The Look of Love (2013)

Coogan was excellent in this, the whole part with him and his daughter passing away was extremely well done and certainly jerked the heart strings, after watching this I read lots on his life, it was very sad to see his only real love was his daughter and after her nothing replaced her, and he lived a recluse much like Howard Hughes did in his high rise Penthouse, all his money when he died went to distant relatives who now live in his Penthouse rich without a worry in the world, and probably without knowing what went on there. Coogan is a good serious actor, I would like to see him in more things like this, he is a very versatile actor.

Director Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan collaborated a decade ago on 24 Hour Party People – a look at Manchester's innovative music scene from the mid-1970s onward. It is considered by many, including myself, as a minor classic. So hopes were high as they united once more for this biopic about Britain's erstwhile soft-pornographer-in-chief, and ultimately the country's richest man, Paul Raymond.Sadly, they cannot re-create the magic in this hotch-potch of a film which seems to lack any kind of compass and is unsure of the statement it wishes to make.There is a total lack of irony as we follow Raymond's hedonistic and highly lucrative lifestyle, giving people what many of them clearly want and for which they are happy to pay large amounts of money.Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond frequently drifts far too close to his Alan Partridge persona throughout the film, and comparisons are almost invited as he shows Raymond impersonating Sean Connery to his friends.There are under-weighted cameos from the likes of Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas; David Walliams plays a lecherous vicar, apparently a good friend of Raymond, but we are given no idea as to how he arrived on the scene and without backstory he comes across as a superficial irrelevance.The soundtrack is impressive, especially the Bacharach and David numbers, and the film does succeed in evoking a sense of period. But these are not enough. The film is ultimately specious and unsatisfying.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningIn their latest collaboration, Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan explore the world of Paul Raymond, the visionary porn producer who was one of the pioneering forces that transformed London's Soho in to an erotic industry, bringing live shows to the forefront and launching the iconic Men's Only magazine, which eventually saw him become the richest man in Britain. But it also fueled his self destructive edge, finishing his marriage to Jean (Anna Friel), the mother of his children, and leaving her for forthright starlet Fiona (Tamsin Egerton), while leading his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots) into a world of drug fueled self destruction.Coogan and Winterbottom are the forces behind a series of works that are anti mainstream but still have the star power to appeal to a fairly wide audience, if not commercially, then critically. Having explored the life of Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records and an attempt by two men to produce the work of Tristram Shandy, here they have equally meaty subject matter in the shape of Paul Raymond, one of the key figures in the now massive porn industry, but this time around, there seems to be more of a real dramatic input than one driven for laughs. This is a gambit that hardly fails to pay off, really drawing and absorbing you in to the world of Raymond, even if it does maybe trail off a little in places.A wide array of comic talent are on hand in supporting roles and making cameos, from Little Britain stelwarts Matt Lucas and David Walliams, to the likes of Chris Addison in a key role as an egocentric, coke fueled pornographer, to Stephen Fry and even Simon Bird. But as I said, comedy doesn't seem to be the order of the day, so all this seems bizarrely redundant. Coogan fits the lead role perfectly, embodying his real life character with the larger than real life personality and character traits he had, while a naturally attractive female supporting cast adorn other key roles.Lacking the dynamism and effortless energy of 24 Hour Party People, but at least not full of the pretentious self indulgence of A Cock and Bull Story, The Look of Love doesn't quite manage to set the screen alight, but still leaves your senses and emotions on a string. ***

The Look of Love from Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom was definitely something to look forward to--between the two of them they've cooked up 24 Hour Party People, Tristam Shandy, and The Trip--all three of which are top notch films in many ways. They're all moving and quite funny in addition to being very well done dramatic portrayals of guys begrudgingly reflecting back on the choices they've made in their life as well. This film has the latter part but nowhere near the good humor of the former part. Its possible the two men wanted to play the seriousness of Coogan's character's plight for straight dramatic value or maybe they felt that the character being portrayed wouldn't be as funny as the ones Coogan played in the other films, either way the movie itself mostly just lays there on screen. There's not much to engage you or pull you into the story this time around and Coogan's character who's supposed to be the central figure of this "character study" never begins to come across as a vivid, fully fleshed out person the way he does in the other films...i kept waiting for the details of his life to get filled in but the film mostly glosses over the details that would've made his character someone to root for (or against) Instead what we get is a barely there stick figure, you can sympathize with some of the things his character has to goes through towards the end, but you can never fully feel for his character.Coogan plays somewhat of a British Larry Flynt here...someone who becomes a wildly successful entrepreneur and real estate tycoon on the strength of a pornographic empire and his successful attempts to have frequent nudity and stripping in proper polite public society. Its said at the end of the movie that his character was the richest man in Britian in the mid 2000's,--tho the film itself is set during the late 70's/early 80's (Relying on the soundtrack to tell you when you are is what i did, as Donnovan's "Sunshine Superman" pops up towards the beginning, and Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" pops up in the last half hour, i got that we were moving from the 70's thru the 80's here but its honestly hard to tell because there are so many different period signifyers all kind of just thrown on screen.)The film's storyline involves Coogan's ever evolving relationship with his daughter whom he refuses to leave when he walks out on his wife and son, apparently he shares a significant bond with her, we're told that she's a lot like him character wise and you can see why that is as the story moves on. When she ends up being kicked out of boarding school, against his better instincts he ends up taking her on as a performer (she wants to be a singer) and eventually a full on partner in his various business dealings. The bulk of the story is essentially how the business he very successfully built for himself ends up destroying his own daughter little by little (you know it isn't very long before she ends up over-indulging in drugs and the lifestyle in general and getting in way over her head, etc, etc) Meanwhile Coogan keeps whatever difficult emotions he's feeling bottled up while witnessing the slow decline of his daughter, preferring to over-indulge in the nightlife himself.This could have all been a nicely effecting story about a guy who never took the time to share or process his feelings towards the other people in his life suddenly having to grapple with the choices he had made having such a significant effect on the one true loved on in his life. Unfortunately, again, none of it really comes across--i don't know if this is because Coogan's character steadfastly refuses to take responsibility for his actions, or because Winterbottom purposefully keeps Coogan's character at such a remote distance from the audience that again it ends up being difficult to feel for him when the difficulties in his life start up. You can see how much pride he takes in how he presents himself to everyone else, and how little else matters to him which may be the point, but it doesn't make it any easier to latch onto him as the main character in a movie. Unlike the other three films the star and director made together, the film's central character never comes across as an even remotely likable person so the attempt in the last half hour or so to make him more relatable to the audience never works because you were never really on his wavelength as a person/character to begin with.As a whole, the film is an interesting attempt at doing a whole seedy 70's esque character study, but it just doesn't quite work as a whole and while Coogan does get in a good handful of one liners--although those are so few and far between one another tho that they might as well have not even been there tho i was thankful while watching it that they were-- so while itself is never exactly a dead zone, the film overall is way too inert to really pull you into the world of its central character and that is sadly the complete opposite of what the other 3 films the star and director have done together.