Movie reviews

THE NEST

Watchable. Well executed in spite of predictability. Clear shots, an even pace, a simple story, Jude Law suitably cast in the successful business operator wannabe role. But you feel from the early minutes all this wealthy lifestyle is phoney and the family unit is going to collapse under the weight of aspirations and the pressure to be always "ravishing". All songs, e.g. "Hold Me Now", "Runaway", "Don't Leave Me This Way", "Smalltown Boy" have been handpicked as commentaries on the story developments. Also, London City looks like a ghost town when the man goes to work at weekends and the area around signifying Bank station is shown every time - both symbolic. So is the horse case when it comes to his wife. It's all exceedingly in your face. Children obviously have or cause their own problems as well. Not a bad psychological drama but the story's nothing new.

25 LAT NIEWINNOSCI. SPRAWA TOMKA KOMENDY (25 YEARS OF INNOCENCE. THE CASE OF TOMEK KOMENDA)

Recommended. Based on a loud case of a wrongfully convicted man exonerated after 18 years in prison. The original story is as shocking as the film depicts. The movie is skillfully cut - it takes you back and forth in time, presenting the case from a few angles, once focusing on the brutally raped girl, once on Tomek, once on the investigator, but maintains clarity all the time. Also, the waking up scene early on is masterfully cut from one time to another. The story's gripping, moving at times, often scary when you realize Tomek's entrapment and hopelessness. Long-time expert Jacek Moczulski consulted on the prison system. And it's harrowing knowing how it works - it's an accumulation of all imaginable pathologies and some I wouldn't have even imagined. Piotr Trojan is utterly convincing as Tomek. Well-known actors, like Bartosz Opania, Zofia Stafiej, Jan Frycz, Magdalena Różczka appear in episodes or cameos. But the most delightful is the cameo of titular Tomasz Komenda in the last scene when Piotr Trojan's Tomek comes up to the real life Tomek to ask for a cigarette. As in any decent biopic, actual Tomek as well as the investigator and the prosecutors who got him freed, stride together in a soothing finale.