CINEMA the @ brewhouse
The 9th Life of Louis Drax Directed by Alexandre Aja
Tuesday 22 November @ 7.30pm Running time 1 hr 48 mins Starring: Jamie Dornan, Aiden Longworth, Sarah Gadon, Aaron Paul
“A mystery beyond reality”
15
The story begins on Louis Drax’s 9th birthday, when a lifetime of curious mishaps culminates in the boy’s near-fatal fall. Desperate to reveal the strange circumstances behind the young boy’s accident and dark coincidences that have plagued his entire life, Dr. Allan Pascal (Dornan) is drawn into a thrilling mystery that explores the nature of the sixth sense, testing the boundaries of fantasy and reality. Extract from Philip Kemp’s review in Sight & Sound: So far, the output of French-born director Alexandre Aja has circle around the horror genre but has yet to score a bullseye. His second feature, the slasher movie Haute tension (2003) showed promise as did Mirrors (2008). Two remakes, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Pira-nha 3D (2010) fell some way short of the originals. Aja’s latest, The 9th Life of Louis Drax, is his most accomplished to date. The film’s prime strength lies in its central character - even though for most of its running time he’s in a coma. Right from the start, nine-year-old Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) introduces himself in voiceover as
“the amazing accident-prone boy”, while we see a quick, near-comic run-through of the disasters that have put paid to his first eight lives - electrocution, food poisoning, a falling chandelier, etc. (We get a reprise of some of these, from a crucially different perspective, towards the end of the film.) Then comes the fatal ninth-birthday picnic with his estranged parents at Lands End (the San Fran-cisco park, not Cornwall), after which he dies for two hours, then revives into a coma. But his voiceover continues, not only telling us about his past but commenting on events occurring while he’s unconscious - and even, it seems, sometimes controlling them. For all that Louis is appealingly sweet-faced and a
victim, the film never falls into the trap of making him cute and loveable. On the contrary, his attitude is cool, caustic and even at times cruel.
Tickets: Adult £8 / Senior £7 (Over 65) / Child £6 (16 and under)
“He’s a liar, as all men are,” he remarks about his shrink Dr Perez (Oliver Platt), mocking him for being fat, and when his neurologist Dr Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) falls for his mother (Sarah Gadon), he observes cynically, “He thought that because Mommy is so beautiful she must be good.” His closest relationship seems to be with his father Peter (Aaron Paul), for all that the man is presented as violent and abusive. Aja and his screenwriter Max Minghella (whose late father Anthony originally op-tioned Liz Jensen’s source novel) play ingenious games with different levels of reality. When we first meet Dr Pascal, who’s evidently something of a media star, he’s signing copies of his book after giving a Ted talk, and the briefly glimpsed title is Coma - The Mind Within. It’s a clear pointer to the film’s key gambit as it teases us to wonder how much - perhaps even all - of what we see is happening inside Louis’s comatose mind. The final reveal, though hinted at, provides a satisfying twist.
Come and join us in our main auditorium for Brew Cinema. Relax in our comfortable seating and enjoy the film with state of the art visuals and full Dolby surround sound. During performances, our fully stocked bar will be open for you, offering a wide range of reasonably priced refreshments. Don’t forget we are close to a number of car parks, have disabled access and are close to good public transport links.
COMING UP...
29 Nov I, Daniel Blake
9 Dec Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
18 Jan The Light Between Oceans
BOOK ONLINE www.thebrewhouse.net BOX OFFICE 01823 283244 IN PERSON The Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre, Coal Orchard, Taunton, TA1 1JL