Review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

"Tyrannosaur", a sophomore directorial effort expanding a short film made four years prior, from that most gifted of British actors Paddy Considine, is principally a film about dichotomies. It presents two visions of hell, one terrifying, and one sad, and almost seems to let them battle it out against each other. It also concerns a man with a fractured psyche who has a deep wellspring of rage within him, but enough of a conscience to know that his actions are abhorrent. There's something Nietzschean, or perhaps Freudian, to his character, such is the intensity of the war ongoing between his id and his ego.

This man is called Joseph and is played by Peter Mullan in a naked, brave performance. The very first scene sees him stumbling out of a pub, drunken and rambling, angry at some trivial thing or another. It doesn't take much to set him off. His dog whimpers at him, and he kicks it. The dog dies. The next day, he buries it in his back garden.

Described here, one could very easily hate Joseph, but Considine seems to be telling us that to do so would be taking the easy way out. There's something to his grief, and tenderness, the way he caresses his dogs' paw after the event conveying a deep regret at his actions, and a deeper regret at his inability to stop himself from performing them.

Joseph's world is the sad vision of hell.

Events place him in the company of the timid, Christian, charity shop worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). There is no easy rapport between them to begin with, and theirs is not some love story. Her innate goodness results in her trying to console him, but he lashes out and deeply insults her. Later she returns home to a pleasant suburban house, quietly drinks a lot of wine while sat on the sofa, and when she has passed out her husband James (Eddie Marsan) returns home and urinates on her.

Olivia's world is the terrifying vision of hell. A wedding photo of the pair hangs large in their living room, almost as a reminder of how dire her situation has become and how much has been lost in her life.

Indeed, for me the film's strongest and most affecting writing came in the presentation of their abusive relationship. James decides to beat her up, and when Hannah comes into work the next day, her assertion that she "slipped in the bath" feels as well-rehearsed as an old stagehand performing the role of Banquo. Without ever, really, saying so Considine conveys the rise and fall and stagnation of an entire relationship. James' pitiful apology to Olivia, a scene I had to look away from, is so devastating because it implies a vicious ongoing cycle, and also because it subtly shows James wheedling Olivia into the perpetrator, and him the victim.

These two worlds are presented side by side, with Joseph and Olivia's relationship the focal point in the centre. They are both so hurt, and so wounded, that they see a little of themselves in each other, and hence against their natures get drawn towards each other.

They key to the film's success is that it is so accurate and rings to true about the characters and situations it depicts. I have met people like Joseph, whose lives revolve around rage, alcohol, and self-pity, with just enough humanity to know that if he really, really tried they could turn it around a little. I have met people like Hannah, who carry inside them a small glow of goodness which touches all they speak to. I have even, from afar, observed the actions of people like James, who defy understanding, in the way we can understand Joseph, and appear to have been born into this world as just pure evil.

A vision of the world this bleak needs an accompanying visual design, and thankfully Considine hired cinematographer Erik Wilson, one of the best working today, and he creates an oppressive and dreary atmosphere greyer than the M5. A couple of outdoor scenes I assumed were set indoors; that's how overcast the film is.

At this point you may be wondering why you'd want to see a film like this. A not entirely invalid question, since although this is a first-rate production it is in the service of a miserable plot. Yet... I can't say it transcends the misery, but there's so much artistry surrounding it and so much essential human truth at the centre of the film, and it conveys the themes so cogently and effectively that I can't help but recommend it most highly.

Films like this, I think, are best for allowing us to observe worlds which we may not come into contact with, and hence it deserves respect. Bad things like this do happen, and just as we should not ignore them when they do, so, too, I don't think we should ignore this film.

Review of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

There's a moment of utter preposterousness which occurs near the end of the Peter Jackon's "Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" which highlights the sheer ridiculousness of Warner Brother's decision (informed, I can only assume, by the allure of box office receipts) to split this slim book into three huge films. Two characters, I won't name who so as to avoid spoilers, have just had a twenty minute fight, replete with the "he's dead, HE ISN'T, he's dead, HE ISN'T!" beats every two minutes or so. Finally, the scene decides to end, and one character falls from a height which would DEFINITELY kill him. Then, just so we know this isn't a false death like the many that have preceded it, we see a huge rock fall and hit them. Splat. We get it.

I laughed, against myself, because it's just a ludicrous piece of film-making in a ludicrous saga, which has no good reason being this long. The plot itself has enough meat, perhaps, for two 90 minute films or one very fast-paced 150 minute film. It concerns a quest to a mountain which has been taken over by a dragon, Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch); that's it. But where the previous Lord of the Rings films (of which I am a fan) had a plot that was similarly simple, but embellished by a fierce sense of place, this film just drags, because the extraneous elements feel shoehorned in, as opposed to part of this world of awe and wonder.

There's just no sense of urgency. Characters stall and dither and shoot the breeze and make grandiose statements in big booming voices and reflect on the Terrible Nature of the events which have just occurred, and it amounts to piteously little. Elements which could have been nice emotional bookends on a smaller film, such as Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman)'s borderline homo-erotic friendship with dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) are here treated as if they carry the emotional heft of Bizet's Carmen. It's as stagnant a film as you can imagine seeing, and that's surprising when you consider that the title literally acts as a complete plot synopsis. It's a battle. There are five armies. There's a lot of bodice-tearing braggadocio and battlefield proclamations (which grow quite comical by the end).

Oh, there's so much to pick apart. The sound design was unusually woeful for a production of this heft; various scenes had dialogue when the characters' mouths weren't moving, the battle sounds felt like they'd been pulled from a child's sword/shield/helmet playset, and the whole film had a vague "you're watching this underwater", subdued quality to it. Even Ian McKellen's legendary wizard Gandalf, one of the most recognisable figures in modern day popular culture, is completely wasted, spending the first half of the film in a cage and the second half of the film commenting on the battle and strolling around.

If there's one saving grace, I suppose, it's that whilst the film is long (144 minutes for one battle and some moping) it doesn't quite hit the gross exorbitance of the last film in the trilogy, "The Desolation of Smaug", a 161 orgy of needless narrative excess and, on the record, one of the most boring films ever made. This film is, narratively, a complete whitewash- I cannot stress this enough, ONE BATTLE, SOME MOPING- but at least it wasn't as bad as one of the dullest films I've ever seen.

Small potatoes.

Review of Stranger By The Lake (2013)

Stranger By The Like is as much about loneliness as it is about lust, which is a key to understanding it amidst the un-simulated and frankly shot sequences of gay lovemaking. It could not be a simpler film, taking place at the eponymous lake which doubles as a cruising spot for a number of gay men. We are introduced to a man called Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), who is perhaps in his mid-to-late 20's, who frequents the spot. In the first scene, he walks up to a larger, older man called Henri (Patrick d'Assumcao) and starts chatting with him. We learn that Henri is recently divorced, with an ambiguous sexuality, but content to sit and watch the lake as the days go by.

The film has an eerie, voyeuristic tone to these opening scenes which simultaneously puts the viewer at ease, with its' gentle and luscious depiction of the tranquil lake and the surrounding woods, and also unnerves, as the various men lie undressed on the beach, go up into the woods to get it off with each other, and make idle chit-chat around this. It's an effective juxtaposition which underpins the entire film.

I was immediately reminded of Ulrich Seidl's "Paradise: Love", the first part of a trilogy, which saw an older woman travel to Africa to have sex with younger African men. They share a lot of stylistic choices; that film had a number of scenes set on a beach, and they both share a prevalent use of shallow focus photography, meaning that everything is on the screen in clear view. There's no lighting. It's as frank as can be, and shot primarily in long-shot and tableaux.

This idyll is somewhat shattered when the mysterious Michel (Christophe Paou) turns up. Franck is instantly attracted to him, but Michel has another lover. Franck silently stews, transfixed, and occupied with his conversations with Henri, until one evening after it has got dark, Michel drowns his lover in the lake. Instead of doing the sensible thing, Franck finds himself further drawn towards Michel, replacing his previous lover, and even being so bold as to name their love-making love, instead of simply cruising.

The events above are presented in such a placid, manner-of-fact way that as a viewer one has to constantly remind themselves of the true nature of the story being told. This is the stuff of pulp, elevated to what appears to be high-art. It's also, for me, a pitiful study of loneliness. As well as morbid curiosity and fatalistic lust, Franck's actions belie an intense loneliness. He's desperate to feel something with someone; look at how he says "kiss me" just as he is about to climax. This also explains his growing bond with Henri, who is also incredibly lonely but in touch with himself enough to admit it; he is a complicated character, but brutally honest, which Franck lacks.

The film does uncoil, slowly and then very quickly in a notably tense sequence, and comes off ultimately like a Hitchcock film directed by Bruce LaBruce (and shot by Haneke's regular cinematographer). This is not a bad thing; it's a b-movie with arthouse trappings, and this too does its' bit to unnerve the audience. Its' depiction of male sexuality is among the more overt examples of male (on male) gaze I've seen, and far from being exploitative we are forced to genuinely contemplate the male body in the same manner as looking at Michaelangelo's David forces us. Director Alain Guiraudie is fearlessly formal in framing his compositions around this remit, and he knows how to gain the most from shooting a sex-scene.

I do, however, have reservations. Whilst I cannot fault the manner of its telling, the story itself is dragged down by a couple of bits and pieces. The dialogue in the early scenes is a little heavy-handed, and one encounter with a man looking for women feels like it's establishing that this is a gay cruising spot; well, duh. There are a couple of clanging moments like that. And there's something to the disintegration of the sunny, peaceful tranquillity which is a little too complete for me; there's nothing in particular left to think about, or contemplate, and it doesn't go wider than the film itself. This seems like a bizarre criticism, but there's something to be said for the sadness I feel when I think I'm watching a great film which is going to endure and grow in the mind, and it turns out to be just a good one.

And yet, as I am wont to say, this is still a good film with a lot to recommend it. There's something marked about the restrained performances and lolling pace in service of the nasty plot which left a distinct impression on me, and a film willing to present male sexuality this bravely has to be commended. It's a shame it didn't do more, but then maybe I'm just asking a bit much.

Review of Sightseers (2013)

It reads like some kind of bizarre story you'd get in the back pages of a shady pulp magazine; or perhaps more like something you'd find plastered on the front pages of one of those glossy, grotesque "True Life Stories" magazines you assume no-one buys, yet someone must. A happy couple, in their mid-30's, on a caravanning holiday, which would end in a string of senseless murders.

He is Chris, played by Steve Oram, an amiable, bearded man, the kind of bloke you'd happily chat to down the pub. Bearded and opinionated in that way that British men in their mid-30's often are, he seems sensible, friendly, and almost remarkably normal. She is Tina, played by Alice Lowe, and her character is a bit more complicated. She's cute, pretty, but we sense a supreme loneliness inside her. Perhaps Chris is the first guy who's paid attention to her in a while. That she lives with her demanding, overbearing mother Carol (Eileen Davies), feels like a clue.

The very first scenes, with Tina preparing for the holiday, are like Mike Leigh on downers, as Carol bitterly spits in Chris' face "I don't like you" after he promises to bring back Tina safely. It's an odd opening, lacking any big laughs to hook the audience in, but funny enough to let us know we're watching a comedy, and it does set up the characters very well. The early scenes with the holiday itself work too; Chris and Tina are genuinely in love, and seem to complete each other in quite an endearing way. I liked them both throughout.

But all is not quite right; a man drops a Cornetto wrapper (a nod to the Cornetto Trilogy, I imagine, since Edgar Wright produced this film) on a tram, and Chris gets unduly enraged. Later he runs the man over with his caravan, in front of the man's wife and child, in what appears to be a terrible accident, although you can't help but notice Chris' little smirk...

Perhaps you can see where this is going. It is not long before Chris has pushed a man called Ian (Jonathan Aris) off a rock-face, seemingly for no other reason than Chris really didn't take to him. Tina finds out, but seems nonplussed at Chris' confession; "You can't do that... You'll ruin our holiday!." The bodies begin to mount up after that, but this is not some caravanning slasher flick. It's quite a hard film to peg, actually, but certainly a very intelligent one, and that's what I loved about it. Think a British "Badlands", where the characters have doubled in age and are prone to worry about not finding the right pasta sauce in a different town..

The film has a commitment to mundanity which is quite remarkable. It was quite uncomfortable to watch in places, actually, because it skewers a number of things which are very accurate about British life. Buying mints at petrol stations; holiday itineraries; the National Trust; the Daily Mail; the way some people get really, really funny about dog crap. Again, Edgar Wright's influences are writ large, but where his Shaun of the Dead poked fun at British life, director Ben Wheatley seems to dissect it and lay it bare. The film is so effective because you could probably edit out the killings, and you'd be left with quite a touching, romantic little love story.

But the killings are there, and this marriage of the macabe and the mundane becomes more pressing as the film goes on. It would, weirdly enough, make a fantastic double bill with John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", a film I admire very much, which intercut scenes of brutality with scenes of the killers shooting the breeze and drinking coffee. I watched this film with my father, who made a fair observation halfway through that this is, probably, what a fair few serial killers live like. Certainly, the perverse normality of it all made me relate to Chris and Tina, which made me creep-y and crawl-y, and there's something to be said for Chris' complete and utter lack of guilt, or remorse, and the way he treats all this as just a fact of life.

The film goes to some darker and deeper places later on, and I won't ruin how, but I will say to keep a very close eye on Tina and her behaviour in the final act. The film itself retains a mordant, unrepentant eye on the pair's actions, and as an audience we almost feel like accomplices ourselves. It is also very funny, never in a particularly laugh-out-loud way (although there are some good laughs), but it's more... Amusing. Constantly dancing on that knife-edge between discomfort and hilarity. And that works quite well. Perhaps if it had been too funny, that would have distracted from the bigger things at work under the surface.

A final note must also go to Laurie Rose's brilliant cinematography. She worked on Wheatley's "Kill List", which was a cultish, psychedelic hitman movie, and utterly unforgettable, in no small part due to her downright freaky shot arrangements. Here she keeps the creepy compositions down to a bare minimum, but allows for a few moments of beauty. The moment where Chris kills Ian has the most effective use of chiaroscuro, and is just fancy enough to let the audience know that the rest of the films' look, which has a kitchen-sink, warts-and-all feel to it, was a conscious choice.

This is a subversive, discomforting film, hilarious in the right places, gruesome in others, and has that quality that means it grows in the mind as you think about it. The script, credited to the principal actors, has that very British ad-libbed feel to it, which is perfect here. It's just vague enough to interpret, but overt enough to let you know it knows what it's doing, and it has a peculiar mood which is hard to describe but very easy to feel. In short, it's just right, and if that sounds like damning with faint praise then think about how many films you've seen which don't put a foot wrong from the first frame to the last. This is one of those films, and it's a rarity, and it deserves to be seen.

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 Under The Skin (2013)

What is it that makes us human?

I do not mean in a specific sense, but rather in a more general one. What aspect is it, definable or not, that makes us as a species different from the apes, or the dolphins, or perhaps some as-yet undiscovered race lurking out there. I ask this question because Jonathan Glazer's "Under The Skin" has made me consider it. It is a film about an alien, played by Scarlett Johansson, who has come to earth to lure in men and do... Something, we are never quite sure, although it involves reducing them to sacks of skin. Where she has come from, why she is doing this, and what purpose it is serving, are irrelevant. She is both an alien, and alien.

Her other-ness is constantly made an example of. Early on we see her in a shopping centre, buying clothes, trying to fit in. But her face is distant and cold, and there is no doubt that she's going through the motions; how her face can go from expressive and friendly when she's talking to someone, to completely blank when she's left alone, is testament to Johansson's frankly stunning performance.

She carries on going through the motions. She sets about picking up men for the job she is doing. But something happens; as the film goes on, she begins to thaw a little. A chance encounter with a man (Adam Pearson) who has severe neurofibromatosis in his face results in her questioning her goals, Soon, she is experimenting with the typically "human" things, such as eating at a restaurant.

I have now described the plot up until about an hour into the film. I do not normally go as far as this, but this is a unique film. It could not be less concerned with the dynamics of story and motivation; it is predominantly metaphor and allegory. It has done a supremely genius thing in taking the trappings of your standard science-fiction story and turning them into an exposé of an entire species. This is not hyperbole; I have not seen a film with a higher command over the biggest (and, I suppose, smallest) fundamentals of existence, perhaps since I watched Three Colours Blue for the first time four years ago.

This is a film that understands us. It understands lust; look at how the men are drawn into Johannson's black room. It understands human empathy; look at how people help Johansson up after she falls down. It understands that the sound of a baby crying can unite all people to distress. It understands what it is like to be lonely, crucial since this is fundamentally a film about the ultimate loner. From the very first shot, which is a completely black screen slowly giving way to a small white speck, I assume earth, the film engages the viewer by showing them a picture of their existence from the outside, peering in.

It is, of course, opaque, maddeningly styled, and "arty" in a way that would make some people roll their eyes. I was not bothered by these things, because there was a higher purpose there. It is a film alive in all the ways that film can be, gently joyous, hitting notes of unrefined beauty in a number of key scenes. The cinematography by Daniel Landin is a marvel, and the editing by Paul Watts deserves a mention because he has taken what I assume were shards of film and composed them into a symphonic delight. All this is overlaid by the haunting, unsettling and distressing score by Mica Levi, which, punctuated by harsh violins and staccato, electronic sounding beats, is a masterpiece in and of itself.

Perhaps the most baffling thing, to me, is how this film was once a book, written by Michel Faber. It embodies the concept of pure cinema so well that to imagine it in another format seems... Well, alien. I am completely unfamiliar with the book, but I would be very interested to read it to see how it handles the themes that this film lays out so poignantly and thoughtfully, without ever quite spelling them out.

It is a masterwork. That it is one of the best films of the year is without doubt. But it is also miraculous, and highlights the power of film at its' most potent, to detail the human condition and allow an insight into us all. I'm fairly sure that's why we invented the arts in the first place. Yes, this is a film that goes that deep.

Review of Tom At The Farm (2013)

Tom At The Farm, the latest film from the prolific and prodigious Quebecois auteur Xavier Dolan and adapted from Michel Marc Bouchard's play, announces itself with a stillness and tranquillity bordering on the unsettling. This is unlike what we have seen from him before. It is also very effective; we see Tom (Dolan) driving towards the eponymous farm, in an overhead shot that recalls Haneke's "Funny Games". He destroys his sat-nav system in a rage. Then he arrives at his destination, and walks around. The camera follows him with a Kubrickian feel to it; think a rural "The Shining". His phone is out of signal. Nobody is at home. He walks around the farm, getting his bearings. 

In short, Tom is utterly alone, and Dolan's new found restraint has exacerbated this feeling into an almost nightmarish vision of isolation. These are new notes from someone who was teetering on the edge of repeating himself. Gone are the histrionics (mostly), gone is the slow-motion (mostly), and gone are the doe-eyed relationships obfuscated by the characters blinkered self-centredness (definitely). This is Dolan on horror mode, thriller mode, mystery mode, and the result is a confounding, taut and often beautiful tale full of small erotic pulls, subversive whims, and a certain dissonant quality. This is Dolan's artistic maturity.

Tom is at the farm for his recently deceased lover Guillaume's funeral. First he meets Guillaume's mother Agathe (Lise Roy), a widow. Something in her words, and Tom senses that she didn't know about Guillaime and Tom's relationship. That was some intuition; later, Guillaume's brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) wakes Tom up in the middle of the night, holds him down by the mouth and tells him that he isn't going to tell Agathe the truth, he's going to say something nice at the funeral, and then quietly leave Francis and Agathe alone forever. 

Quite why Francis is so desperate to conceal the truth from Agathe is never made clear; Agathe gives off no indication of being homophobic or backwards, and seems like the accepting type. She was expecting a girlfriend to turn up, but that's only because Francis lied to her in the first place. The film toys with incestuous overtones, but not too seriously. This is simply the first of many unanswered questions.

After a funny/painful/sad funeral scene, the film consists of the ever-shifting relationship between Tom and Francis, veering from the amorous (such as in a sequence where the pair rapturously dance the tango in a barn) to what feels like Stockholm Syndrome (in a scene where Tom refuses to leave the farm). It remains maddeningly enigmatic. For example, why does Tom feel such an affinity with Francis when he is so cruel to him? Why is Tom so willing to stay in such utterly hellish surroundings? What is Francis even doing? Is he a sociopath, or worse? Is a revelation regarding Tom and Guillaume towards the end to be believed?  

There is a scene, near the end, in a bar, which I suppose could be taken as an explanation for a fair amount of the above, but to me that seems like the easy way out. This is a film that doesn't want to answer any questions in particular, and that languishes in the murkiest depths of human nature. It's never willing to stick with one genre at any given time; the film can go from resembling "Calvaire" in one scene to some kind of hellish Mike Leigh picture in the next. Everything about it seems geared to keep the viewer on their toes. 

Thematically, it does match up with Dolan's previous work in the near-Oedipal overtones and the consistent obsession with the relationship between mothers and sons. But those are just Dolan's backgrounds; such as Fellini made films about women, Bergman about God, Kieslowski about human relationships, so to does Dolan stick with that one core idea. 

But here, we see him start to spin out a new web from this core, and seeing it is as exciting and bold as the films from the masters I have listed above; company in which I have long thought Dolan belongs, sure, but here is a film which would surely prove it to the sceptic. It's a fearsome, bold move and a fearsome, bold movie.