Oxford or Bust — The Exclusives Review

Rebecca Thornton’s wickedly compelling debut novel, The Exclusives, set in an elite girls’ boarding school where a B grade at A-level is unforgivable and an Oxbridge rejection is a total failure, is a well-observed examination of the themes of ambition, friendship and betrayal.

Josephine Grey, a 30-something archaeologist has run away from her troubled past to work in Jordan. She isn’t happy, exactly, but she is fine — until she receives an email from her former best friend Freya who will be in the area and who desperately wants to talk to Josephine in person. 

Increasingly apprehensive about what Freya might want, Josephine looks back 18 years to the start of the girls’ final year at Greenwood Hall, which is when their friendship began to fall apart. Josephine beats out her rival Verity to the Head Girl position, wearing her shiny red badge with pride, but Freya insists that the two of them go out for one last night of fun and freedom before term proper begins and with it the Oxford applications, school newspaper editing and other more tedious duties.

The morning after their wild night on the town, Josephine wakes up with a wound to the back of her head and no recollection of what happened. Freya wants to talk about it but Josephine shuts her down, worried that if word gets out about any nights out involving drinking, drugs and dancing, she will be stripped of her head girl badge and all of her dreams of Oxford will be forever lost. 

Some may consider that these concerns — “what if they find out I was drinking?” and “what will become of me if I don’t get into Oxbridge?” — rather trivial but as someone who attended a somewhat similar school, I thought they rang perfectly true. 

An increasingly anxious Freya begins to ditch Josephine for Verity and tensions heighten as the three girls compete for a scholarship that offers a guaranteed Oxford place — more valuable than gold dust to these girls. Gradually, as Josephine's narration progresses in both the present-day and the flashbacks, we begin to piece together what happened that year and what impacts it had. The final revelation, while disturbing, wasn’t as surprising as it could have been, resulting in a slightly weakened denouement.

But the friendship between Josephine and Freya, which remains at the novel’s core, is convincing and poignant throughout. The two girls represent the classic Betty–Veronica / Serena–Blair dichotomy: the sweet, beautiful golden girl (Freya) and the intelligent, driven schemer (Josephine). 

Both appear to be vastly privileged but each has had troubled a troubled family life. Josephine, in particular, is often unlikeable, in spite of the hardships she has endured and the betrayals she perceives, but is a complex and well-developed character. Freya remains more of a cipher, but, of course, we only ever see her through Josephine’s watchful eyes.

The Exclusives is a real page-turner — Thornton has written a lively, smart, twisty and often twisted tale. 

Disclaimer: The Exclusives, published by Twenty7/Bonnier Publishing, is available as an e-book now and will be out in paperback in April. I received a pre-release copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Macintyre Coffee (CLOSED)

UPDATE (January 2019): Macintyre Coffee has now closed permanently.

I didn't visit Macintyre Coffee in its original Hoxton home but when I heard that they had moved to a new location in Angel, I added it to my list of coffee shops to try during my lunch break. The new café is at the top of St John Street, near the junction with Pentonville Road and little more than a stone's throw from Angel Tube station.

Inside, the décor is extremely understated: there are a couple of small, white coffee tables and the coffee bar at the back. The interiors are so wood-heavy that you almost feel as though you are in a particularly cosy shed — a very nice shed, of course, and with excellent coffee.

The menu, like the décor, is maximally minimalist: there is a filter coffee and a small selection of the standard espresso-based drinks, all of which are listed on an old-school monochrome board. There were a few amazing-looking filled croissants on offer too but nothing more substantial. I ordered a piccolo (£2.50) and took a seat at the only free table while I waited for my drink.

The coffee is from Modern Standard, an Edinburgh-based roaster whose coffee I hadn't sampled before. The Momentum Espresso Blend — brewed with a Modbar espresso module — worked really well as a piccolo, with its rich, full-bodied flavours. The latte art was impressive too, especially for such a small drink.

I noticed the very cool Alpha Dominche Steampunk coffee machine too late for this visit — you can see its tall, clear cylinders and plungers rising above the pastries in the photograph below — which uses a siphon method to brew filter coffee. I'm definitely hitting that up next time and now that I've heard rumours of their peanut butter and maple bacon croissants, Macintyre may well become my favourite spot for a pre-work breakfast treat.

Macintyre Coffee. 428 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NJ (Tube: Angel).

"This Is the Story You Get" — Room Movie Review

I read Emma Donoghue's novel Room soon after it came out in 2010 and found its story of a young boy and his mother who have been held captive in a confined space — the eponymous Room — for several years quite hard-going but beautifully written. It isn't the only novel about a woman who has been abducted and locked away from the world — of the others that I've read, I think Isla Morley's Above is the most interesting — but what makes Room unique is the way the story is told entirely from five-year-old Jack's perspective.

I always wondered how this would translate to the big screen but director Lenny Abrahamson and Donoghue, who wrote the screenplay, have done a great job. The film is, by turns, moving and suspenseful and really does allow you to see Room — and then the world — through Jack's eyes. 

Brie Larson plays Joy, who was abducted at the age of 17 by a man she calls Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) and taken to a tiny, dingy windowless room. He brings food once a week and forces himself upon Joy. Two years later, Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is born and the nightmare changes but doesn't stop.

I won't spoil any major revelations that aren't in the trailer, but if you want to go into Room completely fresh, please look away now!

As the film opens, Jack is about to turn five and he seems reasonably happy with his tiny world. Each morning, he greets each inanimate object in the room as though it is a good friend, he watches TV and he goofs around with his Ma. Joy, however, is barely keeping it together. She is depressed, often in pain and resentful of the life she could have had — the life she used to have. 

She starts to think of a plan to get herself and Jack out of Room. Escaping will be hard enough but she must first try to convey the concept of the outside world to a five-year-old boy whose only knowledge of it comes from TV. Indeed, Jack struggles at first with the difference between TV and reality.

The trailer makes no secret of the fact that Joy and Jack do leave Room, but Joy, like Thomas Wolfe before her, finds that you can't go home again. Her parents' (Joan Allen and William H. Macy) lives have changed a lot in the past seven years and although they are relieved to welcome Joy home, their relationships with their daughter and newfound grandson quickly become very fraught. 

Room doesn't devote much emotional energy to these problems, however, instead focusing Jack's tentative forays into the outside world. He is a young Mork, freshly emerged from his Room into our strange planet. And its a beautiful thing to behold!

Without exceptional performances from Larson and the talented young Tremblay, Room could easily have veered into the stuff of made-for-TV movies. Instead, Larson captures the utter sense of loneliness and despair of a woman named Joy who has spent the past seven years being deprived of all joy, but whose love for her son becomes her raison d'être. Tremblay, meanwhile, steals every scene, which is no mean feat given the stellar cast. His Jack is curious, captivating and utterly devoted to his mother.

Room isn't the toughest view of the awards season this year (see also: The Revenant), but it is still painful and disturbing at times. There are plenty of lighter moments too, though, and overall, it bears a message of hope and survival in the face of adversity.

"I Ain't Afraid To Die Anymore; I Done It Already" — The Revenant Review

When Leonardo DiCaprio read the words, "exit, pursued by a bear," in the script for The Revenant, he must have seen the Oscar flash before his eyes. It certainly wouldn't have been the hair and makeup — or the dialogue, for that matter — in Alejandro González Iñárritu's epic new film that caught his interest. 

The Revenant is a bold, brutal and beautiful story of vengeance and survival set in the Great Plains during the 1820s. It isn't always easy to watch but DiCaprio's transformation into Hugh Glass, the eponymous revenant (a spirit or ghost) is impressive and you can tell how much he has put into the role in every single scene. Surely, the Oscar is his at last.

As the film opens, Glass and the other members of his Missouri River fur-trading expedition, including his captain, Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), sparring partner John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and teenage son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). 

A Native American ambush causes the surviving men to flee down river. Glass, the lead scout, and Fitzgerald, a fur trapper, disagree over the fastest, safest way to return to base with their huge cargo of furs. Glass wins the argument but tensions are high and Fitzgerald simmers with resentment, waiting for his opportunity.

He doesn't have to wait long as Glass undergoes a horrific attack from a seriously angry grizzly bear. I had heard about the scene in advance but it didn't quite prepare me for its brutality — or its length. Fitzgerald wants to "finish him off right now" and press on, but Henry insists that several men stay behind to give him a proper burial, in exchange for a financial bonus. 

The greedy, scheming Fitzgerald is, of course, among the volunteers, and it isn't long before he decides to leave Glass for dead and return home to pick up their bonus. But Glass isn't dead, although he is in pretty bad shape, and he is willing to use every ounce of determination and strength left in his wrecked body to find his way back to base and wreak his vengeance.

The pacing of The Revenant is somewhat unpredictable: long, languorous takes of stunning and peaceful American landscapes are juxtaposed with scenes of relentless, savage violence. Ryuichi Sakamoto's haunting score is perfect too, its doleful cello sounding out an apology for the acts of brutality we have just witnessed. 

The film is light on plot but has a rich, expressive narrative. Glass hardly speaks — for some of the time, his injuries mean that he can only communicate via pained grunts — but DiCaprio is able to convey volumes about the character, his relationship with his Native American wife and their son, and the measureless pain he feels as a result of being separated from them.

DiCaprio is really excellent here: he truly becomes Glass and is able to turn a wounded man's slow, stumbling progress across an icy, unforgiving landscape into a compelling piece of cinema. Hardy shines too, putting on a fine frontier accent, although his ranting, raging Fitzgerald veers towards pantomime at times. 

In between our 'good' hero and our 'bad' villain, is Captain Henry. At first he seems like a good captain — loyal to his men before all else — but, to modern eyes, at least, it is hard to ignore some of his remarks about Native Americans.

The film focuses a fair bit on ownership, precedence and "rights" — Henry's company are attacked because they "have stolen everything from [the tribe]", from furs to land and women. Another Native American is murdered by the French and left hanging with a sign that says, "On est tous des sauvages" (we are all savages). Well, quite. 

Glass, then, is seen as more sympathetic because he tries to treat the Native people he meets with respect and sees them as equals; he even speaks two Native American languages. And it is a Native American man he is travelling with who offers up a valuable lesson: "Revenge is in the creator's hands."

I saw a preview of The Revenant last Monday night and its length and subject matter made it a little hard-going at times and left me feeling as emotionally drained as though I had been mauled by a metaphorical bear. But don't let that put you off because Iñárritu has crafted a film that is as literally breathtaking as it is bloody, where familial love has as central a role as vengeance.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman — The Danish Girl Review

With director Tom Hooper at the helm and strong central performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, you might think that The Danish Girl, an imagined version of the love story between Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, could do no wrong. But despite the accomplished turns from its stars, Hooper's film, based on the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff, is all style and little substance, which is a great shame given the remarkable story of the characters' real-life alter egos.

The film opens in Copenhagen in the 1920s. Artist Einar Wegener (Redmayne) is enjoying great success in his career while his wife Gerda (Vikander) struggles to sell her portraits. "Don't you wish you could paint like your husband?" a patronising male artist asks Gerda. They seem happy, though, until one day when Gerda asks her husband to don a ballet dress and shoes so that she can work on the portrait of their friend, ballet dancer Ulla (Amber Heard), who can't make a sitting. 

Reluctant at first, Einar agrees and to his surprise, finds a certain sense of lightness and liberation. When Ulla arrives, she refers to him as 'Lili' after the flowers she is carrying, and gradually, Lili takes her first steps into the world.

At first, it is just a game — to Gerda, at least — but when she suggests that Lili attend an upcoming artists' ball instead of Einar, who hates such events, she doesn't realise what it will mean for her marriage, her happiness and the zero-sum happiness of Einar and Lili. Einar realises that Lili has always been there ("when I dream," she says, "they're Lili's dreams") but as it is the 1920s, Einar cannot simply become Lili biologically and even dressing as Lili publicly bears a considerable risk. 

The doctors Einar and Gerda visit variously diagnose insanity and schizophrenia and threaten to lock Einar up, which causes the couple to flee to the anonymity of Paris. By happy coincidence, Einar's childhood friend Hans (Matthias Schoenaerts) is now an art dealer based in Paris and he becomes a source of great comfort and help for Gerda, Einar and Lili, as Einar seeks to become Lili in body as well as in mind and soul.

The Danish Girl is a beautiful film, with its exquisite costumes and gorgeous shots of Copenhagen and Paris. Even these feel a little paint-by-numbers, though: if you have never been to the Danish capital, this film might make you think it was nothing more than the admittedly picturesque Nyhavn. 

Redmayne and Vikander are wonderfully expressive — Schoenaerts also does a great job in an understated role — but if you strip away the textiles and the tears, all that remains is a trompe-l'œil. A lovely trompe-l'œil but a trompe-l'œil nonetheless.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen

On my last day of freedom before returning to work on Monday, I had hoped to go for a long walk to Clapham to check out one of the cafés on my coffee to-do-list. However, the rain was so torrential on Sunday that I couldn't face venturing any further than SE1. Luckily, there is a new-ish all-day eatery in a former car park on Bermondsey Street that I had been wanting to visit, so I packed up my guidebook for Vietnam (my next big adventure) and my camera and headed out to Bermondsey Bar & Kitchebn.

I've walked past Bermondsey Yard a number of times since it opened a few months ago — its windows look out onto the part of London Bridge station that has been undergoing extensive works since I moved to the area, but the main entrance is at the top of Bermondsey Street. There is some outdoor seating but on Sunday, I hurried out of the rain and took a seat at a table near the windows. You can see the Shard but it isn't the best view of London...

The décor is sleek and sexy: dark wood tables accented with pops of slate grey and white. On a grey winter's day it felt very cosy inside. There are plenty of tables, for large groups and small. I arrived just before 2 pm and it was bustling, mainly with groups who were lingering over a lazy brunch. At the weekends, Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen is open for breakfast from 10 am and then brunch from 1-4 pm; during the week, they do dinner too, and the evening menu has a tempting selection of small and large plates.

The brunch menu also looked good. As well as the classics — smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast, for example — there are a few more interesting dishes, such as the cod cheeks with chips, lemon mayo and pea shoots. 

As it was my first brunch of the year, I decided to go with my usual brunch favourite: smashed avocado with chilli and lime on sourdough toast (£6). If you want to add a poached egg (and I did), it's an extra £1. The avocado was excellent and you could really taste the chilli — at some brunch spots, the chilli seems as though it's been added for its colour not its flavour. The egg was poached for ever so slightly too long and it wasn't quite as runny as I would have liked, but it was still a very tasty dish.

Coffee-wise, I started with a piccolo (£1.70), which was strong, rich and smooth. Bermondsey Yard gets its coffee from another local favourite of mine, The Gentlemen Baristas, and my piccolo was very well prepared. Needing another caffeine hit, I ordered a filter coffee, which prompted some confusion when I asked whether it was batch-brew or pourover. It turned out that they didn't have any filter coffee at all, although it's on the menu, so I had an americano (£2) instead, which was pretty good but didn't blow me away.

Bermondsey Street probably didn't need another foodie all-day-dining destination, but I'm glad it got Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen, which combines great food with a cool but relaxed setting, and I'm looking forward to going back for dinner and/or cocktails.

Bermondsey Bar & Kitchen. 40 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3UD (Tube: London Bridge). Website.

"It Takes a Certain Toughness, an Acumen That You Simply Don't Have"

If Joy Mangano — the inventor who is the titular Joy in David O. Russell's new film — had ever gone on The Apprentice, Lord Sugar would have been over the moon. A tireless and creative inventor who will do everything from designing a product and building the prototype, to selling the the thing herself on a national shopping channel, Joy seems to embody all of the traits a successful entrepreneur should have. But Russell's heavily fictionalised movie focuses on the earlier years before Joy's huge success was a sure thing. 

Were it not for Jennifer Lawrence's fantastic performance in the central role, Joy might well be an entertaining enough but otherwise unremarkable film, but Lawrence is so compelling and watchable that I couldn't dismiss it that easily.

The film opens in the late 1980s with Joy living with her two young children, ex-husband Tony (Édgar Ramírez), mother (Virginia Madsen) and beloved grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd) working a job she hates. Grandma Mimi's voiceover tells us of how creative and inventive Joy was as a child, but that she had to put aside her dreams to help her parents through their divorce and support her family. Indeed: she is the one they all rely on for help, whether it's her useless mother Terry, who spends all day in bed watching soap operas, the characters of which she cares about more than her real family, or her father Rudy (Robert De Niro), who needs a place to stay after splitting up with his latest woman.

While the family is taking a boat trip with Rudy's wealthy new love interest Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), Joy cuts her hand while cleaning glass from a mop and within hours, she has come up with a design for a self-wringing mop. 

She persuades her father and a grudging Trudy to provide some financial assistance to help her turn her Miracle Mop dream into a reality and then sets about making it happen, helped along the way by Tony ("they were the best divorced couple in America"), her best friend Jackie (Dascha Polanco) and a QVC executive (Bradley Cooper). The rest of her family — particularly her jealous half-sister Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm) — remain skeptical in Joy's abilities and business acumen as she faces setback after setback. They tell her that she dreamed too big and urge her to scale back her expectations.

But Joy will do no such thing. In anyone else's hands, Joy would probably come across as naive, foolhardy and almost parodically earnest and determined. With Lawrence's subtle and masterful performance, however, Joy is extremely likeable and passionate. We root for her throughout and want her to prove her family wrong. 

The film doesn't take itself too seriously either: Grandma Mimi's tongue is firmly in her cheek as she delivers her voiceovers, and the frequent dives into Terry's soap operas keep it from becoming too worthy or guileless. Beyond our eponymous heroine, though, the characters are somewhat two-dimensional and the dialogue doesn't sparkle as much as it could.