After a great game – and this was inarguably a great game – what’s more fun than sitting around dissecting the key plays? Now imagine having the chance to do that with all the key players who were involved in that game! Well, that’s only part of the pleasure of this film, which shows the TV replay of the Harvard-Yale game in 1968. An equal pleasure is meeting up with the participants 40 years later, seeing the contrast between the Yalies and the Harvards, seeing how they have come to terms with the event for which they all, except for Tommy Lee Jones, will best be remembered by history. Needless to say, the Crimson alums came across as more diverse, less privileged, less arrogant, and were especially fun to relate to the classmates I had just seen at my 40^th reunion. (One also wondered about Mike Bouscaren: was he joking when he described his evil intentions, and if so, does he think anyone other than his close friends will get it?) Kevin Rafferty’s documentary style – one camera, one interviewer, graphics-free credits – also reminded one that characters and the story make the movie, not bells and whistles.

 

A shallow movie about a shallow man. There is not much pleasure in watching a movie intended to enshrine a vain, prissy prima donna, and what could compensate – the dresses he designed – is also given short shrift: there is really only one dress we get to see at any length. Air kisses all around leave you longing for something more substantial.

I was glad to read in reviews that the final plot twist made no sense, because that saved the many hours I could have spent trying to reconcile the ending with the action that preceded it. As it was, I attributed my confusion to the compression required in turning a 6-part BBC series into a 2-hour US flick. Plot aside, what we had was a slew of characters, some – Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams – intriguing, others – Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren – not. The newspaper-room setting was sadly elegiac in its echoes of All the President’s Men and other forebears: is this the last movie in which we will see a rumpled criminal reporter taking notes by hand, and a managing editor holding the presses for a scoop?

Watchability 5. Likeability 4. Credibility 0. Even as a total fantasy, this star vehicle for Julia Roberts and Clive Owen left much to be desired. As a guessing game – when were there reactions real, when were they acting? – it wasn’t worth the effort. If you’re going to make a spy movie, bring back the Cold War at least, please.

Without question, the worst-acted movie of the year, and the plot warn’t much better. Other than Eastwood, the actors seemed to be reading their lines, after checking the teleprompter. Eastwood’s softening to the Hmong family next door belied his characterization, and Sue’s bold approach to him made little sense, either. On top of The Changeling, I fear that Clint’s best days are behind him.