Does Mark think BACKROOMS is a-maze-ing?

Summary

Kermode & Mayo’s Take

Episode: Does Mark think BACKROOMS is a-maze-ing?
Date: May 28, 2026
Hosts: Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo
Guest: James Graham

Episode Overview

This episode of Kermode & Mayo’s Take features essential film and TV reviews, audience correspondence, and an in-depth conversation with playwright/screenwriter James Graham about his TV adaptation of Dear England. Mark reviews several hot releases, including Backrooms (the viral internet horror sensation turned film), John Carney’s latest music-infused dramedy Power Ballad, the crime thriller Tuner, and more. The lively banter, audience emails, and focus on cultural moments make for an entertaining, critic-rich discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Anecdotes & Warm-Up [03:19–07:00]

• Simon discusses recording conditions during a heatwave and working in shorts, while Mark describes the coolness of his Cornish chapel home studio.
• Mark shares an uplifting story about recovering a long-lost family signet ring, found under a car after six months (“I literally feel like it's come back to me”). [03:26–05:15]
• Humorous speculation about a possibly missing Rembrandt drawing in the home; segues into memories and lost-and-found tales.

2. Film Reviews & Recommendations

Power Ballad (John Carney) [11:54–17:55]

• Mark lauds John Carney’s unique talent for music-based storytelling, calling him “the best director of films about making music and being in bands.”
• The film stars Paul Rudd as a covers band frontman whose songwriting is seemingly stolen; Nick Jonas co-stars.
• Mark finds Rudd “surprisingly convincing” and the plot genuinely touching, noting its themes about creative ownership and recognition.
• “It's about the thing, about something that you created that's personal somehow being taken away from you.” – Mark [16:45]
• Denouement is “very, very good,” with just enough neatness for satisfaction. Mark especially enjoys a busking cameo from Carney’s Once days.

The Top 10 Box Office [19:29–24:37]

• Discussion of charting films: surprise success of Tom & Jerry Compass in China, mainstream horrors (Passenger, Obsession), and Sheep Detectives handling themes of grief.
• Strong praise for Obsession:
  • “It is absolutely nerve-wracking throughout and my heart was still racing half an hour after I left the cinema.” – Listener Nick [24:37]
  • Mark admits the email review is “probably a better review than mine.”
• Overview skips quickly through most titles but highlights thematic relevance and audience reactions.

Mandalorian & Grogu: The Movie [26:03–31:56]

• Simon’s son (“Child One”), an invested fan, provides a nuanced viewer report:
  • “It's clearly not a movie. It's clearly supposed to be the fourth season of the television and you could see where all the episodes have been cut together.” [27:20]
  • Simon: “He did enjoy it because he's immersed in it, but he's not convinced that it's a good film.”
• Listener emails oscillate between despair (“I would rather sit through Ewok's Caravan of Courage again. The whole thing felt like an AI hallucination.” – Paul [29:29]) and delight (“It was mesmerizing in IMAX 3D...like a great slice of key lime pie.” – Zop [28:46])
• Mark agrees: “Even to my untrained eye, it looked like a TV series that had just ended up on the big screen.” [28:16]

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3. Interview: James Graham & Dear England [34:12–50:34]

About the Project [35:36–36:50]

• James explains Dear England traces Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England men’s football team across four tournaments since 2016—a rare public story of resilience and redemption.
• “To me... it's one of the most remarkable examples of redemption and resilience in our public life that I can think of in a decade.” [35:40]

Adapting Stage to Screen [37:11–38:36]

• Graham found the stage-to-screen adaptation “really hard,” requiring a “factory reboot on your brain” due to differences in structure and intimacy.
• On artistic license: “You have to constantly remind the audience that to a greater or lesser extent, this is art... not apologizing for that.” [39:10]

Casting Gareth Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) [40:18–42:38]

• Fiennes was ultimately cast for his uncanny ability to reflect Southgate’s introversion and “quiet, small sort of character” paired with “huge” aspirations.
• “There was something about how he connected to Gareth's introversion, awkwardness, smallness...” [41:18]

Masculinity & Cultural Change in Football [44:48–46:29]

• Graham insists Southgate changed English football by encouraging vulnerability and trust over old-school “alpha male” leadership.
• “What I like about this particular story... is that it is [about] finding through vulnerability, introspection, and through sharing those worries and doubts...” [45:31]

Political Context & National Identity [47:43–49:50]

• The drama is set against the backdrop of Brexit and COVID, epitomized by the Queen’s “We will meet again” speech.
• Graham took inspiration from Southgate’s “Dear England” letter post-pandemic, celebrating football’s— and art’s— power to knit national narratives.

Upcoming Work: Ink Film Adaptation [50:03–50:34]

• Danny Boyle directs, Jack O’Connell and Guy Pearce star. Mark and Simon express early anticipation.

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4. Dear England Review & Impressions [51:25–58:06]

• Mark watched the first two episodes and finds them highly accomplished: “It doesn't feel like a play on telly at all. It feels like a... very, very accomplished TV series.” [52:16]
• Mark is impressed by Joseph Fiennes’ “quiet concern” and almost uncanny mimicry of Southgate’s low-key manner.
• The real achievement is that the show is “about something much bigger,” namely the redefinition of masculinity, vulnerability, and leadership.
  • “It's a celebration of people being decent, a celebration of people actually being good.” – Mark [55:50]
• Episode handles the horror and racism associated with missed penalties “quite horrifying[ly],” anchoring cultural critique within a sports drama.

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5. Main Review: Backrooms [64:56–72:15]

Film Background & Plot Setup

• Backrooms is the directorial debut of viral YouTuber Kane Parsons, who is only 20 or 21 years old.
  • Mark: “He is, quote, A24's youngest feature director. I mean scary.” [64:56]
• Mark gives a synopsis:
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a furniture store owner who discovers a mysterious maze-like world (“backrooms”) accessible through a wall in his basement. His therapist (Renate Reinsve) becomes involved when he goes missing, entering the endless, uncanny rooms to find him.
  • The world is described as a “bad imitation mirror of the real world... stairs that don't go anywhere. There are rooms with pools that aren't quite pools...” [67:09]

Creative & Directorial Notes

• Mark commends the production, noting the team built “over 30,000 square feet of back rooms” and managed to make a disorienting, dreamlike set.
• Standalone Accessibility: “If you don't [know the web series], and I didn't... the film works completely as a standalone venture.” [67:58]
• The horror evokes “David Lynchy, nightmarish logic”—dreamlike, uncanny, and deeply unsettling.
  • “Plaudits to the two lead actors for their utterly convincing WTF reactions...”
  • “Genuinely engrossing and often very creepy.” [72:14]

Production Controversies

• Mark addresses social media speculation about whether Parsons was the true director. Mark says, “They seemed to know absolutely what they were doing.” [71:43]

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6. Further Reviews: Tuner [72:51–80:59]

• Tuner—a low-key crime thriller starring Leo Woodall (guest from last week) and Dustin Hoffman. Directed by Daniel Rohe.
• Woodall plays Nicky, a hypersensitive ex-pianist turned piano tuner and safecracker because he can “hear the tumblers.”
• Mark notes the film is less about the crime and more about character: “It's really a character drama that's just posing as a crime thriller.” [77:43]
• The sound design is praised for immersing the viewer in Nicky’s auditory world—like Sound of Metal did for deafness.
• Some criticism: “I do think the third act descends somewhat into contrivance and melodrama. But there is enough about the characters that rings true...” [78:59]
• Simon enjoyed the ride, praising the final line and the deft handling of “Israeli bad guys” as supporting characters.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Dear England:
  • “Even as someone who doesn't know anything about football, I did sort of peripherally know that all this was happening. And I think that so far what it's done is engage me in a story that I wasn't really engaged in...” – Mark Kermode [55:32]
• On Backrooms:
  • “There are moments of proper nightmarish horror, moments of kind of cracked consumerist satire, but the whole thing has a really engulfing air of intrigue and dawning horror.” – Mark Kermode [71:43]
• On creative ownership:
  • “It's about the thing, about something that you created that's personal somehow being taken away from you.” – Mark Kermode on Power Ballad [16:45]
• Listener on Obsession:
  • “It is absolutely nerve-wracking throughout and my heart was still racing half an hour after I left the cinema.” – Nick [24:37]
• Listener on Mandalorian & Grogu:
  • “It's clearly not a movie. It's clearly supposed to be the fourth season of the television and you could see where all the episodes have been cut together.” – Simon’s Child One [27:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment / Content | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:19 | Mark’s lost-and-found signet ring story | | 07:43 | Upcoming reviews preview | | 11:54 | Power Ballad review (John Carney) | | 19:29 | Top 10 box office rundown & Obsession email | | 26:03 | Mandalorian & Grogu audience reviews | | 34:12 | Interview clip & intro for James Graham | | 35:36 | James Graham on shaping Dear England | | 37:11 | The challenges of stage-to-screen adaptation | | 40:18 | Casting Joseph Fiennes as Southgate | | 44:48 | Masculinity, vulnerability, and team transformation | | 47:43 | Addressing national context: Brexit, COVID, and the Queen’s speech | | 51:25 | Mark’s in-depth review of Dear England TV show | | 64:56 | Backrooms review (main focus) | | 72:51 | Tuner review (Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman) |

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Tone & Style

• The episode retains the hosts’ signature blend of insightful criticism, dry wit, affable teasing, and nerdy attention to detail.
• Mark’s reviews remain analytic, literary, and often philosophical, while Simon grounds things in warm, everyday enthusiasm.
• Audience correspondence brings personal and humorous flavor throughout.

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Closing Thoughts

Mark’s Film of the Week: Backrooms

“It's a very, very strong week and honestly any of these could [be film of the week]... but... I'm gonna go for Backrooms.” [81:26]

Next Week's Teasers: Masters of the Universe, Savage House, Scary Movie, and more.

Listeners are encouraged to correspond with their reviews, thoughts, and Muppet Game suggestions.

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Summary Verdict

This episode offers a rich tapestry of film and television criticism, cultural analysis, personal anecdotes, and playful engagement with listeners. The standout review is Mark’s deep dive into Backrooms, appreciating its unnerving, minimalistic horror and social-media-spawned roots, but equally memorable is the discussion with James Graham on national identity, art, and redemption through the lens of English football.

Transcript

[Simon Mayo]

Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguardista and get an extra episode every Thursday, including bonus

[Mark Kermode]

reviews, extra viewing suggestions, viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas, plus your film

[Simon Mayo]

and non film questions answered as best we can in questions.

[Mark Kermode]

You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non fruit related devices.

[Simon Mayo]

There's never been a better time to become a Vanguardista. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguardista, we salute you now. Mark, you were telling me the other day about this Saily ESIM app.

[Mark Kermode]

Which one was that?

[Simon Mayo]

Well, the one I just install on my phone before I go abroad so that I can save loads of money on roaming and data charges when I'm there.

[Mark Kermode]

Ah yes, it's dead simple. Install the Saily app on your device and choose a data plan. There are multiple plans in over 200 destinations available at some of the best rates online. Then follow the instructions on the app to install the ESIM and it'll be activated instantly on a so I don't

[Simon Mayo]

have to buy a new SIM card when I get there?

[Mark Kermode]

Nope. There's no queuing at a dodgy airport kiosk. A Saily ESIM only needs to be installed once and then you use the same one for each country you visit.

[Simon Mayo]

Great. Does it let me skip all the other queues too?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, funnily enough, with Saily Ultra you can enjoy VIP travel perks like airport lounge access, fast track services, priority support, advanced online security, and much more.

[Simon Mayo]

You'll be telling me we've got a voucher code next.

[Mark Kermode]

Oh yes, and don't forget to apply the code. Take T A K E at checkout to get a 15% discount.

[Simon Mayo]

Every act of change begins with a neighbor. When neighbors connect through the Feeding America network, small actions ripple into lasting impact. Feeding America, led by neighbors. Give now to ann [e-mail]. Today's program. Hello, by the way, is that battle which many people have fought this week between quietness and coolness. And I have just shut the door in my home little studio here. Which means that as we progress through the show, Mark, I will be turning pews. Are you cool there?

[Mark Kermode]

I'm fine. I mean, actually, because I'm in my bespoke studio downstairs in the chapel in Cornwall, although upstairs on the roof there are several people banging nails in because the roof work is still going on. But actually it's quite cool because it's an old Methodist chapel, so they're built with, you know, the word that. That stone that just actually stays cool. So I'm fine. I'm sorry that you're sweltering. I know how hot it is upstairs in your house.

[Simon Mayo]

It's like it's a whole new country upstairs, it has to be said. But I'm. I'm sort of halfway up. And halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit.

[Mark Kermode]

There is. There isn't any other stair quite like. Like it.

[Simon Mayo]

Anyway, so. But I am doing a show in shorts today, which is really not kind of a good thing, you know, you should never go to work in shorts. But I feel as though people will understand the, you know, my personal circumstances here.

[Mark Kermode]

Can I tell you an uplifting. Well, a story? I'll be quite quick. Okay.

[Simon Mayo]

Right. Is it uplifting or not?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, I think it is. I don't know whether you remember, but I used to wear a signet ring. I had this signet ring that I wore all the time. And it was my grandfather's signet ring. And when he was. When I was a kid, he used to let me put it on my thumb because he wore it on his little finger. He used to put it on my thumb, and I would, because I was so impressed by it. Anyway, after my grandfather died, the signet ring was left to me. And I wore it ever since I was a. You know, since I was a kid. And it's one of my favorite things. And about seven months ago, I lost it. I had it adjusted because it was too slightly too small and my hands had got larger, amazingly, and. And I lost it. And I was pretty sure I knew how I'd lost it. And it had come off in water and it was gone. And I was really kind of upset about it. But I also did the thing about, okay, fine, there's nothing you can do. It's gone, it's gone. It's gone. Anyway, last week we had a car in the yard that had been sitting there for ages and ages that we had to finally had to sell. And somebody came along and towed it away, and there was just, like, leaves and muck and everything under it. And the good lady professor, her outdoors was sweeping up the leaves under the car, and she found my grandfather's ring.

[Simon Mayo]

Wow.

[Mark Kermode]

That must have come off when I was fixing the exhaust. And I. I literally feel like it's come back to me from. Because I had. In my head, I had completely got used to the fact.

[Simon Mayo]

How long was it gone for?

[Mark Kermode]

6 months. And it was literally in a load of leaves that she was Sweeping up. And she was sweeping them out onto the thing. So she could have not seen it. She could easily. If it was literally sitting there under the car. It must have come off when I was doing work on the car and. And I had. Anyway, so there it is. I have it back and I can't. I can't tell you how happy it's made me.

[Simon Mayo]

In. In that spirit, we're going to have to resume our hunt for our missing Rembrandt, just in case.

[Mark Kermode]

That's right.

[Simon Mayo]

I forgot.

[Mark Kermode]

It's fallen.

[Simon Mayo]

It's fallen down the crack somewhere.

[Mark Kermode]

Just refresh the listener's memory.

[Simon Mayo]

Oh, well, it's. We had a. A quite. It was a question smashed in. What have you lost that's upset you? Or something like that.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah.

[Simon Mayo]

And there is a. This might. You know, it may well turn out to be absolutely nothing. But a friend of the good lady ceramicist her indoors, his former partner was an art dealer who many years ago gave the good lady ceramicist her indoors like a. A drawing on a sheet of A4, which look, you know, pretty ancient, folded away. And a few years ago, we were in Amsterdam, we went to the Rembrandt Museum and there's a series of his illustrations and it looks exactly like the one that our art dealer friend gave to Hillary. So he came back to look for it, thinking, no, I don't think it can be.

[James Graham]

And we can't find it anywhere.

[Simon Mayo]

So. So, so that's it. So somewhere in the house there might be one. Alternatively, it might have been done by this guy and it's worth, like, Tubman's hapney.

[Mark Kermode]

Well, I can tell you for a fact it wasn't under the car. So I'm sorry about that.

[Simon Mayo]

No. All right. But that's very good. When you find something like that, that is just amazing.

[Mark Kermode]

It was. It was so thrilling. And she did the thing. But I came in and I was grumpy because I can't remember what was going on. I was grumpy because I was doing something and she just said, hold out your hand, Close your eyes, hold out your hand. And I did. And it was like. It's like, you know, like the. That folk song in which there's the woman who throws the engagement ring into the sea, and then years later, she's working in a fish shop and she slices a fish open and the engagement ring falls out. You know that. It's like. It was literally like that level of magic. I can't. I'm so. I'm so glad to have it back.

[Simon Mayo]

Do you have only her word for it? Because it could be that she hid it, she could have pawned it and then for six months and then she made some money then, then got it back and then just handed it to you.

[Mark Kermode]

I used to have this musical notes jumper that I thought was very rockabilly and she thought was very horrible and then I couldn't find it for ages and I wrongly accused her of having hidden it.

[Simon Mayo]

What parent has not done something similar to one of the. One of their offspring has just got some terrible, terrible trousers or shirt. No, I put it in the wash. I haven't seen where it is and it's right at the bottom underneath the towels. Anyway, on the show, as we slowly heat up. Well, Mark doesn't, but I certainly will. What are you talking about?

[Mark Kermode]

Pac show. We have reviews of Tuna. You interviewed Leo Woodall last week. Power Ballads, which is the new film by John Carney of whom I'm a big fan. Backrooms, a creepy psychological horror based on a viral series. And Dear England on that there BBC iPlayer and television. Which brings us to our special guest.

[Simon Mayo]

Yes, he's James Graham, one of the most prolific and well regarded playwrights in the uk. So nice to talk to a writer. James Graham will be along and in take two. Mark, what's going on?

[Mark Kermode]

The directorial feature debut from Kristen Scott Thomas, My Mother's Wedding and Fairyland, which is produced by Sofia Koepla.

[Simon Mayo]

You can get take two with no more ads by heading to our Patreon page where you'll find all kinds of loveliness. An email from Sophie in Leeds. Warwick Alumnus 2007 Dear Tossel flats and Hume Crescents.

[Mark Kermode]

Very good.

[Simon Mayo]

Last week Simon mentioned a mite of trouble that University Radio Warwick got into regarding submarines. Yeah, I mentioned that we were taken off air as a. As a university radio station because we were broadcasting to submarines, even though most of the university couldn't pick it up. Anyway, as a former engineer and treasurer for urw, as it or as it was in my day, Raw R A W Radio Warwick, I can confirm the veracity of Simon's story and provide some context to it. One stipulation of student radio licenses is that you have to be bound, you have to bound your broadcast area to broadly the students populace of that university. So as Warwick is a campus university, the easiest way for URW to do this is via an induction loop system, which is very similar to what you find at banks, post offices, cinemas and such for people with hearing aids. The aim of an induction loop is that everyone within the loop can receive the radio signal, but almost no one outside can. However, if you give a group of keen engineering students several miles of cable to surround a campus and the associated transmission equipment, you run the risk of ending up with an extremely over engineered system. One that not only broadcast so loudly on the AM frequency within campus that it interfered with most other radio and TV signals, but it also ended up transmitting at a much lower frequency and at very high power the other way out of campus. Unfortunately, this was the frequency used by the Ministry of Defense to talk to submarines in the north, the North Sea and North Atlantic. And it turns out was somewhat louder than the mod's transmitters. Suffice to say that even in my time at Radio WARWICK in the 21st century, the cease and desist letter from the MOD was still framed and in pride of place on a wall of the control room. Hello to Jason, up with student radio and down with the loss of long wave, which I don't think we've discussed. But anyway, Sophie, thank you very much indeed. So that. Yeah, so they are genuinely true. Even though it was just full of student broadcasters trying to be. What were we trying to be? I suppose Noel Edmonds or someone like that. Most of the campus couldn't hear it, but all those submarine commanders could.

[Mark Kermode]

It's worth Remembering that Radio 5 before Radio 5 became Radio 5 Live, when it was Radio 5, it was set up simply to protect 909 and 693, which were the wartime frequencies that the BBC owned but weren't using anymore. They were just running, I think they were repeating World Service on it. And there was a change in the legislation which said you can only hold onto those frequencies if you broadcast something new. So they literally made up Radio 5 overnight. Which was why in its early stages, Radio 5 consisted of like Johnny Walker doing phone ins, Pop Records and Wiggly park, which was the kids, you know, series. And then me and Karen Keating somehow bumbling our way through a sports related afternoon show when neither of us knew the first thing about sport.

[Simon Mayo]

Yeah, I would quite like to hear you do a sport show.

[Mark Kermode]

You wouldn't.

[Simon Mayo]

Oh no, I think it would be quite entertaining. Anyway, correspondence@kevin mayo.com thank you to Sophie and Leeds for sending that in. Proof that I wasn't going mad. Anyway, if you see a film, do let us know what you think about it. Send us an email. For example, something that's out this week

[Mark Kermode]

would be Power Ballad. Power Ballad is a new film by John Carney, who's the Irish director of Once, Begin Again, Sing street which you know, I'm a, I'm a huge fan. He is far and away the best director of films about making music and being in bands. He's one of the only filmmakers who actually gets films about being in bands. Right, so this is co written by Carney and Peter McDonald who also has a co starring role here, also features former Carney collaborator Jack Rayner and Havana Rose Liu who will come up again because she is also in Tuna which you spoke to Leo Waddle about last week. So Paul Rudd is the main star. He's Rick Power. He is the singer and guitarist in a wedding covers band called get this, the Bride and Groove. I'll do that again. The wedding covers band called the Bride and Groove, isn't it? So he was, he was once a pop hopeful and in the opening scene when we see him playing a wedding and he's filling the floor with all these kind of bangers and then he says, right now I'm going to play a track from my first album. And of course the, the dance floor cleared at the next gig. One of the guests is a guy who is a former boy band member played by Nick Jonas form, you know, of the Jonas Brothers.

[Simon Mayo]

Of the Jonas Brothers, yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Who then, you know, had, you know. So he gets up and sings a song with the band. He sings a, you know, I wish with the band and it goes down very well. And he is called Danny Wilson now. Danny Wilson, not to be confused with the rugby league player Danny Wilson or the football player manager Danny Wilson or the character from the film Meet Danny Wilson or the band who took their name from Meet Danny Wilson. Although the front man of that band was, is Gary Clark who is the regular collaborator with John Carney. So I imagine that that's why it's called Danny Wilson. So Danny now wants to put his. You got all that. Danny wants to put his boy band career behind him and be taken seriously because his record company told him, you know, you really, you need a hit. And he spends a drunken evening with Rick after they got up on stage together and did the I Wish thing, riffing on songs, you know, including one that they knock around called how to write a song without you. And they drink and they play and they bond and they get on really well and Danny gives Ricky's guitar and they go their separate ways. Sometime later, Ricky's walking through a supermarket and he hears the song, the song that he co wrote that drunken evening with Danny Wilson. But ironically, Danny Wilson is now claiming that he did write that song without you and Rick is not best pleased. So the whole thing is, what do you do when you wrote that song, but apparently you didn't. Anyway, here is a clip.

[Simon Mayo]

Cause every song I ever wrote in

[Mark Kermode]

my life, it's about you.

[James Graham]

So good. So good. Okay, so do you have a bridge yet?

[Simon Mayo]

No, man, I'm working on.

[James Graham]

That thing's dogging me for years.

[Simon Mayo]

We could finish this right now.

[Mark Kermode]

I wish. No, I can't.

[Simon Mayo]

I gotta go. My daughter has got to get to school, my wife has work and if

[Mark Kermode]

I'm not home to take her, she's gonna skin my. Not. Not a phrase one hears every day.

[Simon Mayo]

No, thankfully.

[Mark Kermode]

So anyway, look, as I said before, I'm a big John Carney fan and I like his films because they tend to have that thing, that combination of feet on the ground, head in the clouds. In the case of this. Firstly, Paul Rudd is surprisingly convincing as the once wannabe American rocker who shipped up in Ireland, fell in love, settled down, parked his touring dreams, got on with leading a slightly more mundane but also very honest life. Plaudits to Nick Jonas too, who is very, very good as the boy bander who you absolutely believe in as somebody who's trying to put his past behind him and be taken seriously, be dropped by the label if he doesn't get a hit. Now, the story is somewhat outlandish, particularly in the latter bit of it, when Rick and his cohort Sandy, who is played by the co writer, go to LA to confront Danny about the writing credit thing. But even when the plot gets a bit fanciful, the basic idea about I wrote that song and you stole it sticks. And one of the reasons that it works here is that the thing that he's really aggrieved about it isn't the money. It's just that I wrote that I was involved in that I did something. I actually wrote something that's become successful. And there's a great scene, which I won't spoil, in which there is a discussion about why only he could have written that song. And I think what was smart about it is that in the midst of all this other stuff, there is a heart in the drama, which is that it's about the thing, about something that you created that's personal somehow being taken away from you. The script, incidentally, also has to return to a word that we've been trying to define for such a long time, has a very, very good denouement. The way in which it finally ties itself up works because the real themes of the film that aren't to do with money, although money is a part of it. The real themes of the film kind of emerge organically in a very nice. I mean, some people might think the ending is a little bit too neat. I rather liked it. Also, if you're a John Carney fanboy, there's a very amusing busking cameo which if you loved once, I think you'll find really entertaining. I really enjoyed this. It was the last thing I saw on Tuesday, yesterday, in fact. And I had ahead of me a very, very long and very, very hot train journey which was, you know, five and a half, six hours down to Penzance. And honestly, this just put a real spring in my step. I thought it was. I thought it's my favorite Paul Rudd film. I've not really been a huge Paul Rudd fan in the past, but I thought he absolutely nailed it in this.

[Simon Mayo]

Did you have aircon for five and a half hours going down to Cornwall?

[Mark Kermode]

We had passing air con. There was some seats had more aircon than others. All right.

[Simon Mayo]

I think that's called having the window open.

[Mark Kermode]

I think that's what that is.

[Simon Mayo]

Still to come after the break, Mark will be reviewing backrooms. Tuna we'll talk about Dear England because James Graham, one of the most prolific and successful writers in Britain today, will be joining us shortly.

[James Graham]

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[James Graham]

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[James Graham]

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[Mark Kermode]

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[James Graham]

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[Mark Kermode]

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[James Graham]

need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox game pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

[Simon Mayo]

Learn [e-mail] studentoffer while supplies last ends

[James Graham]

June 30th terms at aka Ms. College PC.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay, well let's rock with the top 10 movies according to our box office information that has been made available to us at number at number 15. Tom and Jerry Compass. Oh, it's nowhere in America, but yes. See last week's show for review. Cosmos yes, Cosmos Kiryu from our YouTube channel. Tom and Jerry is huge in China. This is basically Warner Brothers licensing out the IP rights to a Chinese film company to take advantage of that name and specifically made for mainland China. Which is what Mark was saying last week. Yeah, Carl says, dear Tom and Jerry, a long time listener, yada yada. You asked parents who took their children to see this to write in and tell you about it. I did. So I am my daughter, being seven and not even a little discerning, enjoyed this film. But I'm not sure she actually knew who Tom and Jerry were before.

[Mark Kermode]

Precisely.

[Simon Mayo]

Precisely lies with me. However, as your review was on Take on the Take two podcasts along with Wonder Dog, you held back, which was the bad film. And sadly I as of yet had no. I have no subscription and I went in blind. Well, holding a mile. I'm high. I'm holding a mild grudge on you for that one. Afterwards, I caught up with your review on YouTube and that was clearly something I should have done first. And I'll carry that regret for a long time.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah.

[Simon Mayo]

Good grief. What even was this? By the time Jerry appeared, I was half convinced I wanted to leave. By the time the compass thing sent them to wherever it was, I knew knew I wanted to leave. I too tried to parents snooze through what I felt were the worst bits, but it was just too loud and annoying. Yes, I hate people who check their phones in the cinema as it disrupts my immersion. And although I tried to do it very quickly and quietly, I apologize to the other four parents who also had to suffer through this experience and may have caught me doing it. But I had to know that time was moving forward and that there was going to be an end sometime. I can only imagine I annoyed them slightly less than having spent money on this atrocity. I have so much more less polite things to say about this film, but let's keep it radio friendly and just simply say, avoid with the power of an immortal phoenix or whatever the hell that was. Here's to better films ahead. Yours, Carl. In fact, I think you said, Mark, it was one of the worst films you have ever seen.

[Mark Kermode]

Ever seen. And I would like to say that the message you can take away from this is subscribe. You could have saved yourself all that pain.

[James Graham]

Yes.

[Simon Mayo]

And saved yourself the ticket price. It would have been cheaper to subscribe.

[Mark Kermode]

Yes. Not contributed to this horror, which as a result of you paying money for it, may now produce another one.

[Simon Mayo]

Interestingly though, it's not in the American chart and Neither is Charlie the Wonder Dog, but it is at number 11 in our chart.

[Mark Kermode]

Well, it's better than Tom and Jerry.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay, the Christophers is at number 10.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, I think you and I both think this is terrific. It would just be interesting to see whether or not anyone remembers it come awards season.

[Simon Mayo]

The Super Mario Galaxy movie is at nine.

[Mark Kermode]

Huge hit, so brought a lot of people into cinemas. It's a shame the film isn't much good.

[Simon Mayo]

Finding Emily is at number eight.

[Mark Kermode]

So I thought this was quite cute. It definitely looks like an advert for Manchester nightlife, which I am up for. And it has, it has a certain degree of charm. But I think it's also, it doesn't surprise me that it's not higher than it is. I mean it's okay, it's perfectly fine.

[Simon Mayo]

Number seven here. Number six, their passenger, which I thought was very creepy.

[Mark Kermode]

I think all that the sort of car breaks down in wood and weird stuff that you can't quite see through the trees was very well done. And incidentally, we are currently in a period in which there are some very, very good horror movies making the top 10. There'll be another one that we're going to review this week. So if you are a horror fan, and I say particularly a mainstream horror fan, there's a lot of kind of very interesting mainstream horror at the moment.

[Simon Mayo]

Number six is the Sheep Detectives. Number five in America.

[Mark Kermode]

Bizarrely charming, strangely affecting. I love the fact that we've had emails from people talking about how the film is actually about addressing grief because you would never think that a whodunit starring sheep could be that. But I think it is.

[Simon Mayo]

At number five is Drishyam 2.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, this wasn't press screen. This is a Malayam language Indian crime drama. If anyone's seen it, do drop us an email.

[Simon Mayo]

The Devil Wears Prada is four here and four there. This is obviously Devil Wears Prada two. Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Huge amount of money, not much imagination, much too much plot. Obviously with the caliber of people involved it has certain pleasures. But I have now spoken to four separate people who went to see it and went, yeah, it's not very good, is it?

[Simon Mayo]

Obsession is at number three, an email from Nick who says, dear Nicky and in inverted commas, Nikki, longtime listener, rare caller. But I simply had to write about Obsession, a film that has stuck with me since I saw it the weekend it came out. I truly believe that it's one of the best horror movies of the past decade.

[Mark Kermode]

Right.

[Simon Mayo]

It is absolutely nerve wracking throughout and my heart was still racing half an hour after I left left the cinema. It delivers on the thrills and the gore, but also has some strong thematic meat to it, exploring coercion, consent, abuse, manipulation, and yes, obsession. The way it is shot and lit is fantastic. Nikki often being in shadow while speaking, but with a glint in her eye giving a deep sense of unease. All of this, however, would be nothing without the astonishing central performance of Indy Navarretti's Nikki, who gives an unbelievably creepy and unsettling performance, but who never loses sight of the tragedy of the character. Highly recommended. And there is a fantastic scare that is all the more impressive because you can see it coming a mile off and yet it made me jump out of my seat. Love the show. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much. And down with the Nazis.

[Mark Kermode]

That's very funny because that is also a self referential joke because that's how much she loves him after she is cast under. He loves him so, so, so, so, so, so, so much. That's very. That is a terrific email. And actually I think that's probably a better review than mine.

[Simon Mayo]

I don't think that's true. Anyway, number two is Michael.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

[Simon Mayo]

See previous weeks.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, see previous weeks.

[Simon Mayo]

And it's number three in America and number one here. And number one there is the Star wars colon, Mandalorian and Grogu.

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, have we got emails?

[Simon Mayo]

Yes, yes, yes, we have.

[Mark Kermode]

Right, let's dive in, shall we?

[Simon Mayo]

Well, first of all, let me try and assemble some. So I said that. Cause you, you gave your review last week and you were talking about the fact you don't. You haven't watched the TV series.

[Mark Kermode]

Yes, that's right.

[Simon Mayo]

And. And I ment. Child one loves it so much. He's a big Star wars fan and he has a Mandalorian helmet on his shoulder or in his arm? No, top of his arm.

[Mark Kermode]

He has a tattoo. Simon, if you say he has a Mandalorian helmet, it makes it sound like he's a grown man with a toy helmet, which he may have as well, given the chance. But what I said to you was, could you ask child one to go see the film and report back from the point of view of somebody who is a devotee of the TV series.

[Simon Mayo]

Yes, and he sent me a photograph of the ticket. He went out.

[Mark Kermode]

Excellent.

[Simon Mayo]

He got special dispensation and he went out and he watched it for us.

[Mark Kermode]

Basically, he got special dispensation from child care duties because amongst other things, child one is Also parent correct to two boys.

[Simon Mayo]

So here we go. So basically he said, did I enjoy the film? I did enjoy the film. It is cute and some of the action scenes are very good. It is clearly not a movie. It's clearly supposed to be the fourth season of the television and you could see where all the episodes have been cut together. Each half hour section, he says, is different from the previous half hour section. All the best bits feature Grogu.

[Mark Kermode]

Yes,

[Simon Mayo]

the Mandalorian doesn't change. He's just the guy with the helmet, you know, obviously does good things, but that's what he stays. He stays as the guy doing good things, he said. So I was left thinking, I really enjoyed the film. Is it a good movie? I'm not at all sure that it is, but it's better than the book of Boba Fett. But as I hadn't seen that, that doesn't mean anything to me. But he has seen and read everything he said. The recent years have been very disappointing, apart from on the TV side, Andor, which is brilliant, and the first series of Mandalorian, which is also brilliant. So he did enjoy it because he's immersed in it, but he's not convinced that it's a good film.

[Mark Kermode]

But that's great because, honestly, that's very encouraging. Because what Child one is saying there is. What I was assuming was the case, having not seen the TV series, was that he's quite right. It's not a movie. Even to my untrained eye, it looked like a TV series that had just ended up on the big screen. Absolutely right. That all the best stuff is the stuff with Grogu, because the puppetry stuff is the best stuff about it.

[Simon Mayo]

It.

[Mark Kermode]

And it is. I. I think that even as a fan, he seems to be in line with my response, which was meh.

[Simon Mayo]

Someone who appears to be called Zop says it was mesmerizing in IMAX 3D. I really loved it a lot. Had no expectations. Saw it as an extension of the cantina scene, which was my number one childhood memory of Star Wars. I think the phrase the old protect the young and then the young protect the old nicely sums up the film. And it has a positive message. By the Mandalorian choosing to care for his child, AKA Grogu, and becoming a parent, he heals his own trauma and can find peace. I appreciated that Jabba's son is a hero figure and a very likable slug. I give it an A because it was satisfying. Like a great slice of key lime pie with a Macadamia crust and coconut flakes to finish off the whipped topping.

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, Paul, specific reference.

[Simon Mayo]

It is very, very much so, Paul Buck says. I wanted to share my thoughts on Mandalorian and Grogu for context. I've been a Star wars fan since I was five, staying up late in 1982 to watch on TV. Even broken up by adverts, it completely captivated me and made me fall in love with the movies. The post Return of the Jedi era has been a mixed bag. Rogue One was a high point, Force Awaken showed promise and or was Star wars at its best. Season one of the Mandalorian was genuinely great. Overall though, it's been a bumpy ride. Which brings me to the Mandalorian and Grogu. I have never experienced sitting through large parts of a film in such despair, hunched forward with head in hands. To sum up how I felt that here's a slightly edited version of the message I sent to my star loving friends. Okay, I would rather sit through Ewok's Caravan of Courage again. The whole thing felt like an AI hallucination. The story centers on a buff, ripped son of Jabba the Hutt, a Vin Diesel Seth Rogen hybrid. I have no idea how that character survived a first draft. One grogu joke stretched to about 15. It's just overlong, meandering set piece after set piece. It jumped a blue whale through a ring of fire, into a shark and straight out the other end. For balance, most of the Grogu scenes are genuinely great, especially Grogu trying to get Mando into the tiny shelter. And some of the cinematography is among the best Star wars has ever had. Sadly, none of that could save the film. I don't hold much, I don't hold out much hope for the Dave Filoni era. He's the guy who created all the animated stuff. Yeah, the issue is, can he. This is according to Child one. Can he do the big stuff like Tony Gilroy did? He also gives the thankful only gives himself two cameos in this film, apparently. Anyway, Paul says, longtime fan of you both your passion, enthusiasm and occasional despair about movies is always a joy to listen to. Anyway, it's a big movie, it's a huge hit and it's. And it's number one in the book. And does it appear to be, even though you haven't seen the TV series, is it clearly, obviously, as far as your like, edited together as a, you know, a TV show into a movie?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, it was interesting when child one said that thing very astutely that Every half an hour it's a different film. My version of that was. I said it's, it's plotted like a video game, which is okay. In this bit, you have to go to this place, do this thing and get that thing and, and that it was a series of those things. But I think Child One's explanation that it's half an hour, half an hour, half an hour actually makes a lot of sense.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay, more discussion on current films in the overflow car park in take two, which you get on Patreon. Moments away from my chat with James Graham, we talk Dear England, in just a moment. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got

[Mark Kermode]

a real shot at getting it.

[Simon Mayo]

Get [e-mail], own the dream.

[Mark Kermode]

Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now.

[Simon Mayo]

How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel, maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Okay, so standby for a chat with James Graham. Quick reminder, you can get a take 1 and take 2 ad free, plus our bonus take ultra every fortnight. We're doing one today. Plus access to the. We were speaking on Wednesday, so it's already gone out anyway. Plus access to the Witted. It was great, I think. Plus access to the wittedtainment community on Patreon. Does Bob Dylan allow you to send in your best dad jokes?

[Mark Kermode]

No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't.

[Simon Mayo]

Hope he doesn't anyway, otherwise it spoils the line. So this week we're going to talk to James Graham, the writer of Dear England and one of Britain's most acclaimed contemporary dramatists. His writing often explores British institutions, power, national identity. He's responsible for Quiz based on who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The coughing scandal Ink about Rupert Murdoch's rise in 1960s Fleet street, soon to be released as a film directed by Danny Boyle, which we just touched on at the end of this conversation, and hit BBC drama Sherwood, exploring post industrial tensions in Nottinghamshire. So you'll hear my conversation with James Graham after this clip from Dear England. We're looking for someone to man the fort temporarily until we find a permanent replacement for Sam. Oh, okay.

[Mark Kermode]

Right.

[Simon Mayo]

Of which, if you. Sorry, if you don't mind me saying, Greg, you will also be in the

[Mark Kermode]

running for long term, of course.

[Simon Mayo]

Just to say it out loud, no

[Mark Kermode]

caretaker manager has ever gone on to actually beat a manager, have they?

[Simon Mayo]

Well, you never know. You know, you might. Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Well, I would obviously only be able to manage the team in a way. I'd want to do it even on a temporary basis and to work on the things I think urgently need to be done.

[Simon Mayo]

Of course. And what do you think needs to be done? I think there's something really wrong here.

[Mark Kermode]

Something has gone wrong in England.

[Simon Mayo]

And that is a clip from. Dear England, I'm delighted to say that it's writer James Graham, one of the most esteemed writers in the country, I think it's fair enough to say, joins us. All right, James, how are you?

[Mark Kermode]

Good.

[James Graham]

Simon, how are you doing?

[Simon Mayo]

Well, I think looking at you and looking at me, we're both perspiring somewhat heavily, given that we're talking during a heat wave. Dear Englund is on the television. All the episodes will be on iplayer. I guess most people really know where we are with this, but assuming someone is coming to this completely, completely blank, they've got no idea what we're talking about. Where does this TV drama take us?

[James Graham]

So it's the four tournaments, basically, under Gareth Southgate when he took over the England team back in 2016. And to me, I feel like I'm slightly biased in this, having invested a lot of time in this story and in being in Gareth Southgate's head. I think it's one of the most remarkable examples of redemption and resilience in our public life that I can think of in a decade, essentially. It's one of the few examples where somebody took something that was not working. In this case, the men's England football team took it when we're at an historic low, got used to being kicked out of tournaments in very early stages. And then suddenly this guy comes along who was basically remembered for this one tragic event 20 years ago when he missed a penalty, comes back as the manager, and not only does he transform the team tactically, he transforms the team culturally as well. That was his big thing. The culture. How do I change the culture and the environment and the mindset and the psychology and the relationships of England men's football team. So that's it. It's like a classic sporting underdog story where someone comes in, transform something and hopefully take them to Success. I won't spoil the ending for you if you don't know it.

[Simon Mayo]

Well, that's the trouble is we know.

[Mark Kermode]

We know most of the endings, even

[Simon Mayo]

though we've forgotten the agony. You bring it back to us, like in every episode. So the play was fantastically well received one and Olivier adapting it to the TV required. What are you good at adapting your own material? And what did you add or subtract from this?

[James Graham]

I actually do find it really hard to adapt, particularly from stage to screen, for some reason. Had I been commissioned, I think, to write an original screenplay, TV or film about the Gower Southgate Shakespearean arc, I would have found that infinitely easier. There is something weirdly, weirdly difficult, even though, like you say, it happened on stage. So you've got a lot of the dialogue, you've got the characterizations, you've got the world, you've got the research, you've got the information. And yet somehow I do actually find it really, really hard to unpick what you've made in one particular grammar, one particular language, in this case, theatre, and how you restructure, reshape, redefine that on screen. You sort of have to perform a factory reboot on your brain. You have to unlearn all the things that you've learned in terms of structure and style and form and begin again. You have to ask the question, if I was starting this on screen, what would it be? What would the structure be? What would the shape be? Obviously, theatre is a very abstract, expressionistic form. TV is more naturalistic, more literal. But it gives you loads of strengths as well. It can be more intimate, you can get inside the characters heads more, you can reduce the amount of speaking and trust your actors to tell a story with an eye flicker or a look of the. Yeah, things like that. So I do find it hard. But I'll leave it to you and the viewers to see if it feels like, hopefully, its own piece of screen work rather than a play on telly.

[Simon Mayo]

There's some words that appear before each episode. James. Dialogue. The dialogue has been imagined by the authority. Yes, I was interested in that because we obviously know that because you are the writer and it was a line that I. I kind of wished always appeared before every episode of the Crown, which people took as gospel. You know that we now know what the Queen said to Harold Wilson, which of course we don't. Was that your suggestion that we. That you put it in? Because obviously you have created these conversations.

[James Graham]

I'll be honest, it's not, and I do Find I know people's opinion on those cards are quite split. I agree with you. I think they can be incredibly useful when you're dealing and actually a sort of a moral responsibility when you're dealing with real life people and real life events. You just have to constantly remind the audience that to a greater or lesser extent, this is art, and we're not shying away from that and not apologizing for that. I would have invented certain things and changed certain things so that it works as a piece of drama. I kind of. Sometimes I find them really patronizing. Like an audience is really sophisticated. They do know. I think they know what the contract is when they're watching a piece of real life. You reference the crown and you're right. I think they can be important. Equally, an audience does know that Peter Morgan wasn't in that meeting between Howard Wilson and the Queen. They know that. And that he is, to a greater or lesser extent, having to, using the best research possible, imagine what those conversations might be. I wasn't in the dressing room when England played Slovakia in the Euro 24, so. And an audience knows that.

[Simon Mayo]

Tell us about. About Joseph Fiennes, who played Gareth Southgate on stage. And here he is reprieving the role. Was he the only. Do you audition for this? Did you just know that Joseph Fiennes was the guy straight off?

[James Graham]

We spent a long time. And it wouldn't surprise you to know that it wasn't that sophisticated. When you first start trying to cast a face, you basically go, who looks a bit like Gareth Southgate, who's roughly Gareth Southgate's age. And it took a long time. Myself and the director Rupert Gould on stage, we just kept cycling through people in our heads. And I remember one day I got a text from him with just the words Joseph Fiennes, question mark. And it was like a. Yeah, it was like a lightning rod from the sky. It felt completely

[Simon Mayo]

right.

[James Graham]

And he was just. He'd just come back from a long stint in America doing the Handmaid's Tale, and we thought. We heard he was looking for some theatre. He's a great theatre actor, obviously. Famously, he played Shakespeare in a very, very good romantic comedy. And I imagine that Joe Fiennes probably thought he was gonna come back and play Hamlet or do a Tennessee Williams or a Chekhov. So when we messaged him, saying, trying to play Gareth Southgate, I'm not quite sure what his first reaction was, but he did come in. You would never audition Joe Fiennes, but he did come in for a Meeting just so that three people can look each other in the eye and see if they all want to go on this journey together. And he very generously read a monologue where he's talking. It was in the first episode where he's talking about his trauma from the penalty miss. And it was a. Gosh, it was like a real privilege. It was the first time hairs on my arm sort of went up. There was something about how he connected to Gareth's introversion, awkwardness, smallness. But the thing about Gareth Southgate, for me, is he, yes, he's quote, unquote, like a quiet, small sort of character. He's not Henry V, but there is something big about him. There's something huge about his journey, about his aspiration, about his ambitions and desires for this team and these boys and how he radically wanted to fix them. And that's what I saw that coming through Joe's great theater gifts when we first met. And then, of course, the huge honor of seeing him translate that to the screen for the. For the BBC.

[Simon Mayo]

How do you decide which. Which players to cast or to concentrate on, James? Because Obviously you have 11 players in a team and there's all the backroom stuff. And Jodie Whittaker plays Dr. Pippa Grange, who introduces some very interesting dynamics. But you, for telling this story, presumably you have to think there are two or three of the footballers that we're going to have to tell this story through.

[James Graham]

I imagine different football fans in particular will have different views on who I should have focused on and who the real protagonists were in that team. What's useful about Gareth Southgate's tenure as manager is a lot of those players have actually stayed the course through three or four tournaments previously. A lot more would drop in and drop out. You'd have to have more, a rotating cast of ensembles. And that can be quite frustrating for an audience sometimes when you can't invest in people. But if you think of characters like Harry Kane, the captain, that was an obvious one. He was Gareth Southgate's first captain and he stayed with him right to the end. So I guess there. There's a little narrative arc, I guess, about leadership and finding your voice, finding your style of leadership, finding the courage of your conviction and finding your voice, of which I think Harry Kane really did. I think he's one of the great Englishmen of the past 10 years. He entirely embodies Gareth Southgate's, I guess, values, this sense of decency and goodness, not necessarily the traditional extroverted alpha male kind of captain. Who shouts and screams, but he does carry that quiet decency, I think of Gareth Southgate in the second episode. We meet and then lose quite quickly. Dele, Ally. And that was a case for me of being very lucky, actually, that someone like Dele has spoken a lot about his own mental health. He's been very public about that, about his struggles. That is, again, that feels emblematic, I think of the Gareth Southgate project where someone like Delhi was able to find a language to talk about the pressures and the fear that anyone would experience in that team. So you look for little, little, little characteristics like that, I guess.

[Simon Mayo]

We've talked a lot on the show about masculinity in the last couple of years. A lot of that fueled by adolescence, written by the equally prolific Jack Thorne. But I wonder if, if in a way your play and Gareth Southgate were ahead of the curve here because they were trying to change the perception of masculinity years earlier.

[James Graham]

I agree. I think that is. And Gareth Southgate should take the sole credit for that. He handed me this, this story. But I agree with you. I think there's something about. Well, obviously we are living through a moment people talk about, and I don't love this phrase, the crisis of masculinity because I feel like if you keep saying that to young lads, they start to believe that there is something wrong,

[Mark Kermode]

that there is a.

[James Graham]

There is something innately difficult or problematic about being a young bloke. And obviously we know that's not true, but it is important to define something so that you can fix it. But what I like about this particular story, in comparison with other great narratives when it comes to focusing on young men, is that it is the definition of a story of fine through vulnerability, introspection and through sharing those worries and those doubts, as these young men were encouraged to do and encouraged to do so way more than they had been previously, if at all. They managed to find. They managed to find a bond with one another, famously, in the generation before that, the so called golden generation of young English men who played for their team, they could not knit together. They've spoken about this. People like Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Stephen Gerrard have said they in some cases didn't particularly like each other, but they certainly didn't trust each other. So they didn't play creatively and with freedom and with expression.

[Simon Mayo]

Has Ted Lasso made this adaptation more difficult?

[James Graham]

Yes, to the extent that everyone has that, I think as a frame of. A cultural frame of reference in their mind, which I understand. I tried to. No Shade on the creators of that show. I tried to aggressively avoid that show. I haven't really watched it beyond a couple of first episodes, just because I think tonally, tonally, it's obviously a bit different. It's way more comic and romantic and we wanted something, I guess, a bit a grittier. It's hugely pretentious to say stage the Nation, but do you do want to look at the nation when you do a play or do a TV drama like this? You can't, not when you work England in the title. You've got to look at yourselves in the mirror.

[Simon Mayo]

I mean, I gave up on Ted Lasso after the first series, but I think the Damned United would probably be up there as one of. One of the best, I would agree. Encapsulating something about football and putting it on the screen.

[James Graham]

I would agree. And I think that's because what they did so well was. It's essentially a love story, isn't it, between Brian Clough and, I think, Peter Taylor. It's about. It's about male relationships again. It's about the cult of personality. This incredible manager who believed he was the top one out of one in the world.

[Simon Mayo]

Obviously, there is a big, as you mentioned, big political context to everything that we follow over the four episodes. The political situation in the country and Brexit and Covid and so on. Towards the end of the second episode, we see a clip of the Queen's broadcast to the uk, where she concludes with the lines, better days will return. We will meet again. Just as I remember thinking at the time, as most people were struck by the resonance of those lines, the brilliance of those lines. As a screen writer, going back to those lines, they were extraordinary, weren't they?

[James Graham]

I really agree. I think famously, actually, I think the Queen wanted to take that line out, apparently, because she thought it was too schmaltzy. Yeah. As a writer, I always admire when anyone, a politician, but also a monarch or a football manager, manages to, in a particular phrase, capture an experience that we're all living through. That's what great art should do, isn't it? Whether it's a. Whether it's a letter to the Nation or play or a TV drama, what you're trying to do is create that moment where the listener or the viewer leans forward and nods their heads and go, oh, yeah, I felt that. I remember that. That connects with me. And on that note, that's why that letter that Gareth Southgate wrote, which his title, I nicked, Dear England, when he just wrote to the nation after the Pandemic before we hosted this tournament. The phrases, the language he uses in there to try to describe one. What we've all just been through, the great loss, the grief, the pain, and why football has this potential to connect us together again as a nation. What these big national events do is help us create a collective consciousness in a nation. It makes you feel part of a story and it's how we view time, memories that get created and then knit together a narrative in our heads and in the nation. And that's why football matters, that's why art matters. And for an England manager, an England football manager, a sporting figure, to use language like that, I found it incredibly impressive. And once again, it sort of reassured me. It gave me hope that there was a. There was a story here.

[Simon Mayo]

Finally, James, you work on many projects famously, you know, you've got a number of different things going at the same time. What is most exciting you about James Graham work, which we are about to see at some stage in the future?

[James Graham]

Oh, I'm just about to lock a film. I did a movie adaptation of a play I did called Ink about Rupert Murdoch arriving onto Fleet street in the 60s. So that was directed by Danny Boyle. I wrote the screenplay stars Jack o' Connell and Guy Pearson. That should be cinemas, I hope, end of the year.

[Simon Mayo]

Well, Ink sounds extraordinary. Jack o', Connell, Guy Pearce, Danny Boyle and James Graham. I mean, that's all we need to know and I think we're queuing up at the cinema as soon as it comes out. James, thank you so much.

[James Graham]

Jess Simon. Thank you.

[Simon Mayo]

James Graham, the writer of Dear England. All the episodes will be on. On BBC Iplayer just before. Your thoughts, Mark? Yeah, it only occurred to me just, just listening to that, that I mentioned the scene in the Crown where the just. I just thought the Queen and Howard Wilson, the role of Harold Wilson in the Crown, was played by Jason Watkins, who in, In Dear England makes a brief appearance as Greg Dyke, the outgoing boss of, of the faa. So Jason Watkins is a great actor. He does turn up in all, all sorts of things. But anyway, he's, he's like the continuation there between those two, two TV shows. Anyway, so we're into it, we're into football here, but it's sort of football and it's about other things as well, which is why you might like it. I'm not sure. Anyway, what did you think of during this?

[Mark Kermode]

So I've seen the first two episodes, which are the two that are currently available on Iplayer. At the time of recording this show, which I Think is, I think the same as you. You'd seen the first two, is that right? Yeah, fine. So, as you just heard, it's a football drama, but more, that takes its title from a letter a football manager wrote to the nation in the wake of a great period of upheaval and suff. I love the fact that that phrase, assuming someone comes to this completely blank, you know, who could possibly do that? Well, that would be.

[Simon Mayo]

I was thinking of you.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, thank you very much. That would be me. Although it's interesting that all the things that you cited, you know, Adolescents, Damned United, even Ted Lasso, I'd say Saipan, I would add to that are things that I know because everything I know about football I know about through movies and television programs. So there were some grand claims in that. James Graham, seeing the story of Gareth Southgate as one of the most remarkable examples of redemption and resilience. So he's a player who famously missed a penalty, lived in the shadow of that miss, and then came back to lead England and get them to face up to the fact that, again, I didn't know this, that apparently England never, ever won on penalties. It just didn't happen. And he therefore transforms the team partly by transforming the culture. James Graham also talked of this story as a classic sporting underdog story and talks about the challenges of tackling. And this was his phrase, the Gareth Southgate Shakespearean arc, which I thought was a really, really terrific phrase. Now, there was a question, he said whether or not, because it began life as a play, and he said it's up to the viewers and listeners to decide whether or not it plays like a play. It doesn't. The two episodes that I've seen, it doesn't feel like a play on telly at all. It feels like a. Like a very, very accomplished TV series. What it does feel like for me is the drama, a very, very good dramatization of, at least on one level, the horrors of the penalty kick thing. I mean, I've never really thought about this. I mean, I. But the. The. The idea that really what it's about is facing up to your greatest fear. And the way in which they dramatize the thing about what's involved in taking a penalty. I mean, Jodie Whittaker is the Pippa Grange, who is described as the penalty whisperer, who says in the part that I've seen so far, it's not what happens when they take the kick, it's what happens afterwards. And she talks about the fact that if they miss, they literally Roll up into a fetal ball. And I think, oh, no, that's right. I have seen that. I have. Yes. That is something that's significant. Joseph Fiennes, to my eyes and ears, looks and sounds exactly like Gareth Southgate. I mean, on one level, that's not surprising, because Gareth Southgate is one of the very few people in that area who has a kind of immediately identifiable uniform. You know, the beard, the waistcoat. You know, you could drew. You could almost draw, like, an outline of him, and you'd know who he was in the same way as, you know, the. The image of our show is our two pairs of glasses. He's got things about him that you just go, okay, I recognize that. But it's also to do with the fact that in his performance of the little that I have seen of Gareth Southgate on television, he gets that kind of quiet concern. Right. I mean, there's lots and lots of shots of Southgate on the sidelines in which his reaction seemed to me. I was actually thinking at one point. Cause I know that sometimes they're cutting between actual footage. I'm assuming that's what they're doing. This footage of the matches looks like it actually is footage of the matches.

[Simon Mayo]

Yes, it is. Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah. And you're seeing long shots of Gareth Southgate. And I am going, that is Joseph Fiennes, isn't it? That's not actually Gareth Southgate. So the performance is terrific. However, beyond all of that, the reason I have liked it so far in these first two episodes is exactly what you were talking about, which is that it's really about something much bigger than that. On the one hand, it is about the redefinition of what masculinity means and what vulnerability and what being able to bond and being able to sort of face your fears actually means. And also, it reminded me that I had known things that I had forgotten that I knew. At the end of the second episode, there are flashes, brief flashes of the response to what happens when those penalties get missed. And they're quite horrifying. I mean, like, really, really. Oh, yeah, that did happen. Cause there's a lot of talk in the second episode about addressing the underlying racism involved. I mean, I don't think I'd really clocked the chanting, the really horrible racist chanting, that noise that gets made, and just how deeply, profoundly upsetting it is. And so I think that even for somebody who knows nothing about football, this reminded me of a few things. Firstly, it reminded me of the COVID era. And you discussed that very eloquently in terms of that we will meet again. But also it did remind me that even as someone who doesn't know anything about football, I did sort of peripherally know that all this was happening. And I think that so far what it's done is engage me in a story that I wasn't really engaged in and reminded me that I was more engaged in it than I thought I was. Because that thing about the Gareth Southgate Shakespearean arc, the thing about it's about decency, it's about now it's a celebration of people being decent, a celebration of people actually being good. And I remember, sorry to I will do this and it will offend everybody. I will get an exorcist reference in here. Good. But Bill Blatty once said he said it in writing, but then he said it to me later on. He said that a friend of his had once said, you spend so much time thinking about the nature of evil, why don't you spend some time thinking about the nature of good? And Bill said, but I kind of. That is what I'm doing. But it is harder to celebrate. Good. And I think that so far of the two episodes that I've seen, this is doing a pretty good job of it.

[Simon Mayo]

Yeah, let us know what you think. Correspondence.com Dear England, as you mentioned, is on iplayer and on traditional BBC television, but easier to watch on iplayer. Thank you very much. So will you watch the rest of

[Mark Kermode]

it, do you think? I will, Yeah, I will because I'm invested in it now and I, I'm not just saying that. He does look and sound like Gareth Southgate, doesn't he? I mean that's.

[Simon Mayo]

And, and also because as you mentioned, he talks about the Gareth Southgate Shakespearean arc, which, given that he's a quiet man, actually quite melancholic. Despite the fact that he's asking people to, to play with smiles on their faces, to bring back the joy, he doesn't immediately strike you as a joy filled person. He was very thoughtful, very quiet, very melancholic person. But they managed to capture that. Absolutely managed to capture that. And Joseph finds. Did a wonderful job. I just don't think. I can't think of anyone else who would be able to do that.

[Mark Kermode]

No, no, I think it's a great form. I've just had a note from Heather. Dear England, the first two episodes are on iplayer. The series will continue this Sunday at 9pm on BBC One, then on iPlayer after broadcast.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay, well let's. Speaking of joy, which is Obviously what we try and bring you here we go in every single podcast. Let us grab that joy. Let us discard our melancholia and step with abandon into our much loved laughter lived. I have to say, I don't really. Yeah, I'm gonna sack the scriptwriters because the material this week is slightly distasteful. I would say.

[Mark Kermode]

All right, go on.

[Simon Mayo]

Anyway. Hey, Mark. I've been married to the good lady. Ceremonies are indoors for so long, I can tell when she's lying just by looking at her. I'm also getting pretty good at spotting when she's standing up too.

[Mark Kermode]

That's okay. That's fine.

[Simon Mayo]

Monk, do you know, do you have any unusual sleeping habits? Because I sleep completely in the buff absolutely fine at home. But it's does raise eyebrows on long haul flights. I mean, what is a no fly list, by the way? I just got a very strange angry letter. I went to the doctors this week and I've been. I've been having a lot of trouble trying hard. Yes. And the GP said, Mr. Mayo, are you familiar with the phrase fecal impaction? And I said, certainly. I present the UK's biggest film podcast star Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. 1987 abandoned its internal logic just to deliver a crowd pleasing revenge spectacle.

[Mark Kermode]

That must be a Simon Paul joke.

[Simon Mayo]

You would imagine so. Yeah. But I just apologize for actually saying fecal impaction on the show because it feels very distasteful. Anyway, Mark was still to come. I'll answer. I'll answer that.

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, you go, you go.

[Simon Mayo]

You do. It's Mark's review of backrooms and also tuna on the way. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The Four Seasons is back for season two. Starring Tina Fey, Will Forte, Colman Domingo,

[James Graham]

Marco Calvani, Carrie, Kenny Silver and Erica Henningsen.

[Mark Kermode]

After a difficult year, your favorite group

[Simon Mayo]

of friends continues their tradition of vacationing together, now with a baby in tower. From the Jersey shore to upstate New York and Italy, their getaways are sure

[James Graham]

to take unexpected turns. Where comedy ensues. Watch the Four Seasons, now streaming only on Netflix.

[Simon Mayo]

Spring isn't just about clearing clutter. It's about changing the air. Pura makes it easy to refresh your space, your mindset, and how your home

[Mark Kermode]

feels with transportive fragrances inspired by a

[Simon Mayo]

terrace in Santorini, a French lavender field, and more. Get started with a free Pura plus diffuser when you subscribe to 2 cents monthly for a year. Shop now at pura.com. So last week we had a suggestion about playing the Muppet Game, which is where you recast a film that you like, or maybe you film you don't like, but you keep one character in the movie and everyone else is turned into a Muppet. Yes, and we came up with various suggestions. We have so many, so many contributions. Wa. Which is not a name, obviously, but that's what it's signed. Gonzo as Pazuzu. Mark. Sorry, you're wrong. Uncle Deadly is Pazuzu. He's not playing Pazuzu. He is Pazuzu. Okay, the answer has to be Lord of the Rings, says Rob the lone goldsmith. Insane. A little borderline sacrilegious, probably. But think about it for more than two seconds and it swims into focus and all singing, all dancing cast of Muppetry, dwarves, elves and so on. And wasn't there the threat of actually doing a puppet version of the story at one point? In any case, the Jackson trilogy is certainly untouchable, and it's unlikely the story will be revisited cinematically anytime soon. Although I think, as we heard from Leo Woodall last week, he's off down under to do some of this. Unless I would argue it's Kermit on his way to Mordor, banjo and all. Ian McKellen obviously retains his original role. Dear Bigger and Boat. Regarding the Muppet Game, Jaws, with Kermit as Chief Brody, Gonzo as Matt Hooper, Oscar the Grouch as Quint, and featuring Animal as the shark. And I'm retaining Peter Benchley as the reporter because that's respect. It's a good Don Parry and Chris from Bristol. In reference to the discussion of the game of Muppets in in film, in last week's show there was a reference to Muppets in Die Hard. Delighted to say that a show Muppets Die Hard exists and was played at the Wardrobe Theater in Bristol back in 2014. I can remember heading upstairs to the White Bear Pub into the Wardrobe Theater, which was, unsurprisingly, very small and watching two hours of one of the best shows I have ever seen from memory. Kermit was the director, Miss Piggy was Holly MacLean, and Gonzo was Ellis. They used a generic Muppet for John McClane. And the real life actor was Alan Rickman, an Alan Rickman look alike who, I have to say, stole the show. Amazing writing, creative, low budget props and actors who clearly had an amazing time. They brought it back for a couple of runs in larger venues a few years later. Sadly, because of copyright, it had to be renamed MDH Puppets Do a Movie which isn't really as good as Puppets Die Hard. But anyway, still a great show. The same group did a few more mashup shows over the years, some of which equally amazing, one called Goldilocks Stock and three Smoking Bears, which is great. Oedipus in Boots, I think they're still going and put on a show over Christmas and New Year, so well worth checking. If listeners live in Bristol, keep up the great work, enjoying relaxing to the podcast and painting after a long day at work. Chris in Bristol who has shared a link to the Muppets Die Hard show.

[Mark Kermode]

Oh, really?

[Simon Mayo]

In the show? Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. So if you want more more on the Muppets Die Hard and those shows, then look at our show notes and follow it from there. Correspondenceon.com Tell us something that's new and horrific.

[Mark Kermode]

So Backrooms, which is the very promising and deeply unsettling feature debut from Kane Parsons, a young YouTuber at either 20 or 21. He is, quote, a 24's youngest feature director. I mean scary. He created the Backrooms web series which was this kind of creepy. Do you know what this thing creepypasta is?

[Simon Mayo]

No.

[Mark Kermode]

No. So it's like viral horror, Like a popular term for viral horror, memes, legends, that sort of thing. So in the web series, there's a research institute that is exploring these anomalous back rooms that were first discovered in the 1980s into which people keep getting dragged. The feature, which is the thing we're talking about now, is written by Will Sudic, follows two central characters. The first is Chiweteljufor's Clark, who run a furniture store with a weird sort of piratical theme. We see him doing local TV adverts dressed as a pirate, saying, aha, you know, all the furniture here is a steal and all that sort of stuff. His life is in chaos. His relationship has fallen apart. He gets angry with his therapist Mary, played by Renate Reinzver, who is the person from Worst Person in the World and Sentimental Value, brilliant actor. So the store, the furniture store, is in some form of decline. At night, the electrics play up, the lights flash, there are power outages. Weirder still, on the circuit breaker, you know, on the fuse board, there is a switch that doesn't seem to be attached to anything at all. Then one evening, after hearing noises on the other side of a wall, down in the basement where the circuit breaker is, Clark discovers a door, or rather a not door, a wall through which you can walk, which leads him into a whole other building and a whole maze of back rooms. Here is a trailer. Here's a clip from the trailer. I found something

[Simon Mayo]

in the store.

[James Graham]

Okay,

[Mark Kermode]

what did you find?

[Simon Mayo]

The place. I found a place.

[Mark Kermode]

Look, I know how this sounds, but

[Simon Mayo]

you got to understand, it's massive in there.

[Mark Kermode]

I'm not saying I don't believe you.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay? I'm going to come back here with proof, all right? You feel me? Yeah. Follow my lead.

[Mark Kermode]

Clark, what is this? It's what I'm trying to figure out. I've been here every night since I found the place, and I still barely scratched the surface. I just take it slow. So at the beginning, those endless rooms look a little bit like the set from Severance. You know, the underground bunker when it's just faceless. But the more you see them, the more they start to look like a kind of bad imitation mirror imitation of the real world. There are stairs that don't go anywhere. There are rooms with pools that aren't quite pools, that no one could swim in them. And at one point, they describe it as. It's like as if someone who had never seen a dog was trying to describe a dog. And more importantly, the room seemed to go on forever. And then when Clark goes missing, Mary, the therapist goes looking for him and finds herself in this ever expanding world, closer to her patient than she could ever imagine. So Kane Parsons had said in an interview that I had read before that the feature would be in direct continuity with the web series, meaning that if you knew the web series, you know, there's loads of Easter eggs for the web series, but the feature wouldn't contradict the web series. Crucially, however, if you don't, and I didn't when I saw this, I've seen stuff now, but I didn't know about it beforehand. The film works completely as a standalone venture, and the reason that it does is because the narrative discovers the rooms from the point of view of Clark of Chiwetel, Ejiofort's character, who knows nothing about what he stumbled and who is completely baffled, as indeed is Mary. So both the leads act all the way through like they have never seen any of this before, which is the experience that I had as a viewer. Although the screening that I saw, I was in a room with loads of people who obviously knew the. Knew the series beforehand. Apparently on the series, they used 3D software. They used Blender and Adobe After Effects to create the world for the film. It has been reported that they built over 30,000 square feet of back rooms. And the set was so long and so big that it was possible to actually get lost in it. I don't know what the truth of that is. What I can tell you is that as a, as a viewer, you do absolutely get lost in this world which has this kind of David Lynchy, nightmarish logic. This is a shadow world. It's the kind of place that you encounter if you ever have the. We all have weird dreams. I quite regularly have dreams about being in a version of my house which isn't quite my house. And I can't. I'm in the loft. I can't get out in your house. Your loft that you can't get out of. You know, and rooms that are upside. Rooms that are like upside down and staircases that just go down, down, down, down, down, but you're not. You can't see where they go to. So plaudits to the two lead actors for their utterly convincing WTF reactions to what's going on in the discovery of this alternate world. Plaudits to. To Kane Parsons for maintaining this really genuine air of mystery and sort of unfolding weirdness. Because the film itself leaves the audience with more, more questions than answers. And it also crucially leaves you eager to earn more. Now, it was interesting that I saw there's been some stuff recently that Mark Duplass, who's involved in this, went online, it went to social media to address reports that Kane Parsons hadn't really directed the film because the film's got many executive producers, which include Oz Perkins, James Wan, Sean Levy. So, you know, quite established talent. And so some people have said, well, obviously this 20 year old didn't direct this. I have to say I saw an interview with that 20 year old and they seemed to know exactly what they were talking about. I mean, they seem to know this world inside out and they seem to know what they were doing. So I have no insider information in this at all. But despite the extraordinary youth of the creator of this world, they seem to know absolutely what they were doing. I mean, there are moments of proper nightmarish horror, moments of kind of cracked consumerist satire, but the whole thing has a really engulfing air of intrigue and dawning horror. It's not an expensive movie, but it does create an absolutely complete otherworld, anti world upside down, whatever it is. And I was really, really gripped by it. And I knew nothing beforehand and I absolutely shared the leads experience of what is going on. And I found it genuinely engrossing and often very creepy.

[Simon Mayo]

The movie is backrooms. Let us know what you think. Correspondence @Kevin Mayer.com. now last week on the show Leo Woodall was our guest and we were ambling through some thoughts about Tuna, which is the film which he stars with Dustin Hoffman. So the interview went out last week. So if you haven't heard that, it is worth going back to. Just so you get a general feel for where Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman, which are like two of the central characters in this movie, how they link up. But we couldn't review it last week because it's only out this week. So we. With the conversation with Leo Woodall in mind. Mark, take us through Tuna.

[Mark Kermode]

Well, as you said, he was the guest last week. I think that Leo Woodall found it quite hard to describe the film. Let's see if I can do any better. Okay.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay, go ahead.

[Mark Kermode]

Yes, low key crime thriller from Canadian co writer and actor Daniel Rohe who made the Oscar winning doc Navalny, which you talked about in the interview. So Leo Woodall is the tuner of the title. And just to be clear, if you're listening to this. T U N E R not T U N A although there is a gag about that. A young man named Nicky who had to give up a promising career as a pianist due to the fact that he suffered from hyperacusis, which is hypersensitivity to sound. And this was not something that I knew about beforehand, but the film does a pretty good job of explaining what it means. It means that, you know, he's got these, he has to wear these earpieces all the time in order to blank out the sound because effectively the world is too loud for him and as a result of it, he can't play the piano anymore because the piano would be too loud. So the condition has stopped him leading a normal life in inverted commas unless he wears ear protectors all the time. But it has made him an extremely good piano tuner and as it happens, a deft safe cracker because he can hear the tumblers in certainly an old fashioned safe cross, he can hear them falling. This trick is very useful, particularly for Nicky's mentor. And I mean Dustin Hoffman is effectively a father figure, isn't he? His memory is failing. He forgets the combination to his safe. Nicky can open it, he can listen to the clicks. This also attracts the attention of Yuri, who is the leader of a gang of thieves who sees Nicky's safe cracking in action and goes, we need that guy. And at first Nikki isn't interested. But when Dustin Hoffman's character Harry falls ill, he needs money. And so this side hustle of cracking safes proves useful. The film also stars Havana Rose Liu, who we mentioned before, who's in power ballad as Ruthie, who is herself a talented pianist looking for a place as an assistant to a celebrated composer, played by Jean Rent, with whom Harry wants him to hook up. Anyway, here is a clip. Hi, nice to see you again.

[Simon Mayo]

Hey, introduce me. I don't know her name. I'm Ruthie. Hello, Ruthie. I'm Harry Horowitz. You can call me Harry. You'll still call me late for dinner. You steal that line from my grandmother? No, I never stole anything in my life. This is Nikki. He is my tuning apprentice. He. He's more like my nephew, though we're not related. And I'll tell you one thing, he is very eligible, but he has a hearing condition, as you can see from his plugs, which are not hearing aids, although that's a common mistake. He's not being rude, it's doctor's orders. And did I mention he is very eligible. Harry, please stop.

[Mark Kermode]

So last week, if you remember, we did one frame back and we did films about people with special sets of skills and somebody came up with the Harvey Keitel film Fingers. So Tuna actually does have a. I hadn't seen Tuner at that point. Tuna does have a thematic connection with Fingers. Fingers is a 1978 James Tobac film about a young pianist who is torn between music and crime and family ties. And also with the Jacques Odiar film the Beat that My Heart Skipped, which is effectively a French language remake of Fingers. The film does. Tuner does have a very 70s feel about it in that basically it's a character drama that happens to be playing out within the framework of a crime thriller thriller. The plot is very twisty. I mean, overly so, in my opinion, particularly in the third act, in which the coincidences come very, very thick and fast. But it's also functional because the crime narrative is really a device for allowing us to. To experience the world as, rather than being seen as heard by its central character, but who has over sensitized hearing and therefore it's putting you in his. His position and saying this is what this world seems like to him. I think in the interview Leo Woodall said, you know, the world, it's just too loud and it can seem like there's just too much of it. And then you crank that up with this crime thriller narrative in which there genuinely is too much of everything. It was interesting that Leo Woodall did find it difficult to talk about the movie, but because there is none of that hesitancy in his performance. In his performance. He completely seems to embody the character. He. He's absolutely convincing as a piano tuner and a safe cracker. I mean, I wasn't completely convinced by him as a piano player, but. No, that's okay, because that's a lesser part of the plot.

[Simon Mayo]

But Havana Rose Liu, certainly, I was watching her thinking, wow, you really are good.

[Mark Kermode]

No.

[James Graham]

Yes.

[Mark Kermode]

She really genuinely seems to be doing that, doesn't she? So it was. I think the fact is that. That the reason that it works is that in that 70s way, it's really a character drama that's just posing as a crime thriller. It's funny that that clip we played was pretty incidental. It was just Dustin Hoffman saying, oh, yeah, this is the minor thing. He's good by my nephew, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what's interesting is that you just. You buy into the characters. I'm sure that Dustin Hoffman absolutely loves doing that sort of stuff. It also helps that you have sound designer Johnny Byrne, and you talked about this before. Johnny Byrne's credits include Zone of Interest, and he's worked with Yorgos Lanthimos. He's a genius. And like Darius Marder's Sound of Metal, which had a different sound designer, but again, was very much about the way in which the world is evoked through the sound design. This creates an audio world that you live in, because the way the sound design works is that it takes you with. Inside the head of the central character. We really do hear the world through Nicky's ears. I do think the third act descends somewhat into contrivance and melodrama. But there is enough about the characters that rings true. That means that even when you get the overpowering, clanking gears of the plot. I don't know whether you agree with me about this, but I think in the third act there is altogether too much plot. But what it doesn't ever do is overwhelm the grace notes of the performances, because in the end, what you're really interested in is the characters and the characters are established well enough and their world is established well enough that you're interested in them. Less so than the crime mechanics of the plot, which literally seem to be there to just drive the thing along. What did you feel?

[Simon Mayo]

I was having a whale of a time, really. And I think it was just. I mean, of course, what you say is correct, but I was going with it because I was enjoying Leo Woodhull's performances. You say he's the master in this film film, even Though he did sound a little bit more hesitant when we're doing the interview. But it was, there was so much to admire in it and I was just along for the ride. So you know, I take, I take the points you're making also it's a very, very small triumph of the film. There are three Israeli bad guys led by Leo Raz who's the co founder, the co creator of the Fowder TV show which was very successful. But they had three Israeli bad guys in a movie. Now, without making it feel inappropriate, without making it feels there any. And they're there for a reason, it's all, yes, you know, it's all part of the plot, you know, it's there. It's not. So I just thought, okay, well done. No one is complaining about this. They're there for a reason. And Leo Raz is very good. And so I thought it was a small. So I was admiring a lot. And also without giving anything away, I enjoyed the ending. And the final line is very good. Good, well delivered nicely.

[Mark Kermode]

The final line. The final line is a good punchline to a shaggy dog story.

[Simon Mayo]

It is. And it's almost. I wonder if they knew that when. I wonder if it was written like that, you know, I wonder if they've.

[Mark Kermode]

They.

[Simon Mayo]

There was more stuff after that and then someone said, no, let's leave it

[Mark Kermode]

there, let's just, let's just cut on that because it is a good final line. Yeah.

[Simon Mayo]

If you see tuna, let us know what you think. Correspondencervidomo.com that is it for this week. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh and the Scarlett producer was Heather Redactor wasn't in. He's gone to France. Right.

[Mark Kermode]

Is that a unique. Is that you? He's gone to France.

[Simon Mayo]

He's lost in France with Bonnie Time. Ollie Wilson was the executive. Come and join us on Patreon for all the good stuff. Mark, what is, what is your film of the week?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, I've got to say it's a very, very strong week and honestly any of these could. But since everyone threw their hands up in horror when I did three best films of the week last week, I'm gonna have to pick one. So I'm gonna go for back rooms.

[Simon Mayo]

Okay. We'll be back next week with reviews of Masters of the Universe, Savage House, Scary Movie and more. I will bestow a year's ultra membership to Correspondent of the Week. Well, I'm gonna go for Sophie in Leeds who right at the beginning of the show told us about the submarines and Warwick University and the. And the radio station there.

[Mark Kermode]

Very good.

[Simon Mayo]

So you have an ultra membership. Sophie, if you'd like a bit more, after take one, head over to take two for reviews of My Mother's Wedding and Fairyland. Also be answering your questions and your semestions. If you have anything for us, please send it to correspondenceobertameo.com.