The Look of Love

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).

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.

Charming, witty, intelligent. Had to have it all, but at what cost?

One is almost tempted to pronounce Paul Raymond's story as predictable. Rags to riches story, got corrupted and suffered the consequences. Yet there is something different about Paul Raymond, who came to London from Liverpool with nothing and reached the very top.

By different I don't mean just the fact that he was probably the first entrepreneur to acquire wealth almost exclusively from the "adult entertainment" industry but he founded it since his peak coincided with the beginning of secularisation of Britain and he introduced a very daring sort of entertainment in a highly puritanical society. Being spirited as he were, neither the criticisms or the bad press affected his stamina; he just marched on conquering bigger heights.

With the above in mind, it does not become too challenging to picture an audacious, notorious individual. Or so Steve Cogan aimed to have us believe. I could not envisage an actor better suited for the part. Ultra cool and a charmer, Steve Coogan was Paul Raymond. Mr Raymond was apparently so charming that his shared his extramarital bravados with his wife and for the 1950's (or so) this is spectacular.

The movie places us inside his life and we follow his ups and downs, although we soon become aware that he is a man in mourning. Perhaps a side effect of the poverty he came from, his no limits lifestyle and the way he indulged it to his beloved daughter obviously must have played a part.

It might go down as just another bio of a sale made man, but this film had an added dose of personality that undoubtedly mirrored its central character and the flamboyance he exhumed.

One of the better recent British films.

Steve Coogan was turned down for the lead in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, losing out to Geoffrey Rush, and I get the feeling this is his attempts to compensate. It is a biopic with a retro look, encompassing the same era and focused on an oft unsympathetic individual who goes on to neglect his wife and kids.

The problem is that Sellers was a man of a hundred faces while Paul Raymond seems to have none, he always came across as a deeply uncharismatic, grey little man so instead Coogan pastes his own TV persona onto him. It's not quite Partridge, but we've seen it before in 24 Hour Party People and in things like Tristram Shandy and The Trip, where Coogan plays an unflattering version of himself - sort of narcissistic, insecure, a bit sarcastic and witty, not without flair.

I didn't mind this in the Tony Wilson biopic, largely because that was played for laughs and also looked outwards to the whole Manchester music scene, but I did mind it here. We really have no clearer idea of Raymond's personality at the end of it - it maybe should have looked at the hangers on a bit more and the world of Soho generally. What's more, the pop music tends to date better than soft porn. For this to be a celebration of the Raymond Revue Bar, you'd have to contrast the buxom babes with the dour, pinched women of the era, starchy Margot Ledbetters and Margaret Thatchers, with hornrimmed spectacles and never a day in the gym. (Not saying the blokes looked much better back then to be fair. A quick look on Google Images reveals that the real Raymond was severely balding even by the mid 1960s, so must have sported a heavy hairpiece for his lothario years.)

Imogen Poots is poignant as his daughter, and they try to make out she's the same fit as newspaper proprietor Kane's wife, with similar ill-advised showbiz ambitions. Poots gets to sing the title track rather affectingly, the other song on a loop is Anyone Who Had a Heart, so maybe they were going to go with that title for the film at one point. But it's all very broadly written, and too much improvised it seems. Chris Addison impresses as one of the hangers- on, but I couldn't help thinking (due to his look in this) that we'd be better watching a history of Radio 1, with Addison as DLT and Coogan as the odious Jimmy Savile.

As for other stars, Stephen Fry plays a judge and is in this for less than a minute, David Walliams has a recurring cameo as a lecherous vicar, the sort of role that Terry Scott would have played, but is given no backstory or context to speak of, while Matt Lucas plays a stage character for all of 30 seconds. So don't be fooled by scrolling down the cast list, it's fairly slim pickings and at times it resembles those awful No Sex Please We're British movies of the day. You do get a fair bit of sex, with coke snorting atop many a bare breast, so it's not one to watch with the folks, but I can't say it's quite as erotic as I'd like, maybe because tastes have moved on since then.

I didn't know what to expect from The Look of Love. I like Steve Coogan so gave it a shot. In my opinion it's well worth a watch.

The film is a biopic about Paul Raymond played fantastically by Steve Coogan. For those unfamiliar, like I was before seeing TLOL, Paul Raymond was an entrepreneur who owned a lot of property and strip clubs in London and was at one point Britain's richest man. It's amazing how such a rich guy can go so unheard of, with people my age anyway, yet have such a big empire in London just years ago. S'pose they're not going to teach you about the strip clubs and nudey plays in second year history at school. It made for some really interesting watching.

And not because of the more or less constant boobs in case that's where your mind immediately went there. There is admittedly more graphic nudity in this film than I've ever seen in a film ever but because there is so much of it you kind of get used to it. The novelty of 'tee hee, boobies' fades away pretty quick to make way for a pretty fascinating life story.

My journalism lecturer always said there's nothing more interesting than writing about a famous person 'on the slide' out of fame and power and there's certainly a lot of 'sliding'here. He lives such an extravagant lifestyle with the drugs and ever changing woman you know it'll all catch up with him some day. The whole second half that looks at the unusual relationship between him and his spoilt daughter is pretty captivating. To give you a taste of what their relationship is like, there's a scene where Paul catches his daughter snorting coke. Instead of telling her off and getting angry he insists she mustn't just buy her drugs off the street and to only do the very best. It's a look into a life of excess and irresponsibility which makes for an intriguing watch.

There are a lot of British actors , mostly comedians, in the film.There's actually so many big British names it's almost distracting. There's Coogan obviously who naturally steals the show. But then there's cameos from Stephen Fry, Simon Bird, David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Dara O'Briain - the list goes on. All do a good job, even if some are only in it for a matter of seconds, but celebrities like Dara O'Briain don't really come across as fully fledged characters. It just takes you out the film for a few seconds and makes your brain announce 'oh look, it's him from Mock The Week'.

I don't like to talk about cinematography too much as I'm a complete novice but I could tell it's good here. Parts where they talk about Paul Raymond's men-only magazine feel like you're actually flicking through a 70s style dirty mag. The fashion of the time is very prominent with bright zig-zagging colours in his clubs and houses sucking you into the era nicely.

It might not be for everyone is a possible problem- 3 people walked out of our screen halfway through due to what I assume was it's increasing amount of graphic porn scenes. Similarly big action, life changing drama fans may feel a little underwhelmed. If you show a bit of interest and follow the relationship between Raymond and his daughter however you'll find this film to be a surprising little gem.