Days of the Bagnold Summer

So many shoes…so little time.

(2019) Comedy (Greenwich) Monica Dolan, Earl Cave, Rob Brydon, Elliot Speller-Grillott, Tamsin Greig, Ony Uhiara, Paul Michael Bradley, Alice Lowe, Grace Hogg-Robinson, Nathanael Saleh, George Wilkins, Alfie Todd, Tim Kay, Gurlaine Kaur Garcha, Sophie Steer, Lesley Harcourt, Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness, Stuart Whelan, Olivia Buckland.  Directed by Simon Bird

 

I suppose there are few tortures for a 15-year-old boy than spending a summer alone with his mom. That must go double if mom is a divorced cardigan-wearing librarian and the boy is into metal in a big way. How do two people so disparate find any sort of common ground?

That boy is Daniel (Cave), who has been anticipating a summer in Florida with his Dad – who has since remarried and has a new baby on the way with his new wife  – but Dad isn’t the most reliable sort to begin with, and the plans fall through. Trust me, Daniel – you are NOT ready for a summer in Florida with pasty white skin like that.

Daniel is now faced with the prospect of summer at home in a dull, boring British suburban existence with his mom Sue (Dolan) who might have been fun once upon a time, but her idea of a good time is going off to the seaside and attending a demonstration on how to make fudge.

Like most boys his age, Daniel knows only that he hurts and doesn’t know how to express it, so he takes out his rage on everyone by being an absolute douche to his mom. She reacts with patience and compassion. Sue has retreated into her own shell and is only beginning to emerge from it, going on a date with Daniel’s history teacher (Brydon, who should be legally required to do the “Man in a Box” voice in every movie he’s in) but he turns out to be a massive jerk.

The more the summer goes on, the more frustrated Daniel gets. His best friend Ky (Speller-Girllott) and he have a falling out. His attempts to join a metal band are frustrated again and again. And his mom insists on taking him shoe shopping for an upcoming wedding he plainly doesn’t want to attend. This is going to be a long summer.

The movie is based on a Joff Winterhart graphic novel and as adapted by Lisa Owens, it captures the nadir of teen angst that only a 15-year-old son of divorced parents can experience. Daniel is not the easiest kid to like, but deep down there’s a decent guy under there; his mom knows it and even though he drives her up a tree, she hangs in there and regards him with a certain sense of droll humor although from time to time she clearly wants to give him a good shaking. Sue isn’t perfect either, but she’s trying and she hasn’t exactly had the easiest time of things, as a poignant conversation with her son late in the film shows. Teens have a tendency to not realize their parents were once like them, full of dreams and aspirations, and trying to fit in, be cool and figure things out. Parents have a tendency to forget what it’s like to be those things in their zeal to have them avoid the same mistakes that they made.

The movie has a lovely bittersweet quality to it, and the dry British humor that tends to get me going every time. Bird further has the soundtrack full of Belle and Sebastian songs which would seem at first glance to be incongruous, but actually turns out to be the perfect fit. As we emerge from a long and difficult winter with the promise of a long and difficult summer ahead, movies like this can be a tonic, reminding us that there is something magic in the warm months. It’s not the memories of good times so much but the love of the people we are with that make the magic. It would do us all well to be reminded of that.

REASONS TO SEE: Great Belle and Sebastian songs. Nice dry British humor.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit on the vanilla side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity including some sexual references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bird is best-known for his work on the British television show The In-Betweeners.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/21/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 91% positive reviews. Metacritic: 57/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Adult Life Skills
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Crisis

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Blue Iguana

The gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

(2018) Heist Comedy (Screen Media) Sam Rockwell, Phoebe Fox, Ben Schwartz, Peter Ferdinando, Simon Callow, Amanda Donohoe, Frances Barber, Al Weaver, Peter Polycarpou, Anton Saunders, Jenny Bede, Andre Flynn, Vic Waghorn, Glenn Wrage, Peter Singh, Pedro Lloyd Gardiner, Paul Chan, Danny Granger, Martin Muncaster, Jack Silver, Pamela Cook. Directed by Hadi Hajaig

 

Stephen Soderbergh is famous for depicting teams of con artists and thieves who are cool, competent and clever. Most times, criminals are anything but those three things. Generally, people go into crime because they don’t have the skills to make a living honestly nor any inclination to obtain any. They want to do things the easy way, not knowing that if you want to get away with a crime it takes some planning, foresight and knowledge.

Eddie (Rockwell) and his buddy Paul (Schwartz) are both ex-cons working in a New York diner while out on parole and trying to keep their noses clean. Into the diner walks a pushy English rose named Katherine Rookwood (Fox) who is the lawyer for an Eastern European businessman named Arkady (Polycarpou). She needs to use the two schlubs for a job in London which would be a clear parole violation but she’s got that all covered.

What she needs is for them to steal a gym bag at one of the museums. If she retrieves the bag, it will erase a crushing debt she’s been trying to work off to the businessman. However, things don’t go entirely to plan; it turns out that the two Americans are way over their heads. Arkady has in his employ a mullet-wearing thug named Deacon Bradshaw (Ferdinando) who has serious mommy issues particularly since his mom (Donohoe) is oversexed and abusive. There are also much bigger fish to fry, particularly after Eddie and Paul – and Katherine as well – are double-crossed by Deacon and his violent thugs.

They work out a plan to take back what they lost and maybe get a little bit more – ok a lot more – than they would have gotten out of the deal; that is if they can keep their butts out of the crossfire. Not necessarily an impossible task since nobody in either gang can shoot worth a damn.

The first thing that came to mind as I watched this was that it’s Soderbergh on a budget. It crosses British gangster films with American heist movies which is a natural mix but one that really hasn’t been tried often until now (other than by Danny Boyle to my knowledge). In addition, it has the always watchable Sam Rockwell leading the cast.

He’s watchable enough here but he’s not nearly as manic as he normally is. The movie could have used a little more energy from Rockwell surprising to say and at the end of the day it is Fox who commands most of the kudos for her performance here. Her character does a lot of eating and if anyone can look endearing with a blog of ketchup on her chin, it’s Fox.

There is a lot of quirky charm in the movie; I liked Ferdinando as the volatile thug Deacon. He goes on profanity-laced rants when his underlings mess up which is just about all the time. Few can curse as well as a Cockney and Ferdinando makes a running gag out of it; in fact, Rockwell makes a point of trying to learn how to do the Cockney accent although to judge how effective he is you’d have to ask a true Cockney. My guess is “not well.”

Towards the end things start getting increasingly violent and that’s where the movie shines. There are several demises that are extremely bloody (particularly the very last one) and Hajaig handles them with a deft comedic flair. There were some moments that left me chuckling (although none that left me doubled over with laughter) and a few moments where I thought they missed the mark, particularly early on. One of my favorite running jokes is that nobody in the film can shoot worth a damn; I’m talking couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a basketball from five feet away type of shooting.

I like these sorts of movie and while the reviews thus far have been pretty poor, I actually thought this was a solidly entertaining and often fun piece of work. Yeah, there are a lot of clichés – you know that Eddie and Katherine are going to get romantic and they do – but for the most part, the fast pace and the humor keep you from wanting to check your cell phone too much. You may think that’s faint praise but in 2018 that’s actually an accomplishment.

REASONS TO GO: Quirky but entertaining. There are some truly inventive moments.
REASONS TO STAY: Rockwell’s performance is oddly subdued.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a good amount of profanity, violence and a smattering of gore.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The blue iguana is an actual breed of iguana that is indigenous to the Cayman Islands.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/25/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 27% positive reviews. Metacritic: 30/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Logan Lucky
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: An L.A. Minute