View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
26 October 2010updated 04 Oct 2023 10:25am

Gilbey on film: the London Film Festival

A round-up of the best and the worst moments from this year's LFF.

By Ryan Gilbey

The London Film Festival is moving into its last few days; the Surprise Movie is now behind us (it turned out to be the new Brighton Rock: I’d say “I told you so” if everyone else hadn’t guessed it too); and now I have that familiar end-of-festival feeling that the grass must have been greener in Screen 5. Hannah Rothschild, whose candid documentary Mandelson: the Real PM? was programmed ahead of its television debut next month, correctly describes the festival experience as being “a bit like looking through the window of a very delicious restaurant”. Not that the kitchens have closed yet: at the time of writing, there are still tickets available for screenings including Somewhere, another film-star-hiding-out-in-a-hotel movie from Sofia “Lost in Translation” Coppola; Gregg Araki’s riotous Kaboom; the Indian coming-of-age drama Udaan; and Rothschild’s film, which offers, among other things, the spectacle of Peter Mandelson in his underwear (rumours that the BBFC is demanding more cuts than the coalition government remain as yet unfounded).

Many of the movies screened – including Never Let Me Go, Another Year, Let Me In and 127 Days –– will be discussed at greater length in the NS in the coming weeks and months. For now, here are some of my highlights and lowlights from this year’s LFF.

Film of the festival

I’ve already praised on this site the Argentinean documentary The Peddler, about an avuncular 67-year-old director who travels from town to town, making a new amateur epic wherever he stops. A month after seeing it, I’m still smiling at its affectionate evocation of that incurable condition known as movie love.

Star of the Festival

No contest – it has to be the hypnotic newcomer Conor McCarron in Peter Mullan’s Neds, a punchy if sometimes undisciplined 1970s-set story of Glaswegian gangs. McCarron plays the aggressively intelligent teenager John McGill, who goes from class swot to rampaging tough-nut in a matter of years. The young actor has a gift for stillness and for playing introspection without making his emotions inaccessible; he also has a great, Cagney-esque baby face and a chin like a boxing glove.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

Biggest disappointment

It would be unfortunate enough to find yourself sitting through It’s Kind of a Funny Story under any circumstances. That this soft-pedalling, self-consciously zany comedy about a teenager’s week on an adult psychiatric ward should be written and directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden only lends the experience an air of tragedy. Going from the heights of Half Nelson and Sugar to what is essentially a big-screen episode of Scrubs feels nothing like a funny story to me. And I don’t have much time for the school of thought, found at IFC.com, which argues that “we . . . shouldn’t hold [the directors] to a standard higher than they held themselves to.” That sounds suspiciously like: “They never intended to make a great movie, so let’s not pillory them because they settled for mediocre.”

Most surprising soundtrack

There is no shortage of unexpected treats in Love Like Poison, a delicately played drama of sexual awakening, and I’ll delve more deeply into those when the film opens next year. But its folk-oriented soundtrack deserves a special mention for making it possible to hear “Greensleeves” as if for the first time and for incorporating the stunning choral version of Radiohead’s “Creep”, last heard on the trailer for The Social Network.

The “Close but no Lurpak” award for least persuasive sex scene

What Last Tango in Paris did for butter, the rather earnest French partner-swapping drama Happy Few fails completely to do for a giant bag of flour. Whey-faced and grabbing hungrily at one another’s limbs, the actors resemble nothing so much as the undead in a George A Romero zombie flick.

Content from our partners
Development finance reform: the key to climate action
Individually rare, collectively common – how do we transform the lives of people with rare diseases?
Future proofing the NHS

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU