100 NIGHTS OF HERO* - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Closing Night Gala

100 NIGHTS OF HERO is a wonderful graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg whose themes are feminist and queer and sex positive. In layered and echoing stories she tells us about a world created by a wonderful young woman called Kiddo until her dad, Birdman, turns into a tyrannical patriarchy. We hear about a beautiful young woman who gets pregnant by a man but transcends into a moon. We hear of a young bride abused by her husband - her washed bones made into a lyrical harp. Of beautiful sisters who secretly read and write and are murdered for this crime, their graves marked with stones. Again and again these layered stories recast well-known fairy-tales, biblical tales and myths and speak to a world in which bright women are subjugated and killed. 

And then we focus in on the story of Cherry and Hero. Cherry is an aristocrat and Hero is her maid but they are secret lovers. Cherry’s husband sets her up by making a despicable wager. His mate Manfred will have 100 nights to seduce her and prove that all women are harlots. This dastardly man tells her plainly he is going to rape her. So every night Hero tells Manfred a story so exciting that he forgets to rape Cherry, and leaves him on a cliffhanger. She is our Sheherezade for 100 nights. And not only for Manfred but the guards and the people of the town who also become hooked on the stories. So when at last our lovers are arrested and thrown from a tower in punishment, the town rises up and overthrows the patriarchy.  

The story is funny, profound, refreshingly sex positive and unnervingly relevant in these increasingly bigoted times. I love that Cherry and Hero feel no shame in their love. They both have intelligence and agency. Yes Hero is the more self-assured and infinitely resourceful but Cherry isn’t some passive whiny pathetic woman either. 

So imagine my horror at Julia Jackman’s new feature length adaptation of the novel, in which Cherry becomes a weedy pathetic simpering fool and there’s no sex, and half the stories are omitted or garbled, there’s no threat of rape, far from being hooked on the stories, the seducer is bored to sleep by them, and … and … it just all makes no sense. It’s all so milquetoast. Where’s the audacity and wonder and excitement? 

I also hate to rag on a film that presumably had a micro-budget but it just looks cheap. This should be a film set mostly at night in which the moon and stars are major characters. A film in which a big city full of people rises up in revolt. But no. This is all broad daylight and harshly reflective electric candles and aaargh! I am so frustrated at this milquetoast under-funded attempt at turning this wonderful book into a film. Pretty much the only thing it got right was the deadpan wit thanks to Emma Corrin’s hilarious reaction shots and Nicholas Galitzine’s line-readings as Hero and Manfred respectively.

100 NIGHTS OF HERO is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 90 minutes. It played Venice and London and opens in the US on December 5th.

MARY & GEORGE (TV)****

MARY & GEORGE is a sumptuously produced costume drama set in the court of King James I of England. Despite being known to most English schoolchildren as the sponsor of a new translation of the Bible, historical sources tell us that he was definitely homosocial and most likely bi- or homosexual.  In this retelling from D.C.Moore, based on a work of history by Benjamin Woolley, any ambiguity is eradicated. James was most definitely homosexual - able to sire children with his Danish Queen - but taking pleasure in a series of young beautiful men.

This gives our heroine Mary Beaumont her chance at societal advancement, wealth and power. Born a serving woman, by the time we meet her she has already successfully faked an aristocratic lineage and buried her first husband. She marries a country booby in order to maintain her children, and grooms her son George to seduce the King. That they both achieve great power and set up her descendants as those the Dukes of Buckingham is a testament to Mary's intelligence, ruthlessness and strategic brilliance. 

Iconic actress Julianne Moore (MAY DECEMBER) perfectly embodies this complex and ambiguous woman. She is no feminist - happily sacrificing a rich heiress to her mentally ill and violent younger son. But one cannot help but admire her resilience and resourcefulness in a world where she had no lineage and few legal rights. It is testament to Nicholas Galitzine (RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE) that he matches her beat for beat. When we first meet his George he is young, fragile and drifting. By the end he is out-strategising both his mother and the King. He remains compelling throughout. In smaller roles, I admired Tony Curran's ability to make James so much more complex and indeed admirable than just a "cockstruck" dilettante. I also very much liked Sean Gilder as Mary's new husband, and Nicola Walker gets all the best lines as the scabrous, independently wealthy Lady Harron.

The production design, costumes, music, and locations are all beautifully done. The show is a joy to watch, and as far as I can tell, the broad historical outlines are close to the real history. My only real criticism of the show is that it cannot maintain the brilliantly funny brutal comedy of its opening episodes and that once the Villiers get closer to power, a dark pall falls over the show.  I felt that somewhere around episode 5 the drama lost its intensity and zest and we drifted toward the inevitable grim ending.  I wanted more of the bawdy language and nakedly open powerplays - notably between Mary and Lady Harron.  The show suffered for the latter's loss.

MARY & GEORGE is available to watch in its entirety in the UK on Sky. It releases next month in the USA on Starz.

BOTTOMS*****

Director Emma Seligman (SHIVA BABY) and writer-actor Rachel Sennott (THE IDOL) reimagine BOOKSMART as a tale of two high-school lesbian best friends who want to lose their virginity before college.  They get their chance when a rumour goes around the school that they served time in Juvenile Detention, giving them instant cool status. The girls exploit this by setting up a kind of FIGHT CLUB to teach their fellow girls how to defend themselves from sexual predation. Naturally they are delighted when the two hot popular cheerleaders turn up.

The landscape of this film is familiar to those of us raised on John Hughes movies and HEATHERS and Friday Night Lights. It's a culture that privileges the beautiful and the sports stars and is oppressively heteronormative. It's a culture that doesn't fund teachers or books but builds a new sports field. This film is  here to rip the piss out of all of that. Not just in hilariously blunt dialogue that has characters say exactly what they think no matter how politically incorrect. But also with visual gags around posters and text written on chalk boards and aural jokes on the school's PA system.  The result is a film that is laugh-out loud funny and that will absolutely repay repeated viewing.  It features a cracking largely all-female diverse cast. That said, particular props to ex sports star Marshawn Lynch who has some of the most darkly funny lines as the girls' No Fucks Given high school teacher. And Nicholas Galitzine, most recently seen in the Amazon Prime gay rom-com RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE, is hilariously funny as the camp jock superstar.

Behind the lens, this film is exceptionally well put together by director Emma Seligman.  The editing is sharp, the music choices stunningly good and the copious violence directed with real impact and flair.  Most of all, I loved the production design and costumes.  The team have created a kind of era-ambiguous contemporary but retro feeling, as in the TV show Sex Education. It could be any time between 1989 and now. It gives the film a timeless feeling but also acknowledges our shared love of the high school movie genre, adding layers of depth to the viewing experience.

BOTTOMS is rated R and has a running time of 91 minutes. It played SXSW 2023 and was released in the USA in August. It goes on release in the UK tomorrow, November 3rd.

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE***

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE is a Bridgerton-adjacent piece of mildly entertaining rom-com fluff that satisfies our need for cheesy romantic dramas where love triumphs over bigotry, everyone looks pretty, and sex scenes are steamy but still reassuringly safe. I gave it an extra point for including a sensible conversation about safe gay sex and for featuring an inter-racial gay couple because representation matters.

The unreasonably pretty (but apparently not gay - how do we feel about that?) Nicholas Galitzine stars as a closeted gay British royal prince who falls for the Latine bisexual son of the US President (Taylor Zakhar Perez).  Naturally they start out hating each other but that soon changes as they are forced to spend time with each other as their countries negotiate a trade deal.  The POTUS is amusingly played by Uma Thurman with an insane southern accent, and her husband by Clifton Collins Jr - where has he been? They are super supportive of their son and his political ambitions.  This stands in sharp contrast to the homophobic British King, amusingly played by the real-life gay Stephen Fry. In both cases I find that the movie glosses over the political and social backlash each family would face. But I guess that's not what this film really is.

At any rate, this really is not a work of art, but it is fun enough and important. Kudos to Tony award winning playwright and debut feature director Matthew Lopez for getting this on screen.

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE is rated R and has a running time of 118 minutes. It was released last weekend on Amazon Prime Video.