No. 86 (2021) ALI v AVA. Preview for British FF Perth W.A. OCT. 25th.

 

Film No. 86 (2021)  October 25th.  6:30 PM  PALACE Cinema 6,  Raine Square,  Perth City. 

"Do you feel how warm they are? Just focus on that, nothing else."(Ava places her hands over Ali's eyes, in an intimate moment, on a freezing cold afternoon ).

Realism, of the love-story variety, played out in trying circumstances under a bleak, wet backdrop can be an acquired taste in cinema. One has to believe in the characters as we step into the lives of relatively uncomplicated people living complicated lives. As we do this, of course, we need to like the leads.

ALI AND AVA works on all levels here. Ali (Adeel Akhtar) and Ava (Claire Rushbrook) spend more time committing to others than caring for their own emotional needs. Ali is in a loveless marriage to Runa (Ellora Torchia). They are good people and they hold no animosity towards one another. They will part ways eventually. The complication is Ali's pride, so when? He meets Ava, they connect through kids and humour. Could this be his wake-up call?

Ava is a single mum, an older mum with grown up kids and five grandchildren. Some still live under her roof. Ava has been hurt in love on multiple occasions. We are fed clues about her past but never enough to suffocate the key planks of the story. When she meets Ali (a persistent Ali) we know the eggshells we tread with them, both, have fragments of glass infused. Ali happened upon love, while Ava quietly craved something she may not be able to handle. 

Director Clio Barnard (DARK RIVER, THE SELFISH GIANT) is a serious film-maker. If Ken Loach could pass the baton to a successor then I'd be surprised if it wasn't Barnard. High praise maybe but if you have seen THE SELFISH GIANT I think you'd agree. For me, while Loach ostracises people because he is so unapologetically bleak, Barnard gives us hope with ALI AND AVA. Social class is not the important theme here, Ali and Ava gradually become handsome people in our eyes, with an issue of the heart to sort out. Our hope is, that they will sort it.  10GUMS.