This movie was supposedly about how we learn and aging. I learned nothing, but was 140 minutes older when it ended. Or maybe it was about love – but I found Cate Blanchett cold, Brad Pitt bloodless, chemistry lacking and their relationship an unconvincing Hollywood cliché. So what I was left with was a Forrest Gump narration and series of unbelievable anecdotes, “told” through a diary-reading format that recalled the much better The Notebook (or was it supposed to remind us of Titanic?) but in this case was wholly extraneous to the bizarre main story, which by itself was more than enough for a whole movie. If there was anything to be learned from a person’s going in reverse direction through life, our attention was diverted by such superficialities as studying the makeup on the actors and calculating what year we were in and how old, or young, the character now was.

A nicely done theatrical piece, more than a movie – and I’m not sure how well it relates to actual history. Frank Langella’s portrayal of Tricky Dick was superb, but even with all the layers he conveyed, one felt it didn’t come close to plumbing the actual depths of Nixon’s character. What really drove the man, and how could someone who hated people become such a successful politician? I found Michael Sheen’s David Frost overly fluffy and the climactic showdown unconvincing at best – what really happened? – but I did like the eye candy that Rebecca Hall provided throughout. The filmmakers’ lack of trust in the audience – or were they just concerned that a younger generation would have no idea what this was all about? – was epitomized when Nixon made the slip of arguing that the President is above the law. Not content with showing Nixon’s face slip, or lingering silently on Frost’s amazed countenance, they cut away to show Nixon’s backup team groaning and holding their heads for emphasis. Where the film succeeded best was in mixing actual footage with the acting, largely through the device of “interviewing” the characters in postscript fashion, with their hair shorter and years apparently added.

I admit to a personal aversion to Indian poverty and I favor realism to highly improbable stories, but this movie plugged into the energy of Mumbai and swept me along until, best of all, a curtain call in which the cast sang and danced and all the sordidness, violence, corruption and depressing poverty was temporarily washed away. In all, a paean to the escapism of entertainment. Still, this was not the best Indian movie of the year – and why Amal has not been released here remains a mystery.

Anne Hathaway gives a riveting performance (Best of the Year) as the psychotic woman released from rehab to attend, but in the event almost wreck, her sister’s wedding. The other characters barely register (I kept waiting in vain for Sidney to display some evidence of a personality), and none can draw our eyes away from the manic Hathaway with a short haircut that has all the marks of, in a telling metaphor, being self-inflicted. We see enough of her mother, the excellent Debra Winger, to see where some of Kim’s problems, such as lack of personal responsibility and emotional detachment, come from. But most of the movie is like watching a train, hurtling toward a wreck that we know is coming. We don’t feel cheated at the end when it doesn’t, just kind of relieved that a very bumpy ride is over. Still, the ride could have been about ten minutes shorter, as the wedding scene threatened to equal The Deer Hunter’s in irrelevance.

Unfortunately, a loser of a film about unfortunate losers in the rock’n’roll sweepstakes, the Canadian heavy-metallists, Anvil. The two leads, Lips and Robb, look so much like the stars of Spinal Tap, the film often resembles a parody of a parody, which is not a good thing. The songs, of which we get to hear no more than a snippet, are unmemorable, and the film lacks dramatic arc, with only one minor respite (a crowd in Tokyo actually shows up!) from a litany of downer incidents serving as a climax. What we’re left with is the sad thought that artists who can make people happy have to eke out a living at a children’s food bank, while lawyers and hedge fund managers who contribute little to society are making millions.