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BERLINALE SPECIAL GENERATION


US. 2012. 93mins Director/screenplay Rebecca Thomas Production company LiveWire Films International sales M-Appeal, www.m-appeal.com Producers Richard Neustadter, Jessica Caldwell Cinematography Mattias Troelstrup Editor Jennifer Lilly Production designer Elizabeth Van Dam Music Eric Colvin Main cast Julia Garner, Rory Culkin, Liam Aiken, Bill Sage, Cynthia Watros, Billy Zane, John Patrick Amedori


Electrick Children REVIEWED BY LEE MARSHALL


Witness meets Almost Famous in Rebecca Thomas’ Electrick Children. Though it never quite lives up to the brilliance of its eminently pitchable premise — ‘Mormon girl believes she has been made pregnant by listening to a pop song’ — this is a cute and likeable film with a well-curated indie-rock soundtrack and an easy, young-audience appeal. The picture rises above some frankly absurd plot twists and a


weak second act thanks partly to a radiant central performance by Julia Garner, and also to the intriguing way in which the writer-director plays a film with the bone structure of a comedy as a serious drama. Electrick Children is a self-consciously stylish commercial art-


house number targeted at an 18-40 urban demographic, and as a result may end up doing as much business on DVD and online platforms as it does theatrically. Shot in nostalgic desaturated colour, the opening sequence


sets true believer Rachel (Garner) in her home context: it is her 15th birthday, and she is being ‘interviewed’ by her father (Zane), a Mormon pastor, in a family confirmation ceremony, with the aid of a cassette-tape recorder — a contraption Rachel has never before seen. Sweet but also strong-willed, Rachel later finds the forbidden


cassette recorder and slips on a tape with a cover version of Blondie’s Hanging On The Telephone, which brings on a knee- wobbling epiphany. She believes the song has made her preg- nant — and when her sceptical mum (Watros) finds Rachel really is knocked up, she suspects Rachel’s pious, grandpa- shirted brother, Mr Will (Aiken), of having committed the act. Pa immediately orders an arranged marriage for Rachel and exile for Mr Will — at which point his daughter drives off in the family pick-up truck, with Mr Will conveniently concealed under a tarpaulin in the back. The siblings end up in Vegas, where Rachel sees beauty in


vulgarity and enchantment in flashing neon. Convinced the man who sang the song is the father of her child, she homes in on the first guitar-toting rocker she finds — grungy skater boy Johnny (Amedori), though it is his friend, dropout rich kid Clyde (Culkin), who seems most interested in her. Mr Will tags along reluctantly, concerned only to persuade Rachel to confess, on tape, who really put a bun in her oven, so he can clear his name. There are a few directorial ingenuities: some pretty-pretty


montage sequences, a tendency to shift to elegiac mode before the privilege has been earned, and inconsistency in the use of the taped diary that provides Rachel’s running voice-over com- mentary. But there is a solid core to this magical realist coming- of-age tale that smooths over the odd bump.


February 16, 2012 Screen International at the Berlinale 5 n


Sp-Fr. 2011. 98mins Director Alex de la Iglesia Production companies La Ferme Productions, La Fabrique 2, Alfresco Enterprises, Trivision, Double Nickel Entertainment International sales 6Sales, www.6sales.es Producers Andres Vicente Gomez, Ximo Perez Executive producers Jenette Kahn, Adam Richman Co-producers Franck Ribiere, Vérane Frédiani, Marco Gomez Screenplay Randy Feldman Cinematography Kiko de la Rica Editor Pablo Blanco Music Joan Valent Main cast José Mota, Salma Hayek, Blanca Portillo, Juan Luis Galiardo, Fernando Tejero, Manuel Tallafé, Santiago Segura, Antonio Garrido, Carolina Bang, Joaquin Climent, Nerea Camacho


As Luck Would Have It REVIEWED BY MARK ADAMS


Maverick Spanish film-maker Alex de la Iglesia aims for a con- temporary blend of Ace In The Hole and Network with his satiri- cal new drama, As Luck Would Have It (La Chispa De La Vida) but, despite an enthusiastic performance by Salma Hayek and a few amusing moments and visual flourishes, the film only hits its targets intermittently. Media, politics, unemployment and the Spanish economy


are all the easy targets, but oddly Iglesia — whose films include more outlandishly enjoyable fare such as The Day Of The Beast, Accion Mutante, Perdita Durango and the 2010 title The Last Circus — seems to lack his usual sense of mischief. As Luck Would Have It — which opened in Spain in January


with the local title (which more literally translates as ‘the spark of life’, a concept that has a more direct link to the story) — fol- lows an increasingly awful day in the life of unemployed adver- tising executive Roberto (Mota) as he struggles to find work. Encouraged by his loving wife Luisa (Hayek), he approaches


former friends and colleagues at the agency where he created a Coca-Cola campaign — they utilised his line ‘The Spark of Life’ — but is rebuffed. Angry and frustrated, he decides to find the hotel where he and his wife had their honeymoon but is dis- traught to see it is now a museum, linked to a Roman archaeo- logical dig. Blundering into the museum, he accidentally falls from a


rooftop and finds himself spread-eagled on the Roman amphitheatre dig site with a metal rod embedded in his head. As paramedics, politicians, firemen and the media descend on him, Roberto decides to take advantage of the situation and hires an agent to sell his media and product- placement rights. When Luisa arrives, she is appalled to see the media circus


surrounding her husband — Iglesia makes good use of the amphitheatre location to parallel the voyeuristic media mad- ness with the spectacle of the Roman games, as well as filming Roberto in a Christ-on-the-cross pose — but also wants to keep him comfortable and positive as the doctors try to work out a way to free him. Hayek gives the film a hefty dose of class, and comes into her


own in the last third as the tension rises — and the prices for interview rights get larger — and a final decision is made to wrench Roberto’s head away from the rod and rush him into a mobile hospital. There are a few salient points raised about media and politics, but As Luck Would Have It never really finds the spark of grandstanding anger or dark humour to make it feel original or compulsive.


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