The Rewrite (Hugh Grant)

(Amazon UK link)

I like browsing Amazon’s recommendations now and again, looking for things to add to my wishlist. I assume that they offered this suggestion because it’s a light romantic film with some humour, and also because it stars Hugh Grant, and I have given high ratings to some of his other films.

So I was pleased to be given ‘The Re-write’ for my birthday, and last night we watched it with an adult son. Hugh Grant, as our son commented afterwards, almost always plays similar parts, and this one suits him perfectly. He plays a washed-up British screenwriter in his late forties called Keith. He had one major success some years previously, but is now struggling financially. He is offered a temporary job teaching screenwriting at a small American university, and while he doesn’t think writing can be taught, he sees no alternative…

Keith is rather naive, unsure of what he’s supposed to do in his class, overwhelmed by the seventy scripts he has to read within two days, and nervous about his new role. It’s ideal for the slightly bumbling Englishman that Hugh Grant is used to playing, surrounded by women who evidently find him attractive.

There’s a storyline involving a seductive girl in his class and a pleasanter one involving an older student who has daughters of his own. And there are some gems about writing in general, as well as insights into university life. As Keith gets to know his class, he discovers that teaching isn’t such a bad career after all, and that he can learn to care about each individual and help them in different ways.

Most of the film is predictable, and I don’t recall any particularly humorous sections, but it’s light-hearted and fun, relationship-based rather than with any great plot. I liked the way that, although most of Keith’s students are attractive girls, the two rather unattractive nerdy boys play significant positive parts in his class, and in the story as a whole.

The rating is 12 which I think is right, though it wouldn’t be of much interest to anyone under the age of about sixteen. There are implied intimacies but nothing overt; some bad language, and a great deal of drinking, but no violence.

Recommended for a light and pleasant evening’s undemanding viewing.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

Liberal Arts (Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Olsen)

(Amazon UK link)

I don’t think I had come across any of the actors in this film. So I think it must have been one of the many that Amazon recommended to me, based on my previous wishlist and reviewed DVDs. The blurb sounded interesting, so I put it on my list, and was delighted to be given it for my recent birthday. Last night our twenty-something son suggested that the three of us watch it together.

‘Liberal Arts’ is mostly based in a university campus in the United States. We first meet the newly-single Jesse (Josh Radnor) who is in his mid-thirties, and evidently an academic type. He doesn’t do well with practical details, as is amply demonstrated in the first scene. He seems to find books more interesting than people.

Jesse is wondering what to do with the rest of his life, and why everything goes wrong when he gets an unexpected phone call from Peter (Richard Jenkins). Peter is one of the professors he particularly admired when he was an undergraduate. He asks Josh if he would say a few words at his retiring banquet.

The story moves quite slowly at first, but that sets the pace nicely for a character-based story which doesn’t have a great deal of plot. That suited us ideally; we wanted something undemanding and light, and this more than adequately served its purpose. Jesse spends time chatting with Peter and some friends of his, including their 19-year-old daughter Zibby (Elizabeth Coleman). She is mature for her years, and finds herself very much attracted to Jesse. She persuades him to start listening to classical music, and then they begin a correspondence using pen and paper…

It could have been a predictable rom-com so we were pleased that in fact it wasn’t. Unusually for modern films, moral issues were considered, and the romance as such is quite low-key. It’s a pity there had to be an intimate bedroom scene (nothing overt, though, and with a couple of unexpected great lines) but there are many subplots. Jesse finds himself mentor to a geeky intellectual, and befriended by a red-hatted bohemian, as well as having lengthy discussions with both Zibby and Peter.

Our favourite scene was the one where Jesse tells Zibby exactly what he had thought of the first of the Twilight series of books, after being persuaded that it was unfair to judge without reading it himself. We loved the way that most of the characters, one way or another, were readers and related through books.

Recommended to anyone who likes gentle, mildly intellectual character-based stories with great acting. Much of it felt so real that I sometimes forgot that it was entirely fictional. But if your taste runs towards thrillers or fast action films, then you might find this slow-moving and possibly even a bit dull.

The rating is 12 which seems fair; it wouldn’t be of much interest to anyone under the age of about fifteen or sixteen anyway. There are plenty of suggestive comments but no nudity; minor bad language, but nothing major; no violence at all.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews