Nowhere Boy

Director: Sam Taylor-Wood
Writer: Matt Greenhalgh
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne Marie Duff
Release Date: October 8, 2010
Length: 1 hour 28 minutes

The unknown story of John Lennon’s interesting upbringing in Liverpool, just before The Beatles were created, has been made into an award winning film, which has finally reached North American audiences. Sam Taylor Wood’s Nowhere Boy won almost every award at the BAFTAs, which took place almost a year ago in the UK. Now we finally have a chance to see what all the fuss is about. Aaron Johnson stars as the young John Lennon (of whom he is a spitting image of). John lives with his Aunt Mimmie (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Uncle George, who he has always lived with. When his uncle unexpectedly dies, he sees his mother, Julia (Anne Marie Duff) at the funeral. Despite his aunt persuading him to avoid seeing his mother (her sister), John’s curiosity gets the better of him. He shows up at his mother’s door that excites her beyond belief and the two form a relationship, hidden from his Aunt Mimmie. Julia teaches John to play the banjo, buys him his first guitar and continues to mend their relationship by constantly having fun with him. At this point, John decides he wants to start a rock n’ roll band, which causes suspicion within his aunt. When his aunt figures out what is going on between John and her sister, John realizes his mother might just not be the fun happy woman he thought she was and there’s quite a lot he doesn’t know. His strenuous complicated family problems all radically change his life at the tender age of 17. The most refreshing part of this film is that this is not a bio-pic of how The Beatles were created because many (if not most) already know that story. This is an untold inside look at the quite regular adolescence of one of the most iconic musicians of all time. Of course Matt Greenhalgh’s script connects the beginnings of The Beatles with John Lennon’s youth, but he does it in the smallest way that get’s you excited because you know that when he meets, for example, 15 year old Paul McCartney for the first time, the pair will most definitely meet again. Lennon’s family story is the focus of the film, which is obviously intriguing because it is a story we don’t know too much about. Probably what was the best part of the film however was the incredible acting. It certainly did not come as a surprise that the queen of acting herself, Kristin Scott Thomas was again fantastic. She perfectly captured the rigid, distant but loving character of John’s Aunt Mimmie. What was most surprising was that Scott Thomas was working with actors just as incredible as she was. Anne Marie Duff might be better known to her UK audiences, but in North America, we surely haven’t seen a whole lot of her. This being the first film I’ve seen of Duff’s, I was completely blown away by her performance. She beautifully played the child like naïve mother of John Lennon whose distant circumstances with her son have made her unstable.  She did one of the rare performances that make you hate and love the character for different reasons. Last but not least, the star of the film itself, Aaron Johnson was terrific as John Lennon. Not knowing what John Lennon was like in his teen years, I was unaware if Johnson was trying to do a justifiable portrayal as Lennon or if he took creative license with his character and interpreted him in his own way. Whatever he did worked wonderfully though. Johnson showed us a distraught, confused, sometimes cruel and sometimes pathetic teenage boy. He perfectly displayed the confident, jerk-like, reckless person he was with his friends and then the real vulnerable innocent person he was with his family. Nowhere Boy is an enjoyable well done film that tells a simple captivating story of someone who grew up to a complex icon.

Life As We Know It

Director: Greg Berlanti
Writers: Ian Deitchman, Kristin Rusk Robinson
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel
Release Date: October 15, 2010
Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Romcom star Katherine Heigl and male model look-a-like Josh Duhamel star in Hollywood’s latest romantic comedy, Life As We Know It. From seeing trailers, posters or knowing who stars in the film, you could easily guess this would be another predictable unfunny story of “hates each other then loves each other”, but don’t jump the gun just yet. In 2007, Holly (Heigl) and Eric “Messer” (Duhamel) were set up on a blind date, by their two married friends, Peter and Alison. Alison is completely repulsed by Messer and he thinks she is way too uptight (how unusual for Katherine Heigl). Three years later, their friends are tragically killed in a car accident, leaving Holly and Messer in awkward positions as the new guardians for their one-year-old daughter Sophie. After serious debate and negotiation, Holly and Messer agree to take care of Sophie, in spite of the fact that they don’t know anything about taking care of a child. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but I genuinely enjoyed this movie very much. I’m not going to give Heigl any praise for playing the same character for 3 years and 3 movies running. Let it be clear that I never disliked Heigl as an actress. From her role on Grey’s Anatomy and Knocked Up, I am convinced she is a phenomenal actress. So you can understand how much I dislike her for choosing roles in cheesy romantic comedies when she has so much more talent to offer. If this is her genre that she has chosen however, let it be because she has finally found a good film within that genre. As I said earlier, Life As We Know It still manages to include the romance that originated from Pride And Prejudice, and includes a few other clichés along the way but the great thing about this film is the original story and clever script written by Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson. There is a genuine romance and a truthful humor in Life As We Know It, which sets it a part from most romantic comedies. The film was certainly helped by two wonderful actors that share a strong romantic, comedic chemistry. Judging Duhamel from his past films, including Transformers and When In Rome, I never considered him that great of an actor. In this movie, Duhamel nicely performs the dramatic and humorous aspects of the character. Life As We Know It is a film that gets away with the occasional cliché or stereotype because it has such a lovable and sweet story. I would have easily marked this film down as an enjoyable guilty pleasure if not for the continuous humor and clever dialogue. A good romantic comedy hasn’t come out in a while, so if that’s what you’re in the mood for, be sure to see Life As We Know It.

The Social Network

Director: David Fincher
Writers: Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich (author)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Release Date: October 1, 2010
Length: 2 hours 1 minute

















It’s hard to sit down to write a review and try to focus on what you want to say when you are utterly lost for words.  I was in this position for a week after seeing David Fincher’s The Social Network. There is too much to say, however nothing can be left out of speaking of the film that perfectly defines a generation. In 2003, nineteen-year-old Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) was attending Harvard University with his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). Zuckerberg is, or at least is portrayed as unbearably almost too smart to speak and behave like a regular teenager, let alone a regular person. His brain doesn’t make him seem like an innocent nerd though. He seems to be an uncontrollable jerk who uses his incredible intelligence for example, when he is angered by a girl breaking up with him. The film switches from the past while he is attending Harvard to the present where he is in the middle of two lawsuits. At Harvard, Zuckerberg is constantly hacking into computers with his fellow programmer friends, which leads him to leak out a comparative online survey to guys where they choose which girl of two on campus is hotter. This becomes a massive hit and leads to the Winklevoss brothers. They approach Mark about programming their social networking website for Harvard students, which provides Mark the idea for Facebook. While telling these brothers he is creating their site, he is consulting with Eduardo to create Facebook, which they proceed to do. As Facebook becomes larger, expanding from university to university, it eventually reaches ladies man Napster-founder, Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) who is more than intrigued by this idea. When the three meet, problems arise. Mark is finding himself idolizing Parker while Eduardo thinks he’s a pretentious idiot. It get’s even worse when Mark stays in Los Angeles with Sean for the summer while ill-informed Eduardo is doing an internship in New York. My short summary of this film doesn’t even begin to cover the facebook account of how it came to be and the untold story of how Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest billionaire in the world. Aaron Sorkin has never disappointed audiences before. His scripts continue to be unique, authentic and clever. He takes a real interesting story and turns it into a fast-paced, intense piece of film. It might be odd to think that I was on the edge of my seat watching The Social Network, but every scene had my full devoted attention from beginning to end. Another great thing about the script was that the whole internet technology aspect of the film seemed to not confuse older audience members but quickly intrigued them because the character of Zuckerberg makes it seem so simple. When it became known that Aaron Sorkin wrote a new movie, I was beyond excited. When I found out that movie would be directed by David Fincher, it couldn’t get any better. Fincher always adds an emotional and technical, dark forceful feeling to all his movies. He also never disappoints, which make him and Sorkin a formidable duo. Fincher took Sorkin’s script and made the actors speak the lines twice as fast as they usually would. Although this was an effect done to minimize screen time (under a contract for a two hour film), it was one of the film’s most interesting aspects. For example, in the opening scene between Mark and his girlfriend, Erica, they are speaking so quickly, I feel that that’s how ingenious Harvard students speak. Not only was it a unique choice but it was part of the reason I was so on the edge of my seat. I felt I had to pay attention to everything they were saying or I would miss something. The only last thing you can do to improve a movie that already has an outstanding script and an incredible director, is hiring a terrific cast. I don’t just mean that The Social Network had fantastic actors in their lead roles, but the film seemed to nail every character with a talented actor. No amount of screen time was given to anyone short of magnificent. Jesse Eisenberg has always been great at playing the smart, sweet, dorky teenager and he continues that persona in The Social Network. This time however, he flawlessly plays a completely insensitive teenager, something most people haven’t seen him play before. Not to undermine Eisenberg’s past performances, but this time, he feels so much more real to watch on screen. For me though, the real star of this movie was Andrew Garfield, perhaps because he is a fresh face. His performance as Eduardo is also extremely genuine and heartbreaking for the audience to watch. His performance doesn’t create any tearjerkers, though. Garfield’s performace makes us gradually worry for Eduardo, as his friendship with Mark weakens. In one specific scene, toward the end, Garfield stole the movie. Surprisingly enough, Justin Timberlake holds his ground beside Eisenberg and Garfield. I was by no means angry or upset when I heard he was cast in The Social Network, just a little confused. My puzzlement was cleared within the first few seconds of his performance, knowing that with a fantastic script from Aaron Sorkin, Timberlake was more than ready to rise to the occasion, and wow, did he ever. Watching his tremendous performance in The Social Network made me forget about his starting days in ‘N Sync which is nothing to be ashamed of but I prefer to think of him as the wonderful actor he is today. Without going into detail, other extremely notable performances came from Rashida Jones, as one of Mark’s lawyers, as well as Josh Pence and Armie Hammor as the Winklevoss brothers, who were extremely hilarious. Rooney Mara and Brenda Song as Mark and Eduardo’s respective girlfriends also gave great performances. This is a movie that gives you so much information, as it should. It doesn’t throw it at you, however. It’s just condensely woven into an excellent story. Although it’s clearly known that Sorkin took some creative license, it doesn’t matter when you know that the facts are real and this is a movie that will pull you in further and further as it continues. As I mentioned earlier, Sorkin and Fincher were yes a great pair, but everything in this movie, including the real unique story, the unbelievable cast, the witty script and the powerful direction all fit perfectly together to make this film. If you don’t see this, you will be missing out on the film that accurately describes the decade and is no doubt, the best film of the year.

Tamara Drewe

Director: Stephen Frears
Writers: Moira Buffini, Posy Simmonds (author)
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Roger Allam
Release Date: October 8, 2010
Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Stephen Frears, best known for directing Mrs. Henderson Presents and The Queen, takes on the dark romantic comedy, Tamara Drewe, based off the graphic novels. Filled with that familiar British wit and oddity, Tamara Drewe tells the story of a tactless young woman, whose presence shakes up a small English town. Gemma Arterton is Tamara, a twenty six year old journalist who lives in London. When her mother dies, Tamara must travel back to her old town to figure out what she will do with her Mum’s house. When she arrives in this dreaded place, she see’s her old neighbours, including the guy she lost her virginity to, Andy (Luke Evans). The reason Tamara detests this town so much is because while she lived in it, she was an ugly disgusting teenager, with a huge nose, as opposed to the sophisticated, beautiful young lady she is today (with a new nose). While attending a local concert to interview the band, she meets eyeliner-wearing drummer, Ben (Dominic Cooper). The two sleep together and eventually have their relationship blossom into an engagement while they live in Tamara’s mom’s house, which she decides not to sell. The film takes place over the course of a year and delves into the complicated lives of everyone living in this countryside town, not just Tamara’s. I went into this movie thinking it would be a nice funny romantic comedy from England. How nice that would have been. Instead it ended up being a very dark comedy that reminds you of how creepy and disturbing suburbia can be, sort of similar to the film American Beauty, in that way. The film had a wide set of diverse characters, each who had their own plots, and I have to say I honestly did not care about any of them. I did not feel myself understanding nor empathizing or caring for any one of the characters in this movie. I laughed a few times in the beginning of the film but toward the end when I wasn’t even paying attention to the storyline, I felt like I would be taking energy out of myself to laugh at something I didn’t care about. Thank heavens, Gemma Arterton starred in this movie because I have always loved her as an actress, and if not for her performance, I would have been bored to tears through the two hours of this film. As usual, Arterton had her confident lovely voice paired with her witty and smart mannerisms that captivated me once more. She took on a character I found myself hating, and at the same time, I still loved Arerton for it. That is why I won’t remember her as the girl in this lifeless movie, but as the magnificent actress who stopped me from falling asleep. Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia!) was also funny in his role as Rock star Ben Sergeant. It’s quite a change to see him constantly wearing leather as opposed to a swimsuit or nicely suited up in An Education. I appreciate the spunk and peculiarity the film conveyed but along with Gemma Arterton’s performance, it wasn’t enough to make me like this unexciting film. This was unfortunately one of the most disappointing films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. I did not hate this film with a passion; I just simply wanted to leave. Hopefully Gemma Arterton’s next movie will be more interesting because Tamara Drewe was just not my cup of tea.

It's Kind Of A Funny Story

Directors: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden
Writers: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden, Ned Vizzini (author)
Starring: Kier Gilchrist, Zach Glaifinakis, Emma Roberts
Release Date: October 8, 2010
Length: 1 hour 45 minutes

Writers/Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck deliver one of my favourite novels to the big screen starring Kier Gilchrist and Zach Galifinakis. This is probably the film I was most excited to see at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, but did this dark comedy succeed in the same way the sophisticated novel did? After almost trying to kill himself, sixteen year old, Craig Gilner (Kier Gilchrist) checks himself into a mental ward at a nearby hospital. There he meets much more suicidal and crazier people than himself, including a middle-aged lowlife, Bobby (Zach Galifinakis) and a scar-faced, 16 year old girl, Noelle (Emma Roberts). During his five-day stay, Craig learns more about life and love than he ever knew before. Although many people do not know him, I am a very big fan of Kier Gilchrist, from United States of Tara, with Toni Collette, where he plays her gay son. I thought he was the perfect choice for the role of Craig because his acting comes off very real and natural usually. However, in the many scenes where he talks to his therapist or a doctor or he narrates the scene with a voice-over, I didn’t find myself believing him. Whether it was the directing or the writing that just didn’t click, I didn’t identify with his character like I did in the book, especially during the scenes, where he tries to explain what’s going on in his head. I much more enjoyed the scenes with Zach Galifinakis, not just because he was funny (which we all expect from him), but also because he gave an exceptional performance. First of all, we have never seen Galifinakis in a dramatic role before, for the few roles we’ve seen him in so far. He somehow seemed to blend and mix humor and character depth so well together, that he brought out the most laughs and sympathy from the audience. I’m unsure if Galifinakis is trained as a dramatic actor, but he sure looked like he knew what he was doing. Even though I didn’t love what I got out of Gilchrist, I still thought the love story between Craig and Noelle was quite sweet. He and Roberts shared a cute chemistry together that compensated for the parts I didn’t enjoy or was bored by. One of the things that bugged me a lot about this movie was that the setting and tone of the film rarely changed. In the book, he would have flashbacks and the story had a tempo to it. In the movie, there are many scenes, where Craig is talking to his doctor, then talking to Bobby, then talking to his roommate all one after another. Beside’s Galifinakis’ performance, I felt the same way about the movie the whole way through. For me, there was no climax or emotional change in the film. Boden and Fleck certainly kept the same uniqueness the novel had, in the way Craig thought and dreamt, but still not one thing measured up, which is usually the case with movie adaptations of novels. For someone, who hasn’t read the book, you will love it for its versatility and interesting concept. If you have read the book, you’re just going to on want it to be better than it is. It’s Kind Of A Funny Story did not rise to my high expectations, but is still a good movie.