Labor Day, Under The Skin and The Invisible Woman

I thought Jason Reitman did a great job directing Juno, Young Adult  and  Up In The Air. All three had a witty and engaging screenplay; he was lucky that the first two were written by Diablo Cody. But he seemed to struggle with a serious drama that could have done with some lighter moments. Kate Winslet as Adele and Josh Brolin as Frank were both very good as expected, but again they seemed to be a little bogged down with the serious script. But late on Adele's thirteen year old son Henry meets a quirky girl and suddenly, for a wonderful short while, we are back to the lightness of the director's three earlier movies. I also became somewhat confused about who was who in the flashbacks, and apparently I was not the only one.

There is no doubt about it, Under The Skin is a very weird film. I found it to be half an experimental reality docudrama and half a portrait of what it would be like to be an alien in another world. It was at times tedious and boring, but the uncomfortable after effects stay with you like few movies do. One of my weekend papers gave it a grudging one star "the weirdest and most overhyped film this year ...... I just hated, hated, hated every mind-numbingly minute of it" and the other gave it five stars "arcane and wondrous ..... the myriad possible interpretations make this a satisfying experience that reverberates long afterwards". Both critics were female. Director Jonathon Glazer makes Scarlett Johansson's alien in human body, a creature that wants to act like everyone else, but is at heart, a monster.

It was off to The Rex in Berkhampstead to see The Invisible Woman, having missed it first time round. Ralph Fiennes has made an intelligent movie about the other woman in the life of Charles Dickens. He is becoming a very good director as well as bringing to life the character of the famous writer and impresario. But for me, the stand out feature of the film was the performance of Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan. She goes from young ingénue at the beginnings of her relationship with Dickens to a mature, confident wife and  mother, sometime after his death.  I found the contrast startling and beautiful. Abi Morgan has written an excellent screenplay from Claire Tomalin's book and the ensemble acting is first class.