The Angels’ Share (***1/4)

“Comedic” is not  a word one would generally apply to the films of Ken Loach, whose films spotlight the struggles of working-class Britain (or Los Angeles, in the case of 1999’s Bread and Roses). Like Sweet 16 (but with older teens), the setting here is (primarily) Glasgow, and, like that movie, it’s helpfully subtitled. The variety of English is both distinctively accented and filled with delightfully unfamiliar lingo, and that’s even before the plot’s oddest and most unique element, which is its central character’s newfound interest in high-end whiskey, comes up.

Why, it’s just like Sideways, if instead of California wine snobs the central characters were a Scottish trying-to-reform teen thug and his “community payback”-serving friends. He has a family vendetta against him, a newborn son, and a scar on his face that further dims his job prospects, yet this film is indeed a comedy. Its sympathies lie, as always with Loach, with the underdogs, and he has collaborated with his frequent screenwriting partner Paul Laverty (who also wrote Sweet Sixteen), yet the approach is a touch lighter, more likely to appeal to a mainstream sensibility, especially the second half, wherein the group of friends embarks on an unlikely caper. And, yes, some of it is pretty funny.

IMDb link

viewed 3/21/2013 7:30 pm at Gershman Y [PFS screening] and reviewed 3/22–4/28/13

The Last Kiss (***1/2)

? A remake of the Italian comedy-drama of the same name, released here in 2002, with a screenplay by Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash). Zach Braff is a young architect who adores his girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) but has marriage anxiety that may lead him astray. Meanwhile, his friends and his potential in-laws (Blythe Danner, Tom Wilkinson) have their own relationship issues.

+ The subplots surrounding the friends are mostly played for laughs, but the primary story gets under the skin of its characters and is both hilarious and painful, sometimes at once. The confusing period between college and adult responsibilities is the turf being explored, yet the older couple provides a different perspective. Danner is absolutely heartbreaking as a woman whose husband seems unable to give her the affection she craves. The female characters seem as strongly written as the male ones, and Barrett does a nice job.

- You’d think from watching American comedy movies that guys always want to stay single and women always want to get married. But I guess that’s not the fault of this movie alone.

= ***1/2 Worth seeing as a comedy; worth seeing as a drama, and sure to provoke debate about when a relationship is worth sticking with. One of the few American remakes of a foreign film that is a bit better than the source.

IMDb link