FLASHBACKS OF A FOOL: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
Joe Scott (Daniel Craig) is an English movie star living in Hollywood on a downward spiral. When he hears the news that his childhood best friend has died, Joe is haunted by memories from the past. He remembers when at age 17 (Harry Eden) he falls is love with beautiful schoolgirl Ruth (Felicity Jones). Their relationship is complicated however, when Joe's mother's friend Evelyn (Jodhi May), seduces him, an encounter which has serious consequences. Long estranged from his mother (Olivia Williams), Joe returns home to England to face the demons from his past and meet up again with Ruth (Claire Forlani), the girl he left behind.

Review by Louise Keller:
Charismatic Daniel Craig plays Joe Scott, a washed up movie star, addicted to a misspent life of sex, drugs and uncool behaviour. Writer director Baillie Walsh's screenplay ably involves us in two very different lifestyles: Joe's Hollywood lifestyle today and his formative years living in a small English coastal town, which we relive in flashback. The all-important series of events that give us some understanding of Joe's despicable behaviour form the heart of the story, and it is credit to Harry Eden, who plays Joe as a teenager, that we are sympathetic.

When we meet Craig's Joe in his life of excesses, there's a frenzy of bare flesh that gives an insight into the night and day reality of a celebrity with choices at the end of a phone. 'You disgrace the white folks,' his housekeeper-cum-secretary (played by rapper Eve) tells him as she brings alka seltzer and black coffee. Home is a luxury open-plan mansion with ocean frontage where the drug supplier looks as though she has stepped out of the fashion pages. The death of his best friend Boots prompts Joe to remember a summer 25 years earlier, when they become blood brothers, and fight over Ruth (Felicity Jones), the prettiest girl in school. There's a lovely scene when Joe (Eden) and Ruth, wearing makeup and hair gel, lip synch to Brian Ferry's 'When You Were Young'. Theirs is a relationship with all the promise of tomorrow, but Joe's seduction by his mother's friend Evelyn (Jodhi May) triggers a series of devastating events.

Most of our emotional journey takes place during Joe's teenage years, but the impact is equally strong when we return to the present day for the final resolution. It is credit to both Eden and Craig that we care for Joe as much as we do.

Published March 26, 2009