Monthly Archives: September 2018

Arts, Films

Film Review: Puzzle (15)

REVIEW

Modest champion: Actress Kelly Macdonald in Puzzle

A FILM can sometimes be so quiet and uneventful, yet at the same time so full of tenderness and charm, that at the end you would stand up and applaud if such exhibitionism weren’t so utterly at odds with what you’ve just seen.

Instead you simply sit there, smile or maybe even dab with a finger at the corner of your eye. Puzzle is such a film. It stars Kelly Macdonald, the brilliant Scottish actress whose ability to play a sweet, uncomplaining example of what the Americans call homemakers was recognised years ago by the Coen brothers.

Her performance as Carla Jean, the meek loving, anxious wife of Josh Brolin’s ill-fated Llewelyn Moss in the Coens’ 2007 masterpiece No Country For Old Men was one of that great film’s many pleasures.

But in Puzzle, Macdonald’s exquisite performance as an unassuming, unassertive, devoutly Catholic homemaker is the principle pleasure; all the picture’s other virtues radiate from it. She plays Agnes, whom is both cherished by her blue-collar New England family and taken completely for granted.

At the start, someone is celebrating a birthday. Agnes carries a cake ceremoniously into the room, but in fact the birthday is hers. She has made the cake, bought the candles, lit them, and now she blows them out, a deeply reluctant object of attention.

Her principle purpose in life, other than to attend Bible classes, is to care for her husband Louie (David Denman), who runs a car-repair workshop, and their two teenage sons, Ziggy (Bubba Weiler) and Gabe (Austin Abrams). She sees it that way, and so do they.

At first, her domestic drudgery and its drab backdrop, even the clothes she wears, suggest a period piece, a story of small-town America perhaps set in the 1950s.

We only learn this is the present because one of Agnes’s gifts is a modern smartphone. She does not welcome it – “like carrying a little alien robot in your purse”, she says – but is delighted to receive a challenging 1,000-piece jigsaw, which she completes in no time, then breaks it up and does it again. It is a map of the world, an irony not lost on us, even if it is on her; Agnes is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, but could hardly be less worldly.

The short journey to New York counts as a daring adventure for Agnes. But she undertakes it, because only there, in a shop called Puzzle Mania, can she find more jigsaws like the one she has just completed.

She also finds an advert, “Champion Desperately Seeking Puzzle Partner”, and digging even deeper into reserves of boldness she didn’t know she had, answers it.

 

THIS leads her to a wealthy, lonely Robert, a man as urbane as she is provincial, played with quirky, beguiling charisma by Irrfan Khan. The unlikely duo start practising for a doubles competition in the National Jigsaw Puzzle Championships.

If they win, they will go on to the world championships in Belgium. They appear to have a chance, because Agnes has a genius for competitive puzzling that leaves even Robert agog.

But what this also means is that she must somehow explain to her husband why she’s no longer reliably at home every afternoon, preparing his dinner and darning his socks.

Certainly, a lesser drama would make him a demanding brute. But Louie is a decent cove who adores his wife, albeit preferably on his own terms. She is his puzzle, and maybe that’s the significance of the film’s title, because actually jigsaws are an irrelevance, though a delightfully wholesome one.

Agnes could have demonstrated a rare talent for juggling or mental arithmetic and the one-line synopsis would still be the same: a middle-aged woman seeing beyond the narrow horizons’ life seemed to have mapped out for her.

Moreover, as she grows in confidence, she begins to take charge of the relationships with the men in her life – Louie, her boys, even Robert. She learns how to be assertive with more than just jigsaw pieces.

Of course, this kind of personal growth is not exactly original cinematic territory – in fact, Puzzle is directly inspired by a 2009 Argentinian movie. But nothing about it feels derivative or predictable.

Marc Turtletaub, a first-time director, has made a terrific job of shaping the screenplay (by Oren Moverman and Polly Mann) into a sensitive and very moving film. Hats off to the whole production team for a very lovely film.

Verdict: Charming and captivating

★★★★★

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Biotechnology, Government, Health, Medical, Science, Society

Genomic medicine is being blocked by the NHS

NHS: GENOMIC MEDICINE

THIS MONTH the NHS will become the first health service in the world to offer whole genome sequencing to patients where clinically appropriate. Heralded by NHS leaders as “a new era of genomic health”, the goal is to use these data and new technologies to decode and treat previously intractable diseases, to move away from symptomatic treatments to cures and prevention.

The Prime Minister has said she wants the UK to lead the world in this new area of science – to continue a tradition of innovation in this country that will “extend horizons and transform lives”.

Theresa May’s ambition to lead the world in genomics and precision medicines is one that we should all want to support. Scientists and doctors know that pioneering precision medicines and their advances change lives, but they will also be aware of the challenges that must be overcome to realise its potential. This is not necessarily because the science is lacking, but because a fundamental shift in thinking is still needed by governments, regulators and policymakers in how they assess the value of this innovation.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an excellent example of this challenge. In 1989, when the cystic fibrosis gene was first identified, scientists did not know how mutations in the gene caused the condition. There was nothing to treat the underlying cause of the disease and people could only seek treatment for their symptoms.

After nearly 20 years of research and development by hundreds of scientists, and the design, synthesis and testing of more than 400,000 unique molecules, they have now done what was once thought impossible – discovered and brought to nearly half of all CF patients the first medicines to treat the underlying cause of this devastating disease. Today, multiple medicines approved by the EU and U.S. now exist, and there are more coming down the line. The ultimate goal is to cure CF once and for all.

For this remarkable cycle of innovation to be completed, Governments must now play their part, by providing patients with access to these medicines. Three years after approval of these medicines, this has still not happened because scientific innovation is outpacing the UK medicines evaluation system.

The evaluation criteria and processes used by the NHS and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) are currently preventing them from being made available to patients. Despite universal acceptance of the benefits that these medicines will bring, people in the UK have been waiting for access for more than 1,000 days, while thousands of people with CF in other countries in Europe and the US have been benefiting from them for years.

CF patients don’t really have the time to wait. Half of those with this cruel disease will die before they are 31. Science has delivered the breakthroughs, but the system is blocking access. The UK has the second largest number of CF patients in the world.

In 2016, the UK’s own chief medical officer recommended a fundamental shift in how new transformative medicines are developed and appraised for use in healthcare systems. The appraisal system in the UK needs to reflect that the genes and pathways underlying genetic diseases seldom respond to traditional pharmaceutical approaches, and so precision medicine requires risk-taking innovation.

The Life Sciences Industrial Strategy, a report made to the Government just last year, echoes many of these sentiments. It outlines the need for industry to take on bold, far-sighted ambitions in the life sciences with the intention of creating commercial success, underpinned by novel technology and higher-risk science. The strategy singles out a handful of successful biotech companies with highly innovative products. Yet, unlike in many other European countries, the NHS and NICE have not yet followed these recommendations and evolved their evaluation criteria for these types of transformative precision medicines.

The Government must surely need to act, not just for more than 10,000 people currently living with CF in the UK, but also for people suffering from many other kinds of genetic diseases.

Genomic medicine stands on the cusp of becoming an everyday reality. Those institutions at the cutting edge of gene therapy and gene editing need a system that is already thinking about the innovations of tomorrow. Such systems need to incentivise innovators to get medicines into the hands of patients as soon as possible.

Organisations involved in scientific advances will never give up on their ambition to cure serious diseases that today might still seem impossible to tackle. While they continue to deliver on the science, the UK Government must show its commitment to biomedical innovation if the genomic revolution is to be fully realised.

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Britain, Defence, Military, NATO, Russia, United States

Russia flexes its military muscles

VOSTOK-2018

RUSSIA is conducting a “worrying and alarming” build-up of military power in regions across the world.

As defence sources have warned that manoeuvres by Moscow should be regarded as a “threat to western democracy”, it has been increasing its submarine activity off British shores in a bid to gather intelligence.

And in recent weeks Russia has sent numerous warships and supply chains through the English Channel en route to the eastern Mediterranean. It is feared they are amassing ahead of an air assault on the rebel-held area of Idlib in Syria, which could risk the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians.

Despite the focus often put on Russia’s cyber-warfare capabilities, this week it will conduct its largest military exercise in 37 years, involving almost 300,000 troops, in a huge demonstration of force that is causing alarm in Whitehall. Moscow has boasted that the war games – which serve as a reminder to other nations that Russia maintains a huge conventional military arsenal – will involve 1,000 warplanes, helicopters and drones, up to 80 combat and logistics ships and around 36,000 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.

The exercises, called Vostok-2018, will be held in central and eastern Russia and will also include participants from the Mongolian and Chinese militaries.

The Kremlin says the drills are justified given the “aggressive and unfriendly” attitudes towards their country. Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said they will include “massive” mock airstrikes and tests of defences against cruise missiles.

A defence source in Britain said: “We are seeing an alarming amount of military power being brought to bear around the globe by Russia.

“We consider it a worrying build-up of conventional forces and arms. It can clearly be regarded as a threat to Western democracy. A miscalculation could very easily lead to an escalation.”

While NATO has beefed up defences in Eastern Europe, the Russians have been accused of undermining international efforts for an Afghan-led peace process by inviting the Taliban to Moscow for peace talks. And they have also been accused of indirectly arming the Taliban – something they have repeatedly denied.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has warned of the disruptive influence that the Russians were having on the peace process in Afghanistan. Mr Williamson says that we’re seeing a much greater interest from Russia in Afghanistan and Afghan affairs. There is ample evidence of Moscow meddling.

Mr Williamson said: “I would describe it as them wanting the NATO mission to fail. They do not want there to be seen to be the success of both the Afghan government and NATO. What it is very much designed to do is be a disruptor to other western nations which are trying to build stability in Afghanistan.”

The scale of the Vostok-2018 war games is equivalent to the forces deployed in one of the big Second World War battles. The exercises have been compared to Soviet manoeuvres in 1981, called Zapad-81, which involved simulated attacks on NATO.

President Vladimir Putin has made military modernisation, including new nuclear missiles, a priority.

The giant drill is an important show of strength by Putin, as a demonstration that – despite Western sanctions, including ones targeting his defence sector – his country remains defiant.

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