Melbourne film listings

New release

BROKEN
(87 minutes) MA
★★★

Rufus Norris' Broken is a version of To Kill a Mockingbird, set in a suburban English cul-de-sac. It is adapted from a novel explicitly inspired by Harper Lee's novel, but it creates its own world without feeling indebted to its source. And its young central character, Skunk (Eloise Laurence), is as strong and vulnerable and independent as Mockingbird's Scout Finch. Norris, a stage director making his film debut, gives Broken a bleak context, but a yearning, blurred, playful visual style. He conjures up love and violence, fractured families and flawed intentions, in a film framed by dream narratives that bear a close relationship to moments in the real world and express emotional truths. Some events take place out of sequence, so that a lead-up to incidents of brutality happen after the violence erupts. There's a sense that the worst often happens, combined with an element of cautious optimism. PH

Selected

THE CALL
(94 minutes) MA
★★☆

Brad Anderson's The Call is an odd kind of patchwork that starts out as a suspenseful thriller but lurches into lurid exploitation-lite. Halle Berry plays Jordan, an experienced 911 operator determined to see one particular case through to the end - the rescue of Casey (Abigail Breslin), who has been kidnapped at a mall and stashed in a car boot, and who spends most of the rest of the film sobbing and screaming. She has a mobile phone with her, however. There are some neat twists in the story as emergency services frantically try to track down the victim, Jordan learns that the kidnapper is not a stranger to her, and the suspense and violence escalate in fairly convincing fashion. But when she decides to leave her post and try to become a rescuer, the film dissolves into absurdity and loses all of its hard-earned conviction. PH

Selected

EVIL DEAD
(91 minutes) R
★★

The original The Evil Dead was a shocker for many viewers in 1981, but today, it seems mainly an expression of high spirits and a calling card for its director, Sam Raimi. Produced by Raimi and directed by newcomer Fede Alvarez, this mediocre remake is conceived as a money-spinner and a thank-you note to long-term fans. All the memorable moments of the original are rehashed, while the revisions to the script are mostly improvements: the college-age characters who gather at a cabin in the woods are now there in support of Mia (Jane Levy), who's trying to get off drugs. There's even the hint of an actual theme, but the notion gets lost in a welter of mutilation and death, adequately choreographed but scary only in the manner of a funfair haunted house. JW

Cinema Nova

A PLACE FOR ME
(97 minutes) MA
★★☆

Writer-director Josh Boone's debut feature is a romantic-comedy-drama about writers gone awry, generations at odds and different notions of love. It's a world in which writing is presented as a kind of family business, a matter of connection and influence as well as ability. A well-known author, William Borgens (Greg Kinnear), is still pining for his former wife, Erica (Jennifer Connelly). Their children, who are both aspiring writers nurtured by their father, have contrasting attitudes towards relationships: college student Samantha (Lily Collins) prefers casual hook-ups with young men she can contemptuously discard; high schooler Rusty (Nat Wolff) has a romantic crush on a girl in his English class (Liana Liberato) who turns out to be more troubled than he realised. Boone handles his characters lightly and sympathetically, but seems to assume that they are universally appealing: he glosses over cliche and compromise a little too easily. PH

Selected

SNITCH
(112 minutes) M
★★

Is it possible to make a socially conscious docudrama that doubles as an action thriller? Writer-director Ric Roman Waugh doesn't quite pull off this feat in Snitch, a supposed true story starring the hulking Dwayne Johnson as an unlikely regular guy. The message is that mandatory sentencing laws impose unduly harsh penalties on first-time drug offenders, such as teenager Jason (Rafi Gavron), whose father, John, played by Johnson, is willing to do whatever it takes to reduce his son's sentence, including going undercover to nail some real villains. The premise could have been an excuse to show Johnson dishing out violent justice, but it soon becomes clear that John is no superman, either physically or morally. Though Waugh seems keen to avoid emotional confusion, Snitch remains intriguingly divided - suggesting that not every problem can be solved by a lone hero willing to take a stand. JW

General

TABU
(113 minutes) MA
★★★☆

Set in present-day Lisbon, the first half of Miguel Gomes' mannered but often exquisite puzzle focuses on Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a middle-aged social activist who reaches out to Aurora (Laura Soveral), an elderly neighbour with a gambling problem. Eventually, Pilar tracks down Aurora's former lover, Gian-Luca Ventura (Henrique Espirito Santo), who knew her in her adventurous African youth; the story of their passionate long-ago affair is told without dialogue, through music, ambient sounds and voice-over. A range of meanings are suggested by the tension between the film's two sections - for instance, the gap between Pilar's social conscience and the lovers' indifference to the colonial society around them. In its tricky, ambivalent fashion, Tabu betrays a nostalgia not for the reality of colonialism, but for the old dream of the exotic and primitive - which has nowadays lost its innocence and can only be indulged in the most slyly retro terms. JW

Selected

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Now showing

THE BIG WEDDING
(89 minutes) MA
★★☆

Justin Zackham's feature is an odd mixture of raunch and coyness, a comedy of wedding preparations that feature an act of deception whose necessity is never convincingly established. The groom's adoptive parents (Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton), who have been divorced for a long time, pretend to be a couple to placate his conservative birth mother. Alongside the marital masquerade are some contrasting subplots: the figure of the groom's elder brother, a doctor and a virgin (Topher Grace), is pretty much played for laughs, while his sister (Katherine Heigl), whose relationship is falling apart, is living in the world of melodrama. The bride's racist parents (Christine Ebersole and David Rasche) are pure caricature, while Robin Williams is surprisingly restrained as an officious priest. But it's all pretty heavy-handed and obvious, and the actors struggle to enliven it: even the final wedding sequence feels like an empty shell, inhabited by extras rather than guests. Only De Niro and Susan Sarandon, as his current partner, bring any energy and commitment to their characters - they don't have much to work with, but they give it their best shot. PH

General release

CAMILLE REWINDS
(110 minutes) M
★★★☆

French actor, writer and director Noemie Lvovsky is a protean talent with an almost chameleon quality as a performer. In Camille Rewinds, which she co-wrote, directed and starred in, she gives herself an additional challenge. It's a story of second chances, in which she appears not only as the unhappy, resentful title character, but also as her teenage incarnation. At a New Year's Eve party, where she has briefly shared a moment of 1980s nostalgia, Camille finds herself back in her own past, a schoolgirl once more. Camille Rewinds is a comedy, yet it has its poignant moments, as Camille seeks not only to re-examine her relationship with her estranged husband, but also to change the circumstances that led to the death of her mother. It's a film of good-natured warmth, melancholy recognitions, shifting rhythms and surprises, clever narrative twists and turns. And there's a lovely cameo from Jean-Pierre Leaud, as a watchmaker whose offbeat wisdom makes him a kind of guardian angel of time travel. PH

Selected release

CLOUD ATLAS
(172 min) MA
★★★

CO-DIRECTED by the Wachowski siblings (who gave us The Matrix) and Germany's Tom Tykwer this zany epic alternates between six separate stories, set in different historical periods, about the battle for love and freedom. Many actors appear in multiple roles, with heavy make-up sometimes used to alter their race or gender; it's a lumbering machine that fails to soar to the skies, but a film that so boldly risks incoherence requires the viewer to take a leap, too. JW

Selected release

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
(122 min) M
★★☆

No one would think of Robert Redford as any kind of radical, but this uneven manhunt thriller proves to be a study of the legacy of the New Left. When a former militant (Susan Sarandon) turns herself in for her long-ago involvement in a politically motivated bank heist, the case attracts the interest of a cocky reporter (Shia LaBeouf), who soon learns the secret identity of another apparent culprit, played by Redford himself. But Redford's ruggedly decent screen personality makes his character's innocence a moral certainty, nor is there much question about where the film stands on the issue of violent revolt against the state. Despite an occasional penchant for obvious visual symbolism, Redford is mostly an actors' director, at his best with straightforward one-on-one dialogue scenes: Sarandon is especially galvanising as a woman whose intensely focused self-presentation wavers just enough to show the layers of vulnerability and genuine steel beneath. JW

Selected release

THE CROODS
(98 minutes) PG
★★☆

After their canyon is destroyed by an earthquake, a fearful family of cave people set out on an arduous journey to find a new home, accompanied by a young, inventive stranger (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who threatens to take over as the alpha male of the group. Directed by the team of Kirk di Micco and Chris Sanders, this digitally animated comedy is somewhat more alarming than the common run of family entertainment, filled with roller-coaster chase sequences and dramatic vistas that make spectacular use of 3D. For children, the animals will be the main attraction, especially an affectionate little sloth who might well be the prototype for the next Tickle-Me Elmo. Adults may be struck by the effort to combine a progressive message with traditional family values: even in a prehistoric setting, it's odd to see a ''strong'' female character (Emma Stone) whose role, in essence, is to be passed from one man to another. JW

General release

FIRST POSITION
(94 minutes) G
★★★☆

Bess Kargman's engaging documentary is set in the world of classical ballet, and it takes place within the setting of a major American competition for young performers, for which the reward can be a scholarship or admission to a leading dance company. But the event is not the be-all and end-all of the film: Kargman doesn't milk its various stages for drama and tension. She is more intent on showing us the lives and talents of of half a dozen young dancers who come from very different backgrounds. They are dedicated, some almost unnervingly so. They range in age from 10 to 17. They have the support of their families, although it is expressed in different ways. Kargman does not over-emphasise the demands these children face, but she doesn't really need to. It is clear enough - and so is their talent. PH

Selected release

HAUTE CUISINE
(91 minutes) M
★★★

Based on the experiences of Daniele Delpeuch, who cooked for French president Francois Mitterrand, Haute Cuisine has an interesting premise that never really finds itself a narrative. It begins in Antarctica, where chef Hortense Laborie (the ever-reliable Catherine Frot) is bringing culinary excellence to grateful scientists. It then takes us back to her life in the spotlight as a regional chef who specialises in traditional cooking who is head-hunted by the Elysee Palace when the new president expresses a desire for the tastes of his childhood. She is appointed his private cook, but the incumbents in the kitchens ensure she feels unwelcome. She must find solace in doing her job well - and sharing her focus on traditional ingredients and ways of cooking seems to be the main point of the film. PH

Selected release

THE HUNT
(116 minutes) MA
★★☆

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has calmed down since the heyday of the Dogme '95 manifesto, remaining a skilful storyteller, though not an especially distinctive one. His latest tells the story of Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a divorced small-town kindergarten teacher whose life falls apart when he is falsely assumed to have molested five-year-old Klara (Annika Wedderkopp). Whatever criticisms are made of the film, it's undeniably gripping: the subject matter is intensely painful and, in one sense, controversial. Mikkelsen avoids courting sympathy too obviously - but in part it's the subtlety of his performance that makes the plot seem faintly glib, even evasive. Though Vinterberg goes out of his way to show that Lucas is sexually ''normal'', we might still suspect something off-balance about him. But the character remains a straightforward victim - and it's implied that he regains some of his manhood by fighting back. JW

Selected

IRON MAN 3
(130 minutes) M
★★☆

The Iron Man films show respect for comic book tradition but also maintain an appropriately goofy tone, fondly mocking the hero Tony Stark (Robert Downey jnr) - a billionaire inventor who flies around in a high-powered robot suit - for his vanity, petulance and overall absurdity. One might expect an increased level of irreverence from Iron Man 3, which is directed and co-written by the gifted vulgar postmodernist Shane Black, but the film remains a factory product rather than anything more personal. Black's love of the outrageous and profane has been curbed for the sake of younger viewers and the action sequences are mostly routine, with little gained by the 3D conversion. The plot traces an overfamiliar redemptive arc, pitting Tony against an ethnically ambiguous jihadist (Ben Kingsley) and an envious rival inventor (Guy Pearce) while obliging him to regain his humanity with help from his friends. JW

General

NO
(117 min) M
★★★☆

Chilean director Pablo Larrain's No is sly and serious, with a calculatedly tacky surface: it's a clever, elusive film about politics and persuasion that is based on historical events, although its main character is fictional. Gael Garcia Bernal plays a non-committal young adman devising a campaign for the 1988 referendum to determine the future of the country's dictator, General Augusto Pinochet. His approach to end Pinochet's rule is surprising and controversial. Larrain has shot the film on ugly-looking old-style U-matic video, in part to incorporate a large amount of archival footage. There are some who feel that the focus on the advertising element oversimplifies the tale, but Larrain's playful, layered approach and Garcia Bernal's restrained performance allow No to retain a certain scepticism and ambiguity. PH

Selected release

OBLIVION
(125 minutes) M
★★★

Oblivion is a chilly, elegant science-fiction thriller that stars, in equal measure, Tom Cruise and a handsome production design. It is an imaginatively established big-budget film, but it also has elements of a chamber piece. Adapted from an unpublished graphic novel written by its director Joseph Kosinski, the film takes place in a future several decades hence after an alien invasion that forced human beings to relocate to a moon of Saturn. For some time, its ravishing look sustains it, but it fizzles as it starts to explain itself. There's a plot that gradually emerges and gives Morgan Freeman an underdone cameo, and there are some exhilarating action sequences. But that's not enough to transform its dry, humourless stylishness into something more substantial. PH

General

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
(119 min) MA
★★

A Korean fighter jet is headed for the White House! While ground troops race in and kidnap the President (Aaron Eckhart), the fate of the nation rests with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a one-time presidential bodyguard with Special Forces training and a troubled past. Olympus Has Fallen is Mars Attacks! without the Martians, it's Die Hard in the shadow of September 11, it had to happen and it's even dumber than it sounds. Despite the real-world resonances, director Antoine Fuqua keeps the tone light, even cartoonish: Mike is rarely at a loss for a profane wisecrack, and at one point brains an adversary with a bust of Lincoln. With perfect cynicism, the film aims to gratify both gung-ho American patriots and a global audience presumed to get a kick out of seeing the US brought low. Fuqua is no stylist, but in his stunted fashion he delivers the goods. JW

General

THE OTHER SON
(103 min) M
★★★

French director Lorraine Levy's drama is part fable, part melodrama, and it's optimistic at heart, although its set-up is fraught with complexities, some explored, some ignored. Taking place in Israel, it concerns two families from different worlds whose lives suddenly become intertwined. One is Franco-Jewish; the other is Palestinian. They learn that their teenage sons were accidentally switched at birth. Abruptly, assumptions of identity and belonging, and visions of the other, are turned upside down as the boys and the families struggle to reconcile themselves with this new situation. The cast - which includes French actors Emmanuelle Devos and Pascal Elbe, and Khalifa Natour from The Band's Visit - give engaged, warm performances in a film whose earnest, ultimately positive vision is tempered by a sense that its characters' lives are works in progress. PH

Selected release

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES
(140 minutes) MA
★★★☆

At first glance, this old-fashioned melodrama - packed with enough coincidences for a Victorian novel - has little in common with its director Derek Cianfrance's debut Blue Valentine, a nearly plotless study of a troubled relationship. Actually the two films share a good deal: the bold handling of time, the presence of Ryan Gosling as an ill-fated man-child, and the classically American tension between a nostalgia for home and a dream of escape. Gosling does his neo-Brando thing as a soulful motorcyclist turned bank robber who fatefully crosses paths with an ambitious cop (Bradley Cooper) who proves to be his mirror image. Roughly speaking, Cianfrance's style involves a shotgun marriage between the''raw'' realism practised by the likes of Belgium's Dardenne brothers and the pop expressionism of 1950s Hollywood; the lack of irony is an asset, though the film would sink into absurdity if not for the commitment of the leading men. JW

Selected

RUST AND BONE
(120 minutes) MA
★★★★

French writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) has adapted two stories from Canadian author Craig Davidson to create a work that's a striking mixture of grit and lyricism. It has two powerful performances at its heart and a kind of audacity in its tenderness. Marion Cotillard is compelling as a killer-whale trainer whose chance encounter with an intense bouncer and bare-knuckle fighter (Matthias Schoenaerts) has unexpected ramifications. Audiard has always been interested in the nature of damage and the possibilities of transformation. Here, he explores the course of Ali and Stephanie's relationship, after a devastating accident, in a robust yet poetic way. PH

Selected release

SCARY MOVIE V
(86 minutes) M
★★

This is the first Scary Movie in seven years, but the formula remains unchanged, with a thin storyline linking spoofs of recent Hollywood hits. The chief targets this time are Mama, the Paranormal Activity series, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and, most surprisingly, Black Swan. At this point series creator Keenan Ivory Wayans has long departed the scene, leaving directing duties in the hands of Malcolm D. Lee, whose interesting filmography includes the much more focused blaxploitation spoof Undercover Brother. Even in this chaotic context, he manages a few effective visual gags - parodying Black Swan's nervous editing, or pushing Paranormal Activity's use of fast motion to Benny Hill extremes. But most of the jokes are not just crude but boringly obvious: a pre-credits skit with Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen seems pointless except as a test of how far these fallen stars are willing to sink. JW

General

SONG FOR MARION
(94 minutes) PG
★★★

Written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams, Song for Marion is a story about ways of letting go. Terence Stamp is the solitary Arthur, devoted to the care of his ailing wife, Marion (Vanessa Redgrave), whose cancer has returned. Marion is as warm and outgoing as Arthur is reserved and inward-looking, and one of her pleasures is performing with a choir of elderly locals who are taught by the ebullient Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton). Their repertoire runs to Status Quo and Salt-N-Pepa and Arthur thinks it's an embarrassing waste of time. The choir members are not characters, however; they are daffy comic relief. And Williams is not interested in the communal experience of singing. It's an individual performance that the film is spruiking as Elizabeth coaches and coaxes Arthur to find his voice, and the cliche of a competition provides the momentum for the last part of the film. Redgrave gives a graceful, elusive performance and Stamp brings dignity to Arthur's often cantankerous detachment, but the film is so carefully set up for redemption that it's almost like joining the dots. PH

Selected release

SPRING BREAKERS
(93 minutes) R
★★★☆

Art-punk provocateur Harmony Korine strikes again in Spring Breakers, a remarkably uncompromised bid to reach a wider public. Korine has enlisted a quartet of starlets - Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez and his wife Rachel Korine - to portray college girls desperate to escape their boring lives on the beaches of St Petersberg, Florida, where America's youth gather annually to let off steam. Leading the girls further down the road of temptation is Alien (James Franco) a local rapper and hustler who shows off his silver-capped teeth in a near-permanent lewd grin. Anything but a mainstream storyteller, Harmony Korine belongs squarely to the tradition of Andy Warhol, maintaining a similar facade of hip blankness. Is Spring Breakers a satire of American dumbness or a celebration of it? Are the heroines embracing corruption or reaching toward a state of grace? Needless to say, if you have to ask these questions you're already missing the point. JW

Selected

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
(132 minutes) M
★★☆

As overseer of the Star Trek franchise, director J.J. Abrams is a steady pair of hands, deploying all his usual tricks - reverberating swooshes, lurid lighting - to get the audience feeling excited in a familiar, comfortable way. The plot follows the crew of the Starship Enterprise on a quest to flush out rogue Starfleet officer John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). As in Abrams' previous Star Trek outing, the human stuff is painted with a broad brush - the term ''human'' being a loose one here, since the only relationship that counts is between Kirk and part-alien Spock, the alpha and the nerd who not so secretly adore each other. Most of the acting is firmly in the ''adequate'' range, but Cumberbatch seems almost too well-cast as a pale, preening British villain: while he over-articulates with aplomb, the performance falls between genuine menace and high camp. JW

General

TRANCE
(101 minutes) MA
★★☆

Danny Boyle's psychological thriller, from a script by John Hodge and Joe Ahearne, starts out like a caper movie, then turns into a hectic nightmare - yet a trance state is about the last thing that it brings to mind. James McAvoy works for a London fine-art auction house, Vincent Cassel is a thief, Rosario Dawson is a hypnotherapist, and there is a valuable work by Goya on the loose. These four elements are brought together in a narrative that is meant to give us a succession of shifting, unsettling, ''who's-dreaming-what'' perceptions, but it proves a little too easy to unpick and too frustrating to be enjoyable. There is a glossy, neo-noir aura to the desperation, courtesy of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle; the whole thing gives the feeling of a slick and overheated take on a screenwriter's hallucination. PH

Selected release

WARM BODIES
(98 minutes) M
★★☆

Don't be creepy, R (Nicholas Hoult) keeps reminding himself while making small talk with his dream girl Julie (Teresa Palmer). The big problem is that Julie is alive while R is a zombie, who spends his days staggering around an abandoned airport in search of human flesh. Based on a novel by Isaac Marion, this post-apocalyptic love story initially looks like a parody of Twilight but proves to be an equal opportunity fantasy of sorts. Writer-director Jonathan Levine seems bent on pleasing the same young crowd that lapped up The Perks of Being a Wallflower, balancing soulful romance with mildly gross humour while steering clear of anything too kinky or gruesome. The winsomely gawky Hoult plays his big scenes in full emo mode, eyes wide and lips quivering; as in practically every zombie film but more so, it's broadly hinted in Warm Bodies that the undead are just like you and me. JW

General