By Joanne Sargent
Special to the Observer
The Shuswap Film Society’s selection committee has once again done an outstanding job in picking the films for our Mini Film Festival this weekend.
All three movies are highly rated and very different from each other.
I can’t help but think that everybody should see Marcel the Shell with Shoes on. An animated/live-action film might not normally be your thing, but this American film is sweet and surprisingly moving. It’s the journey into the life of an instantly loveable one-inch seashell named Marcel. He and his sassy grandmother live in a big home that was used as an Airbnb and was filled with friends until they all mysteriously disappeared. When a new guest, Dean (a human) arrives, Marcel persuades him to share the mysterious loss of his community online, which leads to media attention and new hope of finding his family. Marcel the Shell is everything a great movie should be: emotional, entertaining, funny and sometimes suspenseful. It shows at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6.
The Good Boss, Spain’s 2022 Academy Award submission, is a satire on corporate corruption. Javier Bardem is perfectly slick and slimy as Blanco, the head of a company that makes industrial scales and who appears a benevolent father figure to his workforce. A government committee is to visit to possibly award the company for excellence and if Blanco can maintain an air of happy productivity for the judges, the award is his. Beneath the surface, though, there is turmoil and upheaval. Blanco’s indiscretions and his propensity for secrets and lies come to light and the pillar of the community is revealed to have the morals of a snake. As Bilge Emir said in Vulture online: “What’s being skewered here is not a man, or a company, but an entire civilization.” Subtitled, The Good Boss shows Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.
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From the UK, Brian and Charles, a Sundance Festival favourite, is a sweet-natured odd-couple comedy about an eccentric inventor and his ramshackle robot. Living a quiet, lonely life in a Welsh village, Brian decides that if friends won’t come to him, he will build one. His robot, Charles, has a washing machine for a tummy and gains knowledge by reading dictionaries, and the two strike up an immediate bond. Charles becomes Brian’s best mate, but when Charles is kidnapped, Brian and his kindly neighbour Hazel have to fight for his freedom. This movie is funny and quirky but with surprising insight and charm to spare. Brian and Charles opens the festival Friday, Nov. 4, at 4 p.m. and plays again Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
All films are shown at the Salmar Classic. See you at the movies.
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