Thrown for a Loop

"This time travel shit fries your brain, like an egg." These wise words are spoken by a wonderfully maniacal Jeff Daniels as Abe, a crime boss sent back to 2044 from the future to supervise the assassins known as loopers, in Rian Johnson's new film Looper. These time-travel movies aren't particularly easy on the brain either, but Looper is sharp, thoughtful, action-packed and clever enough to treat time travel as a means of achieving the plot, rather than as its main point.

At a first glance, the world in 2044 doesn't look so different from today, but we soon start to notice the great chasm between the wealthy and the poor, the odd touches of futuristic gadgetry (including a malfunctioning hover bike) and the excess violence. Time travel will be invented in the future, but will be immediately outlawed and used only by criminal warlords, who send people they want killed back to the past, bound and blindfolded, at which point a looper will assassinate them. Loopers, such as Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), enjoy a cushy life--they have enough money for all the sex, drugs and fast cars they crave, and are able to stash away bars of gold and silver for their retirement. But part of the deal is that when it has been determined that their loop must be closed, their future self will be sent back to them to assassinate, and they then know the date and circumstances of their death and are allowed to retire.

When Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano) botches his own loop-closing, he goes on the run and tries to hide out at Joe's place, telling him that some big gangster boss dude in the future, known as the Rainmaker, is ordering the closure of all of the loops ASAP. Abe can torture Future Seth at the same time as Present Seth--knifing a message onto Present Seth's arm means that Future Seth ends up with a nasty scar, and so on. Neither Seth has a happy ending. Joe vows that he will kill his future self when his time comes, but he doesn't count on his future self being Bruce Willis, white t-shirted up and ready for action. On arriving in 2044, Future Joe immediately turns around so that Present Joe's bullet bounces off the gold bars that line his back. He then knocks Present Joe out cold (the first of many people--including women and children--to do this; poor Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and runs off to deal with some future business.

But then we see Future Joe being zapped back again and this time, Present Joe hits his target, and we see a montage of the next 30 years. Although Present Joe is learning French and plans to retire there, Abe advises him to go to China instead ("I'm from the future; go to China"), where he meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman. Life is great, until some thugs break in to their house and haul him off to be sent back to 2044. Somewhere along the way, Joe apparently learned some fighting skills, though, hence he arrives in 2044 unbound and without a hood covering his face. Present Joe still wants to kill his future self and for everything to work out according to plan; Future Joe wants to find the young Rainmaker and kill him to prevent his future with his wife being destroyed. Handily, he has the place and date of birth of the Rainmaker and has narrowed it down to three kids and is setting out to find them all, Terminator 2-style. Meanwhile, Present Joe is hiding out in the Kansas countryside, where he takes refuge in a farm owned by Sara (Emily Blunt), who also has a very smart but rather creepy son.

Things get very complicated in the film's final act. In one of the rare scenes where the two Joes actually have a conversation, Future Joe tells his younger self that he "could talk about [time travel] all day and make diagrams with straws" but there isn't time; I felt like I could have done with the diagram, but maybe they're saving it for the DVD extras, or maybe they can zap me one back from the future. There are paradoxes and it doesn't quite hold together--or maybe my brain just can't contemplate that many possible worlds simultaneously. I felt a bit like Future Joe when he tells Present Joe that his memory of 2044 is very fuzzy, like a big cloud, and that specific memories only crystallise shortly after the event has actually taken place. There are a number of other interesting issues raised in the film and spoilerish plot points that I won't reveal here.

Regardless of the brain ache, I really enjoyed Looper. Gordon-Levitt was good and had enough prosthetics to be reasonably convincing younger Bruce Willis, and Willis, well, he did what he always does and runs around with big guns, doing what he thinks is the right thing and he, like Jeff Daniels, gets most of the chuckle-worthy lines. Emily Blunt puts in a great performance as the tough, hard mama grizzly who isn't going to let any of the Joes hurt her son. Of course, Looper is really a human drama about identity, nature versus nurture, and how doing the right thing depends not just on who you are, but who you will be. Overall, Looper is a smart, observant human drama, which combines a compelling plot with interesting characters and solid acting.

Going down the Apples and Pears: Mele e Pere Review

Every time I have walked along Brewer Street over the past few months, one window has always caught my eye. And no, it's not what you're probably expecting, given the majority of tenants on this Soho street. Instead, it's the window of Mele e Pere, which is filled with hundreds of coloured glass apples and pears. I thought at first it might be a particularly specialist antique shop, but it's actually a lovely, family-run trattoria, which I finally got to test out last night, with some of the other members of the Quisite family.

Myriad mele and a plethora of pere

Upstairs at Mele e Pere, there are only a few perching tables, but luckily, we were ushered down the old apples and pears to the main restaurant, where there are a few more perching tables and plenty of regular tables. Oddly, for a below-ground room, the ceiling slopes down to one side, making you feel a bit like you're in an artist's garret, or, at least, a loft in Brooklyn. The decor is simple and stylish: minimalist wood tables, Anglepoise lamps suspended from the sloping ceiling and walls adorned with vintage Italian posters and various apple- and pear-themed memorabilia.

Down the 'apples and pears' at Mele e Pere

On an autumnal Tuesday evening, Mele e Pere was pretty busy, although there was never a queue. We arrived just in time for the pre-theatre menu, although because I wanted a main course from this menu, but didn't like any of the starters or puddings, I had to cut a deal with the waiter, who, after checking with his boss, was happy to assent to my request, and I got to have my gnocchi with (I think) basil, rocket, pea and pine nut pesto, followed by a non-regulation panna cotta. The others all ordered the pork belly, which looked really good--the salami starter was a pretty decent portion size too. Gnocchi can be so stodgy, but these were flavoursome and delicious. My pasta was really tasty. Those with bigger appetites than me might have needed a side dish or a starter and a pudding. My panna cotta came with strawberries and what I thought was supposed to be a strawberry marmalade but I may have been misremembering; the panna cotta itself was good, but the strawberry sauce tasted a little synthetic.

Gnocchi with pesto (L) and panna cotta (R)

The bill came to about £100 for four people, including at least two courses each, some nibbles and a bottle of wine. Not bad at all for Soho. You could easily have spent that amount at Pizza Express, for example, with nowhere near as much character or quality of ingredients. Equally, dinner for four at Polpo, just up Bridle Lane, would have been a lot more expensive.

If you're looking for a simple but stylish Italian restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, with good food and great service, Mele e Pere definitely fits the bill. È proprio il contrario di una mela marcia.

Mele e Pere. 46 Brewer Street, London, W1F 9TF (Tube: Piccadilly Circus). Website. Twitter.

Songs of Innocence and Experience

Like Killing Them Softly, Liberal Arts features a good performance by Richard Jenkins. That's about all the two movies have in common, though. A clearly confused guy outside the screening of Josh Radnor's new film this evening asked, "Is it good? Is it, like, a thriller?" Well, it was pretty good, but no, it is not a thriller.

Thirty-something college admissions officer Jesse (also played by Radnor) is having a fairly decent life in New York. He and his girlfriend have just split up and someone stole all his clothes from the laundry, but in New York, c'est normal, non? He gets an invitation to the retirement party of his (second) favourite professor (Jenkins) at the liberal arts college he attended and because he enjoyed his time there and because he liked Peter--and because he doesn't have any other plans--he decides to go. While there, he meets Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), the daughter of another former student of Peter's and currently a student at the college. They hit it off, even though when Jesse says he attended the college in the '90s, her roommate (Ali Ahn), replies, "That's, like, when we were born." Nonetheless, Jesse and Zibby begin a fairly '90s kind of friendship/proto-relationship. She makes him a CD of the classical, baroque and opera music in her favourite ever course and he promises to write to her--real letters. Later, he does the math and realises that although the age difference won't be so bad when he's 87 and she's 71, it isn't ideal right now.

He goes to visit her again anyway, bumping into Peter while he's there and earning himself a lecture in the process. But they begin to realise that while their relationship may have worked in the hypothetical, their differences in opinion over matters as diverse as whether reading a popular vampire trilogy can be justified, and whether it's appropriate for Jesse to take Zibby's virginity, may prove problematic. As with Sweet Tooth, there is a lot of talking about books and literacha along the way. Many of the books aren't named--Jesse bonds over a 1,100-page postmodernist novel whose author commits suicide (Infinite Jest, then) with a loner student battling with depression, for example. But both Jesse and Zibby have a lot of growing up to do and a lot to learn, and not just about books.

Also of note is Alison Janney, who plays Jesse's ice-cold favourite professor from college, who converted him to the joys of the romantics, especially Blake, but who ignores him every time she sees him around campus, despite his attempts to compliment her teaching. Janney steals the show, and the scenes between Jesse and Peter and even between Peter and a wise stoner/hippie played by Zac Efron are the most entertaining. There are sweet moments between Jesse and Zibby and Olsen, as ever, puts in a good performance, but the relationship feels a bit heavy-handed at times, and although it's easy to believe in their friendship, I don't think they ever really convince as a potential couple.

Liberal Arts reminds me of a Zach Braff film in some ways; Garden State maybe. There is a lot of sitting round talking and analysing and over-analysing of one's feelings, without much in the way of plot. This may be a product of Radnor in the writer-director-star role. If you're in the mood for an indie-rom-com-drama kinda film, Liberal Arts will do the trick. It's entertaining and in some places quite thoughtful and sharp, but it doesn't feel that different from all the other indie-rom-com-dramas out there.

"You Ever Killed Anyone? It Can Get Touchy-Feely"

On the first cold, rainy day of autumn there's nothing like huddling up in a cinema and watching a brilliant, if gloomy, gangster movie. Andrew Dominik's new movie Killing Them Softly, based on George V. Higgins's novel Cogan's Trade, tells the story of the small-time hoodlums who think they can get away with robbing a mob-run card game and of the enforcer, played by an excellent Brad Pitt, sent to put the situation to rights. The film is plenty grim, but its sharp script has some funny--or, at least, darkly comic moments--and the strong performances from the ensemble cast elevate Killing Them Softly above your average gangster flick.

It is 2008, during the dying days of George W. Bush's presidency and the beginnings of the economic crisis are also starting to impact the criminal underworld, whose members are forced to take riskier jobs and to accept lower fees. At the bottom of the food chain are ex-cons Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), who are hired by Johnny (Vincent Curatola) to hold up a mob-protected poker game. It's a tricksy job but, Johnny tells them, they will get away with it because it has been discovered that Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who hosts the game, has arranged for his own game to be robbed before, so everyone will blame him. Frankie is dumb and naive and Russell is a stoner; neither is very experienced.

The heist goes well, but Frankie and Russell don't count on Jackie Cogan (Pitt), who is tasked by a mob lawyer (Richard Jenkins) with finding out what really went down and taking care of it. And yes, that is a euphemism. Cogan is cool and casual, smart and to the point but he also believes in killing people "softly," or at a distance, without getting too close to the target. "You ever killed anyone?" he asks the lawyer. "It can get touchy-feely." As such, although he agrees to "take care of" Frankie, he hires Mickey (James Gandolfini), a whiny, overweight alcoholic to do the hit on Johnny, whom Cogan knows from before. Needless to say, there aren't many happy endings in this movie.

Killing Them Softly feels like a Tarantino film in some ways: most of the scenes consist of pairs of characters sitting around talking, interspersed with moments of intense violence and the occasional voice-over as a character describes a past event. We see four bullets rip through the skull of one character in extreme slow motion, while yet another incongruous song plays in the background (the soundtrack is great, featuring Johnny Cash, the Velvet Underground and Petula Clark, but most of the songs come from another era, many of which wouldn't be inappropriate as the montage song at the end of an episode of Mad Men). Apart from Pitt's Cogan, whose charisma and coolness somehow make him more likable, no one is sympathetic. They do bad things and aren't nice people.

My biggest issue with the film is its contemporary setting. Cogan's Trade was set in Boston in 1974 but Dominik moves it to any-town in 2008--as the film opens, we see Frankie walking along a deserted street, trash blowing around him and Barack Obama and John McCain's faces smiling down from a billboard. Throughout the film, whenever a radio or TV is on, Obama will be delivering a message of hope, or Bush or someone from his administration will be confirming just how bad the economy is. Yes, the financial crisis has affected the crime world too, but this point just seemed to detract from the story, which didn't really need any wider political message to it. It reminded me a little of Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, which was set in post-Katrina New Orleans. This aside, Killing Them Softly is a smart, bleak and well-acted film. I would be surprised if Pitt doesn't rack up another Oscar nod for his performance.

Russian Dolls

I have just finished reading Ian McEwan's and Sebastian Faulks's new novels, Sweet Tooth and A Possible Life, respectively. I have enjoyed almost every Faulks novel I've read, even A Week in December, which irritated me in places. My track record with McEwan is more mixed: I liked Atonement, Enduring Love and The Cement Garden, was on the fence about Saturday and disliked On Chesil Beach and Black Dogs. As expected, A Possible Life was more my kind of novel than Sweet Tooth, but I did also like the latter, even if McEwan's attempts to be terribly meta and terribly clever for the sake of being clever sometimes grated. In fact, Serena Frome, the protagonist of Sweet Tooth, could almost have fitted in with the five other unusual lives depicted in the five linked but distinct stories that form A Possible Life. Both writers also use the "story within a story" or, in some cases, "song within a story" technique that makes you feel like you're cracking into a set of Russian dolls. Sweet Tooth is heavily autobiographical; parts of A Possible Life seem to be too. I've tried to avoid spoilers, but if you plan to read the books, don't read any further.

Serena Frome is a foxy, blonde vicar's daughter who wins a place to read maths at Cambridge in the 1970s. She turns out not to be as brilliant as she thought and drowns her sorrows in compulsive reading, political writing and an affair with an academic. Despite her mediocre degree, she is recruited by MI5, where, partly because of her looks, partly because of her love of literacha and partly for other reasons, she is tasked with signing up a promising young writer, Tom Haley (who has a lot in common with McEwan), for a programme where he will be paid a lot of money to write. He has been vetted and seems to be the kind of anti-commie writer the government needs, so they want to make sure he has the funds to continue writing rather than having to, say, teach. Inevitably, he and Serena fall for each other, but what about the deception? What about the lies? And (this is on the dust cover, but takes on a new meaning once you reach the end of the novel, so skip to the next paragraph if you want to read the book fresh) "who is inventing whom?"

As I said before, Sweet Tooth is very meta and I was seriously concerned that I would get to the end and throw the book across the room in frustration, as I did with On Chesil Beach, but it hung together well, although the ending is a bit of a literary headtrip. Haley's short stories feature prominently within the text but there are no textual indications that Haley's words have taken over from Serena's first-person narrative; she will start describing the story and her words merge into the text of the story. As for the story, no it's not really about spying; it's all about literacha and love and identity and, mainly, McEwan showing how clever he is, which is fine as long as the novel works as a story too.

Sometimes, irritating characters are enough to put me off a book, but this wasn't the case with Sweet Tooth. Serena isn't particularly likeable and often comes across as a bit of a bimbo, a bit naive, and a bit self-involved, but the possible reasons for this portrayal may become clearer at the end. Besides, Haley is often condescending and hardly perfect himself. As Anya King, who appears in A Possible Life, says, "If you're going to draw on your own life, you need to be authentic."

Which brings me to A Possible Life, whose back blurb reads: "Every atom links us. Every feeling binds us. Every thought connects us." And Faulks explores this idea of connectivity in "a novel in five parts," or five linked stories, of varying lengths, set in various time periods (including the future) and in various countries. The stories can be read separately but minor characters, locations and themes, including religion and religiosity, love, loss, memory and family, recur throughout. An interesting concept, and one which reminds me of Café de Flore, but which could easily become The Tree of Life. Fortunately, Faulks doesn't try to drive anything home too hard. There is no concluding chapter that rams any deep and meaningful ending down the reader's throat; you can just enjoy the stories for what they are.

My two favourites were the first and the third story. The first, A Different Man, could easily fit in with Faulks's French Trilogy (Birdsong et al.): a young, cricket-loving schoolmaster goes off to join the war as a sort of interpreter-spy and the experiences he has there changes him and mean that he is "not the same man any more" (this phrase recurs in several stories). We find out what happens after he gets back from the war, even though nothing exciting happens; he just grows old and struggles to come to terms with the events of his past. The ageing process is present in all of the other stories too, even the short ones, like the one set in a Victorian workhouse, which I didn't enjoy. The stories all focus on a particular period in the protagonist's life but then go on to let us know what happened when he/she grew up and got old. Because, well, c'est la vie.

The middle story, Everything Can Be Explained, is set in Italy in 2029, during the Great Slump, when society has, in many ways, reverted to the way it was in the early 20th century. Elena, an only child, is lonely and her parents decide to adopt a boy, Bruno. They become very close and Bruno brings Elena out of her shell and gives her the courage to complete her degree and eventually become a successful neuroscientist who makes an important discovery about the brain, the mind and our sense of self. Her relationship with Bruno is not a happy one, though, and it's a classic Faulksian tale of missed opportunities and regret.

I also liked the last story, You Next Time, although it took me a while to get into it. It's set in the US in the 1970s when Jack, an ex-pat Brit, recovering from his rock band's failure, meets a talented and, of course, beautiful musician named Anya, who has un air de Joan Baez. Jack falls in love with her and she claims to love him too but you just know she's one of those creative types who can only truly love her art and you just know that when we skip 30 years into the future, they aren't going to be happily married. This story is narrated in the first person by Jack, but it's really a story about Anya. This tension is mirrored in Anya's song lyrics, some of which are in the first person and some in the third; it is only much later that Jack realises that the third-person lyrics were mostly about her too and that the choice of voice was just a distancing mechanism. As for the lyrics, they resonate throughout the story--it's easy to see why Anya's sad songs and her apparently beautiful, melancholy voice became so popular. Decades later, when Jack and Anya meet for the last time, Jack contemplates buying a flat in the former Hoxton workhouse in which story #2 was set. And so it goes...

I don't think Faulks is suggesting that these characters are literal reincarnations of one another (not least because some of them overlap), although on an FAQ on his website in 2008, he wrote: "I do believe in reincarnation, not in a literal sense, but in some sort of atomic sense at least."And in Everything Can Be Explained, as Elena watches a film she is "filled with memories of places she has never been," which happen to be the main locations of three of the other stories. This is reminiscent of Pynchon and even McEwan--and, as Faulks is suggesting, everything is connected and even the most tangential lives can be linked, on some level, and that the deep sense of pain and loss we experience is far from unique to us, but a sad universal truth. A Possible Life isn't perfect but it is well-written and convincing, if often sad, and even though I didn't like all five stories individually, I liked the novel as a whole.

Down and Out in Shoreditch and Spitalfields

Sometimes--most of the time, in fact--it just isn't convenient to head down to the Lower East Side, Williamsburg or the Meatpacking District for a perfectly cocktail in a secret speakeasy or for a juicy, tender fillet steak. Luckily for us Londoners, though, this can be achieved without hopping on a plane--if you know where to go, of course.

We achieved the former the other night at Nightjar, a prohibition-style cocktail bar that describes itself as "a hidden slice of old-school glamour," belying its location behind a nondescript door just steps from the Old Street roundabout. As it only opens at 6 pm, I was worried that it might be empty but there were a few people there when we arrived and had we showed up much later, we might not have got a table--do book ahead, especially if you're in a group. The bar, which is in the basement, is all dark wood tables, lacquered black ceiling panels and sleek mirrors. The drinks menu, its cover gilt-embellished and its first few pages revealing the instructions for decoding the rest of the contents, which are organised into pre-prohibition, prohibition, post-war and Nightjar signature drinks. Blokes who hate fruity, pink, girly cocktails are well served by the first two sections; most of the ones I liked were in the postwar section.

L: El Matador (L) and Kama Aina (R). R: Nightjar's gorgeous menu.

In the end I settled on the Kama Aina, with fancy gin, elderberry infusion, triple sec, Mastiha honey, lime and sparkling coconut water, which came with a mini coconut shell and some cinnamon sticks floating on top. The El Matador arrived similarly adorned with a gold-painted bauble and what looked like a bay leaf balanced precariously on the glass. The drinks were excellent, with an interesting combination of flavours, and they were certainly plenty strong enough for a Tuesday night. Nightjar often has live music and they also do tapas and nibbles, although we had other plans...

En route: aerial tube trains. "Lets [sic] adore and endure each other."

Which brings me to Hawksmoor, which has been in my London Moleskine's to-try list for a long time, thanks to their reputation for serving what may be the best steak in London. I just wasn't in Spitalfields very often and it never seemed convenient, but even though there is now a Covent Garden, I still never quite managed to fit in a visit. A brisk stroll along Great Eastern Street to Commercial Street helped us to build up an appetite for what we knew would be a filling meal. Avoiding bread and starters and, in my case, the excellent cocktail menu, we got straight to the point.

Hawksmoor offers their favourite cuts, including porterhouse and chateaubriand, by the 100g, but by the time we arrived only obscenely big cuts were left: 900g or bigger, which was far too big for two of us. Instead, we sampled a fillet and a sirloin, which did weigh 900g in total, but that includes the latter's bone. My fillet steak was really good. The meat was flavoursome and juicy and perfectly medium rare. Sides and even sauces are extra--we shared some triple-cooked chips (some of which were too crispy even for me) and a baked sweet potato, which was delicious. Unfortunately, I caught a glimpse of the words "peanut butter" and "caramel" on the pudding menu, but fortunately, I was so stuffed even the prospect of peanut butter shortbread with salted caramel ice cream couldn't tempt me to eat another bite.

Fillet steak at Hawksmoor Spitalfields

The restaurant was bustling and despite being pretty close to Shoreditch High Street, most of the customers seemed to be City Boys rather than hipsters, who were probably at Flat Iron. There was a nice buzz, though, and with Hawsmoor's exposed brick walls and sleek leather benches, you can almost pretend you are in Manhattan. Almost. In any case, Hawksmoor is jumping to the top of my "best steaks in London" list.

Nightjar. 129 City Road, London, EC1V 1JB (Tube: Old Street). Website. Twitter.
Hawksmoor Spitalfields. 157 Commercial Street, London, E1 6BJ (Tube: Liverpool Street). Website. Twitter.

Boys Behaving Badly

The only other Sam Riley film I've seen is the Brighton Rock remake, which was the surprise film at the 2010 London Film Festival. It wasn't a good surprise, but then I didn't get on with the novel on which it is based. I had the same problem with Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I felt that it was a book I should have read, but I just couldn't get into it and had to force myself to finish it when, inspired by spending a month in San Francisco, I finally picked up a copy. Unless it was another San Francisco trip. Either way, pretty much the only thing I remembered from the book was that the characters in The O.C. got it wrong and that it was an apple pie and ice cream tour of America that Sal wanted to do, not a pancake tour.

It seems hard to believe that Walter Salles's movie is the first ever film adaptation of On the Road, but the production notes I picked up at the BFI this evening highlighted a range of rights issues. A recently discovered letter from Kerouac to Marlon Brando indicates the writer wanted Brando to be his Dean, while Kerouac would play Sal. Instead we get Sam Riley playing the observant, long-suffering writer and his charismatic, gadabout fair-weather friend and travel partner, respectively. Kristen Stewart (Marylou) and Kirsten Dunst (Camille) portray the--also long-suffering--ladies in Dean's life; when it suits, anyway.

I almost didn't go to the preview of the film this evening. I was tired, I didn't like the book and after a tough day at work, I wasn't convinced I could keep my eyes open through 2h40 of the Beat Generation gone wild. Actually, though, I quite enjoyed it. Given that the film--like the book--is made up of many distinct experiences as Sal tries to shift his writer's block and, well, find himself, I think they could easily have cut about an hour without losing too much from the overall effect. Hedlund, whom I've liked since Four Brothers, is perfectly sexy and irritating as the selfish, hedonistic Dean, while Riley's brooding and pouting remind me a little of his Brighton Rock role. The women folk are perfectly fine too, although they don't have a lot to do other than get their kit off, pout, get high and be mistreated.

The cameos and minor roles are great though and, I suppose, some of them would probably have been cut if the film was shortened too much. Elisabeth Moss turns up as Galatea, the furious wife of one of Dean's friends, Steve Buscemi as a lonely old man with whom the boys share a ride, and Amy Adams and Viggo Mortensen who are, I think, a couple living in the south to whom the lads pay a visit. Adams's lessons on how to please a man are particularly amusing. It's Dunst and Mortensen who get the "with" and "and" credits, respectively, by the way, although the latter only gets about two minutes of screen time.

The cinematography, as you would expect of a travelogue of 1950s North America, is beautiful, jumping between New York in the snow to the lazy summer heat and free living of Mexico. There are lots of long, languorous shots of the eponymous road, boys driving too fast and generally behaving badly, and K-Stew flicking back her newly lightened hair and doing things Bella Swan would never be allowed to do.

I'm not converted enough by the new film to re-read On the Road and I probably won't be rushing out to watch Howl, but I may not be quite so quick to switch off as soon as Kerouac or the Beat Generation are brought up either. I call that a relative success.

"There Must Be Some Upsides to Terminal Illness"

Now Is Good, Ol Parker's new film based on Jenny Downham's novel Before I Die, could so easily have  been a melodramatic, maudlin mess. 17-year-old Tessa Scott (Dakota Fanning) has been battling a form of leukaemia for the past four years and figures that now is a good time as any to make a start on her bucket list. Helped by her best friend Zoey (Kaya Scodelario), she sets to work on experiencing as many "moments" as she can--this being Brighton, many of which include the holy trinity of bucket lists, sex, drugs and/or rock and roll. But she soon realises that sleeping with some thoughtless oik she has picked up in a club just to tick "losing virginity" off her list isn't the kind of moment she is going for.

Tess's father (a brilliant Paddy Considine) would, if she weren't already dying, be killing her with his kindness. He is constantly searching the internet for a cure--a way out--and feels increasingly frustrated and powerless as he has to pick his daughter up from a police station or chide her for embarrassing him on local radio. He and Tess's mother (Olivia Williams) are separated--it's unclear from the film whether her flakiness and apparent alcohol issues began before or after Tess's diagnosis. She loves her daughter but is frightened and leaves most of the parenting to Mr Scott. Meanwhile, little brother Cal, who is nine, often feels jealous of the attention Tess gets. His comments wouldn't sound out of place in an episode of Outnumbered ("when Tess is dead, can we go on holiday again?"), but Tess appreciates the gallows humour and the remarks generated some dark chuckles from the audience. We get a moment of levity--a break from the awfulness of it all.

Meanwhile, Tessa forms a close relationship with her sad but sensitive neighbour Adam (Jeremy Irvine). He knows she's ill, but she doesn't want him to know just how bad the prognosis is, so they tentatively go on motorbike rides and skim pebbles into the sea and crash house parties, and pretend things are OK. Tess's father doesn't want them to get too close; he thinks Adam is too young to be someone's carer, and isn't convinced the boy is committed to his daughter, but they carry on seeing each other regardless. There are also the inevitable moments of "gazing up into the stars together" and "huddling together on a bench while the snow falls", but just when you think the film is roaming too far into cheesiness, the cliché is subdued by a joke or a sarcastic quip. In fact, although there are, of course, plenty of tears in the final act (because, well, aren't there always?), there are also plenty of laughs along the way. But back to the tears. Now Is Good is a weepie, there is no getting around that. Most of the audience of the preview I attended this evening were in tears when they left--and no, they weren't all women.

As well as the sharp script and dark humour, the other thing that keeps Now Is Good from straying too far into melodrama territory is the performances. Fanning is fine as Tess, injecting enough punch and vigour into the character's feistier moments, while also capturing her fears and her pain. It's Considine who steals the show, though. There is one scene in particular where the family have received some bad news and while Tess has got through her rage and has regained some composure, Considine's heartbroken, heartfelt sobbing as the gravity of the situation and his own sense of uselessness become clear is devastating. Williams, playing against type, with her bad, blonde dye-job and her instability, was good too.

For some reason, I thought Jenny Downham's book was autobiographical (I thought the associate producer credit I spotted was a tribute), and I wonder if I would have viewed the film differently if I had known it was fictional; maybe I'm just being too cynical about the cynicism of others. Either way, despite being uneven in places and not the most original film in the world, Now Is Good is good, though not great. Do bring tissues, though.

Selfridges Ups Its Beauty Game

The most dangerous part of US branches of Sephora for anyone on a budget is the little display they have near the cash registers with a selection of their top-selling products, from a range of different skincare, haircare and make-up brands, often in travel sizes--most things under $20. You might be able to talk yourself out of buying a $38 Philosophy moisturizer, but what's the harm in a little $10 travel-size version?

Following a similar principle, Selfridges have recently opened the Beauty Workshop, taking over a 5,000-square-foot section of the floor previously occupied by posh stationery and smart leather goods. According to the Jayne Demuro, Selfridges Head of Beauty, in the Selfridges style blog: “For years Selfridges Oxford Street has been THE most successful Beauty Hall in the world. Selfridges revolutionized the way the world retailed beauty, by placing the department at the front of the store. With this retailing innovation in our DNA, we are always striving to bring extraordinary new experiences to our customers.”

L: TopShop nail varnishes. R: Assorted beauty goodies.

It's an epigenetic beauty revolution, don'tcha know! If you want to shop by brand, you can go to the existing beauty hall, which looks like a typical department store beauty hall. There are also areas for certain brands within the Beauty Workshop, but things are a little more mashed up. I was very tempted by the Sephora-like displays filled with small beauty products and gadgets from a range of brands, including a number of foreign and less well-known companies. Things that caught my eye included the new limited edition Pink Bubbly Vaseline, a lip balm by TokyoMilk and a ball of sparkly hairbands (not pictured).

L: OCC lip tars. R: Bumble & Bumble (top) and Paul & Joe (bottom)

Elsewhere in the Beauty Workshop, there is a decent-sized TopShop counter with a particularly good nail varnish collection, a gorgeous Paul & Joe counter (their make-up and make-up bags are so beautifully packaged that they would make excellent gifts) and a new and improved Bumble & Bumble counter. The latter stocks a number of travel-size products, so I might finally be able to give their Surf Spray a try--now that summer is ending, of course. They also stock Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics, a vegan and cruelty-free brand from New York. Some of their lip tars and eye shadows are a little scary in colour but they certainly are eye-catching.

All in a day's work at the Beauty Workshop

But the Beauty Workshop isn't just about shopping. You can have all manner of beauty services, from brow-threading and blow dries, to manicures and tanning at the St Tropez booth (which "promises ultimate privacy while allowing you to tan at your convenience"). Sure, lots of department stores offer these kinds of services but the new, roomy Beauty Workshop feels a lot less crowded and a lot more luxurious than some of its older rivals. As London Fashion Week is on at the moment, there were lots of fashion types and a fair few fashion bloggers checking it out this afternoon, making it feel like a cool place to shop, as well as a fun one.

London Film Festival 2012: A Change of Direction

It's that time of year again. No, not autumn--not yet--but the BFI members' priority booking period for the London Film Festival. Unlike last year where I did some advance research on films that might potentially be shown and was a little more prepared when I received the print copy of the programme, this year I've been too busy. I don't like browsing the online programme but I only got round to perusing my print copy last night when I realised that members' booking started today. And actually, it wasn't a tough a job as I thought because with the new Festival Director, Clare Stewart--fresh from Sydney--the 56th London Film Festival is looking a little different to previous years.

First, the good. I really like the way the films are grouped thematically rather than by region this year, making it easy to find a film that encapsulates notions like "love," "dare" and "journey." The festival is shorter this year (only 12 days) and the competition element is being seriously amped up. The BFI finally decided to upgrade its website, which meant that the booking process this morning was a lot less painful than previous years and didn't, as far as I know, result in me receiving a receipt for a ticket that I was later told had not been allocated for me. You are only allowed to book two tickets per screening, which is fairer, but a little frustrating when you are trying to book three tickets, as I was earlier, especially when you aren't warned of this limit when adding the tickets to your basket and are then forced, Olympics-style, to abandon all three tickets and start the search again. Overall, though, I was fairly impressed with the booking system.

I was, however, a little disappointed with this year's programme. LoFiFest has often suffered from its position in the calendar shortly after the Toronto International Film Festival and, presumably to distinguish itself from TIFF, this year's LoFiFest has far fewer of the big-hitting films with the A-list cast. There are a lot more arty, foreign and independent movies this year, which is fine, but I see a lot of those at the BFI and Curzon throughout the year and for me, going to LoFiFest means the rare opportunity to walk the red carpet with George Clooney or to watch Clive Owen talk about his career.

As I wasn't particularly interested in seeing either the opening night gala, Frankenweenie, or the closing night gala, Great Expectations, this pretty much left me with Argo, a political thriller set in the late 1970s directed by and starring Ben Affleck, and with Alan Arkin, Jimmy Cooper from The O.C. and Glenn Childs from The Good Wife among the supporting cast (George Clooney also co-produced). With my red carpet gala sorted, I then picked out my next choices. Jacques Audiard's De Rouille et d'Os (Rust and Bone), with Marion Cotillard, picked up some good film festivals at Cannes this year, so this became my token foreign movie. And Martin McDonagh's follow-up to In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, with Collin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson, seemed like another interesting option. I'm happy to have tickets to these three screenings.

In previous years, I have tended to see five or six films, and I may be talked into seeing Michael Haneke's Amour with BB. I may also cave and go to see the surprise film, but based on the rest of the programme and based on my success ratio with previous surprise films, I should probably try to resist.

If you want to go to this year's LoFiFest, check out my tips from two years ago. Patience is the key, though. Many of the gala screenings and premieres sold out this morning, but there will be returns so there is a film you really want to see, it's worth checking back on its LoFiFest page on a regular basis, even if they haven't announced that extra tickets have been made available. There has never been a LoFiFest film that I couldn't attend because I couldn't get a ticket, but I have had to stalk the website quite obsessively at times.

Chortling with the Mome Raths

Last week, before we went to Tramshed, BB and I stopped for a drink at Callooh Callay, further down trendy Rivington Street, which is tucked away in the middle of the triangle formed by Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street. In New York speak, it would probably be called TriBeO, but apparently Shoreditch Design Triangle is the preferred nickname. Although Rivington Street isn't one of Shoreditch's main drags, that isn't to say it's quiet and out of the way. In fact, a wander along its cobbled length takes you past plenty of interesting shops, bars and restaurants, such as the Rivington Grill and YCN.

Callooh Callay, which is closer to the Shoreditch High Street end of Rivington, is a cocktail bar with a loose Lewis Carroll theme, its name, of course, being taken his poem The Jabberwocky: "'O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' / He chortled in his joy." Mostly the main area of the bar just looks a little--OK, a lot--quirky, with its brightly coloured furniture, oversized wardrobe and mirrored walls. The wardrobe actually leads to more secret (but not very secret), flamingo-filled bar called Jub Jub, to which only the cool kids are given the key.

Callooh Callay in Rivington Street

The cocktail menu is very impressive. The menu itself comes printed out as though it's one of the never-ending Now That's What I Call Music pop compilations I used to collect in my youth; on this occasion, it was Now That's What I Call Cocktails: 23 chart-topping hits of summer 2012! Includes Marmageddon, Hell in a Highball and many more. Many of the drinks sounded interesting and I considered the Just Bee Good To Me and the Callooh Callay Cup No 2, but in the end I ordered the Ta Gin Mule: Tanqueray gin, dried apricots, lime juice, Briottet Apricot, cumin sugar and ginger beer. It was really tasty, although not that strong--probably for the best given that I'd had a long day at work. BB opted for the more tropical Island Currency, which was also very good.

Ta Gin Mule and the old skool cocktail menu

At around £9 per drink, Callooh Callay isn't too expensive for Shoreditch. You do have to pay a 12.5% service charge, but it's hard to object too much when the drinks are great, the staff are nice--oh, and when there's free popcorn. I definitely want to go back to sample some of the other drinks on offer (it's a shame the Marmite-laced Marmageddon contains beer, or I would have liked to try it)--the mini burger, hot dog and scotch egg threesomes also sound good. I'm sure Charles Dodgson would have approved.

"I Don't Think My Nerves Can Stand Another Alexei at the Moment"

Well, Joe Wright's long-awaited adaptation of Anna Karenina is finally out and you could tell it was going to be something a little different when its star, Keira Knightley, has to go on the Today programme and caution that it will probably be quite divisive. Indeed, when I heard about the theatrical setting of the film, I wasn't sure I would like it, but although it was a little too long--not excessively so, given the length of the source material--I thought Knightley and Jude Law, playing one of the Alexeis, Anna's dependable but dull husband Karenin, were excellent and that Wright managed to pull it off.

Having a screenplay by Tom Stoppard definitely helped. Don't get me wrong--this version is still a tragedy but the script crackles with wit and dark, tongue-in-cheek humour ("divorce is one thing; dinner's quite another," Anna's brother Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen) tells Karenin). Condensing an 850-page novel into a 2h10 film inevitably means that a lot of plot has to be edited out. The film sticks to the basics: beautiful, bored Anna falls for the handsome, arrogant Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), they begin an affair and then, this being the 1870s, it all goes a bit Pete Tong when she decides to leave her husband for him. The other main sub-plot of the film is the love story between Kitty (Alicia Vikander), Anna's sister-in-law's sister, and Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), but these scenes always felt a little out of place and as though too much of Tolstoy's social commentary had been left on the cutting room floor. I'm really not sure whether we were supposed to care whether or not they ended up together.

Joe Wright's film is beautifully, luxuriously shot and I thought the theatre setting generally worked quite well. I enjoyed the grand ballroom scenes and Vronsky's race--also conducted on a stage with the womenfolk watching in the stalls and boxes of the theatre--was an impressive piece of cinematography. Toy train sets in children's bedrooms sometimes evoked the feeling of train journeys without a real train having to be evoked. And Anna and Vronsky's relationship is lush, sexy and hedonistic. Anna, usually seen wearing black or dark, rich colours, wears virginal white in the presence of her lover and they frolic and revel decadently in the Russian countryside. Less sexy was the sight of Anna licking Vronsky's 'tache, which, along with his bleached-blonde hair, makes him look more like a German eighties throwback than a Russian count. Confusingly, with his lighter hair, he also looks like a younger Jude Law in some scenes.

Taylor-Johnson's Vronsky is suitably arrogant but appears to be relatively true to his lover, despite her later paranoid fears. Law's Karenin is also very sympathetic--he is so desperate to do the right thing and to protect his family, that his own feelings about his wife's fostering feelings for the other Alexei usually come in second place. "My wife is beyond reproach," he says, when questioned about the growing rumours about Anna. "She is, after all, my wife." The Anna Knightley portrays is trickier to interpret. She isn't very likable--she is bored, lazy, selfish and stubborn--but nor is Tolstoy's Anna. It's all very well women complaining about the double standard of 19th century men being able to screw around as much as they liked whereas if their wives grow tired of them, they don't get the same luxury. But who can feel sorry for Anna who brings all of her own troubles upon herself and generally acts thoughtlessly? In a number of her scenes with Vronsky, she just looks bored and as though she is going through the motions. Even later on, when she is shunned by her former friends ("she did worse than break the law; she broke the rules"), and blames everyone but herself, it's hard not to just roll your eyes. That isn't to say that Knightley doesn't put in a good performance. Anna is a tough character to portray, given these aforementioned character flaws, and Knightley, with her cool, dark eyes and her Helena Bonham-Carter-esque mad hair, simpers and seethes exactly as required.

The cast list contains a number of other impressive names in more minor roles, who don't get nearly enough screen time--Olivia Williams as Vronsky's manipulative mother, for example. I loved Dario Marianelli's beautiful, haunting score for another Joe Wright film, Atonement, and I'm glad his work was featured again in his newest film. And overall, I was fairly impressed with Anna Karenina. It isn't without its flaws, but the quirky setting, the sharp screenplay and the good performances from the lead actors keeps things interesting.

London Fashion's Night Out, 2012 Edition

Last year, I went to London Fashion's Night Out for the first time. I had a good time, bought a few things and got quite a few freebies but my fun was somewhat curtailed by my pre-New York shopping restriction and my inability to drink. This year, I didn't have any such restraints and I brought a two friends along for the ride. We took a similar route to the one I took last year--starting at Kate Spade in Covent Garden and then working over to Regent Street and Oxford Street. I had such a hectic day at work that I didn't really have time to look on the FNO website to find out the best freebies and experiences on offer and being with other people meant I was bolder when it came to asking for things but that we took longer to move around and by the time we reached Oxford Street, soon after 9 pm, things had started to shut down.

C-wise from top left: Chanel vending machine, Juicy Couture cocktails,
ice cream at Kate Spade, Bailey's hot choc, scarf styling at Liberty.

We still had a great time, but most of the freebies we acquired were of the liquid nature--plenty of glasses of prosecco, assorted cocktails, a Bailey's-spiked hot chocolate with marshmallows at a Ralph Lauren Rugby-style men's clothes store and even a refreshing OJ. We nabbed an ice cream at Kate Spade but were a little disappointed to find that the fish and chips on offer at Ted Baker were actually made of chocolate! I also picked up a few beauty and fragrance samples from places like Sanctuary Spa and Juicy Couture (NB I wouldn't normally enter Juicy, but they were handing out Cosmopolitans).

I didn't buy very much tonight. First, there was a grammar geek's dream pair of earrings from Kate Spade--well, I would have preferred a semicolon and an em rule, but I thought a question mark and an exclamation mark were pretty cool too. The 20% discount didn't hurt either. In Anthro, apparently if you arrived early enough and were willing to donate enough money, you could have the opportunity to marble your own custom scarf--with expert guidance, of course--but I had to settle for a glass of Prosecco and a pre-made scarf. The one I picked up was in a pretty, deep teal with white dots. I thought it was fairly good value at £38 (minus the 20% discount) but it actually came with another scarf in a shimmery silvery colour. I don't wear much silver but it might be nice for glamming up an outfit for the evening; plus the two scarves look good when they are wrapped together and worn as a pair. I also got a free Anthro tote with my purchase. I was almost tempted by the petite black trench coat in Banana Republic, but they weren't doing discounts and I'm pretty sure that if I'm patient enough, I can get it for cheaper than £125.

My Anthro scarves, Kate Spade earrings and assorted freebies

I spotted a couple of other fun things. At the new Chanel beauty store in Covent Garden, we saw people queuing up in front of these Chanel "vending machines," which were offering the brand's new "Twin-Sets" in which you get a nail varnish and co-ordinated lipstick in seasonal colours. People were coming out of the store with giant tokens, which they were putting into the machine, before receiving a mini Chanel bag, and we hoped (foolishly, of course) they might be free, but sadly, they were full price, so we gave it a miss. We also just missed out on getting a free manicure and styling session at Liberty, unfortunately.

I will definitely go to FNO again next year, and I think I have converted my two friends. Next year, unless work gets crazy again, I will try to do a little more research and plan ahead, to avoid missing out on some really cool things.

Going for Gold

Today represented my last day of participation in London 2012 activities. Last month I watched the Olympics opening night ceremony, I attended some women's volleyball and I went to check out the paraphernalia on the river, and today I finally got to go to the Olympic Park. It was great!

Check my colour-co-ordination

We had tickets to the morning athletics session and although I knew we would be getting a mix of track and field, heats, finals and victory sessions, I wasn't sure exactly which events we would see. In the end, there turned out to be a lot of shot put and discus--who knew there were so many different possible shot put categories?--some men's long jump and a few different track events. One of the most fun events to watch was the heats for the men's T11/13 4x100m relay (see the video below). These athletes have visual impairments and so some run with a guide (who will usually be the one who passes over/receives the baton) but even so, making the change-overs requires a huge amount of skill and needless to say, the crowds were asked to be quiet until the final change-over had been completed. We also saw some British ladies doing well in the heats of the T37 200m, and we watched David Weir storm to victory in his heat of the T54 800m, before we saw him pick up his gold medal for last night's performance in the 1500m. If you are unsure of what the home advantage means for Team GB, you only have to sit in the Olympic stadium when any British athlete is competing to find out.



The field events took a lot longer to complete--they only got about halfway through the F54/55 discus final by the end of our three-hour session. The athletes compete from a sitting position and so have to get settled into place, before taking their three turns one after the other. The coolest part of this event was the little remote control Minis that return the discuss to the athletes at the end of each turn. In some Paralympics events, distances and times have to be weighted depending on the severity of the athlete's disability, which left the odd situation of the athlete who was placing second breaking a world record, but the first-placed athlete not breaking the record. On a final throwing note, Assunta Legnante was hugely impressive as the winner of the women's F11 (visual impairments) shot put contest.

Give me an 'R', give me a 'U', give me an 'N'

Our session finished at lunchtime and we went outside in search of food and warmth. It was a glorious, sunny day but we had been in the southeast corner of the stadium, which was in the shade. We got some Asian food from the Street Market and then sat by the river, soaking up the atmosphere. Given that it was a Wednesday afternoon during term time, the Olympic Park was packed. It was so fun just wandering through the park, enjoying the sculptures, the sporting venues and the wildflower meadows. I'm really glad I got to go to the Olympic Park and to watch a number of exciting athletics events. If you are in London and can get your hands on any remaining Paralympics tickets, I strongly recommend that you do.

A Cock and Bull Story: Tramshed Review

For most people, restaurants whose menus only offer one or two choice dishes must be a bit of a novelty--although growing less novel by the day. As a recovered vegetarian and mostly recovered picky eater, I used to find that it was rare enough that I found one thing I liked on a menu, let alone two. I definitely don't have that problem at Tramshed, the latest restaurant in Mark Hix's London empire, where the menu is: chicken, steak, er...that's it.

Just another Tuesday at Tramshed

BB and I went for dinner this evening and we were both impressed. It was a little quiet when we arrived at 7 pm, but by the time we left, the place was bustling with a combination of city types and Shoreditch hipsters. Oh, and us. As for the food, there are a few starters on the menu each day (we decided to hold out for a pudding), and then you can either pick your size of 'mighty-marbled' sirloin steak or roast chicken; both options come with fries. As BB ordered the steak, I went for the baby spring chicken. The meat was really juicy and flavoursome but former vegeterians don't make the most skilled chicken-carvers and as most of the other diners seemed to be keeping their poussin on the dish on which it was served, I felt I had to keep reaching into the middle of the table to try to get the meat off the bones. I suspect the sharing chicken for two to three people would be better value in terms of accessible meat.

Chicken 'n' chips, Hix style

With the chips and some of BB's side order of purple sprouting broccoli, I was still too full for a pudding. None of the puddings were that enticing anyway--they were mostly too fruit-based for my taste, apart from an expensive chocolate fondue to share for £12.50. It was a Mark Hix restaurant so the bill wasn't especially cheap but for a hair under £50 for our food, a couple of soft drinks (we went for a pre-dinner cocktail at Callooh Callay, further down Rivington Street) and service, it wasn't too bad, especially given the excellent quality of the meat.

It's art. Innit.

But what about the elephant in the room? Or rather, in this case, the Hereford cow and cockerel lovingly preserved in formaldehyde by Damien Hirst and displayed in a tank in the high vaulted ceiling of the restaurant, which did really used to be a tram shed. Art is important at most of Hix's restaurants, and 'Cock and Bull' certainly does get everyone talking about it, and photographing it. For a good-quality, meaty meal in a restaurant that mixes casual chic and tongue-in-cheek, I would definitely recommend a trip to Tramshed. They even do take-out, which is enough to make you wish you worked somewhere as hip and NYC-esque as Shoreditch.

Tramshed. 32 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3LX (Tube: Old Street). Website. Twitter.

Delusions of Grandeur

I do like a good con-man story, but while George Clooney's Danny Ocean and Clifford Irving, as portrayed by Richard Gere, exude charisma and inspire sympathy, the subject of Bart Layton's new documentary The Imposter is a far less likable chap, but his tale is no less compelling and scarcely more believable than Irving's own story.

1994. A young teenage boy disappears without a trace from his Texas town. Three years later, someone claiming to be this same kid shows up at a children's home in Spain, where he is promptly picked up by his older sister and taken back home. A remarkable rescue? Not exactly. For one thing, the boy in question seems to have come from a less handsome branch of the Benicio del Toro family tree, whereas the boy who went missing, Nicholas Barclay, is blonde, fair-skinned and blue-eyed. Then there's a question of how a 13-year-old American boy can totally lose the ability to speak accentless, American English--no matter what claims might be made concerning the horrific things that had happened to him during the missing years. Most troubling of all, though, is how Nicholas's sister Carey could travel to Spain and fail to realise that the boy in the question wasn't her brother after all.

Unsurprisingly, rather than focusing on the family, Layton's movie is very much the story of this imposter, whose name, it turns out, is Frédéric Bourdin. Well, as far as we can be certain, anyway, given that he had left a trail of false identities all over Europe before deciding to disguise himself as a child (he was 23 in 1997, not 16). He tells us his sob story--his French mother was very young and her father was a racist, who didn't approve of Frédéric's Algerian father or Frédéric himself, he says, so he decided to try to be taken on by a real family, who could give him the childhood he never had. Naturally, we have to take everything he says with a pinch of salt: he is a professional liar and an attention-seeker. He has no remorse when he talks to camera about what he did. It was everyone else's fault but his own--yes, he might have rung around dozens of US police stations fishing for information on missing children, but it isn't his fault that the particular family he happened upon were so desperate to believe that their son and brother was still alive, that they would even proclaim that a boy who looked nothing like Nicholas had ever looked was indeed him.

Not everyone is convinced, though. One of the brothers, back in Texas, simply tells Bourdin, "good luck," and avoided being around him. A local private detective is also suspicious--primarily because Bourdin's ears didn't match Nicholas's, a trick the investigator learned from Scotland Yard, dontcha know? Then there's Nancy Fisher, the Mary Portas-lookalike from the FBI who, on hearing "Nicholas's" horrific account of where he had been (kidnapped by the military, abused and tortured), decides he either went through something really terrible or he is an extremely skillful liar. She initially goes with the former--who would make up those lies, she asks--but as the evidence against Bourdin begins to mount, who is going to be left feeling like the greater fool?

The Imposter is a fascinating and engaging film, which still finds time to pack in a few final twists into its already crazy narrative, although you will have to watch the film (or trawl Wikipedia) to find out what happens. Some have criticized the uncensored way Bourdin is allowed to present his case to the audience, but he's so unsympathetic, ruthlessly self-interested and calculating that surely no one can leave the film a) liking and admiring him and b) believing a single word he says. Surely... This may be a spoiler, but for me, perhaps the scariest thing about the film is the end card that reads, "Frédéric Bourdin has a wife and three children." Just...wow!