All Of Us Strangers, The Zone Of Interest and Anyone But You

 

Nominated for Best British Film at the BAFTA's, All Of Us Strangers was almost like a theatrical production. Just two sets, the first in an ultra modern apartment in a London high rise block, and the other an older suburban semi somewhere in the north. Andrew Scott is Adam, lonely until he meets another resident Harry (Paul Mescal) with whom he starts an affair. All a bit boring? Maybe until a type of dream sequence when Adam goes back to his old childhood home. He is welcomed by his parents as they were twenty years ago. Jamie Bell and Claire Foy are his father and mother who somehow don't think it's strange he is back with them as a grown man. They ask about his life. 

The dialogue here is quite exceptional. Writer and director Andrew Haig has conjured up a type of fantasy about all the times you would like to revisit those past times but with the experience of life. You cannot help thinking about your own childhood. I was totally sold on the idea "if you could go back". The only trouble is that the scenes of the present day pale in comparison with those with Adam's parents. Claire Foy is absolutely outstanding. BAFTA  nominations all over the place. 

On top of all that is the most wonderful soundtrack. The Pet Shop Boys, Fine Young Cannibals, Alison Moyet, The Housemartins, The Ink Spots, Blur, Fleetwood Mac, Bronski Beat, The Psychedelic Furs and even a version of I Will Survive. All forgotten with the blast of the final track, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love, eventually blasting out from the cinema speakers. Not since Los Fabulosos Cadillac's El Matador over the credits of Grosse Pointe Blank have I been so stuck in  my seat. 

A very loose adaptation of the Martin Amis book, The Zone of Interest is an interesting and thought provoking movie about the family who live outside the walls of Auschwitz in the middle years of WW2. In German with subtitles, as it should be. Christian Friedel plays the camp boss Rudolf Hoss. (Yes, that Rudolf Hoss). His wife Hedwig (the brilliant Sandra Huller from Anatomy of a Fall) has created  a beautiful house and garden in the years they have been there. So when she hears they will have to move, she goes ballistic. It is only when we hear about their horrible city lives before that we kind of understand. And Rudolf, well?  Director Jonathon Glazer has adapted the book to give us something of a "bruising watch" according to film critic Wendy Ide. You only have to look at the pictures on the posters to see.

Rudolf has no social skills, he just seems like an automaton going about his work, even though we only see him at home. Hedwig is an awful person under a veneer of culture. Her mother comes to stay but unsurprisingly does not hang around. The worst moment for me was when Rudolf is fishing in the lake while his children bathe. Suddenly he cannot get out soon enough and rushes the children home for a bath. But it is the sound design that will unfortunately stick with you. Glazer's Under The Skin had a similar uncomfortable tone. So a domestic drama played out like some surreal figment of a crazy man's imagination. 

Thank goodness for the stupid drama that is Anyone But You. I always want to see how a modern adaptation of a Shakespeare comedy plays out. Think The Taming of the Shrew adapted for Ten Things I Hate About You, or She's the Man from Twelfth Night or Get Over It from A Midsummer Night's Dream. This time it's Much Ado About Nothing that gets the Hollywood treatment. Even down to the odd quotes that appear on unlikely props. There are even lines that are spoken direct from the text. And the two lead's names are Bea and Ben! Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are obviously there for their looks and not their acting talent. But who pops up in the mainly Australian setting but Bryan Brown, now 76 and still going strong. Lots of songs, I didn't know one. But the light and the colour was great.