A New York Winter’s Tale (12A) **
A criminal (Colin Farrell) tries to save a dying girl (Jessica Brown Findlay) in this drama spanning two generations.
The two leads fare best in this movie, bringing some crucial onscreen chemistry to the big screen. It’s a shame the film built around them is such a mess.
Hugely ambitious in its scope, the movie has elements of time travel, science fiction and romance. It attempts to blend two separate stories, gives us an over-the-top performance from Russell Crowe and even throws in a bizarre cameo from Will Smith as a devil-type character.
There’s simply too much going on, and too much for Goldsmith - as experienced as he may be in other areas of film - to pull together as a first time director.
The first hour of the movie is set in New York in 1916, where we meet the petty criminal Peter Lake (Farrell) who is on the run from a crime kingpin named Pearly Soames (Crowe) who he used to work for.
When he escapes with the help of a mysterious white horse, Lake happens upon an upmarket home to burgle. There he meets the beautiful Beverley (Brown Findlay) who is dying from an incurable disease.
They fall passionately in love, and Lake becomes convinced that he can change the course of destiny and save her life.
But as the story goes on, it throws up too many elements that are not plotted together in any meaningful way.
The action moves forward to almost a century later as Lake, suffering from amnesia, tries to piece together who he is with the help of a journalist (Connelly). It all starts to fall apart in the second half, with story elements that will leave even non cynics scratching their heads.
Worst of all is Russell Crowe’s Soames, stomping around New York as a one-note baddie and sporting an attempt at an Irish accent that can only be described as bizarre.
Only Lovers Left Alive (15A) ****
Have there ever been two hipper, cooler vampires than Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston?
The two British actors bring humour and pathos to this movie which manages to breathe new life into a tired old genre.
Some of the credit for this must go to veteran indie director Jim Jarmusch, who has laced this offbeat film with dark humour and gets the very best out of his cast.
Hiddleston’s great as Adam, a hundreds-of-years-old vampire who has found a more civilised way of surviving by buying his blood through hospital lab contacts.
Living in a run-down area of the once-thriving motor city of Detroit, he lives a lonely existence. But he persuades the love is his life, Eve (Swinton) to leave her home in warmer climes to join him.
Much cool posturing ensues, until the couple are visited by Eve’s reckless younger sister (Wasikowska) whose insatiable appetite for blood ends disastrously. Hurt, meanwhile, pops up as a friend of the couple with demons of his own. Moody and wryly funny, with great performances from the two leads.
