Unsane In London

On Saturday L and I head down to London. This is for the inaugural London Landmarks Half Marathon, that I got into but L didn’t. There was doubt that we’d get here at all due to caring for poor old Doggo but with him sadly no longer with us it frees us up to do stuff like this again.

So a weekend of dog free debauchery awaits although we’ll probably both sit worrying about the little tyke. Daughter dog sits and seems thrilled at the prospect of a weekend with the Lad. I’m sure she will video their day and keep us updated.

Continuing our London tour we stay this time at the Holiday Inn in Victoria which is less than a mile from the start. After a restrained Saturday night around Victoria, we’re already for race day. Well I am, L is annoyed that Waterstone's Piccadilly doesn't open until 12 noon. Quite right too, they probably all want to watch the race.

The race sold out in minutes when it went live last year although half the 10,000 places were kept back for charities which is very mean on us runners (but not on the charities obviously). In fact the whole event is ran by a charity, Tommy’s, but it’s an opportunity to run the sights of London without doing the full London Marathon. If you can get in that of course and this race looks like it could become as hard to get into as it’s big brother.

After a very early breakfast due to the clocks going forward, we head to the start on Pall Mall. At the start there is a sea of yellow event t-shirts which were sent to us in advance along with a nice drawstring bag also in yellow. Obviously I’m not wearing mine and be warned that, if like me, you have a yellow t-shirt phobia the colour is unlikely to change in the future but as there is yellow event branding everywhere.

There is supposed to be a wave start but this doesn’t really happen. You are given a start time and at about that time you join a long funnel which takes you to the start but once you get to the front, off you go, so it was more of a rolling start. Which was fine but it would have been helpful if they’d told us because some people simply slammed their anchors on and refused to start before their allocated start time creating a bit of a log jam.

As I’ve said we only had one place between us, so my number has ‘X’ on it rather than my name. Just in case L had to step in if I was injured but I seem fine at the moment. Someone shouts out to me ‘Come on X-ey’. Not sure how to take that.

There are ‘historical’ mile markers on the course, pointing out what they say are London’s quirky and hidden secrets. These remain hidden to me as naturally I miss most of them. Also some of the areas are apparently themed but again I miss out on these because I am concentrating too much on my race. I do spot most of the landmarks on route, although you do have to crane your neck around the odd skyscraper at times to see them and the route was very winding. I assume to cut down on road closures but I didn’t mind this too much.

The finish line was just outside Downing Street where I was handed a medal by someone in fancy dress but I couldn’t for the life of me tell who they were supposed to be. L would have known. It’s a nice medal but, as I’m not a medal fan, I didn’t really look at too closely. Apparently it opens up like a locket, so I must get it out of the drawer sometime and have another look. The goodie bag wasn’t too bad, containing some food and a sweatband, in yellow of course, which I will use.

Apparently the overall winner beat his Dad into second place, now there’s a obscure pub quiz question for you. I complete the course, uninjured, in 1:47. Not bad on little training.

Now what to do afterwards. We had looked at seeing the ‘Book of Mormon’ but with the cheapest tickets at £96 each we go for the cinema instead. 

Unsane is a thriller come horror that was apparently all shot on an iPhone.

Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) is a young woman attempting to rebuild her life, having moved to a new city to escape a stalker. However, she is struggling with that rebuilding job, finding herself unable to form relationships and seemingly constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

She then inadvertently tips herself over the edge when at a counselling session she confesses that she sometimes has suicidal thoughts. The therapist promptly asks her to sign a document agree ing to more sessions but then, before the ink is dry, a man in a white coat leads her away to a locked room.

Unfortunately protesting that she’s been locked up by mistake just makes it look like she’s in denial. Then when she’s assaulted by another patient and fights back, it just reinforces the impression that she needs to be locked up and drugged up. Then when she gets side effects from the drugs, this is just another reason to keep her in.

With help from fellow inmate Nate Hoffman (Jay Pharoah), she manages to get word to her mother (Amy Irving) but she just comes up against the immoveable bureaucracy of the hospital. This all appears to be a dig at the American healthcare system, where hospitals can be paid handsomely through a patient’s private medical insurance.

Sawyer is convinced that one of the staff (Joshua Leonard) is her old stalker and who is therefore still stalking her. But do we believe her? Is Sawyer really sane or is she actually ill? The question of whether or not Sawyer is a reliable witness to her own sanity is the hook here.

Sadly the film then starts to go insane itself as it attempts to shovel something\anything into the large plot holes that have appeared. We can buy the incarceration idea for a while but by now basic logic says somebody would have got her out. The film therefore has to keep inventing twists why this isn’t the case and this just undermines the good story they had put together so far.

Luckily Foy’s performance keeps things watchable and the film is good but probably could have been a lot better. Nice idea, shame about the execution.

(Sunday 25th March) 

Sparrow School

Friday I am in London for work and then Saturday, L does Forest Rec Parkrun while I rest my legs and exercise the dogs. Although with just two weeks to go until the London Landmarks Half Marathon, I do desperately need a training run. So on Sunday the honour falls on the Fradley 10K. It’s ideal really, it’s quite local and easy to get to. It may be two loops but beggars can’t be choosers.

L has done it before. She says she remembers getting lettuce and a Florette face flannel in her goody bag. We’ll be hoping for something more useful this year then.

It goes relatively well. 46:06 isn’t great but it isn’t a disaster either. They have bacon sandwiches and the Lad has a great time.

In the evening we go see Red Sparrow, a spy thriller which has attracted a lot criticism. This allegedly perverse ‘15’ certificate film has been accused of being both violently and sexually perverse with woman beaten and raped seemingly at will by powerful men. 

Perhaps I need to re-watch it to see what I missed but I do remember they’d left out the hair brush scene (thankfully). That would have caused even more of a stir.

The story goes like this. Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) was a ballerina at the Bolshoi whose promising dancing career was ended by injury. Sadly her dancing also funded the care for her ailing mother.

Not to worry, her uncle Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts), who works in Russian intelligence, offers her work to help her get by. It is just a small favour he requires, for her to be the honey in a trap that is to be sprung on a Russian politician. She does the favour and does a rather good job, although it probably goes a little bit further than she would have hoped. Then just as the politician is having his way with her, he is murdered.

Unfortunately she’s now in a bit of a pickle because she’s seen too much. She is told she can either die or start working for Russian intelligence herself. Tough choice that.

So her uncle sends her off to Sparrow School where Matron (Charlotte Rampling) teaches the recruits to use the skills of sexual seduction to get what they want from the enemy.

Once graduated, Dominika is sent to Budapest to meet her target, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), who works for the CIA and knows the identity of a Russian mole known as Marble. However, Nash quickly sees through her and the long and short of it is that he persuades her to become a double agent.

I was a fan of the book even though it was at times convoluted and hard to follow, so a simplification was required for it to work as a film and that doesn't happen. In fact what we have here is an even more convoluted plot.

The other problem is where is the seduction? There’s a total lack of chemistry between the two agents. For someone supposedly trained in seduction, Dominika doesn’t pull any tricks out of the locker for him. In the book they have a conflicted relationship due to the nature of their jobs but a relationship nonetheless, here they eventually have a quick bonk. It's not quite the same and where was the swimming race? That was one of my favourite bits.

Instead the script seems to demand that all the Russians must be portrayed as ice men and ice maidens. So Lawrence goes through the entire film wearing only one expression, one of indifference, while Edgerton goes about attempting to be the all American hero.

In fact Lawrence seems hugely miscast in this but then so too are the likes of Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson and Ciaran Hinds. Were there no genuine Russian actors available the weekend that they did the casting?

There is also no back story to the Russian mole which was pivotal to the original story, instead the film just seems overloaded with violence. It’s all deeply disappointing.

This would have made a wonderful independent flick or even a mini series but Hollywood completely wrecked this one.

(Sunday 11^th March)

A Shambolic Process

On the bike today and slightly damp as it rains on me for the first time in a while.

We have one entry into the new London Landmarks Half Marathon which was a shambolic process but I think these races like it this way as it gets them talked about. In the end preregistering was pointless, as entries were open to anyone whether they’d preregistered or not, and you could only do one entry at a time. It was easy enough to get myself a place but by the time I’d done that and started over again entering L’s details the race was full. So the internet is now awash with people who are in but their partner isn’t. Like us.

The website also said it would hold your place for 15 minutes once you were on, to give you time to enter you details but this turned out to be untrue. Cue meltdown on Facebook.

There were actually only half of the 10000 places available, the rest are now being offered as charity places and cost about eight times the standard place. If the race was a concert, this would be referred to ticket touting.

Squash tonight, to which L walks with MD. Then afterwards we do two pubs in a night as we go to both the Navigation and the Dispensary at the request of my (usually non drinking) opponent.

(Thursday 20^th April)