Book Review - 'The One Plus One' By Jojo Moyes

Jess has it tough—two jobs, an estranged husband who doesn’t contribute any child support, a stepson who gets bullied, a gifted daughter who due to financial difficulties cannot get a top education, and a guard dog that sleeps more than guards.

Ed is a successful man living in the city, recently divorced but the owner of two homes and two cars and eats out every night. After a bad business decision Ed is investigated for insider trading. To hang low while his case is sorted he retreats to his seaside home where he meets Jess – his cleaner.

 

From here Jess and Ed’s lives are thrown together out of necessity—necessary because Jess needs to get her daughter to a maths Olympiad in order to win the prize money to get her through private school, and necessary because Ed has realised how bad loneliness is, and is also in need to redeem himself from his own conscious. 

The book starts out as a dysfunctional family drama and slowly ebbs into romance a little bit before the half way point. It’s not soppy romance either, but the kind that seems natural and not forced.

Available in print or audiobook and eAudio

Movie Club - Happy-Go-Lucky

This month the Movie Club will be screening 'Happy-Go-Lucky'. Written and directed by Mike Leigh, ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ is a character-driven film that follows the protagonist, Poppy, as she experiences some ups and downs in her life. Poppy is a 30-something school teacher living in London. She is optimistic, chirpy and happy all of the time, it is not a superficial act, it is just who Poppy is. Poppy lives with her friend and co-worker, Zoe, who acts as a kind of moral compass in a film that combines extreme optimism with extreme pessimism (in the form of Scott). Scott is a narcissistic driving instructor whom Poppy seeks out for driving lessons.

The film relies on a series of events that slowly reveal the characters of Poppy and Scott. There is no major dramatic plot or action sequence, rather we meander through the everyday life of Poppy: as she goes to work and deals with a problematic student, as she converses with a homeless man, as she takes salsa classes, as she visits her younger sister Helen, as she takes driving lessons with Scott. It is through these sequential shots of Poppy’s life that we build-up a knowledge base that reveals layers of Poppy’s character. Dramatic tension is maintained throughout by the relationship between Poppy and Scott.

 

The film is interesting not only for its character study of Poppy, but also its depiction of gender and stereotypes. Most of the characters in the film are female, except for Scott and Tim. Tim is only a minor character, and Scott is presented as aggressive, impulsive and an unlikeable male. The lead character here is Poppy, the film is Poppy’s film, and there is no male counter-part that she ever needs to rely upon. To add to this, Poppy defies the norms of female happiness; rather than gaining a sense of meaning from a man, children or family, Poppy sources fulfilment from things such as work, flamenco dance classes, trampolining, and friends.

Nominated for an Academy Award, the film is funny and light, yet full of wise lessons and deep emotion.

'Happy-Go-Lucky' will be showing on Wednesday 8 March, 6pm at Narellan Library. Tea, coffee and biscuits provided, BYO snacks are more than welcome. Stay after the screening for a short discussion about the film.

 

Film Review - Just go with it By Director Dennis Dugan

Starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston this romantic comedy is full of laughs. To cover up a lie involving a wedding ring pick up line, Danny Maccabee decides to pretend that his assistant Katherine is his soon to be ex-wife to impress the new love of his life.

In Just go with it when the lies get deeper everyone ends up being involved. The kids end up tricking him into taking everyone on a fabulous holiday to Hawaii only for the situation to get more complicated. Filled with laughs, who will Danny end up with? Anne

Movie Club—Fargo

This month the Movie Club will be screening Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, starring Francis McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi.

Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) dreams of becoming rich like his father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), by investing in a parking garage development. To do this, he needs cash, and the best solution he can devise is to have his wife Jean (Kristin Rudrüd) kidnapped so that he can collect the ransom money, knowing that her wealthy father would more than willingly pay it for her safe return. To do this, he hires two career criminals, Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) and Carl Showalter (Buscemi). But things go wrong from the outset, and as the body count rises the events spiral out of Jerry's control. Pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson must use all her police cunning to bring those responsible to justice.

The film has garnered universal acclaim after its release, with the reviewing duo Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel crowning it the best film of 1996. It has maintained its status, given its unique characterisations, offbeat dark humour, and exaggerated local colour.

The film will be screened on Wednesday 14 September at 6pm at Narellan Library, Corner of Queen and Elyard Street, Narellan. Tea, coffee, and biscuits provided, but BYO snacks are more than welcome. Stay after the screening to share your thoughts about the film and join in a discussion about the many darkly humourous moments in the film.

Book Review—A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

We all know someone like Ove. He’s the neighbour who tells you how to correctly mow the lawn, the uncle who always knows what’s wrong with the economy, or the man on the bus who will tell you why smartphones are nothing more than electronic humbug. Ove wakes early every morning before doing a neighbourhood inspection to make sure all is well and everyone is following the rules. He then has coffee with his wife, Sonja, and does a solid days work. Or at least, he used to. With Sonja dead for six months, Ove is placed in early retirement by the company where he worked for 30 years. Rather than face his days doing nothing at home he decides to end his life and join his wife. But with each attempt he comes face to face with the incompetence of the modern world, and each time he must delay his plan in order to set things right.

With hilarious observations of contemporary life, Backman shifts through all the assumed goods of the modern world, from tech professionals, to jogging, and the nonsensical T&Cs that accompany over consumerism, all with colourful, cantankerous jibes. But where this novel works is not in its observations or in its adeptness at highlighting the curmudgeon in our own lives (or in ourselves). Instead it is in its creation of sympathy for Ove. We come to see that his “rules are rules” mentality is not out of spite for other people, but a frustrated response to a world that only ever regarded him as someone who should just follow the rules, despite his attempts to live a life of principles that no one else seems to value.

A Man Called Ove is a hilarious, touching and compassionate portrait of those that modern life leaves behind. 

Andreas

Film Review - I give it a year By Director Dan Mazer

In this movie, I give it a year follows the life of a mismatched couple in their first year of marriage. Deeply in love and happy to overlook their differences, they wed even though their friends have doubts. Will they live happily ever after when there are old flames and new temptations around?

Rated MA15+- Strong sexual references, course languages and nudity.

This is a hilarious romantic comedy from the producers of Love Actually, Bridget Jones Diary and Notting Hill. A very enjoyable movie, it doesn’t disappoint.
Anne

Film Review—Evil Dead 2

Sam Raimi’s second horror classic. Ash and Linda go for a romantic vacation to a secluded cabin. There they discover a book bound in human skin and find the recorded notes of the archaeologist who discovered the terrifying tome known as the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The recording recites incantations that release evil spirits that possess both the living and recently deceased. Linda falls prey to these spirits, and Ash is left to try and vanquish the evil.

It may sound like a tasteless cliché, and worse, the sequel of a tasteless cliché. But it was with the first Evil Dead that the “cabin in the woods” horror film had its genesis, and the true genius of Evil Dead 2 is that it is not a simple continuation of events of the previous film. It is an extension of the first film while at the same time being a parody of it and other horror films. It teeters the fine line between horror and comedy, scaring you immediately after you finished a hysterical cackle.

Few films can boast the distinction of being both a masterpiece of the genre and at the same time a loving satire of it, but Evil Dead 2 can proudly hold its severed head high in that camp.
Andreas

Want to watch Evil Dead 2 right now? You can with IndieFlix on the Library Website. IndieFlix provides award winning independent films, cult favourites and out right classics that can all be watched wherever and whenever you want. To start enjoying these movies all you need to do is go to the Camden Library IndieFlix page, create your RBdigital account, and release your inner movie lover.

Book Review—Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov’s most celebrated and infamous novel. It is the story of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature academic. While staying at the Haze residence to work on a multivolume comparison of French and English writers he meets Dolores, or, as he will come to know her, Lolita: “Light of my life, fire of my loins”. There is however a problem: Lolita is 12 years old, and Humbert goes to extreme lengths to see and hold Lolita, even marrying Charlotte Haze, her mother, whom he despises. Finally possessing that which he desires, Humbert regales through the troubling ‘relationship’, until in the end the already tawdry tale escalates to murder.

Humbert is unrepentant and neither is Nabokov’s prose. On full show are the writer’s love of and skill with striking phrases, puns, literary allusions and transformations that ooze over every line. It is alarming to have such vile subject matter in such incredible prose, and for many this is a stumbling block. It is a peculiarity that erotic elements in literature are often not viewed beyond the surface. It is accepted that Moby Dick is about more than just whaling, or that The Great Gatsby is about more than wild parties and excess in the Jazz Age. But with Lolita the obvious perversion is all some see, with Nabokov’s rich style viewed as an attempt at masquerading a “dirty little book”.

Lolita is best described as the twisted comedy of Humbert, a pompous, vile, self-absorbed unreliable narrator. He has his charms, chief among them his verbose wit, and many more flaws, primarily his misuse of his eloquence. But his is a hilarious, ironic tale of the collision of memory and desire in the mind of a vain wretch.

Andreas

Film Review - The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a vestige of old world decorum and sophistication, epitomized by the legendary concierge Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes). But when Gustave is accused of murdering Madame D (Tilda Swinton), one of the many wealthy guests who benefit from his “exceptional service”, he must abandon the scenes of his hotel and rage through a tumultuous interwar Europe. With Zero (Tony Revolori), his faithful lobby boy, he must prove his innocence and reveal that the real fiends are Madame D’s vile family.

Anderson’s films always have a constructed feel, with symmetrical shots, striking colourisation and bizarre characters from an ensemble cast. Never has this been more appropriate than in The Grand Budapest Hotel, the quirky melange creating a theatrical world in contrast to the harsh realities of its period setting; the stage of the hotel withstanding the invasions of the rampaging world. A loving tribute to the value of stories and memory in the face of reality. 
Andreas