Film Review of the Week

Comedy

The Christophers (15)

Review: The passing of an artist often triggers a posthumous surge in prices for their work. Two scheming siblings bank on this so-called “death effect” in director Steven Soderbergh’s comedy drama, which largely plays as a two-hander between Sir Ian McKellen’s acid-tongued painter and Michaela Coel’s assistant, who has wormed her way into his home under false pretences. Screenwriter Ed Solomon arms the actors with a colourful array of zinging one-liners as their bruising battle of wits unexpectedly sows seeds of a touching friendship.

Sallie Sklar (Jessica Gunning) and money-grabbing brother Barnaby (James Corden) approach gifted artist and forger Lori Butler (Coel) with a proposition. They want Lori to take on the position of assistant to their cantankerous and aging father, celebrated painter Julian Sklar (McKellen), and win his trust. The underhand scheme intends to discover the location of the Christophers – a series of unfinished portraits of Julian’s mysterious male lover (Ferdy Roberts), hidden somewhere in a London townhouse. Once Lori has found the canvasses, Sallie and Barnaby want their willing accomplice to complete the pictures in secret, mimicking their father’s distinctive aesthetic. The portraits will be sold for a small fortune once Julian has shuffled his mortal coil.

Lori has history with Julian – he was an acerbic judge on a TV talent show that crushed her artistic dreams – so she is glad to exact long overdue revenge by aiding the duplicitous siblings. However, Julian is far wiser than he likes to let on and once he senses Lori’s intentions are less than honourable, he engineers his own cunning plan to reduce his ungrateful children’s inheritance to ashes.

The Christophers is a quiet and assured crime caper that charms by stealth, relying heavily on two terrific performances to elevate a linear plot. McKellen clearly relishes the sardonic dialogue (“I was once in a throuple… back when it was called infidelity”) and he has a discernible twinkle in his eye as his curmudgeon intentionally exasperates everyone in his orbit. Coel is a worthy foil and Soderbergh’s picture is at its most satisfying when the filmmaker treats the camera as a silent witness to a seesawing power dynamic between characters who have more in common that they wish to admit.

Soderbergh has a long and illustrious rap sheet when it comes to engineering heists including Out Of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels, and Lucky Logan. His latest exercise in feel good larceny is less flashy and lacks an ingenious final reel twist: characters’ intentions are clearly telegraphed on screen – allowing focus to remain on the leads as they volley barbs back and forth. Solomon’s script ultimately paints itself into a corner but it is a cosy and comforting nook.

Action

Normal (15)

Review: Irony stacks upon irony in Essex-born director Ben Wheatley’s bullet-riddled comedy thriller. There is nothing remotely normal about the snowbound Minnesota town which provides the picture with its title, or the outlandish scenario that John Wick creator and screenwriter Derek Kolstad concocts to transform this Fargo-adjacent community into a gore-soaked battleground. The only normal is actor Bob Odenkirk’s post-Better Call Saul reinvention as an unlikely modern day action hero with impeccable hand-to-hand combat skills.

He plays sheriff-for-hire Ulysses Richardson, who accepts an eight-week posting to Normal – population 1890, town motto “We Like It Here” – following the demise of the previous lawman, Gunderson, in a tragic ice fishing accident. Deputy Mike Nelson (Billy MacLellan) introduces Ulysses to his temporary home, where locals have miraculously raised £16.8 million for a new town hall under the leadership of Mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler). Fellow deputy Blaine Anderson (Ryan Allen) is standing for election as the new sheriff and Ulysses happily acts as a safe pair of hands, delivering Normal’s residents into a peaceful new chapter. “I’m like a midwife with a gun,” he observes in voiceover.

Days into the undemanding job, Ulysses responds to an alarm at the local bank and when the sheriff enters the premises, he comes under fire from his deputies. It transpires they have been instructed to kill Ulysses by the Japanese crime syndicate that secretly controls the town. Bank staff are caught in the crossfire and Ulysses makes a split-second decision to align with the terrified out-of-town robbers, Keith (Brendan Fletcher) and Lori (Reena Jolly). Meanwhile, Yakuza boss Oyabun (Takahiro Inoue) learns about the robbery and flies to Minnesota to protect his cache of gold bars, cash and armaments squirrelled away in the vault.

Normal is an amusingly overblown retread of Odenkirk’s previous films, Nobody and its sequel, both also written by Kolstad. Like those breathlessly orchestrated battle royales, Wheatley’s gung-ho tale of law and disorder bookmarks a linear plot with bruising fight sequences shot on whirling handheld cameras that appropriate props as weapons, including a knitting needle and meat tenderiser.

Fisticuffs in a kitchen setting feel overly familiar given screenwriter Kolstad’s track record but the carnage is slickly executed and it’s a nice touch to name the deceased town sheriff after police officer Marge from Fargo. Obligatory Tarantino-esque needle drops include a bloodbath choreographed to Dr Hook’s crooning ballad“When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman, playing on a diner jukebox. Odenkirk has mastered his gruff and grizzled screen persona and he happily recycles to wage war against decidedly unfriendly locals with support, late in the game, from the dead sheriff’s daughter (Jess McLeod), who fortuitously has a military background. Completely normal.

Horror

Obsession (18)

Review: In most instances, the act of falling doesn’t end well: pain, bruises, cuts and scrapes, broken bones, perhaps even life-changing injuries. However, when it comes to love, we are all excited by the prospect of heads tumbling uncontrollably over heels. Love hurts in writer-director Curry Barker’s creepy supernatural horror thriller which conjures possessive witchcraft similar to Aunt Gladys’ trickery with thorny twigs in Weapons.

Painfully shy music store worker Baron (Michael Johnston), known affectionately to friends as Bear, is secretly fixated on bubbly work colleague Nikki (Inde Navarrette). She only sees him as a friend but Bear is determined to express his true feelings with encouragement from his buddy, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson). After a disastrous day, which culminates in the death of Bear’s beloved cat, the lovesick loner buys a present for Nikki – a One Wish Willow – which claims to grant a single heartfelt desire. Bear jokes with the sales assistant that the novelty can’t possibly work and change people’s fortunes for the better. “Or it does work and ruins their lives” chuckles the store clerk, foreshadowing the misery to come.

After a bungled attempt to speak from the heart, Bear wishes that Nikki loved him more than anyone else in the world and snaps the willow. Immediately, she begins to act differently and within days, Bear and Nikki are a passionately devoted couple. Nikki is jealous if Bear sees anyone else, including co-worker Sarah (Megan Lawless), and as he desperately pleads for a little space to breathe, Nikki’s vice-like grip on the relationship tightens. “I love you so, so much. I don’t think I could live without you!” she warns him.

Obsession is a genuinely unsettling tale of otherworldly enslavement, which expands on the time-honoured notion that you should be careful what you wish for. Barker’s script allows its genie to escape from the bottle in the opening half hour then dials up our skin-shivering discomfort, like dragging nails down a chalkboard, by flooding seemingly inane scenes with menace.

Characters conversing with each other through a closed door elicits sudden jolts of fear and a simple act of love – making a packed lunch for a soulmate – becomes diabolically warped and distorted. One bloodthirsty shock is telegraphed too clearly by the camerawork to register satisfyingly as a surprise. Navarrette is plausibly unhinged as her unsuspecting victim constricts her bond to Johnston’s misguided suitor to a suffocating chokehold. With a simple smile, she sends chills down the spine. Supporting characters feel slightly undernourished because Barker’s focus is on the poisonous central relationship. That’s one way to prevent an outburst from Nikki: all eyes remain on her.