Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Sparkle (2007)
Director: Neil Hunter, Tom Hunsinger
Movie review
From Time Out London
Sam (Shaun Evans) is bright, good looking, a charmer, and desirous of a more exciting life than the cosily provincial existence he shares with mum Jill (Lesley Manville) – whose turns belting out retro pop in tacky bars hardly compensate for the fact that she won’t tell him who his dad was. So when he heads for London – even though she joins him, moving them into digs owned by the ever-so-slightly-strange Vince (Bob Hoskins) – he sets about striking out on his own. Casual waitering leads to an unexpected – but, as it transpires, professionally advantageous – relationship with the older, richer Sheila (Stockard Channing), whose exact role in his new life he conceals not only from mum but from Kate (Amanda Ryan) – met, ironically, at one of Sheila’s parties. But lies beget lies… and inevitable complications.
Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger proved themselves adept at multi-character comedy-drama with ‘Boyfriends’ and ‘Lawless Heart’, and while this may lack the formal sophistication of the latter’s temporal structure, it succeeds in deriving both humour and moments of emotional force and complexity from its tale of an all-too-often unwitting rake’s progress. There are flaws: the rake himself soon becomes hard to care about; the use of the Isle of Man to stand in for London or Essex locations is sometimes clumsily obvious; and the feelgood aspects of the final scenes feel false and far too tidy. But there are strong performances – Manville, Hoskins and Channing all deliver – and the movie is most effective when the deceits perpetrated not just by Sam but by several others begin to take their wretched toll, and a real sense of pain intrudes.
Author: Geoff Andrew
Time Out London Issue 1930: August 15-21 2007
Cast & crew
Director: Neil Hunter, Tom Hunsinger
Producer: Martin Pope, Michael Rose
Cast: Shaun Evans, Lesley Manville, Bob Hoskins, Stockard Channing, Amanda Ryan, Anthony Stewart Head, John Shrapnel full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Rated: 15
Duration: 104 mins
UK Release: Aug 17 2007
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations












What do you think?
Post your review now