A Most Violent Year, (2014) Film, written and directed by J. C. Chandor, 8* out of 10

Brilliantly written and competently directed by J. C. Chandor, A Most Violent Year is an understated business drama playing in a mob-like world of gritty family businesses with few holds barred in the melting pot of the streets of New York. Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain and Albert Brooks are given particularly interesting roles and reward their screenwriter/director with outstanding performances.

It is 1981. Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is an immigrant from Columbia who has made good in the competitive mafia-ish heating fuel business in New York. In the process has married Anna (Jessica Chastain), the bosses daughter and taken over the business. Now he is about to make a major move risking his financial and social capital to lift the business to a new level. The last thing he needs is trouble, but the not so cosy semi-cartel of competitors is unhappy with this slightly less corruptible member of their clan, who doesn’t quite want to belong. And the ambitious New York City district attorney (David Oyelowo) smells blood in the water, an opportunity for pouncing on Abel’s business at this delicate moment of vulnerability. Luckily Abel can rely on his tough, street-wise loyal wife and his calm and wise chief financial officer (Albert Brooks)– or can he?

Brilliantly written and competently directed by J. C. Chandor, A Most Violent Year is an understated business drama playing in a mob-like world of gritty family businesses with few holds barred in the melting pot of the streets of New York. Here petty crime is part of doing business and can too easily escalate into something more sinister. Chandor marvellously captures time (1980s) and New York/New Jersey and milieu, the mob-ish heating fuel business. As the great defender of the market-economics Adam Smith already warned, businesses will always have a tendency to circumvent the forces of competition by semi-illegally erecting barriers and agreeing territories and prices. The consumer loses out. So for the market mechanism to work the State has to enforce it; but to function the State needs to collect taxes and resist the gravitational forces of corruption. This leads to a clash of interests playing out dangerously across the varying moral codes of the different stakeholders. 

Strong acting performances throughout, but Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain and Albert Brooks are given particularly interesting roles and reward their screenwriter/director with outstanding performances. Thoroughly satisfying business-drama/thriller with less mindless violence than the title suggests.

Deluge, Play by Fiona Doyle, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 7.5* out of 10

This production of Fiona Doyle's play is based around designer Moi Tran’s inventive set, in which flood water plays a central and effective role in conjuring up a dark and dystopian Irish countryside. 

Incessant rain falls on the Irish countryside, where Joe (Edward Macliam) and his wife Kitty (Elaine Cassidy) are running a farm helped by their farmhand Flan (Gary Lilburn). Partly due to the generosity of Joe’s father the farm has fallen into debt. So it is not only imperative to stem the floods but also to keep the sinister loan sharks at bay. Against this backdrop, the news that Kitty is pregnant may perhaps herald an optimistic future, but to Joe it feels more like a further turn of the screw increasing the escalating difficulties weighing on their enterprise. Add to that the constant threat from thieves who have their eye on the stocks of vital animal fodder and the enormous emotional pressure soon brings them close to reaching breaking point.

Fiona Doyle, award winning full time playwrights since 2012, has written a dark dystopian tale of not very jolly Irish country folk. The production at the Hampstead Theatre downstairs is , which is both gloomy and threatening and gives director Anna Ledwich and the competent acting ensemble quite a bit to work with. And they work with it well, with the water eerily slowing down the protagonists' movements. Of the competent cast, Elaine Cassidy performance stands out. Through no fault of the actor concerned, the use of a single actor for two roles was less successful; investing in two actors, one for Joe and one for pub landlord would have been better.

The story is solid and the dialogues well written, as one would expect from a talented writer. Warm applause ended a satisfying evening of entertaining, quality theatre as one has come to expect from the “Hampstead Downstairs”. I’ll be back.

http://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2015/deluge/