Book Club: The Next Chapter ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Bill Holderman. Starring Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Don Johnson, Andy Garcia, Craig T Nelson, Giancarlo Giannini, Hugh Quarshie. 15A cert, gen release, 107 min
Emerging from the pandemic, the gang of four set aside book-clubbing for a hen party in Italy. As before, the film, though pretending to grey liberation, is enormously condescending to folk born before Elvis’s Sun sessions. The current episode adds to the discomfort by being even more patronising towards the entire nation of Italy. “We-ah sorry for spoiler, belle signore. But we-ah steala your luggage. Okay?” And yet. It’s hard not to be a tiny bit charmed by such good sports having such an apparently good time. One of the year’s more enjoyable bad films. Full review DC
The Eight Mountains/Le Otto Montagne ★★★★☆
Directed by Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch. Starring Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi. 15A cert, gen release, 147 min
Gorgeous, moving epic following the long friendship of two men whose lives follow very different directions following childhood beneath the Italian Alps. At times, The Eight Mountains could pass for such careful quasi-documentary reconstructions as Le Quattro Volte or Il Buco, offering cinema refashioned as meditative space. Happily, the actors put in mountain-sized performances to offset the film’s silences and propensity for postcard shots, bringing heart and guts to the chilliest scenery. It builds slowly and meaningful toward a catharsis as big as the elevations of the title. A worthwhile climb. Full review TB
Plan 75 ★★★☆☆
Directed by Chie Hayakawa. Starring Chieko Baisho, Hayato Isomura, Yoko Narimiya, Takao Taka, Stefanie Arianne. Limited release, 113 min
Singular Japanese film imagining a society where people over 75 are offered modest reimbursement to undergo voluntary euthanasia. That suggests the background of a compelling science-fiction speculation. Children of Men territory, perhaps? Hayakawa instead skews the film more towards sombre social realism. Though sincere and thoughtful, Plan 75 ultimately gets squashed down by its own narrative integrity. The high-concept becomes a near-irrelevance as we struggle with a humanist story that lacks the emotional zest Hirokazu Koreeda habitually brings to related material. Strong message though. Full review DC
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me ★★★☆☆
Directed by Ursula Macfarlane. Featuring Anna Nicole Smith. Netflix from May 16th, 116 min
Effective documentary on the misrepresented model who became the focus of much snide commentary after marrying a geriatric billionaire. Director Macfarlane — whose previous credits include the 2017 Weinstein expose Untouchable — works hard to humanise a woman who was so often depicted as a cartoon. Her hangers-on were legion, and yet, when catastrophe strikes, she’s attended by her lawyer and crying for her bodyguard Momo. There are few reveals, but that restraint, in itself, is commendable in the telling of this almost unbearably unhappy tale. TB
