Read the review here… - Manny Lewis The Movie

MANNY LEWIS
All you need is laugh
RELEASED MARCH 12
RATED TBC
DIRECTOR Anthony Mir
SCREENWRITERS Anthony Mir,
Carl Barron
CAST Carl Barron, Leeanna Walsman,
Roy Billing, Damien Garvey
RUNNING TIME 90 minutes
PLOT Despite an ability to enrapture
crowds of strangers, popular stand-up
comic Manny Lewis (Barron) lives a
lonely life away from the stage. A
chance meeting with kindred spirit
Maria (Walsman) leads to a shot at love
that could unravel at any moment due
to secrets kept…
“HAVE YOU EVER LAID IN BED REALLY
still and pretended you were
dead?” asks comedian Manny
Lewis (Carl Barron) to an audience
who respond with peals of laughter
as we’re treated to shots of Lewis
backstage, alone and forlorn.
Lest it seem we’re in for the old,
hoary cliché of the ‘sad clown’, it
doesn’t take long before a couple
of things become apparent: the
sad/funny dichotomy is an overly
simplistic one that the filmmakers
clearly wish to subvert and Barron,
as his legion of fans will attest, is a
genuinely very funny guy.
The film’s main thrust involves
Manny’s attempts to connect with
people away from the stage:
namely his distant, curmudgeonly
father Lyle (Roy Billing) and phone
sex operator / potential love
interest Maria (Leeanna Walsman).
Although ostensibly playing a
version of himself, the film gets by
on Barron’s dry humour and
wounded puppy charm: there’s an
awkward meet-cute in a cafe where
Lewis ruins the ending of a
Hermann Hesse novel for the
bemused Maria; later he’s giving
himself a pre-date pep talk in the
INFINITELY POLAR BEAR
RELEASED MARCH 26 RATED M DIRECTOR Maya
Forbes CAST Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Keir Dullea
IT FEELS STRANGE TO CALL A FILM ABOUT A MANICdepressive man raising his daughters virtually
alone “cute” but that’s what this is. A
wonderfully expressive Ruffalo is superb as
Cameron, a perfectly imperfect father who puts
the fun in dysfunction but also the ass in
embarrassment. First-timers Imogene
Wolodarsky and Ashley Aufderheide deliver
performances wise beyond their years as his
exasperated but adoring daughters. Infinitely
Polar Bear (bipolar bear, geddit?) is an
endearing film occasionally guilty of being too
light-handed. No, kids, manic depression isn’t
always this eccentrically enjoyable.
ELIZABETH BEST ★★★★★
40
EMPIRE APRIL 2015
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mirror and dancing around in his
undies and socks to The Smith’s
This Charming Man.
It’s to Barron and Walsman’s
credit that the plot’s credibility
straining main conceit — that
Manny calls and confesses details
of he and Maria’s relationship to
phone sex operator ‘Caroline’
(Maria under a pseudonym) while
remaining oblivious — ceases to be
a problem thanks to the pair’s
likeability. There’s a sweetness to
their interplay that papers over
any cracks, even when the film flits
with romcom cliché in the third act.
Director/co-writer Antony Mir
KIDNAPPING MR.
HEINEKEN
RELEASED MARCH 12 RATED M DIRECTOR Daniel
Alfredson CAST Anthony Hopkins, Sam Worthington
YOU MIGHT ASSUME FROM THE BROAD AUSTRALIAN
and British accents peppering this true-crime
caper that young, loutish backpackers famously
kidnapped beer baron Freddy Heineken
(Hopkins) in Amsterdam in 1983 for a record
sum (35 million Dutch guilders, the equivalent
to about AU$25 million). It’s a jarring choice by
Alfredson (the original The Girl With The Dragon
Tattoo) for a story so inherently Dutch. More
dismaying, even for those that know the
bumbling outcome, is that there’s barely a
crackle of tension, though Hopkins does inject
some Lector-esque scene chewing.
JIM MITCHELL ★★★★★
“See I’m a stand-UP, but I’m
sitting DOWN! Geddit?”
does a sterling job of capturing
Sydney at its most luminescent:
the film switches between the
grandness of the Harbour and a
neon King’s Cross, lit up with
shaggy character. It’s this ability to
toggle between being larger than
life and intimately relatable that
gives the film — and Barron himself
— a winning heart. JAMES JENNINGS
VERDICT
Manny Lewis overcomes familiar romcom
tropes with, heart, laughs and lashings of
sweetness with Barron ably transferring
his charm to the big screen. ★★★★★
LUCKY THEM
RELEASED OUT NOW RATED M DIRECTOR Megan
Griffiths CAST Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church
LOOSELY BASED ON THE LIFE OF CO-WRITER AND
actress Emily Wachtel, Toni Collette plays Ellie
Klug (Wachtel’s then writing pseudonym), a
veteran rock journo with a wandering eye for
the young rockers of Seattle. Assigned to hunt
down her rock star ex on the 10th anniversary
of his disappearance, she teams up with
Thomas Haden Church’s eccentric doco maker
to see if the singer has played his great gig in
the sky or gone into hiding. Despite setting itself
in the grunge capital (Klug has two fish called
Kurt and Courtney), the rock ‘n’ road movie
never rises above easy listening. It’s a quirky US
indie by numbers, saved by the two leads.
DAVID MICHAEL BROWN ★★★★★
EmpireAust
EmpireOnline.com.au
20/02/2015 3:41:36 PM