LFF 2017: Thelma / Downsizing / You Were Never Really Here

The 2017 London Film Festival may have finished two days ago, but the film-reviewing fun never stops here at The Incredible Suit! Oh god please make it stop

Thelma

dir. Joachim Trier, Norway / France / Denmark / Sweden, 2017

Essentially an arthouse Carrie, Joachim Trier's Thelma is a story of one girl's sexual awakening and the inconvenient psychokinetic side effects it has on her, her classmates and her puritanical parents. There's little more to the plot than that (other than the welcome update that Thelma is simultaneously discovering she's gay), but Trier is less interested in incident than emotion, and in that he delivers in spades. Shot with icy cold beauty, and paced as leisurely as Brian De Palma's 1976 progenitor was frenzied, Thelma is a sensitive and thoughtful coming-of-age tale shot through with unsettling supernatural elements and enormous charm - not least thanks to lead actresses Eili Harboe and Kaya Wilkins. There's perhaps one dream sequence too many, and it ends just as it gets really interesting, but there's a lot to love here, particularly Trier's eye for indelible imagery and mischievous visual signposting.

Downsizing

dir. Alexander Payne, USA, 2017

Of the three entirely different films fighting for supremacy in Alexander Payne's catastrophically confused Downsizing, the one that takes up the first forty minutes or so is by far the best. That's the high-concept bit you've probably heard about, in which mankind wakes up to the fact that overpopulation is fucking the planet right up, and attempts to fix things by literally shrinking people and housing them in microcommunities where they don't suck up so many resources. There are some terrific gags in this section, and bucketloads of potential for some biting socio-political satire, but then the film suffers a massive identity crisis and inexplicably becomes the tedious tale of a man hanging with his neighbours, falling for a cleaner and feeling sorry for the poor. The fact that everyone involved is five inches tall is bafflingly forgotten, and you begin to wonder if maybe there's been a mix-up in the projection booth.

But no, it appears you're still watching Downsizing, and just as you're getting used to this new direction it shifts gears again, becoming an environmental borefest in which the end of the world is nigh and mankind faces an ultimatum: hide underground for thousands of years or stick around with your pals, die happy and leave no legacy whatsoever. Matt Damon is wasted in a role with almost zero characterisation, Kristen Wiig is wasted by being dumped before the halfway mark and Christoph Waltz, probably having more fun than anyone, just looks wasted. It's quite possible Alexander Payne has something to say about self-improvement, unquenchable dissatisfaction, the rape of the planet or prejudice against dwarfs, but his film is so colossally unfocused that it's hard to grab hold of any kind of meaning. Leave the movie at the same time Kristen Wiig does and you can go home knowing you've seen half a great film. Oh yeah also Jason Sudeikis is in it.

You Were Never Really Here

dir. Lynne Ramsay, UK / USA / France, 2017

A scuzzed-up Get Carter for the scuzzed-up America of 2017, Lynne Ramsay's gruelling follow-up to We Need To Talk About Kevin is equally as shattering as that film, but in ways that are almost impossible to describe. Joaquin Phoenix is a terrifying force of nature, less a man than an idea, bulldozing his way through a New York so poisoned by venality that Travis Bickle might think twice before stepping out of his cab. The inevitable Taxi Driver comparisons don't stop there: Phoenix's hollowed-out Joe (possibly a deliberate contraction of John Doe, given his anonymous, dead-man-walking character), a Gulf War veteran now employed as muscle for a private investigator, sets out to rescue the victim of a vice ring only to find himself up to his beard in blood and bother.

Stripped bare in terms of dialogue and plot, You Were Never Really Here moves like a shark through its revenge thriller tropes, delving into each one deeply enough to make you feel the horror, but also briefly enough to stop you suffocating in it. Just. At under ninety minutes, the whole thing is over so quickly that you're not quite sure what just hit you, and a repeat viewing is almost certainly necessary once you've had a shower and a couple of stiff drinks. Ramsay's mission statement - to tell the story in elliptically-edited vignettes with the bare minimum of information required to follow the story - demands enormous audience investment, and in dragging you down into Joe's world she deliberately disorientates you. Whether that's entirely successful or not is up to you: personally I have no idea whether or not I liked this film, but Jesus I felt it. Dark as hell with the lights off and just as unpleasant, this is fearsome filmmaking from a fearless director.

Inherent Vice and my failings as a human being

It seems futile to describe my feelings about Inherent Vice. Although I'm fairly certain I watched it, I feel like I didn't see it. At least, I didn't see the film that most other people who've watched it have seen. You only need to do a brief Twitter search of the film's title to see that it's already enormously popular, and a convincing enough majority of critics are hailing it as yet another masterpiece in the already masterpiece-heavy canon of its director, Paul Thomas Anderson. Well that's great; good on him. If you're a PTA person, go and watch Inherent Vice when it comes out at the end of January, as if you needed an idiot like me to tell you that. Personally, I found it to be one of the most difficult, dull and miserable experiences I've ever had watching a film, and I've seen Roger Moore's Fire, Ice & Dynamite.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying it's a terrible film, and - although I seem to be in a tiny minority - I'm fully aware I'm not alone with my foul opinion. I don't want to be that insufferable twerp who tries to make a name for himself by giving a one-star review to something he alone didn't like or understand, just so people will take notice and commend him for his bravery in refusing to bow to popular opinion. The sheer tidal wave of positivity for Inherent Vice is proof that it has worth, so who am I to ignore that? I'm far more interested in trying to get to the bottom of my intensely negative psychological reaction to the film, simply because I don't understand why I would feel this way.

Inherent Vice is a crime comedy drama based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, which I obviously haven't read otherwise I might have made more sense of the film. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as sleazy stoner PI Doc Sportello, and a huge ensemble cast who, as far as I can tell, are all very good in their respective roles. But I'd struggle to summarise the plot, because I found it utterly baffling. Sportello is hired by an ex-girlfriend to help stop a plan by her new lover's wife to have him committed to an insane asylum, and that's as far as I got. Approximately seventy thousand more characters get involved and I had literally no idea how they were related to each other, what they were up to or why I should care.

Now I'm not entirely dense; I realise this is kind of the point. The Big Lebowski and The Big Sleep, two films for which I have a lot of affection and which crop up in innumerable Inherent Vice reviews, are similarly labyrinthine. The trippy nature of Anderson's film is so deeply ingrained that it's obviously intended that you're never quite sure what you're seeing isn't a figment of Doc's weed-addled imagination. Fine. But somewhere along the line, character empathy turned to alienation: long takes filled with people mumbling dialogue that washed right over me recreated the experience of being stoned only insofar as it was like being in a room full of enormously boring assholes talking inconsequential shit for hours on end. Forgive me, but that's not my idea of entertainment.

The obvious explanation for my antipathy is that Paul Thomas Anderson just doesn't do it for me: I liked Punch Drunk Love a lot, but Boogie Nights and Magnolia left little impact on me, while I have nothing positive to say about There Will Be Blood or The Master, two films which almost everyone else I know believe to be among mankind's greatest artistic achievements. I haven't seen Anderson's debut, Hard Eight, and nor am I in any rush to. But my reaction to PTA's last three films isn't just a dislike of a particular style, it's a total inability to fathom what the majority of like-minded people find so appealing, and that's just not my usual state of mind. Am I not clever enough? Am I too old? Too mainstream? I don't think so, but maybe I'm not the best judge.

What I am is suspicious: I get a distinct whiff of emperor's new clothes about Paul Thomas Anderson in some circles. That's not to belittle or denigrate those who are genuinely passionate about his work: I respect your opinion and am, in some small way, quite jealous. But I'm sure there are more like me out there who won't admit it. I saw Inherent Vice at one of two sold-out preview screenings at London's Prince Charles Cinema which were introduced by Anderson himself, and the gales of laughter which greeted early scenes suggested to me that there were several audience members desperately trying to tell PTA that they got it, they were down with it, as if he was going to take them back to his hotel and hold a thank you party in their honour. I can't understand why anybody would act that way, but then I can't understand why people eat mussels either, yet it definitely happens. I've seen it. It's disgusting.

I'd never refer to myself as A Film Critic - at best I'd describe myself as Someone Who Writes About Films - and that's clearly for the best. But as Someone Who Writes About Films and who wants to be good at it, it seems important to me to understand exactly what it is that makes a film good or bad beyond the vague boundaries of personal opinion. And, at the risk of disappearing right up my own arsehole, I think this is at the heart of my PTA problem. I can't understand why I don't get on with him and I feel like Someone Who Writes About Films really should have a firm grasp on that. So maybe it's this dent in my self-confidence that's caused me to have this reaction to Inherent Vice and to ramble on about it for over a thousand words; if that's the case and you've read this far, I can only apologise that the conclusion involves my bruised ego.

I'll continue to watch Paul Thomas Anderson's films because a) he's clearly an important director and b) I really, really want to like them, but I now dread the day I see the next one, because I'm sure I'll go through all this again. Inherent Vice, for me, was an hour of confusion followed by an hour and a half of mental torture, and I must be some kind of masochist for willingly putting myself through that again. But I'd rather see something and hate it than not see it at all if it's met with widespread approval, because if there's one thing I can't bear it's an uninformed opinion. And if there's another thing I can't bear it's missing out on something everyone else is on about. You might think that's pathetic, but in the words of a wise old sage, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Her

Stories about people having relationships with technology are nothing new (I could tell you a few unprintable ones about teenage me and my 128K Spectrum +2); nor are stories about the blurring of lines between artificial intelligence and human emotions - look at such cultural milestones as Blade Runner, A.I. or D.A.R.Y.L. for proof. So the tale of a man in love with his computer's operating system is hardly going to be groundbreaking in a time when you're never more than six feet away from another Philip K Dick adaptation. Unless, of course, you put that tale in the hands of someone like Spike Jonze. As you might expect from a man who refuses to even spell his name conventionally, Jonze has gone and made a film about our relationship with tech which isn't about our relationship with tech at all. It's about our relationship with each other, and nothing less than the nature of love itself.

Her stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore: a divorced, lonely man who whose floppy drive is hardened by his new OS, which names itself Samantha and is voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Imagine a breathy, sexy, less murderous HAL from 2001 and you're kind of there. The concept appears, on the surface, to be a self-righteous snark at those of us who spend more time gazing at and fondling our phones rather than other people, but it soon transforms into something else entirely: a genuine, heartfelt love story, and one far more convincing than most of cinema's current romantic pish.

Look how fucking hot ScarJo is in this.

Effortlessly conveying the core problem with human interaction - that humans are confusing, complicated, terrifying fuckers - Her deftly renders the notion that someone might want to have it off with their PC completely non-ridiculous. Theodore and Samantha's affair is entirely convincing in context; after all, the concept of falling in love is bonkers enough - how much crazier can it be just because it's with a software package? The film even approaches the long-in-the-tooth question about whether an artificial intelligence is capable of genuine emotions with refreshing intimacy, honesty and tenderness.

But it's Jonze's smart, witty script's ability to make us look at ourselves and how we treat, respect, upset and deceive each other that's at the heart of his film. I don't want to get all Dear Deidre on your asses but Her might be the best film for couples to go and see to help them understand each other a bit better. Releasing it on Valentine's Day is a masterstroke; it's the perfect date movie to take either your partner or your iPad to.

It's a little overlong and won't win over detractors of a certain whimsical style of indie filmmaking of which Jonze is occasionally guilty, but Her is a clever, sweet, unpredictable and often surprisingly funny love story which could easily have come across as mean-spirited satire in less skilled hands. And, if nothing else, it's finally proved that there was nothing wrong with me that time I stuck my dick in the tape deck of my Spectrum +2.

I'm Still Here

When Joaquin Phoenix announced his retirement from acting two years ago in order to embark on a career as the world's hairiest rapper, LITERALLY THE ENTIRE WORLD was thrown into confusion. Is he really? He can't be serious. Why would he? Is it a hoax? Or isn't it? Or is it? Or isn't it? Ooh look, EastEnders is on.

As the non-mystery trundled on, Phoenix and his brother-in-law Casey Affleck conveniently filmed the entire process, the culmination of which is this mock-rock-cock-documentary, which pretty much answers the question of whether or not it was all one massive practical joke in every scene, and if you're still not sure there are some quite large clues in the credits.

Fortunately the question is largely irrelevant because I'm Still Here is an entertaining and often hilarious film that might actually have something to say about celebrity, pop culture, actors becoming musicians or the difficulties faced by anyone trying to change direction in life in a world that fears change. Alternatively it could just be a vehicle for the hitherto unknown comic talents of P Diddy.

It's a bit too long and the comedy is occasionally too broad for us to ever feel sorry for him, but the part of "Joaquin Phoenix" could be Joaquin Phoenix's best role yet.

In other news, there's been a massive oversight at the ever-reliably over-zealous IMDb Parents' Guide for I'm Still Here, which is currently inexplicably blank. So I suppose it falls to me to point out to any parents out there worried about what your kids might see in this film, that it contains:

Oh and of course there's the face-shitting bit. But that's just funny.

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