Picturehouse Central preview screening and Q&A

[thunder]

Jason, Raynor Winn and Marianne Elloit will do a q&a after a preview screening at Picturehouse Central. I think it's in central London.

https://x.com/CentralPictureH/status/19 ... 9899033925 (nice pics)

Booking: https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-det ... -a?filter=

[Anniemouse]

Those images are amazing. Gutted at such a limited release.

[Antoni Bandzior]

A friend might have a ticket to sell for it, if anyone is interested...

[servalan]

The Cameo cinema in Edinburgh is part of the Picturehouse chain, so maybe they will get it too at some point.
(That's where Skeletons was shown years ago, and Jason was part of the Q&A after it.)

[servalan]

I just saw a trailer on TV for the film!

[Anniemouse]

Brilliant. Kermode will probably review it this week and that will end up on Youtube.

[Antoni Bandzior]

Will see, if Kermode is there. Or at the other event.
There're 2 screenings at the same time, one with Jason and q&a after, and the other with Gilian. Of course neither of the cinemas are answering any questions if you write to them. Really shitty organisation if you ask me. And weird that this screenings are literally next to each other, five minutes walk from one another.

[Anniemouse]

How strange.

[servalan]

The film is being shown at various big name UK cinemas from the end of May. I checked my local listings.

[thunder]

That's good news.

[Antoni Bandzior]

Yrgh... I just wrote elaborate review and then clicked the wrong thing and everything disappeared... I'll write again on a plane home.

[Antoni Bandzior]

Okay, back again with the review.

Phew...
Where to start?
Ah, there were 2 events, someone I know won the ticket to the event with Gilian and there was an option for them to take autos and pictures with them, but from what I understood it was a really small event and there wasn't even an option to buy regular tickets for it. After those brief conversations he left for the PictureHouse q&a because at that point the movie was finished and the other venue was done. At our event was the director of the movie, screenwriter and the book creator. Plus obviously Jason (Gilian wasn't here at all). I still think this organisation is weird at best.

So let's get to the movie.

Serious spoilers, feel warned from now on.

The views are beautiful, but it's Wales, so really no surprise here. They told us that nature is the third main character in the story, I must agree with that.
Music is nice to the ear, sometimes boosting the energy of the scene, sometimes completely disappearing in the action, so you don't hear it.

The screenwriter said during the panel that she doesn't want to go into details about turning the book into a movie, but I have few complaints about it. The thoughts of the main character are something that makes this book real, human, because it's alive then. She (screenwriter) cut it out almost completely, if you don't count one scene at the very end, where we hear Raynor's thoughts. Instead they're replaced by silence, which was the creators idea. I would definitely put Gilian as a narrator of the story and that would be so, so much deeper then.
They cut off a few very important scenes from the book, I know that you have always limited screen time, but still.
They're moments that dragged on, while they cut out the important relationships they established along the way. There's a lot of scenes from the past jumping out between walking sequences, and at some point there's a plot that's not explained at all, like them renovating a house. It's not explained where this house came from, so if someone wasn't reading a book - it's difficult to figure if it's another reminiscence or the next phase of the story.
And at some point the whole story is just cut short, with only a description of what happened later on in their lives. Lazy writing if I might say(on the scenario level)
Plus the whole part about them starving and being really exhausted is barely shown. Most of the time they do have food in the movie, which wasn't the case in the book. The fears, struggling and conflict barely shown.

The acting is impeccable. Jason did an amazing job, and I can't even get my hands on Gilian, because she did good too(I'm not her biggest fan, but I suppose she did give Raynor justice). Moth I haven't seen, he was somewhere in the building, and later on attended reception after the q&a, but he was never on stage, so it was difficult to compare how accurately Jason mimicked him. But the whole body language, the physical struggle, changes that are showing up slowly, that feels very real on screen. Well, Jason definitely knows what he's doing, and is doing it perfectly. They're both deeply involved in portraying the story and humans they're playing as close to the original as possible and it's visible (although there's one particular scene where Jason is just Jason, not Moth anymore and it's very obvious for those who have seen him in action during comic cons).
Was it an Oscar worthy performance?I don't know, I don't believe in Oscar's accuracy to discover a good movie, not just a publicly acclaimed one. I was afraid Gilian would steal all the attention and prizes, but I'm not sure that'd be the case. It would be nice if both of them were spotted for it, but I'm obviously crossing my fingers for Jason. He soooo deserves it.

The costumes and make-up department screwed it up totally, if you ask me. His beard didn't grow for months, the haircut was changing based on I suppose the order of filming was not as the story goes. The clothes were clean, not even sweaty, no one on the road (apart from one scene) grimaced, that's not how people react to homeless people's scent. The topic of smell wasn't touched on at all, when at the same time it was very visible in the book.

The movie is nice, but it lacks something, more deeper scenes maybe, more inner thoughts of characters? Everything important - attention catching scenes are already in the trailer, except for one closing scene at the end. I took tissues but they weren't needed. The movie doesn't leave you in sadness nor conflict, it gives you a weird sense of connection to nature, hope and some ideas about human ability to survive and thrive even in the worst circumstances. (Although it gave me a serious question about the lack of basic education about survival in the wild. Do children in the UK know the basics about survival? )

The panel was fine, but too short(I'm greedy, I know). The moderator was very sensible, asking good questions about production, creation and the story. Most of them went to the reception afterwards that was in the VIP area of the cinema. Moth was also there, so they could meet up again with Jason.

[Anniemouse]

Thank you for the review. I used to be a Brownie as a kid (a female scout for those abroad) older girls were Guides. I cannot remember any survival training and there certainly was no classes regarding that at school. Admittedly I am as old as the hills so things might be different today. It will be interesting to read other peoples thoughts on the film. It sounds like a great performance.

[Antoni Bandzior]

I'm shocked because we teach children here how to find north in the woods, and such things since kindergarten... And I was pissed off for half of the movie how inept they were with finding food(and from people living in a village before, that's incomprehensible for me) and how badly not logical in their survival behaviours. But on the other hand when you are in huge crisis, logical thinking might go to the bin. And they were definitely ripped off of their comfort zone without a proper time to prepare.
I'm really glad they made it to the point they're now.

[servalan]

Thanks a lot for the review.

Just one point, it's not Wales, it's Devon & Cornwall, the most south-westerly peninsula of England. That's why it's called the South West Coastal Path.