Lost in London

Woody Harrelson’s Lost in London is an amiable, uneven comedy that deserves some affection without quite earning our admiration throughout. Filmed and broadcast live in a single take, it asks us to enjoy a bad night while appreciating how many things might go wrong in making it. That is a reasonable invitation, and the self-mockery is welcome. There are good laughs, especially in the celebrity quarrels, but long stretches need trimming.

As writer, director and star, Woody Harrelson gives himself plenty of opportunities to be foolish, and mostly resists asking for our sympathy afterwards. His version of celebrity is petty enough to make the self-satire worth pursuing, especially when Owen Wilson provides someone equally willing to quarrel. We laughed at their slanging match because the wounded pride is so much larger than anything worth defending. Both performers know how to make an argument sound important to the people having it and ridiculous to everyone listening.

Nigel Willoughby’s cinematography makes the continuous take workable without turning every passage into an invitation to applaud the camera. Keeping performances readable under that constraint is an achievement, and the film generally lets us attend to the actors. The difficulty comes when an exchange has given us its joke and still has time left to fill. At those points we start waiting for the next encounter instead of listening to the one in progress.

Sophie Becher’s production design gives the performers room without insisting that we admire their surroundings. In a film that cannot simply cut to a fresh angle, that restraint is useful: a conversation needs somewhere to happen and the camera needs somewhere to go. The music by Antony Genn and Martin Slattery makes less of an impression. It does little to rescue the slower passages, where the dialogue needs to supply the momentum.

The writing is the greater limitation. Woody Harrelson has found a good comic subject in his own embarrassment, but a succession of indignities needs to develop if it is going to sustain 103 minutes. Too often the film relies on recognition: we know the famous person, we understand the joke about being famous, and there is not enough beyond that. Character and story are squeezed by the need to keep the performance going, with the less amusing exchanges left longer than they can support.

The live broadcast explains some of the excitement around the film, but it should not become a permanent exemption from ordinary judgement. Background noise and small performance slips are easy to forgive; they suit an evening going badly and do little damage to the jokes. A scene that drags is another matter, because knowing how difficult it was to arrange does not make it funnier. A bad-night comedy needs mounting trouble, and this one too often settles for the next encounter.

There is enough warmth and comic timing here to reward an interest in celebrity farce, though the technique remains a distraction. Woody Harrelson is good company even when the writing is marking time. Go for the self-mockery and the exchanges with Owen Wilson, with some patience for the business of getting between them. A fondness for actors arguing about themselves will help.