Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

If you had just three weeks to live, what would you do? Try and see long-lost friends and relatives before the time came? Make an effort to re-connect with an old love? Finally get round to reading War and Peace? Travel as much as you could? Go on a crime spree? With an asteroid called Matilda hurtling towards the planet, that's the very conundrum facing Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell). Within moments of the car radio telling them that a last-ditch attempt to stop Matilda has failed, Dodge watches on as his wife Linda (Nancy Carell) gets out of the car and runs away from him and their life together. It's probably for the best anyway: she was having an affair and he only married her because he was scared of dying alone. Some people try and flee, as his wife did. Others join orgies and parties and some get things over with and take their own lives. Dodge reacts altogether differently, carrying on his humdrum life as normal. He goes to work, checks his empty letterbox and tries to tell his cleaning lady that with the apocalypse approaching, she doesn't have to come to work anymore. She thinks he's trying to fire her, so he relents and lets her carry on.

Dodge's friends aren't interested in business as usual, not in the slightest. Warren (Rob Corddry) and Diane (Connie Britton) invite him to a dinner party and try and set him up with their enthusiastic friend Karen (Melanie Lynskey), reasoning that no-one should die alone. They've hit the nail on the head - he doesn't want to die alone, but other than that, he doesn't know what he wants. He does know however that he's not interested in Karen or Diane's sexual advances, nor does he fancy taking heroin. So, he leaves the party and goes home. As he reminisces about Olivia, his old high school sweetheart, he sees his neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley) crying outside his window. She's missed the last flight back to England to see her family so he consoles her and invites her in. She falls asleep on his sofa and the next morning, gives him a pile of letters that the postman had wrongly delivered to her apartment over the years. They've never spoken before despite being neighbours for a long time so she has no idea that the man she assumed was his "roommate's boyfriend" was in fact his wife's lover. After trying to kill himself, Dodge reads the letters and finds one from Olivia where she tells him that she's divorced with a son and that he was the love of her life. Filled with a renewed sense of purpose and with a crowd of looters approaching their apartment block, he rescues Penny and tells her that if she helps him track down Olivia, he will hook her up with his friend who has a private plane that can take her back home to Surrey.

Thus begins the movie proper and from this point onwards it's a strange romantic drama-cum-black comedy-cum-apocalyptic science fiction film. Some parts work really well. For example, Dodge maintaining the semblance of a normal life as the sky falls around him (literally); the dinner party at Warren and Diane's; almost joining in an orgy at a diner and attending a mass baptism at a beach. It's just a pity that so many scenes fall flat on their face. Dodge's attempt to commit suicide was either supposed to be poignant or funny and it couldn't decide which. Dodge and Penny's encounter with an unusually vigilant policeman sees the film swerve completely off course and delivers easily the most boring and frustrating five minutes of the film. Their meeting with survivalists had promise but it was completely lacking any satirical edge and just felt like it had been shoehorned in. The only joke had at their expense came when they walked in on one of them on the toilet. Martin Sheen's character likewise feels tacked on and doesn't serve much purpose other than to provide a plot device. Finally, the ending. I can see some people really liking it, but I didn't really. I won't spoil it but of the three main ways I thought it could have ended as I was watching it - abrupt black comedy, tearful reunion and unhappy resolution - they picked the weakest of the three. After it finishes I wondered if there was an alternate ending but there is not.

Strange and unholy mash-up it might be but fortunately, there is glue holding the whole ramshackle structure together and it is the performances of Carell and Knightley. He deadpans his way through the film, his occasional outbursts of emotion and playful flirting making for a confidently understated performance. She is full of spunky energy, another excellent performance to add to the already long list. Together they make a likeable and believable pairing, often providing the only high points in scenes that otherwise drag along under the weight of their own superfluousness.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a bit of a strange film and has as many hits as it does misses. It would all come unstuck were it not for Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. She in particular is superb and without their winning performances, the whole thing would come crashing down.

6 out of 10.

The Descendants (2011)

We Bought a Zoo and The Descendants, two films about a father having to come to terms with the loss of his wife and reconnect with his children. Whilst Matt Damon's character moved to the countryside, bought a zoo and met Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney doesn't have such an easy time of things.

Lawyer and property owner Matt King (George Clooney) is told that his wife Elizabeth, in a coma after a boating accident, will never wake up and has a living will requesting that her care be withdrawn. Ahead of her life support machine being turned off, Matt must reconnect with his daughters, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and 17-year-old Alex (Shailene Woodley), and inform friends and family that she is about to die so they can pay their last respects. In the process, he finds out that Elizabeth had been having an affair and was planning on leaving him. If that weren't enough, he has to juggle the selling of his family's land to a real estate developer.

After churning out four films in eight years, director Alexander Payne took seven years to get around to number five. Was it worth the wait? He's certainly had long enough to work on it and I loved Sideways so he had quite a lot to live up to. The numerous awards it won, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Golden Globes for Best Film and Best Actor, meant that my hopes were high. Fortunately, it met them. Well, sort of. I mean, it's a very good film: funny, moving, well written and very well acted but it's just lacking something. It doesn't feel like one of the ten best films of the year, as so many critics named it. More than anything, it feels too linear. The story unfolds but it does so in a straight line, never really deviating from its inexorable march towards the ending that simply happens. The only surprise is that there aren't any. Matt finds out his wife was cheating on him, so he goes looking for the man (Matthew Lillard). We all know he's going to confront the man eventually, so when it happens, no matter how good the scene is (and it is), it's lacking any kind of punch. Even the negotiations over the sale of his land result in a predictable conclusion.

It might not venture far off the beaten track but at least it does it well. Matt's attempts to reconnect with his daughters, with whom he had a distant relationship, provide easily the best scenes in the film. Other highlights include the very realistic way the film deals with the impending death of a loved one; the seemingly endless parade of cousins Matt has to endure, among them Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges); and the often hilariously non-sequitur Sid (Nick Krause). There isn't any scene or any character that doesn't really work and it's just a pity that the whole thing comes off as lacking any sense of direction or a meaningful message other than "stuff happens".

Straightforward? Yes, but it's still a very, very good film. George Clooney and Shailene Woodley in particular are superb, it's deftly made and Alexander Payne strikes a nice balance between heartfelt and funny.

8 out of 10.

We Bought a Zoo (2011)

After watching Battleship, I remarked to a friend that "I should have watched We Bought a Zoo instead". She replied, "so why don't you watch it now?" So I did.

Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is a recently widowed single parent with two children: teenage son Dylan (Colin Ford) and younger daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones). Unhappy, with everything in the city reminding him of his late wife and Dylan expelled from school after he acts out, Benjamin quits his job, rebuffs the advances of the attractive single moms at his kids' school and tells his brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) that he's moving into the countryside. He and Rosie find the perfect place, their dream home. There's just one problem: it's a zoo. The place badly needs owners who care and have the time, money and effort to bring the place up to scratch in time for its next inspection. If it fails, the animals will be sent elsewhere and the zookeepers will lose their jobs. Fortunately, this is Hollywood so the issue of money is brushed over as Benjamin conveniently finds that his wife left him thousands of dollars. He cashes the cheque and everyone gets to work. In struggling to turn the place around in time, Ben finds himself falling for beautiful zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson) and Kelly's younger cousin Lily (Elle Fanning) flirts with the seemingly oblivious Dylan. As the family work to save the zoo's future, they examine their relationships with each other and how the loss of their mother has affected them.

If only every widower could quit his job, drop everything, buy a dream house in the sunny California countryside and spend his days quietly tending to a small zoo with Scarlett Johansson for company. It's a lovely fantasy and it could have made for a silly, hokey film but thanks to a combination of a good screenplay and warm, genuine performances, it works. Matt Damon's convincing and sympathetic as the grieving widower and Scarlett Johansson is very good, both witty and compassionate with an underlying steely determination. The child actors are uniformly good and I loved J. B. Smoove's cameo as the estate agent, although it was a bit strange to see him playing someone other than Leon from Curb. As for the inevitable life lessons about love, loss and so on that the family must go through, they're not preachy and they weren't so sickly sweet that they made me roll my eyes.

Sure, it's not groundbreaking and the ending's not exactly a surprise but it's a good, honest piece of family entertainment. It's funny, well acted and just darn enjoyable. How anyone could possibly dislike this film is utterly beyond me. Oh, and it's a damn sight better than Battleship.

7 out of 10.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)

At the preview screening for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, I was handed a free copy of the novel the film is based on, which I immediately decided I would give to my mother. That should tell you all you need to know about the target audience.

Ewan McGregor plays Dr. Fred Jones, a fisheries expert for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. One morning he receives a nicely-worded email from Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt). She works for a consultancy firm that represents Sheikh Muhammad (Amr Waked), an eccentric Yemeni businessman who dreams of bringing salmon to the deserts of Yemen. Dr. Jones replies that such a project would be "fundamentally unfeasible", repeating as such to his wife Mary (Rachael Stirling) and his boss Bernard (Conleth Hill a.k.a. Varys from Game of Thrones). When a terrorist attack at a mosque in Afghanistan threatens to bring another round of bad news for the government, the Prime Minister's press secretary, the highly strung Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), decides that they need some good news from the Middle East for a change. Drawing blanks, she eventually discovers the Sheikh's salmon fishing proposal and orders Bernard to proceed at full steam. Dr. Jones is ordered to meet Harriet. He does and again rubbishes the plan. Bernard, acting on orders from on high, gives Dr. Jones an ultimatum: be seconded to Harriet's firm and work on the salmon plan or be sacked. His marriage strained and his wife working in Switzerland, he reluctantly accepts.

Harriet, meanwhile, is in a relationship with Captain Robert Mayers (Tom Misom), who is stationed in Afghanistan. Dr. Jones arrives on secondment and she manages to convince him that the Sheikh's vast wealth and the presence of a dam means that the project is "plausible". They meet the Sheikh and Dr. Jones is slowly convinced that he and the project aren't quite as crazy as he first thought. Things almost fall apart when Captain Mayers is reported missing in action but the two go to Yemen to oversee the final stages of the project. Just before he leaves, his wife returns from Switzerland and confronts him about his relationship with Harriet. He admits that he's falling in love with her and they separate. In Yemen, the project initially seems to be a success before it is sabotaged by terrorists and fails. Captain Mayers, recently rescued from Afghanistan, makes a dramatic reappearance just as Dr. Jones declares his love for Harriet and she has to decide who she wants to be with as he must decide whether he wants to stay in Yemen and see the project to completion or return home to Britain.

Not only had I never read the novel of the same name, I had no idea that it wasn't written in prose but as a collection of interviews, official documents, diary entries and emails. While the narrative structure of the novel is quite interesting, the same cannot be said for the film. It's typical rom-com nonsense: utterly predictable and about as strenuous as lifting a spoonful of ice cream from the bowl to your mouth. McGregor and Blunt are pleasant and have a nice chemistry between them but they're never believable as lovers as their off-screen friendship seeps through. The "culture clash" between the two of them is suitably summed up by their names: Harriet Chetwode-Talbot and Fred Jones. Unfortunately, that's as subtle as the film gets, resorting to crude metaphors to convey messages about love and faith. Really, the only bright spot is Kristin Scott Thomas' brilliantly acerbic press secretary, from whom almost all of the laughs come.

Ridiculous, fluffy, sugary, silly, predictable nonsense. The cast at least look like they had a good time making it and if this is your sort of thing, you'll spend an enjoyable hour and forty-seven minutes watching a film about bringing fish to a desert.

5 out of 10.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Sometimes all it takes for a film to rise above dozens or hundreds of similar films is a gimmick. With (500) Days of Summer, that gimmick is a nonlinear narrative. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hansen, a depressed and lonely greeting card writer who meets Summer, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype played by perhaps the archetypical MPDG, Zooey Deschanel. We are told straight away that Tom and Summer broke up and that this is the story of what happened. The film skips back and forth over the span of their 500 day relationship, examining their differing attitudes to love, commitment and their relationship.

Gimmick aside, (500) Days of Summer is your standard bittersweet romantic comedy. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are very good as the doomed lovers and the shifts back and forward make for a refreshing change, but it's all been done before: boy finds girl, boy looses girl, boy moves on with new girl. There are, however, two stand-out scenes in the film.

The first is an absolutely fantastic and completely spontaneous song-and-dance number after Tom and Summer have sex for the first time. Tom emerges from his house, smiling and strutting down the street to You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates. Fountains burst into life and strangers high-five and shake hands with him before a brilliantly choreographed flashmob-style dance erupts around him accompanied by a marching band and a pair of animated birds. As the number ends and everyone drifts away, Tom smiles at the camera, breaking the fourth wall and bringing to an end the ultimate "just had sex" scene.

The second is a scene later in the film. Tom and Summer have drifted apart, but she has invited him to her flat for a party. He puts on his finest, wraps her a gift and sets off. "He believed that this time, his expectations would align with reality", the narrator tells us. The screen splits in two, with the left-hand side labelled "Expectations" and the right-hand side labelled "Reality". They occasionally match up, but mostly they are the mirror opposite of each other. His expectation of sitting and talking quietly with Summer is contrasted with the reality of sitting at the opposite end of the table from her, making inane small talk with her friends about the job he hates; his expectation of looking out over the city with her contrasts with his reality of gazing out over the balcony, alone, as Summer chats with other guests and his expectation of the two of them moving somewhere more private and kissing is overwhelmed by reality. As the camera pulls back and turns to show reality from Tom's perspective, expectations is slowly wiped away and the split screen ends just as his expectations are overtaken by reality - she has become engaged to another man. Heartbroken, Tom storms out, walking off down the road and stopping in the middle of it. As he stands alone, his back to the camera, the image is painted over with a black and white drawing of the scene and then everything else is erased, leaving a single black figure standing in the shadowy, foggy remnants of the drawing, before he too, fades. The scene is accompanied by Hero by Regina Spektor, a haunting song that makes for the perfect accompaniment.

(500) Days of Summer is a fairly ordinary story lifted up by strong performances, an unusual narrative structure and two really memorable scenes. The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. Here, the whole is made greater by some of the parts.

7 out of 10.

Adventureland (2009)

This is the only film I've seen at the cinema where I've come in late and missed the first few minutes. I was going to see it with a friend and were delayed getting there and missed the first three or four minutes. Annoyed, I swore I would never do the same thing again, and so far I have not. Four years later, I finally got around to watching it again, from the start, uninterrupted! Here's the review.

Adventureland is a romantic comedy set in 1980s Pennsylvania. James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) desperately wants to join his best friend on holiday in Europe before they set off for university together. Unfortunately, his dad's demotion means his parents can't afford to pay for the trip and faced with no other option, he gets a job at Adventureland, the local lame amusement park. There, he encounters an eclectic range of characters: pipe-smoking Joel (Martin Starr), his ex-best friend Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush), smooth-talking repairman Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the enticing Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), eccentric assistant manager Bobby (Bill Hader) and his wife, manager Paulette (Kristen Wiig) and the beautiful, enchanting Em (Kristen Stewart).

After Em saves James from being stabbed by an understandably irate customer, he falls for her and the two begin a very awkward, stop-start relationship, punctuated by uncomfortable encounters with her father (Josh Pais) and stepmother (the excellent Mary Birdsong), Em's relationship with the unhappily married Mike and Lisa P.'s suspicious interest in James.

Adventureland's strengths are in its performances. It's not the funniest comedy I've ever seen. In fact, I didn't laugh out loud more than two or three times, but Eisenberg is his usual winning self, Stewart is confident in her role, self-assured and at the same time vulnerable and the various supporting characters are well-played. If you're only familiar with Kristen Stewart through her Twilight roles (I'm not, having only seen the first one quite a while ago), you probably already have an opinion of her. If it's a negative one, put that to one side and watch her in this film. If you think she can't act, that she only has "one facial expression" or if you hold any of the other criticisms that have been levelled at her, watch this film. It's also an excellent retro piece, full of classic 80s music (notably Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus", which is played ad nauseum on the theme park's speakers and always reminds me of the excellent "Dr. Zaius" parody in The Simpsons) and various news clips of President Reagan.

The film's ending split my friend and I. He disliked it, saying it was too predictable. I disagreed, saying that their relationship ended appropriately. Either way, if you're looking for a good, well-acted film and nostalgic for either young love or the 1980s, watch Adventureland.

8 out of 10.