Deborah Ross

Carnage is Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s hit stage play The God of Carnage, in which two sets of parents get together to discuss an altercation between their 11-year-old sons in the hope that they can figure it out sensibly, and all hell breaks loose. I have my reservations. I’m not convinced the play was exactly begging to be filmed, particularly as Polanski doesn’t open it up and keeps it, more or less, to one suffocating room and hallway, and I’m not convinced it’s particularly deep or insightful, but there is some enjoyment to be had from watching four actors at the top of their game get to where they do get to, even though it’s not much of any place.

The Descendants is a comedy-drama about a dysfunctional family — is there any other kind of family? I’ve yet to meet one — made by Alexander Payne, who also made About Schmidt and Sideways, but whereas I warmed to those films, I could not warm to this. I liked it. I enjoyed it. I did not resent the time I’d spent watching it, although that may just be because I seriously have nothing better to do. (I spent much of this morning removing the fluff from my keyboard with a pin, for example.) It’s already been heaped with praise and two Oscar nominations (for best picture and George Clooney’s performance) but it left me cold. I suppose at some level I just could not buy it or its basic premise that someone married to Clooney might have an affair.

W.E. is Madonna’s second outing as a film director, and this tells ‘the greatest royal love story of the 20th century’ via two women separated by more than half a century: Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and a modern-day New Yorker, Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), a society wife who becomes obsessed with Mrs Simpson when her possessions come up for auction at Sotheby’s. These days, it is common practice to ridicule and deride Madonna — just who does she think she is? And so on — but I am not of this camp, believe this film has much to teach us, and the top ten lessons are as follows. 1.

Steven Spielberg’s version of War Horse is like an extended Sunday afternoon episode of Black Beauty gone mad via the first world war, just so you know, and although it made me cry this is no endorsement. I rarely cry in real life but have been known to howl in the cinema, even when I’m aware something isn’t much good. It’s as if my brain and tear ducts are entirely unconnected so while, in this instance, my brain was saying this is a mediocre film, prosaic, plodding, over-sugared and with nothing like the power or imagination of the stage play, the tears still plopped. I wish there was something I could do about it. Is there a lead available to somehow connect my brain to my tear ducts? From Maplins, say? It would be good if there was.

The Iron Lady is a better performance than it is film, although I suspect the performance will carry the day. My good friend Meryl Streep, whom I have personally witnessed making pie with her very own Meryl hands, is awesome, flawless and magnificent, etc. but the film itself is peculiarly glib and superficial and somehow brushes over her actual politics. It is Thatcher without Thatcherism. It is Thatcher as a kind of Boadicea or Queen Elizabeth I. It is Gloriana of the kind that will please the Right and pleases Bruce Anderson (see feature pages) although, let’s be honest, anything that pleases Bruce Anderson does have to be a bit wrong somewhere. I hope Bruce will forgive me saying this, or what? Not sit on me, I hope. No one could be expected to survive that. (No, Bruce, no!

Hugo 3D is Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film and the first thing to say about Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film is that it is a visual wonder: rich, lush, beautiful, gorgeous. But the second thing to say is nothing else is as exciting as the look of it and if there is a third thing it is this: Hugo himself is rather boringly bland and I didn’t much care for him. Honestly, you can wait ages for one thing to say and then three come along at once. Isn’t that always the way?

As there were no invites this week from Hollywood movie stars — I thought Nicole Kidman might ask me over for a girls’ night in, to do face packs and nails and stuff, but not a squeak — I have to get back to the business of reviewing, and so here we are with The Deep Blue Sea. This is Terence Davies’s take on the Terence Rattigan play of the same name, and it’s awfully, awfully good — superb acting; superb sweeping crane shots; a superb evocation of postwar London in the Fifties — but it somehow fails properly to come to life. A new Davies film is, of course, a celebration, and this is his first narrative one for 11 years, but I think it may be too good for its own good, if you get my drift. (Don’t worry if you don’t.

As a major admirer of all writer/director Andrea Arnold’s previous work — Wasp, Red Road, Fish Tank — I was looking forward to her version of Wuthering Heights more than I can say, and? Wow! Or, at least, mostly ‘wow!’ It is a ‘wow’ with a few reservations. It is two thirds of a ‘wow’, so perhaps a ‘wo!’? Wo! It is impressively bold. And brave. And brutish. It will rile the purists, which is always good, as riling purists is a particular hobby of mine, and I like to set aside at least half a day a week to do just that. (I favour putting them in a cage, and poking them with sticks every now and then.

Three films for you this week, amazingly, and they are all at the smaller, independent end of the spectrum because I’ve had my fill of mainstream blockbusters, at least for the minute, and probably know all I will ever need to know about evil villains who wish to take over the world. (Just take it and go, why don’t you? Here, borrow my Oyster card.) I’ll start with Sound It Out, which happens to be my favourite, and is at the very, very opposite end of the spectrum, having been made by a crew of one with a budget of around $0 million and, I suspect, no catering beyond the occasional Greggs meal deal. (Actually, I love a Greggs meal deal, but I think you get what I’m saying.

We Need to Talk About Kevin was a horrible book and this is the horrible screen adaptation of that horrible book, and whether you will want to see it or not will, I suppose, depend on how much you are prepared to revisit that horror. At this point I’d love to say you needn’t bother, skip it, there is absolutely no reason why you should upset yourself all over again, but this has been so skilfully executed and Tilda Swinton is so superb I don’t know if I can. It may be one of those pesky films that is awful to watch but is worth watching all the same. Oh, dear. The trouble with cinema is that it can sometimes be quite challenging and may even force you to think, which is exhausting.

So, The Three Musketeers, and one for all, and all for one, but I wish it were every man for himself, and they’d all decided to call it a day and go their separate ways. This is a film of no charm whatsoever and I’d advise you to steer clear, walk the other way, keep your money in your pocket, and do something else. Do your VAT return or change all the duvet covers or scour the grill pan that’s been ‘soaking’ for days and I promise you, not only will you have more fun, but one hour and 50 minutes will pass much more quickly, too.

This adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 novel is so beautifully executed and so visually absorbing and so atmospherically hypnotic that I wonder this: would it have been awfully greedy to have hoped to have wholly understood it, too? I thought the plotting might be an issue — what do I know about spying? Me, who is nervous travelling beyond Brent Cross? Me, who has never broken down in Budapest, spouting all I know about Moscow? — so I took my father to the screening, who is keen on le Carré, and he was able to debrief me. Although, you know what? It kind of didn’t matter, and I kind of didn’t care. I was transfixed by every frame anyhow.