Touchy Feely

Lynn Shelton, director of Humpday, returns with her third feature, Touchy Feely which tells the story of a masseuse who suffers an aversion to skin whilst her older dentist brother starts showing signs of healing powers; whilst both suffer crisis of confidence, their closest relationships with boyfriend and daughter respectively suffer.

In the same vein of atypical American independent cinema, Shelton sets up a family dynamic with the two siblings and their problematic relationships, yet Shelton is also able to tell us more about the characters by way of their profession.

When Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt) suffers this aversion to touching clients, she feels lost as it is the only thing profession she has had in her adult life. The same came be said of her humdrum brother Paul (Josh Pais) who has only ever been a dentist and does not want to be anything other than a practising orthodontist, yet the people coming to his surgery means he misses the needs of his daughter expertly portrayed by Ellen Page.

The semi-improvised dialogue between the four main players gives the film a genuine feel of authenticity helped by the natural cadence of the acting, unfortunately the pay-off comes short of justifying our investment in these characters.

This is a shame as Shelton again shows herself to be an assured hand in proceedings, however like a predecessor Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing, Enough Said) perhaps Shelton needs to get more personal for her work to crossover to the mainstream.

Touchy Feely is out Friday 16th May

Afternoon Delight

Out on DVD this Monday from Emfoundation, Afternoon Delight by Jill Soloway stars Kathryn Hahn as an unhappy surburban Mum who encounters a young stripper who reawakens her sexual longing that has been dormant for quite some time; think Belle de Jour transferred to Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Hahn is perfectly cast as Rachel, the mum with the six year old daughter, but who is experiencing a lot of ennui and unhappiness with her married life to Jeff (Josh Radnor - How I Met Your Mother).  On a night out with friends to a strip club, she is bought a lapdance with a young stripper, Mckenna (Juno Temple) and her desire is awakened by this encounter.

After Mckenna is kicked out of her apartment, Rachel invites her to her home and save her from a life of debauchery, the youngster admits she is a prostitute and in her own words 'a whore'; yet rather than saving her, Rachel is drawn to the unseemly lifestyle and whilst her sex life is better with Jeff - when a stranger enters a family home, trouble is ahead.

Soloway does well with the script as a critique of enclosed communities satirising the Jewish community of bake sales and fund raising that is numbing Rachel.  Yet the scenes of sex are handled with a fear often seen in American cinema that is sometimes unsure with how to address the basic human need of intercourse.  This is a shame as both Hahn and Temple really jump into their roles with aplomb.

However, Soloway does make an interesting statement on the male gaze in cinema, by changing the gaze from the male to the female gaze of Rachel, and yet whilst Temple is merely a main vessel of the gaze for Rachel, she remains an object of desire also for Jeff and his male friends.  So is the male gaze questioned or just reinforced?  There's even a running gag of looking into each other's eyes during coitus and when clinking glasses for a toast.

Helped by some great performances by the two leading ladies and cameos from among others Jane Lynch as Rachel's 'inappropriate' lesbian therapist.  Soloway nails the film as an attempt to look at the unhappiness with the affluence of their surroundings, as Jeff says to Rachel, 'Not everyone is meant to be happy', yet by the film's end the couple have found an even keel following the intrusion of Mckenna into their sanctum.

Whilst released only a few months ago theatrically, there is certainly enough here to maintain people's attention and for Hahn it is a great opportunity to see her leading a film.

Afternoon Delight is out on DVD on Monday 12th May from EM Foundation

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The Kings of Summer

Jordan Vogt-Rhodes' film The Kings of Summer was an audience favourite at Sundance this year, and following a brief cinema run it gets a DVD release where it might garner the more wide-ranging audience it deserves.

Utilising a script by Chris Galletta that is both funny and sentimental in equal doses, the film tells the story of three teenage boys in surburban Ohio, who upset by the actions of their parents and another boring summer decide to go live in the woods where they will build a house and live off the land for the summer.

We know that coming-of-age films from Stand By Me follow this thread of thought, whereas that stellar work was more a journey for the boys as they went to discover a body, those boys were always wanting to return home; here the boys are just rebelling as they are not happy with their current situation.

Joe (Nick Robinson) is dismissed at school and wants to be one of the boys, plus he and his Dad, Frank (Nick Offerman) are at continual loggerheads since the passing of Joe's mother.  During a game of Monopoly, Frank swindles some property prompting Joe to phone the police reporting a theft.  Patrick (Gabriel Basso) is the jock with an ankle injury meaning he has to wear a boot all summer; he is not happy at home as his parents drive him crazy, his mother is played by Megan Mullally of Will and Grace fame.  They are joined by the eccentric Biaggio (Moises Arias) who provides the most laughs by way of his odd behaviour.

Galletta's script is quite funny in places and maintains that flow of laughs throughout the film, whereas some scripts can suffer from a willingness and need to get sentimental and dramatic in tone.  The ending involving a scare with nature is played straight but the back and forth of Joe and Frank's dialogue helps the action bounce due to the already cantankerous nature of their relationship.

Special credit to the cinematographer, Ross Reige who shoots with a great eye and gets some great shots in the woods where the boys reside even providing a great crash zoom and focus during the blowout keg party at the start of the film.

Entertaining, well acted and a great addition to the pantheon of coming-of-age films.

The Kings of Summer is out now on DVD (£15.99RRP) from StudioCanal, my thanks to EM Foundation for the screening disc

God Bless America

Bobcat Goldthwait, returns with the third film in his darker side of America trilogy after Sleeping Dogs (2006) and The World's Greatest Dad (2009)

The first film dealt with the subject of bestiality (a typical taboo subject), the latter film starring Robin Williams had him as a would be author who is having to suffer a job in a high school.  After his son's death, he writes his son's suicide note and the beauty of the words allows him to be the celebrated writer he always wanted to be.  At the conclusion, the writer gets a change of heart and comes clean.  Goldthwait may write dark but at least he has the conscience.

In his new film, he explores the polluting influence of television and celebrity, and how it is destabilising American society.  Goldthwait uses a surrogate in the form of Frank (Joel Murray), a man who has a humdrum office job and spends his evenings watching awful television whilst his child lives with his ex-wife and new husband.  Frank believes in honesty, integrity and good manners in life will get you rewards, in contrast to the mean-spirited individuals who are celebrated for being nothing more than being good to look at - 'Its a type of freak show that appears when a civilisation is collapsing'.

Frank would wish he had the cajones to do something about society and change it for the better, and his initial dream sequences of shooting people he hates in his office are quite entertaining - then he is hit by the news that he has an inoperable brain tumour he decides to go out on a vigilante rampage of revenge against all the social cyphers he despises.

Frank comes into contact with 16 year old Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) and together they embark on this road trip culminating in the shootout on American Superstars; a Pop Idol/X-Factor show that is the main target.

Part of the problem with the film is the mixture of tone; whilst the start has Frank giving off monologues and dialogue that is quite explicit in his beliefs  - 'I live next door to a couple of neanderthals, who instead of giving birth to a baby gave birth to a nocturnal civil defense air raid siren'.  However, once the violent streak begins with Roxy in tow, the targets become all too easy - Twitter, gossiping, lack of original thoughts - and whilst the targets are mentioned by real name to give a sense of reality, the non-stop violence and obvious buckets of blood are quite unnecessary.

It is quite hypocritical to suggest that Frank hates all the television shows, when he is watching them in the first place, although maybe this is Goldthwait's point; there is nothing but constant crap on television.  This is a shame as at times Murray, clearly a surrogate for Goldthwait in the lead role, is quite believable as the hound dog Frank.

Murray has been appearing on American TV for years most notably Dharma and Greg and Mad Men; yet it is the role of Roxy that is quite disconcerting - a role that is unfortunately too zany for the film and too off the rails in comparison to Frank.  Frank is beyond medical help, Roxy is beyond any perhaps.

The film might have worked better if Frank was a lone crusader, a distant cousin of Michael Douglas' D-Fens in Falling Down (1993), one man who is just simply having a bad time of things and wants to make the world a little bit more polite and gracious.

The problem with tone is a common problem with Goldthwait who never goes all the way with his satire, and has to come round to normality; a shame as some of the ideas Frank speaks for him in the first 20 minutes had laid the foundation for something more memorable.

God Bless America is out from StudioCanal on Wednesday 4th July (Independence Day) and is available on DVD on Monday 9th July