Michael Winterbottom is one of those directors who seems to make one dud for every bright and shiny gem. I use the term 'dud' loosely of course as even his most gratuitously pointless films - I'm thinking of 9 Songs and Tristram Shandy* here - were at least self-conscious in their gratuitous pointlessness, the humble director trying to stretch the boundaries of gratuitous pointlessness to break through to whole new levels, no, glorious shining vistas of gratuitous pointlessness.
Anyhoo. My point is that when he's at the top of his game, it's usually because the film feeds into some larger socio-political narrative - hence the success of Welcome to Sarajevo, Code 46, and especially The Road to Guantanamo.
His latest, the claustrophobic family drama Genova doesn't come close to either of these extremes. Indeed it at times veers dangerously close towards being something that would normally be unthinkable in conjunction with Winterbottom's name: formulaic. Duh duh DUUUUUHHHHH.
After his wife (Hope Davis) dies in a horrific car accident, Joe (Colin Firth) decides that a year in Italy will be just the thing to help his daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) recover from the tragedy. With assistance from old flame Barbara (Catherine Keener), the family is soon settled in Genova, Joe lecturing at the university, waifish teen Kelly drawn into easy distractions of the beach, dope and bronzed male bodies, while little Mary, traumatised by her mother's death, begins to withdraw on herself, haunted by possible visitations by her mother.
There is nothing wrong with the performances here - Colin Firth effectively plays on his ruddy, fresh-faced Englishness as the buttoned down widower, while Catherine Keener gives Barbara just the right edge of desperation in her efforts to reignite things with Joe. Perla Haney-Jardine is meanwhile brilliant as the child Mary, heartbreakingly conveying the little girl's helpless entanglement in a labyrinth of guilt, grief and confusion.
Typically of Winterbottom** Genova is shot in very naturalistic manner, the handheld effect dragging the viewer along with the characters at street level. This is particularly effective in the first half of the film, the high-walled alleys in the mess of the old part of the city closing in oppressively on the two girls, the soundtrack lending such scenes a touch of menace.
As the film progresses however the tension established earlier on so successfully begins to ebb, the climax in which the grief-stricken family is drawn together falling flat in a way that doesn't quite resolve the cadence. As a naturalistic portrayal of a particularly painful period in the lives of a middle class family, Genova succeeds in a limited way - there is eventually a path out of the maze, grief and loss are eventually overcome.
The problem is that it doesn't really say that much - in comparison to his other work, there is none of the delightful post-modern gymnastics of 24 Hour Party People, nor the burning anger of his documentary work. It simply feels pointless. Not gratuitously so - just pointless.
On the upside though, at least his adaptations of The Shock Doctrine and Murder in Samarkand aren't too far off - now THOSE will be meaty. Torture? Cover ups? You betcha!
And here's some cunning diversions: This one's about drugs and hypocrisy. Mmmm... drugs; this one's about tragedy and hypocrisy; and this one's about confronting hypocrisy wherever it may lie - including that nice Mr Obama.
* Yes, I realise that gratuitous pointlessness is part of the point of Tristram Shandy. I read it, OK? Well, most of it. I just think that Winterbottom's adaptation, although incredibly courageous, merely managed to suck one into a veritable vortex of gratuitous pointlessness with the force of Sterne's humanism being to some extent lost in translation, not even the few laughs on offer being enough to save it from a blackhole of self-reflexive bullshit. Gillian Anderson was hot though - MW gets brownie points for that. Mmm...
** Not to mention folks like Loach, Leigh and Meadows. What is it about the English and social realism? Bless their dear 'earts.
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