Catch up with this movie when it's released

A week or so ago we were invited by the Automobile Association to put our names in the hat for tickets to go and see a movie called X+Y. We received a couple of free tickets late last week, and though we knew nothing about the movie, went along to the preview showing.

What a pleasant surprise! It's the story of a boy who has some level of autism which shows itself in an inability to relate well socially while also being able to do maths exceptionally well - to the degree that he's invited to enter for the Maths Olympiad.

There's a good deal more to it than that, but I won't spoil your surprise by telling you how it plays out. Just take it from me it's well worth going to see.

Asa Butterfield, who was The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, is superb as Nathan, the main character. (His younger self is equally well-played by Edward Baker-Close.) He manages to wend his way through the minefield that playing an autistic boy can be, and remain believable. It's not assumed in the movie that you have to be autistic to be good at maths, of course, which is one particular plus, and equally it's assumed that people who are considered autistic in some degree vary enormously.

The somewhat eccentric actress Sally Hawkins plays Nathan's mother, and though she doesn't avoid all of her quirky approaches to acting, she's good in the role, and brings character to a part that could have been maudlin. (We last saw her in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, which is possibly one of the most annoying movies we've ever seen, mostly because of the character Hawkins plays in it!)

Rafe Spall is Nathan's teacher (he has multiple sclerosis, to boot). Spall is also an actor who brings a lot of bells and whistles to his acting; indeed one awkward scene between Hawkins and Spall in this movie could quite easily have come from a Mike Leigh film. Spall is excellent, however, in spite of being saddled with an illness that doesn't seem to develop too rapidly over the course of the film's several years. He has a bunch of great lines, and delivers them wonderfully.

Eddie Marsan, hiding his somewhat odd features behind a beard, is another slightly off-the-wall character, playing the man in charge of the British team involved in the Olympiad.

There are some great performances amongst the maths whizzes, but the stand-out one comes from Alex Lawther, who's torn between the fact that his family 'require' him to be a genius, see him as 'unique' because of his autistic aspect, and obviously expect him to love something it turns out he doesn't particularly care about.

I'm sure there'll be some who carp at yet another movie about autism that only presents part of the picture, but for all that this is a wonderfully human story, and very satisfying.

Made in Dagenham

We watched Made in Dagenham last night (thankfully, they didn't go all clever and call it Maid in Dagenham, which must have been a temptation, I'm sure.)   Even though it's based on a real-life event, a strike by the women workers at Ford's car factory in Dagenham, the story arc is as traditional as a thousand other movies that involve someone who doesn't think they've got much going for them deciding to stand up for their rights (Mr Deeds Goes to Washington, to name just one famous example).   So you know that once Sally Hawkins (playing Rita O'Grady - the real O'Grady appears in the film clips during the credits) gets her mettle up, it'll be click/click/click and all the nasty blokes holding the women back will go toppling like ninepins.  You know that there'll be a scene where her husband finally breaks down from being tolerant and gets mad, and then has to be told he has no reason to get mad, and that he's not a saint, and that a few scenes later he'll be apologising for being a twat and will be backing her to the hilt.  You know that one of the women will try to use the situation for her own ends, and will be brought back into the fold.  And you know that it'll all end happily ever after (this isn't Italian neo-realist moviemaking, after all).

If I sound cynical, it's only because there is a degree of predictability in the movie, and there were times when you wish the filmmakers had given the thing a bit more edge.   Seeing the real-life participants in those final clips, you wonder what they thought of what had been done to their story, which is treated fairly light-heartedly throughout (even given the situation, and a suicide late in the piece).   Having to strip down to your underwear in the factory because it was so hot in the summertime, or putting up umbrellas in the winter because of the leaking roof has a certain humour, but the reality would have been much less pleasant.  And that horrible moment (it happens two or three times) when there's a loud switching-on noise, and all the sewing machines suddenly come to life and expect the women to get on, like it or not, is something that's just accepted.  The feeling of being chained to those sewing-machines is never explored.  Perhaps there's a different movie - a neo-realist one - waiting to be made.  In the meantime, we have The Full Monty version (which also had a suicide, as I recall, but still managed to remain a comedy) and on its own merits this is an enjoyable movie.  After all, every one of us likes to see the underdog biting the heels of the bullies and overlords (including, here, Richard Schiff as Ford's American pit bull terrier - sans his usual beard, and with a wig covering his normal baldness).  The fact that those nasty overlords can be really vicious is only hinted at.  The winners here - we know it all along - are the 187 women who went on strike.  (The only time they don't win - at least initially - is in relation to a bullying school teacher played by Andrew Lincoln; he has one scene and leaves the otherwise garrulous Sally Hawkins speechless.)

Hawkins isn't my favourite actress.  There's no doubt she has bundles of talent, and uses her oddly-shaped face to considerable advantage.   However, when I twigged where I'd seen her before, as Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-go-Lucky, and remembered how we nearly went mad watching the manic performance she gave there, it was hard to see her objectively in this movie.  Some of Poppy's endless twitches, giggles and wriggles appear in this role too, though they're toned down considerably.  This is a problem when an actor appears in a role that you dislike; it can be hard to see them clearly in any other part.  Danny de Vito is a case in point, for me; I don't know what film it was that I first saw him in, but it put me off him almost completely - plus the fact that he does tend to play obnoxious little men.  And yet when he appeared briefly in an interview recently (he'd been voicing the Spanish version of The Lorax), he came across as a genuine, humble man, one who's been married happily to his wife of many years.  A complete opposite to the (often venal) characters he usually plays.   When I think about what I've just said, my comments are further undercut by the part Bob Hoskins plays in Made in Dagenham: he's another actor who's played some roles that have set my teeth on edge; here he's just wonderful.  Redeems himself!  LOL.

There's a wonderful moment towards the end of the movie, when Miranda Richardson, playing the inimitable Barbara Castle (no mean promoter of women's rights herself) comments to Hawkins about the dress she's wearing, which the latter admits she has to return from on loan when she gets back.   Richardson mentions the 'label' - it's been commented on a couple of times before in the movie - and Hawkins says about Richardson's dress: Isn't that a C&A? C&A is the equivalent of Marks and Spencer's: good, solid workaday clothing, but hardly fashionable.  Richardson says it is: she gets all her clothes from there.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to DC shoes.  The only connection here is that they're an item of clothing.  I wondered when I first saw the name whether they were shoes that you wore if you were travelling to Washington DC, or were the kind of thing politicians would favour when trotting through the Capitol Building.  In fact the DC stands for Droors Clothing, a label that's no longer in existence, I'm told.

As you can see from the picture, you'd have to be a fairly unconventional US politician to wear these around the Senate, though they might be comfortable enough.

English and Irish

I've watched a couple of movies on TV lately: firstly Five Minutes of Heaven, and secondly, Happy-go-lucky. Let's look at that second movie first. It's directed by Mike Leigh, so naturally it's going to have some off-the-wall feel to it, it's going to be superbly cast, and superbly acted, and it's going to leave you thinking about it for some time after.

But it's also supremely annoying. I've just been looking at some of the reviews of this movie, in which Sally Hawkins plays Poppy, a woman in her thirties who jokes and laughs her way through everything, and who seems to have (to me) an instinct for not understanding how she's affecting other people (particularly those who aren't like her in any way). Hawkins is marvellous in the role, but it doesn't take long for you to feel there's something unlikeable about her. Have I been around gloomy people for too long, and can't stomach someone who's supposedly so full of life and so full of get up and go?

I don't think so. The reviewers all praise the film, and particularly Hawkins; few of them seem to think she would be unbearable to live with. (Her flatmate manages to do so, but she has done for ten years, and they have a longstanding friendship.) Poppy teaches at a primary school and does the job well; she's also fairly sensitive in a scene with a mildly deranged man she meets while out walking alone at night in what would appear to be a rather dangerous area. The rest of the time she rubs many people up the wrong way. Should they be so rubbed? Perhaps. The main one is Scott, played by Eddie Marsan. He's an exceptionally uptight driving instructor, with a most peculiar (but apparently successful) approach to teaching people to drive.

However, I had more sympathy for him than for Poppy. She's plain irritating as soon as she gets in his car, refuses to listen to him, goads him, provokes him and pretends a lack of concentration on the task in hand that drives him absolutely crazy (almost literally, in the end). He's not an especially pleasant character, but to me he doesn't deserve the treatment Poppy dishes out to him.

Nor does the bookshop owner we see briefly at the beginning. He's a morose man who plainly doesn't want to make small talk. Poppy insists on babbling on - it's almost as if she can't stop the endless joking and nonsense, as she demonstrates throughout the movie - and in the end you side with the man in wishing that she'd just leave the shop and leave him alone. Curiously enough, when she goes for a flamenco lesson with the principal of her school, while her eyes keep doing the goofy thing and her body language is still in joking mode, she actually keeps her mouth shut, mostly. The flamenco teacher is as neurotic as the driving instructor, and has a major blow-up in the middle of the lesson. Characters in Mike Leigh movies are never straightforward.

Finally Poppy meets a 'nice' bloke and it all seems to go well. He could still be in the picture after the movie has finished, as it were. But could any guy stand Poppy's nonsense for long? Or would she, having finally found a man who appreciates her, let her tongue have a rest? It's hard to think so.

Five Minutes of Heaven is the story of a Protestant Irishman (Liam Neeson) who, as a teenager, killed a Catholic youth in Belfast - and nearly killed his younger brother in the process. The younger brother is subsequently made to take the blame for the death - his mother insists on saying: You could have stopped it, which is plainly nonsense, but it eats into the boy's soul.

As middle-aged men the two are due to meet again via a TV programme. Neeson's character has done time for the murder, and spends his days warning the world about the perils of ideological thinking in teenage minds. Reconciliation is expected, but the surviving boy, now something of a perpetual nervous wreck (James Nesbitt plays him as though he's going to explode any minute) is just as likely to kill the other man in front of the cameras as forgive him.

The television filming is aborted, and Neeson and Nesbitt eventually find their own way through the mire, with a final violent confrontation. It's a serious, intense piece, with barely a moment of lightness in the intensity, and perhaps it's over the top in its own way (a number of reviewers have felt the ending is too contrived). I found it more satisfying to watch, however, than Poppy's endless gavorting...