After the release of a staggering 36 films since the turn of the century, we’ve come to know what to expect from films based on Marvel Comics, whether it’s an origin story or ensemble, or should that be ‘assemble’, piece where characters weave in and out of each others movies. In to mix up the formula as part of the X-Men series strand is self-referential comedy ‘Deadpool’, marking the directorial debut of Tim Miller, who is jokingly labelled an ‘overpaid tool’ in the titles. Ryan Reynolds takes the leading role, eager to leave the green mask of universally panned ‘Green Lantern’ behind him. The plot centres around mercenary Wade Wilson (Reynolds) who undergoes an experimental treatment that goes horribly wrong, but leaves him with superpowers. Out to reconcile with girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and get revenge on villainous Ajax (Ed Skrein), can he undo the damage and get the girl?
It’s festival time again and Artistic Director Mark Adams is back with an array of homegrown and international movies, all making their way to Scotland’s capital for the annual event! Usual strands of the Edinburgh International Film Festival such as Best of British, American Dreams and Night Moves return, and this year brings a special Focus on Finland section. Here are our top 5 selections from this year’s brochure…
The visionary director Alejandro González Iñárritu has been an Academy favourite now for some time and after the huge success of his last film, he again presents an Oscar frontrunner in hunting drama ‘The Revenant’, loosely adapted from Michael Punke’s novel of the same name. Leonardo DiCaprio takes the leading role as frontiersman Hugh Glass, who embarks on a fur trading expedition alongside John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) and their leader Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson). When events take a drastic turn for the worse for Glass, he uses survival instincts and will power to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.
At the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the programme is categorised into strands that celebrate and showcase different aspects of cinema, and each year a nation is focussed on which highlights the ‘international’ part of EIFF. In 2015, Mexico is the country in the limelight and Gabriel Ripstein’s debut film ‘600 Miles’, or millas in Spanish, is in the line-up, following its successful trip to the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. The crime drama unfolds within the arms trafficking underworld as friends Carson (Harrison Thomas) and Arnulfo (Kristyan Ferrer) smuggle weaponry from Arizona across the border to Arnulfo’s Mexican drug cartel family in an SUV. Unbeknownst to them, ATF agent Hank Harris (Tim Roth) is tracking them closely and when their paths inevitably cross, a vicious encounter leads to an unlikely road trip, simmering with threat and nerve-shredding tension.
From his breakthrough appearance in Nicholas Sparks’ weepie The Notebook to his brutal turn in ultra-violent thriller Only God Forgives, Ryan Gosling has an eclectic back-catalogue that divides audiences and keeps us guessing what he’ll do next. After his foray into directorial work on Lost River, he has turned to comedy in Oscar nominated financial satire The Big Short and detective buddy movie The Nice Guys which hits UK cinemas this month. In the run-up to its release, we count down his five best performances to date.
After the burst of the housing bubble led to a global financial crisis in 2007-2008, the last person you would expect to make a film about it would be Adam McKay, the goofball director known for his work on The Other Guys and the Anchorman movies. However, the comedy filmmaker has applied his mischievous directorial style to The Big Short, a biographical drama based on Michael Lewis’ book of the same name, based around four men who saw the collapse happening before anyone else. Boasting one of the most star-studded casts in years including Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and Brad Pitt, a stocks-and-shares saga is sold as an energetic jest-fest.
A decade has passed since the last film in the legendary ‘Rocky’ franchise, but now the Italian Stallion is back in ‘Creed’. Thankfully, Sylvester Stallone is reprising his role in just a trainer capacity and isn’t returning to the squared circle himself. The series spin-off centres around Adonis “Donnie” Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, the fighter who went toe-to-toe with Rocky in the first two films back in the late seventies. The project is written and directed by Ryan Coogler, who made his filmmaking breakthrough with Fruitvale Station in 2013, and follows Donnie as he pursues a career in boxing but struggles with the pressure of his father’s legacy.
Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel of the same name, filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson directs abduction drama ‘Room’. Brie Larson stars as Joy Newsome, a young woman held captive with her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), and who has been imprisoned in a garden shed for seven years. With a skylight providing her only glimmer of light, she is malnourished and depressed. The narrative picks up the story on Jack’s fifth birthday as Joy, or ‘Ma’ as he calls her, decides that he is grown up enough to find out the truth about why they live in ‘room’, what has happened to her and why they desperately need to escape their evil captor (Sean Bridgers), whom they refer to as ‘Old Nick’.
Despite the horrifically morbid subject matter, there is always enough light to balance out the dark due to the clever narration and camera work which presents the small world they inhabit through Jack’s naive outlook and innocent perspective. The pace starts off slow and steady, as we, the audience, adapt to Joy and Jack’s very limited routine, and it is this careful character development and emotioneering that makes it all the more breathtaking when they take matters into their own hands. The amazing events around halfway through briefly suggest that the plot has peaked too soon, but themes are switched and the film moves in a new direction which explores both the aftermath of Joy’s trauma and Jack’s awe of his new experiences and discoveries.
For too long, Brie Larson has been mostly restricted to supporting roles but now she has the material she deserves and gives a superbly judged, emotionally charged performance in what appears to be a very challenging part to play. Also putting in an extremely mature turn is nine-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who is utterly phenomenal as Jack. The type of performance he displays is not dissimilar to that of Onata Aprile who stole the show in ‘What Maisie Knew’ a couple of years ago, which looked at divorce through the eyes of the child caught in the crossfire. The mother-and-son bond Larson and Tremblay conjure up is always believable and brings about genuinely moving scenes between the two.
We are just a short while into the year and already there is a frontrunner for the best film of 2016. ‘Room’ can be a harrowing watch at times but is powerful, essential cinema, and boasts two magnificent performances that are worthy of all the praise they will no doubt receive. Lenny Abrahamson takes a complex and controversial story and handles it sensitively, creating a remarkably rewarding film in the process. As far as I am concerned, there is no room for improvement.
Cinema Perspective 
