The Quotables Review: Bitesized Edition (UK) #4

UK Film Releases | Friday 11th February 2011

This week sees the release of a Hollywood rom-com and two of the most anticipated films of the year. Despite its small, quiet release in the US, Never Let Me Go was the opening hit of BFI’s London Film Festival. Meanwhile, the Coen Brothers’ latest, True Grit, is our (Oscar-Nominated) Pick of the Week.

Just Go With It

In this new romantic comedy, Danny, played by Adam Sandler, enlists the help of a woman, Katherine (Jennifer Anniston) and her kids to land the woman of his dreams.

With every scene choked with more tumbleweed than palm trees – no mean feat – the film gives up the comedy routine in favour of a Hubba-Hubba-Hula contest between the scorching Decker and forty-something rivals Aniston and Kidman (FILFs?).

— Elliott Noble, Sky Movies

As Adam Sandler movies go, Just Go With It is largely disappointing thanks to a general lack of laughs and a pitifully lazy script. However, as Jennifer Aniston movies go, it’s not that bad.

— Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

Never Let Me Go

Based on the novel from Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go stars top young British actors Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley.

Fashioning the book’s secrets into thriller-ish twists would have been the absolute worst decision Alex Garland’s screenplay might have made, and it’s much too smart and controlled for that. Still, it’s possible to wish it were a little more radical. Everything seems designed to reassure the book’s fans…while surreptitiously (and sensibly) pruning off its more self-conscious literary effects. Overcautious though the filmmaking tends to be, there’s a tactile emotional charge here which does cumulatively resonate.

— Tim Robey, The Telegraph

Romanek’s film is draped in sadness, from the aching tones of Rachel Portman’s piano score to cinematographer Adam Kimmel’s muted visual palette. But it’s a sadness that will be familiar, and in some way edifying to an audience, due to the deeply felt performances of Mulligan and Garfield.

— Paul Gallagher, The List

Pick of the Week: True Grit

The Coen Brothers return with this Oscar-nominated adaptation of Charles Portis’ True Grit. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld stars as a young girl on a mission to avenge her father’s death alongside Jeff Bridges, who reprises the role of US Marshall Rooster Cogburn.

In some ways, much like Charles Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter,” which the Coens quote both musically and visually, “True Grit” is a parable about good and evil. Only here, the lines between the two are so blurred as to be indistinguishable, making this a true picture of how the West was won, or — depending on your view — lost.

— Manohla Dargis, New York Times

The Coens, not known for softening anything, have restored the original’s bleak, elegiac conclusion and as writer-directors have come up with a version that shares events with the first film but is much closer in tone to the book…Clearly recognizing a kindred spirit in Portis, sharing his love for eccentric characters and odd language, they worked hard, and successfully, at serving the buoyant novel as well as being true to their own black comic brio.

— Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Also out this week: Gnomeo and Juliet (see USA Edition for review.)

What are you opting to watch at the cinema this weekend? Drop us a comment or Tweet your mini-reviews to us @QuotablesHQ!

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