La mirada del amor

Finally caught up with this film and felt that it began very strongly, beautifully evoking those early Paul Raymond days as he dragged Soho and indeed Britain out of the drab post war 50s and into what would become known as the 'swing sixties'. Steve Coogan is excellent but after abut twenty or thirty minutes and we have seen the early shows recreated and the neon light red light district come alive we are drawn further into the private life of the man. This is interesting enough, at first, but the real story here is what Raymond did in terms of liberating us inhibited Brits and in building his property and sex empire. In the end this degenerates into simply one more line of coke. We are also asked to become involved in the tragedy of the life of his daughter but we don't care. The weak script has not allowed for the necessary empathy to develop and we are left to watch despairingly as all comes depressingly undone.

Paul Raymond was fascinating figure, being the richest man in Britain, making his fortune from exclusive men's clubs, publishing softcore pornography and having a massive property portfolio. He based his reputation on controversy, using notoriety to get more attention which results with him getting more sells. But he had a troubled relationship with the women of his life, his wife, his lover and his daughter.

Steve Coogan plays Raymond, a Liverpoolian lad who starred out as entertainer but quickly moved to working behind the scenes and starring to run exclusive men's clubs with his wife Jean (Anna Friel). During his rise he makes a fortune, stretching the bounds of public decency when he moves to theatre and publishing. During his rise he forms a relationship with Amber (Tamsin Egerton) who becomes Fiona Richmond, a famous British sex symbol, leading to him having the largest divorce settlement in British legal history and stay close with his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots) who he sees has his heir apparent but has a massive drug addiction.

As the subject for a bio-pic Paul Raymond for both his business achievements and his personal life: but The Look of Love stretches itself too thin, not knowing where to focus and therefore making for a shallow experience. The Look of Love was a film that tried to fit too much and we end up getting scenes and elements of Raymond's live going by too fast or come out of nowhere, such as Raymond meeting his illegitimate son. It felt like the film was gutted in the editing room with how it only briefly on many different aspects such as the controversies, his rise in business and a sex scandal just to name a few.

The Look of Love was written by Matt Greenhalgh who has written two excellent bio-pics, Control and Nowhere Boy. The strength of those films are they were both were very focused on a specific area of their character's lives, John Lennon and his relationship with his mother and Ian Curtis' epilepsy and depression. The Look of Love has a different approach of looking at a much larger time period and look at many different aspects of Raymond's life. It can be argued that the films main focus is on his relationships with women and by the end the main focus is his relationship with his daughter.

Despite The Look of Love has a comedy cast the film is a very serious tone and performances. Coogan does give a very good dramatic performance and it good to see him taking different roles. He does have some witty lines but on the whole it was a serious role. It was actually surprising that the audience laughed during a scene which was very serious when Raymond ends up having to make a line of cocaine for his daughter when she was giving birth. Egerton, Poots , Friel and Chris Addison too were solid in their roles, but Davad Williams' role was extremely minor that it felt pointless to the point where his role seemed like it was mostly cut and people like Stephen Fry and Dara O Briain were camoes.

Director Michael Winterbottom does inject a lot of period detail to the film and there are some stylist moments when he does montages. There is a different look to each period, the 50/60s being shot in the black and white, his rise in the 70s being quite bright and need the end having more gritty cinematography. But like his previous film that I saw, Trinsha, it has a paradox of feeling both too short and too long for both skipping over elements and yet having a slow pace. One moment I enjoyed was a quick 30 second scene done in one take as Jean confronts Amber/Fiona with the camera following her.

On the whole The Look of Look is a very well acted film which is its greatest strength, but does not know where to turn which part of its subject matter it should examine.

Michael Winterbottom is reunited with Steve Coogan in this watchable tale of one time richest man in Britain, porn and property entrepreneur Paul Raymond. Winterbottom elects to tell the story through the eyes of Raymond as he watches a video tape of a documentary he made with his daughter.

Coogan puts in a well rounded performance playing Raymond (it would have been easy to make the character either too likable, too bolshy or too obnoxious, credit to Coogan for getting the balance just right) from his early days when he first opened a members only strip club in SoHo to his later years after the death of his daughter Debbie - Imogen Poots. Raymond dotes on her and its their relationship which is central to the storytelling. He is portrayed as more or less disowning his other children; an uncomfortable scene to view is the visit and dinner he shares with his son from an early relationship. Anna Friel is superb as his first wife and mother of their three children Jean, who tolerates Raymond's countless affairs/one night stands. He explains at one point that its only natural for him to be having sex with all the beautiful women who work for him, else what sort of a man would he be. To throw a spanner in the works along comes Amber -Tamsin Egerton with whom Raymond falls in love with and leaves Jean for after she auditions for him. We follow Raymond and Amber as their relationship develops, no need this time for illicit liaisons for Raymond as Amber is partial to a bit of three in a bed. At this time Raymond takes the advice of and employs Tony Power to launch the naughty magazine (and extremely lucrative) side of his business. Power a playboy type coke addict is played; in a great piece of casting by stand up comic and panel show regular Chris Addison. Look out for bit parts from other Brit comedy stars including David Williams as a vicar.

This is a well scripted, acted and directed film as you'd expect from Winterbottom, which left me wanting to know more about Raymond. It moves along at a good pace and manages to offer both light and shade within the plot, as well as evoking the various decades featured with fine detail. Well worth the entry fee and bus fare.

Another reviewer stated, that this is not as engaging as other Steve Coogan and Winterbottom collaborations. I won't comment on that, but try not to think in those categories if you can, because your movie viewing experience will suffer. You shouldn't compare previous works with the newer ones. In this case, Steve Coogan makes an otherwise not very likable character at least interesting. And that is sufficient enough to carry the movie through.

At least in my book. Steve Coogan had obviously fun playing this character and it is showing on the screen. Of course there are some usual clichés you get thrown at you, but it's almost impossible making a movie of this size, that is at least a bit commercial, without stepping into them. If you don't mind too much, you will get an entertaining enough movie to pass the time.

If the real "Paul Raymond" was half as charming as Steve Coogan in this, than you understand his charm. You also should be aware, that there is a lot of nudity (not really a big surprise considering the theme of the movie).

this is a movie filled up with event and facts but no characters, no detail on characters' world, they are acting on the surface, the script is the problem, it should be worked into textures and layers of these colourful characters rather than just covered them with events and what's happen,

they could edit some scenes out which director just show what's happen but not take them further to a better storytelling; stories happened to build the characters so we viewers can sympathize with them. You don't feel for any of the characters here. it's such a shame. this movie has no angle to this special group of people.....

All the emotion is not quite there, never gets to the point and ends at the surfaces. the film wasted these casting since they can do more than what's in the film. We all know how well they can act for such a colourful Raymond's world.