Movies at Home: This Beautiful Fantastic, The Motorcycle Diaries and The Man Who Never Was

 

A small film from 2016 about gardening. Luckily the garden is just flowers, hardly a vegetable in sight. This Beautiful Fantastic is superbly written and directed by Simon Aboud, there are terrific performances from Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Chancellor and of course, Andrew Scott. So a cast to die for. Jessica is having to start her overgrown garden from scratch in just a few weeks or she is evicted. Tom is her neighbour who tells her "a chance to create your own masterpiece". But a little chaos is fine. But his is glorious. Then there is that supporting role from Scott, one of his best. 

I had no idea until the very end when we were told this film was based on Che Guevara's own records. Played by Gael Garcia Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries is his memoir from the trip he took in 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado across South America. I gave up counting the number of times they crashed, one being into a herd of cows. So the journey is not without drama. Having the bike repaired more than once, being chased out of one town by the locals. So a kind of travelogue, some parts more interesting than others. There are some spectacular scenes, a mine in Chile and Machu Picchu in Peru. So many people they met on the way, the credits go on and on. Fortunately they were accompanied by the wonderful music by Gustavo Santaolalla that punctuated the film. I then find out it won the BAFTA for best film music.

This was not the 2021 remake (Operation Mincemeat) that attracted poor reviews, but the original true story from 1956. The accents in The Man Who Never Was are a little rich and the writing a little too melodramatic. But mainly jolly good fun. The plan to fool the Germans needed the right body, and this one had recently died of pneumonia so just perfect. The father who gave permission for the use of his son's body was so gracious. Everything had to be perfect from his possessions to his background when his body washes up in Spain. Especially for the second half when a German spy (played by William Boyd) is checking to see if everything was right. That's when the film ramps up the tension, especially when they nearly give the game away.