Cinema:

I saw The Ballad of Wallis Island in a screening with about twenty of us in the cinema. It has bags of charm, and, indeed, heart, a tight script (the two leads and director developed it from a short film), with great rhythym between the leads. It’s a comic drama, I guess, about a rich superfan arranging a very intimate gig from his favourite folk rock duo, who haven’t seen each other since splitting nine years ago. It’s hyperspecific, but I think it’ll translate even if you don’t get all the references.

Streaming: I finally watched Tenet.

!?!?

I thought I understood the central conceit, but the longer it went on the more confused I was. The people and objects moving in reverse thing is cool to watch, and I generally got the emotional stakes, but I mainly understood this for its place in Nolan’s ouevre (I am one of the people who did not get the timey-wimey stuff in Dunkirk, Interstellar lost me, and there are some bits of Inception that it took me years to understand.) This is less accessible than Inception, so even had the timing of its release been different, I don’t think it would have saved cinema, however big the stunts are, although with some of them, I was reminded of stunts from his Batman trilogy etc, and not just because Pattinson is in it. ‘Oh well,’ I thought when Robert Oppenheimer was referenced, ‘Nolan’s next film will be a success.’ The acting is good, Branagh is just on the right side of not going too big, although Debicki might be in danger of getting typecast (big The Night Manager vibes.) Washington jr has presence.

But !?!?


I also watched A Little White Lie, a comedy set at a literature festival, where a handyman with the same name as a reclusive author who wrote one hit novel agrees to attend a struggling festival. It’s got a strong cast – Michael Shannon plays the lead, Kate Hudson is winning as the professor who is in charge of the festival – a smart script, though it’s more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny, which The Ballad of Wallis Island was, with a non-naturalistic twist (though it doesn’t go as far as American Fiction.) I liked it because it was ultimately rewarding kindness, but it might strike some people as too kooky. (Full disclosure: have never been to a proper literary festival and have a strained relationship with lit fic.)