"Jude" (18) Virgin, Omniplex, UCI, Dublin
Having filmed Roddy Doyle's contemporary television drama, Family, with a vivid, gritty realism that proved controversial here, the young English director, Michael Winterbottom, is equally uncompromising in his essentially faithful treatment of Thomas Hardy's last and bleakest novel, Jude the Obscure. This tough and touching screen version, titled simply Jude, is shot in a sombre, muted colour scheme and often on grim locations. In form and approach it is the antithesis of the recent British heritage cinema cycle of worthy but wordy literary adaptations more preoccupied with sunny colours, elegant costumes and handsome sets.
A brief black-and-white prologue establishes the harshness of young Jude Fawley's early years before Winterbottom cuts to the grown-up Jude in the grimy English village of Marygreen in the 1880s. "Christminster. If you want to do anything in life, that's where you have to go." Jude's hero and former schoolmaster, Phillotson advises him.
While the self-taught Jude studies in the hope of a place at Christminster University, he is distracted by the free-spirited young local woman, Arabella Donn, who makes all the moves in their relationship. Heedless of the warnings of his Aunt Drusilla, he marries Arabella. After that short-lived marriage, Jude moves to Christminster and finds work as a stonemason.
It is there that he finally meets his cousin, Sue Bridehead, whom he knows only from a photograph and he is attracted by her looks, her firm sense of independence and her directness. When Jude falls in love with Sue his failed marriage proves an obstacle to their developing relationship, but this is the least of the hard blows which fate will deal both cousins in the years to come.
A cloud of impending doom over shadows even the most optimistic moments in their lives as the naive innocent that is Jude sees his dreams of education, love and happiness shattered by the cruel realities of the time. That ominous mood permeates this deeply involving and sobering story which is brought to the screen with integrity and intensity and without a hint of melodramatic excess. Winterbottom and his astute and skilful screenwriter, Hossein Amini, treat their protagonists with sympathy and honesty as the tragedy becomes more and more emotionally wrenching and ultimately, in the most unsettling revelation, heartbreaking. And even though it is set a century ago, the film lucidly raises and addresses social and educational inequities of the present day.
This haunting and admirably achieved film features two of Britain's finest young actors in the leading roles: Christopher Eccleston, an excellent television actor, seizes upon the potential of his first major cinema role and catches the vulnerability and pain of the sad-eyed Jude in a quietly powerful performance, while Kate Winslet, comfortably extending her range after Heavenly Creatures and Sense and Sensibility, is remarkably expressive as Sue Bridehead. The fine supporting cast includes the Irish actor, Liam Cunningham, as Phillotson, Jude's mentor; Rachel Griffiths, from Muriel's Wedding, as Arabella; and June Whitfield, from Terry and June and Absolutely Fabulous, effectively cast against type as the caring and ailing Aunt Drusilla.
"Courage Under Fire (15) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs, Dublin
It was only a matter of time before the made-for-television war in the Gulf in 1991 was reprocessed for the big screen. Edward Zwick's film makes some attempt to decode the received images of the war by raising the issue of accidental attacks by US troops on their own side, and the subsequent official cover-ups. Denzel Washington plays a commanding officer who takes responsibility for one of these incidents of "friendly fire" in which a close friend of his is killed.
Anaesthetising his guilt with alcohol, he endures a sideways move to the PR department of the White House, where he is assigned to assess whether the bravery of a helicopter pilot, Karen Walden (Meg Ryan) merits the posthumous award of a medal. When his investigations into her war record reveal inconsistencies and problems, he becomes determined to discover the truth.
Presented in the form of an overlapping series of flashbacks which reveal each member of the aircrew's version of the events that led to Walden's death, the film sets out to be a teasing puzzle. Hinting at a critique of the notion of heroism, it initially promises some interest, before collapsing into an utterly conventional, cartoon treatment of war and the opportunities it offers for individual American distinction, duty and self-sacrifice.
With a pace stilled by the intricate structure, it's all remorselessly wooden - though considerably less ridiculous than Edward Zwick's last film, Legends of the Fall. The novelty of seeing Meg Ryan forsake her romantic comedy niche for the combat zone is reduced by the fact that she only appears in the flashback scenes, as a tabula rasa for the projection of her comrades' subjective interpretations. Denzel Washington does his best within the limitations of a script that omits any political or social context and irons out all those inconvenient complexities
"The Nutty Professor" (15) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs, Dublin
If's a funny old world, although not necessarily so if you're watching an old comedy starring Jerry Lewis or a new one with Eddie Murphy. For decades the French have regarded Lewis with an unfathomable admiration: attempting to explain that phenomenon, French director Bertrand Tavernier told Guardian readers last week that it has always taken people a long time to appreciate great comics" and that it might take another 50 years before the US gets around to acknowledging the alleged genius of Jerry Lewis. Tavernier even went on to claim that Lewis has been responsible for three "classics" - The Bell-boy, The Ladies' Man, and The Nutty Professor, which is repeated on BBC 2 tomorrow afternoon.
Eddie Murphy, who was two years old when The Nutty Professor was released in 1963, made a smooth move from television comedy (Saturday Night Live) to the cinema in 1982 with 48 Hrs. and his skill as a comic blossomed with Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop. With very few exceptions the quality of his work has been on a downward spiral ever since remember the horrors of The Golden Child, Harlem Nights, Another 48 Hrs., Boomerang and Vampire in Brooklyn - but just when it seemed safe to write him off, Murphy has bounced back with a remake of The Nutty Professor, which is, after The Birdcage, the most commercially successful comedy of the year in the US.
In this updated treatment, Murphy plays Sherman Klump, an awkward, absent-minded and obese college professor. Following a DNA restructuring experiment which works on a hamster, he tries the formula on himself and is transformed into the slim, brash and fast-talking Buddy Love. In his new persona, he finds the confidence to get involved with his new colleague (Jana Pinkett)
until he discovers that his invention is unstable and can wear off any time.
Murphy's ego is let run rampant in this witless effort as, with the help of elaborate special effects, he gets to play not just the Klump and Love characters but also most of the Klump family and, as one feared, he does his shrieking hyena-laugh routine time and again. The movie's US success can be attributed not to any return to form by Murphy, which this patently is not, but to his conforming to the currently popular dumb-and-dumber comedy formula, and it comes as no surprise that it's directed by Tom Shadyac, who made the first Ace Ventura movie. This Nutty Professor is so crude and vulgar and suffused with farting jokes that, by comparison, it makes Ace Ventura seem almost as subtle and restrained as, well, a Bertrand Tavernier movie.
