The Isolation Diary

Monday March 23^rd

Light entertainer Boris Johnson put on a sad face and told the nation we have to stay in. To not to go out. To essentially have no contact with anyone, other than the people you live with. My wife looked ashen. Her face seemed to say, ‘For inside, For outside, was not in the wedding vows.' Despondent, she took to her bed.

Tuesday March 24^th

I set some school work and did the marking. The system ran seamlessly. Maybe I can work from home from now on and get the parents to administer the detentions. After the work was done, I sat with The Girl to watch Mindhorn on iPlayer; a film written by and starring Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt. Barratt is Richard Thorncroft, a washed up actor in need of a wash. His heyday was in the 80’s where he appeared as the titular in a successful cop show. Now in the present he is called in by the police to help with a murder investigation: the suspect, believing the character to be real, will only talk to him. The film is a lovely bit of silliness. I can’t watch the news at the moment. Jeremy Vine might as well be doing the mortalitymeter, running up a live total of what people have fallen to coronavirus in what constituencies. The best way to cope is to watch things that make you laugh.

Later, we finished watching Mae Martin’s All4 sitcom, Feeling Good. It’s Roxy Music’s ‘Love is a Drug’ put to punchlines. A story about an addict trying to have a healthy relationship with love and life shows how comedy has become more dramatic. It’s hardly Hi-De-Hi! is what I’m saying. 

Caught Boris on the news before bed. He’s looking a bit peaky. I guess having to be concise and clear is getting to him. The withdrawal from long words is starting to show on his face.

Wednesday March 25^th

The kids are still doing their work. Online work means I get to type my comments. It’s probably why they’re doing so well. In normal life I respond in red pen with a level of handwriting a doctor would deem illegible – this is maybe why they’re succeeding: it’s the first time they’ve ever been able to interpret my feedback.

The afternoon film today is Man Up on iPlayer, a romcom featuring Lake Bell and Simon Pegg. The premise? Lake Bell is a Bridget Jones type: a beauty in schlubby clothing. She hasn’t been on a date in years. Through a series of circumstances she ends up - accidentally - stealing someone else’s date. Her suitor: Simon Pegg. The date tracks them in real time across London. It’s a bit like Linklater’s Before Sunset, only written by someone whose got the book ‘Romcom cliches’ by their side. It was fun though and Lake Bell is a great lead.

Later we watched quiz shows: Tenable, The Chase and House of Games. (These are three separate quiz shows. Not one: that title would never get commissioned.) Warwick Davis hosts the first with competitors having to get ten answers relating to a topic. One of the rounds was ‘First ten words of five letters or longer in Bohemian Rhapsody.’ Even if there was a phone a friend option and you could contact Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, there still would be no hope in hell of getting that answer right. Better is Richard Osman’s House of Games that takes the Taskmaster approach of having reoccurring guests and building lovely competition between them. I’m quite something on the Answersmash round.

Boris is still looking a bit pale. Why doesn’t he just say the word ‘magniloquent’? Going cold turkey from bombastic language isn’t doing him any good.

Thursday 26^th March

Get up. Turn the computer on. Mark. Set work. Have lunch. I’m getting into quite a routine here. If things go on for much longer, I’m going to be institutionalised like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption.

Today we don’t watch an afternoon movie. It’s Netflix and Babies instead. We’re expecting a child soon. (That sentence sounds like we're expecting a parcel to come through the letterbox. On second thoughts maybe that is an apt simile for the birthing process. Hopefully my wife doesn’t read this; she’ll only wince.)

Later, we watch Tenable, The Chase and House of Games. My wife is mad about quiz shows. If she ever left me - which she can’t do at the moment because she would be told to go home by the police, failing that she would have to pay a £30 fine; refusing that she would be forcibly returned, but if she ever left me - it would definitely be for a quiz show host. He could ask her General Knowledge questions all day, which would satisfy her in a way I never could.

In the evening we finished watching The Trip to Greece. Although I finished This Country this week, which in my eyes is the best sitcom in the past few years, I felt the final ever episode of The Trip was one of the great moments of tele. All the tiny assaults between Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan were suspended as the comedy collapsed into poignant, beautiful pathos. The direction of Michael Winterbottom was sublime. The show from beginning to end has been a delicious melange of comedy, literature, food and scenery.

Still no colour in Boris’ cheeks. Someone at least should let him look at a thesaurus. He can’t go on with this clear language for much longer.

Friday 27^th March

Woke at 7 and did the whole school thing up until lunchtime.

Watched Breeders with a bowl of soup. (That’s not a nickname for my wife. It’s what I was eating.) Like The Trip, it’s on Sky One. Again, such a shame more people can’t see it. Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard are the parents that would die for their children, but would quite like to kill them too. It’s a bit like Outnumbered, but instead of Hugh Dennis raising his eyebrows, it’s Freeman telling his kids to ‘fuck off.’ The outbursts recede over time and it becomes more rewarding- perhaps like a child?

Watched quiz shows with pizza and a beer. It was my first beer of the week. I always have a beer on a Friday. So I had one today to remind me what day it is. I never have caffeine in the week. Only ever have it on the weekends. So I must remember to do that tomorrow. It’s important to have some kind of calendar to our lives isn’t it? Otherwise we’re no more evolved than cavemen looking at the sun – or whatever they did to tell the time.

Today’s movie is Thelma and Louise on Netflix. We’ve had it on our list for a long time. Man, it’s good. It’s #metoo thirty years before it began. Two female leads. Sarandon and Davis. Both beautiful. But never once does director Ridley Scott linger on their bodies. It’s the female gaze from a male director. A feminist re-working of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the women run from the law because they can’t trust it to protect them. A classic, important, influential movie.

Turns out Boris has coronavirus. That explains the paleness.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Before the curtain came down on the West End, The Girl and I went to the theatre to see Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. It was one we meant to see for a while, particularly because Rich, a friend of ours, is its Musical Director.

We first became interested in going when we saw Rich accompany Rebecca McKinnis on BBC’s Children In Need. The Carpenters chords are rounded by wondrous vocals of hum and belt. It’s Someone Like You for parents. The simplicity and majesty of it is spellbinding. The lyrics too perfectly encapsulate what it means to be a parent. Just this week, for instance, I was watching Sky One's new comedy, Breeders, where the Martin Freeman character says of his children, ‘I would die for those kids. But often, I also want to kill them.’ This intensity of feeling – good and bad – is conveyed in the song with the mother referencing, ‘my pleasure, my pain,' a ‘perfect mistake.’ The twisty language, these oxymorons, show Tom MacRae is quite the lyricist. I would have wanted to go anyway because Rich was in it, but that performance really sold it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s1www

So how did everybody come to talk about Jamie? Well, its origins lie way back in 2011 in a BBC3 documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16. Teenager Jamie Campbell wrote to the BBC with an idea for a documentary: him. The synopsis was simple to explain, but difficult to execute: he wanted to go to his prom in a dress. Remember this is nearly ten years ago: RuPaul is not yet a household name; gender is a two-party state; people are slowly getting round to the idea of men liking men, but can’t fathom why a man would want to dress like a girl. Things are fine if you stay in your lane, but any attempt to cross will cause a tailback of disapproval. As a comprehensive teacher, I can say now there would be zero issue if a boy wanted to go to prom in a dress. Staff would encourage it, many students too; dissenting voices would not be tolerated. This is now; it was not then.

In the documentary Jamie wrestles with his identity, struggling to assert his femininity outside the home. In a symbolic moment, he struts the wall of the front garden. Despite his heels being skyscrapers, he is cowed: he can't bring himself to go over it. He is walled in. Walled by narrow definitions. By snide comments. By hatred. Fortunately, there is a demolition team on hand to help. His mum is unwavering in her loyalty. So too her friend. Dress it up how you like, Jamie is their boy. But for every brick they knock down, there’s his dad; his school; his peers to put one, two, three back up. Like the end of Tetris, when things go a bit mad, it’s a battle to see who will out: brick or player.

The doc it was based on.

The musical arrived six years later in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. With music by The Feeling’s Dan Gillespie Sells and a book by Tom MacRae it took the city by storm. And if The North shouts loud enough, eventually London will hear. Nica Burns, a powerful theatre producer, was impressed; she wanted to bring the show to The West End. It has now been there for the past few years; it has just gone on tour (sadly, this will be postponed) and should head to Australia. With a film starring Richard E. Grant and Sharon Horgan due to arrive at the end of the year, it will only get bigger. More and more people will talk about Jamie.

It’s easy to see why the musical is such a success: the mother’s numbers invoke Carole King and Dusty Springfield, whilst Jamie’s have the showstopper pizzazz of Robbie and Beyonce. It’s old and new. Ballad and dance. Tradition and irreverence. A musical has to be more than the music though. The plot and script is the washing line that the dress hangs on. And boy can MacRae write. With a background in television, he does a remarkable job at turning his talents to composing pop lyrics. Take ‘Over The Top’ for example. With Jamie going through an existential crisis, a drag queen offers him a rallying cry:

Over the top my friend
Unto the breach my friend
Rend the unending nightYou've got your armour onYou've had your warpaint doneAnd you'll be a man my son So get out there and fight.

Now that is smart writing. There’s reference to Shakespeare’s Henry V (‘unto the breach my friend’) and Kipling’s If (‘And you’ll be a man my son’), which coalesce to form an extended war metaphor. And war is what we’re dealing with here. This is a cold war, neither about guns and bombs, but confidence and bluster. If Jamie can look down his enemy and give them ‘fuck you’ eyes then the land is his. Nor are we dealing with hyperbole here. People have been beaten for what they wear. Killed for their free choices. MacRae shows the struggle that it takes to be yourself.

Not only are the lyrics sharp, the script is on point too. As a teacher, I’m qualified to judge the classroom scenes. The way the students talk and banter is true to life. Think Bad Education, only written by someone whose been to comprehensive school. The wit, vulgarity and stupidity is all there. When a student doesn’t know who Emmeline Pankhurst is, the reply: ‘she's the Beyonce of her day.’ Another lovely line is when the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is replaced by Kylie and Jason: an invocation to the Gods of camp. It’s a real achievement how the writing manages to be subtle and brazen.

It’s a shame Jamie’s drag race will be stalled for a bit. But the lad has his mojo now. He has leapt the wall and entered the public’s hearts. His eye lashes will only shine brighter when they're worn again.

Jamie: Drag Queen At 16 is on Amazon Prime.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie will be at London’s West End when it reopens.

Talking Heads

Alan Bennett is an easy man to impersonate. His stock-in-trade is specificity, documenting an English universe of rhododendrons, pantries and chicken in lemon sauce. Combine that with a soft Yorkshire accent and you’ve got a simple caricature for comics to run with. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon rally 'their Bennett' back and forth in The Trip; Harry Enfield does him as Stalin; and Stewart Lee, in his current tour show, closes the first half by having Alan read Sharknado. Putting low-key Bennet in a high-stakes situation is, of course, very funny. 

This, however, is a two-dimensional view of Bennett. A lot of people confuse his titles for the work. ‘A Chip in the Sugar,’ ‘A Cracker under the Settee,’ ‘The Lady in the Van.’ Wholesome names. Understated. Small. Reserved. Peculiarly British. But like the nation's preserve, marmalade, the sweetness comes from bitter oranges.


I’m talking about Bennett because this week my mum and me went to Talking Heads at Watford Palace Theatre. The show was originally written for the BBC in 1988 and 1998, but was soon adapted for stage. Many people are aware of it because they’ve studied it for GCSE or A Level. It’s perfect for analysis because it’s the very embodiment of ‘show don’t tell’ writing. In a dramatic monologue a character speaks their thoughts aloud; consequently it’s full of digressions, non-sequiturs and minor details. They’re not – it’s important to state - confessional booths. The character does not want to reveal themselves- typically they’re proud and private- but in time they expose themselves. Robert Barrett Browning’s 1842 poem My Last Duchess is an early example of this.

In tonight’s performance we see three monologues. The first is ‘A Lady of Letters,’ performed by Jan Ravens. Irene Ruddock appears to be a pleasant kind of nuisance. Her raison d'etre is the composition of complaint letters. She writes to funeral directors, local councils and even Buckingham Palace. (The dog mess outside is appalling!) There’s a feeling that it empowers her, gives her agency in a world where she has none. She is isolated and alone. (It’s revealed her mother died recently.) It all seems very harmless though with Ravens playing the punch-line, ‘So I wrote a letter’ for hearty laughs. However, Bennett is a devious so-and-so. At drawn-out intervals, he drops in lines about the family across the road. (‘See we’ve got a new couple that have moved in opposite. Don’t look very promising. The kiddie looks filthy.’) At first, Irene seems a simple curtain-twitcher, someone requiring distraction from the humdrum of life. Over the course of the monologue though this drip-drop of information becomes a rushing tap that engulfs. Ravens, a comic performer in Dead Ringers, brilliantly rings out the comedy whilst retaining the horror that lies beneath.


The second ‘A Bed Among the Lentils’ is performed by Julia Watson. It begins with the line, ‘Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.’ Soon we learn that Susan is a Vicar’s wife. The opening brilliantly establishes how she’s in a loveless marriage with God and her husband. When you marry a Vicar you’re entering into a trinity – a trinity Susan does not wish to be a part of. She too wears a dog collar, but unlike her husband hers doesn’t empower, but shackles. For him, his job affords him a status. Each week he stands and delivers his thoughts. These sermons are lapped up and licked clean. He is the star attraction. For Susan, she isn’t even secondary: she's well behind God and the flock. As a result, she finds communion in the bottle. Her Jesus is the blood of grapes or the grain of wheat – vodka is quite nice. Again, just as in ‘A Lady of Letters’ we discover her issue quietly. (‘The woman served me. Didn’t smile. I can’t think why? I spend enough.’) With Bennett it can be just the odd line, the moment where the character’s guard drops. From then on, the levee breaks and the truth gushes forth. In time, it isn’t just booze that exposes Susan, but an off-license owner too. Hindu: he isn’t a man of God, but Gods. The bed she finds among the lentils is Susan’s spiritual awakening; a union that brings her more pleasure than marriage and God. Julia Watson’s ascension from defeated wife to reclaimed woman is incredible. A bravura performance.

Watson (left) and Ravens (right)

The final monologue is ‘Soldiering On’ with Ravens returning to stage. Muriel is upper-class and cut-glass. She is mourning the loss of her husband. However, her grieving is typically British. With a lip stiffer than a corpse, she ‘nip(s) into the pantry to staunch the flow.’ To be seen to cry would be to admit defeat. In Bennett’s work the women are tough. They may be drowning, but want to appear waving. He was writing strong women long before other dramatists woke up and realised they’d existed. Even with further setbacks, Muriel soldiers on and keeps on going. 


At 85 and surviving cancer, Bennett seems to have gained inspiration from his creations (his recent collection was called Keeping On Keeping On). Let’s hope that happens; for he is one of the greatest dramatists we have. One ripe for parody and pastiche, yet whose genius can't be imitated.


Talking Heads is at Watford Palace Theatre until 29^th March.

Frankie Boyle's Tour of Scotland

There was a period when Mock The Week was the most exciting comedy show on the tele. At the time there were few panel shows on television. Those that were had a definite theme: the political Have I Got News For You; the musical Never Mind The Buzzcocks and the esoteric QI. It was the first TV panel show that had stand ups being stand ups. For many viewers it was an introduction into the stand-up form. There wasn’t much back and forth being the panelists, little in the way of dialogue; it was the arena of the monologue, where the loudest voice was heard.


The noisiest person in the room was Frankie Boyle. A Glaswegian comic, who with his red cheeks and spectacles, resembled a lost member of The Proclaimers. Someone whom wouldn’t walk 500 miles to be next to you; someone rather whom would walk 500 miles to knocl on your door and tell you 'you’re a cunt.' The best demonstration of Boyle’s nuclear comedy was the ‘Things You Wouldn’t Hear In The …’ round, where comics would take it in turns (as much as comedians can turn take) and deliver their joke. Whenever Boyle made his move, there was a frisson in the air: the studio waited with bated breath; the audience at home clung to their sofas. The anticipation was palpable. Dark comedy had been on the BBC before: The League of Gentlemen and Nighty Night all prefigured Boyle on Mock the Week, yet those edges were smoothed by the filter of character. Boyle was his own man delivering his own jokes – it was not diluted by persona.

I would tune in just to watch Frankie Boyle. Other comics seemed tame and unimaginative by comparison. Arguably, this was down to the topics they had to work with. A mainstream show meant mainstream topics. It’s hard to say something original about Ryanair. Yet Boyle made it work. In time the exhaustive task of generating new material caused the missile guidance technology to err. There were cruel jokes about Rebecca Adlington’s face: she resembled ‘the back of a spoon’ apparently. Following complaints, Boyle apologised by delivering another joke, ‘I worry that Rebecca Adlington will have an unfair advantage in the swimming by possessing a dolphin's face.’ The second joke is admittedly funny. But is it worth making? Millions of people watched the show and for a woman who was an athlete, who didn’t choose the spotlight, it felt like bullying.

Boyle would eventually quit Mock the Week citing creative differences. He wanted to make jokes about serious topics, but the producers wouldn’t let him. This could help explain the collateral damage of his attacks.

His next venture was Tramadol Nights. Like a Goths bedroom, it was blacker than black. Whenever Boyle delivered a skin-stripping punch-line, they couldn’t cut to Russell Howard skipping to dissolve the tension. Of course, the viewing figures were lower; but it was a sign of a comedian wanting to be an artist. Still though some of the celebrity baiting remained. One joke was particularly inflammatory: 

"Jordan [Katie Price] and Peter Andre are fightin' each other over custody of Harvey - well eventually one of them'll lose and have to keep him. I have a theory that Jordan married a cage fighter cause she needed someone strong enough to stop Harvey from fuckin' her." 

Boyle defended it, arguing he was attacking Jordan’s use of her child to maintain her celebrity. For me, this doesn’t hold up. The target doesn't feel like Jordan, but her child. It’s disablist – a joke that mocks the weak.

With years away from the screen, Boyle came back with New World Order. A dissection of the week’s news, it echoed Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe. It became very much its own thing though because along with news footage, it had smart analysists (the rapper Akala and data expert Mona Chalabi being just two) and end-of-days epilogues from Boyle. This was the kind of format that he was looking for all those years ago when he left Mock the Week. 

Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland is another triumph and another step on the road to rehabilitation. Yes, it’s another travelogue featuring a comedian, yet it’s a look at Scottishness, examining why the nation has even more nihilism in its bloodstream than heroin, its drug of choice. The wonderful thing is to hear from normal people. A battle reenactor educates him on Robert the Bruce, a historian on Mary Queen of Scots, and a hermit on why there's a camper van up a tree. There’s a warmness in the interactions and a genuine desire to learn and understand. Alongside this are monologues to camera (the one on Mary Queen of Scots is particularly brilliant) and clips from his stand-up. It’s the perfect slicing and dicing of all what makes Boyle such a warm, brutal comic.

From mocking the week to attacking the strong, Boyle is now where he needs to be.


Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland is on BBC iPlayer.

Parasite

“How bad were the Academy Awards this year? The winner is a movie from South Korea, what the hell was that all about?” We got enough problems with South Korea with trade and on top of it, they give them the best movie of the year. Was it good?  I don’t know. I’m looking for, like – can we get like Gone With The Wind back, please?” 

(Donald Trump at a political rally)

We live in a time where the oxymoron dumbsmart has ushered in two political leaders. Both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump know exactly what they’re doing when they make retrograde pronouncements. Trump’s attack on Parasite and championing of Gone With The Wind is all part of his strategy to win the racist vote. New foreign film: bad; old white film: good.

Whatever Donald Trump’s actual beliefs, what is evident is that the Academy did something they’ve never done before: awarded a non-English film Best Picture. They should have done it last year with Roma: a gorgeous document of domestic and national crisis; instead they gave it to Green Book, a picture director Spike Lee described as ‘not my cup of tea.’ The reason for this is because it was essentially Driving Miss Daisy, an unworthy Oscar winner, only with the positions changed: a white man drives a black man and learns to be less racist on the way. On the surface, the inversion of Miss Daisy should have been a progressive move, but by focussing so heavily on the white character’s arc it became an exercise in liberal virtue-signalling.

Seeing director Bong Joon-ho receive his award, there was a feeling in the room that the right person won. Many directors are fans of non-English cinema and owe a debt to its output. Sam Mendes, for example, was interviewed on the brilliant BBC 4 show Life Cinematic where he spoke fervently about his love of Jeunet and Caro’s French much admired, Delicatessen. Just as Britain re-packaged black American rhythm and blues into 60’s pop music, Hollywood has co-opted ‘foreign’ cinema too.

“Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” Joon-ho said on receiving a Golden Globe award last month. The comment is symptomatic of his impish wit. I’m sure for him his pride over the success of the film is tempered by the confusion of what's taken Western audiences so long to recognise films like his. The essence of cinema is the same: plot, characterisation, action, conflict, resolution – the only difference is the language. If you can read, why should subtitles be an issue?

Parasite is the seventh motion picture by Joon-ho and marks a return to complete Korean, following the diversions of Snowpiercer and Okja, which contained western actors. It begins with a family of four in a semi-basement apartment. There is no room for rooms, let alone privacy. All live on top of one another, doing their best to co-exist in a cramped environment. This is a hand to mouth existence where the brood must scavenge for work and wi-fi. With a signal hard to source, the father offers wisdom: ‘One must reach into the heavens. Up.’ With their underground existence, geography already dictates where they look; as downtrodden people they figuratively aspire to higher ground too.

The opportunity comes for one member to climb out of poverty. The son, Ki-woo, is asked to deputise as a tutor for a friend travelling abroad. The job will be a good earner, since it’s over the rainbow on the Seoul's Elysium hills. There is only one small problem: he’s not qualified to teach. Military training got in the way of that. Fortunately for Ki-woo his sister, Ki-jung, is a student of Photoshop. She fabricates his qualifications, giving him an Oxford University degree; he now has the means to gain entry.

The Kims home.

This digital subterfuge is just the start for the series of deceits that will follow. With Ki-woo installed in the Park home, he sets in motion a domino effect that will culminate in work for all the family. Making more money than they’ve ever made, under false pretences, they are parasites, manipulating their hosts to achieve fulfilment. The film is an attack on socialism then, with the working-class  ‘sponging off’ hardworking, enterprising people?

Joon-ho has written about class struggle before in Snowpiercer. Set in a dystopian future, survivors fight for survival on a train divided by class lines: upper at the front; lower at the back. Parasite is in that tradition, raising difficult questions about how people behave when they’ve got nothing; the lengths they will go to to get something. What’s interesting about the movie is how the title is slippery: the Kim family may look as if they’re taken advantage of the Park family; however, the Park’s are only deceived because they're naïve to their privilege. When a storm rips through the basement apartments of Seoul, the mother Choi is oblivious; the next day she celebrates the clear skies: ‘Zero air pollution. Rain washed it all away.’ The film is an attack on capitalism then: the ivory tower that protects the privileged comes at the expense of the poor who sustain it.

The Parks home.

The wonder of Parasite is the film never feels didactic. I’m a big fan of J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, which I teach to GCSE students, yet it’s a two-dimensional portrait of capitalism. Here, the Park family aren’t repulsive. In fact, their behaviour isn't as gratuitous as the Kims. What Joon-ho’s film laments is how brutalising capitalism can be: how it can make dignified people do undignified things in order to keep up. 

In a film where everyone is parasitical, it has you questioning the framework we live within: Shouldn’t our economic and moral systems elevate, not diminish, us? Currently, the people at the bottom are angry and envious; those at the top ignorant and complacent. 

Joon-ho’s movie asks: Is this what we want? Is this the best we can do?

Parasite is in cinema now.

Uncut Gems

Last week was the Academy Awards. A night where The Academy crowned Parasite this year’s Best Picture. It was the first time a non-English speaking movie had been bestowed the honour. Given it was the 92^nd ceremony, many felt it was about time; that the jury shouldn’t so much be patting themselves on the back, as embarrassingly reflecting on what took them so long. Otherwise, there was a feeling, particularly in the male category, the nominations and victories followed the status quo. This copy and paste approach to selection threw up few surprises and shocks; you could argue it’s a sign of consistency: DiCaprio, Hanks, Pitt and Hopkins are good in almost everything. In celebrating Hollywood royalty though, they made one big omission: the jester.


Enter Adam Sandler. The stand-up turned actor. He is the People’s Champion. His Netflix films generate more views than any other actor. Murder Mystery, his film with Jennifer Anniston, was reportedly watched by 73 million. Originally, he was signed up by the streaming service on a four-movie $250 million deal - they've since renwed this. Despite being loved by the public, he’s abhorred by the critics. It’s easy to see why. Here are some of his films with synopses to go with them: Ridiculous 6, a spoof of Magnificent Seven, where Sandler plays an orphan raised by Native Americans. The Cobbler where Sandler plays a shoemaker that can step into the shoes of his customers and become them. And The Week Of, which follows two opposing fathers, forced to spend a week with one another in the run up to a wedding – critics joked it was more of an art installation piece with the characters’ feeling of confinement mirrored in the audiences.

In some circles Sandler is the rampant capitalist, eschewing art in favour of commerce, a parasite that feeds off the consumer to make his pockets larger. He is less an actor, more an algorithm, providing what people with what they want, as opposed to what they might need. For others, he is a meditational tape: someone you’ll switch off with and maybe even fall asleep to. Is he part of the cure or the disease?


The main reason why critics such as Mark Kermode get so angry with Sandler is because of Punch- Drunk Love. The 2003 Paul Thomas Anderson film saw Sandler go against type in an art-house romantic black comedy. His trademark was still there. The goofy guy trying and failing to contain volcanic rage. Yet here, it was more nuanced, moving and vulnerable. It was a character you could meet at work, not the stuff of popcorn construct. The pay-off where Sandler confronts a bully (I have so much strength in me you have no idea. I have a love in my life that makes me stronger than anything you can ever imagine. I would say ‘That’s that’ Mattress Man.) is one of the most gorgeous things committed to cinema. For reviewers, the performance came out of nowhere. For anyone familiar with stand-up, it’s less surprising: stand-up is a low status art-form that requires naturalness and candor. Dave Johns in I, Daniel Blake; Jim Carrey in Truman Show and Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire are comics that can show the tears of a clown.

Over fifteen years later, Sandler has turned in a performance that has the critics salivating. He plays Howard Ratner, a Diamond District jeweler addicted to gambling. The film is Uncut Gems, the sixth picture by Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny. Their last, Good Time, featured Robert Pattinson, whose performance was recognised as a career-best. From the start, they wanted Sandler to play Howard. And when I say from the start, this project has been in development from years. The District was a lure for the two men because their father worked there and told them stories about it. Off the back of Good Time, they were given the go ahead to mine his tales into a diamond of a movie.



The story starts in Ethiopia with the extraction of a black opal. Something has gone wrong in the mine and a man is carried out. The skin has been flayed, revealing the bone beneath; blood and tears weep profusely. From there the camera does something quite spell-binding. It takes us through the tunnel of the mine and comes out at the anus of Ratner. Yes, that’s right. The Safdie’s splice the imagery of a mine with a colonoscopy, juxtaposing the two and demonstrating how the channels and corridors are akin, perhaps too establishing how the hard exterior of Ratner hides something precious and pure. On paper that reads like a terribly pretentious transition; in execution, it’s rather remarkable.


After the treatment table we see Ratner at work. There’s people knocking on his door wanting money. He owes a lot – a bet has gone wrong. A shark is out for his blood. They take his $20,000 watch as a peace offering. Epiphany does not strike Ratner. He does not see gambling as his undoing, but his making. He moves money back and forth, puts jewelry down as a guarantor, all to raise money for a bet. The person he wants to get behind is Keith Garnett, a power forward for the Boston Celtics. Having lent him a precious black opal, he’s certain that it’s mystical powers will yield something truly beautiful. This isn’t a throw from the half-way line; this is a slam dunk bet, guaranteed to win big. Unfortunately it does, then doesn’t turn out that way, leaving Ratner in financial dire straits. Vultures from all sides are ready to feed on him; the only lifeblood protecting him from being a corpse is the black opal: if it scores big at auction, his life will be saved.

What’s so impressive about this film is its breathless energy. The camera doesn’t sit; it stalks. The camerawork is up close, swooping from character to character, rarely cutting. When the frames do switch, they snap. Even away from the jeweler’s there’s no break for Ratner: his brother-in-law that he owes the money to is at the Passover feast; the heavies are at his daughter’s play – there is no rest for the wicked. Like Ratner, the viewer is taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged from scene to scene, barely able to catch their breath. This tension building reminded me of the first season of Homeland or the later seasons of Breaking Bad where are heartrates were put through hell. If Sandler’s other Netflix films are a beta-blocker that induce calm, this is cocaine, liable to lead to cardiac arrest.


The supporting cast are universally excellent with Garnett, the basketball player, playing himself; and Julia Fox as Julia in her first acting role. How the Safdie’s get such terrific performances out of such an inexperienced cast is an incredible triumph. What is most remarkable though is Sandler who holds the movie together. He may have won the Independent Spirit Award last week, but it was criminal that he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.


Let’s just hope Sandler takes more gambles in his career because unlike his character they usually pay off.



Uncut Gems is available on Netflix now.

Knives Out

I spend most of my working days immersed in the crime genre. At secondary school we teach Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sign of Four to Year 10’s and J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls to Year 11’s. Crime outsells every other type of book in this country. 18.7 million fiction books were sold in 2017. There’s also a glut of dramas on TV that pertain to criminal investigation: last night we finished watching Deadwater Fell, starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, which promised much and delivered a little. More or less every night on terrestrial there is some kind of detective drama, from the escapist Death in Paradise to the bleak Silent Witness. It can be sunny, rainy, frothy or strong; regardless, it’s omnipresent.


In cinema, however, whodunnits don’t really get a look in. Possibly because television and books have cornered the market, producers feel there’s no money in film. TV and books have overturned the piggy bank, leaving Tinseltown with a pig they can’t take to market. Sure, Kenneth Branagh brought back Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express to some acclaim – but that was a re-make. Yes, Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery was the most watched film on Netflix – but that was Netflix where discernment comes cheap.

More people watched this than that Eric and Ernie Xmas special your grandparents tell you about.

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is a bold move. He has brought together an all-star cast for a murder mystery. This is more in keeping with the Hollywood of yore or BBC of today, than the current trend for prequels, sequels and reboots. Although it’s inspired by Agatha Christie, its themes and characters are thoroughly modern. This is a two headed Janus: it looks forward; it looks back.


It begins with a body. Harlan Thrombey is discovered by Fran, the housekeeper. His throat has been slit; he lies in a pool of blood. It looks like suicide, but what worth appearance in detective fiction! A week after Thrombey’s demise and we’re in a kitchen. A young woman is watching CSI, something her mother berates her for: ‘They're talking about murder on it, your sister just had a friend she loves slit his throat open she doesn't need to be hearing that right now let's be sensitive!’ This gets to the nub of what makes Knives Out so beguiling. How great is that scene at establishing the tone of the piece! There’s the intertextual reference to CSI (there’s nods to Sherlock, Poirot and Sleuth too); there’s the ironic humour of a mother calling for sensitivity when her language is anything but, and the subtle establishment of a connection: we’re wondering how a young woman became a close friend to an eighty-five-year-old. Good scriptwriting is more than text; it’s subtext and tone too.

Was suicide his birthday wish? Pic. Lionsgate

We then learn that the sister who has lost the friend is Marta. She is called by Harlan’s son to appear at the house. It becomes clear that she was the nurse of the deceased, hence their close relationship. On arriving in her shitty Subcompact car, she’s greeted with an apology. Linda, Harlan’s eldest daughter, expresses remorse she was not invited to the funeral. She made her case, but in her words, ‘I was outvoted.’ This line is returned with each sibling taking it in turns to say it. In this film it’s not just the plotting of procedural that's great, it’s the spacing of jokes too.


Marta has been called because the detectives have been called in. Initially, it was assumed this was a suicide. Until a note turned up, claiming it wasn’t. Detective Benoit Blanc is having his wages paid for by this anonymous sender. Assisting him are two official officers, the straight-faced Detective Eliot and the crime enthusiast Trooper Wagner. As Thrombey was a crime writer, Wagner fanboys his way through the film, stealing scenes along the way. 


In the first round of interviews, Blanc stays in the background, punctuating the end of each testimony with a note on the piano. He is a man that does everything with a flourish. Over the course of the picture, he moves forward in the frame and the investigation, wondering why an earth an elderly man, with reasonable health, would turn on himself. Daniel Craig is wonderful here, enjoying his Deep South accent immensely. Like a Kentucky Fried Poirot, he delights in his words and revels in its cadences. It reminds you that Craig’s acting ability extends beyond sultry.

Making notes. Pic. Lionsgate

With Blanc unhappy with the morsels the family are feeding him, he turns to Marta for assistance. He soon ascertains that she has a physical reaction to lying. Whenever her mouth deviates from the truth, karmic acid is propelled from her stomach forthwith. The resultant vomit outs her as a liar. Blanc leans on this weakness to find out more about the family. Like in An Inspector Calls there’s satire at play with Marta, a working-class woman, rubbing up against the privileged Thrombey household. All through the film her origins are confused: each character believing she’s from a different place (Ecuador and Paraguay being just two South American names). Like in Get Out, Johnson is highlighting the insidiousness of liberal prejudice: the patronizing idea that it’s enough to welcome colour into your home whilst continuing to see the world as black and white. When things do eventually get difficult for the Thrombey’s, they’re willing to throw Marta under the border to protect their privilege.


Like all great detective stories, the film throws you every which way. By the halfway mark, it seems as though the mystery is revealed. Johnson soon smashes the glass on these light bulbs, introducing further shocks, further surprises. Much like a magician, there's misdirection and subterfuge at work. Narrators aren't to be trusted at the best of times. Crime narrators even less. They are as slippery as their characters. By the end the mental exercise of keeping up will leave you exhausted - exhilarated too.

It’s more than the cast that make Knives Out worthy of the big screen. Its plotting might be a homage to golden cinema, its tone though is completely modern. Its detective may be from a bygone age, yet the suspects exist in our world. Its physical setting is yester-year; however, its political context is now. Johnson uses a classic framework to challenge today's problems. He is no doughnut. He is a very clever man.


Knives Out is still on in some cinemas.