Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)

Di Caprio and Winslet are finally reunited in a '50s suburban Americana take on Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, based on Richard Yates's much-vaunted novel. The theme is set in the first few minutes, as they tear into each other after a failed theatrical performance on her part. This will be angst; Mendes has previous in the pain of disenchantment, from American Beauty onwards.
There are grating elements; at times we're in hysterically Sirkian melodrama, and Winslet can be painfully mannered in her stridency. But Di Caprio is increasingly getting to the kind of pained understatement that betrays his still boyishly squidgy face, Roger Deakins's photography is as sumptuous as ever, and in the end a succession of scenes that swing credibly from hope to utter disintegration to resignation linger beautifully. It's a superior example of domestic pulp, and certainly worth a look. Don't go expecting the adolescent schmaltz of Titanic, in other words.

7/10

The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch, 2008)

Jarmusch has to really watch his step here; he's created a a slice of metaphysics that is in danger of losing even his most laconically-minded audience. The monosyllabism and visual/audial space in this supposed thriller get to be hard work; it's as if he'd finally decided to eat up his less gifted but more singular mate Kaurismäki's template of people staring at cityscapes and having one-word exchanges and use it as an unnecessary filter through which to force Melville's Le Samourai. Or even just his last taciturn quasi-philosophical hitman outing, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.
Isaach De Bankolé, one of Jarmusch's stalwarts, walks an awful lot through Spanish cities, in various tastefully shiny suits, meeting big-name cameo mission contacts who all deliver a pseud-philosophy speech before exchanging matchboxes with him. He, in turn, never utters a sentence of more than five words. This should be unbearable pomposity. But Christopher Doyle's luminescent photography, and a soundtrack which is both grating and plangent, without contradiction between the two elements, still manage a hypnotic whole.
Conclusion: Jarmusch is at a loose end right now, but at least he never insults your intelligence. A hard-nosed concept editor will be needed next time, though.

6/10

Ressources Humaines (Laurent Cantet, 1999)

Laurent Cantet's first feature deals with big serious sociopolitical questions, a furrow of inquiry he's ploughed steadily since, through to 2008's acclaimed The Class. In Human Resources, he tackles union-employer relations with the advent of the imposed 35-hour-week in French industry. The attention to factual detail is painstaking and could well be painful too if left at that. But it lends a necessary credibility to the main character's crisis of identity as he returns from business school to join the HR department at the provincial factory where his father, a machinist, has ground out a living for the last 30 years.
The father, like most of the shopfloor cast, is played by a lay actor, and this might lay Cantet open to accusations of playing with archetypes rather than original characters. This trap is avoided: the performances are naturalistic enough to confer further authenticity on the whole instead, and also throw the unrooted idealism of Jalil Lespert as the son into stark focus as his slick business facade disintegrates in the face of the human implications of his adopted company's attitude to its disposable employees. The development is utterly predictable, but beautifully played out.
It's an angry polemic, yes, but like the best of Ken Loach, far transcends that in what it drives home about the way we live.

8/10

Romuald et Juliette (Coline Serreau, 1989)

While this starts as an amusing enough breakneck-paced piece on corporate backstabbing, the title rather gives away the inevitability of an eventual reversion to a romantic drama played out between its two principal players. These are the omnipresent Daniel Auteuil as a yoghurt company CEO and Firmine Richard as a black cleaner in the company offices. They're inevitably chalk and cheese in every conceivable way: he's loaded, materialistic and self-involved, she's a hard-pressed but salt-of-the-Earth single mother of five. In Hollywood, they'd be, say, Kevin Spacey and Queen Latifah.
When aspirants to his throne conspire against Auteuil, as well as each other, Richard takes him in and reveals the sort of astute detective skills you just knew lay under the surface to set him back on his feet. Then he of course finally discovers a heart. And in the best Hollywood tradition, a happy ending can't come without wealth and harmony for all.
This may all sound painfully trite, and it does end up as a piece of fluff. But it's an enjoyable one nevertheless: its saving graces are wit and a few scenes which don't just pander to our wish-fulfilment. There are worse ways to while away a few hours.

6/10