Manglehorn (15.)
Directed by David Gordon Green.
Starring Al Pacino, Helen Hunt, Harmony Korine and David Messina. 95 mins
He sounds like somebody from The Goons, but Manglehorn is a character grounded in grim reality. An aged locksmith who goes about his mundane duties in small town Texas from his poky little office. He's a bitter shell of a man, obsessed with a past love that got away, or that he pushed away, a woman so special that everything else in life, except perhaps his cat Fanny, is a disappointment.
The idea of an in depth, finely nuanced low key, little guy character study from Pacino is, at this stage of his career, ridiculous. He's been a major movie star for over four decades and that kind of exposure is going to burn away at anybody's connection with real life. The film understands that and it gradually undermines its sense of reality, by throwing in random incongruous elements. It starts with a mime artist in a children's playground and builds towards a slow motion tableau of a multi-vehicle car crash that Pacino ambles past.
This playfulness is what the central character needs. Pacino is full on here. He has been kitted out with a nice outfit – jacket, waistcoat and trousers. The ensemble says bag man chic and he feels happy working out of it. He's also got his posture worked out, a kind of coiled sag. His shoulders are drooped and his knees bent to suggest age, but with a spring. The performance works because it is the kind of big time, who-ha Pacino we have become accustomed to, but employed to play a genuinely horrible character. Because it's Pacino you keep assuming that you're beginning to see Manglehorn's softer side beginning to emerge from underneath the brittle exterior, but then you will be brought up short by an act of unthinking cruelty.
The film's lighthearted use of the unexpected, it's mildly surreal interludes are going to rub people up a variety of ways. I think you'll welcome the invention but wonder if there's any substance to it or if they are just empty distractions. In that way you can't go wrong with the film: you may love it or loath it, you're right either way.
Directed by David Gordon Green.
Starring Al Pacino, Helen Hunt, Harmony Korine and David Messina. 95 mins
He sounds like somebody from The Goons, but Manglehorn is a character grounded in grim reality. An aged locksmith who goes about his mundane duties in small town Texas from his poky little office. He's a bitter shell of a man, obsessed with a past love that got away, or that he pushed away, a woman so special that everything else in life, except perhaps his cat Fanny, is a disappointment.
The idea of an in depth, finely nuanced low key, little guy character study from Pacino is, at this stage of his career, ridiculous. He's been a major movie star for over four decades and that kind of exposure is going to burn away at anybody's connection with real life. The film understands that and it gradually undermines its sense of reality, by throwing in random incongruous elements. It starts with a mime artist in a children's playground and builds towards a slow motion tableau of a multi-vehicle car crash that Pacino ambles past.
This playfulness is what the central character needs. Pacino is full on here. He has been kitted out with a nice outfit – jacket, waistcoat and trousers. The ensemble says bag man chic and he feels happy working out of it. He's also got his posture worked out, a kind of coiled sag. His shoulders are drooped and his knees bent to suggest age, but with a spring. The performance works because it is the kind of big time, who-ha Pacino we have become accustomed to, but employed to play a genuinely horrible character. Because it's Pacino you keep assuming that you're beginning to see Manglehorn's softer side beginning to emerge from underneath the brittle exterior, but then you will be brought up short by an act of unthinking cruelty.
The film's lighthearted use of the unexpected, it's mildly surreal interludes are going to rub people up a variety of ways. I think you'll welcome the invention but wonder if there's any substance to it or if they are just empty distractions. In that way you can't go wrong with the film: you may love it or loath it, you're right either way.
