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Friday 9 January 2009

One-trick pony

Tropic Thunder
15, Nationwide

Unrelated
15, Selected Cinemas

Meanwhile, Unrelated, a quiet — phew — British film which features no explosions, no shoot-outs and almost no action whatsoever, but is strangely spellbinding none the less. There is a lesson in this for Hollywood, although I wouldn’t presume to know what it is except: ha! Written and directed by Joanna Hogg — if you don’t feel properly Hogg-ed, I can’t think where you would go from here — it is simply about Anna (Kathryn Worth), who is probably in her early forties, and who joins her friend and her friend’s family on holiday at a grand house in Italy. And that’s it, really, except that it simmers and simmers and simmers with the sort of tension, both sexual and familial which you know has to boil over at some point, but when and where and why?

Unrelated makes an absolute virtue of it’s small cast — Worth, as the kind of woman who is trying to work out whether life has passed her by, is amazing — and observes the English upper-middle classes so astutely that, at times, it is almost painful to watch.

This is a film in which nothing appears to happen, but everything does, rather than one in which everything happens, but absolutely nothing does, if that makes any sense. Anyway, the choice is yours, thank God. I’ve got enough to do as it is. I’ve got to measure up for curtains and then it’s John Lewis. I may be some time.

More articles from: Deborah Ross | this section

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