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Kathryne_1993
Reviews
A Passionate Woman (2010)
Sympathy for the old codger...
Set in both the 1950's and the 1980's, A Passionate Woman follows the story of Betty as she recalls her love affair with Craze. The setting is Leeds in the 80's, where Betty tells her son, Mark, about her affair with Polish neighbour, Craze, in the 50's. We then flashback to her dull housewife-life in the 50's, where her days revolve around looking after baby Mark, and cooking for her husband, Donald. All this changes, when she meets Craze at the local dance club, and later finds out he lives downstairs. After what seems like 5 minutes of resistance, Betty gives in to his charm, and the affair begins. That is until his wife, Moira finds out, and shoots him at the fairground. All this while she's pregnant with his child!
As we feel sorry for Betty, keeping it in all these years, we forget that she was, of course, committing adultery, and instead of siding with Donald, we blame him for the affair. It's only at the end, when it comes out that he knew about the affair all along, and nevertheless stuck by her side, we finally sympathise with him. As does Betty. So la-di-da, son gets married, Betty and Donald are back together, happy ending for all, hurrah!
I thought A Passionate Woman was thoroughly enjoyable, ignoring the fact that Billie Piper's Yorkshire accent was slipping throughout. Her chemistry with Theo James, (Craze) however, was very believable. Definitely recommend it!
Skin (2008)
Lack of Support
Skin follows the story of Frankie, a teenaged Dutch boy living in 1979 during the punk revolution. The story cuts between two different time periods; before and after he is sent to prison. Before his sentence, we are shown his strained relationship with his father, a Jewish concentration camp survivor, and his mother's fight with cancer. These family struggles make it easy to see why Frankie is as rebellious as he is. Throughout these scenes, we see Frankie become increasingly worse, ending up getting involved with a gang of neo-Nazis. His troubles are clear to the audience, when he allows the gang to give him a swastika tattoo on his chest, despite the fact that his father was part of a Nazi concentration camp.
Robert de Hoog plays Frankie brilliantly, resulting in a nomination for an International Emmy Award for Best Actor, and winning the award for Best Actor at the Netherlands Film Festival. His winning performance allowed the audience to fully believe Frankie's story.
Skin is a hard-hitting, strong story about youth rebellion, and how it can escalate from one extreme to the next, with lack of support and attention from friends and family. Frankie's Jewish roots make it harder to believe what he has become, making the story more gripping to watch.