What's Love Got To Do With It, Broker and Scream V1

 

I have never known a movie that was so poor at the start but gradually improved along the way. There are some unexpected twists along the way including (unusual for a romcom) one of the leads getting married. Lily James is not the greatest actress, but she always has some sort of magnetic presence. Emma Thomson is the opposite. The screenplay is pretty hammy but the cast are having a good time so we should too.

I was looking forward this South Korean film from the director of Shoplifters. However, I found it hard to sympathise with a pair involved in baby trafficking, making a fast buck from troubled mothers. So a strange human drama with an unsavoury theme. But I loved the characters and the cast, and the story has momentum and pathos. Especially good was Ji-enn Lee as the young mother Moon So-young. And I liked the two police women who try to track the gang to the pay-off. So apart from the subject matter, an excellent film.

Maybe I should have gone to see Adam Driver's 65 instead? Maybe not. It would probably have been better if I had seen the previous movies in the Scream franchise as there were so many references to these films along the way. I only went because Kevin Maher's 4 star review in The Times told us it might be the best of the series so far. Fortunately there is a lot of wit and irony in the decent script and some interesting drama in the relationship between the two sisters, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. However, I found the set piece attacks to be boring, unrealistic and pathetic. Much better was the suspense on the subway train. Funny to see Haden Panettiere from Heroes all those years ago. Someone quips she looks far too young to be in the FBI to which she replies she has reached thirty years of age. And Courtney Cox is a walking advertisement to avoid plastic surgery. Finally, I liked the setting of an old theatre for the big finale.