Maxwell Ward

To say that Jim Carrey’s films are defined by the elasticity of his face is a little much, but it can give a big, gurning clue about what they hope to achieve. That’s why I Love You Phillip Morris is an anomaly in his portfolio, a film which has familiar rubbery expressions, but also moments of pitch-black humour, drama and a heartfelt love story. It is, all in all, surprisingly hard to define.

The story, which we are reminded is true, follows the life of Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey), a con artist and serial prison escapee. During one of his first spells in jail he meets fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), and quickly falls for him. It is the start of a relationship that provides the motor for the film; a love story of exhilarating highs and crushing lows across Russell’s life as a conman, inmate, and fugitive.

The film, which has not been released in the US due to delays finding a distributor, has been re-edited to be less controversial, apparently on the basis of its homosexual content. It is a troubling illustration, if true, of intolerance throughout the US market, and it makes a big statement when films with multiple murders can be seen as mainstream, but those with romantic storylines between two men can’t.

That’s not to say that there are no adult scenes in this film, but the sexual content throughout felt more Carry On than graphic to me. It could be as a consequence of the re-edit of course, but more likely because of the film’s lack of a clear identity, a condition wholly analogous to Russell’s ever-changing persona.

At times the development of Russell and Morris’s relationship, especially in the sex scenes, can feel disturbed by irreverent jokes. It is as if I Love You Phillip Morris cannot decide whether to focus on the drama and character development of the story, or whether to maximise Carrey’s comedy potential, leaving the humour feeling forced and the story interrupted.

That being said, both Carrey and McGregor put in strong performances. Carrey brings his ceaseless energy to a role in which he well cast, an impressionist playing an impressionist, while McGregor is very convincing as the vulnerable Phillip Morris, providing excellent, restrained support that allows a sense of romance and heartbreak to develop subtly. It is his consistency that provides the necessary grounding on which the film succeeds; he invokes compassion, while Russell’s stranger-than-fiction story will keep you entertained throughout.

Maxwell Ward

Prison has made for a frequent setting in crime cinema, and with Jacques Audiard’s Grand Prix-winning A Prophet, his first film since the acclaimed The Beat That My Heart Skipped, we are introduced to a merciless French jail overrun by Corsican mobsters. Following the prison career of Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), a North African teenager sentenced to serve six years for an unnamed charge, Audiard presents a squalid, claustrophobic world within the prison walls, heaving with hatred and intolerance.

From the very beginning of his prison sentence, without family or funds on the outside world, Malik feels vulnerable in the ultra-machismo environment. Despite his North African origins, a lack of education leaves him alienated from the Muslim community, and when he is noticed by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), the Corsican mob boss, as something of an outcast, Malik is forcefully informed that he must kill the prisoner named Reyeb or be killed himself.

Malik commits the gruesome murder and, as a sign of the Corsicans’ control of the prison, he receives no punishment. From this point on Malik is said to be “protected”, and performs menial chores for the mob as an Arab outsider. Haunted by visions of the murdered Reyeb in his cell, Malik decides that he must educate himself if he is to fare better than his victim.

Learning to read on the prison programme and absorbing the Corsican language through his duties with the mob, the outsider starts to pick-up details of Luciani’s work. It becomes clear that, with the right connections, he could achieve Luciani’s status himself, and as he becomes ever more involved in drug trafficking outside of the prison walls, danger grows within.

Tahar Rahim’s performance as the altogether sympathetic, and yet utterly ruthless, Malik El Djebena is a wonder to behold. From a nonentity devoid of hope, Malik develops a depth of character that thrills the audience; his commitment to self-preservation and his intelligence in adversity is invigorating. His is an underdog story that you support all the way.

And for allowing the story to play out so well praise should be given to Niels Arestrup as the fearsome mob boss Cesar Luciani. It is a supporting performance of great intensity and spirit, even when he shows his vulnerable side.

Yet the highest praise belongs to Jacques Audiard. With A Prophet he has created a protest statement of great realism, a rich character development piece, and a crime drama that offers non-stop entertainment. There is plenty here to keep you gripped for 150 minutes.

Maxwell Ward

Since Toy Story’s release in 1995, Pixar have produced a further nine feature films, demonstrating a level of quality and consistency that would leave Roger Federer or Tiger Woods hanging their head in shame. Completing the near perfect ten for Pixar is Up, the tale of Carl Fredricksen, a geriatric grouch and widower, who attempts to finally make good on a promise to move his home, and childhood clubhouse, to Paradise Falls, South America.

The journey is, somewhat predictably, far from ordinary; the former balloon salesman using ten thousand of his helium filled leftovers to lift his house from its foundations, unwittingly carrying Russell, an enthusiastic youngster and “Wilderness Explorer” along with him. The journey becomes increasingly challenging for the improbable duo as they befriend a stunning but oddball female bird, which Russell names Kevin, and the massively loveable Dug the dog, who has been fitted with a translating collar which allows him to speak English. Unfortunately, Dug has also been tasked with tracking down Kevin and capturing her for the covetous and obsessive explorer Charles Muntz.

The romance shared between Carl and his late wife Ellie as they grow old together, shown in just the first fifteen minutes of the film, is so heart-rending that I wondered briefly where the film could go next. For any naysayers who dispute the impact that animated films can make, well, I condemn you to a lifetime without moments like these.
So where did the film go next? Well, up, of course, but in effect to a lighter place. The relationship between the misanthropic old man Carl and young Russell develops wonderfully and together they are charming and delightfully dysfunctional, although once Kevin and Dug enter the big screen it becomes raucous.

Yes, it’s true that a lot of the laughs stem from physical humour, absurd anthropomorphic interaction and farce, but frankly, who cares? These jokes may not need the most sophisticated sense of humour, and, yes, they may appeal to children but that is the beauty of these films — there is nothing elitist; it is all about honest emotions and interactions in a beautifully told and packaged story.

Indeed, Up comes with an additional piece of packaging in the form of the elegant NHS-style 3D glasses that you get to watch it with. I initially feared that this may lead Pixar down the road of “things flying at your face” style gimmickry, but so subtly done are the 3D effects that I now firmly believe the glasses were developed to serve an altogether different purpose. Yes, with these tinted specs, viewers who previously fell into the demographic of “ashamed weepers” can at last have a lovely long cry while the Pixar maestros effortlessly pull on our heart strings. No one will be any the wiser.