Perhaps in the future, when Hollywood studios film young-adult bestsellers on a chapter-by-chapter basis, we’ll look upon this as an innocent time. For now, however, the fashionable practice of splitting concluding volumes into two films is a dispiriting one, disrupting the primary objective of a storytelling medium for craven commercial gain. Yet The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I (Lionsgate, 12) bears its structural amputations with more grace than it does its ungainly title: there’s no pretence that this third outing for dystopian warrior teen Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is anything but methodical scene-setting for a more action-packed finale, but director Francis Lawrence uses this limitation to try out a different tone on proceedings. This is The Hunger Games as pointed political procedural, detailing with some wit the tactical reconstruction of Katniss as a revolutionary figurehead by outside parties – notably spin doctor Plutarch Heavensbee, played by a quietly benevolent Philip Seymour Hoffman. More stimulating than thrilling, with a streak of satire that doesn’t impede its fundamental earnestness, this is still only half a movie. But it’s a pretty good half.
Better that than a bad whole, which Disconnect (Universal, 15) regrettably is – despite any number of narrative strands to choose from. Limping straight to DVD in the UK after premiering at the 2012 Venice festival, Henry-Alex Rubin’s film plays like Paul Haggis’s loathsome Crash for the social media age, as a handful of disparate saps are gradually linked by their mutual discovery that – gasp! – not everyone on the web is entirely trustworthy. The actors, Andrea Riseborough and Jason Bateman among them, aren’t at fault, save for agreeing to star in this feature-length “what’s in your wallet” ad.
There’s arguably more pointed social commentary in Horns (Lionsgate, 15) – a metaphysical trash-fantasy for which “Daniel Radcliffe has HORNS!” appears to have been the chief marketing hook. Demonic protrusions grow from the skull of Radcliffe’s middle-American schmuck, and with them comes canny insight into the darkest impulses of his fellow townspeople; it’s a symbolically blunt adaptation of Joe Hill’s novel, but Radcliffe and director Alexandre Aja go for it. Which is more than can be said for anyone in My Old Lady (Curzon, 12a), Israel Horovitz’s twee, tedious chamber play of parent-child friction and Paris property law, in which Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas dutifully recite lines at each other while eyeing up soft furnishings.
If it’s Gallic nostalgia you’re after, better to go with Attila Marcel (Metrodome, 12a), Sylvain Chomet’s fable of a mute, emotionally stunted man unpicking his own unhappy family history. Chomet, the brilliant director of Belleville Rendez-Vous and The Illusionist, knows his way around bittersweet whimsy, though his first live-action film is his least substantial.
Both My Old Lady and Attila Marcel might be angling for Mother’s Day viewing, but it’s The Skeleton Twins (Sony, 15) that adult families should seek out. Craig Johnson’s pained, poignant comedy about estranged siblings reconciling after separate considerations of suicide went sadly underseen last year, but is cultivating a loyal fan club – it looks to endure in a similar manner to Kenneth Lonergan’s comparable You Can Count on Me. For Kristen Wiig and her Saturday Night Live colleague Bill Hader, whose goofy, generous, richly detailed performances deserved awards notice, it’s indispensable.
It’s a good week for Saturday Night Live alumni: Tiny Fey has been the talk of the internet this week following the Netflix release (or uploading, if that’s your language) of her and Robert Carlock’s delicious new sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It stars the winningly wonky Ellie Kemper as a doomsday cult escapee adjusting to normal (relatively speaking) life in New York. I have yet to complete the 13-episode run but haven’t hit a duff one yet: Fey’s tart comic signature colours the whole enterprise, but this is more humane, complex material than 30 Rock. Network NBC must be kicking itself for passing the show on to the streaming giant; the former future of TV is now its very bright present.
