Mad to Be Normal (15)
Three stars
Dir: Robert Mullan
With: David Tennant, Elisabeth Moss
Runtime: 105 minutes
NO mention of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing is complete without the word “controversial” attached, and Robert Mullan’s biopic attempts to show why. Focussing on the Kingsley Hall years, in which Laing (played here by David Tennant with Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as his lover Angie) shunned medication for schizophrenic patients and experimented with drugs and “self-healing”, it is a partial, intermittently engaging account that reveals little that is not known and shrouds the rest in a fog of nicotine and swinging Sixties styling. More illuminating as a character study, with the ever-charismatic Tennant showing how Laing was able to dominate those around him so easily.
Previews GFT, March 24-30, panel discussion on March 26
The Salesman **** (12A)
Four stars
Dir: Asghar Farhadi
With: Taraneh Alidoosti, Shahab Hosseini
Runtime: 124 minutes
WINNER of the best foreign film Oscar – though director Asghar Farhadi boycotted the ceremony in protest at Donald Trump’s travel ban – The Salesman is a typically tense exploration of morality in modern Iran from the helmer of A Separation and About Elly.
Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini play a married couple appearing in an am-dram production of Arthur Miller’s classic whose move to a new flat brings them into contact with a hidden side of society – much to their distress. Not as tightly coiled as Farhadi’s previous films, but worth catching.
GFT and Edinburgh Filmhouse, March 24-30
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