Roger Corman 5th April 1926 – 9th May 2024

The death has taken place of legendary King of the Bs, Roger Corman, producer, director and mentor to an entire generation of American filmmakers and writers.

MGM Celebrates 100 Years 2024: The Post-War Era 1946-1959

After World War Two, the HUAC hearings and the Paramount Decree pressurised all the studios and the system itself was coming undone as stars broke away and television lured people away from the cinema and into their suburban lounges. Nonetheless MGM continued its busy output albeit halving its annual production rate to 25 and made some outstanding films in a variety of genres under new studio boss Dore Schary who was mostly responsible for an astonishing run of musicals – some of them box office flops but now universally acknowledged as classics. The studio competed for the decreasing audience numbers by utilising the new anamorphic process of CinemaScope and made several co-productions to cross-collateralise costs (and benefits) with outside production companies. It finished the Fifties with a flourish: Hitchcock’s canonical North by Northwest and the multi-Academy Award winner Ben-Hur.

Happy 88th Birthday Ursula Andress 19th March 2024!

Aren’t 8 + 8 the luckiest combination of numbers? So Swiss screen goddess Ursula Andress is more than twice blessed to have reached a grand age and managed a fabulous career while carving new ground for glamour, action roles and a fantasy object not just in cult films but throughout the culture. The first and best Bond girl, H. Rider Haggard’s real goddess to die for, star of a stream of saucy Italian sex comedies and an all round real woman whose relationships made her a constant feature of the press. Joan Collins recalls hanging out with her when she was dating James Dean in the Fifties, when they would turn up to parties dressed identically in white teeshirts and blue jeans, the epitome of matching blond beauty. Nowadays she’s retired but what a body of work. Happy Birthday to the unforgettable Ursula Andress!

Happy St Patrick’s Day 2024 from Mondo Movies!

It’s lashing down outside and we don’t mean the black stuff. Frankly it’s grim. Time to roll out some seasonal movies …

If you get really bored being on board with the shamrocks and shillelaghs paddywagon why not buy this little palate-cleansing number on Amazon which updates and contextualises (mis)perceptions about recent Irish rural cinema. You’re welcome! Slainte!

Richard III (1955)

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York. King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) has been placed on the throne with the help of his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Laurence Olivier) having wrested power militarily from Henry VI of the House of Lancaster. After Edward’s coronation in the Great Hall, with his brothers George, Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud) and Richard watching, he leaves with his wife Queen Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge) and sons. Richard contemplates the throne, before advancing towards the audience and then addressing them, delivering a monologue outlining his physical deformities which include a hunched back and withered arm. He describes his jealousy over his brother’s rise to power in contrast to his own more lowly position. He dedicates himself to task and plans to frame his brother, George for conspiring to kill the King, and to have George sent to the Tower of London, by claiming George will murder Edward’s heirs. He then tells his brother he will help him get out. Having confused and deceived the King, Richard proceeds with his plans after getting a warrant and enlists two ruffians Dighton (Michael Gough) and Forest (Michael Ripper) to do the dreadful deed. George is murdered, drowned in a butt of wine. Though Edward had sent a pardon to Richard, Richard stopped it passing. Richard goes on to woo and seduce The Lady Anne (Claire Bloom). While she hates him for killing her husband and father she cannot resist and marries him. Richard then orchestrates disorder in the court, fuelling rivalries and setting the court against the Queen consort, Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge). The King, weakened and exhausted, appoints Richard as Lord Protector and dies after hearing of the death of George. Edward’s son the Prince of Wales (Paul Huson), soon to become Edward V, is met by Richard while en route to London. Richard has the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings (Alec Clunes) arrested and executed and forces the young King, along with his younger brother the Duke of York (Andy Shine), to have an extended stay at the Tower of London. All obstacles now removed from his path to the throne, Richard enlists the help of his cousin the corrupt Duke of Buckingham (Ralph Richardson) to change his public image in order to become popular with the people. Richard then becomes the people’s first choice to become the new King. Buckingham helps Richard on terms of being given the title of Earl of Hereford with its income, but baulks at the prospect of murdering the two princes. Richard asks a minor knight Sir James Tyrrel (Patrick Troughton), whom he knows to be ambitious, to have young Edward and the Duke of York killed in the Tower of London. Buckingham, having requested his earldom at Richard’s coronation, fears for his life when Richard (angry at Buckingham for not killing the princes) shouts I am not in the giving vein today! Buckingham joins up with the opposition against Richard’s rule. Now fearful of dwindling popularity, Richard raises an army to defend his throne and the House of York against the House of Lancaster led by Henry Tudor (Stanley Baker), the Earl of Richmond and later Henry VII of England at Bosworth Field. However before the battle Buckingham is captured and executed. On the eve of the battle, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all those he has killed in his bloody ascent to the throne. He wakes up screaming … You should bear me on your shoulder! On 11th March 1956 this became the most watched film broadcast on TV in the US (simultaneously released in cinemas) and 11 years later when it was re-released in theatres it made records again – it’s probably the most popular historical Shakespeare screen adaptation and contributes to the (mis)understandings about its caricatured protagonist which have lately been corrected by the quietly powerful recent English film The Lost King. It was Laurence Olivier’s third time to direct and star in a Shakespeare production and if not as initially outwardly acclaimed as its predecessors latterly it is viewed as his best film, a stark and lucid narrative whose Technicolor visual influence could even be seen in Disney’s feature animation Sleeping Beauty, among others. Olivier of course makes for a classic, charismatic even campy villain and the contours of his rise and fall make for an utterly compelling watch. Sometimes criticised for a staid staging, this is a vividly played drama led by an incredible ensemble of British acting talent provided by producer Alexander Korda’s London Films contracted players, with its occasional flourishes all the more surprising when Otto Heller’s camera (shooting in VistaVision) underscores an incident, moving or tracking to heighten the impact. Murder her brothers, and then marry her. This study of power and undiluted, wicked ambition is quite thrilling with the occasional emotional note struck by Bloom as the seduced widow Lady Anne or those unfortunate children, guilt tripping the audience who cannot wait to see what Richard will do next. Conscience is a word that cowards use. Those soliloquies delivered to camera insinuate themselves into the viewer’s brain and sympathies. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Olivier had been working on this since he first portrayed Richard at the Old Vic in 1944 and after the successes of Henry V and Hamlet on the big screen this commemorated what might be his greatest performance as actor and director. Why, thus it is when men are ruled by women. Ably assisted by Gerry O’Hara, who took charge when Olivier was in front of the camera, this is literally masterpiece theatre, skillfully adapted (and heavily cut) by an uncredited Olivier from the 18th century stage presentations by Colley Gibber and David Garrick with a thrilling score from William Walton. I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks nor made to court an amorous looking glass, I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph, I that am curtailed of fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into breathing world scarce half made up and so lamely and unfashionable that dogs do bark at me as I halt by them

#650straightdaysofmondomovies

The 1966 re-release poster

The Beekeeper (2024)

I’m the beekeeper. I protect the hive. Rural Massachusetts. Retired schoolteacher Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) lives by herself on an isolated property but she has a tenant in her barn, Adam Clay (Jason Statham) who lives a quiet life as a beekeeper. Eloise falls for an online phishing scam and is robbed of over $2 million, the majority of which belongs to an educational charity she manages. Devastated, she dies by gunshot. Clay finds her body and is immediately arrested by FBI Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Eloise’s daughter. After her mother’s death is ruled a suicide, Clay is released. Verona tells him the group that robbed Eloise has been on the FBI’s radar for a while but is difficult to track. Wanting justice for Eloise, Clay contacts the Beekeepers, a mysterious group, to find the scammers responsible. Clay receives an address for the scammers: a call centre run by Mickey Garnett (David Witts). Clay scares off the employees and destroys the building. Garnett informs his boss, technology executive Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), who sends Garnett to kill Clay. A violent confrontation ensues where Clay kills Garnett’s men and severs Garnett’s fingers. Garnett calls Danforth while stopped at a bridge, informing him that Clay is a Beekeeper. Having followed Garnett, Clay drags him off the bridge with a truck to his death and warns Danforth that he is coming after him. Danforth informs former CIA director Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), who is currently running security for Danforth Enterprises at the request of Derek’s mother, Jessica, about Clay. Concerned, Wallace contacts the current CIA director Janet Harward (Minnie Driver) hoping to stope Clay. She contacts the Beekeepers and learns that Clay has retired from the organisation. The Beekeepers subsequently declare neutrality after Clay kills the current Beekeeper Anisette Landress (Megan Le) sent to kill him at a gas station. Meanwhile, Verona and her partner, Agent Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi), figure that Clay will assault the Nine Star United Centre in Boston, which oversees all of Derek’s global scam call centers. After informing FBI Deputy Director Prigg (Don Gilet) that Clay is a Beekeeper, they are shocked to get all the support they ask for. Wallace coordinates a group of ex-special forces personnel, revealing to them that the Beekeepers are a highly skilled and dangerous secret human intelligence organisation tasked with protecting the United States, operating above and beyond governmental jurisdiction. To improve their chances at stopping Clay, Wallace orders the group to secure the inside of the Nine Star Building, while the FBI places their own SWAT team around the perimeter. Danforth’s decision to not evacuate the employees enables Clay to quickly defeat the FBI SWAT team and infiltrate the building. After wiping out all of Wallace’s ex-Special Forces group, Clay proceeds to interrogate the manager, who reveals that Danforth is his boss. Verona informs Prigg that Danforth runs both companies, which several US government agencies use. Verona also brings up the point that not only will Clay try to kill Derek but he may also kill Jessica (Jemma Redgrave), the president of the United States, due to her association with the scam … Beekeepers keep working until they die. The Stath is back! And he’s in pursuit of righteous vengeance in this entertaining and well motivated thriller albeit this probably has the highest body count since the last John Wick entry with added fingers for electronic passes. Was it Aristotle that said character is action?! Literal to the nth degree, we have someone acting out his nominatively determined hobby, and killing his honey bees is just the worst thing you could do to the masked one. I taught CIA software to hunt money and not terrorists. The opening sequence is clear and concise – then we’re brought into a world where a very unlikely character (a very different looking Hutcherson as Derek) turns out to be the son of someone very important indeed – and while Redgrave is clearly powerful the big reveal doesn’t happen until c74 minutes into the running time – at which point many, many people have rued their crossing the Beekeeper. I will never steal from the weak and the vulnerable again! Then the action unspools at a supposedly impenetrable venue followed by a party at a coastal estate where Clay has to contend with a comic book South African mercenary Lazarus (Taylor James) who got unlucky the last time he met a Beekeeper and has the prosthetic leg to prove it. Obviously, this has to be the ultimate encounter. Throughout there are gnomic nods on the one hand to bees (what else) but on the other to the offspring of US Presidents with winks at the ethics of campaign fundraising, a fun set of references in election year. And this will not dissuade anyone of the justifiable fear that technology is theft. At the end of the day Mr Clay disappears just like the man with Black Magic chocolates – or James Bond. What a guy! He’s absolutely fucking terrifying! Truly the strong mostly silent killing machine. The well-hewn screenplay is written by Kurt Wimmer with tongue firmly in cheek and directed by David Ayer with stunning cinematography from Gabriel Beristain. Sometimes when the hive is out of balance you have to replace the queen

The Holdovers (2023)

The world doesn’t make sense anymore. I mean, it’s on fire. The rich don’t give a shit. Poor kids are cannon fodder. Integrity is a punch line. Trust is just a name on a bank. December 1970 in New England. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a classics teacher at Barton Academy, a boarding school he once attended on scholarship. His students and fellow teachers despise him for his strict grading and stubborn personality. Dr. Hardy Woodrup (Andrew Garman) Barton’s headmaster and Hunham’s former student, scolds Hunham for costing the academy money by flunking the son of an important donor (a senator), causing Princeton University to withdraw his offer of a place. As punishment, Hunham is forced to supervise five students left on campus during the holiday break, including troublemaker Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) whose mother cancelled a family trip to St Kitts to honeymoon with her new husband. Also staying behind is cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) whose son Curtis attended Barton and joined the military to pay for college but has been killed in the Vietnam. To the students’ chagrin, Hunham forces them to study and exercise on their break. After six days, the wealthy father of one of the students arrives by helicopter and agrees to take all five students on the family’s ski trip with their parents’ permission. Angus, who is unable to reach his parents for permission, is left alone at Barton with Hunham and Mary. When Hunham catches Angus trying to book a hotel room, the two argue about Hunham’s disciplinarian policies. Angus impulsively runs through the school halls and defiantly leaps into a pile of gym equipment, dislocating his shoulder. Hunham takes Angus to the hospital; to protect Hunham from blame, Angus lies to the doctors about the circumstances of his injury. At a restaurant, Hunham and Angus encounter Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston), Woodrup’s assistant. Hunham flirts with Lydia, who invites the pair to her Christmas party. Angus, Hunham, Mary and Barton’s janitor Danny (Naheem Garcia) attend Lydia’s party. Angus successfully flirts with Lydia’s niece Elise (Darby Lily Lee-Stack). Hunham is disappointed to discover that Lydia has a boyfriend and Mary gets drunk and has an emotional breakdown over Curtis’s death. Hunham insists on leaving early. Hunham and Angus argue; when Hunham references Angus’s father, Angus says his father is dead. Mary scolds Hunham for his unsympathetic attitude. Feeling remorseful for his actions, Hunham arranges his own small Christmas celebration … There’s nothing new in human experience, Mr. Tully. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man’s every impulse and appetite from the disgusting to the sublime is on display right here all around you. So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember, if you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present. Director Alexander Payne’s campus dramedy is set in the early 1970s so the mind turns to those wintry Love Story moments and the political satires of the era and even casts itself as a gnarly riposte to Dead Poets Society: this boasts none of those tropes or inclinations. Instead it’s about the accidental forming of an alternative family with Giamatti in the best performance he’s created since the last time he worked with Payne in the estimable and beloved Sideways. Their collaborations create nuanced portraits of masculinity in a continuum observed in Payne’s other work but somehow come off best when they’re together. At least pretend to be a human being. Please. It’s Christmas! Here he’s essentially Scrooge on the path to redemption as the seasonal setting and quasi paternal function require. I have known you since you were a boy, so I think I have the requisite experience and insight to aver that you are and always have been penis cancer in human form. Newcomers Randolph and Sessa are impressive indeed in their debut film roles. The backdrop of course is Vietnam and it’s foregrounded with the loss of Randolph’s son reminding us that it’s offscreen drama which informs a lot of on the nose exchanges in an often cliched character study that paradoxically ignores the contemporary politics in the main, lending its focus instead to the politics of the school. Twisted fucker orphaned that glove on purpose. Left you with one so the loss would sting that much more. If there’s a flaw in construction it’s in the absurd overlength at 133 minutes – something that definitely could not be thrown at the films it wants to retrospectively join in the pantheon. Those chilly scenes of Winter 1970 are authentically captured by cinematographer Eigil Bryld who perhaps surprisingly was shooting digitally. Written by David Hemingson, very loosely adapting Marcel Pagnol’s Merlusse to create a quasi-autobiographical tale, this is bracingly performed. Not for ourselves alone are we born

Happy Groundhog Day 2024 from Mondo Movies!

Happy Groundhog Day!

It’s Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day means you get a do over!

It’s cold on Groundhog Day!

This never gets old!!

The Leather Boys (1964)

I can’t believe we’re spliced. I feel just the same. Working class London cockney teenagers Dot (Rita Tushingham) and biker Reggie (Colin Campbell) get married even though she lives freely under her mother’s (Betty Marsden) roof, encouraged to get together with him. Their marriage soon turns sour. During an unsuccessful honeymoon at a Butlins holiday camp in Bognor Regis, Reggie becomes alienated from the brassy, self-absorbed Dot who gets her hair dyed blonde and is far too vivacious in company. Afterward, they begin to live increasingly separate lives as Reggie becomes more involved with his biker friends, especially the eccentric Pete (Dudley Sutton). Reggie also loses interest in having sex with Dot who never cleans up their bedsit and can’t cook. When Reggie’s grandfather dies, Dot complains that Reggie’s support for his bereaved grandmother has stopped them visiting the cinema. Her boorish behaviour at the funeral and her refusal to move in with Reggie’s grandmother (Gladys Henson) leads to a big row. She leaves, while Reggie remains with his grandmother, who will not leave her own house. He brings in Pete, who has been forced to leave his lodgings, to stay as a lodger with her. The two share a bed. Meanwhile, Dot shows an interest in Brian (Johnny Briggs) another biker. The following day, Pete and Reggie drive to the seaside. Reggie wants them to chat up a couple of girls but Pete has no interest. Reggie now intends returning to Dot, who has hatched a plan to get him back by pretending to be pregnant. Dot is sitting with Brian when she tells Reggie of her supposed pregnancy. Believing he can’t possibly be the father, Reggie accuses Brian and the two men fight. Men? You look like a couple of queers. Dot visits Reggie’s grandmother’s house where she learns that he shares his bed with Pete and argues with the pair of them when she sees how they are living. … People don’t talk like that in real life. Adapted by Gillian Freeman from her 1961 novel (which she published pseudonymously as ‘Eliot George’!), this febrile drama speaks to a London of a certain era before the high rises destroyed communities but according to Tushingham the dialogue the cast were given was out of touch and didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, something they realised when they hung out with London’s real biker subculture. She, Campbell and Sutton improvised much of it in the company of Canadian director Sidney J. Furie who gave them all a couple of days off during the Cuban Missile Crisis (this was shot September-October 1962) because he was so depressed about what seemed like the end of the world. Speaking on Talking Pictures’ documentary Back to The Ace with Rita Tushingham, the leading lady, who was twenty during production, recalls the fun they had on set, the opportunity to visit Butlins in Bognor Regis (which she declares she would never ordinarily have done!) and how innovative Sutton was – he certainly has some fruity lines. When he takes advantage of his friend’s immature marriage it’s like a bomb going off. You look like a bunch of dead roses. He and Campbell died within 6 months of each other in 2018 while Briggs, another TV stalwart, died in 2021. Freeman was on set for several days and according to Tushingham she can be seen in a couple of shots. The Ace Cafe in London’s Wembley suburb on the North Circular, off Beresford Avenue between the Grand Union Canal and Stonebridge Park Depot, is still going strong today as a centre for bikers and rockers, after closing for a period after 1969 and being used as a tyre salesroom. The source novel had been suggested to Freeman by agent/publisher Anthony Blond as a Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs and it starts out as a story of an incompatible marriage but with that exploitation title you know it’s heading somewhere more interesting, going beyond the so-called kitchen sink realism tropes to an intersection of sex, class and gay life. Part of the attraction is of course the biking sequences, particularly the road trip to Edinburgh. It’s extraordinary to see how normal the treatment of two young working class men in a relationship could be at this point, given that homosexuality wouldn’t be decriminalised in the UK until 1967. The concluding sequence, when Reggie is finally exposed to the fact of Pete’s gay life at the Tidal Basin Tavern in Silvertown, provides a sharp shock for his character and forces a decision. Up to this point it’s really all subtext and insinuation. It’s certainly notable that it took writing by women to address the topic of homosexuality in the era with Victim (co-written by Janet Green) appearing a couple of years earlier but broaching the issue far more directly. By the time this was released Kenneth Anger’s legendary short film Scorpio Rising would explicitly link bikers with gay sex, receiving its premiered 29 October 1963 at the Gramercy Arts Theater in NYC. Locations for The Leather Boys include: Beresford Aveneue, Park Royal; Haydons Road and the Bethel Church on Kohat Road, Wimbledon; Harbut Road and Southolme Road (now demolished) in Wandsworth; and St Luke’s C of E School (now demolished) in Kingston Upon Thames, as well of course as Bognor Regis where the fresh cinematography of Gerald Gibbs is at its best. That sequence between the lads and Brenda (Valerie Varnam) and June (Jill Mai Meredith) is among the most flavourful in the film. This is beloved cult cinema, both familiar and groundbreaking, fascinating in terms of its position within British screen history, filled with contrasting performance styles and full of the distinctive visual flair of director Furie, still going strong in his ninetieth year. Freeman died in 2019 and aside from some clever novels, ballets and a pioneering study of pornographic literature, is also known for the Robert Altman thriller, That Cold Day in the Park. Her daughters Harriet and Matilda Thorpe are actresses. The Smiths’ 1987 song Girlfriend in a Coma is an homage to the film. Morrissey’s decision to put a Cilla Black cover on the B-side reportedly caused Johnny Marr to leave the band which is why they’re not in the video. We don’t have to live and die together – do we?

At the Ace Cafe in 2007.

The single’s cover featuring playwright Shelagh Delaney

Rita Tushingham today (The Guardian)

Polite Society (2023)

Maybe it’s time the universe bends to someone else. London. British-Pakistania teenager Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) aspires to become a stuntwoman in films like her idol Eunice Huthart, the former TV Gladiator who now works on all the big Marvel and Star Wars films. Under an alter ego, The Fury, Ria creates TikTok online films of martial arts training under the name Khan-fu with the help of her older sister, Lena (Ritu Arya) who films the pieces. Lena has dropped out of art school and moved back in with their loving but traditional parents, Fatima (Shobu Kapoor) and Rafe (Jeff Mirza), both of whom discourage Ria’s dreams. At school, Ria is inseparable from her friends Clara (Seraphina Beh) and Alba (Ella Bruccoleri) but their disapproving teacher urges her to pursue a proper career. Ria’s emails to Eunice about a potential mentorship go unanswered, and she is soundly defeated by the school bully Kovacs (Shona Babayemi). The Khan family is invited to an Eid soirée by Raheela Shah (Nimra Bucha) the leader of Fatima’s social circle of Pakistani mothers, at her lavish mansion. Ria figures out the party has been arranged to find a suitable marriage match for Raheela’s geneticist son Salim (Akshay Khanna) when she finds a tableful of photos of potential wives but can’t stop Lena from agreeing to a date. To Ria’s horror, Lena is charmed by Salim and, after a few whirlwind weeks of dating, agrees to marry him and move to Singapore. Despite their parents’ support, Ria’s refusal to accept Lena’s choices, including abandoning her art career, drives the sisters apart. Convinced there must be a more sinister explanation, Ria enlists Clara and Alba’s help to spy on Salim. They concoct an elaborate plan to steal his laptop and Ria distracts him while her friends hack his computer, but they find nothing incriminating. Desperate to sabotage Lena’s relationship, Ria lashes out at her friends, breaking into Salim’s bedroom to plant used condoms. She is caught however and confronts Salim with a lovey-dovey picture showing him together with a pretty girl, whom he explains is his first wife who died in childbirth. Furious, Lena berates Ria, telling her to give up the fantasies that she will change her mind about the marriage or that Ria will ever become a stuntwoman. At odds with her sister and ignored by her friends, Ria gives up martial arts. She visits Raheela to apologise and is dragged into joining her spa day, where Raheela reveals her true colours and tortures Ria with leg waxing. Fighting off Raheela’s staff, Ria stumbles into the mansion’s secret lab and discovers that all the eligible women at the Eid party were secretly scanned and tested and Lena was selected for her fertility and strong uterus. Escaping back home, Ria realises she can’t convince her family of the truth. She tells Clara and Alba, and together they devise a plan, persuading Kovacs to drive them to the wedding to rescue Lena … If you can’t support me then you need to stay out of my life. Nida Manzoor’s writing and directing feature debut (following her sitcom We Are Lady Parts, another Working Title production) is daft and daring and, as its maker describes it, is a ‘kung fu Bollywood epic.’ Everything on a plate for you. With a clear antecedent in Bend it Like Beckham (please don’t remind us of how long ago that was … ) this hilarious action comedy bursts with life and humour with an admirable protagonist and a crazed antagonist which we think is pretty perfect as arranged marriage romcoms go. The Venn diagram for the narrative goes something like this – martial arts, betrayal, marriage, class, tradition, female empowerment, family honour, teenage rebellion, mad scientist, evil mother-in-law, wedding heist. That’s a powerful concoction for a romcom and mixed up with references to Jane Austen, the mother of Britcom, and by way of a modern birth control twist, that other nineteenth century literary monster, Frankenstein, brings this into a different generic (and genetic) identity realm entirely with a setpiece denouement and revelation as this aspiring teenage stuntwoman literally finds her life has turned into a bonkers action film. It’s all about sister love, actually, and this is bright, witty and gobsmacking satirical entertainment and cultural commentary with utterly charming performances all round. A funny, nutty delight. And the stunts are brilliant! Your uterus is 1.8 times stronger than any uterus I’ve seen. It’s magnificent!