TheRetroCritic

Adapting a play should be pretty straight-forward: you've got pretty much the whole script right there! But sometimes, movies and plays just don't translate well to each other. Surely a talented director like Roman Polanski would know how to side-step such an issue though. Right? Well... yes and no. From very early on, it's pretty clear that after a Haneke-style opening shot we'll pretty much be stuck in this one apartment with all the main characters for the entirety of the film. I can see why Polanski thought that would work: the claustrophobic setting coupled with the stress and awkwardness bouncing off the walls creating an unnerving sense of "get me the hell outta here!". Fine. It's a stagy concept but I can see it working. Unfortunately, not really the case here. Had the story progressed in a different, more chaotic and entertaining way then this could have worked brilliantly (see The Dinner Game ). But the banality of the core premise's

Here's a little film which I saw ages ago and talked about long before its release (Gibson + Beaver = lols) but never actually got around to reviewing. Why? Well, I quite simply didn't know what to make of it. Sold as a kind of harmless, cute indie comedy, The Beaver looked like fun and the very idea of Mel Gibson with a cockney beaver hand-puppet alone made me very happy indeed. Imagine my surprise then when the film ends in the most unsubtly depressing way imaginable! I won't spoil it but jeesh! So it all starts off as a kind of happy-go-lucky dramedy about a guy going through a mental breakdown and finding salvation in the titular beaver. The Beaver helps him through a difficult time in his life and it all seems to be heading towards a nice little Disney-approved ending. Then Mel fights The Beaver. Literally. It's HILARIOUS. But then it's followed by something so dramatically crazy your jaw will probably drop as you suddenly find yourself in a very