8 Friday March 18 2022 | the timesfilm reviews
Daisy Edgar-Jones made her name as
Marianne in the adaptation of Sally
Rooney’s Normal People and here she
is playing Noa, another wry woman in
a relationship with a complex man
who doesn’t always treat her well.
There the similarities end. Fresh is a
gruesome American satirical horror
that co-stars Sebastian Stan as the
charming older dude who chats up
Noa in a supermarket.
Lurid yet stylish, it has shades ofAmerican Psycho and
Promising Young Woman,
both movies directed by
women — as was this, by
the debutant Mimi Cave.
She often settles into
genre convention, but
has engaging things to
say about dating,
abusive males, female
commodification and
meat eating. To say
more would spoil the
transgressive twist. You
will be sitting uneasily in your seat,
although not as uneasily as Noa.
Ed Potton
Disney+One of the memorable scares from
Kubrick’s The Shining provides the
basis for an entire movie of deliberate
yucks in this confident comedy horror.
The “old woman in Room 237”
(Remember? She smooches Jack
Nicholson) is reinvented here as a
randy and psychopathic Texan
pensioner called Pearl.
The cute production twist is that
Pearl is played by 28-year-old Mia
Goth, layered in “ancient crone” latexmake-up. Goth also plays Maxine, the
ostensible star of a pornographic
movie being shot in the summer of
1979 in a sweltering Texan farmhouse.
The farm is owned by Pearl and her
equally wizened husband, Howard
(Stephen Ure, also under latex), who
struggles to keep Pearl’s primal urges
under control. When the pair, ornery
and conservative nonagenarians,
discover a skin flick being shot in
their backyard, it’s a cue to fully
unleash Pearl, who subsequently
attempts to seduce, snog and fatally
stab (often at the same time) anyone
in her path. It’s deeply silly, but
eminently watchable. KM
In cinemasDaisy Edgar-
Jones in the
satirical
horror FreshFresh
18, 114min
{{{((X
18, 106min
{{{((I
magine the Eddie the Eagle
movie, only with golfing as the
backdrop instead of ski jumping.
And then imagine the
Oscar-winner Mark Rylance in
the lead role, delivering another
one of those extraordinarily
idiosyncratic turns, a
performance of tiny gestures, pauses,
sighs and grimaces that somehow
coalesces into a sympathetic marvel.He’s a useless golfer but this
Brit comedy is a hole in one
Mark Rylance is
on winning form
in this true-life
underdog tale,
says Kevin Maher
And then, finally, imagine that the
whole thing was directed by an
ambitious actor turned film-maker
(Craig Roberts) who borrows bits of
Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and even
Vincent van Gogh (with impressionist
dream sequences) to create a film
that is always engaged and keen to
revitalise the more basic elements
of the story. That’s The Phantom of
the Open.
The plot is culled from the true
story of Maurice Flitcroft, a former
crane operator from Barrow-in-
Furness who tricked his way into the
British Open golf championship in
1976 and shot the worst score (121) in
history recorded by a “professional”.
Flitcroft briefly became a media
sensation (Seventies-style, via
newspaper stories and TV interviews)
for his can-do pluck and no-nonsense
provincialism and for embodyingthe best of the worst of British
sporting failure.
And yet the film is about so much
more than that. Flitcroft is part of a
family of seeming eccentrics, with
disco-dancing twin sons, James and
Gene (Jonah and Christian Lees), a
long-suffering, theatre-enthusiast wife,
Jean (Sally Hawkins), and a disaffected
adopted son, Mike (Jake Davies).
You can feel the impact of Flitcroft’s
notoriety on those around him and
how his belief that everyone should
follow their dreams ultimately
becomes damaging and financially
ruinous. “The world is not an oyster,
it’s just a barnacle,” he says at his
lowest ebb. Obviously, for the sake
of genre, there’s a feelgood finale too.
But the overall impression created by
Roberts and Rylance is of a quirky
Britcom with bite and soul.
In cinemasJacques Audiard, the French director
of hard-hitting modern classics such
as A Prophet and Rust and Bone, takes
a welcome swerve into lightness and
warmth (albeit with 18-rated sex) in
this thoughtful romantic comedy.
Set among the apartment blocks
of Paris’s 13th arrondissement and
co-written by Céline Sciamma
(Portrait of a Lady on Fire), it explores
the interconnected romantic lives of a
teacher, Camille (Makita Samba), a
call-centre worker, Émilie (Lucie
Zhang), and an anxious student in her
thirties, Nora (Noémie Merlant).
Our trio struggle to find connection
in a world defined by dating apps,
instant hook-ups and pornographic
live chats — a “cam girl” played by the
musician Jehnny Beth becomes a key
figure. Yet as defences are dropped,
Audiard’s film moves gracefully
towards a romantic climax. Framed in
black and white, it looks stunning. KM
In cinemas and on Curzon
Home CinemaMark Rylance as Maurice Flitcroft, who tricked his way into the 1976 British Open and shot the worst score recorded by a “professional” golferThe Phantom of
the Open
12A, 106min
{{{{(Paris, 13th District
18, 105min
{{{{(This intense drama suddenly has a
horrible sense of urgency. It tells the
story of Olga, a top Ukrainian
gymnast (played by Anastasiia
Budiashkina, a former gymnast) who
flees Kyiv after an assassination
attempt on her mother, Ilona (Tanya
Mikhina), a fearless investigative
journalist. An award-winner at the
Cannes Film Festival last year, its
profits will be donated to Ukraine via
the Disasters Emergency Committee.
It’s set mainly in 2013 during the
Euromaidan Uprising, where Ilona is
reporting on the battles between
pro-Europe protesters and the
Russian-backed regime of President
Yanukovych. The debut director Elie
Grappe uses smartphone footage
taken at the time, which reminds us
that brutality is not new in Ukraine.
Yet the focus is on Olga, who
moves to a mountain training camp
in Switzerland, home of her father,
and joins their national squad but is
consumed with self-hatred for
deserting her loved ones and her
country. It’s a compelling, smartly
performed movie whose upbeat
epilogue is jarring but deeply poignant.
KM
In cinemasOlga
15, 85min
{{{{(ALAMY