Matthew Leigh G324 Advanced Portfolio

Total Film's construction of the review of 'Biutiful' is similar to the review of the same film by Empire magazine in many ways, but also maintains many differences. Firstly, the review takes up a full page, allowing a more in depth review and a few more features on the page (which I will explore in more detail later).

The review features a large screen shot from the film taking up the whole of the top half of the page, immediately drawing a readers attention, and clearly displaying the key actors. The next largest detail on the page is the title of the film, printed in a large bold font and cutting into the bottom left hand side of the picture. This effectively causes the reader to look at the title when they are looking at the picture, as they partly take up the same space.

Interestingly, Total Film places the star rating (out of five stars) at the top of the article, just below the film title. This means that readers can get a brief impression of the positivity or negativity of the review before they even read it, in fact they are actively invited to do so. Directly to the right of the star rating is the release date, followed by a tag line for the review. This means that the important details are very clear and separated from the bulk of the review, but also, as the review's tag line is in the same area, the readers' interests will be piqued, and they will likely read the review anyway.

Similarly to Empire, the review ends with a summarised verdict of the film, once again giving those who merely want a brief impression exactly that, without having to trawl through an entire review. This Verdict is in a bolder, slightly lighter and larger font than the bulk of the review, and the subtitle 'The Verdict' is in a bright red font. This clearly separates it from the main review, and makes it easy for readers to find.

Interestingly, while Empire displayed details such as age certificate, director, lead actors, distributor and running time at the beginning of their review, Total Film places these at the very end, after even the summarised verdict. While the subtitles for these details are in bold, the font is actually smaller than the review and they are bunched together without line breaks. This shows that the magazine perhaps deemed these details unimportant in marketing terms, as they don't pique a reader's interest.

A few extra features are visible on the page. The first of these is a long thin box printed down the extreme right side of the image that takes up the top half of the page. The box contains text detailing films that are similar to the film being reviewed, stating 'see this if you liked...'. This is an effective way of getting readers who have seen the films detailed in this box, but are perhaps not aware of the film that is reviewed, interested in both the film and the review.
Another feature is the inclusion of a chart placed at the bottom left of the page, tracking the reviewers interest throughout the films running time, with labels on the high and low points of interest hinting at events in the film. The chart is quite large, and due to it's red colouring is quite prominent on the page. It is yet another device for giving the reader a general idea of the positivity of the review, with the reader barely having to read anything.

The language of the review is largely kept simple, much like Empire. However, there are a few examples of slightly more difficult language, such as, 'Biutiful, though, is ferocious filmmaking, directed with lyrical austerity and played with conviction.'
This hints that the review is directed more towards an adult reader, this being further supported by a few examples of mature language in the review, such as 'bitch'. The line also provides an example of alliteration, showing the review to be tailored to read smoothly.