Starting with a whimper, Opening Night film Breathe In, and ending with a naked plea for funding, perhaps the biggest question posed by the 67th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara’s sophomore effort, was just how many movies featuring Nazi zombies does a mainstream film festival need?
The answer apparently was two, Frankenstein’s Army and Outpost 3: Rise of the Spetsnaz, which for most people is probably two too many. While Richard Raaphorst’s steampunk aesthetic Frankenstein’s Army was at least imaginative and amusing, if slight, the inclusion in the programme of Kieran Parker’s Outpost 3: Rise of the Spetsnaz, the astoundingly inept second sequel to derivative but fun direct-to-DVD B-movie Outpost, served to illustrate just how unfocused this year’s festival was.
A decidedly baffling choice for the festival’s opening film, writer/director Drake Doremus’ Breathe In, about the romantic complications and emotional turmoil caused by a foreign music prodigy’s stay with her host family, featured decent performances from Guy Pearce and the lucent, beguiling Felicity Jones but was yet another inconsequential study of how difficult it is to be rich, talented, white, and attracted to the young stuff in middle class America. Low-key, measured, and utterly predictable, Breathe In is angsty and po-faced without ever being involving.
While teeth-grindingly, stab-yourself-in-the-eyes irritating, a far better choice for the opener may have been Indie darling Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, a film aimed squarely at the kind of people who found …