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Thin on the ground

Deborah Ross

Wednesday, 27th August 2008

Ben X
15, Key cities

August is a hopeless month for movies — it’s when the big studios dump their worst films on us, pretty much — and so there is very little worth seeing, let alone reviewing. I did think about seeing the new Will Ferrell comedy, Step Brothers, but after catching the tail end of a trailer I thought: ‘Actually, I’d rather dash my head against a door jamb.’ And I did think about seeing the new Vin Diesel film, Babylon A.D., but then I caught the tail end of that trailer and thought, ‘Actually, I’d rather dash my head against a door jamb and then stuff my nostrils with a well known brand of soft cheese like, say, Boursin.’ It is probably unfair to judge a film on the tail end of its trailers, but it does save a lot of time plus the tenner it now costs to go to the cinema. It’s like judging a book by its cover, which is also probably unfair but I will add this: beware the paperback which has any kind of embossing on the front. It’s crap.

So, then, Ben X, which I had not seen a trailer for and knew nothing about, and so it had that going for it, at least. It turns out to be a Belgian film written and directed by a Nic Balthazar, a Flemish film critic and author who, in the press notes, writes: ‘It is sometimes said you do not find a story, the story finds you,’ which, as it happens, I know to be true. Indeed, I was once in Waitrose when a story found me, but being in something of a rush I’m afraid I said to it, ‘Be off. Scarper. Can’t you see I’m busy?’ That story turned out to be The Kite Runner. So all I’m saying is if a story does find you, make time for it unless, of course, it comes at you from behind an embossed cover, in which case run for it, and run for it like mad.

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