After directing his first film, I Killed My Mother, at the age of 19 and following it up with the pretty good Heartbeats, many people have been wondering what Xavier Dolan would come up with next. The answer is Laurence Anyways, about 10 years in the relationship between Fred (Suzanne Clement) and Laurence (Melvil Poupaud).

At the outset they are just a normal man and woman who love each other and suffer the usual ups and downs of relationships. However Laurence can’t hold something in any longer and after two years with Fred he tells her that he’s transsexual and wants to start living as a woman. Inevitably this causes problems, with Fred initially wondering whether she should just leave – especially as her sister seems to think is the only solution. However they stay together, but the transition proves tough on both of them, and not solely because of Laurence becoming a woman.

When Laurence Anyways sticks to the core relationship between Fred and Laurence, it’s very good. There are some fabulously intense, claustrophobic scenes where the two lovers thrash out their issues and vent their anger. However when it strays from this, things are far less interesting and with a running time of 168-minutes, it certainly gives itself time to stray.

Dolan is still only 23 and while his first two films had a youthful, hipster vibe which helped you forget their pretensions, here he seems to be attempting to step out as an auteur. The results are mixed, as while his style and visual panache pays dividends in the core scenes, he has too much of a tendency to almost stop the movie every so often and scream ‘look, this is art’, which throws you out of the story. Surreal moments of symbolism can work in a movie, but here they’re too much and too obvious – a butterfly coming out of somebody’s mouth, a wave of water crashing over a women when she experience unexpected intense emotion. It smacks the audience over the heads with the meaning and artiness. Even the decision to shoot in a 4:3 aspect ratio (the same shape as old style TVs) smacks of needless artifice and occasionally results in ugly framing.

The overall result feels a little like a student art film where the filmmaker is superb at the technical aspects and drawing performances from the actors, but can’t help but show off in ways that probably seem like moments of genius in his head, but don’t really work within the movie. It doesn’t help that Dolan did pretty much everything – directed, wrote the script, edited – as it would seem there was no one there to say ‘no’. There’s a superb two hour movie struggling to get out of Laurence Anyways, surrounded by unnecessary scenes and moments of infuriating, pointless pretension.

Even so, Dolan is undoubtedly talented (even if he’s perhaps not disciplined enough yet), so that while flabby, Laurence Anyways is never bad, and his talent with the core story pulls you through what could easily have seemed like a very long chore. Although his script occasionally slips in lines of obvious metaphor and affected burbling, most of the time it’s pretty good, dealing well with character and the issues the script throws up. The film knows that there are plenty of issues surrounding one person in a relationship changing genders, but is smart enough to realise that it’s still two people and their lives wouldn’t solely revolve around one of them being transsexual.

Melvil Poupaud and Suzanne Clement give superb performances, so you really do want to know what will happen to their characters. The film does an excellent job of keeping their relationship on a knife-edge, where you’re never sure whether they should stay together, and not because of the changes Laurence experiences. It’s about their hearts and who they are as people, as well as the pressures the world around them puts on them.

If it could have stuck to that and cut out some of its slightly jagged, pretentious rambling, this could have been really great. As it is, it’s a great example of what William Faulkner meant when he said ‘Kill your darlings’ – cutting out those things artists find it hard to give up because they think they’re cool or good in isolation, but which don’t actually help the story and often actively hold it up. Laurence Anyways might just about survive Dolan’s excesses, but it’s a shame nobody could have convinced him to produce a tighter edit, as he could have ended up with something truly special.

Overall Verdict: As a story of a relationship between two people dealing with the realisation that one of them is Transsexual, Laurence Anyways is good. However the core is surrounded by rather pretentious flab that dulls the impact it could have had.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Last Christmas – less than 12 months ago – we had a BBC TV version of Dickens’ tale with Gillian Anderson as Miss Haversham. It was solid, enjoyable, watchable TV entertainment, perfect for Christmas viewing, and Anderson was fantastic as Haversham – as was Ray Winstone as Magwitch. Now, for some reason known only to themselves, the BBC (or at least BBC Films) have made another version, almost identical-looking but with a different cast.

The opening sequence on the marshes, and Miss Haversham’s house, are completely interchangeable, as is the performance of Pip. It has the same costumes, the same scenery, and some of the same lines. It’s difficult to fathom out exactly why it exists, but exist it does.

The only possible reason for making it again so soon is to give Helena Bonham Carter the part she was so clearly born for. Anderson was a brittle Miss Haversham, so dried out it’s no surprise when she catches fire. Bonham Carter goes much more for the gothic, as you’d expect – wild eyed, wilder of hair, slumped in her absurd dining room half asleep, waking up only when Estella and her are plotting to break Pip’s heart. It’s a great performance which she clearly relishes, cleavage jacked up to her chin, eyes red and obsessed with trinkets and jewellery.

Apart from her there’s little the film gains over the TV programme. Winstone was a fine, scary Magwitch, but Ralph Fiennes is far too polite and hammy, not nearly scary enough. Vanessa Kirby was a superb Estella – haughty, steely and ethereal – Holliday Grainger is far too earthy, with her pudgy face and silly curly hair.

Jeremy Irvine’s and Douglas Booth’s portrayals of Pip are similarly wet, following his journey from blacksmith to London gentleman. I’ll be kind and gloss over Sally Hawkins and David Walliams – Hawkins is a fine stage actress but the screen does her no favours, and here she is as mannered as in Happy-Go-Lucky. Walliams just does Frankie Howerd again, it’s becoming a one-trick pony. The best supporting role goes to Robbie Coltraine as the kindly solicitor Jaggers, who steers Pip through his adventure in London. Coltraine is wonderful understated and reveals real depth and gravitas, especially when telling Pip Estella’s back story.

Overall verdict: Needless and pointless version of the story which was told perfectly well 12 months ago, with a better cast and more pace. A strange move by the BBC, who seem to be going through something of a bad patch.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Having blasted onto the world stage with 1998’s Festen, director Thomas Vinterberg finally makes his companion piece – and it’s every bit as provocative, controversial and brilliant.

Festen took on the dark world of child abuse. The Hunt has another look into that murky world, but bravely tells what happens when a man is falsely accused. The quite superb Mads Mikkelsen, still one of the best Bond villains, completely switches character to play Lucas, a sympathetic and lively teacher in an infants’ school.

Lucas’ life is coming together nicely – his son wants to live with him instead of his mother, he enjoys his healthy lifestyle and the odd weekend shoot with his pals, and he begins a relationship with the pretty janitor at the school. Even the simple pleasures, such as walking his lovely dog, are enough for him, and he loves his job teaching kids.

All that changes one fateful day. Lucas’ neighbours Theo and Agnes are feckless and too busy to properly look after their toddler, Klara. Lucas, attentive and sympathetic, keeps having to pick her up or walk her home. Klara, mistaking his attention for something else, kisses him on the lips and insists on walking his dog. When Lucas gently fends her off she tells the headmistress he sexually abused her – getting some of the details from the porn shown to her by her idiotic brother.

The headmistress flies into a panic – despite claiming she will follow protocol she does pretty much everything wrong, including telling Lucas that Klara has made accusations against him. In no time at all the entire village knows of the accusations, and Lucas’ life simply disintegrates. He loses his job, his girlfriend abandons him, his friends shun him or even resort to violence – bricks through the window are the least of his troubles. Soon reports are flying around that several children have been abused, all of them testifying to police, describing Lucas’ basement where the crimes allegedly took place.

Lucas refuses to move away, but his life becomes increasingly bleak and desperate. Even his son lashes out at the neighbours, and when Lucas visits Klara’s parents to explain himself, the results are disastrous. Even the poor old dog isn’t safe.

The brilliance of Vinterberg’s story is in its detail. A story about unfounded child abuse has a huge responsibility to get it right, and Vinterberg gets the details spot on. Klara’s story is partly suggested by the pornography her brother shows her, by the neglect her parents are showing, and partly on suggestion by adults. Both the headmistress and her boss pretty much put words into the child’s mouth, and even when she retracts her story it’s too late – society has already made its mind up. She admits her story was a ‘foolish fantasy’ – twice – but the adults have convinced themselves it’s true.

When the story plays out in a way that suggests justice will win out, Vinterberg then pulls the rug with a brilliant last sequence set in the forest during a deer hunt, a setting that bookmarks the film and which is visually stunning. The bulk of the story is told in an unfussy, hand-held but utterly compelling way, concentrating totally on the huge issue without resorting to clichés or cop-outs.

To play a possible child molester you need a fantastic actor, and Mikkelsen is the man. Kevin Bacon had a great stab at it in the excellent The Woodsman, but here Mikkelsen goes through the whole range of gears. It’s the role of a lifetime and he never slips.

Overall verdict: Stunning, gripping and compelling drama examining the deeply uncomfortable subject of a misguided accusation of child abuse. Essential viewing.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Material is one of the biggest hits ever at the South African box office, and should be hitting UK cinemas sometime next year. While it’s set half a world away in Johannesburg, British audiences will notice some familiar multicultural themes. It appears it’s not just young British-Indians who face culture clash due to their their parents coming from a very different tradition than the one they live in. That’s what Cassim (Riaad Moosa) faces, with the added pressure of the fact his father had to deal with the realities of apartheid, which he’s never fully gotten over.

Cassim is a young man of Indian heritage who works in his father, Ebrahim’s, fabric store. The shop is failing but Ebrahim is stubborn and feels he inherited it as a haberdashery and that’s how it must stay. Indeed Ebrahim is old-fashioned and intractable about most things – he has little time for the modern world and knows little about it – feeling that there are way unchangeable ways things should be, especially for Muslims, and part of that is that he’s in charge of his family and they ought to obey.

However Cassim is secretly going out in the evenings and trying his hand at stand-up comedy. People think his act, which is largely about life as a Muslim in South Africa, is funny, and he’s soon invited to perform at a bigger club. He knows though that if his father ever finds out there’ll be hell to pay, as in his dad’s eyes Cassim’s life is already set – to get married and take over the shop. Plus there’s the fact that being a stand-up could be seen by some as un-Muslim. Can father and son ever see eye to eye?

On its South African release, the movie was praised for being a breath of fresh air in the country’s moviemaking after years of often dodgy action films and slapstick comedies. It’s slightly more familiar to British audiences, who are more likely to have seen movies about the pressures Asian families face living in Westernised nations. Indeed you could transplant the movie from Johannesburg to Bradford or Birmingham with only a few cosmetic changes.

Just because every single plot point and idea isn’t a paragon of original thought doesn’t mean this is a bad film. Indeed quite the opposite. It’s sweet, funny and pulls you in with characters you like or at least (in Ebrahim’s case) understand. As the pressures mount up on Cassim, you can’t help but feel for him. Wanting to do a bit of stand-up comedy seems such as simple thing, but it’s indicative of everything his dad is against or refuses to try to understand.

One other thing it might be difficult for some British viewers to completely ignore is the Kumars factor (which sounds like some sort of racist epithet, but I promise it’s not). Ebrahim is played by Vincent Ebrahim, who was born in South Africa but is best known to UK audiences for playing the dad in The Kumars At No. 42. That in itself would be easily ignorable, but the fact they give him a silver-haired mother played by an actress who’s obviously massively younger than the character she’s playing, can’t help but bring to mind Meera Syal in The Kumars. It won’t spoil your enjoyment, but it is noticeable.

Material is a feel-good, heart-warmer that’ll keep you smiling as you get involved with the characters and their dreams and aspirations. It may not change the world, but it’ll certainly keep you entertained for 90 minutes.

Overall Verdict: Sweet, funny and charming, Material will make you laugh and make you feel.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who guessed that a European movie called Happy Happy wasn’t going to be as jolly as the title suggests. However Anne Sewitsky’s Norwegian movie won prizes at Sundance and was its country’s official entry for last year’s Academy Awards, so it’s certainly got some pedigree.

Kaja and Eirik are a couple who live in the countryside and have been together for years. While they put up a front of happiness and Kaja seems to have accepted her lot, their world is shaken up when a cosmopolitan new couple move in next door, along with their African adopted son, Noa. Kaja looks at them and see what appears to be the perfect marriage, which is far from what she has to deal with. However at a dinner party she discovers that things between Elisabeth and Sigve are actually strained, but she still wants what they have and ends up having a sexual encounter with Sigve.

One impulsive act leads to an affair, which starts to unravel the problems in both marriages, not least of which is that while Eirik claims he’s stopped sleeping with his wife because she no longer makes an effort, he’s actually hiding a secret.

The film is all about uncovering the lies behind the façade and that no matter how good things look from the outside there are always problems, often unspoken, and which some people hide better than others. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the sort of look behind the curtain of middle class life offered by the likes of American Beauty, and while it’s not as good as that movie, there’s a similar sense of the pretences and justifications people starting to collapse around them.

Although it gets a bit strained by the end, Happy Happy is a largely successful movie and there are some very effective moments, such as the casual, passive aggressive cruelty that can erupt when people don’t want to deal with the real issues or look at their own culpability. However perhaps most powerful and yet also subtly dealt with is the effect the strains and problems of their parents has on the children, with Kaja and Eirik’s child Theo fast learning the power play of his parents and becoming rather mean.

To be honest, there’s little here that hasn’t be explored in many other films, but it’s done well as it gradually unveils the truth of the two relationships. Agnes Kittelsen is also very good as the eternally optimistic Kaja, who has to learn that perfection is unattainable and that sometimes there are secrets that can’t just be ignored.

Overall Verdict: A smart relationship drama uncovering the truth behind the façade of apparent domestic bliss and the way secrets have a way of causing unexpected consequences. It’s been done better before, but Happy Happy is still a worthwhile watch.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Jason Becker. I certainly hadn’t, but he is considered one of the greatest guitarists who has ever lived. A child prodigy who was playing Eric Clapton solos at age six and was signed as one-half part of Heavy Metal duo Cacophony at age 16, he was gifted with preternatural skill and an innate understanding of music and confused his cock-rock compatriots by listing his greatest influences as Mozart and Bach.

In 1989 he was just about to break into the big time as ex-Van Halen singer David Lee Roth recruited him for his new band. Tragically, this never came to be as the wunderkind was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a hideous and incurable neurodegenerative disease that left Becker almost entirely paralysed, only able to communicate by blinking and moving his chin. His dreams were crushed and he was condemned to a life that most would find unbearable, and this is what makes Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet such an emotional and ultimately uplifting documentary as its subject is a hugely likeable and inspiring figure who hasn’t let a little thing like total paralysis change him as a person.

In fact, as the title suggests, the whole idea of the film is to make the world aware that he’s still ticking as huge swathes of his own fan-base apparently think he died of his disease and are constantly bombarding Heavy Metal message boards insisting he should be known as the greatest guitarist of all time, “If only he’d lived”.

The first part of Jesse Vile’s film documents Becker’s evolution from child genius to young man on the brink of superstardom and it would be interesting and gripping even if it wasn’t for the tragic events that were to follow. I’m no fan of 1980s big-hair heavy metal but it’s still inspiring stuff as various musicians, producers and high school music teachers talk about how their minds were blown by the young star. And there is footage of a 15-year-old Becker competing in his school’s talent show, which demonstrates how his insanely complex compositions transcended the unimaginative sweaty bellowing that heavy metal is known for.

The man himself doesn’t appear in person until towards the end, when the story of his downfall has already been told and despite the fact that, in footage of him in his younger years, he comes across as incredibly laid back and egoless you’re still expecting to be confronted with a broken shell of a man. So it’s a shock to realise that he’s still a man living life to the full, he’s able to communicate with his parents and carers using a system of blinks and eye movements that they call “vocal-eyes”, and he’s even able to come up with new compositions with help from his father and technology that coverts his facial movements into music. In one of the most moving moments his carer relates the moment a doctor very seriously asked Jason if he still wanted to live and, using vocal-eyes, the musician answered simply, “Hell, yes”.

There are a lot of moments like that and although Jason is clearly a huge inspiration to everyone he meets both for his resilient spirit and musical genius he insists the last thing he wants is to be seen as is some kind of guru and he hopes the film will reveal that he’s still the same shallow rocker he always was. It’s strange to describe the true story of a man whose ambition was ripped away from him just as it was becoming reality and who is now trapped in his own body as a feel good film, but that’s exactly what this is and if you don’t walk away from it feeling inspired then you’re probably dead inside.

Overall Verdict: This film is the epitome of the expression “triumph of the human spirit”; it’s massively inspiring and will make you feel guilty for ever complaining about anything.

Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon