Jennifer and I head off to the cinema almost every weekend. We think it’s fair enough – we don’t drink (much), smoke (at all), own a TV (except the occasional programme via VoD). We generally rent movies that we miss from LOVEFiLM, we rarely buy any new ones. So the movie industry gets our money through our visits to the cinema, and it’s the best experience watching a movie (HD and Blu-Ray will only go so far on a 17″ laptop). Well, except when you have to deal with the more mature cinema goer who loves to give a running commentary (An Education), students who don’t understand what’s going on (It’s Complicated, which wasn’t) or the more immature teenager who just won’t shut up.

So I thought I would produce a regular feature of mini-reviews for the films we’ve seen.

First up we have It’s Complicated, written & directed by Nancy “The Holiday” Meyers and starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin. Streep and Baldwin are in fine form as a divorced couple (Jane & Jake) who re-ignite their passions together during a trip to New York for their son’s graduation. The problem is that Jake has remarried to the woman who was the cause of Jane & Jake’s breakup in the first place. Jake later reveals that he’s fallen back in love with Jane and that things are not going so well on the marriage front with Agness. Meanwhile Jane is enjoying the attention from Adam (played by Martin), who is Jane’s architect (she’s adding an extension to her already huge house!).

Needless to say there are all manner of complications arising from relationship she has with Jake and people get hurt (but unlike the typical American romcom fashion, it’s done in a very amusing way that caught me off guard!). Oh, but IN typical American romcom fashion there’s the usual drug references and getting stoned which IS funny, but is still an old device used to get laughs.

The star of this movie is not Streep, Martin or Baldwin, but rather John Krasinski who steals the show as Streep’s daughter’s finance, who plays witnesses to Jane’s liasons with Jake and tries to keep it from his finance. This guy is genuinely the best performer out the entire cast.

It’s Complicated is a good film. Not perfect, but certainly enjoyable.

Up in the Air, written and directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan “Ghostbusters” Reitman who also serves as this film’s producer), is another comedy. More sitcom than romcom, it stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer employed by companies to deal with their staff redundancies. As a consequence of this, Ryan does a lot of flying and has amassed all the privileges that business class flying brings. Rarely does Bingham stay in one spot for more than a few nights – he is always travelling. As well as downsizing companies, he is a motivational speaker who gets paid lots of money to speak on his subject of “What’s in your backback?” (he essentially talks about life’s baggage and what you put in your “backpack” including relationships, financial commitments, and so on – and this plays an important part of the plot).

During one of Bingham’s trips, he meets Alex, a like-minded businesswoman who spends a lot of her time away from home travelling across the US. They hit it off, and eventually end up seeing it each other when their schedules allow.

Bingham is almost “grounded” by his boss who has taken on a newly graduated employee who intends to roll out a new video conference system to their clients so that nobody has to fly (and therefore save the company money in hotels and flight costs). Bingham quite rightly points out that this is very impersonal and takes the new graduate (Natalie) on his last set of trips so that she can see what he does and how it should be done. She’s still bright-eyed, somewhat naive, and has a boyfriend for whom she travelled the country for.

Up in the Air is a complex mesh of different emotions coming together (loneliness, committal, losing a job, fear, love, etc.) and the people it affects. Bingham himself does not believe in marriage but, as he gets closer to Alex, feels that he is ready to commit. Natalie something similar, but relates to her career. It’s an absolutely brilliant film and I believe Clooney’s best to date. Reitman, who has already done a brilliant job with Juno, excels himself here with both his writing and direction. It’s well worth the nominations it’s getting and I can see this film walking away with a lot of awards soon.

An Education, from BBC Films, is based around the memoirs of Lynn Barber and adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby (who also produces). It’s directed by Danish female director, Lone Scherfig.

The plot is quite simple: 16-year old student Jenny is working her way through her exams to get into Oxford. Her parents (her father in particular, being played by the wonderful Alfred Molina) is pushing her hard to exceed. But one day she encounters David, a thirty-something man whom she befriends on her way home from school. He connects to her interest in art, French and eventually he persuades her parents to allow him to take her to a concert in London, followed by dinner at an exclusive club where she meets David’s other friends Danny and Helen. David uses his smooth and sophisticated ways further on Jenny’s parents to allow her to go to Oxford as he claims that he knows C.S. Lewis and is an old ala-mater of Oxford himself. Things start to get deeper between David and Jenny and David concocts more lies to allow Jenny more freedom away from her parents. They eventually go to Paris where Jenny loses her virginity to David on her 17th birthday.

During all of this, Jenny’s teachers express concern and try to talk her out of the relationship. Eventually David proposes to Jenny and against her teachers’ wishes and concerns, drops out of school. Jenny’s parents are delighted despite that she’s not going to go to Oxford as they believe David has all the qualities that they’ve been looking for in a son-in-law and that Jenny will be well looked after.

Well, things progress further, but I shall not spoil them here. An Education is an excellent film that I thoroughly recommend you see before it leaves the cinemas (which, from the looks of things, is this week). It’s up for numerous awards this year too and I can also see this doing very well.

Summary:

It’s Complicated: 7 out of 10
Up in the Air: 9 out of 10
An Education: 9 out of 10