Kamis, 26 April 2012

Damsels In Distress film review: Forget damsels, this left me in distress

Damsels In Distress film review: Forget damsels, this left me in distress

By Chris Tookey

PUBLISHED: 18:15 EST, 26 April 2012 | UPDATED: 19:21 EST, 26 April 2012


                             DAMSELS IN DISTRESS                           

Verdict: Unsaveable 

Rating: 1 Star Rating

Director Whit Stillman shows with this film why he has found it so hard to find funding for the past 13 years. It’s about four female college students who dedicate themselves to saving their peers from suicide.

Stillman has fun puncturing the girls’ naive certainties about life, love and men, and it does contain some dazzling dialogue; there’s a treasurable conversation about the correct plural for the word ‘doofus’.

The film leaves much to be desired as it focuses on the lives of 13-year-old girls

The film leaves much to be desired as it focuses on the lives of college students

Unfortunately, none of it is remotely lifelike. Its determination to be cute and its utterly insufferable characters become painful.

And the attempt to bring the rambling proceedings to a halt with a couple of dance numbers is desperate, not least because hardly any of the characters can dance.

The film is pedantic and leaden-footed, and â€" instead of being light as a feather â€" falls as flat as an over-cooked souffle.

                                   AFRICAN CATS                                   

Beware these savage cats

Verdict: Far from fluffy family entertainment

By a strange coincidence, this film is on a similar theme to Albert Nobbs. African Cats  â€" the premiere of which was attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge this week â€" is about the bravery and self-sacrifice of females. 

The females in question are a lone cheetah, bringing up three cubs, and a lioness who finds herself compelled by circumstance to  become a single mother to her cub.

Directors Keith Scholey (who wrote the ponderous narration) and Alastair Fothergill spent nearly three years capturing remarkable footage and turning it into gripping narrative. The vistas of the Masai Mara in Kenya are breathtaking.

Sita and cubs on termite mound in African cats

Sita and her cubs on termite mound in African cats

However, there’s no attempt to disguise the fact that big cats are carnivores feeding on other creatures. It’s strong meat for a Disney film, and I would question its U rating. It should be a PG.

Far from peddling the usual Disney family values, it pursues a surprisingly hardline feminist agenda.

Male cheetahs apparently play no part in child rearing, unlike those proud, attentive fathers in March Of The Penguins.

Male lions are, on this evidence, gangsters and rapists. Lionesses do the hunting, fight the males off if possible and, if they fail, bear cubs for the strongest.

This may be true, but you may want to think twice before exposing your children to this savage vision of the battle of the sexes.

Alternatively, you may think the time has come for your child to learn these far from comforting facts. It’s up to you, but be forewarned. This film is anything but cosy and cuddly. It’s red in tooth and claw.

                                    OUTSIDE BET                                   

Hoskins Co's jokes stink out the cinema

Bob Hoskins treads in horse muck

Bob Hoskins treads in horse muck

Verdict: Definitely not worth a punt

Sacha Bennett's pitifully naive film is aptly named, though an even more accurate title would be Non-Runner.

It is a dreadful, laugh-free British comedy about print-workers who club together in the Eighties to buy a racehorse.

Since they are played by actors as solid as Phil Davis and Bob Hoskins, you might hope you’re in for a heart-warming Ealing-style comedy, but deadly dialogue, cliched characters and talentless direction mean this one falls at the first jump.

Bennett’s ham-fisted attempts to get you on the side of dodgy print union working practices are particularly cringeworthy and have the unintended effect of making one feel a twinge of human sympathy for Rupert Murdoch.

The big running joke is that the actors keep treading in horse manure.

Sadly, that’s an accurate metaphor for the whole enterprise.

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