Croupier
Rental and DVD rental
FilmFour Cert 15 ****
The most celebrated sleeper of recent years, Croupier was made in 1998, but this is its video debut. The film, whose word of mouth success caused a reappraisal after US enthusiasm, deserves its growing reputation. It's a thoroughly adult, twisty and laconic thriller with a taut, spare style, a gripping narrative and a sharply philosophical outlook. Director Mike Hodges' name is now so firmly wedded to that of Get Carter that its often overlooked that he's come up with a couple more crackers since in Pulp and Black Rainbow. The lead character is a writer who comments in voiceover. This is Clive Owen, in a cold-blooded, Caine-like, lizardy performance. Owen, the eponymous croupier, is required to wear a tux for his work and looks so at home in it that he's now on everyone's shortlist for the next James Bond. Owen leads a double life, working in a casino and writing a book about the lifestyle and gets tangled up with three women, girlfriend Gina McKee, casino punter Alex Kingston and fellow dealer Kate Hardie - three of our best British actresses. What transpires is dark, unsettling and gripping and left me a bit puzzled at the end, but also intrigued. It's written by Paul Mayersberg, who adapted The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Together
Rental and DVD (£19.99)
Metrodome Cert 15 ****
Show Me Love, Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodyson's first film to be shown abroad, was a sharp and funny dissection of smalltown boredom and the embarrassment of family life. The follow-up, Together, is another little gem. It's set in a 1975 commune that is experimenting with open relationships, the washing-up rota ("Washing-up is bourgeois"), and going gay as an alternative statement. When Goran's sister leaves her drunken husband and moves in with her children, the dynamic begins to change: a TV is bought "for the kids" and meat is introduced to the strictly vegetarian group after an infant placard protest: "We want meat". Moodyson has a gift for getting natural performances, especially from youngsters, and while Together is fondly funny, it never betrays its characters. There's loneliness and pain on show too, and the comedy comes from personality clashes and the difficulty of turning "individual oats into a giant porridge", as dedicated commune man Goran explains it.
