DVD reviews: Welcome to the Rileys | The Conformist
Welcome to the Rileys
High Fliers, £15.99
WHAT would film-makers do without strippers and prostitutes? If they didn’t exist, directors and screenwriters might have to open their eyes to the fact that most women don’t work in the sex industry and actually come up with interesting leading roles for actresses. Unfortunately they do exist, which means films like Welcome to the Rileys continue to get made. This rather hokey effort is ostensibly about a pair of grieving parents (played by James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo) trying to move on after losing their teenage daughter in a car crash. Its plot turns on the husband’s transference of fatherly affections on to an underage stripper-cum-prostitute whom he meets after wandering into a sex club. Played with try-hard twitchiness by Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, this cinematic cliché – tough and foul-mouthed on the outside; damaged and vulnerable on the inside – inspires kind-hearted plumber Doug (Gandolfini) to move into her hovel and fix it up for her. It’s contrived, silly stuff and Stewart looks awkward and unsure of herself as she grinds away in clear heels and skimpy outfits. Adventureland and The Runaways have shown she can do more than sulk in a vampire franchise; she doesn’t need to do exploitative roles like this.
The Conformist
Arrow, £26.99 (dual format only)
MAKING its debut on Blu-ray, Bernardo Bertolucci’s breakthrough The Conformist remains a striking and virtuoso piece of cinema. Revolving around a repressed intellectual (Jean-Louis Trintignant) recruited by Mussolini’s secret police to assassinate his former professor, it makes judicious use of a flashbacking structure to explore the psychological roots of fascism in the guise of an artful, existential thriller. It’s not hard to see why the likes of Scorsese and Coppola cited it as a huge influence on their work: the breadth of Bertolucci’s thematic ideas and his ability to blend them with exciting genre elements is a trait identifiable in the Godfather films and the likes of Mean Streets and Goodfellas – as is the influence of Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography. The DVD extras are minimal, but there’s an interesting documentary portrait of Bertolucci tracing his evolution from teenage poet and acclaimed writer to politically active – and eventually world-conquering – film-maker.
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