Origin review - bursts of brilliance in an unwieldy frame

Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, about the key role caste systems play in subjugating whole racial groups, was a runaway success in the US in 2020. Here, the Pultizer-Prize winning black journalist is not so well known. Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of her book aims to change that.

Dune: Part 2 review - sombre space opera

Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune sequel is a sombre science-fiction spectacle that insists on the scale of cinema: erupting sandworms are Cecil B. DeMille colossal, the sound design centred on Hans Zimmer’s score thunderously enveloping. In a genre once jokingly called space opera, its grand aristocratic dynasties and passions justify the term.

Red Island review - Madagascar miniatures

Wicked Little Letters review - sweary, starry film is mostly strange

A splendid cast struggle to make something coherent out of Wicked Little Letters, the latest film from Thea Sharrock who not that long ago was one of the hottest theatre directors in town.

Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery review - a disorientating mix of fact and fiction

The downstairs of the Whitechapel Gallery has been converted into a ballroom or, rather, a film set of a ballroom. From time to time, a couple glides briefly across the floor, dancing a perfunctory tango. And they are really hamming it up, not for the people watching them – of whom they are apparently oblivious – but for an imaginary camera.

Eureka review - not enough to shout about

It's been a decade since Lisandro Alonso’s last film, Jauja, which signalled the Argentine's first collaboration with professional actors, notably a magnificent Viggo Mortensen. The pair reprise their collaboration in Eureka, in the first of three stories tenuously connected by dashes of mysticism and the director’s customary interest in the fate of indigenous people.