The Correspondence, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

An Italian film, performed in English.

Amy (Olga Kurylenko) looks to be quite a complex character.  Studying for her doctorate in astrophysics, she funds her university course taking jobs as a movie stunt-woman, whilst also carrying on a largely electronic affair with a man old enough to be her grandfather.  Her lover is Professor Ed Phoerum (Jeremy Irons) who sees her when he can (she lives in England, he in Edinburgh), but communicates regularly using email, Skype and sms.

When he proves difficult to contact over several months Amy begins to wonder what's become of him.  She finds the answer by accident.  Ed is dead.  He died five days before she hears, yet she is still receiving messages from him.  What's going on?  It turns out the old man has conceived an elaborate plot to continue sending her messages from beyond the grave at key moments in her life.  So the emails and texts, and little notes and presents, still come in, and videos of a talking head Ed arrive on DVD.  He wants to continue to provide a (paternalistic) guiding hand in her life.

The festival programme describes this film as "a profoundly moving contemplation of the true nature of endless love and loss", and I expected much from the director of the wonderful Cinema Paradiso.  So this turkey was a huge disappointment.  There are far too many 'convenient' plot devices holding the improbable storyline together, and the dialogue, perhaps because it was originally written in Italian, feels artificial and flat.  It is beautifully filmed, and both Edinburgh and the Italian Lakes provide backdrops dripping with character.  Both Kurylenko and Irons give decent performances within the limits of their material.

But, far from being romantic, Ed's actions feel manipulative and creepy.  How would someone really react to having a dead stalker?  Not like the compliant Amy one imagines.   This is a film smelling strongly of "old man's fantasy" - not a scent I care for.

Betty Blue, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

From the 'Cinema du look' section of this year's programme, a 1986 French classic.  Partly narrated by Zorg, one of the central protagonists, this is a visually stunning love story that descends into tragedy.

Zorg lives a quiet life as a handyman looking after holiday homes on the beach.  Into his life blows the whirlwind that is Betty.  She is beautiful, sexy, funny, imaginative.  She is also unpredictable, moody, driven to extremes of behaviour, hot headed to the point of occasional violence.  When she discovers that her lover is a would be novelist she is determined to get his work published, an obsession that begins to take her over.  And causes embarrassments for Zorg.

There are adventures, friends, good fortune and difficulties.  But an unhappy ending always feels inevitable as Betty is pushed beyond her limits.  Some people are meant to be together and should never be with anyone.

Gloriously colourful with some strongly memorable scenes, this is French style with a twist, and a wonderful performance from Beatrice Dalle as the over-the-top eponymous wild child.

Bridging the Gap : Women, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

Bridging the Gap is a Scottish Documentary Institute initiative to encourage the emergence of new documentary film makers, now in it's thirteenth year.  At this year's festival they presented four short films, directed by women and with the views of women to the fore.  The four, ranging from ten to fifteen minutes in length, mixing intimate fly on the wall footage with narrative voice-overs from the subjects of the film.

Swan explains the changed relationship between a transgender woman, and her daughter, since she came out and began her transitioning.  Her relief at finally being able to be the person she always knew she was, and the reaction of her daughter to seeing the man she'd known as Dad start to change.  It's a beautifully matter of fact treatment of the topic, with both generations why their relationship had improved as a result.  But while the daughter has now stopped using Dad as an appellation, she can't yet, if ever, call her Mum.  Despite that she bought her a Mother's Day present, perhaps the warmest indication of how well their relationship had adjusted.

Where We Are Now shows life living with a severely autistic teenager.  Small details bring home the unending struggle to maintain normality - food scattered on seemingly every surface, endless washing of floors and stairs, a padlock on the fridge door.  With the daughter now sixteen there's the added worry of caring for someone with the body of a young woman, but, in many respects, the mental age of a toddler.  The girl loves trampolining, music (much to the relief of her mother), and sticking her arms out through the neck-hole of her sweater.  There are plenty of moments of laughter and connection.  But underlying it all is the mother's greatest fear - who will care for her girl when she is no longer able to, or dies?  Who loves her then?

Silent Laughs is by far the funniest of the quartet, unsurprisingly given the subject matter.  Leah is a deaf woman trying to break into stand up comedy.  The film switches back and forth from her everyday life to the pre-show nerves, and performance, for a newcomers night at the Stand Comedy Club here in Edinburgh.  She performs in sign language, with an interpreter vocalising her words.  Her set goes down well, and signing is a natural language of comedy.  Heart warming.

Finishing off we had The Review.  Perhaps you have to be a parent to appreciate it, but the central issue seemed trivial in comparison with those above, and I found this the least engrossing film of the group.  Voiced from a mother's point of view, we see events leading up to a decision whether her teenage son would continue to play for his football team, or be dropped.  I found the boy, and his siblings, largely unintelligible, so I may have missed something.  But not much.  In the end I think he was kept on, but by then I'd lost interest.  Nice spaniel though.

A promising mixture overall.

The Homecoming, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

The festival programme describes this as "The best Icelandic incest comedy ever" - and who could resist such a tagline?  Not me, and I'm glad I chose to follow my instincts.

Gunnar writes self help books, Disa is a receptionist at the hospital, together they appear to be just another middle class couple who've grown to be slightly bored with one another.  Then son David comes home to tell them he's getting married, and introduces his girlfriend, Sunna.  Once the four begin to talk, and the parents learn some of the background to their future daughter in law, Gunnar recognises the unwelcome truth.  Sunna is his biological daughter from an affair he had in the early days of his marriage.

What should Gunnar do?  What would his self help books (which he himself admits are a con) say he should do?  Tell the truth and expose his infidelity, or try to find ways to sabotage the wedding plans?  This sounds like a thin premise on which to base a 95 minute film, but the results belie that assumption.  Yes, it is slow paced and is all the better for it.  For there's never any sense of time dragging, but we get to see some of the most wonderfully awkward silences in cinema history.

If a few of the plot devices are predictable there are plenty of surprise twists to balance them out.  And some genuinely moving moments too, with a happy ending of sorts.  It is also delightfully funny, featuring some wonderfully understated and naturalistic performances.  The opening scene, pre-titles, is a miniature masterclass in marital non-communication, all half finished non sequiturs and those tense comedic silences.

You can look for a moral in the importance of telling the truth, and the dangers of long kept secrets which can explode into the lives of more than those immediately involved.  This is a comedy that's not afraid to put it's serious face on.  But it's the laughs you'll remember most.

Fans of fast action and high drama should look elsewhere.  But for anyone who appreciates the natural comedy of ordinary life this is a rewarding experience.  Highly recommended.

Suntan, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

Kostis is a forty something taking up the post of island doctor on Antiparos.  In the winter months it's a quiet place, and his life feels drab.  But as one new acquaintance delights in telling him, come the summer there will be lots and lots of 'pussy'.

The holidaymakers arrive and Kostis is called on to treat the lightly injured leg of young tourist Anna.  She and her friends make him laugh, tease him, and he subsequently ingratiates himself into their group.  But he is largely a figure of fun to them, a sad middle aged man trying to recapture his youth.  Kostis becomes increasingly obsessed with Anna, and continues to pursue his fantasy long after she's clearly told him No.

There's a stereotypical feel to this portrayal of mid life crisis and the cruelty of youth.  To engage the audience there has to be at least one significant character we can have some empathy with, but Suntan offers us nothing to latch on to.  The youngsters are brash, self centred, irresponsible hedonists.  Kostis is a pathetic figure who gives in to an inadvisable infatuation to the point of neglecting his patients.  If we'd had some back story for him there might have been a shred of sympathy, but all we know is that his recent emotional life has been a mess.  This lack of engagement made the film drag on so that it felt much longer than it was.

It became clear, early on, that Kostis' attempts at a relationship with Anna would end badly.  Sadly the film itself couldn't end early enough for me.

Tommy's Honour, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Film Festival

"Your station in life was set before you were born."

A film based on the real world story of golf's first superstar, Young Tom Morris, who remains the youngest ever winner of a major golf championship, at just 17, and who won the Open four times consecutively.  He was an innovator in the techniques of the game, pioneering club choices that were unconventional for the time and introducing backspin to his shots.  All of this is faithfully reflected on screen, with careful attention to period detail and many little golf-related jokes along the way.  The crowds following the matches are an entertainment in themselves, with drunken rowdiness and gambling descending into violence at times.

But the real meat of the tale lies in Tom's personal relationships, and his attitude to the society he played out his tragically short life in.  His father, Old Tom, was the professional at Saint Andrews, and passionate about maintaining the traditions of the sport.  When his son first exceeds his father's skills, and then becomes determined to gain greater financial benefits from his talent than the older man had ever conceived, their relationship becomes fragile.  The young man can see that others - "gentlemen" - are making far more in wagers than he does as a player and  determines to change the situation, rightly feeling that these rich men do nothing but feed, carrion like, off the back of his abilities.

This brings him into conflict with the established order, and it is the Saint Andrews club captain, played in oleaginous manner by Sam Neill, who smugly delivers my opening quote to Morris.  But the latter knows his own worth to these men, and becomes the forerunner of the professional sports stars of today.

He also challenges convention in his choice of wife, falling in love with an older woman of lower social status, and this too will bring him into conflict with his family and society.  Aspects of the relationship do come across as overwrought, but there is also genuine emotion to be had.

Peter Mullan is his predictably excellent self as Old Tom, while Jack Lowden carefully treads the line between brashness and vulnerability to keep the audience always wanting Young Tom to prevail.  Although, inevitably given the subject and period, the women are much in the background, for me the best performance in the film comes from Ophelia Lovibond as Young Tom's wife, Meg.  She's sassy, cautious, sensible and fun, while Therese Bradley as mother Nancy is a solid presence, a woman of convention who finds a way to admit her mistake.

The greatest strength of this movie is in portraying the snobbery, greed, hubris and inhumanity of the upper class, the self styled "gentlemen", and the courage of Young Tom in kicking against the door being held shut against him on account of his origins.  Thank goodness the world has moved on since Victorian times - although recent events at Muirfield suggest there are elements of the golf world that still have some catching up to do.....

Tommy's Honour should never be dismissed as yet another sports movie.  There's more substance to it than that, and many of the social conflicts it portrays still have validity a century and half later.  Definitely one to see.

Thon Man Moliere, Lyceum

Liz Lochhead, the national Makar until earlier this year, has been a major figure on Scotland's literary landscape for more than four decades.  As well as her poetry and original drama her body of work includes acclaimed translations of the best known Moliere comedies into Scots.  She clearly has an affinity with the seventeenth century comic playwright.  That affectionate empathy, and a clear understanding of the theatrical process and microcosm, combine in a comedy that re-imagines scenes from the great Frenchman's life.

Written in Scots, the script is sharp, bawdy and filled with memorable lines, turning familiarity into twisted originality -  "I didnae come up the Seine in a seive".  Moliere's self destructive tendencies, and ability to seek out defeat whenever a win seems likely, form a central thread, but the members of his theatrical company provide a constantly switching range of sub plots.  Along the way they demonstrate the mistakes of youth, the cynicism of middle age, the perils of lust and that 'midlife crisis' is nothing new.   There are ever-relevant digs at the pernicious influence of the rich and powerful on society,    Theatrical life is precarious, egotistical and subject to the whims of fashion.  And an inability to compromise can bring it's own troubles.

Against a monochromatic and oft changing set, the characters are bursting with colour, both literally and figuratively.  Jimmy Chisholm is superb as the main man - playful, obdurate, self deluding and all with spot on comic timing.  Sarah Miele's naive Melou is a touch underplayed at times, her tragedy not fully emerging, but the remainder of the cast deliver strong performances.  Molly Innes provides the still anchor of the piece, the maid Toinette, whose dour common sense gets many of the biggest laughs and comes armed with one of those catchphrases that becomes funnier through every repetition - "I'll no say it...... but....".

Fast paced, insightful and very, very funny.  What more could you ask for from an evening at the theatre?