I went to the cinema

I'm still cold and still grumpy, so it is rather fitting that last night I went to see a film called Rage. I've done the stupid thing of reading other people's reviews about it, so I doubt that anything I write here will be particularly original or insightful, but for what it's worth, I really recommend it. The premise is straightforward - a young student is using his mobile phone to video interviews with people in the fashion world. You never see or hear the interviewer - but you see the people he's interviewing in glorious block colour, the heads of Judi Dench, Lily Cole, Jude Law, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi and others filling the screen as they confide (suspiciously quickly) in their young protege. So that's it: one hundred minutes of talking celebrity heads. Along the way, someone gets killed (off screen) and the plot thickens a touch.

The issues covered read like a liberal schoolkid's Things To Discuss list: immigration, hypocrisy in the fashion world, celebrity, the media, power, inequality, gender, sexuality, eating disorders, racial stereotypes, literature, crime, ageing... and while none of the topics is explored in enough detail to be in any way fresh or enlightening, there is weight in numbers, and the overall sense is of someone trying to make a deeply political film who can't decide which messy situation to confront, so ends up sticking them all in the pot. It's a bit of a shame, as any of the messages would have been argued more powerfully had they been more in the spotlight. Consequently, Rage can be cliched at times - the fashion designer, Merlin, was an absurd caricature, and in other gripes, Judi Dench's 10% US accent was 85% distracting, and even she appears to lose the will to maintain it at several points. But what irritated me most was the fact that the characters on screen were replying to questions asked by the interviewer - but you couldn't hear him. If he's meant to be taping the whole thing on a mobile phone, both voices would be clearly audible. A petty issue, but one that continued to grate throughout.

Still, there is no denying that Rage breaks visual and structural barriers. The director flew around the world to shoot each actor individually over two days, and the HD results look fantastic, even if the scenes on their own aren't ground-breaking in content. The script was excellent in places, as are the introductions to each segment, where the student appears to type out, in real time, what we're about to witness: his self-edits are pleasantly revealing. And, of course, there's Jude Law, who was annoyingly brilliant as a beautiful Russian cross-dresser called Minx. Like Dame Judi, he was distracting - but for different reasons. I tried to memorise his incredible eye make-up for my own future reference but I don't think I'll ever be as beautiful as he was. Sigh.

Anyway, this isn't Time Out, you'll make up your own minds - but if you're interested, it's on at the BFI at the mo. Get your asses down there. Or don't. Makes no odds to me what you do with your life. Wasters, the lot of you. I'm off to get some Minstrels.