(12A) 109mins
WHEN those first synth beats of Take On Me kick off, I know many people who can’t help rushing on to a sticky dancefloor.
However, I’ve never met a devoted fan of the song’s creators, Norwegian three-piece A-ha.
Which is a surprise, as this film reveals there are millions of them.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary chronicles the career of the band — that many music laymen consider a one-hit wonder, but have had a career spanning 35 years.
Hit single Take On Me topped the charts in more than 20 countries, but for singer Morten Harket, keyboard player Magne Furuholmen and guitarist Pal Waaktaar-Savoy, it was both a blessing and a curse.
Flipping between old and new footage, the film shows a band who originally thought of themselves as a Norwegian Joy Division, but were soon thrust into the world of teeny boppers and double-denim photoshoots.
Magne and Pal put it down to the chiselled cheekbones and sun-kissed skin of their lead singer.
In a revealing interview from the mid-80s, Morten is asked what the band would be without his handsome face
He responds: “We’d have avoided a lot of problems. I mean, I’m born like this. I’ve never worked out.”
Now the sixtysomethings are barely capable of sitting in a room together without tension, and mostly travel apart.
Magne admits: “I think everyone who works with us gets exhausted.
There’s always a tug of war, grinding of teeth, dirty looks and plenty of reluctance.”
While this documentary tells you everything you need to know about the career of A-ha, it does not reveal much about their private lives.
Which is a great shame, as two of the three seem to have magically maintained pre-fame marriages.
Only voice-overs and old footage of their wives are played.
Directors Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm do an impressive job in making a documentary about a band many know little about, revealing their highs and lows admirably.
But after nearly two hours of interviews and footage, it does leave non-fans like me wondering if, even after 35 years of success, there’s enough rock’n’roll in A-ha to warrant an entire film.
(12A) 137mins
A STORY of a gay poet bed-hopping around the champagne-swigging, arty social scene of 1920s London is bound to be a jolly riot, right? Wrong.
This morbid and painfully slow Terence Davies film is so melancholy that the sound of laughter seems alien on leaving the cinema.
This is the story of real-life poet Siegfried Sassoon – played as a young man by Jack Lowden and in old age by Peter Capaldi – a jaded soldier who became a conscientious objector and whose tragic poems about the men lost to World War One became the voice of the voiceless.
Having refused to return to war, Siegfried is placed in a hospital where he is deemed mentally ill.
After some time there – and a brief romance with a fellow patient – he is out in the capital partying with socialites and dating Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine).
The songwriter is described as having “cruel eyes” by Siegfried’s mother (Geraldine James) – and she is proved right when he breaks her son’s heart.
There are plenty more romances, littered with long readings of poetry and even longer scenes of the poet’s older life, trapped in a sexless marriage and finding the church.
Beautifully acted, but so full of serious sorrow and choppy editing that it’s near-impossible to feel fully devoted to the characters.
(15) 105mins
THREE guys find themselves in a Goldilocks- meets-Weekend-At-Bernie’s situation on a US college campus in Carey Williams’ bromantic social satire.
In an ultimately wearisome comedy of errors, strait-laced Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and aimless Sean (RJ Cyler) are best friends on a mission to be the first black students to complete a party crawl of exclusive frat houses before they graduate.
But when they and Latino housemate Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) find an unconscious white girl in their apartment, it causes panic about the racial optics.
So instead of calling 911 and risking police brutality, the trio embark on a paranoid road trip with the girl’s sister on their tail, heading towards a chaotic collision.
While it has some small moments of mirth, it’s all a bit ridiculous and undercooked with screenwriter K.D. Davila rarely offering more than stock characters.
It’s a bloated script trying to walk the line between the serious themes of race relations and women’s safety on campus but only offering a well-trodden assessment of the former and undermining the latter.
The acting is up and down but mostly competent under Williams’ uninspired direction.
There’s no emergency to see this film.
By Hanna Flint
CHRIS HEMSWORTH plays a creepy researcher in Netflix’s new thriller Spiderhead.
Pixar has announced a new animated film, Elemental, which will be released next year.
Reacher star Alan Ritchson has joined Fast & Furious movie Fast X.
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