Saturday

It may seem like I'm slowly falling behind again this week, and that is entirely true, but hopefully I'll catch up soon. Meanwhile, I thought I'd entertain you with another of my completely useless reviews. This time it's the Jude Law version of Alfie, made in 2004. I only saw parts of it, my concentration kept drifting, and I've never seen the original starring Michael Caine. All I can say is that it seemed to be pretending to be cooler than it actually was. It was more like a 90 minute fashion shoot than a movie. Jude Law just wasn't quite engaging enough. The problem was always going to be updating this film to modern times, and I don't think they succeeded. It still felt out of date. Alfie's philandering doesn't entirely seem plausible, and getting our sympathy is difficult. But there is something engaging about the film - what it was will have to wait until I actually watch it properly. I did like, however, the bravery of the director and the actor to leave the camera on Jude Law for a long time at the end. It's not often in a Hollywood movie that someone is just left to act, with no dialogue and no action, to express conflicting emotions, internal conflict and decisions being made.