Brilliant Brit Thrillers Ignite Edinburgh

Brilliant Brit Thrillers Ignite Edinburgh

Posted on Thursday June 18, 2009, 19:35 by Nev Pierce in Under The Radar

Pregnancy, lunar mining and an x-rated Apprentice… The 63rd Edinburgh International Film festival has opened with a good blend of films, including two unusually smart, intriguing British thrillers and the latest from Brit-abroad Oscar-winner Sam Mendes.

Away We Go is the Reading-born director’s fifth feature and based on bar-chatter with fellow journalists*, it’s received a somewhat lukewarm reaction. Of course, this could in part be put down to the relentless cynicism the profession appears to inspire – for while the film has it’s faults, no doubt, it’s also very funny, somewhat charming and definitely, defiantly optimistic and warm-hearted.

The story – a loose term here, it must be said – starts with the six-months pregnant Verona (Maya Rudolph) and boyfriend Burt (John Krasinski) discovering his parents are about to move abroad, leaving them to hold the impending baby… Unmoored, they decide to travel around North America and Canada, looking for the ideal place to raise their sprog.

What follows is a series of episodes, really, as they see various iterations of modern family – from the nutso, stroller-averse pseudo-hippy horror of LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal) to the manic desperation of the unhappily married Lily (Allison Janney, who is hilarious without losing her humanity).

From his screen work (I’ve not seen his stage productions), Mendes seems to me more interested in mood, performance and message than he is in story. American Beauty was a pretty astonishing debut, but he hasn’t since married material and manner so well. Revolutionary Road was impeccable-looking, well-crafted and performed and I’ve a lot of respect for its admirers in the EMPIRE office, but I found it so infused with a sense of its own desperate importance I’m not sure it wouldn’t have been more fun to stare for two hours at a neon sign declaring ‘Suburbia is Hell’.

Away We Go is some kind of antidote… The final destination may be somewhat disappointing, but the journey to it jogs merrily along, propelled by gentle laughter, a wonderful performance from Krasinski and a genuine affection from a filmmaker for his characters. Mendes likes people, I think, and it comes over here, whatever the gripes. It’s a fine summer film to open the festival – a good tone-setter – and there’s a lot in it to recognise and relate to. Whatever criticisms I have, honesty compels me to say it left me (a perpetually tired father-of-two) wanting another child… and that’s not something I ever thought would happen.

From one filmmaker still trying to live up – or play down – his debut success, to two filmmakers whose debuts I’d call promising, except it feels unduly like faint praise. My colleague Damon Wise has written quite a bit about Duncan Jones’s Moon before – and certainly doesn’t stop talking about it – so I won’t add too much, except to agree it is “deceptively gripping”. It’s also thought-provoking and slyly funny, Clint Mansell’s score confirms he is one of the best film composers working today and Sam Rockwell is quite brilliant. Go and see it when it opens in the UK on 17 July.

The other debut, also with a four-letter title, a restricted setting (a room rather than a space base) and SF elements is writer/director Stuart Hazeldine’s Exam. I need to be careful what I reveal here, as it’s best viewed if not cold then certainly slightly chilled. The set-up could be reality TV: eight candidates enter one room, where the Invigilator (Colin Salmon) leaves them with an armed guard, a test-paper each and 80 minutes to answer a question… They turn over their papers and… there is no question.

What follows is a fascinating battle of wits and hits, as the candidates gradually reveal their true natures and the power seesaws around the room – a simple setting made surprisingly involving by some ingenious ideas I can’t reveal, a brisk pace, smart editing and some strong performances – particularly from Pollyanna McIntosh and Luke Mably. He had a ‘big break’ that came to nothing a few years ago in The Prince & Me – a film I’d rather gargle paraffin than see – but should gather a great deal of attention after his turn here, not least because he’s exactly what so many films – both British and American – need: a real man. Convincingly threatening when necessary, but more articulate and emotional than, say, Jason Statham, he shows tremendous charisma and skill.

I suspect the film itself will reward repeated viewing, despite its confined setting, rather like Vincenzo Natali’s Cube did in 1997… Call it The Apprentice Cubed – a smart genre thriller of a kind too little seen from the UK. Hazeldine; you’re hired.

*Not a scientific measurement, granted.