TIFF 2015: LONDON FIELDS Review

Amber Heard certainly seems to have an affinity for playing the film noir types who elicit little more reaction than the understanding that she is little more than a pure representation of the male fantasy. Heard has done this for years whether it be in Drive Angry or Machete Kills, but in London Fields we are operating in a film that is actively trying to become a member of the noir genre rather than riffing on it. In London Fields, Heard plays a character who is clairvoyant and a total femme fatale named Nicola Six. Seriously. All of that is true. Nicola is a seductress by way of having lost her parents at a young age and making up imaginary friends that automatically tells us she is tormented and taking it out on every man she encounters with her natural gifts from God. She enjoys playing this role to large effect with her many worshipers. Nicola's exploits are made all the more heightened by the arrival of Billy Bob Thornton's writer in a London that is on the brink of nuclear war. Thornton's Samson Young is looking to write a new novel when he stumbles upon Heard's Nicola who just so happens to live in the same building he's staying in. It always feels like a risk including a writer in your film as it easily sets one up for more direct criticism than the film might receive otherwise, but while London Fields recognizes this possibility and even addresses it to a certain extent the somewhat interesting ideas at play here are still not able to convey themselves as a good movie. At all. In fact, this is pretty terrible all-around.