Chris At The Pictures

Adolescent Murmurings: The Movies That Shaped My Teenage Years

A Pause For Thought – Inception (2010, Director: Christopher Nolan)

The first film of my teenage years to really have a meaningful impact took place on a GCSE geography trip to Wales. Our teacher chose to reward us for hiking through torrential rain/enduring youth hostel food/having to do actual work with a trip to the nearest (read: 90 minutes away) cinema. While one of the teaching assistants and two students chose Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1, the rest of us piled into a packed screening of Inception, so packed in fact that my friends and I had to sit a row from the front, resulting in much neck-ache and a little motion sickness.

For those that have seen Inception (and if you haven’t, go and watch it right now!), you’ll entirely understand both of those problems: watching buildings fold in upon themselves and entire cities crumble into the sea is a marvellous spectacle, but when seen a viewing angle some might generously refer to as ‘steep’, it can become a tad overwhelming.

But that wasn’t why the experience of watching the film has stuck with me: beyond the physical ability required to watch the film without feeling ill, the mental power required to pick apart the narrative and splice it together was something my blockbuster-bred mind had never had to muster. Different dream layers, dreams within dreams and memories within memories was hard work for someone who had only recently grasped the notion of a flashback.

The group of us that left the screening two hours later were dumbfounded, some complaining that it was too confusing, others explaining to their friends what it all meant, and some just silently attempting to un-pick it piece by piece before seeing it again (which for myself would be a full year, as the first Blu-ray I ever owned). Inception was the first film to make me actually think, and taught me a lot about non-linear storytelling.

The Little Things – Brick (2005, Director: Rian Johnson)

Jump forward a year and a half: now a fresh-faced yet socially awkward sixth form student, I’d taken up a Film Studies module, mostly amongst people who took it because “It’s a doss, mate! You just get to watch films!” Those expecting to just sit and consume vast amounts of Hollywood luxury were probably a little put out when films started getting screened that were:

a) Made before 1990

b) Not in colour

c) Not in the English language

Although, you will probably have noticed that my chosen film for this era falls under none of those categories, being a 2005 colour production made in the USA. I could quite easily have chosen Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder’s exceptional noir classic) or The Long Good Friday (arguably one of the greatest films that British cinema has ever produced), but my mind landed on Brick for a very simple reason: it’s a small film. The word ‘indie’ meant little to me at the time, and to see a story essentially about three school students caught up in a drugs dispute was a little jarring.

This wasn’t star-ships soaring across space, globe-trotting super-spies saving the planet from annihilation, nor the grandiose scale games at play in Inception, this was a story that you genuinely believed could happen at a high school. The characters weren’t clear-cut morally and the budget wasn’t huge, but the stakes felt as high as any large-scale action movie.

Brick was the first time I realised that low-budget didn’t necessarily mean low-quality. A film that cost $3 million could be just as enthralling, if not more enthralling than the average $150 million flick dropped off the Hollywood production line every other week. This was a film built on a vision and a desire to tell a story, not on studio spreadsheets or focus groups.

Falling In Love – 500 Days of Summer (2009, Director: Mark Webb)

Mark Webb’s ever-popular rom-com starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who the more perceptive of you will have noticed, appears in three of the four films in this list) and Zooey Deschanel doesn’t seem like a great teacher of life-lessons or capable of anything particularly challenging, but what matters here is when I watched it, and who I watched it with.

I was seventeen, beginning my first proper relationship and sat on my girlfriend’s sofa watching 500 Days on a warm summer afternoon. As someone who (despite a widening appreciation for movies outside my usual comfort zone) was still sceptical of so-called ‘chick-flicks’, I was not entirely convinced that this would be an enjoyable experience.

How wrong I was: this was the first movie I can remember watching that brought up the issues I could relate to, at least in terms of relationships: ‘How can I avoid embarrassing myself in front of them?’, ‘When does this go from “a thing” to “a thing”?’, ‘Does it matter?’, ‘Is it supposed to be so awkward at first?’. All the questions I didn’t dare to ask were asked in a way that was light-hearted, funny and most importantly, honest. And as the credits rolled and the screen flicked back to the DVD menu, I realised for the first time that I actually loved someone this way.

500 Days involves a lot of things I’ve never experienced: I’ve never lived in New York City, never had a girlfriend who loved all the things I loved, and certainly never waltzed down the street accompanied by a fanfare celebrating sex (still one for the bucket list), but the experience of watching the film as someone going head-over-heels in love for the first time is what has stayed the course.

Reflection – Mr. Holmes (2015, Director: Bill Condon)

The last film to properly move me during my teenage years came at the very end, two weeks before I turned twenty. In the nearly three years between this film and the last, I’d experienced my first break-up, had my first job, moved to university and made a whole new set of friends. For my now weekly cinema trips, I had the choice between Entourage and Mr. Holmes, and (like any sane person would do), I chose the latter, taking a seat in a mostly empty screening to enjoy the ever-reliable Ian McKellen as an aging Sherlock Holmes.

I expected a fairly innocuous, gentle story with a hint of mystery, and at first that’s what I got. It was only upon sitting on the crowded journey back home, fighting the shuddering of the knackered bus to write up my review notes, that the film really started to have a profound effect on me. Throughout the screening, McKellen’s performance as the 93 year-old Sherlock had stirred a memory, and only as I paused for a moment did the realisation hit me. The endearing grunts, the inquisitive gestures and the gentle gait of the man created a perfect reflection of my own grandfather, who passed away in 2012.

Sat wedged between disgruntled sixth-form students and almost drowning in my own sweat, I feared I might just burst into tears. Sherlock’s fascinating stories, his willingness to listen only served to remind me how much more time I wish I’d spent with my grandfather, of how many more stories he had to tell which I will never hear. But more than anything, the lesson I learned from Mr. Holmes is to never take anything for granted, to appreciate more than ever the time we have with those who care about us, to always be ready to take a pause for breath in amongst our hectic, hap-hazard lives and enjoy their company.

Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes finds our eponymous detective in a reclusive, contemplative mood. This is not your Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr., rushing about solving mysteries with much gusto and extravagant flair, but something altogether new. Sir Ian McKellen stars as an aged Sherlock (93 years old, to be precise) returning to a quiet life on the coast where he aims to live out his final years tending to his bees, all the while attempting to unlock the memories that will help him recall his final case. The story flits – somewhat haphazardly – between the English coastline and Holmes’ adventures past in Japan and London, the ancient sleuth utilising his present company (Laura Linney a put-upon housekeeper Mrs. Munro and Milo Parker as her son Roger) to sew the torn pieces together again.

To describe the central performance as show-stealing is to understate how all-encompassing and invigorating McKellen is as a creaking, grumbling Sherlock. The usual displaying of honesty over heart that Conan Doyle’s character is known for remains, but also an exudence of the sensibilities notable in a slowly-softening grandfather. This is both utterly compelling and also achingly honest for anyone who has sat and heard stories delivered by a beloved yet wavering grandparent in their dotage.

Linney and Parker are completely believable and constantly engrossing as the mother/son duo that slip in and out of love with the arrival of Mr. Holmes, the former disapproving of his apparent effect on the latter’s behaviour. Linney reminds us all why she was Oscar nominated not once, not twice, but three times, whilst Parker displays remarkable prowess as the precocious Roger, wandering curiously in the wake of Sherlock, never once intimidated by his reputation or put off by the detective’s grumpy disposition.

The mystery itself is as intriguing as any classic Doyle story, leaving the audience and our cast of characters guessing all the way as it leaps backwards and forwards in time from pre-blitz London to post-war shorelines. Period detail is a given in almost any Sherlock Holmes story, but here it feels more inviting than intrusive, providing a well-groomed backdrop to the story that doesn’t run amuck, not repeatedly reminding you that you’re in the past, as so many period pieces do. Said detail is bathed in Tobias Schliessler’s gorgeous golden cinematography and enveloped in Carter Burwell’s score, which is understated yet affecting in the right places with the timing of a meticulously-assembled pocket watch.

Here lies the cinematic equivalent of a tale told by a wise grandparent: some of their delivery is a little shambolic and the odd piece is missing, but an important fable lies at the centre. In the case of dear old Mr. Holmes, it is this: truth, logic and vigilance must remain ever-present, but the knowledge of when and how to use them in co-ordination with faith, understanding and gentleness is greater still.

Thirteen years since the beginning of Peter Jackson’s odyssey into Middle-Earth, we have reached the conclusion: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The company of dwarves, accompanied by Bilbo Baggins, have reached the lonely mountain and unwittingly released the dragon Smaug upon the nearby Laketown, whilst the forces of the Elves, Orcs and Dwarves begin to converge upon the peak, determined to reclaim the treasure within.

Despite the title and the gargantuan war between armies, the film is centrally a three-hander split between the three actors that now own their roles: Richard Armitage is given front-and-centre stage in this picture, and all the better for it, one particular sequence in which Thorin is drawn into dragon-sickness is extremely well done and brings to mind the ring trances from the previous trilogy. Martin Freeman is Bilbo Baggins, meshing just the right amount of Ian Holm’s performance with the more subtle nuances of a more inquisitive and younger hobbit. Ian McKellen as Gandalf is always fun to watch, and one can only hope that the inevitable extended cut of the film gives us his scenes which we glimpsed in the trailer but were nowhere to be found in the cinema.

The titular battle itself, which takes up the entire second half of the film – with the exception of a lull in the middle where you’re not entirely sure who’s winning – is everything a war sequence should be. Unlike Michael Bay, Jackson understands that the crux of a conflict is both knowing and caring about who is involved, and having a stake in their survival. Though the odd colour saturation that pervaded the previous instalments is still clinging to the frame, there is enough flair in the battle cinematography that it doesn’t distract too much. It is also worth noting that the opening twenty minutes involving Smaug and the razing of Laketown are near-perfect and the much tighter focus somewhat alleviates the problems of the later battle where you find yourself having to count on your fingers to remember who’s involved.

But as intense and enthralling as the battle is, it still doesn’t quite match the awe of the Pelennor fields or even Helms Deep because the grit and grime and blood-stained aura of those battlefields are weirdly absent. There are also several moments of CGI ridicule that threaten to throw you from the immersion, and there are about three too many moments of someone looking on forlornly as loved ones are cut down. Impressively, this smattering of flaws does very little to ruin the experience and I can say with certainty that you won’t at any moment be bored, which is much more than one can say for half the fare currently filling the multiplex.

The Battle of the Five Armies is not a disappointment: Jackson has gone for broke and the spectacle, while flawed in places, is as enthralling as it ever was. Fans of the previous Hobbit films – and those of us who have grown to appreciate them more than the first time – have much to enjoy, and the ending is as satisfying as anyone could ever hope for. 

★★★½☆