Film Reviews
1976 review - dark, chilly Chilean thrillerFriday, 24 March 2023
It starts innocuously, with paint. A woman is sitting in a hardware store, studying a travel guide for colour ideas, while briefing the chap mixing her order. But then, amid the sound of the mixing machine, we hear a commotion on the street, a woman's voice cries “they are taking me”, doors are slammed. A dash of pink paint lands on the customer’s pristine blue shoe. Read more... |
Infinity Pool review - it's like The White Lotus on bad acidFriday, 24 March 2023
Director Brandon Cronenberg has inherited his father David’s eye for the twisted and the sinister. After the creepy mind-meld dystopia of 2020’s Possessor, Infinity Pool finds Cronenberg turning his attention to horror-tourism. It’s like The White Lotus on bad acid. Read more... |
The Beasts review - a countryside idyll loses its charmTuesday, 21 March 2023
The Beasts (As Bestas) is all of two hours and 17 minutes long, and yet to look away is never an option. Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen reels the viewer in masterfully as he builds tension and suspense. Read more... |
Allelujah review - Alan Bennett put through the blenderMonday, 20 March 2023
I'm proffering just a tad less than three cheers for Allelujah, the film version of Alan Bennett's 2018 Bridge Theatre play that is also that rare screen adaptation of Bennett not to be shepherded to celluloid by his longtime friend and collaborator, Nicholas Hytner. Read more... |
Marlowe review - Liam Neeson wearily treads those mean streetsFriday, 17 March 2023
Neil Jordan’s take on Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the first since Bob Rafelson’s Poodle Springs (1998), itself a lone outlier after Michael Winner’s misbegotten The Big Sleep (1978). No one seems to have considered why, or what they might add. Read more... |
Rye Lane review - finding love south of the riverFriday, 17 March 2023
There’s a huge amount to admire in Rye Lane, a new romcom set in south London. It’s the first feature directed by Raine Allen-Miller, who has conjured up a love letter to the neighbourhoods she grew up in. Read more... |
Other People's Children review - a Parisian woman battles the tyranny of the biological clockFriday, 17 March 2023
“Trapped?” hisses 40-year-old Rachel (Virginie Efira) at her boyfriend, Ali (Roschdy Zem), who has a five-year-old daughter and is returning, for the sake of their child, to his ex-wife, Alice (Chiara Mastroianni). “What’s trapped you? Nothing at all. You can have kids or not have them, whenever you like.” Read more... |
Play Dead review - chills, thrills and stolen body partsThursday, 16 March 2023
The moral of this story is that if you’re going out to commit a robbery, don’t take your iPhone with you. This was the grave error committed by TJ (Anthony Turpel) and his friend Ross (Chris Lee), whose attempted heist was foiled by an angry shotgun-toting citizen. TJ managed to get away, but Ross – carrying the iPhone containing incriminating evidence of the pair’s guilt – was shot and left for dead. Read more... |
Champions review - Woody Harrelson's latest hoop dreamTuesday, 14 March 2023
In the sports comedy Champions Marcus and Marokovich (Woody Harrelson) is a basketball coach in the lowly G League. He has ambitions to coach in the major leagues, but a sight of his highly flammable temper is normally enough to conclude that such dreams are likely to remain unfulfilled. Read more... |
Oscars 2023 - the favourite lives up to its titleMonday, 13 March 2023
Everything Everywhere All at Once lived up to its title Sunday night at the 95thAcademy Awards by managing to win nearly everything everywhere almost all at once. The fragmented, seriocomic celluloid head trip won seven of the 11 Oscars for which it had been nominated, entering record books several times over not least for having two Asian actors amongst the recipients. Read more... |
The Middle Man review - dark Danish-Canadian comedy about the decaying of hopeFriday, 10 March 2023
The opening shots in The Middle Man show a brooding urban landscape lit only by refinery flames at night. The streets are deserted, with a lone car scuttling across them at an intersection. It’s Nowhereville, North America, though officially it's called Karmack. Read more... |
Creed III review - boxing cleverMonday, 06 March 2023
This third Creed film outgrows Rocky, leaving Stallone’s bridging presence behind for a wholly renewed series. Starring again as Adonis Creed, the illegitimate son of Rocky’s late rival Apollo, Michael B. Williams’ directorial debut builds a richly conceived African-American world in and out of the ring. Read more... |
I'm Fine (Thanks for Asking) review - quietly impressive debut filmSaturday, 04 March 2023
I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) is an object lesson in how it was possible to make a feature on a tiny budget despite the restrictions of the pandemic lockdown. The film-makers stuck to the classical unities (time, place, action), cast themselves and members of the crew, called in favours from performer friends, and shot the movie over 10 days, mainly outdoors. Read more... |
What's Love Got to Do With It? review - Jemima Khan's feelgood romcomMonday, 27 February 2023
Here's a question. A romcom stars a man and woman, friends from childhood, both straight and with no romantic history. He's a Muslim and has decided to pursue an arranged marriage; she has a chaotic love life. What are the odds that they will end up together at the end of the film? Read more... |
Joyland review - a tender tragedySaturday, 25 February 2023
Partially banned in Pakistan, Saim Sadiq’s debut uses a young man’s affair with a trans woman to reveal the sadness and brutality of the nation’s patriarchal norms. It’s also a deeply sympathetic character study written from under the country’s skin, which Sadiq calls “a heartbroken love letter to my homeland”. Read more... |
Cocaine Bear review - comedy horror lacks the bare necessitiesSaturday, 25 February 2023
This is one of those films where it’s really best to stick with the trailer. The incompetence of the directing and screenwriting is easy to disguise when a crafty promo-maker has picked out the good bits from a large pile of bear scat. Read more... |
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