Romance

Sandra Bullock plays boss-from-hell Margaret Tate, the ferocious senior editor at a New York publishing company, who terrorises her colleagues, sacks her employees on a whim and will go to any measure to secure an Oprah interview for one of her colleagues. But there’s one stumbling block to her success. She’s Canadian, and having neglected to sign some immigration papers, finds herself on the brink of deportation.

Fumbling for a solution, Margaret has a brainwave: marry an American, and the coveted green card is hers for the taking. Since all the men she knows are far too scared of her to consider a romantic attachment, let alone matrimony, she blackmails her underling Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into marrying her, and he in turn demands a promotion and the publication of his first novel.

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More serene than the films that shaped Wong Kar-Wai’s early career, such as Chungking Express and Ashes of Time, this is an exquisite paean to the agony of repressed emotions and unrequited love. In the Mood for Love forms the second part of a loose trilogy, together with Days of Being Wild, and 2046, released in 2004. Set in the straight laced society of 1960s Hong Kong, the film focuses on two neighbours whose friendship deepens when they suspect their respective partners of having an extra-marital affair.

His name is Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung). Hers is Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung). He is a journalist for one of the Hong Kong papers, she’s an executive assistant. Neither is wanting for money, as evinced by their elegant attire, but they frequently find themselves alone, despite living in a shared building where the neighbours play majong and gossip late into the night. Looking for company during the lonely evenings, the two of them meet for noodles at a local café. When they discover their partners are cheating on them, Mr Chow and Ms Su vow to keep their own friendship pure. Interestingly, Wong chooses to keep the cheating couple off screen. Their adultery is tawdry and commonplace, while the reticence of the two leads lends their growing love for each other a sort of quixotic nobility.

Christopher Doyle’s camerawork is breathtaking. Featuring the lush, saturated colour palette of film noir, each shot becomes a work of art. The camera acts as a voyeur, capturing scenes through doors, windows, swirling cigarette smoke and the heavy monsoon rains. (more…)

Based on the epic novel by Jacques Chardonne, Les Destinées Sentimentales charts thirty years of French history through the eyes of two star-crossed lovers.

Set among the bourgeois protestant families of the Limoges region of France, Les Destinées follows the career of Jean Barnery (Charles Berling), the reluctant heir of a traditional porcelain business who must learn to steer his way through the frantic beginnings of the 20th century.

Barnery starts out as a minister in the small Protestant community of Barbazac, but after a scandalous divorce leaves his vocation and young daughter and embarks on a passionate romance with the orphaned Pauline (Emmanuelle Béart), a headstrong atheist whom he will later marry. The two wives are polar opposites, and tap into different areas of Barnery’s character. The first Mme Barnery, played by an icy Isabelle Huppert, exemplifies religious stricture; Pauline’s wide eyes and welcoming smile suggest a warm, open sexuality.

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Whilst Judd Apatow’s name may not appear on the closing credits, his influence in this so-called “bromantic-comedy” is palpable. Following in the footsteps of Apatow’s irreverent comedies Superbad and Pineapple Express, I Love You Man, written and directed by John Hamburg, probes the concept of “man-love” - that intimate, zealous friendship between two straight males - with perception, wit, and plenty of cringeworthy moments along the way.

Apatow alumnus Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven, an awkward nice-guy who begins the film proposing to his long-term girlfriend Zooey (Rushida Jones). Always more comfortable in female company, Peter realises he doesn’t have any close male friends to perform the role of best man, and so embarks on a series of luckless “man-dates” in an attempt to widen his circle of friends. After some predictable misunderstandings (such as when dinner with the seemingly perfect Doug turns a bit gay), Peter finds his man.

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A modern-day prodigal, Kym (the beautiful Anne Hathaway) is the recovering drug-addict who takes a day’s leave from rehab to celebrate the wedding of her sister. But the cracks in their fragile relationship soon show when Kym’s problems threaten to upstage the bride on her big day.

In spite of its seemingly transparent title, Rachel Getting Married is far more concerned with the wastrel sister than Rachel herself. Wearing her scars like a badge of honour, Kym is at once vulnerable and bristlingly obnoxious, revealing her egocentric perspective at the most inappropriate of moments. One such incident is the wedding speech in which Kym offers an overblown apology for her behaviour over the years, once again taking the spotlight off the married couple, and back onto Kym and her “issues”. One can’t help but cringe.

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Steeped in Buddhist philosophy and set against the backdrop of a remote Korean lake, Kim Ki-duk’s Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring focuses on the relationship between an elderly monk and his young protégé.

The film is set out in a series of five vignettes which correspond to the titular seasons. In the first, Spring, the child protégé is taught a lesson about respect. In a spirit of boyish experimentation, he ties stones around the bodies of a fish, a frog and a snake, as his master silently looks on. That night the older monk ties a heavy rock to the boy as he is sleeping, which won’t be taken off until he frees the animals. There is a comic element to this very fitting punishment, but it also places a heavy burden of responsibility on the young boy’s shoulders: if any of the animals have died as a result of their entrapment, the old man warns, “you will carry this stone in your heart for the rest of your life.”

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Jason Reitman’s Juno must be the best comedy of 2007. Dealing with the messy issue of teenage pregnancy, the film is touching, witty and insightful, without slipping into mawkishness or didacticism. Ellen Page positively shines in her role as the plucky and kind-hearted Juno, whilst professional stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody fashions a potentially turgid storyline into a brightly articulate comedy.

Ellen Page plays Juno McGuff, a 16 year old high school student who decides that it’s time she experienced sex, and enlists her less than eager best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) to help. The inevitable happens and Juno initially opts for a quick abortion, until she takes a trip to the drab, industrial estate clinic and gets cold feet. Juno thinks she is too young to raise the child herself, and, following the suggestion of her cheerleading friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), sets about finding a pair of adoptive parents through adverts placed in the local free newspaper.

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Released in 1990, Wong Kar-Wai’s Days of Being Wild won numerous awards in Asia and established the Hong Kong film maker as a world player, despite dissapointing box office ratings when it initially came to cinemas. It is also the first film in which the director collaborated with longtime cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose use of light and shadow, contrasted with a vibrant colour palette, have become the pair’s trademark.

The camera opens on Yuddy, an arrogant, drifting playboy. He is out to woo the shy and apprehensive Su Li Zhen who works nights at the local stadium. Yuddy is relentless, and warns Li Zhen that the moment she gives into his advances - 3pm on June 16th, 1960, to be precise - will be forever graven on her mind. It is a scene of intense, intoxicating romance, which exemplifies the masterful use of intimate shots, heightened sounds and interplay of light and shadow which made Wong his name. The humidity is palpable as the lovers’ sweaty faces glow n the half-light, consumed with a deadly passion that deceives as it overwhelms.

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Based on Louise Rennison’s popular series of teen novels, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is a Bridget Jones-style coming-of-age comedy which follows a group of 14-year-olds as they attempt to escape the shackles of their snooping parents and move into the more exciting world of boys, bras and parties. Viewers who’ve endured teen gross-out comedies such as American Pie will find this Brit-flick from Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham) refreshingly gentle. There’s no swearing and no mention of drugs, no-one has sex and there are no unwanted pregnancies.

Set in the seaside town of Eastbourne, the story centres around Georgia Nicholson (Georgia Groome) and her circle of giggly, gawkish friends. Her chief aims in life are to secure a fit boyfriend and persuade her parents to throw her the best 15th birthday bash EVER at the local nightclub. Her biggest gripes are her embarrassing, old fashioned parents (Alan Davies and Karen Taylor) and her freakish little sister Libby (Eva Drew), who thinks she’s a cat. When two “sex-gods” called Robbie (Aaron Johnson) and Tom (Sean Bourke) join their school, Georgia and her best friend Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) are determined to bag them for themselves. Trouble is, the slutty and popular Lindsay (Kimberley Nixon), who wears a padded bra and unbuttons her shirt as low as school uniform rules will allow, has got there first.

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The Children of Huang Shi recounts the true story of a British journalist’s rescue of dozens of Chinese orphans in the face of the advancing Japanese.

The British reporter George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Myers) has been sent to China to report on the 1930s war involving the Japanese invaders and the Nationalist and Communist Chinese. Reckless and inexperienced, he takes hundreds of covert photos of the atrocities for newspapers back home, including a massacre of Chinese civilians. However, the Japanese soon twig that he is not the aid worker he said he was and capture him, along with all of his photos.

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