San Sebastian Film Festival 2011: Albert Nobbs, Take This Waltz, Silver Tongues and Texas Killing Fields

Albert Nobbs arrived in San Sebastian more as an appendage to Glenn Close, who came to pick up her lifetime achievement award, than as a film event in its own right. Rodrigo Garcia's film debuted in Telluride – always a prestigious place to start – and went on to Toronto, but, although it features a very game lead performance from Close, the film hasn't really gathered much momentum or awards buzz over the past few weeks. I can see why, because it's really quite conventional, but although tries a bit too hard with its mash-up of styles – Cranford-like period soap opera meets Boys Don't Cry-style indie – it does tell an interesting story and is way better than Get Low, another passion project driven by a Hollywood star (Robert Duvall) that premiered here a few years ago.

Albert Nobbs (Close) is a buttoned up waiter working at the upscale Morrison's hotel in 1900s Dublin; he is liked and respected but keeps himself to himself. This is because Nobbs is actually a woman, a fact that seems abundantly clear to us but not to anyone around him. One night the hotel manager insists that Nobbs share his bed with a visiting workman, Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), and Nobb's secret is exposed when a flea gets into his/her corset (“I'm a martyr to fleas,” he/she laments). But, wouldn't you just know it, Hubert Page is a woman too, and so begins a curious friendship between the two, as Nobbs begins to explore both his real and adopted identities.

The period element of the movie is well handled, although the roundelay of well-known faces tends to overwhelm what is effectively a three-hander. Mia Wasikowska plays Helen, the maid that Nobbs takes a shine to; Aaron Johnson is the violent skivvy Helen falls for; Brendan Gleason is the hotel's resident doctor; and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is, well, just a guest. But there is an interesting seed at the centre of all this; Albert Nobbs is not a film about sexuality (and thankfully so, since Close looks uncomfortably like Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man). Rather, Albert Nobbs is about someone who doesn't fit, and in a wonderful scene with McTeer Nobbs decides to give being his/her true self a go, trying on a bonnet and dress made by Page's wife. The funny thing is, though neither woman looks convincingly like a man, each looks even more absurd in a woman's finery.

I liked Albert Nobbs if just for this scene alone, because it did articulate something very reasonable about the character, and Close's performance is very well-judged, as it is throughout. There is a very fine line between passion project and vanity project, however, and while Close's star vehicle succeeds on a very mainstream level, there's not much I'd say to recommend Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz. Maybe it's a guy thing, but I couldn't buy into this story of a young married woman (Michelle Williams) who, after five years of marriage to a loveable lump (Seth Rogen) decides to have a fling with a man she meets on a plane (Luke Kirby). It's effectively the same story as The Deep Blue Sea but with less emotion and more cod intellectualism, stretched to breaking point at just under two hours and with a final reel that just seems to go on forever. It will probably go down in history as the film in which Sara Silverman a) appears naked and b) plays a serious role, but, sadly, neither of those things will be enough to sell the film to a male audience.

Silver Tongues is an American film by way of Glasgow; directed by Scotsman Simon Arthur, who won the audience award at this year's Slamdance, it's a slow burn and something of a genre mash-up too, since it uses several styles before revealing its hand in a clever final act. The beginning is especially good, in which a young honeymooning couple meet an older couple at dinner; the conversation soon becomes sexual and there are plans made for a foursome.

It doesn't quite come together though, and the film ingeniously switches focus to Gerry (Lee Tergesen) and Joan (Enid Graham), a sort of existential Bonnie and Clyde who move through New York State causing role-play havoc wherever they go. They accuse a preacher of stealing, then visit an old people's home, where they pose as relatives. And in between they have a suffocating, violent relationship in which Gerry seems to have the controlling hand. Nothing is what it seems, however, and though the film lacks a certain narrative drive in successfully moving us from each stand-alone scene to the next, Arthur's film has atmosphere and intelligence that are both far in excess of Silver Tongues' modest budget.

A more straightforward genre piece was provided, perhaps unsurprisingly, by Ami Canaan Mann – daughter of director Michael Mann – whose debut film Texas Killing Fields skipped Toronto and came directly to San Sebastian from Venice. Word from that festival wasn't great, but, although it doesn't add much to the field (no pun intended) of modern policier/neo noir movies, I did find Mann's film to be gripping, with lots of tension and some great performances. The key actors here are Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Detectives Souder and Heigh respectively. Souder is the local Texan cop, Heigh the big gun brought from New York, and when a series of woman are murdered in the outlying area, Heigh is drafted in by Souder's volatile, outspoken ex-wife (Jessica Chastain), who is also on the force, to help find the perpetrator.

There are few surprises here, and the red herrings aren't especially red or herringy. But Texas Killing Fields does work as a cop story, with Worthington and especially Morgan on good form as the mismatched partners. The supporting roles are interesting too, with Twin Peaks' Sheryl Lee as the town prostitute, Chloe Moretz as her neglected daughter, and, best of all, Stephen Graham as a weirdo scuzzball from the nearby power plant. The music adds a whole extra dimension, with a great, bluesy score by Tindersticks' Dickon Hinchliffe that reminded me of Wild Things. Perhaps the script needed another pass, but some of the film's loopholes work to its advantage, positing the bayous of Texas as ongoing dumping ground for victims past and future.