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Look out for Vera Drake and a season from the makers of Spirited Away in the New Year
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In January, FilmFour will be presenting a season of the films we love. Of the many pictures premiering in this season, the undoubted highlight is Mike Leigh's Oscar-nominated Vera Drake. Imelda Staunton is superb as the titular heroine who, when she isn't cleaning up for the great and good, helps local girls handle their unwanted pregnancies. Featuring remarkable performances from Staunton, Phil Davis (Quadrophenia) and Eddie Marsan (21 Grams), Leigh's drama might have proved a bit too strong for the Academy. But its success at the BAFTAs and the Venice Film Festival was fitting reward for a bracing period drama.
Also acknowledged by the Academy but cruelly ignored come the big night, Alexander Payne's About Schmidt established the reputation of a strong directorial talent (Payne went on to make Sideways) while showing that old dog Jack Nicholson was capable of learning new tricks. As sixtysomething Warren Schmidt, Nicholson finds himself confronting loneliness, frustration, familial disappointment and a naked Kathy Bates. A touching comedy-drama about surviving the twilight of life, Jack Nicholson's performance really is as good as it gets.
While it's no surprise that Jack has enjoyed three dates with Oscar, it's amazing that Julianne Moore has never got her hands on Hollywood's golden boy. In Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, she puts in a remarkable performance as a society woman confronting the fact that her family life isn't all it might seem. Featuring a career-redefining turn from Dennis Quaid as Moore's sexually conflicted husband, Far From Heaven is a wonderful reinvention of the cinema of Douglas Sirk, the 1950s filmmaker who suggested that all was not well beneath the veneer of post-war wealth and abundance.
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