Jeanskynebu
the audience applauded
Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
SnoopyStyle
Anna (Kathryn Worth) is having marital problems and spending the summer holiday family friends Verena (Mary Roscoe), Charlie (Michael Hadley) and George (David Rintoul) at their Tuscan villa. She starts to spend more time with the younger teenage children Archie (Harry Kershaw), Badge (Emma Hiddleston), Jack (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and Oakley (Tom Hiddleston). They smoke some weed and crash a car. The sexual tension boils over as she flirts with the leader of the kids Oakley.It's a British mumbletalk indie. I wish the relationships between the characters are laid out more clearly early on. It would help decipher and build a backstory to their connections if they have any. They need to throw in a few lines like "I haven't seen you since you were this tall." It would help to build tension in the first half of the movie. The older people also need to have some in-depth talk in the first half. It would fill out their characters. Anna has very curt conversations with Verena. This feels like a bunch of strangers and it's not until the second half that things get a little bit interesting.
Rich Wright
The antithesis of all Shirley Valentine stands for.You've been quarreling with your husband, and things aren't looking too rosy in your future. So, you jump at the chance of going on holiday with your best friend to Italy, with her extended family. While there, you feel a bit of a midlife crisis coming on... and start hanging around with your mate's son and his clique rather than your fellow 'oldies'. Because you got drunk with them a few times, and he saw you naked emerging from a swimming pool, you think there might be sparks between you and this guy... who's about 25 years your junior. But when you offer to spend the night with him, you discover all these dreams are pure fantasy. Depression quickly sets in, and in a fit or rage you announce a secret to your friend that you promised to keep hidden about a crashed car. Whoops.The heroine (played by Kathryn Worth) is quite a pathetic case, and I felt myself inwardly cringe as she gallivanted around with youngsters with whom she had nothing in common, in a vain attempt to appear 'cool'. NEWSFLASH: you're not 18 anymore. And following around teenagers, putting on a demeanor so fake even a blind man could see it is the height of desperation. I'm not saying it's time to whip out the ol' pipe and slippers, but maybe communicating with your own age group is a better idea than embarrassing yourself in front of a completely different generation who probably wonder "What the hell's going on"? Don't get me started on her failed seduction of her so-called BFF's kid either. CREEPY.Anyway, it's a good story (if a little long-winded) and when the s**t hits the fan, it turns into something evilly compelling, like a multi-storey car crash. The happy conclusion felt a bit forced, everything was solved a little too easily for my liking. But it's still an honest, admirable little indie feature, and a cautionary tale for all those middle-aged ladies who try to relive their misbegotten youth... 6/10
David
This was a really interesting first film from writer and director Joanna Hogg. Anna, played superbly here by Kathryn Worth in her first film role, arrives to join her old school friend Verena (Mary Roscoe) who is on holiday in a villa in Tuscany with her family and another family in what is clearly an annual arrangement. Anna was supposed to bring her partner Alex with her, but cited his pressure of work as the reason for her arriving alone. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that Alex and Anna's relationship is in a rocky place, and Anna is in Italy to enjoy a bit of space.The holiday party divided into the old and the young. Anna, whose place should have been with her school friend and 'the olds', gravitated to the more whizzy youngsters with their loud drinking games, skinny dipping, dope smoking and general hell-raising in a battered Fiat, trustingly lent by neighbouring friends. Verena's son Oakley (Tom Hiddleston) began to show an interest in Anna, but he eventually rejected her signals, leaving her struggling to bond with any group.This was a wonderful film about a woman in her mid-life. It was also a telling study of an outsider being pitched into a different world. Verena and her family were well-to-do middle class, but were not an endearing bunch. The older people were insensitive and unfriendly to Anna, who was in need of someone to talk to; the youngsters, let loose from public school, were brash and spoilt. Anyone who has been ignored in a social situation - and there was a wonderful lunch scene here, featuring Mussolini's sofa - will recognise exactly where Joanne Hogg is coming from, and it makes rather uncomfortable viewing for its target audience. It takes Anna's flight to a grim local hotel to finally galvanise Verena into having the conversation she should have had much earlier, in a highly charged scene.But it was the way that this was filmed which made this something out of the ordinary. There were lovely set pieces in the Tuscan countryside, and in Sienna, but the weather was not always sunny, and often there was a wind blowing. Hogg was bold in her approach: at several points, the camera held steady on Anna, even when conversation and action was going on out of shot, and there were long slow scenes. A car crash did not show what happened, but only the vehicle being pulled out of a field by a tow truck, with the (unharmed but shaken) occupants standing about, as one does. A key scene was an almighty row between Oakley and his father George (David Rintoul) which took place inside the villa: we had to join the families sitting about outside, and like them, we were forced to listen to the dangerous raging coming from inside. And we all had to wait to see who came out of the house first, and in what state.The slow pace and art-house style of film will probably annoy and delight audiences in equal measure. I loved it and am very keen to see what Joanna Hogg does next.
allmouth
The one thing this film was, was a brilliant portrayal of the obnoxious moneyed English at play in Tuscany, the arrogance and superciliousness of the younger characters and the emotionally uptight 'olds'. I'm not sure if this was the intention of all concerned as the programme notes at the cinema summarised the film as 'an illuminating and touching study of personal crises over ageing and our need to belong'. The Oakley character was particularly repulsive, superb acting there. As for Anna, her desperation oozed out of every hangdog look she delivered, perpetually on the verge of tears which she duly wept with absolutely no sympathy from myself. I'm guessing the dialogue was improvised, if not then the irritating 'banter' and outpourings reveal a script of true mastery, very naturally mundane with the 'youngs' speaking American TV influenced posh and the 'olds' confined to world weary tones. Overall, I couldn't have cared less if Anna had been gang raped or if they'd all been killed in the car crash, the world would be better off without people like these. By the time of Anna's revelation to V at the hotel I was so sick of her face that it was the one moment I laughed. It was bad judgement on my part going to see Unrelated and half way through I was close to walking out but like any disaster, it was difficult to avert my eyes, a woeful experience. I hope all concerned go on to better things.
