RICHARD FORD - CANADA. NOVEL.

This is a long book, in which two dramatic things happen, and then almost nothing else does.

This is a trite and simplistic summary of Canada, but in fact it is not that wide of the mark.

The truth is, there is absolutely no suspense whatsoever in this book. None. The first line of the novel is "First I will tell you about the robbery our parents committed." The second line is, "And then about the murders, which happened later."

On the first page we learn about the two events around which everything else in the book revolves. Approximately the first half of Canada relates, from the point of view of fifteen year old Dell Parsons, how Dell's parents fell into robbing a bank.

The second half, after Dell is taken to Canada and put into the care of the mysterious Arthur Remlinger, tells about how events led inexorably to two men getting killed.

There are details around Dell's family, the two small towns where he lives - one in Montana, the other in Canada -, we learn about his hobbies - bees and chess - and about some of the characters that surround him in either place. But really, apart from the two crimes that serve as muted climaxes in either half of the book, it is a very mundane story that is told in its five hundred pages.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Novels can survive and impress with very little, there is no need to have a story packed with detail and events and action for a piece of fiction to work. And for parts of it this is true for Canada, the pace is gentle and reflective, things are carefully and minutely described, there is no fuss or fireworks. It is a slow examination of a year in a boy's life.

It is about a number of things, but mainly it is about a search for belonging. Dell is constantly uprooted from military base to military base, as his father is in the air force and, just as he thinks he may be settling in to his small town in Montana, he is displaced again by his parents' arrest.

Dell is just looking for somewhere to call home, and he finally finds it in the place that serves as the title of the novel, in Canada.

And yet the novel is too insubstantial for its length. There is too much insignificant detail here, too much slow examination, too much revealed and not enough held back. There is simply too little mystery for such a large book.

We know everything already, well before it happens. We don't know exactly how it happens, but we can guess. There is nothing really at stake. The writing carries the reader along, and with a lesser writer than Richard Ford the book would have been tedious, but this strong writing cannot make up for the absence of tension in the narrative.

Canada has things to recommend it, the balanced, steady, lyrical writing, the carefully described detail, but in essence it is a novella trapped in the body of a large, overgrown novel. 

HER. FILM.

In this film, Joaquin Phoenix's character falls in love with a character played by Scarlett Johannson. Not so unusual, you may imagine, except that Scarlett's character, Samantha, is a computer operating system that has been developed to be sentient.

HER is set in a near-future Los Angeles. It is a relatively benign vision of the future, everyone lives in these large, pristine apartments, there is no sign of

war or plague or disability, the few jobs that we encounter are all aided by technology or are involved with producing that tech.

The only scary thing is that, fashion-wise, the future is apparently inspired by Simon Cowell. The people generally dress as we do, except that - a prospect as terrifying in its own way as a zombie apocalypse - the men all wear high-waisted corduroy trousers, without a belt.

Technology is of course a central part of everyone's lives. We see citizens of this new Los Angeles walking around alone, but constantly talking, they are communicating with their home computers through a tiny device in their ear, listening to emails, having the news of the day read to them.

Theodore Twombly is Phoenix's character, a romantic who is going through a divorce from his childhood sweetheart. Phoenix plays his character as a kind of future version of Leonard from the Big Bang Theory, a sensitive, nerdy ingenue who just wants to be loved.

He thinks he has found what he is looking for in a new operating system for his computer, who calls herself Samantha. She has been designed to be sentient, and to be able to grow and evolve and actually feel emotions.

Theodore and Samantha quickly form a bond. He is lonely, she is curious about the world and willing to learn, despite her lack of a physical body. They even manage to have sex, of a sort.

The film's strength is that it doesn't denigrate Theodore and Samantha's relationship, it treats it as unusual but real. We are not invited to feel sorry for Theodore, or to look down on him, for not having a human girlfriend. They are in many ways like any other couple, they fall out, make up, profess their love for each other, argue about the future of their relationship.

The film's only weakness is that many, many scenes are simply Joaquin Phoenix talking to the disembodied voice of his computer through his communication device. The location may change but the conversations between Theodore and Samantha are the central part of the movie and so we spend a lot of time listening to her and looking at him. There is little action, and a lot of dialogues that look like monologues.

Still, this is a curious, hypnotic, charming film. It is a film that is sympathetic towards its characters, that likes them and invites you to like them too. It delves into situations that are actually now on the horizon, exploring what it is to be conscious and is interested in all the complications that technology causes, and will cause, in our lives. 

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS. FILM.

The Coen brothers schtick is getting a bit old at this stage.

Joel and Ethan Coen have been making films together for thirty years now, and have developed a very distinctive style.

In films like No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou, they have made their idiosyncratic mark on Hollywood.

You can tell a Coen brothers' film almost immediately. There are many shots that frame the characters, making them appear small, and at the mercy of their environment. There are long, slow scenes, and characters that often remain impassive, usually in the face of things they don't understand.

Their films are atmospheric and obsessed with movie meta-references, they play games and always have a slightly unreal feeling to them.

And they love these eccentric, quirky characters who have a tenuous grip on their own sanity. Oh, and John Goodman, the rotund Goodman is in the majority of their films, and shows up here again as a heroin-addicted, misanthropic jazz musician.

Their central characters tend to be losers, people who live on the edge of society. They are generally misunderstood, dissatisfied, desperately trying to succeed or survive in a world that rejects them.

Llewyn Davis is another one of these. He is a folk singer in nineteen sixties New York, struggling to make an impact on the folk scene in that city. He is idealistic, refuses to compromise, and because of that is frequently penniless and reduced to sleeping on friends' couches.

And that's really it. We get the usual procession of quirky, off-beat characters that cross Llewyn's path as he attempts to get a break, there is a cat that is in the film for a while, and which then disappears, he falls out with people, makes up with them. We smile at their antics.

And yet there is no progression, no movement forward, Llewyn is more hopeless at the end than he was at the beginning. Things fall apart, and never get fixed.

The only transformative moments in the movie are when the protagonist plays music. Llewyn is transformed, from a defeatist, gloomy misanthropist into an artist, someone consumed by his music, able to produce beautiful sounds and be someone he cannot manage to be in the real world. These moments are the only times when the film transcends the Coen's usual quirk-fest, and touch something deeper and more profound.

Inside Llewyn Davis is an intermittently amusing portrait of a loser, who remains a loser. It has nice touches, as all Coen brothers films do, but is mostly insubstantial and irritating in its absolute refusal to allow any kind of growth or positive change to its central character.

TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE. FILM

Twelve years a slave, two hours of misery.

In fairness, if you go and see this film, you have been warned. The movie is exactly what it says in the title, an examination of the twelve years spent by free black man, Solomon Northrup, in slavery, after he was kidnapped from his home in New England in the 1850s and sold to traders in the South.

And so that is exactly what we get, a portrait of the violence, degradation and

brutality of the life of a slave. There is no let up for the length of the film, no respite from the misery. We see rapes, floggings, lynchings, torture, human beings being treated worse than animals, being treated like objects.

The evil and hatred of the white masters for their human property is pure and relentless, and the deprivations that they inflict on the slaves seem to have no end. Only Brad Pitt's character, an abolitionist originally from Canada but working in Georgia, shows the slightest bit of humanity when dealing with the black people there.

It is not an easy watch. The only aspect of the film that gives the viewer a break from the horror is the photography and camerawork, the shots of the southern countryside are composed like paintings, and look exotic and beautiful. It serves to contrast with the humiliation and violence that is the lot of the American slave.

Yet the misery is so relentless, it has to be wondered what the point is of this film. The message of the director seems to be that slavery is bad. But don't we know this already? If we have seen Roots, or even Django Unchained, from last year, surely we are aware that the life of a slave was no picnic.

For those people - if there are any out there - who still believe that slavery just wasn't that bad, that it was somehow a benevolent system where slaves' health was taken care of and their souls were saved, then certainly they need to see this movie. It is a true story and so gains more resonance from this fact. Yet beyond that, really only complete masochists (or sadists) need to see this brutal, stomach churning film. 

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. FILM.

The Wolf of Wall Street is the latest collaboration between Martin Scorcese and Leo Di Caprio. It is a lot of fun.

Di Caprio plays Jordan Belfort, who builds himself up from humble beginnings to a position as one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. He doesn't do it entirely legally, though, and soon comes under the spotlight of FBI agent, Patrick Denham.

Most of the movie is concerned with showing the decadent lifestyle of Belfort and his group of cronies that he accrues on his journey to the top.

We don't need either Belfort, who narrates, or Scorcese, who directs, to tell us how over the top, how obscene, the way of life of Wall Street traders was in the eighties and nineties.

There is no overt commentary on the amorality of the lifestyle, there doesn't need to be. We are simply shown the excess, the hookers, the mounds and mounds of drugs, the unending supply of cash and the bizarre, irresponsible behaviour, and allowed to make our own minds up.

The spirit of the times is captured perfectly, the "Greed is good" mantra of the bond traders of these unimaginable decades. We see the groupthink of the employees in the Stratton Oakmont offices, all united in their obsessive frenzy to get rich. Staff meetings are addressed by Belfort, and turn into a kind of Nuremberg rally, their leader in chief whipping his minions into a mania for selling and making cash.

Belfort's acolytes are the Keystone Cops, the biggest bunch of incompetent, drug addled, sex obsessed boors you can encounter in a Hollywood film. Despite this they make millions, through chutzpah, supreme confidence, greed and mountains of cocaine.

And it is a tremendous amount of fun. From the first frame it plays the situation for laughs. Jonah Hill, who plays Donny, Belfort's partner in crime, spends the whole movie with a set of comedy false teeth in. Donny, of course, is famed for being married to his cousin.

Jordan Belfort is basically a nineteen eighties/ nineties version of Leo Di Caprio's last role, as The Great Gatsby. He is a dreamer, like Gatsby, self-destructive, utterly self-absorbed, with a single-minded obsession to make piles and piles and piles of cash.

"Strattan Oakmont is America." This is Belfort's line in the middle of this movie, and it is not accidental. The name of the company is pulled out of the air by Belfort, it has no connection to him or anyone who works there, it is simply WASP-sounding enough to gain them the respect that they need to survive in the bond trading jungle.

It is the definition of self-invention. There is nothing real about either the profession, or Belfort's made up company, and yet precisely because of their lack of substance, they are a raging success.

The whole enterprise is built on sand. They start off by selling worthless penny stocks to Joe Schmos who don't know any better, and build up into insider trading and money laundering. It is the ugly side of American capitalism where anything goes as long as it makes money.

Like Goodfellas, there is a prominent voice-over, as Belfort narrates his rise and fall, with a certain wry cynicism. Di Caprio takes over the role, and gives us a real anti-hero. Belfort genuinely cares about the people around him, inasmuch as he is capable of doing, yet he constantly lets down his wives, partners and children in his mad obsession for making money, taking drugs and living life to the full.

The Wolf of Wall Street portrays a debauched, depraved period of recent American history. There is some affection here for its protagonists, they are shown as almost lovable oafish epicureans, devoted to enjoying life and getting rich. It is three hours long, but it moves at such a pace it feels like much less. It is relentless, energetic, frequently hilarious, and a boat load of fun. 

AMERICAN HUSTLE. FILM

American Hustle will appeal to anyone who sees a film set in the 1970s as a kind of costume drama.

The hair is big and ridiculous, the lapels are wide, the chests are hairy and adorned with medallions. The film follows on from Mad Men in attempting to get all of the period details correct, the cars, the garish wallpaper, the disco, the dodgy fashions.

The film exploits that old American tale of grifters and con artists. Christian Bale plays Irving Rosenfeld, who has a number of scams on the go when he meets Sydney, (Amy Adams), who becomes both his business and romantic partner.

The pair get stung by Bradley Cooper's FBI agent and are forced to help him attempt to entrap public figures on corruption charges.

From there the story gets more complex, involving Irving's wife, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a local politician, senators, congressmen, a fake Arab Sheik, and Robert Di Niro as a mobster.

There is a touch of farce about the whole film, cartoon violence, Christian Bale's character gluing his toupee to his head, and Cooper's FBI agent with his hair in curlers. This sometimes pays off, and produces moments of humour, but overall it is an illustration that the film doesn't really know what it is.

There are comic elements, there is tension, a hint of danger with the mobsters, a sort of a love story between Irving and Sydney, and an attempt at a more serious examination of politics and the law.

Yet it is too disjointed, the movie doesn't seem to know where it's going most of the time. We have minor crises, small climaxes, and then the pace slows again. There is no real direction, no great building towards a denouement, the story kind of meanders.

This is not to say that there are not things to enjoy. Christian Bale is consistent in his portrayal of the central character, a slightly ineffective conman with a hangdog look and bad hair. Bradley Cooper is manic and driven as the FBI agent who is just after a bit of respect and success. There are some good jokes, and funny moments, including one with the first make of microwave to come out in the nineteen seventies.  

And Jennifer Lawrence - continuing the theme of pretty much every film she

has been in - takes over the screen when she is on it, playing Irving's feckless, manipulative, tipsy wife. Although she is again playing a role that is much older than her, she dominates the action even in the small part that she plays. 

American Hustle is likeable and gently humorous, but is lacking an edge. Worth a look for the great cast, but an opportunity lost.

WINTER FILMS: PRISONERS, BLUE JASMINE, HUNGER GAMES, DRINKING BUDDIES.

PRISONERS  is not for the faint hearted. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) plays a man whose eight year old daughter, along with her friend, is kidnapped. The chief suspect, a man whose has a mental age of 10, is arrested and then released. Jackman's character goes to extreme lengths to track the guy down and attempt to find his kid.

The film maintains the tension expertly, inching the story along, teasing the viewer with clues and hints and suggestions, though the ultimate solution to the mystery is more or less signposted fairly early, and is not in fact such a massive twist.

There are some interesting moral questions, about what is a valid course of action to protect your family, how far is too far, etc. The film is effective in exploring these ideas.

It is, though, unremittingly hard and brutal. There is some heavy violence, and a lot of pain and dread, and - naturally, considering we are talking about child abduction - there are no lighter moments to relieve the gloom. It's a film that has to be endured, and admired, rather than enjoyed.

BLUE JASMINE is a Woody Allen film, though it is unlike the vast majority of his work. It is a tragedy, not a comedy. Though it retains a lot of the director's light touch, there is little to laugh at here.

The central character is Jasmine, played by Kate Blanchett. Her marriage to millionaire Alec Baldwin collapses when he is indicted on fraud charges and sent to prison for setting up a Ponzi scheme. She has a breakdown and goes to live with her foster sister, who she has only ever barely tolerated before her change in fortunes. Now she finds herself dependent on her.

The key problem with the film is that it is almost impossible to feel any sympathy for the central character. She is snobby, presumptuous, contemptuous of the people - working class San Franciscans - that her sister introduces her to.

In flashbacks we see that Jasmine is in fact partly to blame for her husband's downfall, and turned a blind eye to the strokes and dodgy dealings that she knew he was involved in. Jasmine does attempt to put her life together a little, before falling back into old patterns of lying and self-deception.

But it is hard to care about her, hard to root for her, hard to be moved by her successes and failures. And that is the failure of the film itself, it fails to create a complex enough protagonist that is anything more than the haughty cold-fish that she appears to be in the beginning.

Best film of the winter so far has to be THE HUNGER GAMES, CATCHING FIRE, the second in the series. The books that the films are based on are aimed at the teenage/young adult market, but the reason that the films work so well is the their themes and atmosphere are profoundly grown up.

The dystopia that acts as setting for The Hunger Games movies is a future United States that is divided into Sections and ruled by a dictatorship, Donald Sutherland again playing the dictator. The ruling classes use various forms of oppression to maintain order, including the annual Hunger Games, where teens from each of the Sections compete in a winner-takes-all battle to the death.

The games are entertainment for the masses, intended to distract them from the multitudes of limitations in their everyday lives. The losers are killed, the winners feted and gifted with unimaginable wealth and prestige.

Katniss Everdeen is the central character, another in a line of female protagonists in the sci-fi, fantasy genre, and is in truth probably the best and most complex of them all. She is brave, tough, principled, talented, contemptuous of the brutal status quo, willing to sacrifice herself for others.

In the second film, the past winners, including Katniss herself, are forced into competing in a grand Hunger Games, to discover the overall champion of the last twenty five years. It is the administration's attempt to quell a growing rebellion and threat to its rule.

These games, though, are different from the ones in the first film, partially because they now have Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character, Plutarch Heavensbee, running them. They are more brutal, and complex and dangerous than previous versions.

And there is more, too, a twist near the end that opens up the claustrophobia of the games and gives a new perspective on all of the action up until that moment. Throughout, the film is brooding, dark, threatening, though Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Bishop, who play Haymitch Abernathy and Effie Trinket, do provide some light relief.

Yet it is this taut, suspenseful ambience that gives the movie its impact, and the performance of Jennifer Lawrence - who deservedly won an Oscar last year for Silver Linings - as Katniss, that holds the whole enterprise together.

Lawrence is mesmeric in the role, tortured and struggling and constantly attempting to control her disdain for the regime, and her fear for the ones she loves. Katniss is a reluctant heroine, but a heroine nonetheless, and Jennifer Lawrence communicates all of her character's conflicts perfectly. She is also stunningly beautiful in this movie, impossible to look away from whenever she is on screen.

The Hunger Games works mainly as it contains themes and ideas that are much more grown up than you would expect from a film aimed at the adolescent masses.

DRINKING BUDDIES is a frustrating film. It is frustrating, primarily because almost no character at any time actually says what they really mean.

It is not that they lie, it is just that every truth about them is left unsaid, they talk and act in a certain way, and never face up to what is really going on.

The film focuses on a number of employees of a small brewing company. Kate (Olivia Wilde, from House, among other things) is seeing Dave, but obviously has a thing for co-worker, Luke (Jake Johnson, playing practically the same role as his character, Nick, in New Girl). Luke, in turn, clearly likes Kate back, but is in a relationship with Jill (Anna Kendrick).

Things develop, but only a little, and not as much as they should. The film spends a lot of time promising action and events that it never delivers on. It has potential, and a certain subtle charm, but never becomes what it should.