Sense and Sensibility review – blue-chip cast decorates Emma Thompson’s pleasurable Austen adaptation

Thirty years later, this richly enjoyable film is back with its quality lineup including Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant alongside Thompson herself Emma Thompson won a screenplay Oscar for this buoyant, vibrant, richly enjoyable adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Released in 1995, it was directed by Ang Lee and is a movie with the pleasures of a golden age studio picture of the kind made by William Wyler. It was the second half of Thompson’s Oscar double – she won her first one in 1993 for acting in Howards End – and she is still the only person in Academy Award history to win for acting and writing. With marvellous lightness and gaiety, Thompson found a response to Austen’s comic register, expertly marrying it up to the romance, and 1995 now looks like the golden age of Austen adaptation, having also seen the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice on television and Amy Heckerling’s Emma-homage Clueless at the movies. Thompson paid due attention to Austen’s unique and toughly real...

In Broad Daylight review – Hong Kong newsroom drama shines light on care home scandal

Lawrence Kwan’s film makes some insightful points about journalism while letting in a few cliches too

Here’s a solid newsroom drama inspired by a string of real-life scandals involving abuse at care homes for elderly and vulnerable people in Hong Kong. It’s a film with a fair few clunking journalism cliches, and it never quite builds momentum. But the performances are uniformly intelligent and committed, and it has some real insights too; there’s the moral outrage a reporter feels as the penny drops, and she realises that people in positions of power already know about cruelty and neglect in homes. They just haven’t had an incentive to care.

Jennifer Yu is Kay, the star investigative reporter of a Hong Kong newspaper, semi-disillusioned by the job. After a tip off, Kay goes undercover at an understaffed, overcrowded care home, pretending to be the granddaughter of an elderly resident with dementia (she fakes concern when he doesn’t recognise her). The home is a dumping ground for people with a mix of needs: elderly and young people with physical and learning disabilities, all crammed in together. Kay watches a nurse slapping residents while the home’s manager (Bowie Lam) puts on the veneer of a kind man worn down by heavy responsibilities. But you don’t have to be a star reporter to view with suspicion the way he hands out ice creams to a pair of giggling teenage girls with severe learning difficulties.

In Broad Daylight is released on 19 January in UK cinemas.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/Bjaoip8
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

EXCLUSIVE: Mona Singh gears up for an intense role in an upcoming web series; Deets inside!

The Fans Were Silent As 64-Year-Old Sharon Stone Appeared Topless