film reviews
John Carvill

It might be a push to call this documentary a feminist slant on Humphrey Bogart, but it wouldn’t quite be a shove. Northern Irish filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson’s work has often concerned itself with identity and gender politics, and her narrative here is framed around the women in Bogart’s life, starting with his aloof, undemonstrative mother, Maud. 

James Saynor

It’s not often we hear barely a single gunshot in a movie set amid Mexican drug cartels, but that may be the way it is for people who actually live amid Mexican drug cartels.

In Sujo, Mexico’s bid for the next foreign feature Oscar, we experience violence the way many who inhabit violent places actually experience it – mostly embedded in the fabric of life, only occasionally directly. 

Adam Sweeting

Judging by a Sunday Times interview last weekend, Daniel Craig now enjoys wearing brilliantly-coloured sweaters and extraordinary trousers, very much like a man running as fast as possible in the opposite direction to James Bond. He has goodbye-Bond-esque quotes to go with it.

James Saynor

Lauded by Auden, detested by Edmund Wilson, the Tolkien sagas have divided many from childhood onwards: for kids, they’re not quite pulpy enough to be the first choice for a Halloween costume, for grown-ups not quite literary enough to be literary.

Nick Hasted

Patriotic Italian films set during the Fascist war effort are understandably rare UK releases. Submarine commander Salvatore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino) was, though, an honourable warrior-poet who director Edoardo De Angelis seeks to separate from wider currents.

Sarah Kent

If you suffer from lepidopterophobia, this film will either cure your fear of moths or push you over the edge. Warning: the screen is often filled with moths of every shape, size, colour and pattern while the sound of flapping, fluttering and girating wings fills the air to the point where you feel bombarded by the flying, furry creatures.

Markie Robson-Scott

“Shoot, Jim, shooot!” Simon Callow does a fine impression of producer Ismail Merchant desperately trying to get director James Ivory to bring urgency to the proceedings.

The received wisdom was that Ismael thought Jim was going to bankrupt Merchant Ivory Productions commercially by insisting on perfection, while Jim was sure that Ismael would bankrupt it artistically by insisting on every possible economy.

Helen Hawkins

On July 4, 2022, one of the most unusual performances in Hamlet’s lengthy and much travelled CV took place: an in-game stream for players of the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto (GTA).

Adam Sweeting

Rachel Yoder says she wrote her debut novel Nightbitch as a reaction to Donald Trump’s first term as President, with what she saw as its consequent mood-shift in America towards “traditional values and women staying home, taking care of the kids.”

Saskia Baron

It must have seemed such a delicious premise – a Buñuel-esque comedy about world leaders trapped at a luxury retreat as the apocalypse looms. With cult director and installation artist Guy Maddin directing alongside his regular collaborators Galen and Evan Johnson, one can understand why Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, and the rest of the starry cast signed up for Rumours. Unfortunately, it all wears a little thin.