FILM / Critical Round-up

INDECENT PROPOSAL

'As a movie story, Indecent Proposal has a built-in flaw. It is over with the delivery of its moral punchline. 'Can money buy love?' Yes. End of story . . . A potentially many-sided moral conundrum becomes a humdrum emotional triangle.' Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

'As her (Demi Moore's) marriage falls apart, so does the film, which began with at least a chance of proving an entertaining fable about morals and greed.' Geoff Brown, Times

'The whole thing is nothing more than a skilfully organised and decorated fantasy, not to be treated seriously.' Derek Malcolm, Guardian

LEOLO

'Imagine Delicatessen crossed with the earthy Fellini of Amarcord: but that still does not capture this unique film's spirit.' Geoff Brown, Guardian

'It makes our mouths gape with the spectacle of the forbidden and then crams more dubious goodies into the defenceless jaws. Its chief fault is its determination to find glamour and comedy in madness. (The family's visits to asylum-penned Grandpa become awaydays to Arcady.) Its virtue is its honesty about the myths of boyhood innocence.' Nigel Andrews, FT

MISTRESS

'But we have seen it all in The Player . . . Mistress advances on stepping-stones of well-worn Tinseltown apercus to lower, ever more lacklustre things. The comedy needed more fizz, more malice, more momentum.' Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

'The film . . . doesn't exactly say anything about the film business that The Player didn't say better. But it is often funny, well-performed and quite subtle about the pie in the sky of unrealised dreams within the scabrous lower reaches of the film business.' Derek Malcolm, Guardian