T.S. Spivet. (12A.)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Starring Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Callum Keith Rennie, Niamh Wilson and Dominque Pinon. 107 mins.
T.S. Spivet would’ve made a great alias for late era Peter Cook when calling up late night radio phone-ins; “Yes, Spivet by name and Spivet by nature.” But as the name of a 10 year old inventor who lives on a Montana ranch and runs away cross country to collect an award from the Smithsonian for inventing a perpetual motion machine, it spells out the film’s over reliance on twee, precious, wackiness. The central character and his adventures are such shallow contrivances that, basically, there is a gapping vacuum at the centre of the movie. That aside, this is a tremendous piece of film making.
Jeunet, most famous for Amelie, makes films at his own deliberate pace, generally spacing them out in gaps of three to four years, which is just enough time for it always to be a pleasant shock to realise again how magical a visualist he is. Lots of directors can you do you pretty pictures, but generally they seem posed and lifeless. His images seem to spring effortlessly from his brain on to the screen, like some beautiful comic book. Occasionally, in films like City of Lost Children and MICMACs, this visual richness becomes a little too rich and viewers get bogged down in them, but Spivet is a film you breeze through. (Even the 3D is wonderful – unlike most 3D you notice it all the way through and it actually makes the film better.)
The trouble is the film breezes past you without I suspect ever picking you up and taking you along with it. It is probably the Jeunet film closest in spirit to Amelie: the central character covers up his sadness by trying to invent ways to help people. But it doesn’t have the heart. As this young inventor makes his perilous trip across the country you never really get a sense of what is at stake or believe that the family he left behind – an entomologist mother obsessed with beetles (Bonham-Carter), a cowboy father (Rennie) and an actress sister (Wilson) – are anything more than a random set of eccentrics held together by the film’s need for quirkiness.
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Starring Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Callum Keith Rennie, Niamh Wilson and Dominque Pinon. 107 mins.
T.S. Spivet would’ve made a great alias for late era Peter Cook when calling up late night radio phone-ins; “Yes, Spivet by name and Spivet by nature.” But as the name of a 10 year old inventor who lives on a Montana ranch and runs away cross country to collect an award from the Smithsonian for inventing a perpetual motion machine, it spells out the film’s over reliance on twee, precious, wackiness. The central character and his adventures are such shallow contrivances that, basically, there is a gapping vacuum at the centre of the movie. That aside, this is a tremendous piece of film making.
Jeunet, most famous for Amelie, makes films at his own deliberate pace, generally spacing them out in gaps of three to four years, which is just enough time for it always to be a pleasant shock to realise again how magical a visualist he is. Lots of directors can you do you pretty pictures, but generally they seem posed and lifeless. His images seem to spring effortlessly from his brain on to the screen, like some beautiful comic book. Occasionally, in films like City of Lost Children and MICMACs, this visual richness becomes a little too rich and viewers get bogged down in them, but Spivet is a film you breeze through. (Even the 3D is wonderful – unlike most 3D you notice it all the way through and it actually makes the film better.)
The trouble is the film breezes past you without I suspect ever picking you up and taking you along with it. It is probably the Jeunet film closest in spirit to Amelie: the central character covers up his sadness by trying to invent ways to help people. But it doesn’t have the heart. As this young inventor makes his perilous trip across the country you never really get a sense of what is at stake or believe that the family he left behind – an entomologist mother obsessed with beetles (Bonham-Carter), a cowboy father (Rennie) and an actress sister (Wilson) – are anything more than a random set of eccentrics held together by the film’s need for quirkiness.
