Tuesday 22 November 2011

An empty future

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


22 November

A great director, an Allen, can write for him- or herself perfectly and bring it off.

Miranda July has created, in Sophie, something that she could not inhabit - yes, the character is meant to have an awkwardness about and with herself, but the July behind it is not comfortable with that*.

By contrast, I can imagine a younger Diane Keaton playing this role brilliantly, with all of the nervous energy, but actually being a credible - not just rather irritating and inadequate - Sophie. Is Keaton one of July's heroines? I'd be very surprised, if not...


End-notes

* Actually, it's a bit like Rapunzel - children might accept the story, and not think of the physics behind golden tresses being let down and the handsome suitor climbing up (which, by the way, is not the least of Marshall's charms, even if he is a bit Kirk Douglas - more Frog Prince than Prince Charming), whereas wiser heads can appreciate that she remains attached by her own to the tresses, and the whole of her, or it, will end up being pulled swiftly out of the tower window.


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