In my utterly selfless bid to bring you all the news on the hot talent of the Cannes Film Festival, I just dropped in at the Vegaluna Beach bar to be photographed with handsome young actor Gaspard Ulliel. You might know him from A Very Long Engagement, opposite Audrey Tautou, or the prequel Hannibal Rising, in which he played the young Hannibal Lecter. He's starring in French period drama The Princess Of Montpensier, which is competing for the Palm D'Or here, and is enlivened by a trio of hot young men, of which Gaspard is the prettiest. Continuing the theme of handsome young men (and why not?), this morning I saw Tamara Drewe, the new film from Stephen Frears (The Queen). Gemma Arterton is the titular star, and she luckily gets to choose between Dominic Cooper, well cast as a vain pop star, and Luke Evans, playing the local handyman, who in the first scene is shown shirtless hammering a wooden post into the ground. One to look out for. The film is very funny, and I reckon it will be a sizeable hit when it is released in the UK later this year. There are lots of good performances in it by the likes of Green Wing's Tamsin Greig and The Thick Of It's Roger Allam, but the film is stolen by Jessica Barden, who apparently played Kayleigh Morton in Coronation Street in 2007-8 (sorry, I don't watch it). True, she has been handed a very good part in Tamara Drewe - a horny 15-year-old with a crush on Dominic's character - and all the best lines, but she still deserves credit for knocking the ball out of the park with her hilarious performance.
heat's Film Editor Charles Gant is at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival