adaptation
Joseph Walsh
"Surreal" is how the man calling himself Nicholas Searle describes the last five years of his life. He began working on his debut novel The Good Liar in 2014 at the age of 57, having recently retired from the Civil Service. The nature of his former employment remains undisclosed. But, the fact that Nicholas Searle is not his real name, gives a clue to the fact his work was in intelligence rather than land registry. Early retirement gave him the opportunity to do something he has always wanted to do – write a novel.He had dabbled in writing but now “wanted to see whether I could or not”. It Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Wild Rose director Tom Harper blends fact with fiction in a charming Victorian ballooning adventure that reunites Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones for the first time since The Theory of Everything.Redmayne gives an earnest performance as the real-life James Glaisher, an aspiring aeronaut who aims to vie with the mutton-chopped scientific community by soaring higher than anyone has ever gone before. However, Jones steals the show as Amelia Wren, Glaisher’s derring-do pilot. A fictional wealthy widow, she has little interest in petticoats and doilies, preferring to soar through the heavens, Read more ...
Owen Richards
How long can one decision follow you? How long can you hide from it? This is what underpins After the Wedding, a remake of Susanne Bier’s Efter brylluppet. It’s a drama shaped like a thriller, driven by emotion rather than intrigue. We’re introduced to an extraordinary situation and piece the story together as the lies fall away. With powerhouse performances from Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, it’s an engrossing watch.Isabel (Williams) works at an orphanage in Kolkata, but is called to New York to secure funding from possible benefactor Theresa (Moore). Isabel hopes for a speedy visit Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Starting life as a comic strip in 1938, The Addams Family seems to have reinvented itself for every generation. It’s the story of an odd-ball family from ‘The old country’ (where that is geographically located is by-the-by), who love the grim and gothic. Their outlandish ways were neatly juxtaposed against the wholesome values of American suburbia. The comic preached a message of acceptance which was rife with quirky and yes, kooky, humour. It’s a narrative construction that lends itself easily to being updated, without losing that original black magic. From its humble begins in the New Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Angelina Jolie is back again with those cut-glass cheekbones and ink-black wings, reprising her role as the self-proclaimed ‘Mistress of Evil’, in Joachim Rønning’s nauseating sequel to the 2014 live-action spin on Sleeping Beauty. As the first film taught us, Maleficent isn’t evil, she’s misunderstood. Rat-bag men sold her out, and ever since she’s been on warry of humans, except for her god-child Aurora. The legend we knew was just propaganda. All Maleficent wants is to protect her fellow fairies from the war-mongering ways of men. This time around, it’s not a man that’s the Read more ...
Mark Kidel
PJ Harvey is not just a consummate rock musician but a multi-talented artist, who has re-invented herself throughout her career. She paints and makes sculpture, has participated with Artangel in an ambitious art installation, and written and performed theatre and film music. The music for the stage version of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s classic Hollywood blockbuster and Betty Davis vehicle All About Eve is the latest of her accomplishments.The exciting Belgian director Ivo Van Hove made a shrewd choice, as Harvey has shown herself to be expert at evoking the inner turmoil of women in conflict – Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
David Greig’s reimagining of Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel has brought a masterpiece of intellectual science fiction back to its philosophical core. Over the concentrated two hours of Matthew Lutton’s production, which reaches the Lyric Hammersmith from Melbourne via Edinburgh, we are compelled to contemplate, in the best tradition of the genre, ideas that go “beyond the reach of human beings”, as Lem himself put it. The experience is mesmerising. And if that sounds somehow cold or inhuman, the dramatic kernel of the story hits home at a deeply human level: Lem’s premise in this space Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
You wonder about the title of French dramatist Sam Gallet’s Mephisto [A Rhapsody], an adaptation for our days of Klaus Mann’s 1936 novel about an actor unable to resist the blandishments of fame, even if they come at the cost of losing himself. Those who know the story from Hungarian director István Szabó’s celebrated 1981 film with its mesmerising central performance by Klaus-Maria Brandauer might come to this looking for an element of tragedy, one moderated by the merciless accusation of complicity directed at a character unable to resist the enticements offered by Nazism, a figure who Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
The most arresting thing about Dada Masilo’s contemporary South African take on Giselle is Masilo herself. Tiny and boyishly slight, she inhabits her own fast, fidgety, tribal-inspired choreography with the intensity of someone in a trance. Costumed she may be in the familiar tight-bodiced little dress of traditional productions but her boldly shaven head suggests that this Giselle is no wallflower. And she's not going to take betrayal lying down.We first meet her at work in the fields alongside other villagers. The action, like composer Philip Miller’s electronic nod to Adolph Adam’s score, Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
When Joker won the Golden Lion in Venice in September, it was an unprecedented achievement, the first time a comic book-related film had won such a prestigious prize. But then, isn’t your typical comic book film. Starring a phenomenal Joaquin Phoenix, it’s seriously themed, brilliantly executed and quite extraordinary. We’ve seen many Jokers, including memorable turns by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, so it’s not unreasonable to wonder why we’d need another. One reason is that this is a Joker without his Batman, or any superhero trappings; another, that the ‘origin story’ is Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What a joy Laura Wade's latest play is. Transferring from its successful run at the Minerva Theatre at Chichester last year, The Watsons is developed from Jane Austen's unfinished novel (started in 1804 and abandoned the following year). But rather than give us a period homage or a modern pastiche, Wade serves up a delightful concoction that has elements of both, but also much, much more.She sets the scene by dramatising the surviving pages of Austen's story. Emma Watson (Grace Molony) returns home to Surrey after being raised by a moneyed aunt in Shropshire for 14 years. Her father is dying Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Midway through John Crowley’s The Goldfinch, a character compares a reproduction antique with the real deal. “The new one is flat dead,” he says. He might as well be talking about the movie.On paper, John Crowley’s adaption of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has all the right ingredients to be an early awards contender. Firstly, there’s the novel. It may have divided snootier critics, but is adored by legions of readers. A Dickensian tale that stretches nearly 800 pages, it tackles grief, terrorism and drug addiction, all set within the romance of the art world. Then there’s Read more ...