Call Me By Your Name, Breathe and The Death of Stalin

A meandering, arty movie, Call Me By Your Name is never boring. When the dialogue stops, there is always the beautiful Italian scenery to look at. It was just a shame there was only a short scene at Lake Garda where we once spent a holiday. The relationship between young Elio and the older interloper Oliver is well told. It was interesting how the almost arrogant bravado of Oliver in the first half gives way to a sensitive, almost shy man in the second. Is this what love can do? Timothée Chalamet and Arnie Hammer do justice to their respective roles.

There must be something that will resonate about first love for anyone seeing this movie, be it straight, or in this case gay. Director Luca Guadagnino repeats his stylish and colourful palette of A Bigger Splash that I also liked. He was lucky to have James Ivory to adapt the book. Although the best speech is saved for the Elio's father played by Michael Stuhlbarg. One critic called it "a compelling dramatic gesture of wisdom, understanding and what I can only call moral goodness." But it was picked word for word from the novel.

Sometimes a regular cinema goer is in for a big surprise, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Breathe falls into the former. I found this to be an amazing film, both in the telling of the true story of polio victim Robin Cavendish and a superb screenplay by William Nicholson. But what was even more surprising were the great production values set on a big wide screen. The acting from a first rate cast is top drawer. Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy and a superb Tom Hollander all deserve a lot of credit.

It was only later I found out why Andy Serkis had been allowed to direct his first movie. His co founder of Imaginarium Productions is Jonathon Cavendish, Robin's son. They both created a wonderful movie. And not just for the views of the Chilterns from above the village of Turville, with Cobstone Windmill in the background.

This is the blackest comedy you could imagine. Armando Iannucci has mixed the absolute horror of the Stalin era with the comedy of a bickering and back stabbing committee that has to cope with aftermath of the leader's death. And by do they bicker. Absent from the poster above is the superbly creepy head of the secret police played energetically by Simon Russell Beale. His central role is ripe for the laser sharp pen of the writer, as he tries to keep power. The rest of the cast is terrific, especially a late entrance from the hilarious Jason Isaccs as the head of the army, Michael Palin as Molotov and Andrea Riseborough as Stalin's daughter Svetlana. 

But the film belongs to Iannucci as he produces an amazing satire on the incompetence of political spin, with everyone blaming everyone else, with no thought for the country, only their immediate survival. Brilliant.