Bridge of Spies, The Good Dinosaur, Carol The Film Review

places above Edmund. And we will keep you up-to-date with the second

t20 International for England against Pakistan. Now it is time to

the film review. -- now it is time for the Film Review.

Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.

To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

We have got stunners this week? We are in award season, we have Bridge

of Spies, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and Mark Rylance. We have

The Good Dinosaur, the latest from Pixar. And Carol, Cate Blanchett,

Shreck, Todd Haynes and Patricia Highsmith, what more could you want?

-- Rooney Mara. The most trusted American according to one poll? This

is the cold war movie in which Tom Hanks was inspired by a true story.

James Donovan is enlisted early on to defend someone who has been

charged with being a Soviet spy, played by Mark Rylance. Initially he

is not keen. Here is a clip. OK, here's the thing, the Soviets want

you to defend the spy. Here is the indictment. Wow. I'm not sure I want

to pick that up. The accused does not know any lawyers, the federal

court tossed him into our lap. You are the unanimous choice. It is

important to the country that this man is seen as getting a fair shake.

American justice will be on trial. When you put it that way it's an

honour to be asked. I'm an insurance lawyer and I have not done criminal

work in years. It's like riding a bike, isn't it? I was on the

prosecution team. That's not the point. You are no stranger to

criminal law. The man is publicly reviled. I will be too. Yes, but

that is how it has to be done and capably done. It cannot look as

though the justice system tosses people on the Ashes. That looked

good. It is a drama and it has elements of a thriller and comedic

elements. The key phrase is seen as getting a fair trial. Once Tom

Hanks's character has the bit between his teeth he starts wanting

to defend him properly because he believes in the rule book. In this

case the Constitution. It looks on the outside like a companion piece

to Catch Me If You Can, but it is like Lincoln, defending the

constitution and that the rules are good. After he has defended the

alleged Soviet spy we then jump some period of time forward where there

are Americans being held on the other side and he is brought back to

negotiate a prisoner swap. The film then takes some of the insurance

doublespeak that we saw him using in the beginning, this is a film that

makes a hero of an insurance lawyer! It turns the doublespeak

into a freedom mantra. This is a very Spielberg idea. And not marry

man in body and everything that is best about America but doing it in a

way that is firstly so reassuringly well-made. It is like sitting in a

well pollsters armchair. You think that we are an hands of a master

craftsman. There is superb comedy as you would expect from Hanks.

Watching Mark Rylands and Tom Hanks laying together, they are from very

different worlds but they're acting styles couldn't be more different. I

am reminded of Eliot and ET, worlds apart! It works well on screen. In

the United States, insurance lawyers are regarded as the people who stop

you getting any money whatsoever, so they are not the good guys. At the

very beginning we see him arguing that his client has been involved in

an accident in which he has run into five motorcycles. One accident, not

five, he says, but then it is turned on its head. It is very much like

Spielberg. The Good Dinosaur... You know how much I love Pixar and

Inside Out. Good Dinosaur has had a lot of problems, losing its original

director, got rewritten, lost most of its cast, and it is a what if

setup. In the beginning we saw the meteor that would have caused the

dinosaurs to be extinct, but it misses the earth and then we moved

to an evolved dinosaur and in an evolved human dog boy going on an

incredible journey. Those photo realistic backgrounds are

extraordinary but isn't it weird how they clash with the cartoon

characters. This is the whole thing that Pixar said you should never do,

if you start worrying about the background clashing, the story is

not working. It is not to say there aren't visual delights, which there

are. There are individual scenes which work and of course, it's a

Pixar film. As a holy does not hang together. It does not have the

timeless quality of their best. It is coming hot on the heels of Inside

Out which is so perfect. Its flaws are more obvious. I know you are

going to love Carol! There is nothing wrong with the film,

everything is right. A superb adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's

the price of salt. She catches the eye of Rooney Mara's shop

assistant, something passes between them and Carol is going through a

messy divorce. Rooney Mara's character is finding her feet. They

start to fall in love. Here is a clip. Thank you. Enjoy. I'm starved.

Bon appetit. What do you do on Sundays? Nothing in particular, what

do you do? Nothing, really. Would you like to come visit me sometime?

You are welcome to. At least there is pretty country around where I

live. Would you like to come and visit me this Sunday? Yes. What a

strange girl you are. Why? For -- flung out of space. 1950s... You can

see that so much of it is about what is not said. Where do we begin?

Superb script adaptation. Absolutely brilliantly done. Really uncluttered

script. Wonderful cinematography by Edward Lachman. Fantastic costume

design by Sandy Powell. It gives it an angular edge and it helps you

through the strange character shifts. Brilliantly directed by Todd

Haynes, one of those people who absolutely is a triumph of arthouse

experimentalism moving into mainstream adoration. Even the

editing, staying on Cate Blanchett where a lesser person would have cut

away for a reaction shot. I would say more about the editing but it

did exactly what it does come at you don't notice it. That is the weird

thing. I love this film. It is terrific. What it manages to do is

to be so many different things and it's very Todd Haynes. It has the

confidence of Far From Heaven, and it is inflected with film no art,

will it become a murder mystery? We have handguns in suitcases, private

detectives, effectively love is the crime scene. It is all going on in

the background whilst watching this forbidden love developing in a way

which is warm and intelligent and compassionate. I say this so rarely,

it does not put a foot wrong. At the end of it you just want to go, I

will see that again because I must have missed a mistake. I was just

thinking, we often talk about, and a number of people in Hollywood talk

about not having strong roles for women, but that is. Some of the best

films I have seen this year, ... Absolutely terrific. There is

clearly an industrial problem as far as Hollywood is concerned. When you

get to the independent sector, like the Carol Morleyfilm. They have to

realise there is an audience. Like there is a huge audience for

Brooklyn which is a film people found very hard initially to sell

because it is like, how do you sell this understated story of a young

woman going to America? It does not have spectacle but it has heart and

soul. A fantastic central performance. Is this 50s week? ! The

Good Dinosaur is a bit earlier! The Reflecting Skin. Have you seen this

film? I haven't. Philip Ridley is an extraordinary film-maker who has

made things like Heartless. And He Wrote The Script For The Krays. It

Is About A Young Boy Who Is Obsessed With Vampires. It Is Almost

Impossible To Explain. It won a lot of genre prizes. Now looking at it

again, it is one of those things when people refer to coralled movies

-- cult movies, often it sets out to be but this is just a weird piece of

work. It has found its audience or at least that is what a proper cult

movie looks like. Variety did not like it when it came out. It has

been a great week. It has. It is the season to be jolly! On that happy

note, quick reminder that you can find more film news online.

Including our previous shows. That's it for this week. Thanks for

watching. Goodbye.