Fashion biopic more style than substance
FILM
YVES SAINT LAURENT
Cert 15 | By Simon Thomson
Two Stars
THERE just isn’t enough of a story to support a biopic of Yves Saint Laurent. The first half, addressing his early career and emergence as an independent force in the fashion industry, is an underpowered French remake of Mad Men. The second, where he descends into a self-destructive spiral of sex, drugs, and flared trousers, is an underpowered French remake of Boogie Nights.
That it’s so clichéd and familiar is disappointing, as the script obliquely touches on elements that, had they been explored in greater depth, could have resulted in something far more novel and interesting. For instance more attention to Saint Laurent’s Pied-Noir origins, and the effect on his family of the collapse of French Algeria, might have given a better understanding of his motivations. Likewise, his homosexuality might have been an opportunity to examine some of the wider cultural changes in 1960s France, and in the process root a film that seems too detached from events in the real world.
Supporting characters make much of Saint Laurent’s genius, and clearly he was something of a wunderkind at the dawn of his career. Barely in his 20s when he became the chief designer at Dior, the dresses he crafted there are timeless, and wouldn’t look out of place on a red carpet today. But his lasting importance is difficult to discern from what is shown onscreen. With the exception of his Mondrian Collection in 1965 (which made the cover of Vogue, and was immediately copied by mass manufacturers to become an icon of 60s pop culture), his solo work now appears horribly dated, and in many instances, simply horrible.
Even his championing of the tuxedo as womenswear seems like a flash in the pan. Other more lasting innovations, such as the use of music or non-European models in his runway shows, are presented, but not in a broader context that might indicate their significance.
Saint Laurent argues that fashion is not art. Perhaps this speech is a warning: that the audience would be mistaken to look for an enduring legacy in a field whose very name is a byword for impermanency. But without that or proof of his unique creativity, it all seems rather slight.
Still, it’s beautifully shot, and the gecko-faced Pierre Niney demands attention as Saint Laurent. He shifts fluidly between composed and manic, and there’s the tempting possibility that at any moment his tongue might dart out and lick his eye. Despite the apparent lack of material to sustain one film, another unauthorised bio-pic will be out in October. This year in French cinema, Yves Saint Laurent is the new black.
FILM
LABOR DAY
Cert 12a | By Simon Thomson
Two Stars
IN LABOR Day an escaped convict (Josh Brolin, pictured) takes a depressed single mother (Kate Winslet pictured) and her son hostage. It’s not all that bad, though; he’s ruggedly handsome, helps out around the house and teaches the kid to play baseball. The title conjures a hackneyed rom-com, in which a tightly wound business executive finds love and purpose by accepting a unionised workforce, but Labor Day is actually a poorly handled adaptation of a serious novel by the popular author Joyce Maynard. Already hampered by an ill-advised plot, director Jason Reitman’s script strips out any complexities to produce a tale that’s heavy-handed, implausible and unintentionally creepy.
The biggest problem Labor Day has to overcome is the default cynicism of its audience. We are so conditioned to expect misbehaviour in fiction that a son innocently handing his mother a “Husband for a Day” card sets off alarm bells. But in this film, nobody is really that bad, so we are constantly wrong-footed by our misanthropic expectations.
This problem is highlighted in the film’s most memorable scene, where the kidnapper/houseguest ropes mother and son into baking a pie. Like a fruit-filled remake of the pottery scene from Ghost, the whole process is an extended metaphor for sex, which some people might conceivably have found erotic if it was just the emotionally vulnerable woman and the criminal holding her captive. But her pubescent son is there too – elbow-deep in the bowl of peaches – and the implications of that are seriously icky.
The film squanders its lead actors, and the supporting cast – which includes Clark Gregg, JK Simmons and Tobey Maguire – is underused. The only point where things become interesting is when a police officer starts snooping around, and this is not because it builds tension, but because he’s played by Dawson, from Dawson’s Creek, and it’s a surprise that he’s still acting.
Romance fans might find something worthwhile here, but really it’s the kind of film you might watch on a long-haul flight, or if you were being held against your will by a good-natured fugitive.
FILM
STARRED UP
Cert 18 | By Alex Dymoke
Two Stars
STARRED UP is a British prison drama in which literally everyone – guards, inmates and the entire bureaucratic hierarchy – is an evil wretch intent on disfiguring you with a weaponised toothbrush as soon as your back is turned. Is prison really like this? I wouldn’t have thought so, but the unrealistic brutality hasn’t stopped the film generating a critical buzz. This is mainly down to the two lead performances from Ben Mendelsohn (Nev) and Jack O’Connell (the fearsomely named Eric Love), who play an estranged father and son reunited in the same prison block.
It’s true, they’re brilliant. The problem is they’re so far ahead of the rest of the cast that watching Starred Up is like watching two potential Oscar winners stagger around a particularly ropey episode of The Bill. Prison cliché’s abound, with chess-playing kingpins, homoerotic mentor relationships and endless shower scenes. There’s also the obligatory “I like you, you remind me of myself when I was your age” moment, plus mass scowling sessions in the yard.
Jack O’Connell’s performance is powerful and brooding but the camera seems more interested in his physique than his personality (he has more showers than lines). It’s a character too emotionally and intellectually limited to be a very engaging protagonist. He never learns, never develops and watching someone have the same violent outburst over and over again becomes boring; worse, given the unflinching naturalism, it’s exhausting.
Director David Mackenzie and writer Jonathan Asser deserve credit for occasionally deviating from the increasingly dog-eared prison movie handbook – group therapy sessions are nice touch – but there’s no escaping the fact Starred Up feels like two hours’ hard labour.