Christopher Plummer

There's a somewhat contrived jauntiness to this blending of fact and fiction that may leave cynical audiences annoyed. But for those who leave their bah-humbug attitudes at home, it's a wonderfully entertaining take on a classic. In 1843, when Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, the holiday was a fairly low-key religious festival. But the book helped create a cultural phenomenon that is still growing. And this enjoyable film recounts how it was written in six short weeks.

At the time, Dickens (Legion's Dan Stevens) was Britain's most famous author. But his last three novels failed to sell. Desperate for a hit due to financial pressures, he decides to write a Christmas book, something that had never really been done. But he's distracted by the fact that his wife Kate (Morfydd Clark) is pregnant and his parents (Jonathan Pryce and Ger Ryan) have dropped in for a noisy visit. As he plans this new book, the central figure of Scrooge (Christopher Plummer) is inspired by someone he meets, as are the rest of the story's characters and settings. But he's struggling to complete the tale, and time is running short.

The film basically proves the resilience of Dickens' iconic novella, because it has remarkable power even when turned inside-out by this script. Director Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) gives the film a twinkly, often comical tone but doesn't shy away from the darker corners or some strongly emotional moments. And the script includes quite a bit of biographical detail about Dickens' life without making it too melodramatic. With his book, Dickens wanted to address Britain's harsh labour practices and the greediness of capitalism, urging people to be kinder to each other. So he reinvented Christmas as a time of year to reach out to those less fortunate.

Continue reading: The Man Who Invented Christmas Review

While this geriatric romance is too simplistic and sentimental to be anything remarkable, its lively central performances add some badly needed subtext and make the film worth a look. Meanwhile, the supporting cast add some spark to their scenes, elevating the warm, silly drama with quirky humour and some more resonant themes. It's also remarkably honest about how it feels to grow older.

Set in New Orleans, the story starts as 80-year-old Fred (Christopher Plummer) is moved by his hyperactive daughter Lydia (Marcia Gay Harden) into a small apartment building. Fred's wife has recently died, but they didn't get along very well, so he's enjoying being on his own. Although Lydia's husband (Chris Noth) has yet another crazy business scheme he wants Fred to invest in. And his new next door neighbour is Elsa (Shirley MacLaine), a larger-than-life 74-year-old who claims to have once known Picasso. Her son Raymond (Scott Bakula) looks in on her from time to time, while she secretly supports her younger son Alec (Reg Rogers) in his artistic career. She also immediately starts trying to coax Fred out of his shell.

Obviously, the main idea is that you're never too old to fall in love, so director-cowriter Michael Radford (Il Postino) tries to balance a comedy about ageing with a sweet love story about an engagingly mismatched couple. The blend of genres is somewhat uneven, as the script never quite decides whether it's about making the most of the time you have left, being open to unexpected romance or accepting your family members for who they are. All of these big themes are in here, most with a fairly heavy-handed touch. But at least this means that the film is about more than just a bunch of goofy characters interacting in rather silly ways.

Continue reading: Elsa & Fred Review

With an approach so saccharine that it makes Eat Pray Love look like an edgy thriller, this heartwarming meaning-of-life odyssey is so relentlessly schmalzy that it quickly annoys anyone with even a tiny spark of cynicism inside them. And the annoying thing is that the filmmakers might have got away with it if there was any depth to the constant flow of uplifting sloganeering.

It starts in London, where the psychiatrist Hector (Simon Pegg) has a perfect life with his cheeky girlfriend Clara (Rosamund Pike). But the misery of his patients is rubbing off on him, so he decides to go in search of the true meaning of happiness. He starts by heading to Shanghai, where he meets a stinking-rich businessman (Stellan Skarsgard) and a sexy young woman (Zhao Ming). But is happiness found in money or sex? Silly question. Moving on, he checks out knowledge and wisdom in Tibet with a monk (Togo Igawa), then charity and power in Africa with an old pal (Barry Atsma), a drug kingpin (Jean Reno) and a gang of heavily armed rebels. Finally, he heads to Los Angeles to explore nostalgia with his old flame Agnes (Toni Collette), who helps him track down an award-winning self-help author (Christopher Plummer) who's known as "the Einstein of happiness".

Based on the book by Francois Lelord, the film is assembled along an outline of Hector's discoveries along the road, so what he discovers is actually written across the screen. But none of it is remotely enlightening, so why is he travelling to China, Tibet and Africa to discover these cheesy aphorisms, which appear on trite motivational posters in every office in the Western world? In addition to the on-screen captions, there are animated segments from Hector's travel diary, which are clearly drawn by a professional artist, not this hapless goofball who can't even remember where his pen is.

Continue reading: Hector And The Search For Happiness Review