We Bought a Zoo and now we're going to mostly ignore the animals

                Holy Crap Cameron Crowe made a film and forgot to tell me! Since the effortlessly enjoyable Almost Famous the man has made so little of note that I almost thought he had dropped off the planet. Now though he’s back and doing what he does best, thoughtlessly mangling a supposedly true story. But unlike Crowe’s autobiographical feature, which was assembled from a series of booze-addled recollections of his rock journalism career, We Bought a Zoo is a very different tale and altered for very different reasons.

                The story of DIY columnist Benjamin Mee’s (here played by Matt Damon) decision to buy a zoo in Dartmoor is one of those real-life stories that sounds nice on paper but likely is not all that interesting in reality. To rectify this the story is relocated to Anywhereville, USA and Mee is rewritten as a bereaved father of two looking to make a fresh start. And you’ll be pleased to learn that the end result is a story that sounds nice on paper but not all that interesting.

                Part of the problem is really a lack of conflict. Aside from the underrated John Michael Higgins as an entertainingly odd zoo inspector there’s never any sense that Mee’s insane gamble won’t pay off and that he won’t be reborn spiritually because of it. There’s are plenty of scenes which drive home the financial struggles of getting the zoo operational again but it’s always offset by the uplifting low-angle shots with shafts of sunlight shooting through every frame . That plus the powerful music and rising choir make everything feel designed to inspire.

                It’s a testament to Crowe’s considerable talent then despite the transparency it works as a feel-good film. His touch as director and co-writer guarantees competent camerawork, excellent scoring and the obligatory references to Bob Dylan. All of which serve to elevate an otherwise flat premise. The real selling point of the film though is the animals.

                Not to disparage We Bought a Zoo’s bipedal cast-members but everytime you feel yourself getting bored with the trite family squabbles or the dull shots of Damon pouring over vet bills BLAM a bear escapes or the lock breaks on the lion enclosure. Only about three of the animals in the entire zoo are allowed to make an impression but each time they serve to drive home the reality of running a zoo in ways that are funny, genuinely heartfelt and pretty damn uplifting.

                It’s possible that the lack of focus on the animals is because all the nuances have gone into the humans. Scarlett Johansen shines as lead zookeeper Kelly and mouthpiece of the zoo; worn-out, frustrated and pretty cynical about the idea of someone coming to save them.  Angus MacFayden has a hilarious turn as a boarderline alcoholic carpenter and oh hey Crowe decided to throw the kid from Almost Famous a paycheck! That was nice of him.

                The core cast of Damon and the two kids pretty much serve their purpose. The little girl is adorable and the teenage boy’s an obnoxious brat so your tolerance for either will likely be wearing thin around the third act. The film is far too married to its positive tone to explore the loss of Mee’s wife with any real depth or intensity and its presence makes Damon’s already stilted chemistry with Johansen feel outright artificial.

                At the end of the day We Bought a Zoo does everything it sets out to do, to tell a fairly simple story with precious little heart but heart all the same. It’s the style rather than the substance that takes a paper-thin idea, bogs it down with a mixed bag of characters and still manages to elevate itself into something genuinely powerful.

The Lady lacks a little Iron

                As a progressive it’s never going to be easy for me to present an objective view of a Margaret Thatcher biopic, especially one selling itself to female audience as Sex in the City with politics. Mercifully that’s not the case as the insipid scenes, prominent in trailers, of The Iron Lady at a hair salon or defiantly defending her peals are kept to a minimum. Instead the film is more of a tragic retrospect of Thatcher’s tenure from the perspective of her as a dithering old woman. Filthy, stinking liberals like myself will struggle to engender sympathy for and increasingly demented woman struggling to come to terms with the modern world with only the comfort of a posh house, armed guards and nicest man on the planet Jim Broadbent. However as a framing device for the telling of Thatcher’s life it’s tired, slow and almost jarring in contrast. The Iron Lady feels like two separate movies, a melancholy human drama about a ghoulish old woman desperately clinging on to her public persona and an empowering rose-tinted look at the first female Prime Minister.

                In fairness to the film though the rose tint never goes as far as to paint Thatcher in a purely positive light, Lord knows it lacks the conviction for that. Instead the film blurs both sides of the argument showing Thatcher passionately arguing against self-interested unions as they strike for reasons that are never made clear and harassed by protestors without ever explaining their motives. Likewise Thatcher’s fall from grace is condensed down to a single instance of scolding an underling for failing to put together a proper timetable. Yes, I don’t approve of the way some employers treat their staff but I also think that my government should be capable of producing a fucking document without typos.

                Really though I shouldn’t be surprised at mollycoddling from this kind of self-important Oscar Bait. Last year I sat through The Help a film which condensed the defiance, passion and outrage at the social injustices against African Americans into the story of a pretty white girl trying to get a fancy newspaper job. But as with The Help the subject matter of The Iron Lady deserves serious analysis or at least better analysis than this film dares to offer. If Maggie Thatcher was right to close the coal mines then show us why, it actually isn’t that hard. In 1984 the National Coal Board was costing the UK taxpayer £1 Billion in tax subsidiaries, nowadays liberals are outraged that banks and oil industries are offered these kinds of tax breaks. While most of us like to paint Maggie as the villain it is possible to look at the facts and frame her in a positive light.

                Or better yet show both sides of the story, the reasons why Thatcher made the decisions she made and why the opposition fought so hard against them. Show us the lives lost in the Falklands War, soldiers British and Argentinian bloodied and demoralized. Do not show us a montage of Meryl Streep sat at her desk writing condolences. Show us the people and communities impoverished by the closures of mines, the sad march of union workers back to their financially woeful families.  A woman who makes random decisions resulting in a vague amount of backlash is not interesting. A woman who agonises over difficult choices regarding the lives and well-beings of millions and then enduring the consequences is moving, powerful stuff.

                But alas, this is all to miss the point, The Iron Lady is the story of a person not a politician and we the audience can go fuck ourselves if we want otherwise. As such a story it’s certainly well made, the flashbacks draw you into a believable version of Britain through the Eighties, Seventies and even the Forties and Fifties. While an Oscar-winning performance is par for the course for Streep the real revelation is Alexandra Roach as the younger Margaret. Margaret Roberts has all the strength and conviction required for movie politics but also the vulnerability of a young woman. Roach shifts seamlessly from a dutiful daughter to a proud Tory and finally a devoted mother but as she grows the traits of all three incarnations still appear. Crucially though it isn’t until she steps into Parliament that she becomes becomes Thatcher the woman, and while Streep is as powerful as ever the performance carries nothing from Roach’s commendable start. It has to be said also that Thatcher the invalid is far more hit and miss, at times quaint, funny and very tragic but otherwise downright agonizing, an elderly relative you can’t wait to get away from.