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.

The summer of '16: fine

Top Cat Begins not included

Prickled by a nagging suspicion that the summer of 2016 was going to be one of the worst times to be in a cinema since the day someone cracked one off watching Skyfall, I made the decision in May to take a semi-earned sabbatical from this year's blockbuster season. This accounts for The Incredible Suit's sole remaining reader having to look at a still from X-Men: Apocalypse every time they visited the blog in the last four months, and for that I apologise.

It didn't last, though. Like when you pass a horrific car accident on the motorway so get off at the next exit and come back for a better look and a few selfies (come on, we all do it), I couldn't resist finding out exactly what was so grim about this summer, so I binge-watched much of it in the last couple of weeks. Turns out it hasn't actually been apocalyptically bad, so much as just stultifyingly average. Not a single one of these films has improved my existence, and only one of them made me want to scoop out my eyeballs, although I have thus far avoided Suicide Squad. So here's a look back at some of the humdrummery that's passed for entertainment in cinemas recently, which might come across as an exercise in futility but does at least get rid of that X-Men: Apocalypse still.

The Nice Guys

If I could wish for the movie of my dreams, it would probably be a '70s-set buddy action comedy written and directed by Shane Black and starring Ryan Gosling and Hugh Jackman. Eh, four out of five ain't bad. So it's kind of upsetting that I didn't care much for The Nice Guys: an unexceptional plot, precious little action or comedy for an action comedy (although Gosling at last gets to prove he can do funny), damp squibs of dialogue that should have sparked fireworks and a general sense of low-key mediocrity. Struggling to remember anything about it now, except for one hilariously sick shot that was in the trailer so doesn't count. Not terrible, but way short of the movie of my dreams.

The Neon Demon

This isn't a film, it's a Fuck You, with NWR™ finally (and quite deliberately) becoming the thing his critics have been accusing him of for years: a vain, surface-obsessed director wanking himself silly over the beauty of horror at the expense of logic and plot. It's a celebration of superficiality, as pretentious and vacuous as its subject matter... or is it? As monstrous greed and ambition plague an industry where purity has a brutally short shelf-life before it's devoured by envy and success from within and without, The Neon Demon might just stand as one of the most honest semi-autobiographies ever filmed. I just have no idea if I like it or not.

Ghostbusters

Personally I'd have preferred a sequel set in the original films' universe 30 years on to a remake, but taken on its own terms Ghostbusters: The XX Generation acquits itself admirably. Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold cherry-pick the sturdiest structural beats from the '84 vintage to establish their team and, if anything, improve on the rest: the villain here, while thinly sketched, is far more satisfying than Gozer and the ill-defined Zuul. The cast are delightful, with Leslie Jones making the most of her character's better thought-out integration into the team compared to Ernie Hudson's token tacking-on, and Kate McKinnon licking her proton whip-gun doohickeys is a sight I won't forget in a hurry. As always with Feig, some of the humour doesn't land, it's too long and there's some downright sloppy editing, but if Ghostbusters (2016) is ultimately a ramshackle romp that sometimes doesn't work, then it can at least hold its head high and proudly claim to be the equal of Ghostbusters (1984).

Star Trek Beyond

What a difference a JJ makes. The man who boldly went and rebooted Star Trek for the 21st century may not be perfect, but he could direct Justin Lin under the table any day. Lin's Trek is a baffling, disjointed mess: characters have to yell screeds of expository dialogue to explain what's going on in the action scenes, and the fun that permeated every frame of Abrams' first film has been blown out of the airlock along with Gene Roddenberry's founding principles. There's little sense of camaraderie, tension or what's at stake, and it's so gloomily-shot for the most part that it's more deserving of the title "Into Darkness" than its predecessor. Thematically and aesthetically desolate, the only thing this Star Trek is Beyond is hope.

Jason Bourne

With Jason Bourne's arc neatly tied up in the first film, and then again in the third, a fourth excuse to have him efficiently beating up civil servants while avoiding CCTV cameras was always going to be a bit of a push. Greengrass and co-writer Christopher Rouse toss off a humdrum truth for Bourne to uncover this time, and pack him off through all the same motions to the point where he's become as clichéd as that other JB guy, but without the fun. The film moves like a shark (few people shoot tippity-tapping on a PC as thrillingly as Paul Greengrass) and it's great to see Vincent Cassel on villainous form, but this is an unmemorable instalment that squanders the chance to push the genre like its predecessors did. Furthermore, it has been unacceptable to accompany your end credits with Moby since 2002. Like its permanently brow-furrowing hero, the Bourne franchise simply cannot move on.

Finding Dory

It's a sign that Pixar have spoiled us too much over the years by repeatedly and flawlessly executing the search and/or rescue plot blueprint, when even something as delightful as Finding Dory feels like a stop-gap between better films. The lack of novelty value here means stronger character arcs are required to deliver another masterpiece, but both Dory and Marlin's inner journeys feel underdeveloped and forced. That said, there isn't a character that isn't exquisitely realised, and the ante-upping of the bonkers final act pretty much papers over the cracks in the formula. It's Pixar by numbers, but what beautifully arranged numbers.

Sausage Party

MAYBE IF I FUCKIN' YELL THIS AT THE TOP OF MY FUCKIN' VOICE AND SAY FUCK EVERY OTHER FUCKIN' WORD AND GENERALLY BE AS FUCKIN' OBNOXIOUS AS I FUCKIN' CAN THEN MAYBE JUST FUCKIN' MAYBE I'LL HAVE WRITTEN THE FUNNIEST FUCKIN' THING THIS YEAR!!!!!!! OR MAYBE I'LL JUST COME ACROSS AS A HORNY DOPE-ADDLED FUCKIN' TEENAGER WHO THINKS THAT REPEATEDLY FUCKIN' SHOUTIN' FUCK IS AN ADEQUATE FUCKIN' SUBSTITUTE FOR, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL FUCKIN' JOKES!!!! AND MAYBE I HAD THE FUCKIN' EMBRYO OF A VAGUELY FUCKIN' INTERESTING IDEA FOR WHAT I WAS WRITING BUT THE FUCKIN' ASININITY OF THE FUCKIN' EXECUTION MEANT YOU COULD ACTUALLY FUCKIN' FEEL YOURSELF GETTING MORE FUCKIN' STUPID THE LONGER IT DRAGGED ON, MOTHERFUCKER!!! I DON'T KNOW!!! FUUUUUCK!!!

Bridesmaids

If Bridesmaids achieves nothing else, it at least gives the divine Kristen Wiig the chance to stretch her comedy muscles, bat her comedy eyelashes and swing her comedy helicopter legs about in a lead role at long last. It also gives me an excuse to post this photo of her in knee-high socks and roller boots from Whip It:

She was Brahbrah in that episode of Flight Of The Conchords too, did you realise that? I didn't.

Fantasy women aside, Bridesmaids will in fact achieve plenty. It's a chick flick that doesn't just appeal to chicks and doesn't assume its audience is full of dribbling idiots, and it pretty much guarantees LOLs and possibly small incidents of eye-moisture in even the most granite-hearted bastards out there.Yes, I'm talking about you, me.

It's not massively original, it's fairly predictable and there's the odd stereotype in there

but where Bridesmaids differs from the usual humdrum romcom bumcrumbs is in its script, co-written by Wiig. It's funny without resorting to gross-out crudity (much - there is a hilarious puke or two), it's touching in all the right places and there's only one montage, which displays remarkable and welcome restraint. Sadly the conclusions of a couple of the bridesmaids' story arcs appear to have been left on a shelf somewhere; maybe we'll find out what happens to them in Bridesmaids 2, when they go to Thailand and all turn into horrible bitches.

The cast are uniformly excellent, with Chris O'Dowd and Jon Hamm holding their own against the ladies (fnerk), and polymath Paul Feig (he created, directed and produced several US TV series and has been acting since the '80s) directs with confidence, avoiding the easy path of churning out an XX-chromosome version of another popular pre-wedding misadventure film currently abusing cinema audiences.

Even so, Bridesmaids is bound to be labelled by some as The Hangover Part II with women, but that would be reductive. It's much better than that: it's The Hangover Part II without the bollocks.