The Paperboy

For my French A Level speaking exam, I talked for fifteen minutes about the Cannes Film Festival. I researched its history, knew my Official Selections from my Parallel Selections and could have easily told you who won the Palme d'Or in 1976 (it was Taxi Driver). Ever since then, I've always wanted to go to the festival and rub shoulders with the industry's great and good. Many established critics, however, turn their nose up at Cannes as if it were a corporate, shallow and self-aggrandising media circus and, actually, it is. But the thrill of attending would be fantastic. Anyway, to the point: Cannes critics are renowned for their vocal approval/disapproval of a film and The Paperboy, the new film from Precious director Lee Daniels, received a very negative reaction last year. Strange, then, that it isn't all that bad...

Loosely-based on the novel of the same name by Pete Dexter, The Paperboy is a very odd affair and fluctuates between the bizarre and the downright strange. Set in the sweltering summer of 1969, the film sees newspaper reporter Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) and his younger brother Jack (Zac Efron) investigate a murder case which has resulted in an innocent man being sentenced to death row. Throw in an over-sexed bottle blonde (played by Nicole Kidman) and you've got a trashy thriller with a heavyweight cast list and plenty of atmosphere. Indeed, The Paperboy does rather well in the atmosphere department, somewhat at the expense of a forceful and driving narrative. Daniels' direction was rather limp in propelling the film along and allowed for too many seemingly irrelevant moments to really grip the audience.

Every frame of the film oozed cinematic heritage and looked as though it were photographed through a 1954 Leica camera, whilst some nice editing techniques were used to great effect. The film's aesthetic certainly contributed to its successes in terms of its trashy, pot-boiler feel and I was impressed by Daniels' cinematographic choices, even if his uneven narrative could have been strengthened. The whole cast put in good performances, especially from Efron, who has a face and a sensibility on screen which was perfectly suited to the film's era. The highest compliment I can pay Efron is that, if he were to pop up alongside Hoffman in The Graduate, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

The road from the High School Musical franchise has been a fairly uneventful one for Efron although it has taken time for him to settle into his right type of role. The Paperboy is the first film in which I've been really impressed by him. The character of Jack is both troubled and conflicted. Lounging around in his underpants and yearning for a female prescence in his life, Jack is enigmatic, temperamental and sensitive and Efron's performance was exceptionally well-judged. The sexual tension with Kidman may raise a few eyebrows, and the less said about that jellyfish scene, the better. In more general terms, I felt that the dynamics between McConaughey and Efron were very believable and the quiet dreaming of Jack was a surreal but competently executed extra layer to a very unusual film.

Tonally confused but often startling, The Paperboy is a strange and perplexing film of sexual desire, truth and family. In many ways, I didn't like it. But there was something rather intoxicating about the sweat, soft cinematography and dynamic performances. It's not fantastic but it's far from uninteresting. What do those Cannes critics know...?

Clapperboard Rating: * * *