Friends & Crocodiles

2005
6.7| 1h49m| en
Details

Paul Reynolds is a Gatsby-like figure: owner of a magnificent house, the host of great parties, and a collector of interesting people. He persuades Lizzie Thomas, a secretary at a local estate agent's, to come and work for him as his assistant, to bring some order to his chaos. He inspires her with his enthusiasm and imagination, and frustrates her with his apparent carelessness and destructiveness, which culminates in her calling the police as one of his parties is attacked by local troublemakers, seemingly with his tacit approval. But their paths are destined to cross again and again as Lizzie, with the help of some of the people that she met at Paul's house, rises through the changing landscape of corporate Britain. This is the tale of a meaningful and powerful relationship that isn't a love story; it's about those rare people who profoundly influence and shape our lives.

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Reviews

Console best movie i've ever seen.
Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
jpclifford I saw this "picture" (you look like a picture) and experienced it as horror or must I say "ghast"? I wrote to the BBC that there seems nothing more fascinating then to witness insanity. I never got an answer. The problem is: Why must this kind of amusement be made public? Is it disdain? Regards.
inframan This film starts off with a great flourish, with Damian Lewis doing a perfectly tuned & on-target portrayal of a calm cool feral madman entrepreneur of the 1960s or 1970s, Paul Reynolds, surrounded by a collection of pretentious sycophants whose archetypes range back to the early Roman era. They party & posture amid Paul's palatial estate when Lizzie strolls in. Straight & serious Lizzie, for whom Paul develops an inexplicable attraction that ultimately leads to his & the film's doom. Lizzie, fresh from secretarial school, is hired by Paul as his personal assistant, although she never displays any sign of business or political aptitude. Given the task of organizing Paul's large collection of notes & papers into some kind of accessibility, she proudly shows him her accomplishment: everything's been prettily packaged & shelved in four color groups of boxes, no labels in sight, apparently interpreting her duties to be interior decoration.As played by Jodhi May, Lizzie splits her emotive energies between the coy tilted head smirks teenage girls give dad when they want $80 for new jeans and hysterical outbursts that make you wonder if this takes place in an alternate universe without the benefits of psychotherapy.There are other problems in placing this film in a known universe, although it tries hard to represent specific points in time. Early on, Paul dreamily says to Lizzie, "Computers, you should get into computers, that's where the future is. Women used to prevail in the field of computers but now the the guys are taking over." Oh yeah? The film becomes increasingly choppy & episodic as it proceeds. I began to feel as though I were watching a version of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead" (sans Shakespeare or Stoppard) as done by Ed Wood, i.e. all the real action taking place in another universe. Vague generalizations substitute for plot movement, grand statements about corporations being hippos & the future of business being in telecommunications & the internet, not vacuum cleaners. Unh hunh. No mention of laptops or cell phones. Too bad. The first 20 minutes on Paul's estate & the ideas driving Friends & Crocodiles had a lot of promise. Great title, too. But the title's explanation, like the rest of the movie, are a terrible letdown.
kayleeser Being one of Thatcher's children myself, whose working life began with the start of her premiership, I found this a fascinatingly photogenic look at this era. I don't remember the time as quite so pretty, but I do remember the disparity between the rich and the poor, which I think is part of the intention here. I enjoyed the acting, but at the beginning found Paul too annoying and unsympathetic as a character, but I warmed to him by the end, especially as Damian Lewis portrays his hippy phase beautifully. Jodhi May was also excellent. I recognised the big company ethos; consultants, dot-com boom, out with the old and thought that was very legitimate- think Marconi, fellow Brits- living down the road from its Head Office I did rather cringe as the big beast was destroyed. All in all I feel this was a rewarding piece to watch and definitely worthy of further study, so have bought the DVD!
conniea1-1 I enjoyed Friends and Crocodiles and strongly suggest viewing it more than once. More nuances are then perceptible which fleshes out the story line that otherwise is convoluted and can be confusing. Both Paul and Lizzie demonstrate an extreme level of self control, although each of a different nature and each exhibited in vastly different ways. Lewis and May are exceptionally well suited for those two roles and do an excellent job of keeping the viewer focused on their personalities and the theme, rather than have attention wander off on other characters or subplots. The interplay between the two of them can easily be viewed as signifying human interaction in areas other than the business world.