God Help the Girl

Twee is not a word which not nearly enough films can be described by, Gid Help the Girl can definately be described in this way, directed by Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch and starring Emily Browning and Olly Alexander this film is a delightfully quirky musical comedy.

It’s quirkiness is definitely part of its appeal, and it also allows us to forgive some of the films shortcomings, whilst the film does often feel aimless and bloated, it is too adorable and cute to truly dislike.

The films stars are really rather good despite neither of them being known as great actors, Emily Browning partly makes up for her earlier missteps such as Sucker Punch and Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander proves his acting chops in his first leading role.

God Help the Girl is the story of Eve, a girl suffering from anorexia and living in a mental hospital in Scotland who escapes to Glasgow and meets James, a struggling musician, together they start a band, called God Help the Girl, along with Cassie, a young music student.

The film suffers majorly from third act drag, and it definitely starts to feel very long after about an hour, ironically this sense of aimlessness was one of the films greatest strengths in the early on, as the meandering plot mimicked the sense of aimlessness of the main character, however the audience soon begins to tire, and I wanted to know where this story was going, thankfully the films climax is at least relatively satisfying.

God Help the GIrl is a massively flawed film, though it is enjoyable and its use of music is superb, despite its aimlessness and meandering plot the performances in this film are strong, and its a fairly enjoyable romp through an incredibly musical Glasgow.

France and Queer Cinema

I have been watching a lot of gay films recently, and seeing as i live in France and have a few gay friends, I have been discussing it thoroughly with them. Saturday night after a few glasses of wine during a screening of Once Upon A Time In America, the conversation turned to Blue is the Warmest color, a film which I in fact adored but my friends didn’t. In addition a discussion earlier that night about the films of Xavier Dolan and Stranger by the Lake got me thinking about the state of LGBT cinema in the world right now, it seems to me that the best gay films being released at the moment are French, and since releasing ‘The Kids are All Right’ Hollywood has yet to release another game changing queer film.

One of the biggest voices in queer cinema at the moment is Xavier Dolan, a frighteningly young director who has just released his fourth feature film and will premier his fifth at Cannes in May, what defines Dolan’s films is that despite having gay characters and being directed by a gay man, they are not defined by being gay, all of his films could be equally successful of they had exclusively heterosexual characters, and the fact that his films have gay characters, simply adds to their richness. Dolan has a quiet observant style of filming, almost like a documentary filmmaker, and rather than showing the audience what he can do with the camera, Dolan is content to simply let the cameras roll, and the drama unfold. It is important to remember that being gay is not an esthetic or a style, it is only just an identity, and Dolan’s films are gay only in the sense that they have men who like men in them, and not due to any specific ‘queer’ orientation.

Unlike the films of John Waters (whom I love by the way) French queer films are notable for not being camp or flamboyant, this perhaps has a lot to do with the fact that they are mostly directed by younger directors. Gay youths are much less segregated than their older counterparts, and, in my opinion are less likely to advertise their sexual orientation. This explains the more naturalistic, and subtle feel of current French gay films. French cinema also feels much less censored that American cinema, and French gay films are much less afraid to show explicit sex, Blue is the Warmest Color and Stranger By The Lake both contain explicit sex scenes, and were both released to critical acclaim.

It would be unfathomable to discuss French gay cinema without fully discussing Blue is the Warmest Color. La Vie D’adèle (French title) was released in 2013 and went on to receive the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the film is about the passionate engrossing love story between two young French girls living in Lilles. My friend suggested that the success of the film was perhaps partially based on it being released around the time of the proposal for equal marriage passing, and gay marriage becoming legal in france, and while I agree that the awarding of the Palme D’Or to this was in part a political statement, that doesn’t take away from this being a beautifully passionate love story, told and acted with heart and flair.

France also has a reasonably healthy relationship with genderbending and transgender themed films, the 2011 film Tomboy about a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to fit in, and the 2012 Xavier Dolan film Laurence Anyways, both deal with this deep and complex issue with a huge amount of sensitivity. Gay cinema in the rest of the world has reached a vaguely stagnant phase, and nothing really exciting is happening right now, has released a multitude of hugely successful queer films, and it is a hugely exciting time to be a fan of gay cinema.

I Love You Mommie Dearest

Mommie Dearest is a 1981biopic, detailing the later years of famed screen siren Joan Crawford, and her troubled relationship with her adopted daughter, actress Christina Crawford. The film is an adaptation of Christina Crawfords memoir of the same name. The film stars Faye Dunaway as Crawford, in a truly chameleonic performance. The film received mixed reviews upon release and won the razzie award for worst picture, the film has since however gone one to become a cult classic.

The film, much like the novel, uses a cinematic form of first person narrative. The novel is a memoir, and is thus neither a factual account nor an unbiased documentary, the film is instead a work of fiction which is based upon one persons account of events, which do not claim to be unbiased or balanced. The problem with this is that it makes the film seem over the top and a little camp, whereas in the novel, the scene of Joan attacking her daughter for using a wire hanger and morphing into a complete monster may work in a novel using first person narrative. In film, despite many attempts to subvert this, narrative is nearly always third person, as most of the time we are watching the film as an outsider, and thus the gloriously over the top performance by Faye Dunaway whilst perhaps being appropriate to the character described in the novel, needed to be toned down for the film.

The film describes the period from Crawford's adoption of Christina, until Crawford's death. The film shows Crawford to be a rigorous and almost pathologically disciplined person, she rises at dawn to perform a precise beauty regimen, has a crippling exercise regime and peruses scripts with a highlighter, the character's career is shown to be steadily on the decline, and her companion notes that she is getting older. Her films are grossing less and less money and she is becoming known as box office poison, she is released from her contract at metro, a grievance which she unabashedly takes out on her children, who are now about ten. She then attempts to make a comeback, campaigning and auditioning for the part of Mildred Pearce, the role that would eventually win her an Oscar.

The latter part of the film details her declining relationship with her daughter, now a young woman, and aspiring actress, and her declining health, this part of the film is considerably less camp than the first part, and despite being perhaps less salacious, it is considerably more interesting, as it is an intense study of the terse relationship between mother and daughter, and offers much more in the way of real information than the shrill first half of the film.

Faye Dunaway is fantastic as Joan Crawford, it is never easy to impersonate another, particularly someone as iconic and beloved as Joan Crawford, what is impressive is not only her metamorphosis into Crawford, but the way she manages to present a rounded view of a truly horrific woman. Despite Crawford being unabashedly the villain in this film, Dunaway plays her in such a way that we understand her as a person, and she does not become two-dimensional.

As i mentioned before, this film is incredibly camp, Dunaways performance is, at times gloriously over the top and sometimes plain daft, she has emotional depth and manages to steal every scene in which she sets foot. The film also suffers from pacing issues, and various moments in the film (mostly when Dunaway is offscreen) can seem a little dull, the film also feels the need at times to resort to bitchy salaciousness, which does often feel unnecessary, and cheapens the whole film.

Overall Mommie Dearest is a perfectly enjoyable, and rether watchable film, featuring a strong lead performance from Dunaway as Crawford. Despite the film not providing any real insight into the private life of such a regimented woman, it is an entertaining watch none the less. Rating: B

Joan Crawford: No wire hangers, EVER!