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Flashbacks of a Fool (2008)

Director: Baillie Walsh

Time Out rating

Average user rating

33 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 2008-04-15 10:06:35

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

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User reviews of this film

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.....

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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!!!

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anon said...

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

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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.

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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...

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tanvir said...

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

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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.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 19 2008 23:59 this is a troubled movie and the problem clearly is a muddled narrative with an overcrowded script,craig is ordinary as a fading ,drug junky hollywood star ,he opens the movie in a threesome with two perfunctory looking escorts -after a lot of coke and drugs ,we find his best friend from blighty is dead-so the recollection starts -the younger joe is seduced by a neighbours wife while her daughter meets an accident during the sex frolic,so he flees home in remorse ,leaving ex love and best friend behind .
the characters all lack conviction and are very superficial .
the granny stereotype from the childhood is ludicrous and the seduction is badly bungled,this is no mike nicols or graduate ,
joe returns to find a dull english rural life and seems pleased to have left it 25 years ago,everyone looks so miserable and bored here-can you blame the audience for walking out in the middle .
the sparkling cinematography from malibu to cornwall does not set a mood too,the songs by roxy music and bowie are rendered redundant by a lacklustre script which cannot even place them decently in context to the script ,
the result is a confused ,awry,awkward and dull movie which can at best be descibed as a boring but noble intention .
i do sympathize with jo -his cocaine sniffing seems to be a result of his mundane teen years ,but i still did not comprehend why there were so many nude men in this movie with bare rears -including that of the bond ,all over the place-was the targeted audience meant to be just interested in mens rear aspects -and the nudity was unnecessary and un aesthetic too.
rather a waste of time -but did have some potential
jbz7879

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Susan said...

Posted on Apr 18 2008 13:54 fabulous photography, great music, good acting, felt the script was weak, but thoroughly recommend it. comment you type in this box will appear on the site

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richard ashley said...

Posted on Apr 15 2008 16:44 I was at the premiere too and I loved the film, I thought it was a visually stunning, the acting was first class (and yes Felicity Jones stole the show) and the story made me laugh and cry all in the space of ninety-something mins ... anyone with any degree of sensitivity will trully connect with this film and they will wake up the next day still thinking about it.

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