Second star to the right and straight on till morning

Hello Everyone :-)

I’ve been away, as you can see by my lovely tan, and I was a little bit lax before I went (I was a bit preoccupied with changing money and packing and the like) so here’s something I should have posted a couple of weeks ago.

On 31^st May I sought out a film that I’ve been keeping tabs on for a while. I went to see ‘Third Star’.

It starts with a party for James (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has terminal Cancer. He heads off to Barafundle Bay with his three best friends Davey (Tom Burke), Bill (Adam Robertson) and Miles (JJ Field) for a last road trip before the end. On the way they meet some interesting people, lose quite a few of their belongings and find out some secrets about each other.

It looks totally awful wrist slashing depressingness on paper, but it really is more than that on the big screen. I found it surprisingly funny and very touching.

I think it’s safe to say this film had the smallest budget of any film I’ve ever seen. In fact the screening I was at had a Q&A (the first Q&A I’d ever been to, I was very excited) and before the film played Vaughan Sivell (the film’s writer and one of the producers) introduced it and gave us a statistic to chew on, Pirates of the Caribbean 4’s budget for advertising on the London Underground (that’s just the Underground in London, never mind the countless bus shelters and billboards in the rest of the country) was more than the entire budget for ‘Third Star’. I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. Needless to say I think ‘Third Star’ did more with its £1.5 million than POTC4 did with its £250 million.

I’ve no doubt Sivell and the others involved in the production of the film are rubbing their hands with glee at the recent success of (your favourite and mine) Sherlock. It is undeniable that Cumberbatch has been catapulted to leading man status and with his army of ‘Cumberbitches’ (yes that is what they call themselves) I expect that this film will reach people that ordinarily wouldn’t have bothered with it and I’m glad because it’s great.

The whole film is carried on the shoulders of the four leads and I thought they were brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch plays James and I think he does a great job. His role is weird because it’s partly him enjoying his last trip with the boys and partly him trying to set his affairs in order and then him trying to cope with the physical pain of his affliction. So there’s an awful lot packed into one character but Cumberbatch does it well, there’s plenty of emotion conveyed by those elfin features.
Adam Robertson who plays Bill makes him so likeable. Bill enters whole heartedly into the spirit of the trip, the ‘getting back to nature’ of it all. Miles in the antithesis of this. JJ Field plays Miles as a city loving playboy who is brutally honest and I really enjoyed his performance. He’s the least sympathetic of all the characters but I think he has the biggest (I hate this word) journey.
My favourite character was Davey. I think in my group of friends I am the ‘Davey’, not to the extent of his character but I recognised a lot of myself in him. Davey seems to be the youngest of the group but also the biggest worrier. He’s essentially been there for James right the way through his illness and feels a bit of resentment towards Miles (which manifests itself in a hilarious fight) because he hasn’t been around since James got the dreaded news. Tom Burke is such a magnetic screen presence I could not help but watch him. He has the loveliest face (which helps) but also is fantastically comedic and sincere when he needs to be.
In their individual performances the actors are wonderful but as a whole they manage the task of coming across as genuine friends and I really believed it. They play off each other so well you’d be forgiven for thinking they actually had known each other forever.

There has to be a mention of the scenery. Pembrokeshire is absolutely beautiful and it is shown off in all its glory in this. I was so taken by it I wanted to learn to drive just so I could go there and see it myself then I remembered I hate and am awful at driving.

Some of the film got on my nerves a bit. There are times when the camera drifts in and out of focus which makes you feel a bit queasy (I was on the front row of the cinema which added to the feeling of nausea) but then I think you’re supposed to feel a bit sick because that’s how James is feeling. It worked but I’m not 100% sure it needed to be there.

There are some great funny scenes like there’s a big fight in a pub, an encounter with a winged boy and a meeting with a beachcomber. The banter between the boys is my favourite though, I laughed properly loud at some of the effortless exchanges between them. These are really essential scenes because without them the subject matter could properly drag down the audience. Also I found it added to the realism. When people have cancer things don’t suddenly stop being funny, you don’t stop making jokes and things. Yes it does bring things into perspective but part of that is the realisation that we are a brief sneeze of time on this earth and you might as well have a laugh while you’re here.

Ultimately of course this film has at its heart very sensitive, dark subject matter and it definitely shifts more towards that as the film reaches its conclusion. There is a scene that I found very tough to watch where in the night James is in a lot of pain the others can’t find his medicine bag. Cumberbatch howls, he sounded like a wounded animal and I found it very difficult to watch, especially as all his friends can do is look on helplessly.

It really is a film that makes you feel. You will come out of the other side of this feeling like you’ve been well and truly rung out, but in a good way. There is a place for it out there in the world of film and I hope it finds a bigger audience than it has had in cinemas. Vaughan Sivell said at the Q&A that the film was due for a September DVD release and I urge you to hunt down a copy or find somewhere that’s still showing it. I think this film deserves to be seen.

Now…

Reasons to be cheerful
1. There is a plethora of Superhero movie fare either out or ‘Coming Soon’. We’ve just had ‘X:Men First Class’ (which I still haven’t seen yet), Green Lantern is out today and Captain America is out at the end of July. As I have previously alluded to, I go weak at the knees for a Superhero so this is shaping up to be my favourite summer of recent years :-)

2. I’m going to see ‘Senna’ on Tuesday! Me and my Mum are borderline obsessed with the F1 and although Ayrton Senna was around before I got properly into to the sport I’m very aware of who he is, especially as his nephew Bruno is a current F1 driver. Needless to say I’ll be letting you know how I get on.

3. I hate to be a narcissist but it’s my birthday soon :-)

That’ll do for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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