Movie reviews

BEN IS BACK

Recommended. Everything: the title, the story and the church scene indicate it's the Parable of the Prodigal Son but it's depicted as versatile and non-religious. The initial conversation in the church makes it clear the family's not much involved in Christianity. The movie's structured around triple uncertainty: on the part of the viewer, the family and Ben himself. Suspense is built virtually every minute since each tiny event may change the course of action and the outcome, especially Ben's decisions are unpredictable. Keeps you on the edge of the seat.

PECH TO NIE GRZECH

Watchable. Finally a totally cheerful and easy-peasy romantic comedy instead of a comedy drama. Beautiful places, people, clothes, lots of product placement - pretty standard (pun intended). The sidekick character is pathetic rather than funny. All in all the film provokes no outbursts of laughter but it's relaxing and ends well. 

BEAUTIFUL BOY

Watchable. I struggled to stay till the end. Apparently drug overdose is No. 1 cause of death in Americans under 50 and the movie's based on 2 biographies: one by a young addict and the other by his father. But that only makes it overly sentimental. A repeatedly shown poster in the room says, if I made it out right, "how we got here", usually with just the "we got here" part visible which is probably better since it never gets explained how. In fact you're told in bold letters you can't: cause, control or cure it. Instead you learn that for parents it's like mourning for several years before the child's death. The film goes to and fro in time or depicts events simultaneously - you see one time and hear the audio from another. Timothée Chalamet may be good at acting different stages of addiction and relapses but the whole thing seems to miss the point. The music score is original at times but is of little help for the picture. Charles Bukowski's poem whose fragment is declaimed in the film is delivered at full length again along with the second part of the end credits as voiceover.

Both "Ben is Back" and "Beautiful Boy" tackle the problem of having a son addicted to drugs but "Ben is Back" presents it much better.
Added after a Q&A with one of the men behind the script: According to the writer Luke Davies, time loops appeared mostly in the edit, not his writing. Some came from the director and co-writer Felix van Groeningen. The original story was linear. He also talked about a "poet in him" which explains why I found the film lacklustre, just like the meeting with him, in fact.

KURSK

Recommended. Shocking even if you remember how it ended. It's "a dramatisation based on certain facts". National pride and military secrecy prevailed over humanity and reason (the vessel can't have been technologically advanced the way it sank). Starts with a wedding, just like "The Deer Hunter". Utterly realistic: post-Soviet blocks and flats, Russian-looking actors and actresses. Top-notch music. The final church sequence starts dark-lit with greenish hues giving the impression we're still in the depth of the ocean. 

STORM BOY

Recommended. Delightful. Truly moving. About taking care of animals with a nasty corporation in the background. Sounds cliche but the little boy, his father and their friend characters are acted convincingly and the birds are just amazing. The picture was shot on locations like Coorong National Park, Adelaide etc. so it looks and sounds (English accents) very Aussie. A brief post-credit.