I have been a huge film fan since my teenage years, and it was a great thrill to see the London Film Festival this year and last year. You can either go and see a single film or you can choose ad hoc, perhaps 10 films, to see in a lucky dip sort of lottery that they operate.

 I think cinema is a very important way of raising or maintaining good mental health. It’s great to see an entertaining film and to be taken into different worlds. So below are literally thumbnail sketches of what I thought about the films. Hope that’s handy for someone.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead…

A Private Life

This was the first film I saw – a French film starring Jodie Foster. Unbeknownst to me and a lot of other people, I didn’t know that Jodie speaks fluent French. She plays an American psychiatrist living in Paris. The film is about the ethics of psychiatry, and it’s a comedy too – there’s a man who’d been a patient for many years trying to give up smoking. It goes from extremes of the man wanting to give up smoking for years, to Jodie Foster becoming obsessed with a patient’s death. It also features her ex-husband, now elderly, wanting to get back together with her. It is both touching and amusing.

Bad Apples

This film is set in the West country at a primary school. Principally, this stars Saiorse Ronan. It is a comedy thriller with Saiorse as the teacher of a tricky class. She appears to be quite stressed, and is made more stressed by certain bad behaviour from her pupils. The principal exponent of bad behaviour is a 10 year old boy who is both violent and abusive to his classmates and teacher. When she hears there is to be an inspection in two days’ time, she realises she’s got to do something to contain the 10 year old. In an unusual manoeuvre, she kidnaps the child and locks him in the basement of her house. This was really good up until the last 10 minutes, when the filmmaker obviously decided to have a wildly happy ending, including promoting Saoirse to be Deputy Headmistress and getting off with the Headmaster  – on the staff room floor. The 10 year old was a stand-out as an actor, as well as the goody two-shoes girl pupil.

Ballad of a Small Player

This was a beautifully bold visual feast of a film set in Asia and featuring very bad boy Colin Farrell. There is little that Colin Farrell’s character is not addicted to. Gambling in casinos and massive debts, brothels, alcohol and drugs, all done with a glint in the eye and a real sense of humour. Great music and sound, and amusingly, an elevation to the peerage as Lord Doyle. Story by next-door neighbour’s brother Lawrence Osborne. Good cameo appearance from Tilda Swinton.

Untameable (Indomptables)

Untameable is a thriller about the police in West Africa, hunting down the murderers of one of their own police officers. The head of CID largely occupies the screen in terms of his pursuit of the killers, and also his interactions with his children in his family. It’s sometimes difficult to accept the over discipline handed out to the children, particularly the eldest child, and indeed the interrogations of certain suspected murderers of his colleagues. It’s a well-made and exciting film in parts, but ultimately not a great film.

Broken English

This was the title of the comeback album made by Marianne Faithful in the early 80s. The documentary sets itself up as a big film company with many different roles for people to play, such as Tilda Swinton playing a manager. The strange thing about Marianne Faithful is how one thought he knew her and didn’t, and how despite her massive heroin addiction, she had incredible resilience.

Palestine 36

This is a wonderfully made film thanks to the efforts and talents of Annemarie Jacir. It almost has qualities of a David Lean film and it’s beautifully shot and has a strong supporting cameo role from Jeremy Irons playing the British military commander in Palestine. It’s an interesting insight into the history of Palestine, but a greater insight into the shameful past of the British military operating there. An important film to see, particularly if you can bolt on earlier and later history. 

Anemone 

You could be forgiven for saying this is a boys’ film. It’s about the effects of a father on two brothers, namely Sean Bean and Daniel Day Lewis. The performances are excellent, particularly Daniel Day Lewis, and the relationship between the two brothers is wonderfully portrayed, including quite an unpleasant fight. However, like so many films I saw, it seemed to run out of petrol and not have an interesting enough plot or ending. The film is made by Daniel Day Lewis’s son. Good, but not great. 

Hamnet

Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley are the two main stars of this, with a wonderful cameo from Emily Watson. This was set in Tudor times, and the first half is quite stunning. It features this chap William who is living with his parents, and in the end is pursuing Agnes who lives in the woods, and they get married and have a child. The second half of the film is to do with the tragedy of the young child Hamnet dying and the effect that it has on the couple and also his writing. If you hadn’t read anything about this (which I hadn’t), you wouldn’t know that it’s actually about William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes. Everything about it is incredibly realistic and the setting is wonderful. 

Rental Family

This is set in Japan and features the actor Brendan Fraser. This is really a tour de force for him. He plays an American actor in Japan who is not doing very well and then he has a very big hit – a milk commercial – but it’s hugely popular and it means he can do what he likes now. In the end he joins an agency which specialises in providing things like mourners, though it’s a bit broader than just funerals. There’s a woman who’s a single mother to a daughter, and she needs a father for the daughter in order to get into a posh school. It’s a very funny film but very poignant.

Roofman

This is a film based on a true life story about a guy who gets kicked out of the family home by his wife for not being more capable. He then goes off and gets into trouble and ends up in prison, and then he works out a way to be a burglar. He saws a square hole into the roofs of the stores he steals from. He’s a very nice guy, interestingly. I thought this film was good in the beginning and then it didn’t follow the right path. 

After the Hunt

This stars Julia Roberts and it’s set in university – she’s a professor – somebody starts to send round nasty things about her, so it’s all about unravelling that. I hate to say this but it is quite forgettable.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.