The Look of Love

The Look of Love [Michael Winterbottom, 2013]:

Typical of Winterbottom's worst tendencies. A story he barely seems interested in, used as context for actors to improvise sketches of comedy or drama, which are then cut together like a showreel. It's probably the least focused, least creative version of this story you could ever hope for, avoiding all emotional engagement by cutting the story to ribbons and focusing on the least interesting aspects of generic excess.

Winterbottom peaked for me with Code 46 (2003) [although The Killer Inside Me (2010) was a marginal return to form.] These days he seems to direct a lot of projects like this, where he gets Steve Coogan and a bunch of other comedy actors and lets them improvise around the script while he films the results from the most bland and televisual angles and set-ups. Then he cuts together the brief moments that were funny or interesting or captured a particular emotion, so the whole film feels like an extended montage. As such, characters are introduced then disappear, others turn up and we're never told who they are or what they do. We're always cutting away to scenes that feel at odds with where the story is going, presumably because Winterbottom found something in the scene that was amusing, or had a moment of great acting.

The Look of Love [Michael Winterbottom, 2013]:

Here's a film that could've focused on the spectacle of showbusiness, on performance, on the behind the scenes aspects of Soho, with its decadence and sleaze. It could've been a film about the objectification and exploitation of women, about the porn industry and how Raymond's empire would later find something approaching mainstream respectability in the age of "lads mags." It could've focused on the character's legal disputes and the question of free speech and free expression.

Instead, the film does a bit of each, but usually for no more than 5 minutes. It also mines uneasy humour and titillation from the sexual exploitation of women in these industries. Some of the performances are very good, but Coogan's playing another version of Alan Partridge, which means the Raymond character never engages.