EBONY & IVORY
**
Directed by Jim Hosking.
Starring Sky Elobar, Gil Gex.
Comedy, US, 98 minutes, Certificate TBC.
Reviewed as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2025
Fans of Jim Hosking’s previous films and style of weird nonsensical storytelling will no doubt be on tenterhooks to see how he tackles the legendary pairing of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney teaming up to banish racism with their duet Ebony And Ivory. Obviously nonsense will be involved, but to what level? Will it be an exercise in depravity taking gross out humour to the next level like his debut THE GREASY STRANGLER or the more gentler yet still surreal approach he took with his follow-up AN EVENING WITH BEVERLEY LUFF LINN? Without really getting into spoilers, although there really isn’t much to spoil, it can be said that Hosking is definitely marching to the beat of his own drum. Where he’s marching off to however may not be a path few will be willing to take.
Music history purists will no doubt be raging from the start with the sight of Stevie Wonder rowing himself to the Mull Of Kintyre to meet Paul McCartney. Stevie has arrived to help Paul realise his true potential, although Paul seems perfectly happy with where he is at this stage in his career and is more interested in sharing his wife’s new line of vegetarian ready meals and smoking “dooby woobies.” Which usually results in Stevie grimacing and exclaiming “SHIT FUCK!” This film also contains gratuitous full frontal nudity.
Of course all comedy is subjective so what I found repetitive and often aggressively dull here could be completely hilarious to someone else. This feels like a disappointing result for myself as I usually find this type of comedy, or anti-comedy if you prefer, very funny. This seems tailor made for fans of the likes of TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW GREAT JOB! or any other number of Adult Swim’s more outre output, but more often than not the repetitive and stretched out nature of the film makes it feel longer than a week in the jail.
Yet Hoskings can be admired for the fact that he has certainly made something truly unique here. Completely different from his previous films yet still of a piece with them, you could argue that he makes films like no-one else and is one of that small band of directors whose films can be identified from a single scene or even shot. Of course it does help that Hosking now has a repertoire of regular collaborators who fans of the auteur will easily, and gladly, recognise. Sky Elobar, the hapless, lovestruck protagonist from THE GREASY STRANGLER, and Gil Gex as Stevie make for a strangely compelling duo as they shout and repeat nonsense at each other and trot off in the nip to a cold, wet beach to engage in some choreographed dancing.
Also returning to collaborate is composer Andrew Hung, whose electronic score gives the scenes of Stevie shouting at Paul, in his “SCOTTISH COTTAGE” as Stevie disparagingly and loudly calls it, a pulsing rhythm that heightens the surreal and often claustrophobic nature of the film.
It is the kind of film that makes you wonder how exactly it was allowed to be made, as if the producers lost a bet or something. However it is a film that lodges itself in your brainpan like no other with its surreal digressions. A music biopic like no other, this deeply odd film will no doubt find its cult audience who will lap up its distinct brand of silliness.
Iain MacLeod