UK-US critiques of "The Girl"
While on the subject of "The Girl in the Cafe," it might be fun in the coming days and weeks to compare the critical responses to the film on both sides of the Atlantic. Here's a flavor of what might be coming down the pike. Stateside we've got the New York Times quoting Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's international editor, saying in a recent column, "that a romantic comedy about global poverty might sound 'sleep inducing' but that 'The Girl in the Café' was actually 'a pleasure to watch.'" Kristin Hohenadel in the LAT Kelly Macdonald interview noted by Doctor Media below, calls the film "surprisingly affecting" as it "tries to call attention to the need to end extreme poverty."
Compare this with the initial critical reception to the film - premiering June 25 on BBC and HBO - on BBC's Newsnight Review last week.
Every Friday night on Newsnight three rather pompous cultural critics take up the last third of the show to pontificate on the latest play or movie or TV show or whatever. Last Friday, leftie author John Harris, academic Sarah Churchwell, and (right-wing) Times commentator Michael Gove got a chance to discuss "The Girl in the Cafe." None of them were hugely impressed with the film, it must be said.
Interestingly it was Churchwell (a lecturer at the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia and the only American in the group) who was the most complimentary of the three - and even she only really liked the first hour of the film, dealing with the "love story" (she thinks the second half, dealing with the polemical side, becomes unbelievable). Michael Gove derided what he described as "the traditional Richard Curtis schtick" and called the film patronising "propaganda," simplistic, and "morally empty." John Harris, easily the most bolshie of the three, totally rips into the film, calling it "West London New Labour Agitprop with a distinct smell of of Princess Diana around it" (I love that imagery), and "garbage". By the end they were all mercilessly slagging off the film. But Churchwell does come back to make perhaps the most astute point that she noticed "as an American": the film's "shameless sucking up to the British government," i.e., that everyone - the French, the Germans, the Americans - is ready to sell out the poor old Africans, and only the noble, self-righteous British ministers are ready to stand up for Africa. (If you've followed the UK news on G8/Live8 you might also have noticed some serious "sucking up" to Blair and Brown by Bono and Bob Geldof.) Anyway, Churchwell's comment gives an opening to John Harris to exclaim, "This is getting dangerously close ... [to] what you'd see if you lived in a benign, Brownite [as in Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown] one-party state." Harris seems to have a knack of sounding like he's talking bollocks but actually making a compelling point!
This could get very interesting indeed.
Compare this with the initial critical reception to the film - premiering June 25 on BBC and HBO - on BBC's Newsnight Review last week.
Every Friday night on Newsnight three rather pompous cultural critics take up the last third of the show to pontificate on the latest play or movie or TV show or whatever. Last Friday, leftie author John Harris, academic Sarah Churchwell, and (right-wing) Times commentator Michael Gove got a chance to discuss "The Girl in the Cafe." None of them were hugely impressed with the film, it must be said.
Interestingly it was Churchwell (a lecturer at the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia and the only American in the group) who was the most complimentary of the three - and even she only really liked the first hour of the film, dealing with the "love story" (she thinks the second half, dealing with the polemical side, becomes unbelievable). Michael Gove derided what he described as "the traditional Richard Curtis schtick" and called the film patronising "propaganda," simplistic, and "morally empty." John Harris, easily the most bolshie of the three, totally rips into the film, calling it "West London New Labour Agitprop with a distinct smell of of Princess Diana around it" (I love that imagery), and "garbage". By the end they were all mercilessly slagging off the film. But Churchwell does come back to make perhaps the most astute point that she noticed "as an American": the film's "shameless sucking up to the British government," i.e., that everyone - the French, the Germans, the Americans - is ready to sell out the poor old Africans, and only the noble, self-righteous British ministers are ready to stand up for Africa. (If you've followed the UK news on G8/Live8 you might also have noticed some serious "sucking up" to Blair and Brown by Bono and Bob Geldof.) Anyway, Churchwell's comment gives an opening to John Harris to exclaim, "This is getting dangerously close ... [to] what you'd see if you lived in a benign, Brownite [as in Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown] one-party state." Harris seems to have a knack of sounding like he's talking bollocks but actually making a compelling point!
This could get very interesting indeed.
posted by hdougie at 9:29 AM
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