Review of Horns (2014)

There’s a passage in Milan Kundera’s famous and wonderful novel “The Unbearable Lightness Of Being” where the notorious philanderer and protagonist “Tomas” reveals that he enjoys sex with the less conventionally attractive women. The women with something distinctive and memorable to mark themselves with are the ones who make more of a lasting impression; the ones who are distinctly themselves. If I remember correctly, the passage involves a woman who is compared to a giraffe with her proportions.

Stretching this quite far, I often find the same applies, for me, to films. There are some films which are all very well and good, masterpieces maybe, but on occasion I am drawn to the rougher films which bear a more personal hallmark, or are just so odd and juxtaposed that they make a stronger impression that something more professional.

And so, we arrive at Alexandre Aja’s “Horns”, a film based on Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son)’s novel, concerning a young man Ig Parrish (Daniel Radcliffe) who, in the wake of the death of his girlfriend from childhood, starts to grow a pair of horns. The small American town he lives in is adamant that he is the guilty, he is desperate to plead his innocence, and we are uncertain for about two-thirds of the film what’s really going on, aside from that it involves Daniel Radcliffe slowly embracing his dark side.

There is an element of narrative trickery here, as extended flashbacks (rather in the style of Stephen King’s novels, it must be said) reveal, slowly, bits and pieces regarding what happened to Ig’s girlfriend. We get to know a few key players, such as Ig’s brother Terry (Joe Anderson), and Lee (Max Minghella), the lawyer defending Ig. James Remar and Kathleen Quinlan play Ig’s parents. We even get to know, kinda, Ig’s girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple). And then there’s the two policemen convince of Ig’s guilt, the waitress who wants Ig, Merrin’s father, the bastard Vicar…

This is a bloated film, chock-full of characters who probably could have been edited out. But that’s what I liked about it. And as the various narrative strings are pulled, tweaked and manipulated, the film digs itself into so many holes (and so many plot-holes) that to try and view it as a coherent story is futile. It instead has that quality of an old legend, passed down so often and through so many people that little elements here and there have been skewed, distorted, and come into contradiction with other elements. It’s hokum.

Why am I being so forgiving? A few reasons. Firstly, I’m warming to Daniel Radcliffe, post-Potter, immensely. Following his wonderful turn in “What-If” where he conveyed low-self-esteem and guilt so convincingly, it’s a relief and almost a miracle to see him turn on the “creep” factor. He is, at times, a legitimately chilling presence, and his eyes can truly bore into you. He has an intensity to him which is hard to forget.

The second reason I’m being so forgiving is that the film has such a keen and endearing visual style that, even when the “what” is in doubt, the “where” is right there in front of us. Filmed in Vancouver, Mission and Squamish, the film is painted large with greens from the forests, earthy ochres from the treehouse a number of flashbacks are set in, and generally there is the feeling that considerable work was done in post-production to make the reds more red, the blues deeper, the browns earthier. Uniformly excellent cinematographer Frederick Elmes deserve true commendation for his work here.

More superficially, the film has an excellent soundtrack, and any film that namechecks David Bowie’s “Heroes”, and then finds two opportunities to play it, gets a free pass in my book.

Some, understandably, will be more off-put by the jarring script than I. And while there’s one big-reveal that is quite moving, admittedly because it’s largely played off Daniel Radcliffe’s face, even I must concede that it arrives so unexpectedly and from out of nowhere that for it to have any meaningful emotional resonance is a big ask, even for someone as forgiving as this viewer.

It’s odd. It’s gawky. It jars. It’s bereft of ideas. By golly it makes no sense. But, forgive me, I quite liked that.

Review of The Long Way Down (2014)

Never have I seen a film with so much potential for human interest squander that potential so mercilessly and piteously. The core premise, that four people who separately decide to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve meet on the same rooftop and find the will to go on through each other, is both credible and interesting. They even fitted the film with a cast that could have pulled this off in their sleep; Pierce Brosnan, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette and Aaron Paul. The source material, Nick Hornby’s book of the same name, is a fine one, although not Hornby's best. What on earth went wrong?

The warning signs come early on, as we see disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp (Brosnan) try to get his ladder up to the top of the building. He enters the lift, but the ladder won’t fit. He sighs, and takes it up the stairs. This sequence alone has so much potential; to be funny, to be disturbing, to be sad, but director Pascal Chaumeil shoots it in such a way that we are immediately detached from everything that’s going on. He goes wide, when a close-up would have been more impactful. This detachment lingers over the rest of the film like a ghost.

Once up on the roof, and traversing the gap to the end of the building, he falters. We focus on the “long way down”, which is fine in a superficial way, but for this scene to work, again, we need more focus on the actors, so that we can care. Soon, Maureen (Collette), is behind him. There is some weak comic dialogue between them. Soon, the other two of the group, a young runaway called Jess (Poots), and a pizza delivery boy called JJ (Paul) are there. The scene that follows, instead of exploring why people feel driven to suicide, squanders that potential and settles for being your standard "introduction to one-dimensional characters" lark. The scene culminates in the four of them making a pact not to kill each other before Valentine’s Day; the day with the second highest suicide rate, as Martin is quick to note. But why do we care?

Little lapses in the cinematic space-time continuum belie the overall cinematic cluelessness on display here. For example, Martin is the first person to exit the building, and we follow him sprinting down, yet when he gets to the street and is about to enter his car, Maureen is already there. Did she jump after all? 

Character motivations remain somewhat vague. Martin, for example, can seem like a reasonable man in one scene, and then explode with violence for no good reason in the next (see the scene where the four take a holiday, and Aaron Paul makes his big revelation). The most interesting aspect of the film, that Maureen has a disabled son at home, is glossed over and remains unexplored, except for hitting a few perfunctory notes that you could literally guess from me using the word "perfunctory notes". And the film-makers make a big error in leaving JJ’s individual story the most under-written one; Paul is the best actor here, but you wouldn’t know it. Too much time is spent on Poot’s irritating, disaffected posh-girl-with-attitude. The reason that Martin is a disgraced TV presenter (he had sex with a girl without realising she was underage) also remains unexplored. Jack Thorne’s screenplay is the equivalent of one big yawn.

Ultimately, it does just reek of squandered potential. Emphasis is placed in all the wrong places, and there is so little conviction from anyone involved. We are never really given a good reason for the quartet to actually spend any time together (this was done much better in the novel), and for that reason, the audience is never given a good reason to spend time around this quartet. It’s about as pleasant as kidney stones.