Reviews

Karen Gillan is pretty and picturesque with a near-perfect clipped Jean Shrimpton accent, but the real drama of the film is between Helen McCrory's stuffy aristocratic sub-editor of Vogue, and the brash, foul-mouthed David Bailey (or "Bailey" as he likes to call himself) as portrayed authentically and confidently by Aneurin Barnard. These two chalk and cheese types are at each other's throats for practically the whole film, so much so that it slightly distracts from the interest of the pictures and the story, well played though the roles are.

Whether Bailey really had this much trouble with his bosses is speculative, but he certainly must have ruffled a few feathers in those early days (and his photos in truth, make for gritty but otherwise surprisingly poor use of Manhattan.) Whether this iconic photo shoot was really the birth of the Swinging Sixties is also open to doubt (Bailey himself has no love of the Beatles who are heard on the radio back home), and the New York of 1960 was probably not quite as clean as the New York of today, but the pictures are nonetheless well captured, and the film is enjoyable as an account of two young people's journey of discovery.

Like JACQUOT DE NANTES, this is a cinematic tribute by Agnes Varda to her late husband Jacques Demy, with some fascinating interviews and archive footage, moving back and forth chronologically from Demy's breakthrough film LOLA, to some of his later work including an abortive attempt to break through in Hollywood, with an interesting revelation about a then unknown American actor named Harrison Ford.

I have only seen one Demy film so far, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, but this documentary makes me want to see some of his other work. So many of his films are very imaginatively made, and derive much from the great American musicals, yet few of them have been seen outside of France. This documentary is a touching tribute, particularly the letter read out at the beginning and end of the film.

With any new Superman film, the obvious first issue is: where was he on September 11th? Visiting the remains of Krypton apparently, for reasons of plot convenience. Though September 11th is not referred to directly, there are various echoes of it during the film such as Supie catching people tumbling from tall buildings, and the general sense of desolation when Metropolis is threatened by Lex Luthor's evil schemes. Kevin Spacey's enjoyably malevolent performance is one of the best things about the film, truer to the spirit of Lex Luthor than Gene Hackman was in the 1978 film. Kate Bosworth looks rather too young for her character's supposed history, and rather too little is seen of characters such as Clark Kent's Mum, or even Clark Kent himself.

Brandon Routh looks like Christopher Reeve, and talks like Christopher Reeve, but doesn't ACT like Christopher Reeve. Emotionally speaking he seems as stiff as the red leather cape he wears (the red army boots are also a mistake). Perhaps he was born for the role - the name even has echoes of his on-screen father: Marlon Brando.

The plot takes an awfully long time to get going, even though the main characters are already introduced from the beginning, and once things do liven up there isn't really much of a plot to deal with anyway, and the ending is eternal. Bryan Singer smothers over the thin plot with some interesting pseudo-Christian symbolism: everyone needs a God, either from above or from the skies in a red cape. It's probably the most spiritual blockbuster since The Passion of the Christ.

I liked it, despite the length (7 minutes longer than Richard Donner's film), its slight pretentiousness, and the usual over-reliance on CGI. At least its heart is in the right place.