"Le Bonheur Est Dans Le Pre" (15), Screen at D'Olier Street, Dublin (Opens next Friday)
What reasonable man would not want to swap a strike ridden factory producing accessories sanitaires (toilet seat covers), a miserable marriage, tax worries and a hostile daughter for a comfortable new life in the country?
This is the premise of Etienne Chatiliez's broad, leisurely comedy in which Francis (Michel Serrault), the beleaguered factory owner, seizes his opportunity to reinvent himself when a TV show which unites people with their loved ones displays a photograph of someone who looks uncannily like him. In fact, it is a picture of the missing husband of a woman called Dolores (Carmen Maura) who makes fore gras in the southwest of France but when everyone around him insists that it is Francis, he does not demur.
Michel Serrault's comic timing looks effortless, particularly in the misogynist, old boys together routine that Francis enjoys with his pal Gerard (Eddy Mitchell), with whom he makes a bibulous tour through the countryside en route to his newly acquired family. This lugubrious, self pitying gourmand finds that he has fallen on his feet with the indulgent Dolores and her daughters one of whom is courted by a certain Eric Cantona, in a role which scarcely stretches his imagination excessively a local rugby hero.
There are some droll moments, notably the brilliantly nauseating TV show (Od Est-Vous?), a satiriccal swipe at the French pastoral myth purveyed by Pagnol's Jean De Florette, and a few twists and revelations, but the confection flops in the middle and the disparate elements black social comedy, picaresque macho romp and bedroom farce don't quite manage to hang together. Still, it's a novelty to see a French film that celebrates bad taste.
"Matilda" (PG), Savoy, Virgin, Dublin
"I'm big, you're little, I'm right and you're wrong. OK?" This is the resounding chorus that assails Matilda (Mara Wilson) at every turn. A brilliant, curious and energetic child, she has had the misfortune to be born to two gormless, money grabbing parents, Harry and Zinnia Wormwood (Danny de Vito and Rhea Perlman), who completely neglect her and, worse, refuse to support her voracious reading habits. As for school, what would she want with that?
This is the much loved Roald Dahl story, a child's revenge fantasy recreated on screen as a labour of love by the director/producer/actor Danny de Vito. It is graced by two marvellous performances Mara Wilson as Matilda wide eyed, determined, funny and Pam Ferris as the extraordinary ogre, Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress of Crunchem Hall school champion of the javelin and shot put, and terroriser of children.
Part of Dahl's enduring attraction is the way his work gives voice to children's rage at their powerlessness, at the frustration of having to submit to authority that they do not respect, and their merciless judgment of the weaknesses, inconsistencies and inanities of the adults around them. Matilda's revenge begins when she discovers that she can make objects move through the strength of her will, by staring at them. Soon she is using her telekinetic powers to slam doors, bash saucepans together, open windows and generally create havoc.
De Vito has lots of fun with this, creating breathless chase scenes and slapstick sequences, shot with a mobile camera, from wacky angles. His obvious admiration for the spirit of Dahl's novel is sometimes demonstrated by excessive reverence for the text, from which enormous gobbets are delivered in a monotonous voice over, which has a. deadening effect on the first half of the film.
Thankfully, this disappears as the sheer energy of this story takes over, culminating in the scene in which all the children in the school take their violent revenge on Miss Trunchbull. Not to be missed with or without chil.......
"Daylight" (PG) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs
(Opens next Thursday)
It's more than 20 years now since Sylvester Stallone won his Best Picture Oscar for Rocky, and in many ways Daylight is a return to the 1970s for the star the film's closest antecedents are disaster movies like Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure. Unfortunately, it also serves to remind us what rubbish most of those films were.
Under the Hudson River, an accident involving combustible chemicals leads to a catastrophic explosion that causes the tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey to be sealed at both ends. Disgraced fire chief Stallone is sent in to rescue the trapped survivors a typically fractious cross section of New Yorkers. Together, they try to stay alive in the face of the floods and fires sweeping the tunnel.
Rob Cohen, who also directed this year's disappointing fantasy adventure Dragonheart, handles the opening cataclysm with aplomb, but Daylight seems to lose its way after the first half hour or so. One of the problems is a confusion of genres the film strains to be an ensemble piece in the mould of the "classic" disaster movies of Irwin Allen, but Stallone's iconic presence, and, presumably, his huge fee, are dragging it in the direction of an action hero epic. As a result, the narrative loses most of its energy once Stallone actually makes it into the tunnel, becoming confused and even glum. The dynamics of a squabbling group coming together under pressure are familiar from a thousand mediocre TV movies, and are not handled much better here (the sequence when they all finally pull together is particularly invisible).
There are no cardboard cut out "terrorists" or sneering Englishmen here, and even the standard trope of political authorities more concerned with saving money than saving lives is perfunctorily handled. But, in the absence of bad guys, nobody seems to have a clue what to do, beyond wringing their hands in despair. At least the 1970s movies now have a certain kitsch value Daylight, by contrast, is just rather dull.
"Alaska" (Gen) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs, Dublin
Shot on striking locations, this lively adventure drama features Dirk Benedict as a pilot who, after the death of his wife, moves with his two children from Chicago to a remote Alaskan village. When his plane crashes on an emergency mission the two children embark on a dangerous and eventful journey to find him. The resilient youngsters are played by Thora Birch and Vincent Kartheiser. Fraser C. Heston directs and his dad, Charlton, features in the movie as a poacher.
