Considering that most new films are released on a Friday, it seems like a perfect time to think about movies: our new series Film Friday will gather reviews, interviews and general features about some of the most interesting upcoming films. This week: a review of I Give It a Year, which is released on 8th February.

For most of its running time, I Give It a Year gives the impression of being a romantic comedy. The directorial debut of Borat co-creator Dan Mazer, the film follows Nat (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Rafe Spall), an attractive, youngish couple who have rushed into marriage. As they get to know each other and attempt to dispel the misgivings of their quirky friends, co-workers and relations, their lives are complicated by the introduction of potential love interests – an ex-girlfriend and a dashing new work colleague.

There’s little that appears to be uncommon or noteworthy about this scenario, and yet by its conclusion I Give It a Year proves itself to be surprisingly subversive. The film traces the same pattern as other romantic comedies, but its pessimistic nature means that during a few key moments it zags where similar films would zig.

In part, the film’s iconoclasm is a result of its scepticism, which refuses to relent at any point. Negativity in comedy isn’t unusual, but I Give It a Year stands out by never abandoning its uncompromising view of its characters and relationships in general. Where its contemporaries suffer whiplash as they ditch bitterness for a formulaic, heart-warming finale, I Give It a Year is marinated in cynicism, avoiding cheap sentiment throughout.

There’s an admirable, if bracing purity to the approach. Nat and Josh come across like real people, in that while they’re funny and capable of warmth, they’re also frequently unlikeable, making poor decisions out of insecurity, selfishness or spite.

Mazer avoids the temptation to make his leads blandly good or comically horrible, or to give them an unconvincing third-act redemption, but he also has little interest in finding the humanity in their imperfection and fumbling. You shouldn’t have to root for the characters to stay together for a year, but you should at least care about what happens to them.

Occasionally the suspicion arises that Mazer doesn’t like his characters at all, which makes them difficult to empathise with. This is especially true with the supporting cast, where many of the roles – while comically excellent – are one-note and mean-spirited: Stephen Merchant is reduced once again to repeating his Darren Lamb character from Extras, and Minnie Driver is stuck with a thankless role as Nat’s bitter, joyless sister.

I Give It a Year has interesting points to make about modern relationships and the pressures incompatible people feel to make them work, but its argument is sometimes obscured by coldness. While it’s refreshing to find a film so unwilling to bend to formula, its cynicism is ultimately dispiriting, despite it being very funny throughout. Mazer should be commended for some of the bold choices he makes, but he might have been able to retain them without the aftertaste.

This weekend, artist Suzanne Lacy takes the stage at Tate Modern Tanks alongside hundreds of women over sixty.

Called Silver Action, the gathering is a chance for female participants of influential protests from the 20th Century to tell their stories of direct action and demonstration. The Ford sewing machinists strike (1968), which led to the Equal Pay Act 1970; the Miss World demonstration (1970) and Greenham Common women’s peace camp campaign for nuclear disarmament (1980s): these are just some of the protests that the women were involved in, and that they’ll recall on Sunday with Lacy. It's an unscripted show, and set to be an incredible portrait of the fight for social equality.

Read more on Suzanne Lacy's art practice, which is engaged in issues of gender equality and the experiences of older women, on her website. Silver Action takes place on 3rd February. Find more on the Tate website.

Photos: News 1987 (at top). Silver Action (bottom) © Suzanne Lacy

For our reader photo this week, here's Oh Comely issue 11 pictured next to freshly-picked chamomile. The lovely picture is from Chelsea Fuss, a stylist and blogger based in Portland, Oregon. Her blog is called Frolic! and she features lots of small and sweet ideas, like how to embroider foxes onto a plain top or where to find vintage lace-up boots.

If you have pictures of Oh Comely at home, we'd love to share them here! Send your snaps to [email protected].

Good news for fans of the fading art of analogue photography, as the instant film instigators behind The Impossible Project have released a new book called 101 Ways. Guiding its reader across a 287-page Polaroid odyssey, the book presents 101 ideas on how to use, transform and present analogue instant photos.

Dedicated to people who love handmade things, 101 Ways is a beautiful example of photography and craft going hand in hand. From sublime images to unusual techniques, every photo promises to whet the creative appetite. By showcasing the work of passionate analogue instant photographers, 101 Ways captures the magic and idiosyncrasy of Polaroid photos. A worthy addition to any Polaroid enthusiast's library, the book also features detailed instructions so that readers can try out the creative projects for themselves. 

The Impossible Project have kindly given us copies of 101 Ways to give away to some lucky readers. To be in the running to win, simply head over to Twitter and retweet our competition post. (But snap to it, the competiton closes on Friday at 5pm.)

Photo: #17 Gouache + Polaroid by Roxanne Daner

Photo: #1 Light Scribbles by Clareese Hill 

Photo: #28 Transfer onto an object by Ferdinand Vykoukal

Visit The Impossible Project online for more information on their new book, and for instant photography tips and wares: facebook.com/ImpossibleProjectEU

Welcome to a new series on the Oh Comely blog called 'Photo Wednesday'. We get sent incredible work by photographers, and every week we'll publish the strongest submissions here. To be involved, submit your photography via our Flickr group, or email an edit to [email protected].

To start things off, here's a selection of images by Natalie Kucken, shot on location at the Billy Johnson Playground in Central Park, New York. Inspired by Sofia Coppola, innocence and imagination, the shoot's stylist Jaclyn Bethany brings together upcoming and established designers for playful, pell-mell layering. Check out her Audrey Grace Boutique for more inspiration.

Photo 1. Caroline wears dress by Misha Nonoo, top (worn underneath) by Vivetta, and necklace by Jessica Graham

Photo 2. Caroline wears dress by Misha Nonoo, top (worn underneath) by Vivetta, tights by Topshop, and shoes model’s own

Photo 3. Caroline wears coat by Jessica Graham, jean jacket by Cheap Monday, tights by Topshop and dress by Misha Nonoo

Photo 4. Lucy wears sweater by Jessica Graham, headpiece by Topshop, and jeans by Calla.

Photography: Natalie Kucken
Styling: Jaclyn Bethany
Makeup and Hair: Caroline Baribeau
Stylist’s Assistant: Akilah Walker
Models: Caroline West at ELITE Direct and Lucy Moore at IMG

Tuesday has come again to rock us like a hurricane, and what better way to spend it than perusing today’s Five Questions and a Song, the weekly column where we pester musicians with a quintette of questions and ask them to share one of their tracks for your listening pleasure.

Today we’re heading to Oxford to talk to Americana-infused indie pop band Toliesel. With lashings of alt-country and three-part harmonies, the band have just released their debut single, “The Light.” Have a listen below.

Photo: Toliesel

Tell us about your band.

Toliesel were formed in 2007 out of a love for the emerging Alt-Americana that was coming through at the time. Band of Horses, Bon Iver and My Morning Jacket, that sort of thing. We knew we wanted to take these beautiful sounds, with really well written songs, and just throw a British take on it. Today we're a noisy six-piece, but the intention remains to make beautiful and heartfelt songs.

Where did the name 'ToLiesel' come from? 

ToLiesel comes from the very first song Rob and I wrote for the band, and was inspired by a novel called The Book Thief. In the novel, we are narrated to by Death, about the life of a young Jew called Liesel during World War Two. Our first song continued in an imagined next chapter and was written 'to Liesel'. It's a kinda confusing name but we like it.

Do you have a good cheese joke? 

You want a good cheese joke? Now there's a challenge. Here's the best I've got: What do you call cheese that isn't yours? Nacho Cheese. Very Gouda, I know.

Which over-the-top guilty pleasure guitar solo do you wish you could play? [asked by last week’s interviewees Plantman]

Our guitarist Adam is one of those guys that knows every riff and solo from every tune ever. However, even he might stumble over the mad solo in Neil Young's 'Southern Man', it's so scratchy and aggressive. I would be perfectly happy clumsily finger-tapping my way through the solo in 'One' by Metallica, and calling it a night.

What can you tell us about this song?

"The Light" is a bittersweet tale of unexplored horizons. I never did much travelling and crave to see more of the world, but the places I have seen, and the places I've lived in, have been amazing to me. I suppose this song is all about making peace with that.  

www.toliesel.com

Photographer Liz Schaffer is an eternal tourist and her most recent wanderlust found her in Croatia. Initially drawn to the country for its azure waters, beautiful city streets and national penchant for gelato, as she wound her way from Split to Dubrovnik, what she ended up documenting was the washing lines.

Her photographs of laundry - a selection of which we present below - are proof that when travelling you can never plan what your eye will be drawn to. For more on Liz's adventures visit her website and Flickr.

Our reader photo this week shows Oh Comely issue 12, a victim of its own kitchen loitering. Yes, indeed, here’s the offending copy; doused dramatically in hot sauce like a potato chip.

We train these little mags up and all but there's always one who loiters, colonising desktops and kitchen tables, offering itself as a coaster or mat. Loitering means getting in the way and getting in the way means hot sauce. Well, issue 12; I hope you've learnt your lesson.

The naughty copy was captured by Hillary Wolfley. If you have photographs of Oh Comely at home or elsewhere, we'd love to see them! Drop a line to [email protected].

The problem with many biopics – particularly the middlebrow, awards-courting ones that tend to pop up around this time of year – is that the story they’re trying to tell is simply too large.

These films succeed in recounting the biographical details of a historical or cultural figure’s life, but by trying to convey the entire sweep of a person’s existence, the lives of complicated, messy people are smoothed out into a familiar narrative: a rise, a fall, and perhaps some sort of late rebirth if the protagonist is lucky. The rest is colour – a box-ticking exercise recreating events the audience is already aware of, inevitably featuring a lead performance that is closer to impersonation than acting.

Based in part Doris Kearns Gtoodwin’s terrific biography Team of Rivals (much admired by Barack Obama, as the cover mentions four or five times), Lincoln eschews this convention, focusing solely on the final few months of Abraham Lincoln’s 56 years of life as he attempts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Considering the extraordinary particulars of Lincoln’s life, from his poverty-stricken upbringing through to his unlikely ascension to president through to four years of civil war, it is a bold choice from screenwriter Tony Kushner and director Steven Spielberg. The pair were spoilt with options – Goodwin’s book contains enough material to fill half a dozen biopics – but by concentrating so unwaveringly on a single act of governance Kushner and Spielberg create a rich, compelling portrait of the man, the times he lived in, and what made him so important. A 19th century political drama about the passage of a single bill, Lincoln is riveting, overflowing with murky deals and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring.

Kushner and Spielberg’s efforts to wrest Lincoln into life are supported by Daniel Day-Lewis’ superlative performance, which is at once gentle, wry, gregarious, melancholy and resolute. It’s easy to imagine his portrayal becoming the definitive depiction of the 16th President. Every element of Lincoln is excellent, from screenplay to cinematography to editing, but in a film with 148 speaking parts, Day-Lewis is unforgettable.

For a man whose face is carved into the side of a mountain, it would be easy for a depiction of Lincoln to slide into easy mythologising; instead, Spielberg’s film makes great efforts to show a man whose greatness comes from the management of his own complicated personality, rather than a simplistic, overpowering eminence.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment is used as a synecdoche for Lincoln’s life: a man who accomplished his transformative goals against impossible odds using wily political ingenuity, compassion, great intelligence and exceptional oratorical skills. By depicting less of his story, Kushner and Spielberg get to the heart of its importance.

To launch her spring/summer 2013 collection, fashion designer Phoebe English created a stop-motion video with artist Georgia Kemball.

It shows the emergence of spring but not as you know it: black plastic trees burgeon and rustle, grow berries, droop and drop to the ground and create a rotting river. Yes indeed, it's an allotmenteer’s nightmare but also an (aesthetically) subversive take on the season of new beginnings.

Georgia's video seems almost to be a stand-alone work of art. But it grasps at an essence of Phoebe's design work, and that's the visual tactility of the material, be it acrylic, cotton or latex. These, of course, are materials that have other connotations and uses, but Phoebe gives them a new lease of life in her fashion design. And in her portrait of a black plastic spring, so too does Georgia.

Phoebe English was featured in Oh Comely Issue 13. See her other fashion films at vimeo.com and visit Georgia Kemball's website for more information on her multi-disciplinary practice.