Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 1/1/2015)

Employing a match shot of a wheelchair and bicycle to flash back from a scene at Buckingham Palace, the action opens in Cambridge in 1963 as Oxford-born physics PhD candidate Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) contemplates a suitable subject for his research. Cosmology supervisor Dennis Sciama (David Thewlis) is intrigued by his ambition to challenge the decaying star theories of established scientist Roger Penrose (Christian McKay) and posit that the universe was created by an explosion inside a black hole. However, Hawking is distracted from his studies by Romance languages and literature student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) and their romance blossoms, even though Hawking is beginning to notice an increased difficulty in controlling his muscles and a marked decline in his energy levels.

Concerned by his condition, Hawking consults a doctor (Adam Godley) and is diagnosed with degenerative motor neurone disease and given two years to live. Naturally, he is devastated by the news. But Wilde is determined to support him and accepts his marriage proposal and vows that they will face whatever the future has in store for them together. Her parents, Beryl and George (Emily Watson and Guy Oliver Watts), have their misgivings and Hawking is encouraged by his own family - parents Frank and Isobel (Simon McBurney and Abigail Cruttenden) and sisters Phillipa and Mary (Charlotte Hope and Lucy Chappell) - to make the most of the time left to him and have any children quickly.

Wilde is eager to fall in with such a plan and is soon nursing three children (Robert, Lucy and Timothy) as well as her ailing husband, whose refusal to use a wheelchair often leaves her struggling to help him move around while trying to hold an infant. Yet, despite his physical deterioration, Hawking's mind remains as sharp as ever and his star ascends within the academic community and he is eager to accept invitations to attends symposiums around the world. Wilde accompanies him on such occasions, but, having sacrificed her own intellectual aspirations, she resents having to be the consistently proud and cheery champion of her spouse's genius.

As a devout Christian, Wilde draws on her faith and joins a local choir with Hawking's ready agreement. However, she becomes increasingly fond of organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones (Charlie Cox), who becomes something of a fixture around the house and a surrogate father to the growing children. During a camping trip, however, Wilde and Jones become lovers and she is torn between her love and sense of duty towards Hawking and her realisation that she can never have the kind of family life with him that Jones could offer. Her guilt is exacerbated by the fact that Hawking's growing frailty and inability to speak has left him dependent upon both his care assistant and speech therapist Elaine Mason (Maxine Peake).

Wilde is shocked back to reality, however, when Hawking suffers a life-threatening collapse that requires a tracheotomy and Jones discreetly withdraws to allow her to focus on his maternal-matrimonial duties. The incident only increased Hawking's dependency upon Mason, who begins to exhibit signs of controlling possessiveness, as her patient becomes an international celebrity following the 1988 publication of A Brief History of Time. Two years later, Hawking and Wilde come to the calm conclusion that their marriage has run its course and they decide to separate. But it is Jane who accompanies him to the palace to collect his CBE, as he is fully aware of the debt he owes her.

Hawking and Wilde may well have maintained similar levels of civility as they accepted the changing nature of their relationship, but such rational acceptance makes for scant emotional drama. Consequently, this sincere profile rather peters out and many viewers will leave feeling short-changed rather than inspired by this lukewarm exercise in stiff upper lippery. Following Daniel Day-Lewis's lead in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989), Eddie Redmayne ably conveys the physical and psychological effects of a debilitating and, ultimately, dehumanising, disease, while being careful not to overplay the characteristic poses and tics (Hawking provides his own Equaliser vocalisation). Similarly, Felicity Jones avoids seeming like a passive victim or a pious hypocrite. But the script very much takes her part and Maxine Peake is left with a thankless task of playing the interloper whose reputation has since been besmirched by accusations of physical maltreatment.

But while it's a shame that McCarten feels the need to sanitise a story that is already very well known, his decision to water down the scientific discussion is even more disappointing and damaging, as it undersells Hawking's achievement (which owes much to his willingness to retain an open mind and even accept errors of judgement) and also insults the intelligence of the audience. Moreover, it glosses over the extent to which Hawking and Wilde's steady detachment was rooted in their intellectual differences as much as their shifting physical and emotional needs. Thus, while such casual chauvinism undoubtedly reflects the attitudes of the narrative's time frame, McCarten and Marsh miss the opportunity (outside the odd witty exchange about religion) to explore Wilde's own abilities and ambitions outside being a loyal wife and selfless carer.

John Paul Kelly's production design and Steven Noble's costumes (77 changes for Redmayne alone) are unfussily authentic, while Jan Sewell's hair and make-up effects are impeccably judged. However, while cinematographer Benoît Delhomme deftly catches the colour schemes of college stonework and the English seasons, the blocking of the action is as cumbersome as Marsh's scene transitions and use of fire, water, eyeballs, whirling wheels and swirling coffee to allude to such complex scientific phenomena as black holes, space-time singularities and the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity, which he hints are nothing in their impenetrability when compared with the mysteries of the heart. The montages edited by Jinx Godfrey to Johann Johansson's calculatingly saccharine piano score also feel self-conscious and it is difficult to avoid drawing the conclusion that Marsh (who already has an Oscar from his compelling 2008 documentary, Man on Wire) was more conscious of the need to garner prestigious awards than Martin was when he made his infinitely more nuanced and demanding teleplay.

Having already been nominated for a Golden Globe, Redmayne is almost certainly going to be up against Benedict Cumberbatch (for his performance as Alan Turing in Morten Tyldum's hugely disappointing The Imitation Game) when the Oscars come around and they are likely to be joined on the shortlist for Best Actor by Michael Keaton for his flamboyant turn in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Critics Stateside have raved about this meta-satire and pronounced it a return to form for the Mexican director after 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010) took some of the lustre off his nuevo cine masterpiece, Amores Perros (2000). But, while there is no question that Keaton exhibits great physical courage, as well as actorly skill as the washed-up Hollywood action hero seeking legitimacy on the Broadway stage, this despicably chauvinist insider insight into the thespian psyche falls prey to the fatal combination of being underwritten and overplayed.

As a falling star streaks across the sky, actor Michael Keaton levitates in his underwear in his dressing-room at the St James Theatre on West 44th Street in New York. Back in the 1990s, he was the star of the Birdman franchise and a poster for the second sequel adorns his wall as the gravelly voice of the superhero urges Keaton to forget about seeking valediction by treading the boards in a self-funded, self-penned and self-directed production of the Raymond Carver short story, `What We Talk About When We Talk About Love', and return to the silver screen. However, such is his commitment to the off-Broadway project that he has hired daughter Emma Stone to be his assistant (as a way of trying to atone for the childhood neglect that caused her to wind up in rehab) and found a role for girlfriend Andrea Riseborough, who is desperate to start a family, even though she has a soft spot for co-star Naomi Watts, another film star hoping to increase her credibility by doing a play.

As rehearsals progress, producer Zach Galifianakis worries that Keaton is behaving oddly. So, when a light falls and hits mediocre actor Jeremy Shamos, Galifianakis insists on replacing him with Edward Norton, a Method devotee who is dating Watts and whose name could bolster the box office. Convinced that he had caused the light to fall with his telekinetic powers, Keaton agrees to the switch. But he quickly discovers Norton to be a temperamental egotist who not only demands advantageous rewrites, but who also has a penchant for deleterious practical jokes. Thus, he substitutes water for gin during a preview performance and the tipsy cast members begin bickering in front of a bemused audience.

Riseborough adds to Keaton's growing woes by announcing she is pregnant. But Norton again proves the main source of trouble, as he goes on stage sporting a bulging erection that amuses the audience much more than it does Watts, who is so mortified by his antics that she terminates the relationship. Rumours of these teething troubles reach influential New York Times critic Lindsay Duncan, who tells Keaton that she detests Hollywood has-beens trying to revive their fortunes on the Great White Way and threatens to give his production a damning notice even before she has seen it.

Driven to distraction, Keaton goes to the theatre roof and wrestles with his alter ego. He rushes to the ledge and flings himself down. But, instead of plunging towards the street below, he takes flight and sails along Park Avenue before landing safely. However, Keaton is soon disabused of any thought he might have had about turning the corner when he gets locked out of the venue (when a fire door slams on his rope while he is getting some fresh air before the dramatic finale) and has to walk through Times Square in his underpants in order to gain readmission through the foyer.

Keaton is appalled that the early reviews all focus on Norton's livewire display. But, while ex-wife Amy Ryan offers some timely words of support, Stone is less forgiving when Keaton catches her using drugs again and she lets him know in no uncertain terms that her problems are deeply rooted in his selfishness. Stone's suggestion that Keaton stops living in the past coincides with Riseborough admitting that she is not pregnant and he ends the romance. Thus, he is in something of a state by opening night and takes a real gun on to the stage for the finale. Duncan storms out of the theatre, as Keaton shoots himself in the face. But, as he recovers in hospital, he learns that he has only blown his nose off and that Duncan was so impressed by his `super realism' that she has given the play a rave review.

Stone offers her congratulations. But, when she pops out of the room, Keaton sees some birds fluttering outside his window and he climbs out on to the ledge to join them. On returning, Stone is surprised to find the room empty and is horrified to see the open window. However, instead of seeing her father lying dead in the street below, she looks up and smiles quietly to herself.

Laced with visual allusions to both Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), this is a film that is destined to divide audiences and critics alike. Those who buy into the backslapping luvviness are likely to be wowed by the countless throwaways riffing on everything from social media, actorly snobbery and comic-book blockbusters to Justin Bieber, Roland Barthes and George Clooney. But there is precious little finesse in a scenario concocted by Iñárritu in conjunction with Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo and, consequently, each one-liner is followed by the briefest pause designed to accommodate the drum roll and cymbal crash that nodding industry lags will doubtlessly hear as clearly as Keaton heeds Birdman's interior monologue.

But if admirers are able to forgive the smugness, there is surely no way they can condone the sexist depiction of the female characters, who are either shrews, nags or prudes. It's bad enough that Riseborough has to play a character who tries to trap her man by pretending to be pregnant, but she also has to endure a purely specious kiss with Watts, who is shockingly wasted as Norton' insecure paramour. Indeed, it feels as though someone had the brilliant idea to perform a little gender reassignment on Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950) and, while this may reflect the current state of Hollywood (with actors of both sexes struggling to sustain fame once they have been forced to disembark from the mega-hit gravy train, if they were ever lucky enough to scramble aboard), the message is put across too coarsely for it to register as perceptive satire. The assault on sniping critics is also thuddingly gauche.

Exposing his thinning pate and thickening waistline, Keaton throws himself into the best role he has had since Batman. But Iñárritu nods and winks far too frequently and blatantly in the direction of his casting coup for its efficacy to retain its sheen, in spite of the neat gag of having Birdman sound more like Christian Bale's Caped Crusader than Keaton's own. Edward Norton also enjoys himself in sending up Stanislavskian pretension (while getting away with the fact that he, of course, headlined Lous Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk in 2008), while Zach Galifianakis shows admirable restraint as Keaton's lawyer sidekick.

But the standout contributions come on the craft side, with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki keeping his camera in almost perpetual motion through meticulously choreographed takes that have been artfully edited by Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione to make them appear seamless - even though the action takes place over several days. Antonio Sánchez's score is equally acute and propulsive, as not only do the passages of jazz drumming energise proceedings, but they also raise questions about their source and the extent to which they are connected to the disembodied voice Keaton keeps hearing and the visions (or hallucinations) he experiences. Yet, while there are bravura technical and dramatic moments to admire here, they are swamped by the self-satisfaction that Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman managed more successfully to avoid in Being John Malkovich (1999).

Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve provides another expectation-confounding denouement in Enemy, an adaptation of Portuguese novelist José Saramago's 2002 tome, The Double, which hit the festival circuit around the same time that Richard Ayoade's take on Fedor Dostoyevsky's dopplegänger tale of the same name went on general release, with Jesse Eisenberg in the title role. Somewhat confusingly, British audiences are being treated to Enemy after Prisoners (both 2013), even though this was actually Villeneuve's second collaboration with actor Jake Gyllenhaal. However, this scheduling quirk dovetails neatly with the idiosyncratic aura that pervades a picture that is every bit as puzzling as another Gyllenhaal vehicle, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001), while also inviting comparison with the works of Franz Kafka, David Cronenberg and David Lynch.

Following a lingering panoramic view of the desolate Toronto skyline, the camera ducks inside a private members club, where a bearded man (Jake Gyllenhaal) is watching a live sex show that involves a silver platter, a tarantula and a gyrating woman in high-heel shoes. Cutting away from this scene of disturbing depravity, Villeneuve reveals a pregnant woman (Sarah Gadon) sits alone on a bed and leaves us to draw the conclusion that she has been abandoned for the night by her libidinous and morally reprehensible partner.

Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the voyeur, college professor Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) has little interest in the students he lectures about dictators and the cyclical nature of history. However, he would rather mark their essays than make love with girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent) and even shows more interest in viewing Where There's a Will There's a Way, a corny romcom recommended by a colleague (Joshua Peace), than in snuggling with her. As he watches the movie, however, he spots a bit player who is his exact lookalike and notes down the name of Anthony Clair as the credits roll.

A little online research reveals that Clair is the stage name of Daniel St Clair, who has made three films in all without making much impact. Adam rents the other titles and becomes so obsessed with finding out more about him that Mary starts to question whether he isn't taking things a bit too far. Adam discovers the address of Anthony's talent agency and intercepts a letter in order to find out where he lives. He calls the home number and sounds so like his double that Helen (Gadon) thinks she is speaking to her husband. However, when Adam phones a second time, Anthony answers and he is less than amused by the fact that a stranger sounds so much like him.

Intrigued by the coincidence, Helen tracks Adam to his workplace and is surprised by the physical similarity between the two men. She is unaware, however, that Adam and Anthony have arranged to meet at a hotel, where the former is so spooked by a likeness that extends to a scar on the left-hand side of their abdomens that he quickly makes his excuses and leaves. But, while they are physically identical, the pair could not be more different temperamentally, with Anthony being lustful and impulsive, while Adam is more bookish and timid. So, Adam is taken aback when Anthony suggests a second meeting and (because he has been stalking Mary on her way to work) asks if they can swap places for an evening so that he can seduce his lookalike's lover.

Promising to disappear after the tryst, Anthony insists that they exchange clothes and that Adam hands over the keys to his car. However, as he sets off for a night in a hotel with Mary, Adam breaks into Anthony's home and climbs into bed with Helen. She senses that he is not her spouse, but consoles him anyway and he spends the night. Things don't go quite so smoothly for Anthony, however, as Mary notices the mark left by his wedding ring and demands to know what is going on. She asks Anthony to drive her home, but their argument intensifies in the car and they are killed in a high-speed crash.

The following morning, Helen goes for a shower as Adam dresses in Anthony's clothes. He seems content to continue the deception and opens the envelope he had purloined at the agency. Inside he finds a key (which may or may not relate to the club from the opening sequence) and he shouts a question to Helen in the bedroom. However, she fails to answer and when he looks inside, Adam seems unsurprised to see that the woman has been replaced by a gigantic spider, who seems to be much more afraid of him than he is of it. As the creature backs into a corner, Adam appears to resign himself to his fate - whatever that may be.

Although they recur in dream sequences and in some of Villeneuve's stylised imagery, the arachnids are entirely the invention of screenwriter Javier Gullón (although he may have noticed the comparison between spiders and the secret police in Saramago's 1984 novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis). This would certainly reinforce the contention of some critics that this is a dystopian parable about a society that has succumbed to fascist control without realising its plight. Yet, even though Adam's discovery of a dopplegänger would seem to confirm the compromising of his individuality, Villeneuve has gone on record as saying that the dictatorial subtext pertains to uncontrollable urges coming from within rather than any more overtly political allusions.

Whatever the truth about the film's message, there is no denying that this is a carefully calculated enigma that almost seems to have been conceived to capture a cult following. The scene involving Gyllenhaal and mother Isabella Rossellini is a case in point. At first glance, it seems as though Adam has gone home, but her casual inquiry about his acting career leads one to wonder whether this is a mischievously throwaway reference to a thwarted juvenile ambition or whether Adam and Anthony are (somehow) the same person or whether both men are the sons of a woman who kept the other's identity a close secret for reasons that are never revealed. Indeed, this refusal to explain or justify any element of the scenario enhances its mystery and its links to David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Drive (2003). However, the Kafka-Cronenberg connection is just as marked and it should be remembered that Villeneuve (who is probably best known for his 2010 identity saga, Incendies) pressed a dead fish into service as his narrator in Maelström (2000).

Creating contrasting characters while retaining the outward similitude, Gyllenhaal demonstrates again the immersive quality that made his turn in Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler so chillingly effective. He is ably supported by Laurent and Gadon, with the latter giving a particularly tantalising display of nurturing affection as a mother-to-be who could be replaced by either her own child or her alter ego in the startlingly improbably, but never entirely impossible finale. Crucial to lifting this out of Twilight Zone territory are Nicolas Bolduc's photography, Patrice Vermette's production design, Oriol Tarrago's sound mix and the score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans. But it's Gullón's writing and Villeneuve's direction that will ensure that the majority of viewers will take this resolution so seriously, although such has been the deliberate pacing of the action that the audience has been deftly lulled into accepting that anything is as feasible in this version of Toronto as it is in Birdman's New York.

The unlikely final component of a triptych reliant on special effects for its sign-off image is Eric Rohmer's The Green Ray (1986), which is being reissued as part of the BFI Southbank retrospective. The fifth of the six Comedies and Proverbs in the 1980s, this freewheeling odyssey may take its title from a Jules Verne novel, but its cue comes from a couplet in Arthur Rimbaud's poem, `Chanson de la plus haute tour': `Ah! Let the time come/when hearts are enamoured.' Miraculously photographed on 16mm by debuting 22 year-old cinematographer Sophie Maintigneux and improvised with effortless naturalism by a largely non-professional cast, this is the perfect companion piece to such other Rohmer holiday sagas as La Collectionneuse (1967), Claire's Knee (1970) and Pauline at the Beach (1983). Moreover, having thoroughly deserved its Golden Lion victory at the Venice Film Festival, it has also stood the test of time so well that the younger generation will doubtlessly recognise their own skittishness and self-preoccupation in an anti-heroine who is all the more credible for being so elusively empathetic.

Having recently been dumped by her boyfriend, Parisian secretary Marie Rivière is looking forward to her summer holiday to Greece with a female friend. However, just before they are due to depart, the friend announces that her beau has changed his plans and that she would prefer to spend the time with him. Naturally disappointed, Rivière turns down an offer from her sister to join her on a camping trip to Ireland and makes alternative arrangements to spend a few days with a group of Rosette's buddies in Cherbourg.

On arriving, however, Rivière realises that she is the only single adult and she slips away to play with the children rather than having to watch the couples enjoy the intimacy of shared moments. She also takes a long walk to kill some time. But she sheds a few tears on her next stroll, as she is teased at supper after recoiling from the sight of a plateful of pork chops and scolding her fellow diners for being carnivores. Indeed, she finds herself having to justify her vegetarianism when they ask her how she can eat a friendly lettuce and she decides to return to the capital rather than endure any further ribbing.

As luck would have it, she bumps into an old flame who offers her the use of his apartment in an Alpine resort. But, having gone to all the trouble to pack and travel, Rivière feels so isolated after a single hike that she leaves that afternoon and heads north. She is lectured for her pains by Béatrice Romand, a pal she hasn't seen for some time who reminds her that she can be difficult at times and that she needs to cut people some slack if she is to sustain her friendships, let alone find a special someone to spend the rest of her life with.

Much to her delight, the hectoring ends with an offer to borrow a vacant dwelling in Biarritz and Rivière heads to the coast determined to make the most of her break. She settles herself on the beach and finds herself chatting with Carita, a topless Swedish blonde who is happy to flirt with a couple of likely lads who try to pick them up in a café. However, Rivière has realised that she is no longer prepared to play the games in order to meet other people's expectations and is so dismayed by Carita's willingness to toy with the strangers that she walks away.

Convinced that she might as well be alone in Paris as anywhere else, Rivière makes her way to the train station. She settles with a copy of Dostoevsky's The Idiot and is surprised when carpenter Vincent Gauthier introduces himself and starts discussing the book. She is charmed by his sincerity and agrees to spend a day with him at a nearby fishing village. As they watch the sunset, they see a flash of green light and Rivière remembers overhearing a conversation about the Jules Verne novel, The Green Ray, and how seeing this beam across the water allows a person to gain a greater understanding of themselves, while also reading the thoughts of others. She is pleased when Gauthier concedes that he also saw `le rayon vert' and they smile with a contentment that suggests they have found a kindred spirit - for the moment, at least.

Visiting places holding special memories for members of the cast and skeleton crew, this is a majestic melding of character, place, personality and performance. Central to every scene, Rivière excels as the spoilt, petulant and sometimes downright snooty twentysomething whose determination to stick to her principles renders her both vulnerable and resistible. Rohmer clearly has no qualms with her being capricious and allows Rivière to indulge her genius for extemporising and for hinting at the reasons why she is alone while making the audience feel a degree of pity for her solitude.

The supporting players are admirable. But the settings are as important as the secondary characters and Maintigneux's vistas have a playful postcardness to them that not only fixes Rivière in her various locations, but also reflects her state of mind as she struggles with the fact that everyone else has made a commitment while she is still wandering aimlessly (as the clock ticks inexorably) in search of a worthy companion. That she finds him in the form of a simple craftsman casts a latterday fairytale glow over the denouement. But Rohmer has no time for happy endings, as he is more concerned with the more mundane moments that make up daily life. Hence, he treats us to numerous shots of Rivière in transit, as she battles with her own pride and prejudice, as well as the world that seems to have something against her. Her search may have ended, but, even though the heavens may have shone upon Rivière and Gauthier (a rare instance of Rohmer using both visual trickery and non-diegetic music, by Jean-Louis Valéro), their real romance has yet to begin.