The Song of Lunch (2010)

Very well executed

Really Surprised!

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Alan Rickman plays a jaded publisher meeting a past flame (Emma Thompson) at an old haunt, now impersonally renovated. The publisher has a one-track mind and views her every move as erotic.This is a dramatised narrative poem. I'm sceptical about modern poetry but this one's quite good. It may be familiar ground but a lot of the phrases are actually quite good: consciously poetic but a concise description. Fans of Alan Rickman might find it hard to control himself as his character is aroused by everything: a squeezed hand, a glass of wine meeting his lips, a comely waitress, even a pepper shaker. The story is told through his perspective, much of it as voice-over. The switch between voice-over and dialogue really works, creating tension and drama in what is a fairly undramatic scene. It's like a short play.Both Rickman and Thompson speak the blank verse (with the occasional rhyme) very naturally. Their characters are intellectual people and the talk comes naturally to them, particularly Rickman's emotionally/creatively/sexually frustrated character.It's only 50 minutes so it's worth a watch. It would have been nice if it were part of a series of poems.

It hasn't come to my knowledge yet that this short movie is acted out of a poem, and I have no interest in contemporary poems to go take a peek in the book. But I gotta say, I've read a lot of negative reviews here and I wonder why. But art is controversial, that's for sure.This piece of work is beautiful, peaceful in a sense, and has a lot of emotion. Which is something mainstream movies nowadays are not aiming at anymore. Just old people back flashed their old lives. Just an old man being nostalgic in an old place and haven't been able to move on since he lost the love of his life. Now that's an POV because from her point of view maybe the story will be totally reversed and he will appeared as an arse, which I don't really care. Some has mentioned how the feeling is so horrible it almost haunted me, I was so scared when I was watching him getting drunk and I know almost right away what's gonna happen. Just old and typical stuff, nothing new, so true, so real. And people move on like that. But I understand the feeling constantly, even though I'm not that old, but that feeling of loss I do bring. I have watched this and then listened to it again and it made me feel very, very bitter hearing Alan's voice telling the story and I feel very bad. This could be you, this could be me, this could be anyone, and I know this has happened, is happening, and will happen to lots of people out there. I don't know what art is supposed to mean, I think Frankfurt intellectuals might have more saying in this than me, for they spent a certain amount of time to argue whether or not art is supposed to enhance the creation of the elitist or art is for the majority of people. Or they would be arguing the same thing, art for the sake of art or art for the sake of humanity.

This would have been unwatchable (and even unlistenable) had it not been for Rickman and Thompson. The writing is tedious, clichéd, and overwrought and every "insight" banal. There is even a slight mystery whose solution you can see from space. Why anyone would have decided to film this ridiculous poem is beyond me; I suppose the poet had some good connections. As it is, Rickman is too perfect for the role. His looks and his voice too easily lend themselves to the pathetic and the desperate. He gets to both too quickly, partly because the language and narrative take him there and partly because the language, bad as it is, made me feel worse for him, made me pity him as an actor, thus creating another uncomfortable distraction. All that pity so soon and in one layer too many made me lose patience with the whole production. I kept hoping for something more, thinking that Rickman and Thompson would never have been involved with something this bad unless it offered something real and true. Instead, I think their participation has to do with the work ethic of the English actor: you must never take a break, you must always be acting. And if you can do a well-produced project with another excellent actor, then why not do it? Maybe other friends or respected colleagues were on board. I can't think of any other reasons why Thompson and Rickman would have done this. Sigh.

Christopher Reed's poem 'The Song of Lunch' is brought brilliantly to life here by Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, two fine actors and, though like most actors they sometimes waste time (and make money, no doubt) in rubbish, here we see them both at the top of their games. Rickman has the harder role, since he also has to narrate the verse; but Thompson handles herself excellently opposite him, never attempting to claim a larger space than is available but filling what is there perfectly. The story is a classic male tragedy, of a drunken middle-aged man whose awareness of his own increasing unattractiveness is a self-fulfilling prophesy; but the observation and psychology are razor sharp, and the words clear and cutting. It could be thought a bold move to dramatise a poem; but with this level of quality at all levels, perhaps the success of this project was never really in doubt.