Filth

When it revels in its absurd Scottishness and excessive culture, Filth is fantastic, and for the first two-thirds that's where it's at, but the last third it takes its foot off the pedal and it more sympathetic. It's a greatly surreal film (with its narration and psychiatric mind-flips), with a truly great compilation of nostalgic hits played throughout (and to great effect), and many of the films' scenes resonated with me. I can think of a hundred better ways for the film to finish, but I suppose it did an acceptable job - although I'd have made more of an impact with the girl and her son. This film (and Trance) have made me fall in love with McAvoy. It's a complete turnaround, but he's a very talented guy and he's now starring in the sorts of movies that I adore. Fantastic actor, and fantastic role. I feel Filth should have had a more fitting resolution for its numerous storylines. But it's not a big gripe. It's a hip, fresh and gripping British dark comedy, and the performances are solid.

B+

One of the biggest surprises last year. I thought it was fucking great. McAvoy owns the movie, he's just brilliant.

In Edinburgh, Bruce Robertson is deceitful, drug-abusing, profane, sadistic, sexist, losing his mind, and an ambitious detective sergeant maneuvering for a promotion within his department. Irvine Welsh's blistering novel Filth does not lend itself to adaptation. Rather than focus on procedure and structure, the novelist's central interest is submerging his readership in the toxic mind of the protagonist, an amoral man in crisis. He achieves this a number of ways, including the postmodern use of the figure of the tapeworm; a manifestation of Bruce Robertson's mental illness, it devours pages and becomes more self-aware, more philosophical, as it grows. In a glorious twist, however, this film, masterful and psychedelic as it is, proves the novel definitely could be filmed. It draws a significant amount of its power from an astonishing lead performance by James McAvoy. He has given sensitive and strong performances for years, shining in such films as The Last King of Scotland, Atonement, The Last Station, and Trance. He reaches another level here, though. It is a bold and ferocious acting feat, at once live-wire charismatic and vastly grotesque, elevating self-destruction to an art form while slyly glancing at the audience through the camera. As the film is told in the first person, with reality clarifying and distorting as it does for the unstable Bruce, the actor is relied upon to maintain a high level of energy and find a through-line of authentic, soulful pain amidst the colorful chaos. His achievement is matched by ace editing, photography, and production design. Similar to, for example, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, this is the rare serious film which invites (or even demands) aural and visual excess, and the parade of comic and/or suspenseful set pieces is nothing short of exhilarating, building to a wallop of a conclusion which slightly deviates from and, with respect to the inimitable Welsh, improves upon the novel's.

A

I just got around to watching this over the weekend and I am glad I did. I thought it was great and a perfect companion film to Trainspotting. James McAvoy was a delight and really showed his range. It was weird, fucked up, hilarious and depressing, so exactly what you should expect from an Irvine Welsh adaptation.

A