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.

Stephen Polliakoff's films are always interesting, even when they're not actually very good, because Polliakoff himself is interested in things that few other contemporary writers and directors are: time (he likes to tell his stories slowly) and space (they unwind in beautiful and unusual places). Unfortuantly, the specific content is often less interesting than the way that he explores it: the world he paints is aesthetically delightful, but sometimes doesn't resemble the real world very closely; 'Friends and Crocodiles', for example, is not his only film about a rich man surrounding himself with eccentric friends, in a way that seems more necessary for the purpose of the drama, than it does plausible. And this particular film is also let down by some clunky expositional dialogue (for example, when the heroine gets a new job, someone feels the need to explain that her new firm is "one of the country's largest companies"), a paper-thin satire of modern business practices, and the lack of chemistry between her character and her millionaire patron. Alan Rickman, who played a similar millionaire in his earlier film "Close My Eyes", had the charisma to pull the role off; Damian Lewis, by contrast, is flat in this movie. One weakness of both stories in the Polliakoff's tendency to centre his dramas on false (or at least, irrelevant) dichotomies, particularly that between new technology and aristocratic artifacts; but both his worlds are unreal, gorgeous and belong to the moneyed elite; I find it hard to draw any meaningful lessons from their pseudo-conflict. I suppose you don't watch Polliakoff for pure social realism, rather for the imagery as striking as shafts of light. But light has to illuminate something: in this film, it's not that clear what that something is supposed to be.

While looking and feeling like big production TV from the BBC the central question marks are really the pivot points of Friends and Crocodiles.Set initially in the a multi-millionaire's world of bizarre parties and meaningless hedonism it is a timeless journey into one man and one woman's counterbalancing act. He wild. She composed. He unorganized. She overly so etc;The Eighties in Britain were a time of an implosion of time and security, and rapidly followed by immense greed. On the flip-side of this was a vast sub-culture spawned by the rejection or denial of access to the success of Thatcherite policies.But this is not a film about politics, or even economics, and it has a strong surreal edge to it - it is definitely worth viewing for the juxtaposition between the work ethic - protestant, bourgeois, uptight - and the new entrepreneur - free-wheeling, charismatic, and mesmerizing.Largely successful Poliakoff writes a great visual script and directs in sweeping tranches of panoramic vistas - this is largely a film based on ken Russell's sensibilities of what make film work - it is bold, and fun, but for my taste at the end of the day - a bit like the Eighties themselves - had loads of style but the substance is obscure...It works best in the unreal world of parties and we thought it fell apart when the parties ended. Brilliant first half. Weaker second.The rise and fall and redemption are too commonplace - here the acting should have had power rather than a footnote to the parties - and we were left wondering if,like the Eighties, it was all a bad hangover and a fitful night.

I watched this movie as it was aired on Dutch television and was intrigued from the beginning.The movie starts off at a place that makes me hum "garden party" from Marillion, and is set beautifully. Then, she-bang, the reality of hard life kicks in and we see the formerly millionaire (Paul) been given a job out of pity by his former employee (Lizzie). Obviously, we are suddenly several years ahead ?!?? a few more of such jumps and we see Lizzie being in the board of management but seemingly without an actual vote. Her being the only woman there must account for that, I guess. Finally the dot-com bubble bursts and Paul is once again wealthy and Lizzie is not.I liked the believable acting, the beautiful shots and the insight in 20+ years of Brit-life. The downside is that the characters don't seem to develop, and that the plot is not really believable. Overall though, this movie is one of the better movies I've seen this year.