-
A producer (Rachel McAdams) tries to revitalize a struggling morning-news program.
# -
Two men must stop an unmanned, runaway train before it crashes and spills its toxic cargo.
# -
A man must take a nerve-racking road trip with an aspiring actor to get home to his pregnant wife.
# -
A small-town gal (Christina Aguilera) with a big voice becomes a performer in a musical revue.
# -
A pharmaceutical salesman begins a relationship with a woman who has Parkinson’s disease.
# -
An evil genius must create a new opponent after he finally defeats his heroic nemesis.
# -
After his imprisoned wife becomes suicidal, a man (Russell Crowe) hatches a plan to break her out.
# -
Crowned with 70 feet of magical golden hair, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) strikes a deal with a charming thief (Zachary Levi) to spring her from her prison tower.
# -
Harry, Ron and Hermione set out to destroy the Horcruxes, the secrets to Voldemort’s power.
# -
An ex-con (Dwayne Johnson) begins a race against time to avenge his brother’s murder.
#
Original: Movies.com Top 10 Box Office
Having grown up in West Yorkshire in England myself, I was excited about seeing a film based there. The Arbor is set in Bradford West Yorkshire where the playwright Andrea Dunbar grew up; brought up her children and where she tragically died at the young age of 29. The setting is important as it is where Andrea drew her inspiration from and the destitute surroundings undoubtedly affected how her children turned out, most notably Lorainne, who became famous herself as a result of a personal tragedy that hit the headlines a few years ago.
The film is very original in style and and uses various techniques to tell the story of Andrea Dunbar and her family. It is partly documentary, and partly performances from actors. As the film starts, the audience are told “This is a true strory filmed with actors lip-syncing to the voices of the people whose story it tells.” This experimental technique might sound distracting, but since the actors are all relatively unknown, it’s actually not that obvious they are lip-syncing. The actors go about what we assume to be the daily routines of the characters they are playing. For example, there are a lot of scenes in kitchens whilst the actors are having cups of tea, or living rooms with the actors sat on couches. The actress lip-syncing to Lorraine is in a less domestic setting as her daily routine takes place in prison. This prepares the audiences for Lorraine’s story as they await to find out why she is in prison.
It is never revealed why Andrea did not move away from the problem stricken area of The Buttershaw Estate when she became successful. Although the plays didn’t exactly make her rich, it seems likely she could have afforded to move to a nicer area, and it begs the question ‘why didn’t she?’ I can only guess. Perhaps she needed the support of her family, or perhaps the close knit community institutionalizes the people that grow up there. There is definitely an almost claustrophobic sense of community to the area, and you get the impression that everyone knows everybody else’s business.
