in Japan) started out as a manga comic created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was later adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya and is widely recognized as an important and influential work. Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story of Ogami Ittō, the shōgun's executioner who uses a dōtanuki battle sword. Disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub". A total of six Lone Wolf and Cub films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro have been produced based on the manga. They are also known as the Sword of Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first film, and later as the Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby carriage pushed by his father. The first three films, directed by Kenji Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by Shintaro Katsu, Tomisaburo Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26 part Zatoichi film series. The next three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by Buichi Saito, Kenji Misumi and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974 respectively. The more famous Shogun Assassin (1980) was an English language compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with 11 minutes of footage from the first. The third film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades, was re-released on DVD in the US under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. The story picks off pretty much where the last film ended and we see the disgraced former shōgun's executioner Ogami Ittō traveling by river on a boat with his young son Daigoro floating behind in the baby cart. A young distraught woman at the front of the boat accidentally drops a bundle into the water, which Daigoro retrieves. Ittō, draws his sword partway and notices in the reflection on the blade that some bamboo reeds are trailing the boat. Ittō is being followed by operatives of his mortal enemy, the Yagyū Clan – a constant threat that he can never ignore. Later, as Daigorou is relieving himself in a bamboo glade, Ittō slices some bamboo stalks, causing some ninja to fall from their perch. This is a time when there are rōnin, samurai who lost their retainership, and watari-kashi, wandering low-class fighters who mostly served for parade, working from one daimyō to the next. A group of four watari-kashi are idling along the road. Hot and bored, they spy an attractive young woman and her mother being escorted by a servant. Three of them run off to take advantage, but one of the band – Kanbei, the more honorable of the four – remains uninterested. The three knock the escort unconscious and proceed to rape the two women. The servant regains consciousness and is furious when he sees the triad violating his mistresses. He attempts to beat them with his bamboo pole, but is slain by Kanbei, who then also slays the two women to silence them. Kanbei then makes his three companions draw straws, saying the one unfortunate enough to draw the short straw will be killed to take the blame for the rapes and murders. Ittō happens along this grim scene just as Kanbei is slaying the watari-kashi who drew the short straw. Ittō kills the other two rapists when they attempt to attack him. Kanbei recognizes Ittō and requests a duel. Ittō accepts and they prepare, but at the last second Ittō re-sheathes his sword and calls it a draw, leaving Kanbei to ponder his fate alone. "You are a true warrior," Ittō says, "One I hope lives on." At an inn, it turns out that the young woman from the boat is to be sold into prostitution. Her pimp tries to have his way with her, but she bites off his tongue, spitting the bloody appendage onto the floor. The pimp dies from the injury. The girl seeks refuge in Ittō's room, who steps in to protect her from the local police. But then the yakuza, the town's real authorities, arrive led by a woman named Torizo, from the clan Koshio. After some verbal sparring and defending himself against Torizo's pistol, Ittō agrees to act as a substitute for the young woman and undergo buri-buri (literally "angrily"), a form of torture that involves the subject being hogtied and hung in the air and repeatedly dunked headfirst into a tub of water. The subject is then beaten to unconsciousness by men wielding thick rattan canes and shouting "buri-buri". Ittō endures the torture with his typical stoicism. This frees the young woman from having work as a prostitute. Ittō, still considered responsible for the death of the pimp, agrees to meet a one-armed man who turns out to be Miura Tatewaki, former first retainer of the Kakegawa clan. Ittou knew him in court when he had to execute the insane daimyō Kakegawa Ujishige, Miura had to restrain his struggling daimyou, sacrificing his arm to Ittō's killing stroke. Torizo is in fact Miura's own daughter, Miura Tori, who because of the taboo on twins was secretly raised by the Koshio clan. The Miuras want Ittou to kill the man responsible for the fall of their clan as well as 400 other Kakegawa retainers (and for the death of Tori's twin sister) Sawatari Genba, a corrupt officer who sold out the Kakegawa clan to minister Itakura to become governor of the district of Totomi. The third instalment is easily the more complicated of the first three films. Incidentally Sawatari wants to hire Ittou to kill minister Itakura who will be visiting, but Ittou refuses. While giving the slip to Sawatari's men, Ittou is attacked by Yagyuu's ninjas that had been following him. The next day, Ittō has to face the governor's personal bodyguards, one of whom is a sharpshooter and quick-draw artist who wields a pair of revolvers. Through cunning and guile (and the help of his young son Daigorou, who acts as a decoy), Ittō defeats the armed man and takes his guns. The other bodyguard is defeated in a sword duel. Ittō's battle culminates in his facing the governor's army of two-hundred men singlehandedly. For the first time, the true power of the baby cart is revealed as harbors an entire arsenal of weapons, including spears, daggers, a bullet-proof shield, and a small battery of guns, capable of taking out many enemy soldiers like a heavy machine gun. All of the governor's men are killed as Ittō first takes out half of them with the baby cart's machine gun, and then takes out the rest with his sword and other weapons from the baby cart. The governor is the last to fall when Ittō, deprived of his sword as he falls down an embankment, takes out the pistols he took from the sharpshooter and shoots the governor. Word of the fight has been passed to neighboring districts, and the ronin Kanbei shows up just after Ittō has slain the governor, and makes his demand again for a duel. Though battle-weary, Ittō accepts the challenge. The fight is over in an instant. Ittō is sliced across his back, but Kanbei is mortally wounded, impaled on Ittō's Dōtanuki battle sword. As Kanbei kneels to the ground, dying, he tells Ittō the story of why he became a ronin – a tale involving an ambush on his master's convoy. Seeing his side outnumbered, Kanbei seized an opportunity and ran ahead to attack the enemy head on. He surprised the enemy and prevailed in deflecting the hostiles, and saved the lord's life as a result, but since he left his lord's side, he was dishonored and expelled from the clan. He questions Ittō whether he had done the wrong thing, and whether being a samurai means to fight and live, or to simply never leave the master's side and die. Ittō replied that he would have done the same. "I am glad to hear that", Kanbei says, who then asks the former shogun's executioner to act as his "second" in the act of seppuku. This Ittō does with honor. When asked by Kanbei what is the true "Way of the Warrior", Ittō replies that it is neither to simply live nor die, but to live through death. It’s a wonderful bit of melodrama, just before one of the best be-headings in film history. As Ittō walks away and Torizo begins to runs after him, but is stopped by her men. They implore her not to go to him, saying he is not human, but a monster. It was to be the last film with Kenji Misumi at the helm and although all the films in the series are good, there is something special about the first three.

You Were Never Really Here

Dir: Lynne Ramsay

2017

*****

Those that know Jonathan Ames’s work know of his childhood neuroses and the unusual experiences he had growing up but I can’t say I ever saw Lynne Ramsay as the obvious director of his debut novel You Were Never Really Here. Don’t get me wrong, Ramsay is a director whom I adore and is one of the few film makers I think could just about direct any script and make a brilliant film out of it. Most of her films deal with troubled childhoods but Ames is so Charles Bukowski-like, that I would never have considered her for the novel’s adaptation. After watching the film it made total sense. It’s a masterpiece. If I was to declare that Stanley Kubrick was still alive and well I would be saying it out of respect and it would be a compliment but I’m not going to because Lynne Ramsay doesn’t really need comparison – she is a great film maker in her own right. I have followed her from the beginning – her 1996 debut short film Small Deaths is a masterwork and everything she’s made since is near perfect. The only difference in her work is the quality of the cameras she uses and that is it. The story is about Joe, a slightly disheveled man in his late-forties who seems somewhat detached from the world around him. He cares for his elderly mother who has dementia in his childhood home in New York City. He has constant flashbacks to his childhood, abuse he and his mother faced from his violent father, and brutal past in the military. He has constant suicidal thoughts and his mother’s care is probably the only thing keeping him from acting upon them. Due to his previous history in the military and FBI, and given the fact that he cares little for his own safety, Joe works as a hired gun, famous for using brutal methods. While returning home from a job that we only catch glimpses of, Joe visits Angel, the middleman between Joe and Joe's handler John McCleary. Joe meets with McCleary and expresses his concern that Angel knows his address and may pose a safety risk. McCleary doesn’t really listen to Joe and Joe doesn’t really listen to McCleary. However, McCleary offers him a big job, one that he believes will make them both a great deal of money. Joe accepts. The new job is for a New York State Senator, Albert Votto, who has offered a large sum of money to discreetly rescue his abducted daughter, Nina from a group of sex traffickers. He asks Joe to be extra brutal and to hurt those involved. Joe stakes out a brothel for wealthy patrons, the address of which was received by Votto in an anonymous text. He kills several security guards and patrons and rescues Nina. While they wait at a motel, the news reports that Votto has committed suicide. Police officers discretely enter the motel room, killing the clerk and taking Nina. Another officer attempts to kill Joe, but only manages to shoot him in the mouth. Joe overpowers the officer, kills him and escapes. Joe finds that McCleary, Angel, and Angel's son have been killed in search of his home address. He sneaks into his home and discovers that two federal agents have murdered his mother and are waiting for him. He kills one and mortally wounds the other, who reveals that the conspiracy was orchestrated by Governor Williams, and that Nina is "his favorite." Joe gives his mother a water burial. He loads his pockets with stones and goes into the water, but he has a vision of Nina and swims back to the surface. Joe concludes that Votto sold Nina into prostitution to gain favor with Williams and other elites, and felt guilty after receiving the anonymous text. Votto hired Joe as the police are under Williams' control. While Joe is free of the responsibility of looking after his mother, has no job or indeed anything left to live for, it is Nina that ultimately calls him and gives him a reason to live. The conclusion is brutal, beautiful and about as intense as it gets. It has to be one of Joaquin Phoenix’s most convincing and powerful performances. The flashbacks of childhood inter-cut with present day – particularly when Joe finds comfort in asphyxiation in his bedroom wardrobe – are brilliantly handled and the sort of thing Ramsay excels at. I can see much of her earlier work here, just done on a grander scale. The direction is superb, the lighting is exquisite and the soundtrack by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is incredible. Ramsay’s reworking of the story is very well handled and the way she depicts the on screen violence is very clever. Very little actual violence is shown in the film, but rather the aftermath of violent scenes. Ramsay stated that before this movie she had never done anything with a gun, so she had to figure out how to approach violence for the first time – although a similar technique was used towards the end of We Need to Talk About Kevin and Morvern Callar in some respects. Budget constraints didn't allow her to shoot complex action scenes, so this gave birth to the idea to show "post rage aftermath scenes" instead of the violence itself. Lynne Ramsay confessed she thought it was very risky to use this approach, because if it didn't work she wasn't able to go back and re-shoot the scenes but it worked remarkably well. Likewise, in the novel the main character Joe uses a lot of props like latex gloves and gadgets. Ramsay stated that it was Joaquin Phoenix who suggested to get rid of most props to keep the character more authentic. With all his amazing facial expressions Phoenix really didn’t need any props. It’s a remarkably short film for a thriller but it is probably just as well as it is almost unbearably intense. Dizzying and horrifying, You Were Never Really Here is both stark and dreamlike at the same time. A powerhouse bit of film making from one of the best directors working today and one of the greatest actors of our time. Faultless.

Swimmer
Dir: Lynne Ramsay
2012
****

The year after Lynne Ramsay directed the critically acclaimed We Need To Talk About Kevin, she was co-commissioned by BBC Films, Film4 and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It was one of four unique short film co-commissions for the event and it ended up being nominated for the British Independent Film Awards in the category for Best Short Film. It won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in 2013. It is unlike any of her previous features or short films and maybe closer to the music video she made for the band Doves called Black and White Town. While the visuals of the film were more in keeping with the rest of Doves album artwork, Lynne Ramsay’s video was very much focused on people and behaviour. All her work is focused on people and behaviour to some degree but the difference here was the silence (apart from the music of course). Swimmer is filmed in glorious contrasting black and white and is without script. Audio is heard but it is all from archived recordings. The Swimmer (Tom Litten) is literally swimming and also ‘swimming’ through his thoughts and memories. It’s a personal journey that I believe reflects the personal journeys those competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games were going through but also the journey it took for the games to be held in London. I interpret with confirmation as little is written about the film. There is a fantasy element to the film also which is interesting (and a little confusing) and, once again, I would hazard a guess that this reflects on the fact that competing in the games may feel as a fantasy to many. I think Ramsay is expressing the importance of dreams when it comes to fulfilling ambition. The rough and the smooth make us who we are and mold our character, the swimmer in the film is reliving the moments, dreams and memories that got him where he is and that keep him going forward. He is at times submerged but he always manages to swim on, eventually propelling forward at speed in calm waters. It’s incredibly symbolic. I believe it is as much for the Olympians as it is reflective of Ramsay’s own feelings. I might be completely wrong on all counts but it is a beautiful and thought-provoking short that deserved the praise it received. It’s a rather expressionist piece compared to her previous short films but it is every bit as brilliant – just with a fancier camera.

Gasman

Dir: Lynne Ramsay

1998

****

Filmed two years after her debut short (Small Deaths) and it’s follow up (Kill the Day), and the year before her first feature (Ratcatcher), Lynne Ramsay’s Gasman marks an important chapter in her film career. Much like her first films, Gasman doesn’t have much context to it – we know only as much as our protagonist knows, our protagonist being a young girl. The film examines the emotional state of this young girl through circumstances that are never spoken or fully explained. The girl attends a Christmas party with her father where she encounters two other children that are familiar with her dad. We see each character in lingering close up well before we even see their faces. Not much is said so we don’t have much to go on, all we know is that a mystery has been raised and a young girl is emotionally effected by the lack of answer. It’s another social piece, visually compelling and open to interpretation but more than that, there is the suggestion of an untold darkness about it. It is something Ramsay has masterfully developed throughout her career ever since. Even in her adaptations, Ramsay adds her own subtle mysteries that always create tension and an often unbearable feeling that something else untoward has happened or is happening while our focus is elsewhere. Ramsay is a student of film making but her talents come from beyond film school. She is a story teller. Her visuals do most of the talking but she manages to direct the audiences attention effortlessly while also leaving so much open to interpretation. Her films are contemporary and expressionist while also being a perfect example of gritty realism.

Small Deaths
Dir: Lynne Ramsay
1996
****

Small Deaths is Lynne Ramsay's debut short film that she completed as her graduating film at the UK's National Film and Television School. Small Deaths is a series of three vignettes of children grappling with familial realities and the repercussions of their actions. It’s a deeply personal film to Ramsay, although not necessarily auto-biographical. Ramsay is the Writer, Director and cinematographer for the entire film and it is an impressive piece. The first vignette features a young girl as she watches her mother cutting her father’s hair. While the composition is controlled the audio is more fly-on-the-wall and unscripted. The mother cuts the father’s hair before he goes out for the evening – the mother and daughter empty and dejected when he says he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. The second vignette features two young girls enjoying the freedom of the countryside. They chase each other through meadows and across streams until they encounter a gang of boys throwing rocks at a heard of cows. One cow is badly hurt, and once the boys leave the two girls run to its side, trying to understand the pointless brutality they have just witnessed. The third and final vignette sees a older girl in her late teens putting on make-up at the bottom of the stairs of a block of flats. Once finished, she climbs the stair to a flat where we assume she is to meet friends she wants to impress. As she approaches the front door she is met by panic. A female friend is slumped in a chair with a needle in her arm as the rest of the group stand around shouting in wild mania for her do something about it. It is a prank and the girl in the chair moves and they all laugh at her as she goes back down the stairs. The vignettes are each small death of life that may – or may not be autobiographical. The context of each film is never clear, Ramsay trained as a photographer and cinematographer, so she lets the images do the talking. There is magic in her gritty realism. Her characters are all reflecting on something, the subjects are open to interpretations and the viewer is welcome to come up with their own background stories – that aspect really isn’t important. The films are of the here and now (or the there and then), the stark and sombre poetry of meagre circumstances and bruised memory. She’s one of the best directors working today and has been since 1996.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Dir: Kenji Misumi
1972
*****
The Lone Wolf and Cub series (known as ‘Wolf taking along his child’ in Japan) started out as a manga comic created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was later adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya and is widely recognized as an important and influential work. Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story of Ogami Ittō, the shōgun's executioner who uses a dōtanuki battle sword. Disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub". A total of six Lone Wolf and Cub films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro have been produced based on the manga. They are also known as the Sword of Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first film, and later as the Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby carriage pushed by his father. The first three films, directed by Kenji Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by Shintaro Katsu, Tomisaburo Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26 part Zatoichi film series. The next three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by Buichi Saito, Kenji Misumi and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974 respectively. The more famous Shogun Assassin (1980) was an English language compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with 11 minutes of footage from the first. Also, the third film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades was re-released on DVD in the US under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. While I love Shogun Assassin and the weird American child narration, you can’t beat the originals and they should be watched over the edited remake. Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance starts at the beginning. Set in Japan during an unspecific year of the Edo period, Ogami Ittō, disgraced former executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin, to the shōgun, wanders the countryside, pushing a baby cart with his 3-year-old son Daigoro inside. A banner hangs off his back. "Ogami: Suiouryo technique" (Child and expertise for rent). His services are asked for in a most unexpected way, when an insane woman seizes Daigoro from the cart and proceeds to try to breastfeed the boy. Daigoro at first hesitates, but after stern look from his father, he proceeds to suckle the crazy woman's breast. The woman's mother then apologizes for her daughter's behavior and tries to give Ittō money, but the stoic rōnin refuses, saying his son was hungry anyway. As he walks in the rain, he remembers another rainy day several months earlier when his wife, Asami, was slain by three ninjas, ostensibly in revenge for Ittō's execution of a boy daimyō, but it was really part of a complicated plot by the shōgun's inspector Bizen and the "Shadow" Yagyū Clan to frame Ittō for treason and take over the executioner's post. Now a wandering assassin for hire, Ittō takes a job from a Chamberlain, to kill a rival and his gang of henchmen, who pose a threat to the chamberlain's lord. The chamberlain plans to test Ittō, but a quick slash behind his back with his Dōtanuki sword dispatches the chamberlain's two men. The targets are in a remote mountain village that is home to hot-spring spa pools. As Ittō pushes the baby cart, and Daigoro observes scenes of nature, such as a mother dog suckling one puppy, and two children singing a song and bouncing a ball, Ittō thinks back again to the time just after his wife was killed. He gave Daigoro a choice between a toy ball or the sword. If the child chose the ball, Ittō would put him to death send him to be with his mother – a better place in his opinion. But the curious child reaches for the sword – he has chosen to take the path of the ronin with his father, to live like demons at the crossroads to hell between fire and water – shown literally in one of the film’s most iconic scenes. Eventually, Ittō reaches the hot-spring village. He finds that the rival chamberlain and his men have hired a band of ronins who have taken over the town and are raping, looting and pillaging. Ittō is forced to give up his sword and take his place as a hostage in the village. The ronins discuss killing Ittō, but then decide to let him live if he will have sex with the town's remaining prostitute while they watch. The prostitute refuses to have any part in it, but then she's threatened by one of the men, a knife expert, and in order to save the woman, Ittō steps forward and disrobes, saying he will do the men's bidding with the woman.The episode takes one more trip back to the past, for the dramatic beheading and blood-spurting scene in which Ittō defeats one of Yagyū Retsudo's best swordsman, with the aid of a mirror on Daigoro's forehead to reflect the sun into the swordsman's eyes. And then there is the big showdown in the village, where it is revealed that the baby cart harbors some secrets – various edged weapons, including a spear-like naginata, which Ittō uses to take out the evil chamberlain's men, chopping one off at his knees, leaving the bloody stumps of his lower legs still standing on the ground. One of the men has matchlock pistols, but Ittō quickly upturns the baby cart, which is revealed to be armored underneath, and when the gunman's pistols are empty, Ittō quickly leaps over the baby cart and brings his blade down on the man's forehead, splitting it in two. Ittō leaves the village, and the prostitute hopes to follow, but Ittō makes a motion to cut the ropes on the bridge leading to town, to stop her from following, for the journey he is on is one that is for only him and Daigoro to make. Its gore and fight scenes are infamous and are now the stuff of cult legend. Zatoichi had covered a similar plot and had moments of violence but it wasn’t until the early 70s and the rise of Exploitation films did we see the likes of Lone Wolf and Cub, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion and Hanzo the Razor. Exploitation and Chanbara seemed to work well together but it was Lone Wolf and Cub that had the longevity and would really make its mark on the world. It’s nearly always the first Chanbara film that people think of and the first one to be parodied – such is its influence. Tomisaburo Wakayama is awesome as the larger than life anti-hero Ogami Ittō and there is so much more to the idea than simple gimmick. Kenji Misumi’s direction is superb, hugely influential to the genre and to modern American cinema in general. It’s a cult classic, the film you had to see to be welcomed into any school or collage film club. If your older brother had a copy then you were king of the school play ground back in the 80s and it remains a well-loved Samurai classic.

Wonder
Dir: Stephen Chbosky
2017
**
Author R.J. Palacio got the inspiration for her 2012 novel ‘Wonder’ after taking her son out for ice cream one day where they saw a child with mandibulofacial dystosis, also known as Treacher Collins syndrome. Her son cried at the sight of this boy, which had a deep effect on the writer who chose to write about the syndrome, adding her and her son’s experience into the story. However, the fictional story of young August "Auggie" Pullman tells you very little about Treacher Collins and is really just an excuse at pulling on the heartstrings. Wonder is emotionally manipulative and extremely heavy handed, it’s only motive is to make the audience cry and as if the loneliness of a child wasn’t enough, it throws in shattered friendships, dead grandparents and the death of a beloved pet for good measure. I went to school with a boy with Treacher Collins syndrome and he wasn’t bullied once, he, unlike Auggie, was entered into the school system like everyone else so we knew him young and never saw him as anything other than the nice boy he was. The boy in the film however was home-schooled until the age of 10 and only entered the school system in fifth grade. So for me Wonder isn’t about a poor little boy with Treacher Collins syndrome, it’s about a poor little boy with stupid parents (played by Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson). In fact, all the parents featured in the film come across in a bad light – maybe a subconscious act of redemption by R.J. Palacio following the ice cream shop incident, or maybe just poor writing. The whole film is a colour-by-numbers, sugar-coated, heavy-handed series of melodramatic clichés and sentimental nonsense. If you really wanted to educate people about Treacher Collins syndrome, then cast a child with Treacher Collins syndrome. R.J. Palacio has basically taken Peter Bogdanovich’s 1985 classic Mask, deep-fried it, wrapped it in powdered sugar and covered in syrup, before mixing it with Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Star Wars references are thrown in for the kids (and older kids like me) but I’m not buying it, it’s a cheap shot to cover all the bits copied from elsewhere. The play Our Town is featured towards the end of the film, which is odd, because it is extremely similar in that it shares vignettes of various characters at various points in their lives. Is this R.J. Palacio acknowledging the play as a source of inspiration or is she forgetting it is the play see copied from. Either way, I don’t think it’s executed particularly well. However, I did like the part of the film that was seen from the perspective of Auggie’s older sister, who is supportive but a little side-lined by her parents because of her brother’s needs. I thought this part of the story had substance to it, although it all went sideways towards the end. The huge problem with the film is that it just isn’t real. If I’m going to sit and watch a film about the experiences of someone struggling with Treacher Collins syndrome – or any other rare issue – then I have to be convinced by it – it has to be real! This is just shameless manipulation with sub-standard performances and more cinematic clichés than you can shake a stick at. The truth is, I’m a sucker for a weepy tear-jerker as much as the next man. I like a melodrama and the more cheese the better. The problem is that Wonder is so woefully contrived and so sickly sweet that what teeth of mine I didn’t grind down to nothing while watching eventually fell out due to rot.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
2018
****

I didn’t love or hate the first Mission:Impossible film when it came out in 1996. It was one of many big screen reboots of a classic old television show that got some things wrong and got some thing right. Mission:Impossible II was dreadful and in some respects the franchise should have ended there but it made money, so they made more. To their credit, Mission:Impossible III was a step up and many problems from the first two films were corrected. It didn’t do as well as the first films but it was good, a nice place to leave it I thought, no real need to continue. However, in a brilliant act of redemption, they made Ghost Protocol and injected the series with new life. The brilliant Rogue Nation followed and suddenly a franchise that should really have died a quiet death is one of the most dependable and anticipated films of the decade. With 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout they have done it again and have bettered the two previous films. Breaking with tradition, they have hired the same director and have continued the story from the previous film – something I wouldn’t have thought was a good idea but has turned out to be quite the opposite. Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is far more mature then he was in the previous films, is has a sense of humour and isn’t completely bulletproof. He’s human. Killing off the team in the first film was always my biggest gripe about the series but now IMF has a new team with Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Alec Baldwin returning once more. Mission:Impossible was always meant as a team effort and it is finally as it should be. Michelle Monaghan also reprises her role after first appearing in Mission:Impossible III, then cameoing in Ghost Protocol but being absent in Rogue nation. Sadly Jeremy Renner is missing from Fallout, the film being the second blockbuster sequel of 2018 in which he is absent with little onscreen explanation as to why (the other being Avengers: Infinity War). Interestingly, Sean Harris is back as Solomon Lane – the villain with the annoying voice from the previous film. His story is developed further in Fallout to reveal a larger organisation at play, which I think is a great move. Henry Cavill and Angela Bassett join the story as CIA operatives – Cavill taking the role as apology for stealing Cruise’s part in 2015’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Bassett redeeming herself after featuring in the god-awful Olympus/London Has Fallen films. Vanessa Kirby also joins the cast in an interesting role that looks like it could be reoccurring within the franchise. If you listen carefully to her speech when she first appears, she seems to thank the previous head of her organisation, her late mother ‘Max’. While never confirmed, I wonder whether she is referring to Max from the very first Mission: Impossible film, played by Vanessa Redgrave. Everyone is on good form but truth be told, Cavill somewhat steals the show. The scenes involving he and Cruise are brilliant, whether they are fighting together or one another. He makes me want to grow a moustache again. What makes Fallout so enjoyable – and what sets it apart and above the previous films, is just how clever and balanced it all is. The set up is once again deemed just as important as the execution, so it is just as much about the espionage than it is about the action sequences. The ‘This is your mission, should you chose to except it..’ message is delivered by hand disguised as a book and self destructs in a puff of smoke rather than in an elaborate explosion. The action is over the top at times but it’s never unbelievable and an action such as jumping out of a window is shown as the difficult feat that it is, rather than played down. Indeed, Cruise – who does all his own stunts – actually broke his ankle while jumping from one building to another, delaying the film by eight weeks. If anything, Mission: Impossible – Fallout once and for all confirms Cruise as the ultimate action hero as every stunt is performed by him, including the incredible helicopter chase towards the end of the film. Mission: Impossible – Fallout kind of shows just how outdated the Bond films are while knocking the Bourne films out of the water. Christopher McQuarrie is a fantastic writer and the three films he’s directed before Fallout are all brilliant. I think it helps loads that he’s worked with producer J.J.Abrams and Tom Cruise several times before, so now it seems they are all on the same page and in full agreement as to where the series is going. Cruise has been modest about the film so far, stating that if Fallout does well they’ll make another and see how it goes but I believe they’ve found a recipe for success and the series has nothing to worry about if they keep on doing what they’re doing. The score is also notably improved. The dreadful Limp Bizkit version of the Mission: Impossible theme is almost a distant memory thanks to Lorne Balfe’s sleek and moody soundtrack that builds on Joe Kraemer previous efforts. It’s everything you could want from an action/thriller, it’s full of espionage and mystery, has a great cast, plenty of twists and turns and some of the best action sequences I’ve seen for a long while, while remaining intelligent and sophisticated.

Bird on a Wire

Dir: John Badham

1990

****

Bird on a Wire represents the last of a certain kind of comedy action thriller. Although it was released in 1990, it really did represent the last of the stereotypical and quintessential 1980s style film. It came and it went, I remember loving it as a kid but I can understand why it hasn’t been embraced by a younger audience and I don’t particularly think it deserves to be either. It’s no masterpiece and it isn’t even that unique, but those of us who where frequenting cinemas back then (when you could go see three films in one day and still have money left to go to the arcade afterwards) loved it, so while I can say it isn’t that good, I can say that I still have strong feelings toward it. I’m in love with nostalgia, almost as in love as I was with Goldie Hawn. Named after Leonard Cohen’s classic song, Bird on a Wire tells the story of Marianne Graves (played by Goldie Hawn), a successful lawyer who is completing a business deal in in Detroit, Michigan at the beginning of the film. While stopping at a gas station, she crosses paths with the attendant that looks suspiciously like her ex-fiancé, Rick Jarmin (played by Mel Gibson still in full on Martin Riggs mode coming straight from Leathal Weapon II), who had disappeared fifteen years previously and who was presumed dead. The man feigns ignorance and Marianne leaves, we then learn that Rick was a detective and had helped convict a drug-dealing DEA agent named Eugene Sorenson (David Carradine) and was placed in the witness protection program. His fake death was to protect him and Marianne and came as a huge sacrifice. Having been recognised, Rick tries to contact his old handler to be relocated but his old contact has retired and his new handler, Joe Weyburn, happens to be a corrupt FBI agent working with Sorenson. By sheer coincidence, Sorenson is released from prison after serving his sentence that very day and sets out to find Rick and to have his revenge. Sorenson arrives at the gas station just a few minutes after Marianne returns to confront Rick of his true identity. A shootout breaks out and Rick is shot in his bum while his gas station boss is killed. Rick and Marianne run and Sorenson and his friend Diggs pin the boss’ murder on Rick. Rick and Marianne are now on the run from the police and Sorenson. To clear their names, Rick needs to reach his old handler. They use contacts from Rick's former life-in-hiding, including a beauty salon where he was a star employee, and an old flame of a veterinarian that removes the bullet from his bottom. There is plenty of comedic tension between Rick and Marianne until he tells her everything that happened fifteen years ago and they soon rekindle their feelings for each other. Problems arise when they reach the home of his old handler and find out he has Alzheimer's disease, and thus doesn’t remember Rick. Sorenson and Diggs find them, so Rick and Marianne retreat to a nearby zoo where Rick had previously worked. There, he releases animals from their cages to assist in their defense, and Sorenson and Diggs are killed in various ways by the animals. It’s pretty laughable when you watch it now but I remember being on the edge of my seat at the time. Rick and Marianne live happily ever after and in pure 80s fashion are last seen seen boating into the Caribbean sunset. It’s got everything an eleven year old wanted; Car chases, a mystery, a hot pursuit, death by animal and Goldie Hawn’s bottom. I was devastated years later to learn that Hawn used a ‘stunt bottom’ but I still love the film. John Badham was a prolific director during the 80s, directing some of the most iconic of the decade. Bird on a Wire was probably his last well known film of its kind and it was a huge success. It had everything most action films of its ilk had but the finale set in the zoo made it special. I think what I really like about it in retrospect is that Goldie Hawn was eleven years older than Mel Gibson. She was forty-five while he was thirty-three. That would never happen now, with most leading men averaging thirty and their character’s partners averaging twenty. It is what it is, and in my opinion it’s still a whole load of fun.

Bezhin Meadow

Dir: Sergei M. Eisenstein

1937

*****

This is going to be something of a difficult review to write because Sergei Eisenstein’s controversial film Bezhin Meadow isn’t quite a film, rather a collection of stills. The 1937 Soviet film is famous for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. It tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest and the son's efforts to stop his own father to protect the Soviet state, culminating in the boy's murder and a social uprising. The film draws its title from a story by Ivan Turgenev but is based on the life of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932, after he denounced his father to Soviet government authorities and subsequently died at the hands of his family. Pavlik Morozov was immortalized in school programs, poetry, music, and in film. The film was commissioned by a communist youth group and the film's production ran from 1935 to 1937, until it was halted by the central Soviet government, which said it contained serious artistic, social, and political failures. Some, however, blamed the failure of Bezhin Meadow on government interference and policies, extending all the way to Stalin himself. In the wake of the film's failure, Eisenstein publicly recanted his work as an error. Individuals were arrested during and after the ensuing debacle, making Bezhin Meadow one of the most notourous lost films of all time. However, it wasn’t quite lost. It was long thought that it had been lost in the wake of World War II bombings but in the1960s, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken. Rich in religious symbolism, the film and its history became the focus of academic study. The film was extensively discussed both inside and outside of the film industry for its historical nature, the odd circumstances of its production and failure, and its imagery, which is considered some of the greatest in cinema. In spite of the failure of Bezhin Meadow, Eisenstein would rebound to win Soviet acclaim and awards, and become artistic director of a major film studio. Several versions of the film were created after the Soviet government authorities repeatedly edited and re-shot it to satisfy themselves and the ever changing regime. The one I’m reviewing is the best known and most common version, the one that focuses on Stepok who is a member of the local Young Pioneers Communist organization. His father Samokhin, a farmer, plans to sabotage the village harvest for political reasons by burning down the titular meadow, but Stepok organizes the other Young Pioneer children to guard the crops. Samokhin grows progressively more frustrated by his son's actions and success. Eventually, Stepok reports Samokhin's crimes to the Soviet government authorities, and is in turn slain by his own father for betraying his family. The other Young Pioneers break into the local church, singing songs, and desecrate it in response to Stepok's death. The visuals of the film shift during the destruction of the church, with the villagers becoming that which they are destroying, the angry villagers, by the end of the set piece, are depicted as Christ-like, angelic, and prophetic figures. In other versions the church is converted into a clubhouse. The film was based in part on a story by Ivan Turgenev, a 19th-century Russian scholar and novelist, but was adapted to incorporate the folk story of Pavlik Morozov, a supposed Young Pioneer glorified by Soviet Union propaganda as a martyr.Turgenev's original short fiction titled "Bezhin Meadow" or "Bezhin Lea" was a story about peasant boys in the 1850s, in the Oryol region, discussing supernatural signs of death, while they spend the night in the Bezhin Meadow with a lost hunter. Eisenstein would later remove any direct references to Turgenev's fiction, aside from the title, from the film. The film also draws influence from the story of Pavlik Morozov, whose life and death in the village of Gerasimovka in the Ural Mountains, has no connection with Turgenev's literary work. Morozov was a 13-year-old boy who denounced his father, a kulak, to the Soviet government authorities, and was in turn killed by his family. It was a Soviet morality tale, opposing the state was selfish and reactionary, and the state was more important than family.The most popular account of the Morozov story is that he was born to poor peasants in Gerasimovka, a small village north-east of Sverdlovsk. He was a dedicated communist who led the Young Pioneers at his school, and supported Stalin's collectivization of farms. In 1932, at age 13, Morozov reported his father to the political police (GPU). Morozov's father, the Chairman of the Village Soviet or Selsoviet, was alleged to have been forging documents and selling them to the bandits and enemies of the Soviet State. The elder Morozov, Trofim, was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp, and later executed. However, Pavlik's family did not approve of the young boy's actions. In September of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. All of them except the uncle were rounded up by the GPU, convicted, and sentenced to execution by a firing squad. The Morozov story was developed into compulsory children's readings, songs, plays, a symphonic poem, a full-length opera and six biographies. There is very little original evidence related to the story; much of it is hearsay provided by second-hand witnesses. In Bezhin Meadow, the child is named Stepok, departing from the original historical lore and information. Among the ironies of Bezhin Meadow's history were that Pavlik Morozov may not have even been a member of the Young Pioneers. Morozov had been called a "disturbed young boy" who was unaware of the consequences of what he was doing and turned his father in to the authorities for having abandoned his mother for a younger woman, rather than for political reasons. A final cut of the film does not exist but it is clear from what there is that survived, it would have been a masterpiece. Message aside, what is left is visually stunning. I believe that Eisenstein could have directed a version of the film that would have been balanced and not quite the opportunistic piece of propaganda it was intended as but, as much as I’d love to see it, it is probably for the best that it wasn’t completed. Certainly of its time, it sends a chill down my spine just thinking of it. The surviving stills are hauntingly real, bringing this sorry tale to life in both a beautiful but disturbing manner. A must for historians, those with political interest, film makers and photographers.

The Big Swallow (AKA A Photographic Contortion)

Dir: James Williamson

1901

*****

When you think of the great pioneers of film and cinema you generally think of The Lumière Brothers Robert W. Paul and Georges Méliès – and rightly so, as they were geniuses – but more often, some of the real technical masters such as Cecil Hepworth and James Williamson are overlooked. In 1898, James Williamson moved his chemist's and photographic business to 55 Western Road, Hove, where he and his family took up residence, and issued his first catalog, which was expanded that year to include, among others, the trick film The Clown Barber and comedy Washing the Sweep. Williamson's Popular Entertainments, a Saturday night showing of his films, ran for five weeks from January to February 1900 and for a further four weeks from November to December at the Hove Town Hall. The latter series featured the premiere of Williamson's innovative Attack on a China Mission, which included four shots that developed the narrative and a reverse-angle cut giving the audience an alternate perspective. The 1901 census has Williamson as a chemist & druggist only but the truth was that by this point he had entered a period of dedicated film-making during which he produced trick film The Big Swallow. What is so striking about The Big Swallow – more so than many films of the era that were all in experimental and development mode – was that it was one of the first to deliberately exploit the contrast between the eye of the camera and of the audience watching the final film. The premise is simple - a man, irritated by the presence of a photographer, solves his dilemma by swallowing him and his camera whole. It’s funny because one of the first thing people do when they are first filmed seems to be to approach the camera and put the lens in their mouths, at least that’s what I always did. Despite being less bitten by the trick-film bug than his contemporaries, Williamson made one of the most striking genre entries of all with his simple three-shot trick surreal comedy. George Albert Smith pioneered close-up photography in 1900 with Grandma's Reading Glass and Spiders on a Web but Williamson took it a stage further by featuring a man advancing towards the camera, remaining in more or less perfect focus, until his mouth appears to swallow the lens. Williamson’s intention was primarily comic and was inspired by unwanted attention from increasingly savvy passers-by while filming his actuality shorts (described in his own catalog with the words: "I won't! I won't! I'll eat the camera first."), but he ended up making one of the most striking genre entries and his imaginative use of an extreme close-up became one of the seminal images of early British (and world) cinema. His film had great appeal also to the Surrealist movement. A simple film that helped write the rule book but also told other film makers to re-write the rule book and most importantly, to have fun. He soon followed The Big Swallow with the dramas Fire! and Stop Thief!. Their use of action continuity across multiple shots established the basic grammar of film and remain to this day. The following year these films became available in the US where they are said to have influenced Edwin Porter's Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery – one of the greatest silent films of all time.

Lady Bird

Dir: Greta Gerwig

2017

*****

I adore Greta Gerwig’s films. I think Frances Ha is my favorite so far – everything about it is perfect. So I was slightly thrilled when I learned that after Noah Baumbach (her boyfriend and director of Frances Ha) offered to direct her new film, she declined, after releasing it was something she had to do herself. She described the film as semi-autobiographical, although "nothing in the movie literally happened in my life, but it has a core of truth that resonates with what I know". Lady Bird is set in 2002 – before smart phones (Gerwig actually banned them from set) – and at a time when Gerwig herself was finishing high-school. To prepare the cast and crew, Gerwig gave them her old high-school yearbooks, photos, and journals, as well as passages written by Joan Didion, and took them on a tour of her hometown, as Lady Bird is about Sacramento as much as it is about the characters. Indeed, the film begins with a Didion quote: “Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.” – Didion being a fellow Sacramento resident and an inspiration to Gerwig. Gerwig said to her director of photography Sam Levy that she wanted the film to feel "like a memory," and said that she "sought to offer a female counterpart to tales like The 400 Blows and Boyhood." I believe she has done just that. I can think of many a film about prepubescent girls, high-school girls and college girls but I can’t think of any that represent real girls as well as Lady Bird does. Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson (played brilliantly by Saoirse Ronan) is naive but not stupid, rude but never nasty and as wonderful as she is flawed. She’s the quintessential seventeen year old that you never see in Hollywood movies. She’s also not the funky off the wall individualist you might expect from a little indie film either – I know Lady Bird, I went to school with her. Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig first met each other at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015 when Ronan was promoting Brooklyn and Gerwig was promoting Maggie's Plan. Ronan had already read Gerwig's script and instantly connected with the titular character, so when both women discussed the script at length in Ronan's hotel room, Ronan started reading it out aloud and Gerwig knew that she had found her "Lady Bird” by page two. Ronan clearly understood the part. She had done some stage work prior to filming the movie, and the heavy make-up combined with hot stage lights had caused some spontaneous eruptions of acne. Rather than covering it up, Ronan convinced director Greta Gerwig to leave it visible, to differentiate the movie from most other coming-of-age dramas full of teenagers with perfect skin. Gerwig concurred immediately, another example of why this is a great film, made from one vision and one great lead performance. That said, a great performance always needs support and Laurie Metcalf is, once again, astonishingly good. The chemistry between the two is brilliant. The story begins with us seeing Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson as a senior student at a Catholic high school in Sacramento in 2002. She longs to attend a prestigious college in "a city with culture". Her family is struggling financially, and her mother tells her that Lady Bird is ungrateful for what she has. They both argue, although the opening scene is a tender one between the two of them. Lady Bird and her best friend Julie join their school theater program, where Lady Bird meets Danny O'Neill. She and Danny develop a romantic relationship, and she has Thanksgiving dinner with Danny's wealthy family instead of her own, disappointing her mother. Their relationship ends when Lady Bird discovers Danny kissing a boy in a toilet after their debut performance. At the behest of her mother, Lady Bird takes a job at a coffee shop, where she meets Kyle, a young musician she recognizes from a gig the previous semester. They get talking and begin dating. One of the popular girls at the school, Jenna, is reprimanded by a nun for wearing a short skirt, and Lady Bird suggests that she and Jenna bond by vandalizing the nun's car – even though Lady Bird really likes and respects said Nun. As Lady Bird grows closer to Kyle and Jenna, she gradually deserts Julie. Lady Bird drops out of the theater program. At the coffee shop, she consoles Danny after he expresses his struggle in coming out, and they become friends again. After Kyle tells Lady Bird he is a virgin, she loses her virginity to him, but he later denies having said it and confesses he’s lost track of how many girls he’s been with. This leaves her unfulfilled, and contributes to their breakup. The best part of this scenario is its honesty. Kyle might not be a virgin but he lasts seconds in bed. He is clearly all talk and far more in love with himself then anyone else. Things fall apart somewhat when Jenna unintentionally visits Danny's grandmother's house, which, to appear wealthy, Lady Bird had claimed was her own. Lady Bird admits to the lie; Jenna agrees to forgive her because of their mutual friendship with Kyle but makes it clear that they are no longer friends. Lady Bird then discovers that her father has lost his job and has been battling depression for years – but this doesn’t stop her from asking him to pay should she be accepted to the expensive college of her dreams. Lady Bird begins applying to East Coast colleges despite her mother's insistence that the family cannot afford it. She is accepted into UC Davis but is upset because she feels it is too close to home. She subsequently learns that she has been placed on the wait list for a New York college but does not share the news with her mother, fearing her response. Lady Bird sets out for her high school prom with Kyle, Jenna, and Jenna’s boyfriend, but the four decide to go to a house party instead. Lady Bird changes her mind during the car ride and asks them to drop her off at Julie's apartment, where the two rekindle their friendship and go to prom together. The story then lifts as it becomes more and more familiar. When her mother finds out that she has been wait-listed, she stops talking to her for the rest of the summer. When Lady Bird learns she has been accepted by the New York college, and can afford the tuition with financial aid and her father's help, her parents take her to the airport, but her mother refuses to go inside to say goodbye. She has a change of heart and drives back, only to discover Lady Bird had already crossed security. It is never made clear whether Lady Bird learns of this or not but her father sends her several started but abandoned letters her mother has written her that declare how much she means to her. During her first night at collage she makes a move on a boy who clearly isn’t her type and gets so drunk that she is hospitalized. A whole new chapter of learning and making mistakes is upon her. It’s a story that I think many people can relate to. It is a relief to see such a film about a young women that doesn’t feature sororities, outlandish prom nights, bitching and all the usual brattish stuff that 1995’s Clueless instigated. My favorite scene is where, on her 18th birthday, Lady Bird celebrates by going to the local shop and buys a pack of cigarettes, a scratch-off lotto ticket and an issue of Playgirl magazine. Lady Bird is clumsy, selfish and naive but is intelligent, has a good sense of humour and is clearly developing into a good adult. There is nothing to dislike about the film, it’s near perfect.