Junkhearts
Screenplay: Simon Frank
Cast: Eddie Marsan, Candese Reid, Romola Garai, Tom Sturridge, Valerie Gogan, John Boyega, Chris Coghill
Directed by Tinge Krishnan
Directed by Tinge Krishnan
"Junkhearts"
is a psychological drama, tough going as a whole - but an outstanding debut
from director Tinge Krishnan. It's an almost unrelettingly gritty but accurate
portrayal of contemporary urban substance abuse and power manipulation and is
not for the weak at heart.
Frank (Eddie Marsan) is an ex-soldier form the Irish conflict, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and just about getting by on a diet of whisky and cigarettes, haunted by memories of the disastrous mission that aborted his military career. He finds homeless Lynette (Reid) sleeping rough outside his local off-licence and strives to give her not only shelter, but also return some self-respect into her jaded life. However, Lynette is not quite the down and out she professes to be, and when her boyfriend Danny (Sturridge) arrives on the scene, Frank spirals further out of control and further into humiliation and helplessness as the drug dealers take over his small flat.
Away from this scene of squalid degradation, Frank's grown-up daughter Christine (Garai) deals with her own cocaine habit, whilst being involved in a shallow affair with a married man and on the brink of financial ruin. The reconciliation of the two parallel existences is postponed until the final scene, which does endow the film with a rather fractured feel.
However, the acting is tremendous from all involved. Marsan finally gets a role he can really sink his teeth into, Sturridge is excellent too and Candese Reid packs a real punch in her debut performance. As Romola Garai is always a superb onscreen presence, the long hiatus in her tale seems a slight waste - of talent as well as plot. To balance Frank's story with more of hers might have brought more coherence to the piece as a whole and more poignancy to its resolution.
But this perhaps is also due to the unremittingly brutal nature of Frank's journey - manipulated and mocked, he is brought so low that before the end it was almost impossible to watch him endure yet another horrible betrayal by the girl he sought to save.
The redemptive end is heartfelt and comes as something of a relief - Krishnan does not leave her characters untouched by the process - but it in no way diminishes the harrowing experiences that got them there.
Vicious, visceral and real, Junkhearts is a powerful and affecting work - and if you can take it - it's well worth the experience.
Frank (Eddie Marsan) is an ex-soldier form the Irish conflict, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and just about getting by on a diet of whisky and cigarettes, haunted by memories of the disastrous mission that aborted his military career. He finds homeless Lynette (Reid) sleeping rough outside his local off-licence and strives to give her not only shelter, but also return some self-respect into her jaded life. However, Lynette is not quite the down and out she professes to be, and when her boyfriend Danny (Sturridge) arrives on the scene, Frank spirals further out of control and further into humiliation and helplessness as the drug dealers take over his small flat.
Away from this scene of squalid degradation, Frank's grown-up daughter Christine (Garai) deals with her own cocaine habit, whilst being involved in a shallow affair with a married man and on the brink of financial ruin. The reconciliation of the two parallel existences is postponed until the final scene, which does endow the film with a rather fractured feel.
However, the acting is tremendous from all involved. Marsan finally gets a role he can really sink his teeth into, Sturridge is excellent too and Candese Reid packs a real punch in her debut performance. As Romola Garai is always a superb onscreen presence, the long hiatus in her tale seems a slight waste - of talent as well as plot. To balance Frank's story with more of hers might have brought more coherence to the piece as a whole and more poignancy to its resolution.
But this perhaps is also due to the unremittingly brutal nature of Frank's journey - manipulated and mocked, he is brought so low that before the end it was almost impossible to watch him endure yet another horrible betrayal by the girl he sought to save.
The redemptive end is heartfelt and comes as something of a relief - Krishnan does not leave her characters untouched by the process - but it in no way diminishes the harrowing experiences that got them there.
Vicious, visceral and real, Junkhearts is a powerful and affecting work - and if you can take it - it's well worth the experience.
Warrior
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom
Hardy, Nick Nolte,
Jennifer Morrison
Jennifer Morrison
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Running time: 140 minutes
In order for a sports film to become transcendent, it must seamlessly blend the emotion and physicality of the sport with the heart and soul of the athletes themselves. I'm unsure whether it’s possible to provide thoughtful analysis of something as grounded in clichés as sport without delving into the metaphorical. Few sport films accomplish this, choosing to focus too much on either the person or the event and failing to enthrall the viewer. In reality, such a film must make us love or hate the athlete so much so that we carry our emotions into the competition, creating an actual rooting interest in a decidedly unreal event.Rocky is such a film. Raging Bull is such a film. The Wrestler is such a film. And Warrior is such a film. Taken at face value, it almost seems unlikely that Warrior would be such a thing. Brendan (Joe Edgerton) is a kindhearted family man with ubiquitously bad luck – the cliché extends to his profession, a school teacher, which is amongst the most thankless of careers. Tommy (Tom Hardy) is an off-his-chump ex-marine seeking fame and fortune (or, perhaps, fortune and glory). And Paddy (Nick Nolte) is a reformed drunk, several years sober, trying to make amends for his years as an absentee father. To top it off, Brendan and Tommy are brothers, and Paddy is their father. Of course, watching any film requires the viewer to look past the conventions of the medium and pay closer heed to the execution.
A key strength in Warrior lies in its editing and pacing. There isn’t a scene or moment that feels wasted, nor is there anything that I would qualify as filler. The plot unfolds in a steady, slow-burn fashion, gradually drawing us more and more into the heart of Brendan and Tommy’s struggles. Everything feels important, and nothing appears superfluous. Without giving too much away, in Warrior the fighting is both brutal and extremely well-shot. The ferocious nature of mixed martial arts is captured perfectly with respect to sight and sound, and director Gary O’Connor chooses to let the fighting speak for itself (as opposed to utilising the eternally clichéd obnoxious slow-motion or something of the sort).
The writing itself though does fall prey to some of the predictable conventions of sports films, but Warrior doesn’t really suffer too much as a result. The scenario is somewhat far-fetched, at least in a pragmatic sense, yet the actions of the characters captivate the cinemagoer and maintain an air of believability. Additionally, the characters themselves feel real – flawed and likeable – and it would be difficult for them to do so without a well-written script. However - the greatest strength of the film is its acting.
Edgerton does border on the slightly implausible, with his frame and demeanour barely conducive to the almost feral nature of his fighting endeavours, while Hardy who was astonishing in Bronson and latterly in The Dark Knight Rises and Lawless, impressed me immensely, as he breaks away superbly from his role in Bronson despite the existence of similar characterisations. Nolte, who had essentially been reduced to a joke in recent years, has never been better, none more so than in the scene where his errant son Tommy finally embraces him when he succumbs, after over 1000 days of abstinence, to the lure of the bottle. The peripheral characters, none of whom are given an especially large role, do well in whatever time they are given.
In short, this is a very straightforward film. There are no twists and turns, no gimmicks, and few viewers will be shocked by the almost inevitable outcome.
Instead, Warrior is an honest, heartfelt film that may well have you reeling with each blow, and emotionally attached to its protagonists.
