It’s been almost a month since the 60^th BFI London Film Festival kicked off its 12 days of cinematic glory. After splurging on 15 screenings and one Screen Talk, this is my first Throwback Thursday segment to shine a spotlight on the incredible selection I got to see. 

Free Fire

Dir. Ben Wheatley, with Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley, Sharlto Copley, and Sam Riley

I have been a fan of Ben Wheatley ever since Kill List (2011) left us all in shock and awe at Film4 FrightFest 2011. Then came the dark comedy Sightseers (2012), starring a personal favourite of mine, Alice Lowe. However, this time, an international cast is thrown together inside a derelict Boston warehouse in 1978 and all hell breaks loose in a gunfight to rival Sam Peckinpah.

The sharp-witted dialogue is all there, naturally from Michael Smiley (he’ll always be Tyres who can find a raving beat from a kettle to a traffic light in Spaced to me). When it comes to Sharlto Copley, I’m a bit unsure – perhaps because he has frequently played a wholly unlikeable villain. However, as the fashion-focused, Saville Row suit wearing arms dealer Vernon, Copley was the funniest criminal out of the melange of misfits. Once again, Brie Larson shines and commands our attention as the only actress in the cast of men. She is sassy, level-headed, resilient, and can be pragmatically cut-throat – even when she’s dragging herself along the floor with a bullet in her leg. Then there’s Armie Hammer; ridiculed by Smiley for his American arrogance and handsome appearance. He is ridiculously handsome. I have a thing for beards.

Just like the relentless gunfire, I never gave up checking for any re-released seats to become available at the Closing Night Gala screening. Lucky for me, a perfectly placed seat in the middle of the Embankment Gardens cinema became vacant the day before and I nabbed it. It may have been one of the most expensive tickets I paid for but it was totally worth it to see the action-comedy ahead of its national UK release. An added bonus was witnessing Wheatley and Copley joking around for an unexpected introduction in person, as opposed to a live video link from the Leicester Square premiere that we were originally promised.

Lion

Dir. Garth Davis, with Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, and Sunny Pawar.

Like Isabelle Huppert, Rooney Mara was the queen of the festival. While Huppert appeared in two films at the LFF, Mara starred in three: Una (opposite Ben Mendelsohn), Jim Sheridan’s The Secret Scripture (which I didn’t get to see because of a South West Trains issue), and Lion – possibly the best appraisal for Google Earth that the app has ever received!

As much as I praise Rooney Mara, Dev Patel is the true star of the film, along with Sunny Pawar; the incredible boy that plays young Saroo for the first half of the running time. Starting out in the rural village of Khandwa, young Saroo idolises his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate). One night, after pleading to tag along while Guddu finds work, Saroo finds himself alone and whisked away on a terrifying train journey to Calcutta. His nightmare comprises of ominous men grabbing children sleeping rough in underpasses and getting lured by strangers who want to take advantage of his youth; before ending up in an orphanage. Nicole Kidman and David Wenham are the Brierley couple that adopts Saroo and introduces him to a new life in Hobart, in Tasmania, Australia. It’s not until he grows into a strapping Dev Patel that Saroo is compelled to locate his biological family; haunted by his brother Guddu and obsessing over the “new” Google Earth tracking app.

By the end of Saroo’s journey, I was in tears. I could peripherally see the people sat either side of me wiping their eyes many times so it wasn’t just me. At the climax, we finally find out that Saroo has been articulating things wrong, due to his age. The reason he has not been able to find his hometown is because he has been mispronouncing the place Ganesh Tilai Khandwa incorrectly, as well as the meaning behind the title of the film, his name. Sheru, the correct pronunciation of Saroo, meaning Lion.

A Monster Calls

Dir. J.A. Bayona, with Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, and Liam Neeson.

I have to honest, I was expecting to be an emotional wreck after the reviews from TIFF and because I wept uncontrollably at J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible (2012). While I did find parts tearfully sad – mainly the touching moments that Grandmother (a British sounding Sigourney Weaver) shared with grandson Conor (Lewis MacDougall), but I was more taken with how the narrative seemed like a fantastical metaphor for dealing with loss.

A Monster Calls reminds me a little of Let the Right One In. Not for the horror theme or the creepy grooming of a castrated child-demon, no. The twisted mesh of reality and the supernatural, led by an introverted boy that straddles the two planes. Conor is a troubled boy; he doesn’t sleep well, he is being bullied by a too-pretty-to-be-scary kid at school (but somehow manages to pull it off with some psychotic threats), and Mum (Felicity Jones) is struggling with cancer treatment. One night, a tree from the hilltop cemetery pulls up its roots and trundles to bellow a series of stories, in order to educate Conor with enigmatic analogies. Each story bears a significant moral to encode, with Conor’s crippling fear as the final true story to be told. I really like how the fables are animated as the Monster narrates; drawn in a beautifully Grimm Fairy-tale flair.

As the bittersweet end approaches, the mysterious locked door at Grandmother’s house is revealed to be the bedroom that once belonged to Conor’s mother. Here, Conor is told his new room is ready and enters to examine his mother’s childhood belongings, including her sketchbook. Conor’s artistic talents derive from her and we understand that the Monster is a spectre that has also been passed on from her life. An old photograph of Liam Neeson is subtly glanced over and if we link this to the actor’s voice of the Monster, then Conor has been guided by what we can decipher as his grandfather or great-grandfather – some distant but magically spirited relation in a creative context.

Sadly, just as I missed seeing Sigourney at FanExpoCanada 2016 because she cancelled, the second showing of A Monster Calls did not include an appearance from the incredible actress. I waited until after the end credits. She didn’t come. I think that was the melancholiest moment for me.

Their Finest

Dir. Lone Scherfig, with Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Richard E. Grant, Jake Lacy, Helen McCrory, Rachael Sterling, Jack Huston, and Eddie Marsan.

I’ve forgiven Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig after she scarred me with the ultra-violence of A Clockwork Orange, private school education in Riot Club (2014). Instead of the privileged, upper-class terrorism of teenage delinquents, Gemma Arterton takes the lead as a copywriter-cum-screenwriter for propaganda films during the Blitz. As a copywriter and wannabe screenwriter myself, this was a natural BFI LFF pick!

Gemma Arterton takes the lead as Catrin Cole in an adaptation of Lissa Evans’ novel Their Finest Hour and a Half (with the author making a cameo as a make-up artist on the set within a set). The film may be a period piece, however, it touches on an important and relevant topic today: women striving for gender equality in the workplace. Catrin is ambitious and has the verve to go far in her writing profession but, due to her sex, she is not taken seriously. This only makes the blokes look a bit stupid in the long-term, as they inevitably act flabbergasted and are forced to concede that Catrin knows best. When she pitches an embellished story of pride (twin sisters that allegedly saved wounded soldiers from Normandy by bringing them back to England in their tug-boat), Catrin’s future in filmmaking begins to take off.

Their Finest combines the comedy of the era that we are accustomed to seeing in classic British black-and-white films. It even opens with a snippet of stock footage from the BFI vaults with a genuine propaganda film depicting female workers in one of many munition factories. From then on, we are treated to plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, namely from the distinguished and bombastically precious talent of Ambrose Hilliard (also credited as “Uncle Frank”), played by Bill Nighy on top form. Other than being enchanted by Arterton’s beauty on screen, Their Finest is unique in its tone: one minute we can be laughing at the caricature antics of Ambrose; then after a beat we are mortified by a tragic death that we didn’t expect. The Best of British cast (plus the all-American war hero of Jake Lacy) includes Rachael Sterling as Phyl Moore; demonstrating a powerful LGBT presence in the production.

Scherfig and producer Stephen Woolley delighted us with an introduction and post-screening Q&A. Woolley hailed Scherfig to be one of the greatest directors to work with as all of the cast and crew respected her vision and overall friendliness. Plus Scherfig loves working in the UK and gets our Scandinavian like sense of humour.

Next up: Part 2: Strand Galas, Screen Talks & Special Presentations, including The Handmaiden plus the director’s Screen Talk with Park Chan-wook, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, and Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World…