Blinded By The Light Cert: 12A, 1hr 57mins
Goodness, Gurinder Chadha has not made it easy for herself with her new film. Based on a memoir by the journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, it’s essentially the story of a Luton teenager who becomes obsessed with the music of Bruce Springsteen.
So why call it Blinded By The Light, which few know was actually written by The Boss and most associate with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band?
She’s had bad luck too. I mean, who would have predicted at the beginning of the year that there would be one film about ‘old white-guy music’ featuring a young Asian male lead, let alone two?
We’ve already had Richard Curtis’s Beatles-flavoured Yesterday starring Himesh Patel, and now along comes Gurinder Chadha with Viveik Kalra (above) in hers
But we’ve already had Richard Curtis’s Beatles-flavoured Yesterday starring Himesh Patel, and now along comes Chadha – best known for Bend It Like Beckham and Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging – with Viveik Kalra in hers.
Small wonder then that it gets off to an uncomfortable, awkward start as we get used to the idea that we are in Luton in 1987 and that – although he certainly doesn’t know it yet – life for 16-year-old would-be writer Javed Khan is about to change for ever.
The problem is, what with the off-key casting, shaky performances and unexpected musical fantasy sequences, do we really care?
It may have its singalong moments with Kaira and Nell Williams (above) – come on, who can resist Born To Run? – but this is a film with serious backbone too
Well, it turns out we do. For if this admittedly slightly overlong production has a difficult opening 20 minutes, it turns out to have an absolute barnstorming last hour as it finally throws off the floppy-fringed, linen-draped layers of Eighties nostalgia and embraces, in a thoroughly entertaining and eventually rather moving way, the complexities of family dynamics and the realities of racism and intolerance that were as prevalent then as they are, sadly and shockingly, again now.
It may have its singalong moments – come on, who can resist Born To Run? – but this is a film with serious backbone too.
Crucial to this is the performance of Kulvinder Ghir as Javed’s highly controlling father, who initially seems to be the domineering Pakistani patriarch of sitcom stereotype but soon develops into someone sadder and more complex as, once he’s lost his all-important job at Vauxhall, self-esteem is stripped away.
It’s hit-and-miss with Chadha apparently uncertain about how much musical fantasy she wants to incorporate with her coming-of-age drama with Dean Charles Chapman and Rob Brydon
It’s not the sort of role that normally grabs award-voters’ attention but it would be nice, and fully deserved, if it did. Meera Ganatra, playing Javed’s poor exhausted mother, a woman chained to her piecework sewing machine, is quietly excellent too.
Elsewhere, however, it’s more hit-and-miss with Chadha, who co-writes as well as directs, apparently uncertain about how much musical fantasy she wants to incorporate with her coming-of-age drama.
An early hurricane-night sequence that sees Javed posing against walls while song lyrics fly around the screen successfully echoes the music videos of that era, but later ones feel strangely underpowered.
Bruce Springsteen’s (above) big one – Born To Run – initially promises a proper hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment but eventually delivers distinctly less
A Saturday market crowd number has more than a hint of an EastEnders Christmas special to it, while Springsteen’s big one – Born To Run – initially promises a proper hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment but eventually delivers distinctly less.
A Dexter Fletcher production (he made Rocketman and Sunshine On Leith) this definitely is not.
But thanks to Chadha and Manzoor, this is an authentic-feeling take on the experience of the British-born sons and daughters of immigrant families, a generation torn between British freedoms and Asian traditions and desperate to succeed on level terms, but still having to confront the daily horror of ‘Pakis Out’ graffiti, urine through the letter box and National Front marches.
Despite well-intentioned but slightly jarring notes such as Hayley Atwell as Javed’s too-good-to-be-true English teacher, or David Hayman’s old soldier-with a heart of gold, it’s that sense of authenticity that eventually ensures success.
Well, that and Springsteen’s songs, of course. ‘Because tramps like us…’ – you know the rest.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
The Art Of Racing In The Rain (PG)
Rating: 
We’ve already had two films in the past three years that combine canine narration with doggy reincarnation – A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey – and now, along comes a completely unrelated third, and this one is absolutely barking mad.
But not in a good way.
Kevin Costner supplies the voice of Enzo, a golden retriever who is elderly and unwell when we first meet him but who, courtesy of the inevitable flashback, we soon see being bought as a puppy by aspiring racing driver Denny (Milo Ventimiglia).
Kevin Costner supplies the voice of Enzo, a golden retriever who we soon see being bought as a puppy by aspiring racing driver Denny (Milo Ventimiglia, above)
A lifelong man-dog friendship has clearly begun, although we’re already pretty certain (because we’ve seen this sort of sub-Marley & Me stuff before) it will be challenged by a pretty girl (Amanda Seyfried), a baby, serious illness… all the usual tear-jerking stuff.
It’s difficult to know which is more offputting – the relentlessly ridiculous mix of dogs and motor racing or Enzo’s wildly overwritten narration, which takes in his hopes for reincarnation (as a human), his love of motor racing and television, and his fear of, er, demon zebras.
Improbably directed by Simon Curtis, it’s a misjudged mix of melodrama and genre cliché that will surely only appeal to the most committed doggy-film devotees. ‘I feel like I have lived for an eternity,’ opines Enzo in a moment of canine insight.
By the end, I felt he had too.
Playmobil: The Movie (U)
Rating: 
Remember how wonderful The Lego Movie turned out to be? Well this – despite the obvious intentions of its makers – is not quite like that.
Based on a range of German plastic toy characters, its chaotic storyline embarks at breakneck speed not just to combine live action with animation but also to take in a girl, Marla, searching for her younger brother, a toy fair, a magic lighthouse, a mad Roman Emperor, a bearded but boyish-sounding Viking, a British secret agent and a fairy godmother.
Its chaotic storyline embarks at breakneck speed not just to combine live action with animation but also to take in a girl, Marla (above), searching for her younger brother
There are some funny lines, nice visual gags and an endearing underlying silliness, but somehow the whole thing never comes together convincingly. The best things are Daniel Radcliffe’s voice performance as the 007-like Rex Dasher, and Adam Lambert, who is very funny as Emperor Maximus and also has a rather good song.