Christopher and His Kind (2011)

I saw this made-for-TV BBC film when it first came out in DVD, but this is the first time I’ve seen it since reading the memoir on which it’s based.  While my newfound knowledge of and love for the book definitely colors my opinion of the movie, I’ll try and keep this review as film-based as possible and save the comparisons for another post.

Like the book, the film presents Christopher Isherwood’s time in pre-war Berlin, where he meets the people who would inspire the characters in The Berlin Stories.  His official reason for going to Berlin is just that:  a change of scene in which to write.  Unofficially, though, his real aim is to fall in love with beautiful German boys.  Similar to Cliff/Brian in Cabaret (depending on if you’re talking about the stage or screen version,) he savors the party in Berlin while he can, until the looming specter of the coming war is too stark to ignore.

As far as the plot goes, the movie feels a bit stitched together.  Scenes are sometimes placed alongside each other rather than strictly seeming to lead into one another, although, based on the source material, it’s an understandable fault.  I really can’t think of a single Isherwood book I’ve loved for its riveting, tightly-drawn plot.  No – the beauty of Isherwood is the extraordinary life he breathes into his fascinatingly-specific characters, and that’s particularly true in this film, which presents the real people he fashioned into characters.  To that extent, it doesn’t really matter what’s happening onscreen, as long as Gerald Hamilton, Jean Ross, and Christopher himself, are part of it.

Which of course means that the acting is vital.  Can the performances make these people as vibrant as they are on the page?  As Christopher, Matt Smith is superb:  intellectual, naively unaccustomed to life in Germany, somewhat snobbish, ironic, a bit bitchy, and wonderfully earnest in love.  He’s somehow aloof and warm at the same time, and it’s clear why people would be drawn to him.  I always like seeing Toby Jones (the Dream Lord from series 5 of Who,) and his Gerald (a.k.a. Mr. Norris) is very well-realized.  He has Gerald’s affectations and vanity down to a tee.  And I can’t sing the praises of Imogen Poots (also excellent in Miss Austen Regrets, another fine British telly biopic) highly enough.  Her Jean is undeniably the best Sally Bowles I’ve ever seen.  She’s simultaneously brash and brazen and vulnerable, and the way she sings is perfect:  just shy of in-tune, and lackadaisically, like she’s doing you a favor by letting you watch her.

Because this is a BBC production, there are plenty of other familiar faces.  As Christopher’s mother, Lindsay Duncan steals every scene she’s in, Pip Carter (who previously worked with Matt Smith in Party Animals) plays W.H. Auden, Christopher’s boyfriend Heinz is played by Douglas Booth (recently Pip in a Masterpiece production of Great Expectations,) and who’s that playing Heinz’s brother, who’s being drawn in by the Nazi’s promises?  None other than Tom Wlaschiha, Jaqen frickin’ H’ghar from Game of Thrones.

Warnings

A fair amount of sexual content (including sex scenes, flashes of nudity, and a brief depiction of BDSM,) some language, drinking, smoking, and thematic elements.