JODIE Foster hasn't done a kids' film since she was a kid, so it's disappointing that she hasn't found a better vehicle than this to display her more frivolous side. Nim's Island, in which she plays an agoraphobic writer of children's adventure novel
s, is the flimsiest sort of fun and her bumbling, slapstick approach to her character's neuroses is more irritating than endearing.
The rest of the cast aren't much better. As the titular heroine, Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin looks like a kid being forced to have a good time, while Gerard Butler adopts another of his terrible accents to play her hunky marine biologist father, Jack. This father-daughter team live on an otherwise-uninhabited island paradise in the South Pacific, where dad researches plankton and Nim learns about life from her animal pals (which include a sea lion, a pelican and a bearded dragon).
When Jack goes missing at sea, Nim is forced to ask for help from the one person she reckons will be able to save the day: Alex Rover, the Indiana Jones clone hero of her favourite books.
Spotting an e-mail from Alex on her father's computer (don't ask), she fires off an electronic SOS, unaware that its recipient will be one Alexandra Rover (Foster), creator of her hero and, unfortunately, also a tightly-wound germaphobe who hasn't left her house in 11 months. Here the film splits into two half-hearted fantasy movies as Nim resorts to ever more resourceful methods to keep a cruise ship full of Aussie tourists off her island while Alexandra forces herself to overcome her fears by rushing to Nim's aid.
Sticking with this schizophrenic approach, Butler dons some ripped-off Indy duds to play Alexandra's fictional alter-ego, who pops up to encourage her to follow her own advice and be the hero of her own story. The island stuff is all very Swiss Family Robinson (exotic locales, elaborate tree houses, even the odd pirate), but as a fantasy adventure it's a bit underpowered.
JOY DIVISON **** (15)
DIRECTED BY: GRANT GEE
DOES the world need another film about Joy Division? Strictly speaking no, but this is a bit of a blinder: a documentary that unearths some striking, rarely scene archival footage, offers up plenty of lively insider interviews and is put together in such an artful and thoughtful way it re-makes the case for the band's cultural importance without reverting to overblown reverie.
There's some of that too, mind, courtesy of the late Tony Wilson, but it's interesting to hear the late Factory Records supremo reflect on his then high-minded indifference to Ian Curtis's mental problems.
Actually, it's interesting to hear the rest of the band's reflections, since theirs was the one perspective missing from recent biopic Control. New Order was eventually formed out of the wreckage of Joy Division, but at the time they were young, emotionally inarticulate working-class guys and, as they admit here, none of them paid attention to the tell-tale signs in Curtis's lyrics.
Not that they're much more emotionally articulate now, but they're often funny (especially Peter Hook), and are certainly uninterested in myth-making, which provides a good counterbalance to some of the critical theorising and more painful reflections from other contributors.
BEAUFORT ***(15)
DIRECTED BY: JOSEPH CEDAR
STARRING: OSHRI COHEN, OHAD KNOLLER, DANIEL BROOK
NOMINATED for an Oscar earlier this year in the Best Foreign Language film category and a Silver Bear winner at last year's Berlin Film Festival, this Israeli film, the latest from Time of Favour director Joseph Cedar, uses Israel's retreat from Southern Lebanon in 2000 as the backdrop for a meditative, atmospheric examination of the debilitating effects of war on soldiers whose mission no longer seems to have any purpose or objective.
Charged with defending the titular mountain fort against Hezbollah insurgents determined to make their planned retreat look like a decisive victory, a small band of Israeli Defence Force soldiers led by a young, ineffectual officer (Oshri Cohen), suddenly find themselves confronting their own futility as they risk their lives on a daily basis for no real reason.
As heavy shelling and roadside bombs deplete their number with only days to go, Cedar's characters raise age-old questions about the callousness of policy makers and the value that nations as a whole put on the sanctity of human life.
There's not too much in the way of specifics about politics of Israel's involvement in the region, but Cedar's ambient sound cues and haunting cinematography combine to create a claustrophobic atmosphere that marks this out as a more impressionistic take on the madness of war.
PRIVATE PROPERTY **(15)
DIRECTED BY: JOACHIM LAFOSSE
STARRING: ISABELLE HUPPERT, JÉRÉMIE RENIER, YANNICK RENIER
SHOT with the dispassionate gaze of an entomologist, writer-director Joachim Lafosse lets us see Private Property's brood implode without the usual cinematic tricks of the trade. Matter-of-fact shots of matriarch Pascale (Isabelle Huppert) modelling lingerie for her sons (L'Enfant's Jérémie Renier and his real-life brother Yannick) hint at an uncomfortable intimacy that should have been nipped in the bud years earlier, while scenes of the brothers fighting like kids, bathing together and receiving pocket-money clue us into how emotionally stunted they are.
Things come to a head when Pascale, in a belated effort to cut the cord, announces she wants to sell the family home. What follows is an uncomfortable examination of the consequences of bad parenting and the need to create boundaries between adults and children to equip them for the outside world.
The performances are strong, but the characters are still too wretched to make caring about them an option.
The full article contains 980 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
