Rio Cinema introduction:
The Rio Cinema is proud to welcome director Mathew Cullen and actor Jim Sturgess, who will be introducing a very special screening, plus director's Q&A with Empire Magazine Editor Chris Hewitt
London Fields is based on Martin Amis’ much-celebrated novel of the same name. Considered by many to be an unfilmable, mind-meddling masterwork along the lines of Naked Lunch or Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, the adaptation went through various permutations in preproduction for over a decade. Eventually, it entered production in 2013 with acclaimed commercial and music video director Mathew Cullen at the helm for his feature debut.
What happened in the five years between London Fields’ production and its unveiling has only been detailed in an article published by The Hollywood Reporter and in a podcast of The Director’s Cut. In short, two different groups within the film’s thirty-eight credited producers completed two different edits of the film behind Cullen’s back while Cullen used his personal finances to complete his own cut. Through some complicated legal loopholes, different producers’ cuts have been released internationally and both the final producers’ cut and Cullen’s cut were released domestically—though Cullen’s only had one confirmed theater screen it.
New York Times review:
In limbo for years because of a number of legal disputes, this laboriously bizarre picture is narrated by Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton, drained and dispirited), a dying, creatively stalled American writer who has swapped apartments with a celebrated British author (Jason Isaacs). Failing to even glancingly approximate the book’s trippy energy or linguistic dazzle, Cullen ricochets between Heard’s slow-motion, perfume-ad close-ups and lurid, comic-book noir. The result is alienating and bogus, as senseless as the image of Nicola’s floating, diaphanous panties. “I’m pretty worried that the critics are going to call you a male fantasy figure,” Samson frets. Done.
Jeanette Catsoulis
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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