Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Flashbacks of a Fool (2008)

Director: Baillie Walsh

Time Out rating

Average user rating

15 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

In a scene reminiscent of the ending of Robert Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’ – where Sterling Hayden’s suicidal writer strolls out into the sea from his Malibu house – Daniel Craig’s washed-out fortysomething writer, Joe Scott, takes a similarly despairing swim into the Pacific and remembers – in lengthy flashback – his fateful sexual and emotional rites-of-passage 30 years earlier in the glam rock-soundtracked 1970s, in a small seaside town in the south-west of England.

Ex-commercials director Baillie Walsh, in moving country and decade, executes a jarring change of mood, milieu and genre. We are hardly accustomed to his high-tech ’Scope images of the Hollywood elite’s drug- and sex-addled playgrounds, before we’re whisked back to the deceptively snugger, old-fashioned world of this fucked-up career exile’s youth. But it’s hard to read the meaning of his fateful escapades in this world of gaming arcades and rundown beach huts, viewed as they are through the distorting lens of the older Joe’s memory.

The result is an ambitious but disappointing, regret-filled psycho-drama. Some individual scenes are impressive: a portentous, Ian McEwan-lite set-piece involving playing children or the scene illustrating the confusion and nascent vanity of the teenage Joe (the handsome-featured but limited Harry Eden) accepting sex with a conflicted, unhappily married neighbour (Jodhi May), knowing it will disappoint his fellow Bowie-loving first love (the excellent Felicity Jones). But, overall, Walsh’s use of music (Scott Walker) and glossy ‘mid-Atlantic’ direction seems more pretentious than evocative and unsuited to the material, beaching too many of the actors’ performances, not least Craig’s, whose sketchy role precludes any sort of audience sympathy or emotional involvement.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1965: April 17 - 23, 2008

User reviews of this film

Steph said...

Posted on Apr 25 2008 17:36 I've never seen a film like it. It's absolutely beautiful. I'm being serious, go and see it. It's not a waste at all, me and my friend were touched by it and the actors are amazing. The camera work was stunning and the whole film made me think so much more deeply into things.
absolutely amazing, don't miss it.

Report as inappropriate
Dee Gibbs said...

Posted on Apr 24 2008 16:37 Truly dreadful film - 2 female generations both found it dire. Very silly story line which didn't go anywhere. The only scene worth anything was the clip shown on tv of the bomb blast and Helen McCrory is powerful - but that is it. Daniel Craig is NOT attractive, the married woman is hideous in all senses and the young boy was weak. Don't waste your money.

Report as inappropriate
Doll said...

Posted on Apr 24 2008 12:28 I loved this film.. it has stayed with me for days. The acting was superb, so was the cinematography and music. I'd definitely go and see it again, love films which make me laugh and cry.....

Report as inappropriate
Shirley Mansfield said...

Posted on Apr 23 2008 18:33 Thought this was a beautiful "girlie flick". Very thought-provoking and sad, and yet with an upbeat ending. Also, Daniel Craig was totally SCRUMMY!!!

Report as inappropriate
anon said...

Posted on Apr 23 2008 17:15 this was an amazing movie totally watch it again

Report as inappropriate
anon said...

Posted on Apr 23 2008 17:15 this was an amazing movie totally watch it again

Report as inappropriate
Kevin said...

Posted on Apr 22 2008 17:33 It's been a while since I found a film as engaging as this, I'm still thinking about it. This is one movie I won't forget in a hurry, it was a real experience to look back at the seventies in this movie. I'll watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

Report as inappropriate
sonita gale said...

Posted on Apr 22 2008 15:47 The film was simply superb Craig showing yet again his raw versatile acting ability. Its artistic, tragic and the script is very well written. Go and see it you wont be disappointed...

Report as inappropriate
tanvir said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 20:13 the story heartbreaking and it moved me, simply superb

Report as inappropriate
vivienne bryant said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 17:47 This is a wonderfully funny and very moving film, if you pay attention the pay of at the end with Joe Scotts animated conversation with Ophelia as they drive off into the Sunset is very well acted and gives us hope in Joes future. I love this film and everything about it.

Report as inappropriate
Phil Macca said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 15:37 I saw the film last night and it really was not the film i expected to see, i thought its going to be an expansive piece of work, most likely because bond is in it. anyways what i saw was a beautiful, stunning and sentimental and moving film, which made me weep buckets, All should see it.

Report as inappropriate
Jezza said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 15:35 I was a bit dissapointed. The trailer said Joe Scott is washed up, nobody likes him anymore, he gets a call saying his boyhood friend is dead, this provokes flashbacks to youthful days spent by the sea, when he is drawn into relationship with married woman, child dies in unfortunate accident, woman shouts "Mine!" (so we know what that is going to be). I thought this was just setting up the film, but that was the film! What was the point? No atonement, he is never found out the pain and anguish is all in his head, which I understood, but that doesn't make good cinema.
Also, I kept thinking that doesn’t look like any English coastline I know. Then find it’s shot in South Africa. The English Tourist Board must be rubbing their hand with glee, with people flocking to visit our sun kissed beaches.
Daniel Graig looked great, hardly washed up (except on the beach ha, ha!) and is it me but can he act his way out of a paper bag?
The married woman was also gorgeous and sexy. Probably too young, gorgeous and sexy for that bit to work. And Claire Forlani as the woman working and owning a smallholding. I don’t think so. She looked like she had been dragged straight off the catwalk and told “Just put this bale of hay on the back of this tractor” She looked like she had never seen a tractor, bale of hay or even field in her life.
I was looking forward to the “Fantastic soundtrack”. Which then consisted of mainly one Roxy Music Track a bit of Bowie and I think I spotted a bit of Scott Walker, hardly fantastic. And why, and what on Earth was that horrible rap track stuck on the end during the credits. Something to do with Eve perhaps?
However I did enjoy the 70’s teenage years, which were accurate and atmospheric and films so often get that period wrong.

Report as inappropriate
Jane said...

Posted on Apr 21 2008 11:18 Insanely dull film - the earlier reviewers' comments about needing a couple of beers to get through it are spot on. Putting a decent writer on it would have made a lot of difference - after a promising start, it just doesn't go anywhere!

Report as inappropriate
usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 20 2008 00:14 hey its shot in south africa -cape town
though looks better in real then on screen

Report as inappropriate
Johnny B said...

Posted on Apr 20 2008 00:07 Just watched the film tonight, drank a couple of beers during the film, as long as you aren't overthinking the plot too much like some critics then you will enjoy it, there is colour, there is music , there is a bit of sadness but overall it was a good no brainer kind of film. If anyone knows where the early days beach scenes were shot please post as it would be good to visit as it looks nice.

Report as inappropriate