St. Elmos Fire (1985): review: 6.5/10

"The passion burns deep"

Film depicting the transitions made by members of a group of young adults following college as they attempt to settle into their careers and consolidate their romantic lives.

The film features an appalling display of 80s styles, with the women especially ill served  by mullet hair dos and Lady Di blouses. What were they thinking?!

It is mainly entertaining, it's complex plot is very skillfully directed and it probably smuggles in some good sense about relationships, maturity, and care primarily through the aegis of the dowdy, good hearted virgin, Wendy Beamish. But the film is perhaps too squeakilly, preppishly eighties American  to succeed fully today.

Happy Tears (2009): review: 8/10

A woman returns from San Francisco to Philadelphia, to her father's house. There she helps her sister take care of their aging, occasionally bilious father.

This is a melancholy film depicting, in an episodic and occasionally surreal style, the world from a female perspective. It deals specifically with the heroine's desire for a commited relationship, her relationship with her sister and absentee lover, and her father and his chequered past.

Both filming and acting are elegant...perhaps even too elegant?