This year has already been a cracking time in the cinema with week in and week out another 4/5 star movie. So the release of the opening film of last year's London Film Festival looked like joining the likes of True Grit, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, Tangled, Black Swan and The Fighter. At least, it should have been. However, it doesn't even come close to making that list.
1977 and a boarding school holding both boys and girls is the home for Kathy H, a naive, wide-eyed girl who has a crush for Tommy, a hot-headed young man with no talents whatsoever, particularly in sports or art and finally Ruth, Kathy's only friend who betrays her by stealing Tommy's heart. This mysterious school has a secret and the students are so well behaved, they don't even cross the line that divides them from the outside world. Years go on and Kathy is still friends with Tommy and Ruth but they are now free to live a life outside the school, yet their lives are never really their own and fate has plenty in store for them.
Based on Kazuo Ishiguro's award-winning novel, this should have your mouth watering with anticipation. Three of the country's most talented actors in a film written by Alex Garland, the man who wrote 28 Days Later and directed by Mark Romanek, the man behind One Hour Photo. This should be a sure-fire success. Alas it is not, and I can only say that it is a dull, lifeless, cold and totally detached piece that would struggle to keep the attention of a TV audience.
The problem doesn't lie in the performances. Carey Mulligan proves once more that she is one of the best young screen actresses around. A quietly understated performance, she is incredibly watchable and oozes class. Andrew Garfield, who did a great job in The Social Networ, does an even better job here, with a much more showier role than Mulligan but still equally impressive. Only Keira Knightley as Ruth doesn't sit right and she seems slightly misplaced.
The look of the film isn't the problem either. It is beautifully shot and has an almost dream-like quality to it.
The problem is that we are given so much information within the first few minutes that there doesn't seem to be anywhere else for the film to go and so we follow the three friends as they head towards an already plotted out finale. There is no tension, there is no emotional involvement, just a series of scenes in which the characters talk a little, then maybe walk, then talk some more and so on. This goes on for the rest of its 103 minutes running time and by the end you feel very little about anything except glad that it has ended.
This is a film I have been looking forward to for months and maybe I have been spoilt recently with the quality of the work on display (and the work still to come) but I have to confess that I was very bored and as it went on, it became duller and duller. A pity really as Mulligan and Garfield seem to be delivering outstanding performances in a film that goes nowhere. This could be described as the disappointment of the week...maybe even the year.
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