Tag: abuse

The Card Counter

Director – Paul Schrader – 2021 – US – Cert. 15 – 112m

**1/2

Tormented by internal demons relating to his activities in Abu Ghraib, for which he’s served a prison sentence, a card player bides his time on the professional gambling circuit – out in cinemas on Friday, November 5th

I’m an enormous admirer of Paul Schrader as critic, screenwriter and director. I could go through the component parts of this film and extol the virtues of most of them. And yet, somehow, adding all these elements together the end result here is less than satisfying. I left the preview theatre in shock trying to understand what had gone wrong. Was it the film or was it me?

You could have guessed it was Schrader directing one of his own screenplays from the opening shots. In American Gigolo (1980), it’s various angles on the gigolo’s car. In First Reformed (2017) , it’s various angles on the pastor’s church building. Here, it’s various angles on the card counter’s cards spread out on the green beige surface of a playing table.

Self-styled William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is travelling round the US making money from card games having taught himself to read cards whilst in military prison (the USDB in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas – it’s namechecked but not explained in the film and I had to look it up).… Read the rest

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Support The Girls

Director – Andrew Bujalski – 2018 – US – Cert. 15 – 93m

*****

The general manager of the Double Whammies sports bar must contend with all human life in the course of a particularly trying day – now on BFI Player

General manager Lisa (Regina Hall) unlocks the premises for another day’s work at the Double Whammies sports bar. Maci (Haley Lu Richardson) tells Lisa there’s a strange banging sound coming from the room with the safe. Maybe a trapped possum? Lisa will investigate. Meanwhile, though, she’s got to interview some young women for waitress posts. And she needs to get Danyelle (Shayna McHayle) to sweet talk Jay (John Elvis) from Sounds Town into lending them a sound system for tonight’s big fight on cable. On top of that, she’s running a car wash fundraiser under the moniker “Support The Girls” to help out Shaina (Jana Kramer) who’s in trouble.

Welcome to the world of Double Whammies. It’s an essay on boundaries. Lisa continually refers to Double Whammies as a “family place” and the institution walks a fine line between bare-midriffed young women in skimpy tops sporting curves and cleavage bearing the words “Double Whammies” and something altogether far dirtier.… Read the rest

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The Mauritanian

Director – Kevin Macdonald – 2021 – UK – Cert. 15 – 129m

****

A pro bono lawyer defends a post-9/11 terrorist suspect in Guantánamo Bay against his US Army prosecutor – plays Curzon Home Cinema rental from Monday, October 4th

Based on a true story, this kicks off in Mauritania, North West Africa in November 2001 – as a title tells us, two months after 9/11. Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim) walks on a beach then attends a Muslim wedding in Mauritania, to which he’s returned after living in abroad in Germany. During the celebrations, two local cops turn up and want him to come for questioning about his brother, whose current whereabouts he reminds them he doesn’t know. “The Americans are going crazy since the attacks two months ago,” they tell him. Momentarily alone, changing out of celebratory robes into something more casual, he erases his mobile phone contacts before agreeing to go with them.

Three years later, New Mexico law firm partner Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) learns of his disappearance and that the story has just broken in Der Spiegel that Slahi is currently allegedly being detained in Guantánamo Bay as “one of the organisers of 9/11”. The US government has recently stated that inmates have the right of ‘habeas corpus’ – if the evidence against them isn’t deemed sufficient to hold them in detention, they should be released.… Read the rest

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Herself

Director – Phyllida Lloyd – 2020 – UK/Ireland – Cert. 15 – 97m

****

A woman leaves her abusive and violent husband and builds a new home for herself and her two young daughters – in UK cinemas from Friday, September 10th

Things come to a head in the marriage of Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson) and Sandra (Clare Dunne, also co-screenwriter) when he violently assaults her and stamps on her hand, an incident witnessed by their younger daughter Molly (Molly McCann). Sandra has trained her kids well for such a situation and the eldest Emma (Ruby Rose O’Hara) knows what to do, rushing to the local shopkeeper with a lunch box inside the lid of which is the family address to give to the Garda.

Like her mother before her, Sandra works as a cleaner to retired and physically disabled local doctor Peggy O’Toole (Harriet Walter). To make ends meet, Sandra also works in a local pub as a barmaid alongside Amy (Ericka Roe) who lives in a nearby squat. After separating from Gary, she and he have joint custody of the kids while the council put her and her kids up in temporary accommodation in a hotel room.

As it’s four years on the housing list to get a home, Sandra investigates other alternatives and, surreptitiously using Peggy’s internet, discovers that she could build a house for only slightly more than a year’s rent to the council.… Read the rest

Tags abuse, abusive marriage, bar work, barmaid, box-ticking, build, build a home, build a house, builder, building, building site, Cathy Belton, children, Clare Dunne, cleaner, cleaning, Conleth Hill, custody, decent home, disabled, doctor, domestic violence, Dublin, emergency, family, family court, female empowerment, government policy, Harriet Walter, home, house, housebuilding, housing need, husbands and wives, Ian Lloyd Anderson, injury, innovation, Ireland, jobs, local authority, Molly McCann, multiple jobs, parents and children, Phyllida Lloyd, physical assault, pub, retired, Ruby Rose O’Hara, school, self-help, separation, single mum, single parent, single parent family, social welfare system, temporary accommodation, two jobs, UK, welfare system, work

Features Live Action Movies

Herself

A house of her own

Herself
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Certificate 15, 97 minutes
Released 10 September

Herself has a brutal opening in which Sandra (Clare Dunne), a mother of two girls in Dublin, is physically assaulted by her husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), an incident witnessed by her youngest daughter, Molly (Molly McCann), while her eldest, Emma (Ruby Rose O’Hara), races across the estate to the local shop to deliver a pre-written emergency message.

From here, it becomes a tale about a single mum’s struggle to find a decent home for her and her kids in the face of a social welfare system that can’t cope with either the level of need or any innovation through which people try to legitimately help themselves… [Read more]

Full review published in Reform.

See my alternative review of the film here.

Trailer:

Tags abuse, abusive marriage, bar work, barmaid, box-ticking, build, build a home, build a house, builder, building, building site, Cathy Belton, children, Clare Dunne, cleaner, cleaning, Conleth Hill, custody, decent home, disabled, doctor, domestic violence, Dublin, emergency, family, family court, female empowerment, government policy, Harriet Walter, home, house, housebuilding, housing need, husbands and wives, Ian Lloyd Anderson, injury, innovation, Ireland, jobs, local authority, Molly McCann, multiple jobs, parents and children, Phyllida Lloyd, physical assault, pub, retired, Ruby Rose O’Hara, school, self-help, separation, single mum, single parent, single parent family, social welfare system, temporary accommodation, two jobs, UK, welfare system, work

Animation Movies Shorts

Drive
(Pulsión)

Director – Pedro Casavecchia – 2019 – Argentina – 7m

*****

A series of disturbing vignettes brings to mind work by Lars von Trier, the Brothers Quay, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch – available to watch on YouTube (see below) from Wednesday, September 1st 2021

This Argentinan short, although computer generated, has the feel of stop-motion. It brings to mind work by Lars von Trier, the Brothers Quay, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. A narrative conveyed by a series of disturbing vignettes (think: the opening minutes of Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011) is put together with the same kind of fastidious technical attention to detail you find in the Quay Brothers’ films. A couple of scenes borrow directly from one of the murders in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), but in a clever way that shocks you much as those scenes in Psycho originally did. There’s a Lynchian feel about the whole thing – not just in the strange, quasi-industrial sounds recalling Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977) or the weird lighting and heavily controlled mise-en-scène, but also in the overall feel of strange and terrible things happening within families and local communities, people adrift within the darkness of human existence.

One single viewing is not enough for this film which really only reveals itself on repeated viewings.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Custody
(Jusqu’à La Garde)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 March 2021
No Comments on Custody
(Jusqu’à La Garde)

The Pain Of Separation

Custody

Directed by Xavier Legrand.

Certificate 15, 93 minutes

Released 13 April 2018

Husband Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and wife Miriam (Léa Drucker), whose marriage has fallen apart, attend a custody hearing regarding their son Julien (Thomas Gioria) who is 11. Their daughter Joséphine (Mathilde Auneveux) being almost 18 will soon be considered an adult under French law and is therefore legally regarded as able to take care of herself.

Antoine wants custody so he can look after and spend time with Julien at weekends. Miriam doesn’t want to grant him this. She wants as little to do with Antoine as possible. Each partner makes accusations against the other. As the judge says, it’s a question of who is telling the bigger lies. But the judge must make her decision based on this brief hearing. So Antoine will be allowed custody at weekends… [Read more]

Full review published in Reform magazine, 2018.

Trailer:

Tags abuse, accusations, bad father, custody, custody hearing, Denis Ménochet, family court, France, husbands and wives, judge, Léa Drucker, lie, marriage, parents and children, separation, Thomas Gioria, thriller, violence, Xavier Legrand