I watched this today because it’s one of those movies I can watch any time but it was midway that I realised maybe I’d subconsciously chosen it for another reason. It connects to a lot of the movies I’ve watched recently and the feelings I’ve had watching them – from Enchanted to Penelope to Riding in Cars with Boys the other day, I even found similarities to Once here this time around. I’d never watched the introduction on the DVD of this movie before, and in it, Geoff Andrew says some things about the ending that my gut instinct disagreed with a lot, dismissing the romance at the start as meaningless teenage meanderings and such, as if the romance between Guy and Geneviève was never meant to bloom nor could have possibly bloomed, even if he’d returned to her in time. I took as much issue with that idea as I have recently with this idea that innocence lost can never be regained, etc, that I won’t go into yet again.

But as the movie went on, I did find myself looking at it in a different way from before – dare I say it, with some aging mature wisdom on my side. There are a lot of questions I’ve had over this movie in the past, like for example why I continue to love it so much when so many of the characters do things that I would never usually find acceptable. Everybody in the movie is in some way “after something” that they never ask for directly and honestly – both Guy and Geneviève in some way give up waiting for their love, the less said about Geneviève’s mother the better, Madeleine never declares her obvious love for Guy, and Roland Cassard, though perhaps the most admirable character in the movie, is always presented as a bit of a slimeball who looks down on the others – here to the rescue, yes, but through little real effort on his part. I think in the end it’s this full package of flawed characters illustrating perhaps precisely how “people things” tend to transpire whether we like them or not. Even Geneviève’s mother has a lot of pearls of wisdom, though delivered a little harshly (not to mention shrilly lol) at times.

But in the end, any amount of babble like this becomes fairly moot once you’re faced with the movie itself. From the opening title onwards – that rain falling as though from the camera itself on the people of Cherbourg, as though we the audience are already crying on the movie – this movie is simply pure magic that I could bawl through from beginning to end. The music is sublime, the colours are eye-popping, and the characters are, as I hopefully illustrated above, surprisingly complicated given the context. It has the most conflicted but beautiful ending I’ve ever seen, and I still react to it today as I did over 10 years ago when I first saw it: my stomach almost physically churns and tightens, I’m overjoyed but crushed, tears fall down my face over a wretchedly human smile on my lips. This movie isn’t beautiful … it’s beauty. If this review reads like a mess than it’s just an illustration of how the movie affects me, lol, and probably an explanation of why there hasn’t previously been a review of it here despite it being one of my all-time faves.

Nice long first review below so I don’t feel compelled to say too much here this time but to mention how surprised I was that it worked so well a second time. The ending here is probably seen as particularly corny to some, and when I first saw it though it really overwhelmed me I wasn’t sure if it’d just caught me at the right time. I think the reason it looks like it’s actually going to work for me any number of times I see it now comes down to two things: the line that precedes it from the boy, “But this is my story, and this is where I want it to end …”, and all that water. The movie comes down to a child’s hope and water: how beautifully simple can you get? I should also repeat the fact that I should really watch this movie before and after anything featuring James Nesbitt – I’ve really grown to dislike him recently, mostly over the casting of him in the BBC’s “Passion” as Pontius Pilate … but he really is quite amazing here.

September 6th, 2007:

Absolute genius. A quintessential children’s movie (okay, it’s a 12A in the UK, I don’t agree; it gets a little scary towards the end but this so fits the bill alongside old children’s classics that I think it should almost be a U) and a quintessential British movie – addressing poverty, class, religion, the ethnic minorities, all those lovely things – in one. Not to mention the fact it remains at all turns, absolutely, a Danny Boyle film. I’ve yet to see Sunshine, but on the evidence up to now, I’ve got to say, surely Boyle is one of the most consistently brilliant directors not only in the UK but in the whole field.

The basic story is that a few weeks before the UK switches from Pound Sterling to Euros, a young boy discovers a bag stuffed with hundreds of thousands (not millions, but hey, what’s the difference to a child?) and must therefore decide what to do with it before it becomes worthless. If movies like Brewster’s Millions and Blank Cheque come to mind with that set-up, you couldn’t be further off. While all around him seem obsessed to the point of stereotype with football, the kid in question here has this obsession with Catholic Saints reminiscent of Winona Ryder’s character in Mermaids ... he even thinks he can see and talk to them at times (leading to hilarious moments when one of said Saints drops into his cardboard house by the railway for a sneaky joint, lol; or the Geordie Saint Peter telling him, “For Christ’s sake don’t tick them little boxes,” as the kid attempts to send the money to various charities). Against all odds, this kid wants to do good with this money, and is amazed at how hard that is.

I was hooked on this from the moment the Danny Elfman-esque opening music (incidentally, wonderful score all the way through by John Murphy) – coupled with some CGI of a new housing estate being constructed, a bit reminiscent of a Barratt commercial actually, but bizarrely beautiful – struck up, and it only got better from there. It never took the directions I thought it would. At times it’s similar to child fantasy movies like Lawn Dogs or Paperhouse; at times, the influence of much older, earthier things like Whistle Down the Wind is more evident (I have in mind in particular the scenes where the kid and his brother are introducing their school peers to the money; and the long line of homeless people following them to Pizza Hut).

It’s a mesmerising, beautiful movie with much to say about childhood and the state of the world, perhaps best captured best in the abandoned way the hero says to his dad at the end, “Everyone gets robbed at Christmas, dad.” Incidentally, major kudos has to be given to James Nesbitt here. Though I think he’s really talented, he normally manages to do something to annoy me; here, he not only didn’t do that, but he manages to cover up his seemingly uncoverable accent; Daisy Donovan is a delight, too, I had no idea she could act. The kids, it has to be said, aren’t fantastic; but it’s clear that Boyle has almost used their weaknesses to his advantage; again, it’s almost like watching a much older production. This is really a gem, and possible Boyle’s best movie to date.

“Sometimes we love people so much that we have to be numb to it. Because if we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means your heart’s too big.”

I have the Donofrio book queued up to read really soon, like in the next couple of weeks, but I really couldn’t resist watching the movie yet again once it entered my mind this afternoon.

In answer to the question, “Why do boys suck?” I once said, “Because people expect it of them,” and it was like a revelation to me, it just popped out of my mouth without any real thought behind it but I knew immediately that it was true; and this movie kind of touches on that. Like, right at the moment of birth, we see Beverley’s horror at being given a boy – she was meant to have a girl, who would be just like her! But as Steve Zahn says, it’s a boy, and it’ll be just like him!

This movie just explains so many things, I find – I think in short it could be described as, “the cycle of shit” in life; even the marriage proposal here, “so romantic”, contains the ’s’ word, lol. Yet in Beverley’s son Jason, we see how even despite how the world can grind so many of us down and lead people to all manner of quick-fixes that make matters worse, morality and intelligence tend to thrive. The last time we see the “young” Jason it’s following the last straw for Beverley when he turns her in to her cop father for drying weed in the house. She tells her son that he’s ruined their lives, but he fires it right back at her, “That’s not what you’re supposed to tell people when they tell you the truth.” The mother-son back and forth here is as pointed yet at times hilarious as Edina and Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous (a random comparison, maybe: I’ve just finishing watching that show from start to finish, it’s on my mind), him so often telling her how she should be acting, perhaps hitting its pinnacle when he falls into a hot tub, and in the middle of pulling him out, she chastises herself and drops him back, then declares herself a bad mother, to which his response is a simple, “yeh …”.

I think what perhaps made this repeat viewing resonate with me more than any other times I’ve watched it relates to that quote that jumped out at me the very first time I saw it, “I’m 22 years old …” (the rest is below) – suddenly, I’m actually almost 30 lol. The use of the song “All I Have to Do is Dream” by the Everley Brothers, sung by James Woods and Mika Boorem (“Dad, you can’t negotiate my boobs!”) as the young Beverley early in the movie and then at the end (which I’d forgotten entirely) with Drew, suddenly made sense to me: “Only trouble is, gee whiz, I’m dreamin’ my life away …” This is a movie I’d recommend to anybody to watch from the moment they’re ready to see it (and that could be anywhere between the ages of 8 and 28 so, who knows when that is?) but that reveals itself more to you as you grow. I’m still in awe of its little pockets of realism, I find more every time I watch. I’m pretty sure it’s Drew Barrymore’s best movie to date, though that’s by no means the only reason to watch it.

July 28th, 2005:

Nothing to add to the old review (below). I think this movie’s a masterpiece. It’s even more realistic than I remember it. And I remembered how badly Steve Zahn’s character degenerates at the end, but I’d forgotten how far gone he kind of already is at the start. It’s really one of the saddest characters I’ve ever seen. I’ll definitely read the Donofrio book one day.

20th February 2004:

“I’m 22 years old – that’s almost 30, and I still haven’t accepted that this is my life. And I just wish that I could be dumb. And then I wouldn’t know better and I could be happy and stop hoping. And I’m telling you this like you’re interested in my boring life.”

This movie was a surprise. I expected to like it purely for the presence of Drew Barrymore but she amazed me. She plays between ages of 15 and mid-thirties perfectly. The movie towards the end reminded me of Ted Demme’s Blow – the way Steve Zahn’s character has totally degenerated towards the end, but is still able to express love to the son he can’t even recognise. The way real life is portrayed in this movie is shockingly true. Just a simple thing such as Drew Barrymore’s character working in a fast food joint – the way she’s joking to some people off camera and she turns for the customer window and sees some old school enemies who always “knew” she’d end up in a place like this, the way her expression just totally upturns and you know, this is the worst moment of her life.

Great performances from James Woods, Brittany Murphy (who has one of the films funniest scenes – “My daughter’s a tramp! My daughter’s a tramp!” – alongside Barrymore trying to fall down the stairs to the song “The End of the World” which accompanied Murphy’s suicide in Girl, Interrupted), and Sara Gilbert who we don’t see enough of these days as the one character who seemingly “gets it right”. Just for its portrayal of life itself, if a little depressing if it catches you in the wrong mood, this movie deserves major kudos.

“Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.”

It truly is the happiest film ever made. And perfect to boot, like, literally, perfect, so much so that I don’t feel I need to say a lot more than that. I was really drawn to the sheer number of immediately identifiable icons in the movie this zillionth time watching it – it’s something I’ve really started to be interested in in a lot of movies recently: like just those props and simple images you can remove entirely from their context in the movie and yet their association is so indelible that pretty much anyone will know the movie from them. The gingham dress, the ruby slippers, the green-faced witch, a witch in a bubble, another under a house, the poppy field, the Emerald City, the yellow brick road, the red sand hourglass – and of course the scarecrow, tin man and lion. Any one of these things captures the imagination enough in itself. To put them altogether in one ninety minute swoop with the songs and the simply perfectly cast Judy Garland tying it all together is for me to practically bottle everything it means to dream.

For me it mostly comes down to those last scenes; the wizard declaring, “No I’m not a bad man – just a bad wizard,” bestowing the gifts upon Dorothy’s friends at the same time really highlighting the worthlessness of the societal things that package us like diplomas, medals and testimonials, in turn proffering the slightly cheesy but no less truthful notion that it really is just who we are that counts; and of course, “Oh Auntie Em … There’s No Place Like Home,” that swell of music that never fails to make me cry my eyes out.

Yes, I guess it comes to the same almost dreary happiness in its close that I hated in Enchanted – “But that’s so easy!” the Tin Man even declares when Glinda reveals to Dorothy the means to get home – but it’s the way it elevates that normality to something fantastic, never dismissing the wonder of imaginary Oz (if it is imaginary at all, I feel the urge to add) in the process. I was reminded of that wonderful line at the end of the last Harry Potter book, “Of course it’s all happening in your head … but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?” I’m babbling and I’ve done too much of that lately. It’s just a perfect movie, okay?

Well, finally, I loved this one so much it went over A Clockwork Orange in my 1971 list and thus shot straight to the top of my favourite movies of all time … kinda knew that’d happen sooner or later. Again, there’s little to say that I haven’t said below or that others haven’t said before, but I noticed a couple of cute things this time around worth mentioning, both of them costume related; the way Harold is dressed exactly the same as the psychiatrist in their first meeting, and the way Maude is dressed almost exactly the same as a little girl walking in the same way as her behind her at one of the early funerals … Maude, though, carrying that bright yellow umbrella that makes her look more like the little girl, lol. It’s just an absolutely beautiful movie I could quote or talk about scenes from for hours. “For me, they will always be glorious birds …” – “Most of life’s sorrow comes from people who are this – but allow themselves to be treated like that …” I probably should’ve saved it for Valentine’s Day … though that’s reserved for Hannibal still this year One day I’ll write a much longer review … for now, just consider it an even higher recommendation, if you’ve not seen it yet, than I gave for Beautiful Girls a few weeks ago.

January 5th, 2006:

I’m surprised by how much I said in my first review of this (below). I really can’t think of much to say about it right now, I need to watch it so many more times. I want to know ths movie by heart. Everything about it is perfect. Its offbeat take on life, death, and love is beyond compare. Maude is one of the greatest movie characters ever.

18th October 2004:

Someone recommended this movie to me a while ago and I already knew about it and knew it was a movie I wanted to see, and after that recommendation, I wanted to see it even more. I don’t know why it took me till now to finally see it.

I was barely even in the right frame of mind to watch it, nevertheless it belongs forever in my top 100 movies of all time. It’s only just at 100 after a first viewing but I just know it’s going to rise and rise. These two characters are people I want to hang with forever. Harold and Maude belongs in that group of movies that just tell you to grab life by the balls. It’s almost terrifying in that aspect, Maude is so free-spirited she would make almost anyone on earth feel somewhat lifeless.

And the soundtrack by Cat Stevens … well, it’s awesome, but more than anything makes me want to hear more Cat Stevens. Why is this soundtrack never uttered in the same breath as Simon and Garfunkel’s The Graduate and Aimee Mann’s Magnolia? I see something of Cameron Crowe’s influence coming from this movie too, I wonder if he’s ever mentioned it on a commentary anywhere – I’m going to have to watch Almost Famous again.

Definitely one of the most romantic movies of all time.

“If only we were among friends! Or … sane persons!”

What a way to start the year this is (okay I watched Hot Fuzz again before it, but didn’t have much to add to the old review, though it did rise significantly up the 2007 list). I don’t think it had ever really occurred to me before, so thanks I guess to ITV for putting it on early yesterday morning

The lyrics are even more incredible than I remember – this is a guy really loving words, like it’s more often than not the sound of the words taking precedence way over any meaning – “I’ll tell you once, I’ll tell you twice / You better wise up, Janet Weiss.” “You’re as sensual as a pencil.” It almost reminds of Tim Rice at his most fun (I know, different people might take that comparison differently; for the record, I love Tim Rice, this is a positive thing I’m saying).

What struck me too on this viewing is how surprisingly clean the movie is. On the sex front it’s as tame as a pantomime, it’s all implied though if you’ve got any hormones whatsoever I’d be shocked if you weren’t turned on at some point – I personally find it just about the sexiest film ever, like, even Tim Curry is somehow a turn-on lol. There’s the fairly shockingly gruesome killing of Eddie but even that’s more in the sound mix than anything else. I guess if you’re offended by words like “transvestite” and “transexual” it might hurt a bit, but really it’s not even as crazy as I thought it was. It only really strikes one as so utterly subversive etc when you’re able to recognise all the symbolism in it like the rainbow colours and the triangle on Frank N Furter’s medical tunic etc.

“It’s not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache.”

Ultimately it’s how the ridiculousness of it all just builds and builds (I still remember how much I lost it the first time I watched it that moment when Riff-Raff and Magenta burst in in their alien regalia, lol) only to be cut through by the key line of the whole thing, “Don’t dream it, be it,” and then to cap it all the King Kong reference with Rocky climbing the RKO tower.

I don’t know, sometimes I think I take these things a little too serious considering they are at their core just a little kind of homage or spoof, but, y’know, I always let my heart make the final decision when it comes to movies, and the “Don’t dream it, be it,” and the RKO thing … they really make this movie for me, it’s not just a weird cult entertainment for me, it actually means something. I watched it for the first time almost 10 years ago and if I said it wasn’t at least partly responsible for the things I’ve gradually learned to accept about myself in the years since, may I be struck down for such a giant lie. You can take that last sentence however you want ‘cos I’m still a little averse to being specific. This movie just says how wonderful it is to be yourself and though it almost sounds ridiculous, to not be afraid of things that are pleasing to you. There is simply no better message for a movie to have. If it feels good, why knock it? We badly need another movie like this for today, pronto. I’ll keep my personal detailed ideas on that notion to myself for now

Again, as with The Brave One – and in this case it’s even more bizarre ‘cos i love Cameron Crowe heaps more than Neil Jordan – I really didn’t come to this movie expecting the director’s signature to be such a notable presence. Crowe’s flair for the ethereal seems so honed in more recent projects like Vanilla Sky and Almost Famous that I really didn’t expect much if anything here but an enjoyably superior 80s teen comedy – at worst John Hughes, at best perhaps the same year’s Heathers.

But Crowe is really overwhelmingly present here in his first work as director, perhaps most particularly in the beautifully quirky ending. I don’t think I’ve ever been told “everything’s gonna be alright” in so unexpected a fashion, lol. Then there’s the singing in the car like Jerry Mcguire, the threat of a plane crash from Almost Famous again. Crowe really started as he meant to go on. This has its lulls but for a first movie, for a first viewing, there’s plenty to bring me back. It certainly made more of an impression on me than his last Elizabethtown.

Though I’ve really loved a few of Neil Jordan’s movies – The End of the Affair in particular, Interview with the Vampire of course … looking at his filmography now I realise I’ve actually missed quite a few, lol – I really came to this expecting nothing more than the latest perfect Jodie Foster performance. This used to be an event, of course, in the decade leading up to Panic Room a Jodie movie was really a Jodie Movie. Now, she almost religiously gets Oscar buzz on a yearly basis (no luck yet), and like Dakota Fanning, Johnny Depp – I’m sure there are others – more often than not, the greatness of the performance is almost “boringly” so.

But this performance honestly surprised me. Foster is known for playing strong women, of course, and her roles have almost without exception always had something powerful to say about women, about the treatment, the history, the everything of women. It’s almost bizarre to find her in this movie once you find out what kind of movie it is. I read recently about how upset she’d been by Sin City and I totally got where she was coming from, but there are many ways in which The Brave One is not so different from that comic book burst of ultraviolence. What makes Foster’s performance so surprising is the weakness she manages to show us at times. It’s a revenge movie, so of course there’s still a lot of strength. It’s called The Brave One, d’uh. But it’s the other, quieter stuff – the way she approaches the police desk after first getting the courage to leave her apartment at the start, for instance – that really made an impression on me.

There are moments here where I had to actually double check that it wasn’t based on a graphic novel or comic, in fact – the moment, for instance, where her “voiceover” first creeps in as she leaves the subway, “Why aren’t my hands shaking? Why does nobody stop me?” It practically reminded me of an old Incredible Hulk cartoon I used to watch on a loop, “Dizzy, shaky. Unable … to … stand …” It’s almost like she’s literally transforming superhero style into this other person she is in the end (“Superc*nt” – no don’t close the window, that’s the movie’s word, not mine – would almost be the perfect title, in fact). But though I’d struggle to say the movie is necessarily dark – on the contrary, it revels in its near-schlockiness just about wherever it possibly can – it’s certainly more interested in showing how affected – and, ultimately, irredeemably destroyed – Foster’s character is by every act of violence. And that’s the giant hairline than separates it from the far less reverent Sin City.

Anyway, like I said, I was amazed to find it really wasn’t just the Jodie that thrilled me in this movie. It’s every bit as absorbingly intense emotionally as I found The End of the Affair. It’s one of those movies that just fired its harpoon of interest directly into the center of my forehead and never let me go. At almost 2 hours in length, that’s really no mean feat. There’s just so much here that can only improve on subsequent viewings. There are so many things that really shouldn’t work, so many conveniences and contrivances – quite literally, the shooting in the convenience store, then the trust Foster shows following a stranger into a back alley to get a gun – but they’re all smoothed over effortlessly by what I can only assume is a Disbelief Suspension Device that Jodie Foster has concealed somewhere on her person at all times on set.

My mum said afterwards how Foster looks much as she did in The Accused. I said, yeh, and I’m sure that’s how a lot of people, possibly even Jodie, hoped that movie would end. It’s basically that movie meets Taxi Driver, Iris all grown up and doing the Travis Bickle thing – with the prostitute in the taxi, it’s almost a direct lift. It honestly amazes me that I haven’t heard more people going crazy about how basically dangerous this movie is etc, like Daily Mail types who said David Cronenberg’s Crash was gonna bring down society etc. This in itself probably says more than the movie itself does about how much morals have crumbled in just a decade. Even I found myself during this movie, even as I was quietly cheering Jodie on, thinking, “but … dude!” But what finally made me love this movie the most is how it genuinely takes no prisoners. It goes all the way, right or wrong. It delivers, which is more than can be said of at least 80% of the movies I’ve seen this year.