Len and Company (2015)

Memorable, crazy movie

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I managed to catch this movie on Netflix streaming. I have been a Rhys Ifans fan since his role as 'Spike' in 'Notting Hill.' Here he almost plays an evolved version of Spike. This whole story is about his character, the small number of other characters are necessary to illuminate his. Ifans does a great job with this role, a good character study.We first see his character, Len, driving his Porsche on snowy back roads, representing upstate NY but actually filmed a few miles north in Canada. He parks his car and goes inside. He leaves it parked until it will not start anymore. He just wants to be left alone.The next time we see him is when his son takes a road trip from the city to visit and the snow has melted, it is not quite yet springtime, and he finds Len floating upside down in the very dirty pool, with leaves, algae, and mosquito larvae. He likes it that way, it is 'natural', and the wet suit he is wearing keeps him warm.Len is eccentric and we only really learn the summary of his life when he is brought to school by a young neighbor to talk about his life. His dropping out of school, his booze and drugs, his 'nicking' cars, and finally getting into a rock band and finding that people liked them. Finally becoming wealthy as a record producer.Jack Kilmer (son of Val Kilmer) is his son Max, maybe 19, who went to college for one semester. When he shows up unannounced, because Len never answers the phone, Max tells him he only wants to visit. Len insists he must want something, he thinks people are like animals who only want things from others, but Max assures his he doesn't want anything.However he in fact did, he wanted his dad to listen to 20 minutes of music he and his band recorded, he wanted his dad's opinion. The other key characters are Juno Temple as a successful singer, thanks to Len. Keir Gilchrist as William who comes over to do some work at Len's place. And Kathryn Hahn who is Isabelle, Max's mother and former wife of Len, someone he still is in love with.There would be no story without a character arc, and that is to see what and how Len will accept his abrasiveness and show others, including his son, that he really cares. It wasn't something natural because of his 'feral' upbringing.Overall a fine, low-key story, watch it for Ifans.

This was very well acted maybe spectacularly well.That is its strong point. It kept you watching. Rhys Ifans was fantastic as the former completely burned out rock star and producer. Juno Temple was too. You actually wonder about his past relationships and how he must have been now. His only real relationship is with a boy who is a substitute for his real son. His real son is a vanilla nice person who does not understand his father but is always good to him which makes him the most boring person in the cast, or perhaps it is the way he chose to do the part. You don't think of him a whole lot. At any rate I think they made the most of the material and if you like complex characters more than an action plot you will like this movie.

Although this unassuming story about a rock star turned producer turned recluse proceeds at a somewhat leisurely pace, underneath the exchanges among rocker father, Len (Rhys Ifans),son Max (Jack Kilmer),and rock singer Zoe (June Temple) is discord that can't be quieted. It's a strong story about parents and mentoring that refuses to be bland.The only unsurprising element is the lack of communication between father and son, who's blamelessly trying to get his father's checked-out attention, albeit fulfilling his father's jaded prediction that everyone wants something by trying to get his producer-father to listen to his band's demo. Around the current Father's Day, the dysfunction is not a surprise for any of us who want better communications with our children.Len's protégé, Zoe, asks nothing more than to see him in his remote digs, and while she has the typical drug problem of many rockers, she bonds with Max and makes small inroads into Len's wall of silence. Besides being a good story of dysfunction, Len and Company gives a non-strident critique of the isolating nature of success. No better example than when Len visits his young friend, William (Keir Gilchrist), at his class to talk about his business. The colorful language and racy stories leave the school kids and teacher stunned, but there is freshness in his lecture that could be beneficial to their future.Therein lies the irony of the story, a remote rocker exiled from the world but still capable of moving even the youngest in an audience.

Len and Company is a lean and mean cinematic machine. A gem of a genuinely funny, quirky and heart-warming film you don't want to end.I saw an early morning screening at TIFF to a pleased crowd and with writer-director and the two lead actors.Tim Godsall is a Toronto native who is behind some of the world's most innovative and funny commercials in most part including Axe and XBOX, but now he express himself fully in his first feature, filmed in Ontario but representing upstate New York contemplative country setting.The character of Len, played brilliantly by Rhys Ifans, is the main draw of this story because it could have been a cliché rock star satyr, but breathes instead of freshness, frailty and lots of humanness without losing its rough edges and "coolness" factor. Balanced with a lost son looking for acceptance, estranged wife, friendly younger neighbour and a talented but tormented young artist (Zoe) played by Juno Temple, the story reaches a near-perfect portrayal of a man who had it all, but is lost in the world. This multi-character interplay is spot on from both acting and directing standpoint and you could see that a real synergy had developed between all of them.Every scene had dramatic tension but with a lot of humour throughout and actual exploration of human, artistic, psychological and philosophical truths or realities. You got to know and care about all this characters, feel for them and laugh with them. See the world through their eyes for a while and wish maybe you could have been in their less than perfect world a little longer but also appreciating your less than perfect world more when the credits rolled all too soon.Jack Kilmer plays the son, Max, in perfect opposition to Rhys Ifans, Juno Temple and the other supporting cast. He keeps the movie grounded and real as opposed to Len (and Zoe)'s eccentricities. But Len is Len and scenes like his autobiographic rant in the classroom are classic comedy at a high degree, but not without the levity and bitterness both felt by the character and omnipresent in the farce, making it never far-fetched.Tim Godsall took the right script with the right people, added some choice music and made it magic! Script, silence, dialogue, images, music and mood mixed to perfection.May we see more movies (and dare I say less commercials) from a clear storyteller with a welcome edge. Best movie of 2015 so far? You got it. Other critics point out some petty underutilization of some story elements, supporting acting (compared to Ifans unanimous monster performance) or pace (note: the movie seems to have been trimmed down from 102 to 97 mins). I rather see this film to be a self-contained contemporary concoction that does not try to be all-encompassing but rather fleeting but with feeling like all its characters. In this aspect, its achieves this with extraordinary efficacy. The emotions, laughter and struggle resonate and the resolution or (lacktherof) is a recipe for enjoyable repeat viewing.Canada 2015 | 97 mins | Toronto International Film Festival | English