Parky At the Pictures (19/12/2025)

(Reviews of Big Boys; Ebony & Ivory; and Dogs At the Opera)

BIG BOYS.

Corey Sherman has spent a decade making shorts such as Life-ish (2014), The Miserablist (2018), The Peeping Tom, and The Brothers Sims (both 2019). But he makes an accomplished transition to features with Big Boys, a coming-of-age dramedy that is so good, one wonders why it's taken two years for it to reach UK screens.

Ensuring he has packed everything he might need, 14 year-old Jamie (Isaac Krasner) has been looking forward to a weekend camping trip to Lake Arrowhead with his older brother, Will (Taj Cross), and his favourite twentysomething cousin, Allie (Dora Madison Burge). He is dismayed, therefore, when mother Nicole (Emily Deschanel) discloses that Allie is going to be bringing her new boyfriend along. Unused to having adult males around (apart from his mom's occasional beaux), Jamie's worst fears seem to be being confirmed when Will and Dan (David Johnson III) bond over basketball . But Dan notices how uncomfortable Jamie is when Will teases him about his weight and his love of movies like Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954), and, consequently, Jamie takes a puppyish shine to him.

He plays coy when the beefy Dan offers to help him put up his tent and is embarrassed when he snaps one of the frame struts in his over-eagerness to be his own man. Jamie also bridles when Dan ribs him and Allie for playing gin rummy, because it's a game for oldies. But he is determined to make a good impression and draws on his love of cookery shows to suggest how they could spice up the burgers for the night's barbecue. He also shines when teaming with Dan as `The Big Boys' for a campfire guessing game and Allie is touched by the way that Dan is bringing her cousin out of himself. However, she wishes he was a little more socially aware, as Jamie lingers outside the tent chatting to Dan when the lovers clearly have other things on their minds.

Will is also feeling the lure of nature and he coaxes Jamie into sneaking out of the tent to rendezvous with Quinn (Emma Broz) and Erika (Marion Van Cuyck), the teenage sisters they had encountered beside the lake. Left alone as Will and Quinn sneak off to make out, Jamie and Erika try to make small talk.

Recognising that Erika is as inexperienced and insecure as he is, Jamie gives her a hasty peck on the cheek before announcing that he is horribly drunk after overdoing the swigs from the hip flask that Will has stolen from Dan. Rolling on a bench to show how incapacitated he is, he apologises to Erika for letting her down and insists she has nothing to reproach herself for as he calls Will to get him to a hospital.

Wandering back to the tent alone, Jamie steals an uncooked hot dog from the cool box. Feeling its weight in his fingers, he imagines a bearded and bespectacled grown-up version of himself (Jack De Sanz) bantering knowingly with Dan. However, his fantasy is interrupted when Will returns. He has no idea his brother is gay and Jamie has been seeking reasons in his own mind why he might not be. But he can no longer deny that he likes hirsute manly men, which makes Dan's opening joke back at the house about Jamie being eaten by a bear all the more squirmingly amusing. Chiding his sibling for missing out on the chance to lose his virginity, Will crashes out, leaving Jamie to spend an uneasy night with his confirmed suspicions.

Over breakfast the next morning, Dan confides that he knows what Jamie is going through with a domineering older brothers. But he doesn't register when Allie inquires about the missing hot dog and Jamie provides a feebly feasible explanation. All is quickly forgotten, however, as the party sets off on a hike into the hills. Allie is worried that they might lose their way in the dark and suggests turning back. But Dan and Jamie insist on ploughing on and soon realise they have no idea where they are. Much to his own surprise, Jamie finds himself taking charge of the situation and Dan is content to follow his lead until Jamie slips and cuts his leg. When Dan removes his t-shirt to wrap around the wound, Jamie can't prevent himself from getting an erection and he apologises for what he claims is an involuntary reaction.

Making their way to the road in the darkness, the pair hitch a lift back to camp. Despite feeling conflicted at being usurped in Jamie's affections, Allie is too relieved to get cross. Nevertheless, everyone is subdued on the drive home. Hugging his cousin in making arrangements for Thanksgiving, Jamie asks if he can have a quick word alone with Dan in the car. He admits that his arousal in the woods had not been an accident and Dan shrugs his understanding in a casually empathetic manner that makes Jamie feel both adult and accepted.

Some have suggested that this tête-à-tête provides the picture with an overly cosy resolution. But, frankly, it feels rather fitting after Sherman has studded his story with just about every conceivable coming-out cliché - and gone about his task in the most insouciantly charming way. His semi-autobiographical script is beautifully written, but much of its truth comes from the artlessly natural performance of Isaac Krasner. He has been acting since he was five years old, but this is only his second feature after Chris Bayon's The Truth About Santa Claus (2020). However, he handles Jamie's physical, emotional, and social awkwardness with an aplomb that suggests good things like ahead.

Krasner's blind date with the equally impressive Marion Van Cuyck is splendidly staged to showcase Jamie's sensitivity, as he strives to protect the vulnerable Erika from the scarring pain of rejection that he knows he would also feel if their positions were reversed. In many ways, this is the dry run for his closing chat with Dan, as he needed to know he wasn't into girls before he could take responsibility for his newly realised sexual self. Taken together, these exchanges set this apart from the run-of-the-mill coming out saga.

Gus Bendinelli's cinematography deftly switches between evocative landscapes and intimate close-ups, while Sherman and co-editor Erik Vogt-Nilsen time the reaction cutaways to perfection, while also creating a witty montage for the campfire party game scene. With Will Wiesenfeld's music also being tellingly, if over-insistently used, Big Boys feels like it would make a splendid double-bill with Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy (2006). One can only hope that Sherman marches on to have an equally impactful career.

EBONY & IVORY.

Having started so impressively with The Greasy Strangler (2016) and An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn (2018), quirkily provocative director Jim Hosking stumbles somewhat with his third feature, Ebony & Ivory. Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney are a soft target, especially as their 1982 song was mauled by music critics (who are dutybound to be scornfully hip), even though it topped the charts on either side of the Atlantic. But Hosking and his stars deserve credit for committing to the distinctiveness of their approach, which differs markedly from that taken by TV lampoons like Urban Myths.

Standing on a beach on the Mull of Kintyre, Paul (Sky Elobar) is surprised to see a rowing boat approaching. He invites Stevie (Gil Gex) to his Scottish cottage, but leaves the blind musician to carry his own suitcases up the steep incline to the road. The conversation is tense over Lapsang Souchong and vegetarian casserole, so Paul suggests they lighten the mood with something that rhymes with `oobie-woobie'.

After Stevie takes an inordinately long time to guess what Paul is alluding to, the pair get mellow. Making passing reference to smoking spliffs with the lads, Paul begins reeling off the various products available in his wife's range of ready meals. Between curses, Stevie declares that he has come to Scotland because musical legends need to help each other out. Momentary misunderstandings lead to raised voices, but the evening passes hazily and Paul shows Stevie to his room, where he gets such a bad case of `the spins' that he imagines his parents standing at the end of his bed relentlessly assuring him that he is not alone.

In the morning, Paul guides Stevie through the breaded treats that he has served up for breakfast. He also demonstrates a chute designed to deposit nuggets in the mouth. They go for a walk and Paul points out the one white sheep that occupies a field. Venturing down to the beach, they go skinny dipping and Paul has to save Stevie from drowning. Still naked, they make it back to the car and drive back to the Scottish cottage.

Tucked into bed, Stevie demands a hot chocolate and Paul goes to the corner shop for the ingredients. Stevie asks for foot strokies and growls with contentment when his host obliges. He goes into a reverie, in which a black sheep joins its white counterpart in the field (albeit with Paul and Stevie's heads) and they baa endlessly. Beset by the munchies, Stevie orders a veggie feast, only for the pair to fight over the food.

They go into a reverie, in which they meet a giant frog. In the field, the sheep start baaing

`ebony' and `ivory' and this prompts Stevie and Paul to believe that they are now in perfect harmony and can help change the world with a well-meaning song. Paul is slightly concerned that a supposedly blind man can see him giving a thumbs-up gesture and shaking his head in a wooing motion. But they are content with their resolution and Stevie returns to the beach with his luggage and starts rowing for home.

The actual truth behind the composing and recording of `Ebony and Ivory' is of no relevance when it comes to assessing this determinedly offbeat comedy. Yet reviewers have largely been split into those taking offence at the content and tone of the material and those eager to jump on the `bash Macca' bandwagon by critiquing a 43 year-old song and the politico-intellectual validity of its eminently worthwhile sentiments rather than Hosking's film.

As with comedy of any kind, its success depends primarily on the beholder's sense of humour. There is nothing intrinsically funny about Hosking's dialogue, but his execution of the eccentric conceit has a Dadaist doggedness that is reinforced by the conscious crassness of Sky Elobar and Gil Gex's almost heroically perverse performances. In other words, Ebony & Ivory isn't much good, but you can see what they were getting at and all power to them for trying - even though Saturday Night Live and South Park had much the same idea years ago.

Blithely allowing his accent to wander willy-nilly, Elobar plays Paul like a passive-aggressive bassline, leaving Gex to gurn to his heart's content as Stevie. They are never identified as `McCartney' and `Wonder', although veiled clues about the former (`the lads' and `the wife') far outnumber those about the latter, who may not even be blind. Straining the eyes, you could just about see a link to `Mary Had a Little Lamb' with the sheep, while the giant frog in the woods could feasibly be a nod towards `We All Stand Together'. But it's more likely that Stevie's parents reassuring him that he's not alone derives from the lyrics of `For Once in My Life'.

The repetition of the phrase `Scottish cottage' just about wrings a smile by the end, while there's an amusing hint of husbandly pride in Paul's enthusiasm for his spouse's cooking. But a little of Stevie's cursing and grunting goes a long way, while the juvenile prosthetic penis gag fails to get a rise. Not that one can fault the leads, however, who have at it with laudable gusto and it would be interesting to see them play Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting For Godot.

Credit must go to production designer Felicity Hickson for splendidly cosy cottage clutter and to composer Andrew Hung for a skittish score that occasionally threatens to take the action into Benny Hill territory. The languor of Mårten Tedin's opening beach pans deftly sets the tone for a film in which audience double-takes are de rigueur, as there will be times when you won't be able to believe what you are watching. Yet, while this may be remorselessly lowbrow and mean-spiritedly cruel, it certainly isn't rubbish.

DOGS AT THE OPERA.

Arriving as a companion piece to Cats in the Museum (2023). Vasiliy Rovenskiy's Dogs At the Opera is an oddity on several levels. Firstly, said canines are at the ballet rather than the opera. But, more troublingly, the action in the English-language dub has been switched from Moscow to New York in a seemingly cynical bid to make a film aimed at small children more unobjectionable to accompanying adults, who might have negative views on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It's 1908 and Samson (Andrew Winn), a former circus dog, is conducting a well-planned raid on a butcher's shop with his fellow strays, Goliath (Jerrod Weston), Silver (Egor Moskalenko), and Thimble (Jordan Worsley). When the dogcatcher known as Dark Officer (Daniel Armstrong) comes after the gang, while they are sleeping off a slap-up feed, Samson has to squeeze through a tight pipe to escape and he finds himself in the boiler room of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Here, he meets Marge (Maria Smakhtina), the pet of Anastasia (Liza Klimova), who is dancing the lead in a production of Carmen. She has told Marge to guard a tiara that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. But Samson's clumsy attempts at flirtation distract her and the tiara is stolen by a man in a bowler hat. Keen to help the feline in distress. Samson offers to accompany Marge, as she follows the thief through the city. As she has led a sheltered existence, Marge knows nothing of street life and she admires Samson's ingenuity when they hop on to the tailgate of an electric street car to follow the culprit in a hansom cab.

He drives to the dog pound and Samson is uneasy when he sees Dark Officer at the door. But he gamely tails his nemesis, as he rides on a white horse to the home of Baroness Thornycroft (Yulia Kapanina). However. Marge smells a rat when she recognises the faux noblewoman as Anastasia's sacked predecessor at the opera house.

Somewhat conveniently, the conspirators go out and Samson is able to summon Silver,

Goliath, and Thimble in order to retrieve the tiara. The plan is for Thimble to climb down the chimney and open the window, so that Silver can use his claw to pick the lock of the bureau in which Thornycroft has stashed the tiara. However, in needing to hide from a tidying maid, Thimble takes refuge in a wastepaper basket and gets locked in a washroom. Pluckily, the pristine Marge risks the soot to let her confederates into the drawing-room. But Silver has trouble with the lock and Thornycroft and Dark Officer return with some friends to celebrate their larceny.

Placing the tiara on the table, Thornycroft proceeds to hold a séance in an attempt to unleash the spirit of Elizabeth Tudor, so that she can harness it for her own nefarious ends.

Samson hides under the table and taps out answers to the questions being posed by Thornycroft's pompous friends and, in the ensuing commotion, Thimble is able to grab the tiara and the dogs make their escape. Goliath gives Marge a ride to the theatre and she is able to return the tiara in time for Anastasia to wear it in the fourth act. However, Dark Officer has caught Samson, Silver, and Thimble and left them under the watchful gaze of his trusted trio of bull terriers.

Goading the bullies into letting him out of his cage, Samson uses his acrobatic skills in a fight with the snarling bull terrier. But, just as the tide starts to turn against him, Marge drops through the skylight to rescue him and release all the other dogs in the pound. A year later, Marge lives at the Met with her puppy, while Samson pops out every now and then to raid the butcher's with his old muckers.

There's something engaging about this rather predictable tale, which takes its tempo from the pace of urban life in the Gilded Age. This has much to do with the meticulous location design by Svetlana Tolstosheina, who also created the characters, who manage to appeal in spite of the perfunctoriness of the computer-generated animation. But what is most inspired is the generic nature of the backdrops, as the sites pass as easily for New York as they do for Moscow and might even do for Paris in any French adaptation.

The significance of the Elizabethan tiara isn't really explained. Nor is the alliance between a disgraced ballerina and a dogcatcher. But the asides on the way animals are treated by humans are as acute on the lessons on friendship and the strong looking out for the week. There are obvious familiarities with the Disney duo of Lady and the Tramp (1955) and The Aristocats (1970). But, given the standard of most CGI features these days, this is pleasing enough. It's just a shame that its release goes against the spirit of ongoing cultural boycott of the Putin regime.