Sometimes amazon prime delivers a free gem.

I haven’t watched anything significant for a few weeks. It seems every time I scroll through prime to find something to watch the offering is 90% chargeable and the remaining 10% B list titles no one watched when released. So I’ve invested in a DVD movie and have gone back to my back catalogue.

I struggle to get my head around a monthly subscription for Amazon and then being charged on top not just for new releases but old black and whites and repeats from the back catalogue.

That being said I found a brilliant Fatal Attraction like film starring Stanley Tucci and Kyra Sedgwick Submission and a brilliant performance from young actress Addison Timlin as student Angela Argo and a compelling performance from an unrecognisable Janeane Garofalo as a professor and colleague of Ted Swenson. He’s a professor stuck in a job for 10 years working with people he doesn’t connect with who is also a celebrated novelist, with writers block, being hassled by his editor for pages not yet written. As the story unfolds Ted begins to lose his mind after obsessing over Angela, an ambitious writer and student.

This movie tells the story enigmatically and superbly acted by leads and supporting cast of the lines between a semi-successful, middle-aged novelist/professor and his student being crossed: the film travels lines of deceit, intimacy and manipulation as Ted played by Tucci risks everything in a moment of madness in search of past success and reclaimed youth.

It’s a story anyone could relate to who has suffered or is enduring a midlife crisis. The allure of a young ambitious talent and the flattery that ambition cultivates for the cliche student teacher affair except this story is all about ambition and manipulation as Ted navigates his insecurities about his writing and his dissatisfaction in his job.

Tucci shows why he can move between the comedy of gay fashion editor Nigel Kipling in Devil Wears Prada, to the power and compassion of a character like Cardinal Lawrence in the drama of Conclave to Oscar nomination for his portrayal of sail killer George Harvey in Lovely Bones to attractive (I know, Hollywood did give him hair to play Ted Swenson) leading man in this movie Submission. Whilst not a Michael Douglas, Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, Jeff Bridges type he plays this role believably and to perfection.

Kyra Sedgwick is one of those actresses whose been in everything, so familiar and yet not playing her roles with commitment to her craft and she does this to perfection as Sherrie Swenson the long standing, funny second in command good wife to Ted. Never changing and seemingly never aging. She looks as good in this film as movies, Singles and Something to Talk about with Julia Roberts she made two decades earlier.

One of the best scenes in the film comes close to end where Ted is confronted by his brutal editor Len played absolutely magnificently by Peter Gallagher. It one of those memorable scenes where a character like Gallaghers can shape the whole movie and whilst his appearance on screen is extremely short less than five minutes his role in the film and the plot twist and ending is completely epic.

This flick written and directed by Richard Levine and based on the novel Blue Angel by Francine Prose. And well worth the watch. Get it while you can free on Amazon Prime, you better hurry up because if someone at Amazon reads this you’ll find it with a gold locket next to it in the blink of an eye.

I’ve been subscribing to a very funny movie podcast On cinema at the cinema where the hilarious Gregg Turkington plays guest to show host Tim Heidecker where alongside the funniest reviews of the latest releases he and co host Tim rate the films reviewed in Popcorn and Sodas. So as tribute and paying homage to them, I give this movie, 3 sodas and 3 popcorns.