The Look of Love. (15.)
Directed by Michael Winterbottom.
Starring Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Tamsin Egerton, Imogen Poot, Chris Addison and James Lance. 100 mins
This is the year that the long gestating Alan Partridge Movie is due to appear. Until August though we’ll have to make do with another Winterbottom film in which Coogan most determinedly doesn’t play Partridge. This time round he is not playing Partridge as Paul Raymond. Coogan’s incarnation of the name on top of the Soho Revue Bar certainly isn’t Partridge; but he sure is the spit of his Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People.
Although Coogan is multi-talented and a master impressionist, he only has one (successful) comic voice: pompous, pseudo self-aware monsters. They are insecure enough to need to let you know how clever/ successful they are, yet secure enough to acknowledge their insecurity. So Coogan’s Raymond will quote Oscar Wilde and then mention that it was a quote from Wilde. He even throws in a Brando impersonation and at this point you suspect Coogan is Raymond in wig only.
Coogan and Winterbottom are a great pairing (A Cock and Bull Story, The Trip) but every subject comes out much the same. Tony Wilson was certainly something of a pillock but watching 24 Hour Party People you wondered what the creator of Factory records had ever done to deserve being played by Steve Coogan. Paul Raymond was a self-made made who came to London from Liverpool in the fifties and rose from doing a mind reading act to become Britain’s richest man, owning most of Soho and push the barriers of hardcore pornography. To have thrived in that industry, he must have done plenty of things to deserve being played by Coogan, but you don’t see them here. The Raymond of this film is a slightly sad playboy, always drinking champagne and being driven around in his Rolls with personalised number plates.
Certainly he isn’t a nice man but he isn’t that nasty either and you never get any sense of the drive that would build the biggest porn and property empire this county has ever seen. The film is light and breezy throughout and this is probably preferable to a hard nose tragic version but it is so throwaway it barely communicates even the most basic facts of his story. It is enjoyable but afterwards you are left wondering what that Paul Raymond was like.
Directed by Michael Winterbottom.
Starring Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Tamsin Egerton, Imogen Poot, Chris Addison and James Lance. 100 mins
This is the year that the long gestating Alan Partridge Movie is due to appear. Until August though we’ll have to make do with another Winterbottom film in which Coogan most determinedly doesn’t play Partridge. This time round he is not playing Partridge as Paul Raymond. Coogan’s incarnation of the name on top of the Soho Revue Bar certainly isn’t Partridge; but he sure is the spit of his Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People.
Although Coogan is multi-talented and a master impressionist, he only has one (successful) comic voice: pompous, pseudo self-aware monsters. They are insecure enough to need to let you know how clever/ successful they are, yet secure enough to acknowledge their insecurity. So Coogan’s Raymond will quote Oscar Wilde and then mention that it was a quote from Wilde. He even throws in a Brando impersonation and at this point you suspect Coogan is Raymond in wig only.
Coogan and Winterbottom are a great pairing (A Cock and Bull Story, The Trip) but every subject comes out much the same. Tony Wilson was certainly something of a pillock but watching 24 Hour Party People you wondered what the creator of Factory records had ever done to deserve being played by Steve Coogan. Paul Raymond was a self-made made who came to London from Liverpool in the fifties and rose from doing a mind reading act to become Britain’s richest man, owning most of Soho and push the barriers of hardcore pornography. To have thrived in that industry, he must have done plenty of things to deserve being played by Coogan, but you don’t see them here. The Raymond of this film is a slightly sad playboy, always drinking champagne and being driven around in his Rolls with personalised number plates.
Certainly he isn’t a nice man but he isn’t that nasty either and you never get any sense of the drive that would build the biggest porn and property empire this county has ever seen. The film is light and breezy throughout and this is probably preferable to a hard nose tragic version but it is so throwaway it barely communicates even the most basic facts of his story. It is enjoyable but afterwards you are left wondering what that Paul Raymond was like.
