28 February 2025.
A REAL PAIN ****
Now this is what’s called a sleeper. A little jewel of a film that’s coming up big, without any pretension or top stars but a great deal of depth about relationships and difference of characters.
Two cousins who grew up together and were very close but have not seen each other for some time, meet at the airport for a trip together. They are going on a small organized tour of Poland, to visit their beloved grandmother’s home and see the historical sites of interest to Jews. Their fellow travelers are a mixed bag – an ordinary married couple; a lonely woman trying to get over her husband leaving her (attractive, grownup Jennifer Grey of “Dirty Dancing”); an earnest African who has converted to Judaism; and the young guide, who is not Jewish but has great respect for the tragedies that the Jews have endured.
From the first instances of the film we see the huge contrast between the two cousins. The more stable, quieter one is played by Jesse Eisenberg (remember him as Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network”?) who has also written and directed the film. The more highly-pitched, erratic one, a natural charmer, is played by Kieran Culkin, last from the series “Succession”. Both put in such nuanced performances as complete opposites that it’s a revelation to watch.
This doesn’t feel like a film, it feels like being along on this road movie that is both humorous as well as tender and eye-opening at the same time.
Written to perfection, acted with such ease that it’s just life, and directed with a lightness of touch that is exemplary for a first film, it’s picking up prizes along the way for both original screenplay for Eisenberg, and supporting actor for Culkin,
For me, this little gem and the grand “Conclave” are the two finest films of the year, on separate sides of the spectrum. Like the two loving cousins.
NOT to be missed!
QUEER ***
This is a mood film, superbly evocative of a man and his era – that of the scandalous William S. Burroughs – a debauched intellectual writer of the Beat Generation, living in Mexico City in the 1950s, based on his autobiographical book of the same name. He wrote the book in the late 40s in Mexico, but it was published much later in 1985.
What stands out in this film is the powerhouse interpretation of Daniel Craig (you will not recognise James Bond in him) as a stand-in for Burroughs and his obsession with a younger man (Drew Starkey), who as a friend remarks, is “cold, slippery, and hard to catch”. For this is a slow cat-and-mouse game of unrequited desire. The main feeling throughout the film is this heartbreaking yearning Craig has for the younger fellow. You see it in his eyes, his hesitant stance, his every plan to spin him into his web.
The textured, heightened artificiality of the cinematography was studio-created in Cinecitta in Rome. The sets are full of southern light yet intimate, placing one straight in the sleazy streets and bars of Mexico City. It’s quite haunting.
And there is a sequence where the two go off into the deep jungles of South America to find a hallucinatory root that is supposed to create a closer bond between two people. That part is as bizarre and queasy as Lesley Manville’s unrecognisable portrayal of a specialist scientist down there.
I have never been a fan of director Luca Guadagnino, for his overtly insistent sexual works such as “Call Me By Your Name” (a questionable lesson on becoming gay),“A Bigger Splash” (a failed, twisted remake of the great “La Piscine”) and “Bones and All” (cannibalism as metaphor for “closeted queerness”). The man has been relentless on one topic.
But this, his latest, is his best, most mature work. Of course it’s also about sexuality, but somehow what remains is the inner, deeper longing and need that Craig portrays so well, along with his intellectual bravado as he struts from bar to bar in his wrinkled white suit and a pistol in his belt. (That actually pertains to a shocking incident in Burroughs’ life – look it up on Wiki.)
Craig was strangely not nominated for an Oscar nor a BAFTA, though for the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, but has managed to pick up a few deserving awards along the way.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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