Film reviews: Brighton Rock and Rabbit Hole

Brighton Rock (15)

On general release

Tony Earnshaw***

A HIGHLY stylised 1960s update of Graham Greene’s story of 1940s seaside lowlifes, Brighton Rock is arguably the bravest – or most foolhardy – British picture of the year.

Debut director Rowan Joffe ladles on the gothic with beautiful, lingering shots of the shining black sea to give the whole production an air of malevolence. The drawback is that his leading man lacks the necessary power, menace and charisma to pull off what should be a showcase in psychosis.

England, 1964. Pinkie Brown is a small-time hoodlum elevated to something approaching the big time when he kills a rival. Later, as his ambition grows, he faces off with Colleoni (Andy Serkis in camp villain mode). He also seduces Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a naive, adoring waitress for whom Pinkie becomes the focus of her narrow existence. She cannot know that she is the only witness to his crime and his attentions mask his need to keep her quiet.

Joffe packs his films with familiar faces and rising stars. Helen Mirren is Ida, a gaudy, painted, over-the-hill woman and Rose’s boss. John Hurt is Phil Corkery, who loves Ida. Phil Davis is Spicer. Sean Harris is Hale and Craig Parkinson is Cubitt. Surrounded by such top-flight support, Sam Riley as Pinkie should soar.

He does not. A pallid, black-eyed heavy possessed of a hard, dead-eyed stare and little else, Riley lacks the intrinsic sociopathic personality that Greene describes in the book. For this is very much a new adaptation of the novel as opposed to a remake of the Boulting Brothers’ 1947 original starring Richard Attenborough. Joffe does a magnificent job of transposing the far-off 40s to the 1960s, a decade still within recent memory.

He convinces his audience that Rose can undergo a believable transformation from mousy wallflower to obsessive moll. And the milieu is painted in a palette of vivid colour with an almost constant soundtrack for aural reinforcement.

Yet it is impossible not to judge Riley against Attenborough’s superior performance as the monotone, scarred psychopath. The landscape may be different but the central character is not.

Joffe has created a visual feast that emerges as a triumph of style over content. Brighton Rock is a mouth-watering recreation of the era of the Mods and the Rockers. Brighton and the south coast never looked more chill or threatening. Only Riley, in a one-note performance, fails to match his surroundings.

Rabbit Hole (12A)

On general release

Tony Earnshaw****

There is a considerable gathering of talent at the heart of this story of love and loss in which a couple mourning the loss of their child in a road accident set off in different directions as they seek to make sense of his death and their grief.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are Becca and Howie Corbett, a professional couple whose young son Danny was knocked down and killed when he ran into the road outside their New York home. The director is John Cameron Mitchell, best known for edgy indie fare such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Shortbus. The writer is David Lindsay-Abaire, who penned the script from his Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play.

A (distant) relative of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? this is a similarly coruscating drama about deeply wounded people who either cannot or will not talk about their shared state of limbo.

Together Becca and Howie attend a counselling group. He wants that shared emotion. She does not. He is seeking answers to salve his pain. She is not. In fact, Becca has totally shut down. Like an automaton, she is sleepwalking through what remains of her life.

And as their routes diverge, so they connect with others for emotional support. He hangs out with a dope-smoking pal from the group. She begins a cautious friendship with a teenage comic artist – the driver of the car that killed Danny.

A potent, heartbreaking, painfully real domestic drama, Rabbit Hole retains the intimacy of its theatrical roots and empowers its star duo to rise to great heights. As their grief overwhelms them, Howie looks for a return to normality but cannot throw away his son’s clothes. Becca wants to heal the hurt by hiding Danny away.

Raw, wincingly authentic and totally plausible in its depiction of a marriage driven to the edge by unfathomable emotions, Rabbit Hole offers up magnificent opportunities for both Kidman (Oscar-nominated) and Eckhart while scattering questions beginning “What if...?” throughout its 99 minutes.

It is not an easy watch, but it is a rewarding one.