Susanne Blier and Anders Thomas Jensen, \u00a0who have collaborated on such st\u0171rm and drang films as After the Wedding, In a Better World and Brothers, go the way of rom com with their new film Love is All You Need and don\u2019t do a half bad job of it.\u00a0 They take the basic approach to the genre as such entries as It Happened One Night in which two people not only have no intention of falling in love, they don\u2019t remotely want to, and of course, find themselves hopelessly attracted to each other.<\/p>\n
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Trine Dyrholm plays Ida, a woman who has undergone treatment for cancer and who has lost her hair.\u00a0 She comes home to discover her husband in flagrante delicto with his accountant just before they are to travel to Italy to see their daughter get married.\u00a0 Pierce Brosnan plays Philip, a man who has never forgiven the world for the death of his wife years earlier and has closed himself off emotionally from everyone (he lives in a frigid, minimalist building that looks like the inside of The Guggenheim sans the art); he\u2019s going to Italy to see his son get married.\u00a0 When Ida decides she doesn\u2019t want to really park in the disability space at the airport parking garage, she backs up and\u2026well, I think you can see where this is going.<\/p>\n
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For the most part, it\u2019s a charming film.\u00a0 \u00a0Dyrholm and Brosnan carry this somewhat traditional romance on their more than sturdy shoulders.\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing how loose and talented an actor Brosnan has become since he left Bond, James Bond behind (Daniel Craig, take note) and Dyrholm is radiant.\u00a0 And there\u2019s something absolutely wonderful about these two people who, having left love behind, find it thrust upon them, no matter how much they kick and scream to keep it at bay.\u00a0\u00a0 The ending may be obvious, but that doesn\u2019t stop the suspense from killing you.<\/p>\n
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At the same time, Blier and Jensen also only do a half good job of it.\u00a0 While Ida and Philip\u2019s story is delirious and transcendental at times, it is backed by the less than dramatically (or comically) satisfying sets of through lines that one often sees in farces where families gather together for holidays, funerals and weddings.\u00a0 This humor is mainly based on gauche people acting gauchely (and not that originally), though there is one major subplot that changes the course of human events that is telegraphed so obviously from the moment a secondary character appears, it\u2019s one of those \u201cif you didn\u2019t see this coming, you need to get out to the movies a bit more, or at least watch a few television series\u201d.\u00a0 This subplot is actually rather insulting to a certain minority class because it\u2019s not remotely believable and seems to come out of nowhere, only there not because it\u2019s true to the characters, but because the writers need an arbitrary plot turn to force the ending.<\/p>\n
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But we\u2019ll always have Ida and Philip.<\/p>\n
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Sightseers, the new import from director Ben Wheatley and written by Amy Jump and the movie\u2019s two stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, is also a rom com, though a bit darker in hue perhaps.\u00a0 Lowe plays Tina and Oram plays Chris, two misfits who go on a caravan trip to Chris\u2019s favorite tourist traps.\u00a0 They\u2019re young, they\u2019re in love, and they kill people.\u00a0\u00a0 But while Bonnie & Clyde goes somewhere and paints an indelible portrait and breathes new life into the man and woman gangster on the run genre, Sightseers doesn\u2019t quite rise to the occasion.<\/p>\n
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It starts out well with some sharp characterizations and piercing dialog.\u00a0 But after the first couple of killings, the movie sort of stops going anywhere, except to more and more, well, killings, and it all pretty much stays on the same level of tension.\u00a0 \u00a0Tina and Chris don\u2019t even change, not really.\u00a0 They\u2019re both as sociopathic at the end as they are from the beginning.\u00a0 Well, that might not be completely true.\u00a0 They do change in one way.\u00a0 As the two go one, they more and more begin to resemble a conservative\u2019s few of the working class: two losers who can only whine about not getting anywhere, painting themselves as victims and blaming everyone else for their own failures.\u00a0 In turn, the two take their frustrations out on the annoying and\/or petit bourgeoisie, and other vague representatives of the haves. \u00a0\u00a0But other than that, it all becomes a bit of a slog to get through.<\/p>\n
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Tell me what you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susanne Blier and Anders Thomas Jensen, \u00a0who have collaborated on such st\u0171rm and drang films as After the Wedding, In a Better World and Brothers, go the way of rom com with their new film Love is All You Need and don\u2019t do a half bad job of it.\u00a0 They take the basic approach to […]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[641,640,634,639,635,637,638,642,633,636],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alice-lowe","tag-amy-jump","tag-anders-thomas-jensen","tag-ben-wheatley","tag-love-is-all-you-need","tag-pierce-brosnan","tag-sightseers","tag-steve-oram","tag-susanne-blier","tag-trine-dyrholm"],"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/REAL-Short-Box-New-Logo-FINAL-scaled.jpg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"amazon":{"key":"amazon","url":"","label":"Amazon","class":"amazon","icon":"amazon.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/www.rumblespoon.com\/wp\/feed\/podcast\/the-real-short-box","embedCode":"
Movie Reviews of LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED and SIGHTSEERS by Howard Casner<\/a><\/blockquote>