August 2002 Volume 83 Number 8 "serving the protectors"
Edited by John Ballantyne

In this popular comedy-drama, Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones’s Diary) plays Will Freeman, a rich, child-free and irresponsible Londoner in his thirties.

In his search for available women, he poses as a single parent in order to crash a meeting of SPAT (Single Parents, Alone Together).

As a result of one of his liaisons, he meets Marcus (Nicholas Hault), an odd 12-year-old with problems at school.

Will – in true Hugh Grant form – acts like a perfect ass when he falls in love with the lovely Rachel (Rachel Weisz) and attempts to pass off Marcus as his own son.

In the course of the story, Will and Marcus become unlikely friends, and as Will teaches Marcus how to be a cool kid, Marcus helps Will finally to grow up.

Comic though the film is, it has quite a few home truths about our infantilized culture.

The question arises – who really is the “boy” in the film’s title? Who is in more need of growing up? The 38-year-old Will or the 12-year-old Marcus?

In what critics have described as his finest film performance to date, Grant steps out of his familiar bumbling and stammering persona and reveals the tormented soul of an essentially lonely man who gradually recognizes his own inadequacies.

The film confirms the old maxim that growing up has nothing to do with age.

Also stars René Zellweger (Bridget Jones’ Diary).

Dirty Deeds

It is 1969. Two Chicago hoods are sent out to Australia to cash in on the money being made through Sydney’s illegal casinos.

Gambling is going through the roof, owing mainly to the influx of American servicemen on leave from the Vietnam War.

At the same time, a young Australian soldier named Darcy (Sam Worthington) returns to Sydney after a tour of duty in Vietnam.

Darcy is met at the airport by his uncle, Barry Ryan (Bryan Brown), who runs the shady end of town – the good time stuff: SP bookies, seedy nightclubs, a bit of two-up and illegal casinos.

Barry has an attractive wife, a young son, a mistress, and a crooked detective (Sam Neill) on his payroll.

His wife Sharon (Toni Collette) – loyal, loving and tough – is determined to remain the number-one woman in Barry’s life and equally determined that he remains the number-one gangster in town.

When the American mafia dispatches two Chicago hoods (John Goodman, Felix Williamson) to muscle in on the action, Barry’s life takes a dramatic turn.

Barry decides to give the Yanks a lesson in outback hospitality.

Bend It Like Beckham

A recent British release, which is proving a smash hit and real crowd-pleaser, is Bend It Like Beckham.

Eighteen-year-old Jess (Parminder Nagra) has her heart set on playing soccer like her hero, David Beckham.

But her strict parents want her to be a nice, conventional Indian girl.

Jess finally gets her chance when she meets tomboy Jules (Keira Knightley, Star Wars 1 – The Phantom Menace), who invites her to join the local women’s soccer team.

The two girls set their sights high and their team really takes off.

But Jess’s parents don’t understand why she won’t settle down, study law and learn to cook the perfect chapatti.

Jules dreams of playing in the women’s league in the US, where the girls get paid, get sponsorship and get proper respect.

But her mother (Juliet Stevenson, Truly Madly Deeply) wishes she could be a bit more girlie – how ever is she going to find a boyfriend if she won’t even put on a dress?

What her mother doesn’t know is that Jules isn’t interested in “playing the field” – she’s just after one man, team coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Velvet Goldmine). But Joe, because of his position, is out of bounds.

This fast-paced film is a witty and fun story about girls trying to make it big in a man’s game, and at the same time casts light on the dilemmas and conflicting loyalties experienced by children of immigrants – especially of immigrants from non-Western societies.

The Importance of Being Earnest

In this adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s best known play, writer-director Oliver Parker (An Ideal Husband) assembles a top cast to perform this witty comedy of manners and mistaken identity.

In 1890s London, the caddish Algernon Montcrieff (Rupert Everett, An Ideal Husband) runs into his friend, Jack Worthing (Colin Firth, Bridget Jones’s Diary), who is in town to propose marriage to Algy’s wildly romantic cousin, Gwendolen (Frances O’Connor).

When returning a cigarette case to Jack, Algy reads the inscription, and discovers his friend has two secrets.

Jack has created a devilish younger brother/alter ego called “Ernest” to hide his own misdeeds, and has a beautiful young ward named Cecily (Reese Witherspoon), whom he wants to keep well clear of the roguish Algy.

While Jack deals with his fiancée Gwendolen’s mother, the imperious Lady Bracknell (Judi Dench, The Shipping News, Iris), Algy devises a way to meet Cecily.

Mayhem and laughs ensue when Algy arrives at Jack’s country manor posing as Ernest in order to woo Cecily, and Gwendolen runs to the country to be with Jack – whom she knows as Ernest.

The stellar cast of this film can hardly fail to make this entertaining, but director Oliver Parker is too keen to inject novelty into a script – which really needs no improvement.

Viewers might care to compare this latter-day adaptation with the more faithful 1952 rendition, starring Michael Redgrave and Edith Evans.

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