Film: Blue Heron
Now, a run of three films - becoming quite the habit! Today, I decided on Blue Heron - set in the 1990s, it sees a family move to Vancouver Island, only to have serious problems with the increasingly erratic behaviour of their teenage son. Showing in the Garden Cinema, nice and late - I put myself to bed and set the alarm in time to go and eat beforehand. When I checked before going out, it was mostly booked - a last-minute rush - so I booked too.
Headed to Nando's Holborn, where the frazzled manager said, to avoid the sun glaring through the windows, I could sit right in the corner, beside the plant - or I could just sit right there, at a table for four. Which I did. The place was shortly afterwards absolutely crammed with well-dressed young people of colour - being Sunday, I speculated that they'd been to church, which was confirmed when I saw one of them carrying a bible (!). There were two separate groups - the larger one co-opted all the tables by the wall, pushing them together, and despite having arrived after I did, still hadn't ordered by the time I left, one of them holding forth on something like she was the leader.
For my part, it took ages for my wine to come, and indeed the food did come first, served by the surliest waiter I've ever seen there! She'd already turned away when I asked her about the wine - had to repeat myself, and she couldn't have looked less interested, but said she'd go check. So she came back with that a while later, plonking it on the table with as little interest as she had in the food. Now, I was really early for the film - and the wine is cheaper at Nando's - so I cheekily ordered another, under the noses of the churchgoers. ;-) That one came faster. I had time for dessert, but was honestly stuffed.
Popped over to the cinema in time for the film, and was getting another drink when the announcement came that the cinema was open. I was the last in before the guy giving a small speech about the film, and how he'd been one of the ones that proposed it, and had been planning to watch it himself, but now couldn't because of the rota.
The producers, as this guy told us, were also responsible for Everybody to Kenmure Street, which I found excellent. And this is a beautifully shot piece, shot on location - and the scenery around there is gorgeous - and sensitively handled, the troubled boy sailing beatifically through it with no apparent idea of the trouble he's causing, and certainly no interest in it. The story is told from the perspective of his little sister, too young to be making decisions about what happens, but old enough to be affected by it.
Funnily enough, the troubled kid is the only one named. I think. Of course, with him acting up all the time - in large ways and small - the family tends to revolve around him. In what is probably a biographical piece, we are, towards the end, given a summary of what happens outside the scope of the film. Certainly, during the film, we only hear secondhand about what's happening outside our purview - and to be honest, not a lot really happens. Plot is minimal - this is a mood piece. As I say, very sensitively handled.
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