Watch your health!

Just watched Irresistible, a film made in Australia with Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill and Emily Blunt. A neat piece of suspense, if a little unable to overcome its improbabilities. Neill comes across as the least believable of the three, even though he has the easiest part. It’s almost as if he isn’t really bothering too much. Sarandon as always is strong and detailed in her playing of someone who might need to up their health insurance, while Emily Blunt does her best with a role that seems odd from the outset. The great thing about Sarandon is that she can let you know depths in the character without uttering a word. It’s a pity she has to deal with some melodrama here, since she actually invests the character with considerable personality.

Also watched The Last King of Scotland a few days ago. Forest Whitaker is superb in the role of Idi Amin, and James McAvoy (miles away from the last time I saw him as Mr Tumnus) plays the fictional character of a doctor who becomes Amin’s right hand man – when it suits Amin. McAvoy’s Dr Garrigan is a young man who appears to have it all together when it comes to healing the sick, but who is quite amoral in his dealings with people outside of his doctoring. He appears to be wise, but the film is about him actually learning wisdom, at great cost to himself ultimately, and at the expense of several other people’s lives. It’s a film to watch more than once, if you can bear the brutality of the world Amin inhabits (although the brutality is kept to a minimum, visually, until the very end; otherwise it’s mostly hinted at in cutaway shots).