Blue Moon, Rental Family, Nouvelle Vague – London Film Festival 2025 reviews

Another page of reviews from films showing in the latter part of the festival (October 8-19)

Blue Moon – Opportunity missed? Still some oomph

Director: Richard Linklater

1 hour 40 minutes

IF YOU DON’T know who Lorenz Hart (above right, Ethan Hawke) is – it might be worth reading about him – he was a celebrated lyricist in the US who worked with Richard Rodgers – they had a number of successful hit musicals from the 1920s onwards – but Hart never quite made it in the way Rodgers did with his later writing partner, Oscar Hammerstein.
Rodgers and Hammerstein went onto become one of the most celebrated musical theatre partnerships ever formed and their production of ‘Oklahoma!‘ continues to be produced today, just as Hart predicted back in the 1940s.
This is a fictionalised version (based on some letters) of Hart turning up to the opening night of ‘Oklahoma!’ and respecting and dissing what his former creative partner has done with a new writer.
Nevertheless, Hart wrote the ‘Blue Moon‘ song, among many hits but this film suggests he never fully recovered from being dropped by Rodgers – Hart was an alcoholic and not terribly disciplined and Rodgers effectively sidelined him.
Sharp, acerbic, smart – Hart’s sexuality was always at question and he rather skirts around the subject himself (in the film) – saying that beauty is beauty and it doesn’t matter… Ethan Hawke plays the diminutive Hart – his love object – Elizabeth Weiland – played by Margaret Quailey (above left) is a whopping 27 years younger and loves him – but not in that way…
This would make a terrific play, it’s very wordy, especially at the start and director Richard Linklater – one of the best working in cinema today – doesn’t let these characters breathe – there is no silence, no subtlety, no touching camera work, it’s all very claustrophobic (and deliberate?) and Hart comes across as just creepy and quite unlikeable – but on the whole it feels a bit like an opportunity missed…it’s watchable but nowhere near as hefty as it might have been. It does get better and his other film at LFF has so much going for it… (see below)
ACV rating: *** (all out of five)

Blue Moon releases in cinemas on November 28 (corrected – apologies)

Rental Family – Cross cultural comedy is also thoughtful drama

Hikari

1 hour 40 minutes

PHILLIP VANDERPLEOG – played by ‘The Whale‘ Oscar winning actor Brendan Fraser – fronts up in this tale that has as its central subject – loneliness – let’s say, Loneliness.
He lives in Tokyo (central) – population an estimated 14 million and yet as an American, settled in Japan for seven years, he hasn’t been able to put down any real roots.
Floundering somewhat, the actor attends what he thinks is a TV/Film production of a funeral as an extra – and then befriends the manager of a Rental Family company – they employ actors to role play in, sometimes, delicate family situations.
Phillip is a decent sort and slightly baulks at the idea initially but then comes round much to the delight of his Japanese work boss and colleagues.
The story focuses on two families who need him – one is an elderly gentleman who has been a successful actor but is slowly losing it – his daughter has got Phillip to come to interview him… They become friends.
Then, there is the single mum that needs him to play the absent Dad who returns – to help with getting their daughter admission into a prestigious school. She is bilingual and looks mixed race.
Screenwriters Hikari – who directs as well – and Stephen Blahut – provide lots of interesting cultural misunderstandings and misapprehensions along the way.
Phillip seems fluent in Japanese and his wealthy clients appear to have a decent standard of English too. Even still, the screenwriters suggest that Japanese family culture can be a sophisticated and testing veneer, which hides deep and difficult truths. Yes, we come back to that eternal question that fictional films are built on make believe and lies – does it reflect reality or is it just a form of sophisticated projection/imagination ?
It’s fun and affecting especially where children involved – Mia who Phillip is playing Dad to starts to get attached and you know her mother isn’t happy.
This has a lot going for it and if you like cross cultural comedy with a philosophical edge, this is good. Fine performances and the Japanese cast is very good too. ACV rating:****

‘Rental Family’ is due out in UK cinemas on January 9…

Nouvelle Vague – Magnifique! – Godard homage is a total hoot

Richard Linklater

1 hour 45 minutes

IF FRENCH NEW WAVE Cinema means nothing to you – then this might be a little indulgent and too cute about itself… it might all just be too pretentious, superficial, and unabashedly French in style and conception (in French with English subtitles at LFF).
But if the name Jean-Luc Godard means anything, anything at all, you must see this.
Made in black and white; and a delicious, fun and thoroughly entertaining movie, centred around one of the great names of European/World cinema and the making of one New Wave’s most enduring films, ‘Breathless’ (‘A Bout de souffle’ 1960), it’s a joy from beginning to end.
‘Breathless’ came to define a new beginning – some of its innovations remain with us and Godard’s wit and genius come through wrapped in cinematic truffles – stupendously so.
A brilliant Guillame Marbeck as Godard leads and great ensemble support from Zoey Deutch (Jean Seberg) and Aubrey Dullin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), means this is a film any cineaste misses at their peril. Superb.
Bravo, Monsieur Linklater! Encore Auteur! haha Acv rating: ***** (five out of five)

It premiered in Cannes this year but we were not able to see it there, then. It is a Netflix film and reported to be releasing in the UK in January and goes to US cinemas from October 31 with a drop on the streaming service there from November 14. The Cinema release in France was earlier this month.

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