This one is interesting for a lot of reasons – Tarantino fans will get excited as soon as the opening credits start up (that theme will be in my head for days, it’s one that’s always catchy and never tires; made even more memorable by the character it represents here; could do without the slaughtered “jazz” version, though, lol), and Hayley Mills is ridiculously gorgeous.

It’s very risqué for its time (not to mention for a Hayley Mills film gasp) while at the same time giving its age away with phenomenally narrow-minded generalisations. At 2 hours it’s way overlong. Hitchcock would’ve had much more fun with it, and it’s a massive shame he didn’t. For a Hayley Mills fan, though, it’s a similar kind of gem as I found Far From Home as a Drew Barrymore fan. I’ve been reading the novel of Marnie recently and in trying to find a different, more British voice for Marnie in my head I found myself settling on Hayley Mills and ultimately thinking how great it would’ve been not only to see her in that movie, but in any Hitchcock movie … so, especially with the Bernard Herrmann music, this is about the best consolation prize you could hope for and personally, I loved it.

Hmm. Like American Gangster and 3:10 to Yuma before it this year, I can’t help feeling disappointed here. From the director of Crash, A History of Violence, the writer of Dirty Pretty Things, and the exuberent praise of Mark Kermode, I’ve gotta say I really expected more from this. A second viewing might prove me wrong, but I haven’t even got round to a second viewing of “History” and I still know that movie was better – most particular in the visuals department. London just looks drab here, and not in any kind of way that it’s pertinent to the plot. Just about everybody involved here has done better work, and even the already infamous steam room scene isn’t that impressive. At 90 minutes I’m bound to watch it again before Oscar time, particularly if it’s nominated for anything … though that would really surprise me.

An all-time favourite that never lets me down, yet I don’t know what to say about it. It’s the ultimate romance-gone-too-far-gone-sour movie. I don’t think Kate Winslet has ever been better; I almost want to say the same for director Peter Jackson; and Melanie Lynskey is great in everything she does. The combo of Peter Dasent’s score and Mario Lanza songs make for one of the best soundtracks, and the visual effects, while a little on the low budget side, are somehow perfect for the young girls’ fantasy world. I don’t think beautiful and disturbing have ever been so close.

I tried writing one review of this already and it ended up being all over the place. The problem I have with this movie is, it’s among a small cluster of movies that I watched almost repeatedly when I was first falling in love with the movies. Apart from the extra footage that’s in this longer version, which still catches me off guard, I practically know the movie by heart. It’s impossible for me to make a fresh judgment of the movie – it’s either an embarassing reminder of my youth, or simply, awesome.

I completely advise watching the longer version because, though the extra scenes are not essential to the story (it was a favourite movie long before I had access to the long version), once you’ve seen those scenes, you just can’t forget them. They deepen the relationship between Léon and Mathilda and I’d honestly say it’s a better handling of this kind of relationship than either of the Lolita movie adaptations or any of its clones.

This is a highly stylised movie – even New York looks strange, it’s only Central Park that truly gives away the location. The costumes are particularly stylised and probably it’s the costumes that make a lot of people even more uncomfortable with Natalie Portman’s character/performance. The fact is, she is sexy as hell in this movie, and she’s meant to be. Our connection to Léon practically depends on this point – we feel his discomfort when she dances dressed as Madonna and Marilyn Monroe… the point is to question how far a friendship of this sort should go, and as far as the movie is concerned, the one line that should not be crossed is sex, pure and simple. I actually seriously wonder if this movie would be made today, especially the long version in which Léon clearly shares a bed with Mathilda – I mean, isn’t this just what Michael Jackson’s under fire for right now? Like Mathilda says, “It’s a great game… it makes you think...”

Writing something along the lines of that last paragraph is what has held me up writing this review – ‘cos like everyone else these days, I feel like I’m going to be shot in the head if I even suggest we should remove the barriers of fear we’ve put up as far as young people and “beauty” goes. That’s all I can really say in a short review but I think there’s a lot of discussion to be done on the subject … somebody actually should make a movie like this again before children are completely outlawed and forced to grow up in seclusion with electrostatic shields or something.

I think this is a great movie… I certainly love watching it. But it could just be the combo of the old memories of watching it when I myself was underage, and the current issues I see in it.