A Man's Story (15)

Starring: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson

Snippets from 12 years in the life of the fashion designer Ozwald Boateng are captured on screen. The film begins in very messy fashion with Boateng on the verge of bankruptcy and divorce in 1998. Director Varon Bonicos follows him as he attempts to crack America and as he organises a fashion show in Ghana.

There's a random quality to the way that A Man's Story is structured. Nagging questions that a more conventional documentary would have addressed are left unanswered. The film's strength is that it always gives us the sense that we are in the middle of the action, even when we can't quite work out what is going on. If the electricity goes out, Boateng's collection is stolen, his wife's lover is on the other end of the mobile phone, or he's off to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, Bonicos is always there. Boateng is an appealing subject: spiky, egotistical, not very good at managing the work/life balance but charismatic and with immense drive.