Four new films to see this week: Saipan, Menu-Plaisir: Les Troisgros, Peter Hujar’s Day and Song Sung Blue
Saipan ★★★★☆
Directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn. Starring Steve Coogan, Éanna Hardwicke, Jack Hickey, Harriet Cains, Niall McNamee, Alice Lowe, Alex Murphy. 15A cert, gen release, 90 min
Yes, it’s the film about a famous falling-out in the Irish soccer team before the 2002 World Cup. That significant portion of the domestic audience familiar with the dispute between Roy Keane, volatile Ireland captain, and Mick McCarthy, lugubrious team manager, will find their nostalgia glands satisfactorily stimulated. But there is also universal drama in here. Working from a tidy script by Paul Fraser, frequent collaborator of Shane Meadows, Éanna Hardwicke, as Keane, and Steve Coogan, as McCarthy, develop rounded personalities that, though reminiscent of the originals, emerge as independent characters in a factional space. Full review DC
Menu-Plaisir: Les Troisgros ★★★★☆
Directed by Frederick Wiseman. Featuring Marie-Pierre Troigros, César Troisgros, Léo Troisgros, Michel Troisgros. No cert, limited release, 240 min
With this sumptuous film, veteran documentarian Wiseman finds a subject that is as meticulous and patient as he is. Les Troisgros is a family-run three-Michelin-star restaurant in Ouches, in the Loire region of France. The Troisgros family have been in charge for four generations, and the establishment is often cited among the greatest restaurants in the world. Wiseman has made films about bureaucracies, city halls and cabarets, but here the institution is pleasure itself. The labour that sustains fine dining underscores every conversation Menus-Plaisirs may leave some viewers ravenous, but it offers a feast. Full review TB
Peter Hujar’s Day ★★★★☆
Directed by Ira Sachs. Starring Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall. No cert, limited release, 76 min
Peter Hujar (1934-87) was an American photographer known for his striking, intimate, humane portraits of artists, writers, performers and the queer downtown scene in New York. Ira Sachs’s follow-up to Passages maintains a leisurely pace, despite its truncated run time. Adapted from a rediscovered 1974 transcript, the film takes place over a single winter’s day in New York, when writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Hall) summoned her friend Hujar (Whishaw), then little known, to recount in microscopic detail what he’d done yesterday. Whishaw’s performance is a theatrical masterclass in controlled ramble; Hall’s is about the art of listening. Full review TB
Song Sung Blue ★★★☆☆
Directed by Craig Brewer. Starring Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, King Princess, Mustafa Shakir, Hudson Hensley. 12A cert, gen release, 132 min
Here, in essence, are two old-school TV movies welded together in a professional package that proves more entertaining than sitting quietly in the dark. The first details the improbable true story of a Neil Diamond tribute act who, in the 1990s, escaped the lounge bars of Wisconsin to support the likes of Pearl Jam at sizeable venues. The second half details the duo’s recovery after an almost career-ending tragedy. Jackman and Hudson are on strong form as the married couple who forge a career on Cracklin’ Rosie and Sweet Caroline. It’s a bit sappy but, ultimately, irresistible. Full review DC
