English language films now showing at Chamonix Cinema Vox
Sherlock Holmes, Ghost Writer, A Serious Man, Up in the Air, I Love You Phillip Morris, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Invictus, The Lovely Bones are all playing in original language English (V/O) with French subtitles, at Chamonix's Cinema Vox until March 23 with evening show times. Please see the Cinema Vox website for times.
A SERIOUS MAN
Did you like The Big Lebowski? Fargo? Raising Arizona? Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Then you shouldn't miss A Serious Man, the latest film by The Coen Brothers.
The setting is 1967 Americana suburbia: Larry Gopnik's (Michael Stuhlbarg) life is beginning to unravel -his wife wants a divorce because his incompetent brother is sleeping on the couch and his son owes the school bully $20 for a bag of marijuana - and he just wants to know how it all went wrong and what he can do about it.
The Coen Brothers have made some great films and this one is marvellous – a suburban dysfunctional family drama meets metaphysical mystery that stands out as their most human and relatable film yet, enhanced by the fact that it doesn't have a single superstar in it.
FANTASTIC MR FOX
In the mood for animation for the adult-sized child? Then Fantastic Mr Fox is the film for you.
Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a fox with a high opinion of himself, is struggling to set aside his chicken-stealing habits and settle down to family life. When a trio of wicked farmers relocate to his woods, the temptation to show how fantastic he is proves too great and Mr Fox leads his menagerie of Wind in the Willows style dropouts into a succession of jams.
This is an unexpected fusion of Roald Dahl's caustic morality tale about a conceited fox and director Wes Anderson's (The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore) low-key odes to crackpot families that works well. Despite the contradiction of American voices, there's a tea-shop Englishness that fits Dahl to a tee. This is a truly original film.
THE LOVELY BONES
December 6th 1973, Pennsylvania: teenager Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered by her neighbour George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). As Susie's parents (Mark Wahlberg, RachelWeisz) try to cope with their devastating loss and Harvey tries to cover his tracks, Susie keeps watch over and influences their lives from a celestial purgatory.
Adapted from the best selling book, director Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong) manages to squeeze six films in at once - a portrait of a serial killer, a touching teen romance, a family- falling-apart drama, after-life fantasy, suspense film and a police flick.
Jackson may not keep all these multiple plates spinning successfully (it's a complex book), but this is imaginative and courageous filmmaking. The plot may sound like a downer, but it's a poignant, gripping and gorgeous film.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS
Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is happily married and a member of the local police force when a car accident causes him to reassess his life. Steven realises he's gay and decides to live life flagrantly, even breaking the law if it gets him what he wants. When he's jailed for fraud, he falls in love with inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). His obsession with freeing Phillip and their building a perfect life together, prompts Steven to attempt, and often succeed at one impossible con after another.
For those of us who find Carrey often ‘too-too', this is a stunning turn for him as an actor, a dream role that combines his old-school comedic tricks with an emotional honesty that feels genuine and earned. This is one of the blackest and funniest comedies of the year.
UP IN THE AIR
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a suave but haunted jetsetter bent on reaching ten million air miles as he goes from city to city, laying off the workforce on behalf of cowardly bosses. His life is just how he wants it – no emotional ties and plenty of material perks - until he falls for Alex and is saddled with work-partner Natalie.
It's a consumerist fable set against bleak corporate downsizing with Clooney a ‘career transition counsellor' who is thriving in the chaos of recession. Topical, eh? Heavy? This is a film saying something important about its times. But in the hands of director Jason Reitman's (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) hands, it is smart, silky, sensitive, funny old school movie magic – an emphatic statement that Hollywood can still make excellent movies.
INVICTUS
Struggling to mend a divided country, President Mandela (Morgan Freeman) fixes upon the idea of South Africa winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite white and black.
The subject of the film is a rugby game, but the story is about the political and cultural tension at the time. Many of Mandela's countrymen felt it was a bad decision to embrace the loathed Springbok rugby team (Captained by Matt Damon) as a symbol for future unity of his country, because they were white and wore the colours of apartheid. However, Mandela was insightful enough to see that sport is a version of life, and politics a kind of sport, and both require teamwork.
Another Clint Eastwood directed film (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, Gran Torino), this film is noble, elegant and warm-hearted.
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his loyal partner in crime-busting, Dr. Watson (Jude Law) are up against the evil Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong, Stardust). Complicating the situation is the arrival of Holmes' ex-amour, the dangerous and untrustworthy Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).
Who would have imagined this New Yorker playing England's greatest detective? Guy Ritchie is who (Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch), so kudos to him.
While this film isn't the breakneck pace Ritchie's films usually are (there is the hint of a sequel, and it may be there that we see real speed as well as a more complex plot), it's the relationship between Holmes and Watson that's hugely entertaining and convincing.
THE GHOST WRITER
A ghost-writer (Ewan McGregor) is hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) and uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy.
Director Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Death and the Maiden) is back to form with this stylish, edge-of-your-seat political thriller, that plays extremely well whether you're into politics or not. Polanski's trademark themes, such as black humour, paranoia, the pervasiveness of evil, and a preoccupation with ‘foreignness', are all showcased in this film that looks as chilly as its story.
With plot twists that will keep you guessing all the way to the conclusion, it's a pleasure to see an intelligent thriller that's extremely well acted.
Synopses by Victoria Jelinek-Jensen
