DVD Reviews

Flashbacks of a Fool

• Rating:
• Director: Baillie Walsh
• Starring: Clare Forlani
• Details: UK / TBC (16)

Despite the beautiful visuals and the sound performances from all concerned, Flashbacks Of A Fool fails for a three reasons. First and foremost, first-time writer-director Baille Walsh picked the wrong story or got lost somewhere along the way. Walsh kicks off the movie with a very young Joe Scot and best friend Boots performing a blood brother ritual. Okay, these guys are close. Cut to: years later and Joe (Craig) is a top actor on the skids; lonely and bored, he spends his nights drinking, snorting coke and sleeping with anyone in a skirt. A phone call from his mother (Williams) tells him Boots has died and this rocks Joe to the core. A flashback ensues where we find out how these two close friends grew up and what has driven them apart.. Except it doesn't. Boots (Max Deacon) doesn't really feature in the flashback - it's all about Joe and his falling for Ruth (Felicity Jones) and his sleeping with married next door neighbour Evelyn (May). After the flashback, Joe (Craig again) goes home for the first time in ages (we guess) for the funeral. The problem with this is that Walsh forgot or just got bored with the pulse of the story - Joe and Boots. There's no real connection between the two, we don't feel Joe's melancholy and regret, and all the rising strings and plinky-plonk pianos in the world can't right it. How can an audience feel what Craig is feeling if what he feels for most isn't in the movie? Second, Walsh spends the first third of the movie setting up Joe's world, the second third is the flashback, while the final third is funeral aftermath. Five minutes (tops) would have set up Joe's world, giving more room to explore the relationships that form and disintegrate in the flashback. This is the heart of the film, the reason it exists, and it dies a death. Third, there's no pacing or energy to the film - it's just one scene after another where minor characters, who might have had something to do in another draft, sit around doing nothing but direct the story away from where it should be going. There's a good movie in here somewhere and maybe Walsh needs to think about making it longer.

Review by Gavin Burke