Lena Headey's Movies - a completely unofficial career overview! (part one)

[cj2017]

Months ago, during a cold, wet, typically British summer, I started to entertain myself by writing daft reviews of all the Lena Headey movies/TV series I owned. Kinda turned into a bit of a project. So, on the off-chance you might be wondering "Hmm, should I download The Cave or The Contractor today?" these might steer you in the right direction (i.e. do neither, download Aberdeen instead!)

Having said that, these are an occasionally brief, completely unofficial and (due to availability or my own aversion to horror movies) incomplete set of reviews, hindered somewhat by a tendency to skip through the boring bits and biased by an unhealthy fascination with Lena’s hair…

(Thanks to Cat - feroxargentea for sticking my commas in the right places and swapping DVDs over when the cats were sitting on me!)

Please feel free to disagree, argue the toss for your faves or - in the case of Lena's very early stuff - fill in the gaps.

Part one of two (hey, the woman's done a lot of bloody movies!) under the cut.

 

Waterland (1992) Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal

Lena’s first major movie role sees her hitting the ground running in this adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel. Told largely in flashback, the narrative quirks might not be to everyone’s taste, but happily the sections in which Lena’s character Mary appears are among the most compelling.

Jeremy Irons headlines as Tom Crick, a history teacher whose marriage is falling apart and dragging his career down with it. Struggling to make his subject relevant to a bunch of hostile teens, he begins to recount stories from his own life growing up in the surreal landscape of the Norfolk fens. Love, death, tragedy and loss come to a head during his tumultuous adolescent relationship with Mary, and the repercussions are still being felt well into the future.

The fens look stunning, all windswept bleakness and murky waterways, and it is these flashback scenes in combination with Crick’s present-day turmoil that draw the viewer in so effectively. It is a pity that the flashbacks to an earlier and somewhat tangential period are less successful. Here the intertwining of the modern and the historical is too jarring, too whimsical, and ultimately contrives to throw you out of a narrative that up until then has been utterly grounded in reality.

Waterland isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs and it may see some people shifting as uncomfortably as the young adults in Crick’s class, but it is full of excellent performances and more than worth ninety minutes of your time.

Widely available on DVD.

 

The Jungle Book (1994) Directed by Stephen Sommers

Fun for all the family with a cast of thousands (well, there are loads of monkeys), beautiful locations and Lena looking cute as a button, very young and very rosy-of-cheek. You all know the premise: boy grows up in jungle, talks to the animals, accidentally meets pretty girl who encourages him to re-enter civilisation. Love happens while Cary Elwes stands around disapprovingly and twirls his moustache of villainy. You know what’s going to happen, I know what’s going to happen, but it all looks gorgeous, it’s got a decent cast with some really cute fluffy critters and it’s a whole lot of fun while it lasts.

Widely available on DVD in the UK. Bloody expensive on DVD in the US.

 

MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday (1994) Directed by Charles Correll

Oh dear lord. Having accidentally hit this on youtube, I am now forever doomed (no pun intended) to suffer occasional visions of Lena sporting some kind of terrible fright-perm whilst wearing a pair of bottle-bottom glasses. If you wish to experience the same, then by all means go and do likewise. Otherwise, avoid like a particularly virulent strain of haemorrhagic fever.

Unbelievably, this is widely available on R1 DVD thanks to a recent MacGyver TV movie compilation release. Blessedly hard to find in the UK (well, it’s actually piss-easy if you want R1 but don’t say I didn’t warn ya…)

 

Band of Gold Series 2 & 3 (Third series went under the title Gold) (1995) Various directors

“Bill? BILL?! How fast can yer knock up a cross?”

A 1995 Granada/ITV series, Band of Gold followed the lives of a group of prostitutes in Bradford, trying to turn over a new leaf (or in some cases just new tricks) and find gainful, legitimate employment. Although Lena doesn’t appear until the second series, it’s worth starting with the first set of six episodes (excellent writing, casting and taut plotting) especially as the same characters and some plotlines feed through to series two. Series two features the introduction of Samantha Morton as a fucked-up drug addict and Lena as her lover who has a tidy sideline as a dominatrix. And that’s where the fun really starts.

Although Morton has the showier role, Lena manages to steal every scene she’s in either by being effortlessly funny (helped along by some crackingly filthy dialogue) or just really bloody good. Unlike Morton, she never seems to scream Look at me, I’m ACTING! and her performance is all the better for her naturalistic restraint.

Not entirely comfortable to watch, the series is unflinchingly graphic and at times downright brutal but – if you can tune out the awful music – it still holds up well and gives Lena one of her best roles to date.

Sadly, Lena’s not in Series 3 nearly as much (the series had pretty much lost most of its main cast by then) but stick around for the early episodes if only for housework scene with the ass-less chaps!

All three series widely available as a complete DVD set in the UK. Only series one seems to be available in US. Clips of Headey/Morton on youtube via: www.youtube.com/user/bruiseviolets

Loved Up (1995) Directed by Peter Cattaneo

Written by Ol Parker (Imagine Me and You), Loved Up was screened on the BBC as part of their Love Bites season of movies. An exploration of the warehouse rave/ecstasy scene, the one-off drama stars Lena as Sarah, the vulnerable daughter of an alcholic mother who randomly meets Ian Hart’s pill-dropping, responsibility-adverse Tom. He introduces her to the scene and after initially being enthralled, she soon becomes exposed to the seedier and more dangerous side of it when she loses her job.

Never having taken a drug that wasn’t prescribed, I can’t vouch for the authenticity of Parker’s clubland depiction. However, the depiction of a grimy, dirt-poor underbelly of people struggling against addiction – be it recreational drugs or alcohol – and those loved ones struggling to cope with the fall-out is right on the money and consequently makes for a pretty rough viewing experience. Headey and Hart are a sparky pairing (although you’ll quite quickly want to throttle him) and the whole thing rattles along nicely towards its inevitably painful and yet strangely liberating conclusion. You might feel a strong desire to take a nice, hot bath after watching this, but grab some soap and froth up the suds because it really is a decent piece of work.

Having said that, it’s practically impossible to find on DVD. Amazon UK often has VHS copies for a king’s ransom.

 

Mrs Dalloway (1997) Directed by Marleen Gorris

I’ll hold my hands up and confess right now, this movie was way too easy to break up into happy Lena-sized segments and – scarred after my Possession experience – I blithely skipped my way through the Vanessa Redgrave half of the movie. Go ahead and sue me (actually don’t because I have two cats and a pondful of newts to feed!) Consequently, the overall essence of the film was somewhat lost on me, but Lena cavorts around in (and out of!) some very pretty gowns and gets her latent-lesbian on with Natascha McElhone which meant that I had fun for the forty minutes or so that I saw. Anyone who wishes to fill in the blanks and cast their critical eye over the entire movie, please feel free, but the scenes I did fast-forward through were dull as dishwater even at warp-speed.

Widely available on DVD.

 

The Hunger series 1, episode 2: Menage a Trois (1997) Directed by Jake Scott

A weird and not terribly wonderful entry into the Hunger canon (a Showtime TV series that ran to two seasons). If Lena playing a nurse to some hideously deformed she-beast who turns her into a sex-crazed succubus Pierro clown is your thing, then oh boy are you onto a winner here. If not, then it’s a 32 minute curiosity which is about as sexy as a cold shower with a saltpetre chaser. Possibly worth watching for the ridiculously portentous opening and closing monologues from Terence Stamp, but only if you really, really don’t have anything better to do like laundry, or painting your toe nails, or staring into space…

Widely available on DVD.

 

If Only (Twice Upon a Yesterday, or The Man With Rain in His Shoes) (1998) Directed by María Ripoll

Similar in premise Sliding Doors, If Only (don’t ask me why this movie ended up with three titles!) is another entrant into the change your fate when offered a second chance canon of movies. Sadly, it has one major handicap: the male lead whom Lena, Penélope Cruz and another random girlie all fall for is an utter twat who doesn’t deserve any of them. Douglas Henshall gives a truly unlikeable performance as Victor who, after cheating on Sylvia (Lena), then decides to accept the option of turning the clock back and ruining her life because he can’t bear the notion of her marrying someone who actually makes her happy. The film hinges on whether you believe Victor and Sylvia are destined to be together, but it can’t even get this right and ultimately dumps on poor Sylvia all over again.

Despite the crappy writing and the disaster of Henshall’s casting, I defy anyone not to want to wrap Sylvia up in a blanket at the end and take her home, so I guess Lena manages to make something of her character. Bonus points are gleefully awarded for tank-tops, pigtails, jogging in tank-tops and the aforementioned closing scenes where Lena gets all teary-eyed in a series of loving close-ups. Ultimately though, in a scandalously unexplored possible timeline, she really would have been better shacking up with Charlotte Coleman’s character…

Widely available on DVD. (Twice upon a Yesterday in US, If Only in UK.)

 

Onegin (1999) Directed by Martha Fiennes

A sweeping, grandiose epic about unrequited, wasted love and people staring moodily across prettily shot landscapes, Onegin will either find you captivated and sniffling into your popcorn, or it’ll bore the socks off you. Guess which side of the fence I came down on…

Based on an Alexander (everywhere you check spells that differently!) Pushkin verse novel, Onegin is a bit of a family affair, with Martha Fiennes directing brother Ralph in the lead role and another brother providing the score. As Onegin, Fiennes wanders around being all mysterious and melancholic until Liv Tyler inexplicably falls for him. The entire film (aside from a beautifully directed, very atmospheric duel) seems to comprise endless shots of Tyler meandering through corridors or peering through lace curtains/around stone pillars (delete as appropriate). Seriously, that’s all she does. Lena ambles cheerfully along playing Tyler’s sister, Olga, a superficial, silly girl who at least has the wherewithal not to perpetually mope around after Fiennes.

The film looks great – stuffed to bursting with opulent sets and making good use of some lovely wintry locations – but it’s all very staid and achingly boring. By the time the last forty minutes or so roll around, the meaningful pauses liberally scattered throughout the dialogue have already stretched the running time to a couple of years. The good news is that, by this point, Olga’s already buggered off out of the plot so you could actually skip the rest and not miss any Lena. But that would really be extremely naughty of you…

Easy to purchase on DVD. Respective amazon stores seem to stock copies from alternative sellers.

 

Aberdeen (2000) Directed by Hans Petter Moland

Summoned by her dying mother, Kaisa (Headey) heads off to retrieve her alcoholic father (Stellan Skarsgård) from Norway and drive him over to Aberdeen for one final family reunion. The confines of the road trip bring all manner of simmering resentments to the surface as the couple raise hell along the length of mainland Britain.

Aberdeen is, hands down, Lena’s finest movie. Shot in a near-monochrome of blue-grey, it’s a bleak, beautiful exploration of human falliability in all its vomiting, pissing, naked, violent glory. As Kaisa, Lena gives a fierce, fearless performance, ably backed up by Skarsgård and Ian Hart as the trucker who just happens to get dragged along for the ride. Brutally realistic and at times genuinely painful to watch, it also manages to be incredibly poignant which, given the nature of the movie’s themes, really is testament to the efforts of all involved. Not necessarily one to watch with mother, but highly recommended.

Not difficult to find on DVD (R1 is the easier format to obtain) but it can be quite pricey. Shop around.

 

Gossip (2000) Directed by Davis Guggenheim

A daft but watchable movie wherein a group of students decide to throw a salacious rumour out amongst their peers and then sit back to study the fall-out for a class project. Predictably, the fall-out is quite spectacular and things get out of hand in a series of increasingly far-fetched twists. It won’t set your world alight and – like Lena’s American accent – it’s not entirely successful, but it’s harmlessly entertaining and mercifully quite short.

Widely available on DVD.

 

The Parole Officer (2001) Directed by John Duigan

Knock-about comedy crime caper set in Manchester (wahey!) The movie stars Steve Coogan alongside a whole host of excellent Brit comedy performers and features Lena with a Manc accent in a police uniform. Which is more than enough for me to wholeheartedly recommend it. If that’s not enough for you, it’s very funny, quite filthy and ends with a mass all-cast dance off. Word of warning, the movie should be avoided by anyone with a wasp phobia.

Widely available in the UK. "Currently unavailable" in US according to Amazon. Due to the vagaries of youtube, the full movie except for the very first part can be streamed from here: www.youtube.com/user/lenaprofile#p/u
Whoever that youtube punter is, he or she has also very kindly uploaded Anazapta, Merlin, The Broken, Gossip, Twice upon a Yesterday, The Contractor and The Brother's Grimm. All are available from that profile link.