It was a classic year at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, which took place earlier this month. If there was any observable shift, it was the number of filmmakers who turned to smaller-scale dramas of human connection, with action, fantasy and, to some degree, politics less prominent than usual.
Even the big releases seemed to turn inwards. The opening night gala marked a break with precedent by not showcasing a major British release. Instead there was a screening of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third in the Benoit Blanc comedy detective series, hailed as a return to form after the rather grandiose Glass Onion.
The films that really excelled at this year’s festival succeeded in taking apparently small subjects and revealing the depths within. Blue Moon is set in the theatre bar on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the first collaboration between legendary partnership Rodgers and Hammerstein. Rodgers’ previous writing partner, Lorenz Hart, sits there drowning his sorrows, regaling fellow bar patrons with tales of showbiz glamour and trying to hold onto his fading hopes.
