Cold War

Zimna Wojna; romance / drama, Poland / France / UK, 2018; D: Paweł Pawlikowski, S: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza, Cédric Kahn, Jeanne Balibar

Poland, 1 9 4 9. The Communist system holds auditions for hundreds of peasants, hoping to find a few good singers among them. Wiktor, one of the judges, is fascinated by the blond Zula, who is on parole after attacking her abusive father. Wiktor and Zula become lovers. The state-sponsored folk music ensemble is pressured into inserting pro-Stalinist propaganda into their songs. While touring East Berlin, Wiktor convinces Zula to flee to the West, but she fails to show up. Years later, Wiktor works in Paris as a composer, and meets Zula again, who married an Italian to obtain a Visa. He tries to help her make a career as a singer, but Zula is alcoholic, jealous of his previous girlfriend and thus has an affair with Michel. Zula returns to Poland. Whe Wiktor goes to Poland after her, he is sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp. Zula marries Kaczmarek, a Communist official, has a child with him, and thus Wiktor is freed in 1 9 6 4. Wiktor and Zula escape. They go to an abandoned church, swallow suicide pills and wait to die together, in love.

"Cold War" is a movie that works twofold: both as a character study of a love couple, and as an allegory on the Communist system which separated and ruined the lives of people. Similarly as Szabo's "Lovefilm", it manages to blend these two themes, romantic and political, by showing the exile of the couple in Paris and their tumultuous relationship, even though Pawel Pawlikowski's film is rather less clear as to why the two are constantly arguing, since some of their break-ups come out of nowhere. Just as Pawlikowski's "Ida", "Cold War" is also an ambitious and good, yet rather standard black-and-white European art-film, without much inspiration in either directing or writing, or some other kind of ingenuity to truly "match" its hype and high critical acclaim and awards. A few surprising moments are refreshing (when Wiktor asks Zula as to why she was sentenced for attacking he father, she gives a feisty response: "He mistook me for my mother and a knife showed him the difference!") whereas Pawlikowski leads an economic story, since every scene is justified to lead to the next chapter, trusting that the audience is intelligent enough to "read between the lines" in some more subtle depictions or solutions (for instance, the way Zula freed Wiktor from a labor camp by marrying official Kaczmarek). The brief episode on the Split riviera, where Wiktor witnesses Zula's guest performance, is also well done. However, "Cold War" is a good film that rarely truly traverses into greatness, since its grey approach did not lead to some more colorful creativity.

Grade:++

Alfie

Alfie; drama / comedy, UK, 1966; D: Lewis Gilbert, S: Michael Caine, Vivien Merchant, Julia Foster, Millicent Martin, Shelley Winters, Jane Asher, Alfie Bass, Denholm Elliott

London. Alfie is a dashing womanizer who exchanges women like socks, refusing to commit to anyone of them. However, one day, his current girlfriend, Gilda gets pregnant. Alfie recommends she has an abortion, but she decides to give birth to the baby. Alfie is uninterested in the kid, so Gilda breaks up and starts a relationship with Humphrey, a bus conductor. Alfie continues to have sex with many women: Ruby, an American; Annie, who came to London to start a new life; Siddie... When he lands in bed with Lily, the wife of one of his friends, Harry, she gets pregnant. Alfie arranges for an abortion, but later regrets it. He tries to build up a lasting relationship with Ruby, but finds out she found a younger lover. Alfie ends up alone on a bridge.

Many movies are a product of their time, and "Alfie" is a commentary on the 'swinging sixties', when for the first time a whole new generation emerged, a generation which was uninterested in a lasting relationship or building a family, and was only interested in short-term hedonism and polygamy. Alfie, played brilliantly by competent Michael Caine, becomes a symbol-character, a person who dumps women as soon as he gets bored of them, but ends up alone in the finale, faced with the prospect that "his time is up" when he gets older, embodied in the allegorical image of him walking with a stray dog, since both of them are like aimless, wondering ships unconnected to anybody. "Alfie" has a great, aesthetically inventive opening act: Alfie exits a car and looks directly into the camera, addressing the audience, while the titles "Alfie" show up on the screen. Alfie then goes: "My name is...", but is interrupted when his lover calls him from inside the car: "Alfie!" While this "breaking the fourth wall", in which Alfie directly talks to the audience, is an amusing trick, the film starts to lose its inspiration and wit after some 30 minutes, stagnating until it settles for a good, albeit standard quality until the end of the film. A few comical or snappy moments still show up, though intermittently, such as the one where Alfie, holding a cigarette, is giving a long kiss to his new girlfriend in his car, but as a new car passes by and illuminates them, Alfie ends the kiss and puffs out smoke he kept in his mouth the whole time. Except for the dark subplot involving abortion, "Alfie" refuses to become preachy or force any moral message, yet is a comical contemplation about where a lack of human connection and lost opportunities can lead.

Grade:++

Moonlighting

Moonlighting; drama, UK, 1982; D: Jerzy Skolimowski, S: Jeremy Irons, Eugene Lipinski, Jirí Stanislav, Eugeniusz Haczkiewicz, Denis Holmes

Four Polish workers—Nowak, Banaszak, Wolski and Kudaj—fly from Warsaw to London. Nowak is the only one who speaks English. At the British customs, Nowak feigns they are just here for a tourist visit, but in reality, the four settle at an old house to renovate it and work illegally for a Polish official, since Polish workforce will cost him only a 1/4 of a price than if he would have hired British workers. Nowak dreams of seeing his girlfriend, Anna, again, and goes to buy food while the other three are hiding in the house and working all day. From the news, Nowak finds out about the Soviet crackdown against he Polish solidarity movement, and that martial law was imposed, thereby severing all ties to the Polish state. Nowak keeps this a secret from the three. Since their official was probably arrested as well, they are not paid for their work. At 2am they start a six hour walk to Heathrow airport. Nowak finally tells them about the martial law, and the three attack and beat him up.

"Moonlighting" was assembled as director Jerzy Skolimowski's answer to the crackdown on the Polish Solidarity movement, and thus the whole story has several allegorical motives, though it also encompasses the director's semi-biographical notions, including the immigrants' nostalgia for his homeland. The London house where the four Polish workers are doing construction work is a symbol for Poland, and Nowak for Polish officials (from the Communist era) who are trying to keep the status quo by concealing and censoring bad things happening, thinking they are doing the right thing by keeping the morale of the workers, only to in the end make the things even worse when the people find out. After the fall of Communism, "Moonlighting" feels somewhat not that fresh anymore, since several of its plot points became dated. One detail in particular: Nowak is short on money, so he devises elaborate schemes to get food from a store by using the same receipt of a bread, potatoes, carrots and other food to smuggle the same food again and again, feigning he just forgot the goods in the store. However, in modern era, receipts now have a date on them, and goods have computer chip codes which signal if they are removed from the store, making the whole affair seem dated. "Moonlighting" is an art-film where nothing much happens, and thus a broader spectrum of a viewing experience is missing. Likewise, the abrupt ending feels like a cheat, as if someone "stole" the conclusion and final act of the film. The scene where Banaszak is electrocuted by holding a wire feels staged. Nonetheless, Jeremy Irons is great in the leading role and manages to lift the film even during its lesser moments.

Grade:++

The Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror; horror, USA, 1979; D: Stuart Rosenberg, S: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Murray Hamilton

Amytville, New York. An unknown assassin storms a house at night and shoots a mother, father and their four children in their beds. A year later, the empty house is sold to a new couple, George and Kathy, who move there with their three kids. Kathy is uneasy about living on a "murder location", but George brushes it off as superstition. A priest, Delaney, arrives to the house to bless it, but gets sick and has to escape from it. Strange things start happening in the house: their daughter Amy claims she is talking to an invisible girl, Jody; a window falls and injures the hand of one of the boys; noises are heard outside during the night. A friend, Carolyn, claims that the house is built on the land of former devil worshippers, and cracks open a wall in the basement, finding a chamber inside with red walls. One night, a storm and blood coming from the walls cause George and Kathy to pick up their kids and run away from the house.

Allegedly based on true events—though obviously over-exaggerated and over-dramatized for the sake of sensationalism in order to attract the audience—"The Amytville Horror" achieved what it set out to do, and became the second highest grossing movie of the year at the American Box office. Looking from today's perspective, the movie is hardly a classic, yet it has some flair because the 20th century horror films were done obviously differently than 21st century horrors which rely only on quick editing, jump scares and frenetic banalities: for one, this 'haunted hause' flick has some cozy mood established thanks to a slow burning pace which allows the storyline to set itself up, as well as likeable characters and some emotions. The concept of a family persecuted by ghosts of a building in which murders occurred, is solid, and thus "Amytville" has some scary moments of inspiration (for instance, the quiet, calm entrance of the saleslady with George and Kathy into the bedroom by opening the door, is followed by the dark, threatening 'jump cut' to a flashback of the killer opening the door of the same bedroom and shooting at the family sleeping in bed), yet at worst, some of them seem forced or ludicrous, especially in the unintentionally comical sequences involving priest Delaney, which came dangerously close to a caricature (the scene of Delaney spotting hundreds of flies on the window; the scene of pieces of a statue of an angel in church crumbling and falling down from the ceiling). The ending is kind of abrupt, yet "Amytville" is able to sufficiently craft a good mood of fear and threat without turning too bloody or too disgusting.

Grade:++

Slacker

Slacker; experimental film / comedy, USA, 1990; D: Richard Linklater, S: Mark James, Stella Weir, John Slate, Louis Mackey, Teresa Taylor, Kim Krizan, Abra Moore, Richard Linklater

24 hours in Austin, Texas. A passanger talks to an uninterested cab driver about how dreams might be their own fractured reality. A driver hits a woman on the street crossing and flees. Two police officers later arrest a man in his apartment. Three guys arrive at a bridge and throw a tent into the river, because the ex-girlfriend of one of the guys had sex with him in the tent, and he doesn't want her to have sex with anybody else in the tent. An old anarchist discovers a man wanting to rob his library, but instead just makes friends with the latter and goes for a walk with the lad. An unemployed man gives an interview. An old man walks on the street. Some people are making home videos in the outdoors.

There have been numerous anthology films throughout the history of cinema, but rarely the likes of Richard Linklater's second feature length film, the independent comedy "Slacker", where there is no main protagonist, and the episodic film just follows around 40 people throughout its running time, with each character getting only around two minutes of screen time. Moreover, the "jump" from one episode to another is equally as arbitrary, with the camera mostly following one person walking, and then switching to follow another person walking on the street. The big flaw is that "Slacker" is ultimately a 'hit-or-miss' affair: some episodes are better, some are weaker. Likewise, you cannot engage on a deeper level with these characters, since they are all shown so briefly. Yet, there is some positive energy in depicting these people, and a sense that Linklater captured the time, the feeling and the mentality of all these small people living around his hometown of Austin. Several humorous dialogues are refreshingly daft, such as the episode where a conspiracy nut is following a young lad to spread his "ideology" ("We've been on the Moon since the 50s!"); the unemployed hitchhiker who despises work ("Hey, look at me, I'm making it! I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it!") and others. And there are also some more philosophical words hidden here and there, such as when a girl at a restaurant has some deeper thoughts ("Perhaps human beings weren't made for being happy or free. We constantly try to enslave each other."). "Slacker" is an early exercise of Linklater's, but he already showed small crumbs of greatness in a little scene near the end, when an old man walking on the street has a quote full of wisdom: "The tragedy of life is that man is never free yet strives for what he can never be. The thing most feared in secret always happens. My life, my loves, where are they now? But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct for life somehow asserts itself. The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it completely. Only later will it clarify itself and become coherent."

Grade:++

K-On! (Season 1)

K-On!; animated musical comedy, Japan, 2009; D: Naoko Yamada, S: Aki Toyosaki, Yoko Hikasa, Satomi Sato, Minako Kotobuki, Ayana Taketatsu, Asami Sanada

Clumsy teenage girl Yui does not know what to do with herself, nor what club she should join in high school. However, she eventually joins the music light club, thereby saving it from being abandoned due to a lack of participants. The other three girls who are members quickly form a rock band: Mio is the bassist, Ritsu is the drummer, Tsumugi plays the keyboard while Yui plays the guitar. The four girls are clumsy and doubt if they can make one good song. After they play they first song on high school stage, they get a fifth member, Azusa. Together, they become friends and play on a real stage.

"K-On!" is a fun depiction of a creation of a girl rock band, filled with a lot of humor and charm, yet it is presented through the lackadaisical 'slice-of-life' format, "Azumanga Daioh"-style: some episodes are really good, some are less interesting, and some have too much 'empty walk'. The consistent plus points are the two excellent characters of the clumsy, but lovable Yui and the rather more strict, charismatic Mio, who dominate the storyline, yet the other two band members, Tsumugi and Ritsu, are underdeveloped. The only thing we find out about Tsumugi is that she is rich, whereas Ritsu at times seems like a copy of Yui. It takes a while until "K-On" gets going after a long set-up, yet it rewards the viewers in excellent episode 6, which is a highlight of this anime: the movements, stylish gestures and charming attitudes of the four heroines come to full expression in this episode.

In one scene from the said episode, Ritsu wants to bolster the confidence of the girls for the upcoming first performance on stage, so she gleefully pretends she holds a microphone and is introducing the band members—she points to Tsumugi, says: "On keyboard, the graceful, cheerful, slightly ditzy princess, Kotobuki Tsumugi!", and Tsumugi takes it from there, raising her hands in the air, pretending to be playing keyboards—but then introduces Mio as "She's really bad with scary and painful stories, the dangerous queen of the Light Music Club...", and is interrupted when Mio hits Ritsu in the head, objecting to being called "dangerous". There is also a peculiarly, inexplicably aesthetically pleasant moment after Yui finishes her Sumo wrestler impression, and Ritsu, while sitting, taps the table with her pencil, then taps the floor with her foot and raises her arm to call the next people in line. One has to admit, their song, "Fluffy Fluffy Time", is melodic perfection, and their two performances on stage, in episode 6 and 12, really are fantastic, with the latter episode ending in an irresistible little moment when Yui raises her hands up in the air on stage, shouts "I love Keion!" and then the screen "shrinks" in the form of a heart sign. "K-On!" would have benefited from removing the superfluous episodes—the Christmas episode, the beach episode, the episode where Yui has to learn for her test—yet when the right kind of episodes show up, they can engage more than expected from such a light concept.

Grade:++

Colossal

Colossal; fantasy black comedy, USA, 2016; D: Nacho Vigalondo, S: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson

New York. Gloria is unable to find a job for over a year, and struggles with alcoholism, so her boyfriend Tim breaks up with her. Gloria moves back to her suburban place in New England, but stumbles upon Oscar, her childhood friend, who gives her a job at his bar. One day, Gloria spots news of a giant monster walking through Seoul, causing damage, and then disappearing. Surprisingly, Gloria finds out that however she enters a secluded playground at 8:05 am, the monster manifests and mimics her exact moves, until she exits the location. Oscar finds out about this, discovers that he can conjure up a giant robot, and threatens that he will also walk and stomp across the playground around that time, and thereby kill many people in Seoul, unless Gloria subordinates to him. Disgusted, Gloria finally leaves for Seoul. When Oscar again enters the playground, thereby creating the giant robot, Gloria makes a few steps, and her monster appears in front of Oscar, killing him.

Unlike what many others would have done, the director and screenwriter Nacho Vigalondo took the "Godzilla"-type attack of a monster on an Asian city not as as the main focus of his story, but actually the relationship between the main heroine, Gloria, and her shady friend, Oscar, who find out they can control two giant monsters at the other end of the world, "Avatar"-style, when they enter an American playground. The sole monster and the giant robot wreaking havoc in Seoul are practically reduced to just some 5 minutes of screen time, since "Colossal's" theme is of a different interest: to allegorically show the abuse of power, or—even worse—what happens when power is attributed to an immature, selfish, underdeveloped personality who uses it to blackmail people, in this case Oscar, who slowly turns into the main villain of the film. "Colossal" is bizarre and meandering in its plot points, creating several subplots which are ultimately not needed in this theme—for instance, Gloria's alcoholism or trouble finding a job are not connected to the main plot tangle, nor resolved in the end—yet Anne Hathaway delivered another great performance as Gloria. One of the most amusing scenes is when she figures out she can control the monster in Seoul, and then dances and thus makes the monster dance as well, or when she ocassionaly makes a daft comment ("It's like a Wes Anderson movie in here!" - "I wish the music was better"). Some ideas were left unexplored: for instance, wouldn't Gloria try to somehow make a fence around the playground, or shut it down in some other way to prevent some kids or a stray dog entering it and creating another monster in Seoul? Yet, overall, "Colossal" has a point, even if it is presented through some very outlandish fantasy premise.

Grade:++

The Witch

The Witch; psychological drama / horror, USA, 2015; D: Robert Eggers, S: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson

New England, 17th century. Because of his own interpretation of the Bible, William is banished from a settlement due to heresy. His entire family—wife Katherine, daughter Thomasin, son Caleb, and twins Mercy and Jonas—follows him into the forest, where they live in a shack. Their new baby suddenly disappears, and they presume it was taken by the wolves. In order to scare her sister, Thomasin says that she is a witch who took away the baby. The family is suffering from hunger since the harvest was weak. When Thomasin goes with Caleb into the forest to check a trap, their horse goes wild. Caleb gets lost in the woods and meets a mysterious woman. Caleb is later found naked, and brought back to the shack, where he hallucinates and dies. William and Katherine blame Thomasin and think she is a witch. The black goat attacks and kills William. Katherine blames Thomasin and attacks her. Thomasin kills her mother with a knife in self-defence. All alone, Thomasin hears voices and gathers at a fire with witches, who start levitating.

Robert Eggers' feature length debut film is a bizarre psychological essay on how the dark times of depravity and scarcity make people susceptible to conspiracy theories and paranoid delusion, in order to try to find some sort of flimsy explanation for all the bad luck around them, yet this mostly just ends in the blame falling on a scapegoat, in this case the teenage daughter and protagonist Thomasin (very good Anya Taylor-Joy). "The Witch" is raw, astringent and a difficult film, not for everyone's taste, and never makes it easy for the viewers to "get into it". The setting is eerily placed on an isolated outcast farm near the forest, from which dangers can pop out anytime, yet the characters are strangely cold and distant, never managing for the viewers to root for them when things go wrong. "The Witch" is not interested in banal scares or shocks, but in disturbing mood which makes the entire film seem unpleasant. Somewhere in the middle of the film, there is a really disturbing sequence in which the boy, Caleb, is lying sick in bed and hallucinating, even throwing up blood, which will be difficult for some viewers to sit through. "The Witch" touches upon the themes of religious dogma and its scary enforcement, yet its ending is deliberately vague, again using the notion that it all could have been either real or just a form of delusion. It is a good dark film on its own right, yet it lacks more ingenuity, versatility or more colorful execution in this grey storyline.

Grade:++

Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls; romantic musical comedy, USA, 1955; D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, S: Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons, Vivian Blaine, Stubby Kaye, B.S. Pully

New York. Nathan Detroit is a small time crook who organizes mobile gambling, but all of his previous locations were discovered by the police, so he now has to pay a 1,000$ to the owner of the Biltmore garage to use it for a new location. However, Nathan does not have the money, and thus makes a bet with gambler Sky Masterson: if Sky can persuade the uptight Christian missionary, Sister Sarah, to fly with him to Havana. Sky accepts, presents himself as a gambler who wants reform at Sarah's office, and actually manages to talk her into flying to Havana with him, where they fall in love. Nathan is also engaged to nightclub singer Adelaide, but is unwilling to quit gambling and find a decent job, per her demands. When Nathan gets into serious trouble while gambling with Chicago mobster Big Jule, who openly cheats with dice with no spots, Sky saves him and orders all the gamblers to go to the Mission's office for rehabilitation. Ultimately, Nathan marries Adelaide, while Sky marries Sarah.

17 years before he played the mafia boss Don Vito Corleone, Marlon Brando played a small time crook and gambler, Sky Masterson, in this underrated, wonderful little romantic musical comedy, an untypical venture from director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who nevertheless delivered a charming and competent film. Presented almost as two stories—one showing the relationship between Sky and Sarah, and the other the relationship between Nathan and Adelaide—"Guys and Dolls" displays the former as the more recognizable concept in the vein of "Dangerous Liaisons", in which a guy tries to seduce a girl only to win a bet, but eventually truly falls in love, yet the other one involving Nathan and Adelaide has consistently better and more engaging comic quotes, some of which are a small gem. It already starts off with Nathan complaining that he is short on money, and that he cannot even afford a present for Adelaide, revealing a hilarious payoff: "It is mine and Adelaide's 14th anniversary. We are engaged 14 years today!"

This 'teasing' of their overlong engagement is a huge supply of inspiration for various jokes, from Nathan's associate commenting his infatuation ("I cannot believe that a No. 1 businessman like you could let himself go and fall in love with his own fiancee!") up to Frank Sinatra's comical singing in which he compliments Adelaide ("She wants to have five kids... to start"). However, while Brando is excellent while acting, he is strangely miscast in the musical sequences, since his singing feels strangely stiff and "off". Aggravating the issue is that these musical acts mostly feel dated and kitschy, typical for the era of the 50s, slowing down the narrative instead of enriching it, except in the brilliant choreography of the "fight-dance" sequence at the Havana night club, where Sarah loosens up—symbolically shown in her buttons on her clothes getting torn down—and punches a woman who gets catapulted backwards on a chair, and when a chair stops while hitting the stage, the woman just keeps on sliding on the surface of the stage. Sky occasionally has a few moments of charm, such as when he talks to Sarah at her Mission office ("You know, I imagine there's only one thing that's been in as many different hotel rooms as I have: the Gideon Bible"), yet he is clearly overshadowed by Nathan's and Adelaide's story, who have more snappy dialogue. Unlike many other musicals that have passed their expiration date, "Guys and Dolls" still seems fresh and alive today, speaking about both love and the necessity of people to find a balance between their id and super-ego to enjoy life and undergo a transformation into the best version of themselves.

Grade:+++

Last Christmas

Last Christmas; romantic comedy, USA, 2019; D: Paul Feig, S: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson, Boris Isaković, Rebecca Root, Peter Mygind

London. Kate is a nonchalant girl of Serb origin who works as an Elf in a Christmas shop for her Chinese boss, nicknamed Santa. She does not care for anyone except herself, until she meets Tom, a nice, kind man who volunteers at a shelter for homeless people. When she loses a place to stay, yet once again, Kate grudgingly returns to her parents' place, Petra, a housewife, and Ivan, a lawyer who now works as a taxi driver. Due to her negligence, Kate forgot to lock the shop before leaving, and thus it was robbed. Kate admits to Tom that she had a heart transplant a year ago. Tom suddenly disappears. Finally, Kate realizes that she talked to a ghost, since Tom died in a car accident a year ago, and that his heart was donated to her to survive. Kate thus becomes a good person and helps people at the shelter.

"Last Christmas" is one of those peculiar movies that did not do anything extraordinarily wrong, yet did not do anything extraordinarily good, either. It is a touching, emotional little film with a positive message, and yet, it feels somehow strangely calculative, so much, in fact, that you never quite let go and let yourself "get lost" into its world. Emilia Clarke is an excellent actress, and it is so refreshing to see how she shows her charming and humorous side as Kate — yet the whole movie is two levels below her, without much inspiration or ingenuity, and with too much routine stuff the viewers have already seen before, and thus her performance, as a whole, is ultimately a little inhibited. It is obvious what the story was trying to show: Kate's transformation from a selfish, cynical person into an altruist with a heart, yet it does not come across as such, since Kate never seems like a bad person, but more like a clumsy, absent-minded girl who makes errors by accident. It is also unnecessary to have a subplot showing how Kate is of a Serb background, since this does not contribute to the story, which wouldn't have lost anything without it, except that it is amusing to hear Clarke speak in Serbo-Croatian in two scenes. Director Paul Feig let's the characters talk too fast, without a sense when to slow down for the viewers to "catch up" and simply enjoy and absorb the jokes on the screen, which would have given them more room to engage. The plot twist near the end has a fascinating premise, but in this edition it does not quite work, and should have been rewritten in a better way to make it work, without the fantasy elements. Clarke manages to elevate the film, nonetheless, including a nice little romantic moment when Tom says they need to talk, and she just jokingly comments: "Oh no, here comes the 'I have to tell you something'-moment". Besides Clarke, the second best performance was delivered by Emma Thompson as her conservative mother Petra, who chastizes her other daughter and her girlfriend, by calling their tiramisu a "lesbian pudding".

Grade:++