Reviews

Films

In Bruges

Directed by Martin McDonagh, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy

Colin Farrell is back. He has brought his A-game to this cracking little comedy-noir written and directed by Martin McDonagh.

He is absolutely superb: moody and funny. He radiates the star-quality that once made him the world's It Boy, and will do again. He and Brendan Gleeson, who is also excellent, play Ray and Ken, a couple of Dublin hitmen who have been ordered by their paymaster Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to lie low and await - instructions - in Bruges. Their orders are simply to wander around and admire the lovely medieval architecture in Bruges.

For quite a lot of the time, the film shows these two moody tough guys having to mill aimlessly about, stupefied and exasperated beyond endurance by the simple, appalling fact that they are in Bruges. The city itself becomes a continuous, mute running gag, and as Ray and Ken snap at each other - McDonagh's whip-smart dialogue hints at Beckett, Tarantino, even Greene.

It soon becomes clear that their presence in this epicentre of northern European dullness has something to do with an earlier, catastrophically botched job and a terrible anguish that Ray is carrying in his heart. Martin McDonagh, an Oscar-winner for his short film Six-Shooter and already an accomplished and acclaimed stage dramatist with plays such as The Lieutenant of Inishmore, makes it all look very easy. Just by resentfully mooching about, his leading males are hilarious, tense, scary. And when the eruptions come, they are stunningly plausible. Theatre audiences have long relished McDonagh's brilliant combinations of the bizarre, macabre and tragicomic and it is very exhilarating to see him transfer this talent to the screen, and provide lip-smackingly satisfying roles for his actors. When Ray and Ken finally conclude that Bruges is not a shithole, after all, but a lovely city, secluded and unspoilt because it is marooned in the shithole country of Belgium, this mournful epiphany is hilariously rude and yet strangely moving.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Directed by Mike Leigh (pictured), starring Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman, Samuel Roukin

The 30-year-old Poppy (nee Pauline) Cross, the central character of Happy-Go-Lucky, is altogether more comfortable in her skin and we're introduced to her as she cycles merrily across London, smiling and waving as she goes, like Browning's Pippa. Cycling in movies has come to signify being at ease with yourself and when, at the end of this ride, her bike is stolen, there's no neorealistic Bicycle Thieves moment of despair or railing against society, just the acceptance that such things happen. Poppy shrugs and decides to take driving lessons and buy a car.

This is a film of endless little incidents and revelations taking place over a few weeks as Poppy goes about her life, teaching small children at a London primary school, sharing a flat in Finsbury Park with her closest friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), also a teacher, getting high with a bunch of chums after a visit to a rock venue and shopping at Camden Lock in north London. She's solicitous for her younger sisters (one pregnant and living with her husband at a seaside resort, the other a sociology student), dedicated to her pupils' welfare and constantly laughing, smiling and cheering everyone up.

There are two running crises in Poppy's life and they arise just when some viewers may be getting a little uneasy about her goodness. One is the discovery of a little boy bullying fellow pupils. The other crisis, and it's almost a film in itself, arises from the driving lessons she takes with the uptight Scott (a brilliant performance from Eddie Marsan). Scott is Poppy's polar opposite. The driving lessons become lessons about life. The smile is taken off Poppy's face, and she's forced to ponder what this crash course has taught her about society and the human psyche.

The Guardian

(China Daily 04/22/2008 page20)