My Friend Dahmer (15)
Directed by Marc Meyers
★★★★★

WHEN high school pupil Jeffrey Dahmer conned an “interview” with US Vice President Mondale while visiting Washington, the latter told him that he had “a very bright future” ahead of him.

So much for the US politician, because Dahmer grew up to be a serial sex offender and killer who murdered 17 men before a fellow prisoner killed him in 1994.

Director and screenwriter Marc Meyers’s gripping portrait of the future necrophilic cannibal’s high school senior year in Ohio is based on the graphic novel by Derf Backderf, a school friend of Dahmer. It's a coming-of-age chiller which combines sharp Freudian analysis of a dysfunctional family and a portrait of the cruelties of US high school life which is far nastier than Hollywood’s usually soaked-in-saccharin depictions.

As Dahmer, former Disney TV star Ross Lynch is magnificent as he dissolves dead animals in acid, picks up road kill and deals with his parents’ rupturing marriage. Unexpectedly, he becomes a hero by faking wild fits in public, first at school and memorably in a mall.

Lynch is utterly credible in his portrayal of Dahmer dealing with his — then forbidden — nascent homosexuality and schoolmates and dropping hints of the future (“I just wanted to see what his insides look like,” he says when slashing open a live fish) or adapting to his crumbling home life.

Alex Wolff, also a Disney TV graduate, hits all the right marks as Dahmer’s best friend, as do Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts as his parents, adding to a stark but compelling study of the genesis of a multiple murderer.

Alan Frank

Ismael's Ghosts (15)
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
★★★

FRENCH director Arnaud Desplechin and actor Mathieu Amalric reunite for this fantastical tale of a troubled film-maker whose world comes crashing down with the sudden return of his long-lost wife.

Amalric plays Ismael who is finally rebuilding his life with the calming influence of his partner Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and is about to embark on the shoot of his new political spy thriller when, after more than two decades, his presumed dead spouse Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) turns up very much alive and says she wants him back.

With the sublime Cotillard as Ismael's former soul-mate it is easy to comprehend his tailspin and rabbit-caught-in-headlights demeanour, which Amalric portrays to perfection. Her exchanges with Gainsbourg as his beleaguered and ultimately jealous girlfriend are absolutely cracking.

But the intercutting of the tense drama with scenes from Ismael's new film, whose lead character is based on his estranged brother, slows down the narrative and proves an unnecessary distraction.

The film-within-a-film technique simply muddies the waters and kills all the emotional tension.

But thanks to the tour-de-force turns from Desplechin's impressive cast, it's a film that again shows that only the French can get away with such a contrived tale.

Maria Duarte

Book Club (12A)
Directed by Bill Holderman
★★

Product placement — whereby branded products are foregrounded in films — is now endemic.

Clearly Bill Holderman, producer, director and writer of this embarrassing offering understands this since his screenplay has bestselling sex story 50 Shades of Grey catalysing his largely tawdry tall tale of four not-so-young lifelong friends who, inspired by the book, set off seeking romance.

Then, having plugged EL James’s money-spinner, Holderman features close-ups of bright blue pills being added to a drink which, unsurprisingly and unfunnier than a tap-dancer with a broken ankle, trigger an overlong and witless erection sequence.

This largely humiliating affair has Vivian (Jane Fonda) persuading fellow book-club members Diane (Diane Keaton), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) to read 50 Shades of Grey and then using its “advice” to spice up their love lives

Divorced judge Sharon tries online dating, Diane’s daughters resent their mother’s involvement with an airline pilot (Andy Garcia), hotelier Vivian has a team of studs when she needs one, while Carol’s recently retired husband has an erectile problem. Hence the blue pills.

The Famous Four deserve medals for conspicuous bravery in the face of this witless offering with its crass Carry On-style humour.

A fast-forward button would have been a treat.

AF

That Summer (PG)
Directed by Goran Hugo Olsson
★★★

FANS of mother-and-daughter duo Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale, immortalised in the Maysles brothers' Grey Gardens documentary, are in for a wonderful treat with That Summer.

Goran Hugo Olsson's film features previously unseen raw and frank footage of the two women — the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — at Grey Gardens in Montauk, East Hampton, in the summer of 1972.

The documentary centres on the film Peter Beard and Lee Radziwill (Jackie O's younger sister) embarked on about her eccentric relatives three years before the Maysles brothers did and it's based on footage directed by Beard and Andy Warhol.

It starts and ends with Beard reminiscing about the famous people he photographed, including Mick and Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and Warhol, and whom he took to the Hamptons along with the Beales.

Initially, it's a film that appears to be about the “it” crowd of Beard's heyday, intriguing viewing in itself, but then it transforms into a riveting car crash of a film — you want to look away but can't — about these now penniless former socialites and larger-than-life characters who can't escape their dilapidated and squalor-filled former grand home.

For those who have never heard of the Beales, this might prove a tedious watch. It's somewhat disjointed and totally surreal, but for ardent fans it's a must-see.

MD