About Time

We flew in from Auckland on Wednesday, arriving about 4.30 and after about five minutes at home and absolute craziness from the dog, found ourselves going out again, to the movies.  Our daughter had won a couple of seats, courtesy of More FM, to a preview of About Time.  Written and directed by the New Zealand-born Richard Curtis (Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral) this is a wacky romantic comedy that, for the most part, holds its peculiar time travel idea together without losing credibility (at least while you're watching the movie, which is all that's important).  Curtis is supported by a wonderful cast, with one of Brendan Gleeson's sons, Domhnall, in the main role, and Rachel McAdams as his girlfriend. Bill Nighy plays the hero's father, with that wonderful dryness and seeming vagueness that he's so good at. And a great deal of warmth, because this isn't just a romantic movie, but one about fathers and sons, and their relationships, and about what happens when death begins to knock. There are a host of other excellent actors, including Tom Hollander as a bitter and foul-mouthed playwright, and brief and uncredited performances by Richard E Grant and Richard Griffiths as two actors in Hollander's play.

The script is a little loose in structure, but this may in part be the result of its telling the story of a man as he grows from his late school years into married adulthood, where he becomes a father himself. There are times when the time travel aspect seems to be put aside while other things move on, but just when you think Curtis has forgotten about it, he drops it into the story again and reshuffles the plot. At times it seems as though Curtis has given himself too many characters to play around with, but he seems to manage to juggle most of them pretty well.  Only Harry Hadden-Paton, as one of Gleeson's slightly dopey friends, and Richard Cordery, as an uncle given to seemingly Alzheimer's laden non sequiturs, seem never quite to fit into the whole scheme of things. Nevertheless, t
here are plenty of witty lines, lots of adept comedy playing, and some unexpectedly emotional moments.

Notes on a Scandal

Just watched Notes on a Scandal, with Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, and Andrew Simpson. Superb cast, oddball story; very intense, and rich in character detail. Both Dench and Blanchett get plenty of room to draw their characters to the max, the former showing her constant conniving on her face often without saying a word, the latter playing a woman who's foolish, and surprisingly naive. Not only does she have an affair with a 15-year-old pupil (scarily played by Simpson, who was only 17 or 18 when the film was made), but she fails to see how Dench's character is in no way a friend, but only gives the appearance of a friend. Many actresses could have made the character a total fool; Blanchett manages to convince us that this woman's behaviour is possible, and believable.

Dench has often been scary - as M for instance - but this must be Dench at her most subtly vicious. Even her Lady Macbeth from the late 70s isn't a patch on this. And she's allowed herself to be quite ugly, and almost nondescript. The sort of little old(er) lady you'd see pulling along her shopping cart in the supermarket.

In the story Dench is a near-to-retirement teacher who befriends the new art teacher (played by Blanchett) at a large comprehensive school. We gradually learn that Dench has designs for more than friendship and when she discovers Blanchett is having an affair with the pupil, she tells Blanchett that she knows about it, but that she'll keep it secret. Of course, it's a secret she can use against Blanchett in due course, when the latter doesn't play her game. Dench's character narrates a good deal of the story - she writes everything in her diary - and her cyncism about other people, and her sheer callousness (even about Blanchett's Downs Syndrome son) is overwhelming.

Not the most attractive group of characters, but absorbing all the same.