I first went off Robert Downey Jr when he started wearing tinted glasses indoors. Which is to say: it’s a long-term thing. I’m not a fan. I thought his vanity crippled last year’s The Judge. Life seemed to pass slowly yet loudly during his new one, Avengers: Age of Ultron. I’ve not much enjoyed his recent series of selfies from the publicity circuit.
But I feel differently since his most recent performance, in a video interview disseminated yesterday by Channel 4 news host Krishnan Guru-Murthy. It’s Downey Jr’s most restrained and sympathetic turn in years. Gone is the suffocating smugness. Even during the tense climax, he keeps things light, combining smiley walkout with stinging kicker: “It’s getting a little Diane Sawyer in here,” referencing the famously intrusive interviewer.
Why is it such a triumph? For the first time in ages, Downey Jr takes a supporting role. It’s the host who’s the flashier actor here. Guru-Murthy begins smoothly enough, neatly juggling news needs and promotional sop. He keeps it classy with questions about Tony Stark as a self-made superhero; is rewarded with a line about how he’s also an arms dealer.
Then he gets cocky. Guru-Murthy steps away from the movie – dangerous when you have eight minutes, an A-lister with a reputation and four bristling PRs in the room. Prepping the ground by lobbing in an insult (Downey Jr is told he’s becoming a better man) may not have helped.
As we enter the final reel, our hapless hero brings up an old interview about politics and prison. There’s a little crossfire. The temperature drops. And then, with two minutes to go, Guru-Murthy plunges headfirst into drugs, alcoholism and daddy issues. It’s kamikaze stuff: a radical attack that can only go one way.
Ordinarily, such crash-and-burn tactics might give you grudging respect for the reporter. What swings it for me is that Guru-Murthy later tweeted the whole thing, with lame pun (“A steely moment from Ironman”). This sort of walkout is not a result. It is, surely, a failure. To sell yourself as the journalist who so riles celebs they leave the room (2013 saw a similar Quentin Tarantino encounter) is to get the wrong end of the stick about what the story really is.
A Craggy dog story
On Wednesday, a collie caused mild havoc by taking control of a tractor on the M74. Traffic Scotland called it “the weirdest thing we have ever reported”. Serendipitous, though, for it coincided with the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Father Ted, and seems to act as poignant if inadvertent tribute. If ever there was a Ted-ish cutaway shot, it would be to Don the sheepdog, cruising down the dual carriageway while his distracted owner tends to a lamb. The whole thing was defused quite quickly (half an hour tops) and the farmer later testified: “Don was fine and did not bark during the incident.” Which again feels fitting.
Watching a documentary last week about the origins of that most lovely sitcom, I learned that Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews conceived of Father Dougal (Ardal O’Hanlon) as a sort of puppy, scampering at the feet of his exasperated master (Dermot Morgan’s Ted). It’s a template quite common in homegrown comedies: the frustrated middle-aged man both encouraged and unwittingly sabotaged by a younger, dumber sidekick. Think Basil and Manuel in Fawlty Towers, Rigsby and Alan in Rising Damp. But it’s less replicated over the pond, where sitcoms tend to be ensemble jobs. There, the stars are big beasts, pack leaders; the support just makes up the herd. Here, we’ve long been much more one-man-and-his-dog. Don’s motorway adventure shows Ted’s spirit animal lives on.
Abbreviation appreciation
Revisionist remakes of classic children’s films are all the rage at the moment, as studios seek to dust off properties for fresh audiences. Newly announced is a reimagining of Jack and the Beanstalk from Breaking Bad director Vince Gilligan titled, simply, Beanstalk. The milk-it-dry drive does not, generally speaking, fill me with joy, but that kind of abbreviation I quite like. Looking forward to Boots.
