Featuring: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salée, Pili Groyne, Simon Caudry, Baptiste Sornin
Screenwriters/Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Movie Website: www.ifcfilms.com/films/two-days-one-night

2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 5-11 Jan, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 13-18 Jan, 8pm

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A beautifully written, directed and performed piece of realist cinema, with Marion Cotillard exquisite in the lead role.

Review:
Great to kick off 2015 with a terrific film like this. Hopefully, it’s a forerunner of a bumper batch ahead.

The narrative is as simple and slight as they come: a young Belgian mother, Sandra (Marion Cotillard), having learnt that she has been laid off, spends the weekend visiting her co-workers to try to convince them to forgo their annual bonuses so that she can keep her job. Just out of hospital after a nervous breakdown and meek by nature, the task before her seems insurmountable, but with the constant encouragement of her husband she plugs on, calling on one person after another.

In terms of action, there is not much more to the film than Sandra traipsing from one home to another, and pleading her case. However, as Monday approaches and her support numbers edge closer to the crucial majority she needs, the dramatic tension builds, and you find yourself on the edge of your seat, willing her on. Continue reading Two Days, One Night movie review →

Featuring: Mira Grosin, Mira Barkhammar, Liv LeMoyne
Screenwriter/Director: Lukas Moodysson

2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 29 Dec-4 Jan, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 6-11 Jan, 8pm

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: The 13yo lead characters are likeable and elicit sympathetic smirks of recognition with their naivete and teen cynicism, but there’s not enough going on to sustain a feature film.

Review:
It’s 1984 and punk is dead, but Stockholm 13-year-old besties Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) ain’t havin’ none of that. They’re misfits, pissed off with their parents, peers and everything around them, and harbour a sense of black sheep superiority. With credentials like that, they’re made for punk and vice versa, and it’s only a matter of time before they decide to form a band. Neither of them can play an instrument (or write songs, going by their debut ditty slagging off jocks) – but gabba gabba hey, it’s all about the ‘tood! Continue reading We Are The Best! movie review →

(Trailer not available)

Featuring: Anton Yelchin, Bérénice Marlohe, Lambert Wilson, Olivia Thirlby, Frank Langella, Glenn Close
Screenwriter/Director: Anton Yelchin

2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 22 – 24 Dec, 26 – 28 Dec, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 30 Dec – 4 Jan, 8pm

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A lot more rom than com. 5 to 7 is a bit insubstantial in the final analysis, although generally well-wrought and undoubtedly heart-felt.

Review:
This absorbing little number, set in New York, charts the course of a love affair between an aspiring writer in his mid-20s, Brian (Anton Yelchin), and married-with-kids Arielle (Bérénice Marlohe), a beautiful (of course) French woman in her 30s. She and her much older diplomat husband (Lambert Wilson) have an open marriage along very French cinq a sept lines: that is, any extra-marital love affairs must take place only after work, between the hours of 5 and 7pm. Continue reading 5 to 7 movie review →