Daniel Craig is now best known as the lastest James Bond, and perhaps this is not exactly the position he wants to be in. OK, so James Bond is fun and frivolous and is a hugely popular franchise. Craig certainly brought a je ne sais quios to the role. Yet actors who take their business seriously rarely want to be known for one role.
Craig took on Flashbacks Of A Fool and ran with it. He ploughed money into the film and it is his ambitious belief in this film that has secured a general release. This is not a flashy Hollywood blockbuster. It is not a film for the MTV generation (despite the opening sequences) who desire snappy and sassy scripts with bright lights and (some would argue) vulgarity. It is not quirky or quick and there are no guns, monsters or working girls.
Flashbacks Of A Fool is simple in both plot line and performance. Craig plays Joe Scott, a middle aged British actor in Hollywood, whose desire for fast women and a life of drink and drugs (as seen in the opening credits when a hedonistic threesome fuelled by drink and drugs ends in the naked shot of Craig that seems to have grabbed the headlines for this film). This is a pitiful man who lives in a sterile world where love and passion seems to be lost in the ever-present LA power struggles that surround the film industry. Joe Scott is an odious man who has come to the end of his reign as a leading man and has little else to offer the shallow world that he lives in. Being forced to realise his true value in such a superficial world, Joe Scott recalls the summer where life changed from childhood innocence to the trivial world he now finds himself in.
It is these memories of life in the 70s that make this film both watchable and enjoyable. A mirror image of Scott’s life in Hollywood, perhaps the way in which this film has been shot is a little obvious, but the beauty of an English seaside town and the performances of the younger characters ensure that despite the frugal script and the slow pace of the film, this is by no means a dull story. Joe Scott goes from boy to man in the flashback scenes, and what he loses of himself in this one summer of youth, resonates through time to make him the entirely selfish man he appears to have become now.
Part of me felt that the script was a little too lacking in subtlety. Joe Scott the man being so loathsome a person contrasting with Joe Scott the teenager whose wide-eyed innocence is both endearing and appealing. Nothing in life is really that black and white and I am not convinced anyone runs so far from their lives. However, to look at this film too deeply is to miss the point. The scenery is stunning in both times and both countries. The performances are engaging and the script doesn’t need to be more complicated. There are certainly little grievances that I felt on leaving the cinema such as some of the scenes of Joe Scott returning to England to get back to the life he left and mourn the death of his one time closest friend. The “what you could have had” end scenes also leave a slightly sickly sweet taste, yet these small criticisms are just that. Small.
If you want action and excitement, Flashbacks Of A Fool will leave you wanting, but if you want something slower paced, with a cracking 70s soundtrack and great performances from mainly unknown young British actors, then this is most definitely worth a look.
Flashbacks Of A Fool is out now on general release.
Main site & trailer
