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October 19, 2011

I Wish

I have been making the effort to see a few movies at the London Film Festival this year.

This one was wonderful.

(Can't find a trailer with subtitles, sorry.)

It is from the director of After Life and Nobody Knows and tells the story of two brothers who live with different parents in different cities following a divorce. The older brother hears another kid at school say that if you make a wish when two bullet trains travelling in opposite directions cross each other it will come true.

The brothers and their friends decide to make a pilgrimage to the place on the line where they think the trains will cross, each of them with a wish they want to make.

But as the kids prepare for this expedition you realise that the grown-ups around them each have unfulfilled wishes as well. The parking attendant who dreams of being a baker, the musician who wants his band to break the big time, the mother who wants to see her son again.

This is a fim about those small moments in life which determine how our futures unfold or what memories and regrets we will take into adulthood and, in a subtle montage at the end, I Wish literally captures these on screen. It is one of the most heartbreaking and uplifting films I think I have ever seen.

The performances are superb: the adults restrained and content with staying in the background, the children all excelling with a couple of standout performances to rival that little chap in Cinema Paradiso.

I am not sure if I Wish will get a general release but if it does I urge you to go see it. It has shot straight into my all time top ten. It is that good.

Posted at 06:21 AM in Movies |

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Comments

Sounds like my kind of film! bet it will be shown at the National Media Museum at some point.

Posted by: Saviour Pirotta | October 19, 2011 at 09:25 AM

This is the same director who also made the wonderful Still Walking I raved about down here in the comments a while back. STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WATCH IT NOW. That was a fantastic movie, really looking forward to this new one.

Posted by: Dan | October 19, 2011 at 10:33 PM

That was one hell of a bloody clumsy sentence at the beginning there, wasn't it? Sorry about that, NOW GO AND WATCH STILL WALKING.

Posted by: Dan | October 19, 2011 at 10:35 PM

Nobody Knows was a really powerful film, but just heartbreaking. Looking forward to the same power with a bit of uplift mixed in there too. (and, Dan, found a source for Still Walking)

Posted by: Brad | October 21, 2011 at 10:29 PM

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