Il capitale umano (Paolo Virzì, 2013)

Of course the technique of telling a film from three different perspectives is so common it's now quite standard, but that doesn't diminish its value provided that it's done to serve the drive of the narrative rather than just for modish effect. Human Capital uses it in the right way, unpeeling the events of one night like the layers of an onion. The basic story revolves around three families in Lombardy; one ultra-rich (a callous banker, his disempowered trophy wife and his spoilt son), one a level below (a hapless estate agent gambling on the markets, his blissfully unaware wife and his independent-minded daughter) and one at the bottom of the social scale (a sensitive boy shunned for his unconventionality and his wastrel of an uncle). Their lives intersect around the accidental running over of a cyclist and there's a good deal of fairly restrained social observation along the way about the nature of a money and status-driven society, helped considerably by the transposition of the story to Northern Italy (the source novel was actually set in Connecticut). It does veer somewhat perilously close to soap opera at some points, and in the end doesn't actually leave us with much substance, but it's a handsomely mounted piece all the same.

6/10 

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015)

A man grieving the loss of his son two years previously accepts an invitation to a dinner party from his ex-wife, which is also a reunion of friends from the time of the accident. Since we know we're in horror territory or thereabouts, it's clear that all the cloying L.A. platitudes and mild ribbing will have to step aside at some point, and when it becomes evident that the hosts are effectively missionaries for their new-found cult, that points the way for the inevitable development. Nevertheless, it takes far longer than usual to get there, builds up atmosphere effectively and, most importantly, actually has some emotional content rather than just relying on genre cliches.

6/10

A Cure for Wellness (Gore Verbinski, 2016)

Dane DeHaan, a young high-flyer in an American company is sent to fetch the CEO, who seems to have lost his marbles, from a Swiss sanatorium. But all, of course, not as it first seems and he starts questioning his sanity upon witnessing more and more horrors in the manner of Shutter Island, which is rather heavily signposted by both the setting and DeHaan's obvious similarity to a young DiCaprio.
If the film had been content to be just a clone of that, with at least its striking visuals providing some balancing merit, a considerable amount of face would have been saved, even if its occasional pontifications on human nature are annoyingly shallow. But this is a work by Verbinski of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, and so after a depressing number of false denouements it goes utterly and stupidly over the top and you end up wishing the hero really had just given up with his fruitless efforts and gone home halfway through.

4/10

Logan (James Mangold, 2017)

In the near future, an ageing Wolverine and Professor X, who now has crippling seizures, are hiding out after an event that has decimated the mutant population. But the sinister forces behind that aren't done yet, and sooner or later they are forced to go on the run, with a young girl in tow who has abilities like Wolverine's.
The action jacks up, of course, but this is very much darker than the costumed X-Men outings of late. It's really about mortality, and with Hugh Jackman having been in the role for 17 years now, he's weathered convincingly into a weakened, middle-aged version of the character who just wants to be left in peace. The character is really defined so much by his physicality unlike, say, James Bond, that it's quite compelling to see the change, and the harsh, elegiac tone of the film overall, for all its hyper-action, makes this basically one of the finer of the Westerns of recent years rather than just a mere superhero film.

7/10

The Woman in the Fifth (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2011)

The Woman in the Fifth stars Ethan Hawke, the go-to guy when you need someone for your sensitive American in Paris, as a divorced writer arriving in the city to try to see his daughter. It is evident that he has also suffered from some form of mental illness. At any rate, he now doesn't have a sou to his name and takes up a job as a night watchman in exchange for board, spending his nights working on his new book. He then begins a dalliance with a mysterious woman at her flat, while also growing closer to the barmaid at his hostel, until things turn dark.
This is a film of uncertain intent and direction, and while it may be tempting to see that as a metaphor for the character's fragile state, and the intent it has to unsettle the viewer is lofty, it doesn't really satisfy in the end. Incidentally, it's also hard to believe that anyone can understand Hawke's appalling accent in French, which really does become a distraction.

5/10

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

American teens getting stalked by a malevolent demonic force is hardly new terrain. It Follows is raised above the genre average to a great extent by its obvious influences: Cronenberg for the longueurs and determinedly unphotogenic cast and settings, Carpenter for the soundtrack, and auteurs quite outside the horror genre for techniques such as knowing when to do away with dialogue and elisions in the narrative. The plot itself, which is to do with the key character being slain by a shuffling, motiveless entity unless they pass on the curse through sex, is pretty cursory and playing once again on the guilt-ridden American relationship to the sexual act, but at times it does allude to that paranoia in a wider societal sense, which few horror films have any interest in.

6/10

Bacalaureat (Cristian Mungiu, 2016)

The third feature by Mungiu, director of the acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which was centred around an illegal abortion in Communist Romania, Graduation tackles equally serious social themes as a girl is raped the day before her high-school finals. This jeopardises her chances of qualifying for her scholarship at a university in England and her father decides to take control of matters, going behind her back to influence the examination officials.
His motives are convoluted: we see that he's far more concerned with getting his daughter out of a place that he repeatedly tells her she does not have a future in than with the inconvenience of what has happened to her. We see more of his emotional reaction to the incident than we do of hers; he's emasculated by it and, as with the balancing act he has between his wife and his mistress, more concerned with being seen to do the right thing than actually taking the wishes of others into account.
Likewise, Romanian society is depicted as a hopeless tangle: it subsists on backroom deals, back-scratching and outright bribery, and if the director is being excessively pessimistic in his view, it's a very convincing picture all the same. Nothing is morally clear-cut, and there is correspondingly no tidy dramatic conclusion either. It's one of those films that raises questions that linger on, and while it could have benefited from a more cinematic sensibility to add contrast, it is nevertheless a satisfyingly adult piece of film-making.

7/10