Friday Five: Films on a Plane

1. Delicious - Well, it looks beautiful - shot to make the mouth water (cinematography by Jean-Marie Dreujou). Sacked by his master, the Duke of Chamfort (Benjamin Lavernhe), for showing too much initiative as a chef, Manceron (Grégory Gadebois), gets his own back by setting up France's first restaurant on the eve of the fall of the Bastille and proving that not all service is servitude. He is assisted by Louise (Isabelle Carré) who turns up with a desire to be his apprentice. There is obviously more to her motivation than that, and it transpires that freedom to cook your own recipes is a revolutionary act. The dastardly duke believes that food is only for the rich as they have the exclusive ability to appreciate it. Ideas of setting out individual tables with tablecloths, writing up a menu, using fresh produce and not drowning it in heavy sauce were new; revenge as a dish best served cold was not.
2. The Green Knight - Green is the colour; denoting growth, renewal, mould and decay - it is cyclical and endless, like this legend. It's arty but beautiful with the perfect counterpoint of bleakness, and Dev Patel as Gawain is charming enough to carry the tale. One for the mythologists.
3. Jungle Cruise - I watched it on a plane, and it was good, mindless fun. The plot is negligible and the acting is all admirably sound with Emily and Dwayne being highly reliable as the  wholesome adventurous duo. Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti are totally predictable as the camp brother, Teutonic baddie and avaricious business-owner respectively. If you want to watch a movie (and it is a movie rather than a film) based on a theme park ride; you pay your money and you get exactly what you order. 



4. Last Night in Soho - The multi-genre format of this film is what makes it so intriguing. It's part thriller; part horror; part social commentary; part fantasy/ sci-fi and part period drama. A young woman, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) leaves her safe rural home to study fashion design in London because the lights are much brighter there. We learn that her grandmother worries about her mental health (her mother took her own life) and fears she might be out of her depth. With her fertile imagination, Eloise conjures up a world of SoHo in the swinging sixties where she believes all is glamorous, as epitomised by the characters of Sandy (Anna Taylor-Joy) and Jack (Matt Smith). As this fantasy world becomes more real, however, she discovers the seedy underside of the city where everyone is being exploited and love is never free. The ending may be a touch outré, but the film is definitely watchable and gripping, portraying the capital as a palimpsest of buried secrets.
5. My Son - It feels as though this was filmed during lock-down, with minimal sets, locations and cast. James McAvoy and Claire Foy are an estranged couple who have to communicate when their son goes missing form a holiday camp in Scotland (the scenery is spectacular). We soon suspect he has been kidnapped, but why, by whom and, most importantly, is he still alive? These two are great actors but the plot is really weak and sketchy. Apparently this is a remake of a 2017 French thriller, Mon Garçon, and the director (Christian Carion) both times requested that his lead actor perform without a script. James McAvoy is brilliant but he is an actor, and they tend to deliver lines. Without any, this by necessity falls down into a fairly pedestrian narrative, which seems a shame and a shocking waste of opportunity.
6. Spencer - Was the point of this film to reinforce the perception that Diana was a selfish, manipulative self-indulgent attention seeker? If so; job well done. With little consideration for anyone but herself (including her children), she sets out to make the traditional Christmas all about her by flouting the family like a spoilt child who suddenly realises she is not getting her own way at every opportunity. This would not be interesting if the family were not royal and she were not the vomit-inducing (yes, she does a lot of that) 'queen of hearts'. Kristen Stewart gives a credible performance as a portrait of a victim, but the whining is deafening and the sympathy short. Plaudits to the costumiers and the design team - the rest is overwrought hokum. Americans will love it.