Cannes 2010: Blue Valentine, Sound Of Noise

Blue Valentine was in Sundance, and I was a little surprised to see it turn up in Un Certain Regard here rather than Directors Fortnight, since, for all the acting going on in it, it's very much a director's movie. Michelle Williams (link to interview here) and Ryan Gosling play a young couple falling out of love, and the most striking thing about it to me, initially, was how much director Derek Cianfrance looks like his leading man, forcing me to wonder how autobiographical the story might have been. But although the two stars are never less than credible in their blue-collar roles – she's a nurse, he's in haulage – the film never gets beyond its window dressing. Spanning two timeframes (the beginning of the affair and the sour end of it, by which time Gosling's hard-working, once-likeable character has become drunk, violent and surly), Blue Valentine desperately needs a third element to make the film about something rather than just something. It's very good for what it is, and the cast are sure to be acknowledged at next year's Independent Spirit Awards, but I'd rather it were something more.

Similarly lacking in a vital bit of oomph is the very entertaining but finally disappointing Sound Of Noise, a mad musical comic-thriller from Sweden that I watched in Swedish with French subtitles. The opening is great, narrated by Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson), a hangdog cop who is the odd duck in a talented musical family. His brother is a famous conductor, but Amadeus has a tin ear, which makes their relationship fractious. Amadeus' life is changed when a gang of rogue musicians target his town for a special four-movement “performance” that will change the face of music forever. Their first attack is the best, as they enter a hospital, kidnap a local celebrity who's there having his haemorrhoids operated on and take him to the operating theatre, where they perform a medico-rave piece called Doctor! Doctor! Fill My Ass With Gas!. The second hit is good too, where a bank is attacked and bystanders warned, “Don't move! This is a concert!” The second half isn't quite so inventive, sadly, and where the film should reach a crescendo, it struggles to reach a climax. The characters are fun to spend time with, though, and this Critics' Week selection is a worth-seeking curio that will doubtless appear on the festival circuit if no UK buyer can be found.

Two afternoons of events at the UK Pavilion – including an excellent debate yesterday with British filmmakers Tom Hooper, Alicia Duffy, Stuart Hazeldine, Mat Whitecross and Olly Blackburn – has conspired to keep me out of the cinema. During this time I've heard very mixed reports of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful, hostile thoughts on Takeshi Kitano's Outrage and lots of 'meh' for Woody Allen's You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, which was full when I got there, over half an hour before curtain-up. I'm hoping to see these on Sunday, when the competition is repeated. In the meantime, no front-runner has emerged for the Palme D'Or, although Of Gods And Men is getting appreciative nods on the Croisette. Tonight I'm hoping to see* Stephen Frears's Tamara Drewe, which is proving a surprise sort-of-hit with both the fluffy and the serious scribes at the festival...

* This did not happen...