Brighton Rock

Sorry guys for the lack of updates - posts about Never Let Me Go and Griff the Invisible are coming up soon.

In the meantime, for anyone who might be wanting to see the film Brighton Rock, don't.   I saw it earlier tonight and it was terrible.  The film is based on a Grahame Greene novel so it has some literary pedigree.  Briefly, set against the backdrop of the Mod and Rockers riots in Brighton around 1964, the film centres around a thug named Pinkie who witnesses the murder of one of his colleagues.  When a revenge plot goes wrong, he is tasked with ensuring that a witness, Rose, does not go to the police.  Lo and behold, he seduces her into loving him and it becomes one fucked up relationship for the rest of the movie.  The gangland warfare and riots escalates and it ends with one character with sulphur on their face and the other in a mental institution run by nuns.*

I should say that I'm not a huge fan of mob/gangster movies, Catholic guilt movies, and movies where the male characters are steeped with misogyny, so maybe it really had no chance.  But seriously, there characters were annoying, stupid and not the least bit redemptive.  The pacing was interminable and the script was lacking in depth, not really revealing much about the characters and why they are the way they are.  In the end, they're just thugs and stupid characters doing stupid and irrational things.

And it wasn't enough that the writer/director failed, because in a way it could have been saved with good, believable performances.  While the two leads try their best, they did not transcend the unrealistic and unlikeable characters that were written for them.  Sam Riley plays Pinkie without any charm or real warmth, so it's hard to see why Rose would be so devoted to him, even until the horrible ending.  Clearly, she's deranged, but again, neither the writing nor performance of Andrea Riseborough show any insight into the character.  Hell, even Dame Helen Mirren couldn't really transcend her role.  And when that happens, you know it's a lost cause.

If you desperately want to see a filmed version of the novel, perhaps the original 1947 movie is your best bet.

4/10 - for Helen Mirren, the music and the cinematography.

* Those nuns were frakking scary.  Sister Act this is not.  More like that nun that comes out of nowhere in Vertigo.