Eleanor Reviews

**** After being brutally attacked by a bear, and abandoned by his treacherous trapping partner, Hugh Glass begins a long and dangerous journey across the bleak wilderness in search of justice for his dead son.   From the opening scene, you know that you're in for a pretty rough ride, although not as rough as what Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) has to go through. The opening scene sees a large hunting party attacked by a group of Native Americans, and, as the blood pours, the camera continues on one long, continuous take, flitting from face to face as men are knocked down left right and centre. It is a blistering opening, immersive and bloody, brilliantly depicting the panic of the situation. It sets the scene for a film that is more an experience than something you would sit down to enjoy, almost an art installation that makes you go 'that's amazing film-making' but not 'I'd love to see that again!' The cold seeps from the screen and into the aud

**** DVD Release Finding it hard to relate to his fiancée's pretentious friends, struggling writer Gil decides to walk the streets of Paris at night in search of inspiration. As midnight strikes, a car sweeps past him and he finds himself sitting alongside none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. So begins a series of evenings spent in 1920s Paris. It was probably somewhat inevitable that I would end up really liking this film, being an English Literature graduate and having always wanted to travel back to the moments in time where culture was changing, but I wasn't quite prepared for how much I would like it. I'm no Woody Allen aficionado (in fact I think this is the first film of his I've actually watched!), but on the strength of this, I think I might check out more of his work. The thing is, not a great deal happens, it's just the warm story of a man who ends up meeting his literary heroes due to a delightfully unexplained piece of Pa

**** Living together as husband and wife in 1920s Copenhagen, Einar and Gerda Wegener are successful artists. But Einar possesses a long held secret - that he believes he was born in the wrong body and should be a woman. As Einar, changing his name to Lili Elbe, begins to identify more with the female, Gerda struggles to accept the changes.   To bring the transition from man to woman to screen, you need a very talented actor, and luckily Tom Hooper found his man in Eddie Redmayne, who we have already seen as a master of physical transformation in  The Theory of Everything . This is a remarkable performance - at times I had to remind myself that I was watching a man - and beautifully realised, from the initial change in nuances, to the full encapsulation of feminine behaviour.  Redmayne will doubtlessly win plaudits for his sensitive and engaging performance as a man changing into a woman, but it is Alicia Vikander's portrayal of Gerda that is the real heart of the film.