Free stuff!

More preview screenings to warm the heart and save us from the autumn rains, or something. First up: Untouchable, the Weinsteins’ latest French acquisition now being aggressively peddled on a social media outlet near you. This is an odd couple tale of posh paraplegic Phillipe (François Cluzet) and his working-class carer Driss (Omar Sy), who is hired on a whim and of course brings about much mutual discovery and understanding for the pair despite their chalk’n’cheese origins.

The whole thing hinges on the character of Driss, and luckily in Sy – who served his apprenticeship in TV comedy – they’ve found an actor who can clown with the best of them but is imposing enough to convince as a guy who hasn’t lead the most law-abiding of lifestyles up to this point.

Having said that, realism is definitely not on the menu here. This is classic feelgood fare in which a man disabled from the neck down gets stoned, driven around Paris at ridiculously high speeds and has his ears fondled by hookers (they being his one remaining fully-functioning erogenous zone). Most scenes are played for laughs, the vast majority deliver, and when the film does touch on darker moments it wisely refuses to disrupt its flow by dwelling on them unduly.

It’s worth mentioning that some reviews of Untouchable have raised the dreaded R word and levelled accusations of Uncle Tom-ism and suchlike. For what it’s worth, I was having far too much fun during the film to worry about its duty to depict black people in a certain light, or whatever other PC-ness it should or shouldn’t possess. I suspect most viewers who go into it without an agenda will feel entirely the same. It’s escapism. A fairy tale. Based on a true story too, come to think of it.

Place your bets now on who will ruin the inevitable Hollywood remake, and thank your lucky stars that at least Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker don’t appear to have proper careers anymore.

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There comes a time in many a young Hollywood starlet’s life when they are compelled to demonstrate their range by crossing the wide ocean and putting on their best English accent for a film (particularly, from an American point of view, to show their dowdier, less perfectly-toothed side).

Dakota Fanning is the latest to chance her arm, with decidedly mixed results. Now Is Good requires her to play a teenaged leukemia sufferer who wants to make the most of her remaining existence by doing a bucket list of stuff, most notably losing her V-plates. In different hands this could have been a bawdy romp, an edgy indie-schmindie flick or a full-on weepie. Writer/director Ol Parker’s film tries to be all of the above, and ultimately amounts to very little.

Amongst all the swings in tone, minor characters get lost, seasons change seemingly at random, most of the jokes feel out of place and all the performances feel rather flat, even from seasoned actors of Olivia Williams and Paddy Considine’s calibre. Fanning delivers her lines in a weary monotone which, fair enough, is in keeping with her character’s situ, but never really lights up the screen. Whether an English actress would have played the role and better or worse is entirely moot. Without her, Now Is Good would barely have a reason to exist at all.

A shame, as the end (spoiler alert: yes, it is the ending you’re thinking of) succeeds in actually stirring the emotions. The rest of the film made me kind of sad too, just not in any of the right places.

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I was meant to be seeing another preview last night, but a doctor’s appointment took precedence instead. I am however definitely not either paralysed from the neck down or about to die of cancer, which is nice.