Friday, March 07, 2008

in which i admire a youthful actor

"admire" being the operative word here. It's rather strange since I often favour tall, strapping types or at least those types of blokes who look as though shaving is something that other, lesser folks do that I have found every one of this chap's films (well, his acting rather than the films) fantastic.

Today, I went and saw Penelope. It feels a bit disjointed and, perhaps, should be a bit longer than it is but for a nice break in the midst of a very busy week, it was all right. It's framed as a fairy tale-ish fantasy rather than reality and that makes it work better than it shoud. I was watching James McAvoy and his utter ordinariness and (rather good, I reckoned) American accent and realised that he has the ability to make kissing a post (*cough* Keira Knightley in Atonement and Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane *cough*) an act laden with chemistry.

He was the best part of Starter for 10, though the film itself was enjoyable and had an unexpected ending. He wasn't overshadowed by Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland and (all right, please do laugh now) I have a bootlegged copy of Children of Dune nestling away on my computer's hard drive. The faun was probably an error but there's really no going right with fauns. And, Mr. JA didn't have much to do there.

A common thread so far is the class issue--and I rather like that too. The poor young lad who is seduced by upper-class trappings, falls into a life to which he can't quite fit into and is then brought crashingly down (though not always) is a consistent factor in each of these characters. Maybe that's what works. Or, maybe he just oozes chemistry (though one wouldn't be able to tell looking at him :))

I'm looking forward to Wanted now.

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