Forum Topic

Film Reviews 2018

It's no good: I can't wait days for the old thread to load and there's a new crop of films coming out.Stick to Joe's rules:Start each new film review as a reply to this first message in the thread. Then any discussion about that particular film should be done as a reply to that particular posting. This would help keep things in context and stop stuff going off the right hand side of the page.

Susan Kelly ● 3194d154 Comments

I like Ben Stiller a lot but had problems with his latest vehicle in which he plays an Everyman having a mid-life crisis.Brad lives in Sacramento with his wife and teenage son. He runs a Non Profit. All the men he was friends with at university have become rich and successful and he keeps comparing himself to them.When he flies to Boston with his son to look at colleges and have interviews, he is forced to ask one of these old friends for a favour.The problem is that Brad is deeply unsympathetic. His envy is corrosive; he even blames his wife for not pushing him harder at one point. He's proud of his son, hopes that the boy can fulfill his dreams, but then realises that he will envy his son's success. He pervs over a couple of young college women, imagining himself shacked up with them both the way one of his old friends is with two young women. He fantasies about his in-laws dying so they can inherit and is furious when his wife comments that they may leave their estate directly to their grandchildren anyway.So, Ben Stiller is a likeable actor but his character here is badly in need of a good slapping.

Susan Kelly ● 3194d

Do you know, I had no idea that a soldier spent only 6 days a month at the front in WW1. Obviously 'only' is a relative term here but I must have watched too many episodes of Blackadder.Spring 1918. 2nd Lieutenant Jim Raleigh is straight out of public school and 8 weeks basic training on Salisbury Plain when he arrives at the front. He looks about 15. He asks to be assigned to the company run by his old school friend Captain Stanhope, not knowing that after 3 years Stanhope is a bad-tempered drunk.A major German offensive is expected and after only 3 days Raleigh's life is risked on a sortie into No Man's Land to try to 'bag a Bosch' for intelligence. I probably don't need to issue a spoiler alert when I say that the story does not end well. Closing captions tell us that 700,000 men died in the 1918 Spring Offensive to capture land which the Allies took back within a month.You wouldn't guess that this play is 90 years old. It feels very modern and is filmed in an almost documentary style. Very dark, in every way, set mostly in underground quarters lit by candles. There's some humour, mostly revolving round the food available in the trenches where Stephen Graham is standing in for Baldrick.It's riveting stuff with the cream of British male actors on display.

Susan Kelly ● 3188d

After all the press and award nominations, I finally got to see this on general release. Well, its certainly not another "There will be blood" the prior film pairing of US director Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, with Anderson's first non-US film and Day-Lewis's swansong performance we are led to believe.I must admit after all the publicity I was pretty underwhelmed. The story of Day-Lewis as a 1950s London based haute couture dress designer with Oedipal leanings and martinet behaviour in how he creates his dresses, inevitably treating his women as muses, certainly moves at the same pedestrian pace at which his dresses are made. The arrival in his life of a waitress who catches his eye (Euro actress Vicky Krieps in her first English film) who refuses to accept this treatment and the resulting power play between them takes its twists and turns at a leisurely pace. Yet that is where the film does score heavily with nuanced performances and every line of script counting (tales of Day-Lewis being blown away on set at Kriep's performance underline the evident chemistry). Yet for me the best performance comes from the third main actor being Lesley Manville (of Mike Leigh and stage fame), as Day-Lewis's spinster sister whose role is to manage his fashion house day to day and steer his private life so his creativity delivers.Two downsides for me were a music score that irritated me more and more as the film progressed (despite all the praise being heaped on it) and while Sara may dislike air war films (per her "Dunkirk" review) I now realize that fashion films are definitely not my bag!

Joe Conneely ● 3188d

After all the press and award nominations, I finally got to see this on general release. Well, its certainly not another "There will be blood" the prior film pairing of US director Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, with Anderson's first non-US film and Day-Lewis's swansong performance we are led to believe.I must admit after all the publicity I was pretty underwhelmed. The story of Day-Lewis as a 1950s London based haute couture dress designer with Oedipal leanings and martinet behaviour in how he creates his dresses, inevitably treating his women as muses, certainly moves at the same pedestrian pace at which his dresses are made. The arrival in his life of a waitress who catches his eye (Euro actress Vicky Krieps in her first English film) who refuses to accept this treatment and the resulting power play between them takes its twists and turns at a leisurely pace. Yet that is where the film does score heavily with nuanced performances and every line of script counting (tales of Day-Lewis being blown away on set at Kriep's performance underline the evident chemistry). Yet for me the best performance comes from the third main actor being Lesley Manville (of Mike Leigh and stage fame), as Day-Lewis's spinster sister whose role is to manage his fashion house day to day and steer his private life so his creativity delivers.Two downsides for me were a music score that irritated me more and more as the film progressed (despite all the praise being heaped on it) and while Sara may dislike air war films (per her "Dunkirk" review) I now realize that fashion films are definitely not my bag!

Joe Conneely ● 3188d

I just cannot decide whether to go and see this or not. It's over two hours, which is always a minus point, and I also have no interest in fashion. 'No' is edging ahead.

Susan Kelly ● 3188d

We really enjoyed it - three brilliant core performances and, although it is wearing speeding all that time with some pretty ghastly people, the triangular relationship is gripping.great frocks too....

Sara Nathan ● 3188d

Okay, I had a free afternoon and a free ticket for the Odeon so headed down to Richmond for the noon showing.I was glad I did as I was engrossed and it didn't feel long. The central performances are, as has been said by others, stunning, even if the frocks were mainly hideous.It's a mystery, especially the character of Reynolds who keeps a lock of his dead mother's hair sewn into his coat, which obviously isn't remotely sick or creepy. His initial flirtation with Alma also struck me as quite creepy though the later line, 'I feel I have been waiting for you for a long time', was pretty effective. I bet it would work with me.What has he been waiting for? Someone as weird and dysfunctional as he is? If so, good choice. We're not told where she's from or, if we are, I missed it, which adds to the mystery.Small niggle. Surely no one used the work 'racist' in the 1950s. Even when I was young in the 70s it was 'racialist' and I'm not sure any term existed before that since racism was taken for granted.

Susan Kelly ● 3187d

Rather sad tale of a teenage and exceptionally unintelligent boy who goes to school and then works on his father's scaffolding firm. He is angry because he dent understand. Maybe he is abused a bit as well. And so vulnerable.The only person he really is attached to, apart from dad, is his literature teacher - odd for someone functionally illiterate.Quite moving and rather beautifully made

Sara Nathan ● 3176d

12-year-old Alexei lives with his parents in a flat outside a big city. They are splitting up and already have their new partners lined up. Neither cares for the boy at all: Mum resents having married because she was pregnant and wishes she'd had an abortion; Dad is more interested in the baby his girlfriend is expecting. They row one night over custody of Alex, neither wanting him, not realising that he is listening.It takes them two days to notice that he's gone missing. The police aren't interested but there is a volunteer organisation which specialises in missing people, suggesting that this happens a lot. It paints a bleak picture of contemporary Russia, where bandit capitalism is now the order of the day and the father risks being sacked for getting divorced because his boss is a Christian fundamentalist. Winter is coming and the landscape is bleached, making the film almost monochrome.The problem is that it's hard to care. The parents are so selfish that you cannot pity their (surely bogus) grief and we don't see enough of the boy before he vanishes to care about him. It felt long and slow.

Susan Kelly ● 3171d

I loved everything about this from the stunning visuals to the period detail to the unlikely love story. Some of the people I saw it with dismissed it as 'whimsical', not a view with which I'd agree. You do have to check your disbelief in at the box office before going in but why not? It's quite unlike anything I've seen and I was rooting for the unlikely couple and wanting to hiss the baddie all the way through.

Susan Kelly ● 3167d

Yes agree - loved it from start to finish - again some violent bits to do with fingers - but apart from that it was fab

Chris Hurley ● 3167d

Oh dear. All teenage girls are unhappy in the same way, as Tolstoy might have said if he'd thought of it.So Lady Bird thinks she's special; rows ceaselessly with her mother; kisses a boy only to find out he's gay; loses her virginity to the cool dude in the band and finds that it means a lot more to her than it did to him; dumps her best friend for a more popular girl only to regret it; obsesses about the senior prom.I could see nothing new or original here.

Susan Kelly ● 3158d

I must admit I have not liked any of Lynne Ramsay's prior films (Ratcatcher, We need to talk about Kevin) but this film seems to have excited at Cannes so I gave it a chance, especially with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role.Firstly forget the "Taxi Driver" film comparisons some critics are making. They are very slight (child prostitution & NYC setting) and this is a much darker and violent film. With the  main emphasis on Phoenix's character as an ex Iraq marine from a violent childhood who still lives with his ageing mother, and works as an avenging enforcer for hire where children have gone missing, the film is brutal throughout.What just makes it worth seeing is Phoenix's low dialogue acting, being yet another actor like Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards, who seems to have added weight to underline their performance. The minimalist script with many plot/action jumps avoids a lot of the standard Hollywood style story telling and with a powerful soundscape (music and sounds) from the start to the end, drives to an ending which certainly is not another happy outcome, like say the "Taken" franchise would deliver.

Joe Conneely ● 3154d

I hope that's not a spoiler as I'm thinking of seeing this film.

Norman Redfern ● 3153d

I try and avoid spoiling other's subsequent viewing Norman so I hope not (especially given the way the film is structured)! Simply wanted to convey, do not expect your typical Hollywood fare storytelling.

Joe Conneely ● 3153d

Anyone who saw 'God's Own Country' last year will be familiar with the idea that small family farms in Yorkshire don't pay. Here we are again, only instead of an alcoholic farmer and a handsome Romanian casual worker, we have a brother and sister squabbling over who gets to run the farm after their father dies.Ruth Wilson is excellent as the Prodigal Daughter, coming home after years away and experiencing flashbacks about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.It's a little hard to care about these violent, taciturn people but Yorkshire looks picturesque (it's not all filmed in the dark the way these 'grim oop north' films often are).

Susan Kelly ● 3148d

The latest film to woo the 'grey pound' with tales of babyboomers behaving badly as two estranged sisters reconnect after the stuck-up one's marriage implodes and she ends up moving in with hippy sister in her council flat near Hampstead Heath.It's often laugh-out-loud funny and the scenes where Tim Spall's character visits his wife in her Home to be met by violent denials that she knows him are heartbreaking. But, and it's a big but, the plot is almost staggeringly predictable. Trust me: whatever you think is going to happen happens.Celia Imrie and Imelda Staunton are superb as the chalk-and-cheese sisters. Mind you, Imrie read a short story of mine out on Woman's Hour in the mid-90s and obviously her career has been downhill all the way from that high point.

Susan Kelly ● 3143d

Tonya Harding was brought up by an abusive mother and married and abusive husband. She's classic trailer trash but has a natural talent for the middle-class sport of ice skating.She achieved notoriety in 1994 when her main rival at the Olympics was attacked and left with a broken knee. Tonya always denied any complicity in a plot by her husband and her idiot bodyguard.This mockumentary is good stuff, with Allison Janney a marvel as the hideous mother. I would have shaved 20 minutes off it.

Susan Kelly ● 3140d

Marina is a transsexual waitress and would-be singer, in Santiago. She's in a happy, committed relationship with an older man, Orlando. She's about to move in with him.He collapses and she rushes him to hospital where he soon dies. Out crawl all the prejudices of the doctors, the police (who insist on referring to her as 'he') and, above all, Orlando's family who don't want her at the funeral. No one is prepared to recognise her shocking bereavement. Worse: Orlando has bruises where he fell on collapsing and a hard-bitten policewoman from the sex-crime unit is determined that the relationship was abusive.Marina maintains her dignity throughout in the face of both verbal and physical attacks and you're rooting for her throughout.

Susan Kelly ● 3136d

We did enjoy this although it is a slightly obvious trip down the Paddington style of film - without the politics.Anyhow, we went without kiddies and did actually laugh out loud several times. It is quite a clever up-to-date take on Peter Rabbit story.Huge product placement for Harrods inter alia which jarred slightly.

Sara Nathan ● 3131d

This is an old-stager rom-com starring Celia Imrie, Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley, timothy Spall and John Sessions. Which tells you all you need t know really.It is deeply, deeply predictable but quite enjoyable for all that - a couple of Joanna Lumley's lines are laugh out loud funny.And London plays a blinder...

Sara Nathan ● 3123d

I am not a fan of horror films but this one sounded intriguing and has been getting marvellous reviews. Our own Emily Blunt and her real-life husband John Krasinski play a couple who are among the very few survivors of some sort of apocalypse -- presumably an alien invasion.They're alive because their daughter is deaf and the family is proficient in sign language, because even the smallest noise brings the alien monsters, who are blind, crashing in to rip them to pieces.Imagine treading barefoot on a protruding nail and not being able to make a sound! Oh, and the wife is pregnant, which means she must give birth in silence and, somehow, the baby must be kept quiet.There are some truly tense moments. What would have made it even better would be getting rid of the music soundtrack and leaving a world truly silent for them to live in.

Susan Kelly ● 3121d

This is an oddity and not everyone's cup of tea. Set in Stockholm, it's a bitty film though revolving round Christian, the director of a prestigious museum. There's not much in the way of plot -- more a succession of set pieces -- although we do follow Christian's attempts to deal with a con in which he lost his phone and wallet.At two and a half hours, it slightly overstays its welcome, but I found it fresh and interesting.

Susan Kelly ● 3120d

I loved this funny, feminist movie about a menopausal woman and her life, friends and family in a provincial french town.There are some laugh out loud lines and scenes but overall its quite moving.Everyone in the cinema (except my husband) seemed to adore it. He dismissed it as "too girly" - probably why I liked it.

Sara Nathan ● 3116d

The best horror (think Turn of the Screw) works by leaving you unsure as to whether the protagonist is crazy or is really being haunted/stalked.This film does that really well for the first half. Sawyer has moved from Boston to Philadelphia to escape a stalker. She is inclined to see him everywhere. When she foolishly tells a counsellor that she has suicidal thoughts, she is incarcerated against her will in a horrific mental institution where she finds that her stalker is one of the orderlies. Or is he?It falls apart rather in the second half as things get 'explained'. Claire Foy is excellent as Sawyer and I wouldn't have noticed that it was filmed on an iPhone if I hadn't read about it.

Susan Kelly ● 3114d

I think The Babadook was the last horror film that I saw that was anywhere near as scary and enjoyable as this one.  Ghost Stories started out as a stage show, which unfortunately I missed, but the transfer to celluloid certainly works.  It has an excellent cast including Martin Freeman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Andy Nyman, who also co-produced and co-directed.  Nyman has also produced several of Derren Brown's stage shows and his obvious skill at creating illusion are put to good use here.A clever feature of this film is that the central character, played by Nyman, is a professional skeptic who publically debunks and shames fake mediums, so this subtly draws in smart people like us who don't believe in the supernatural!  The acting is uniformly excellent.  Paul Whitehouse's terror is especially infectious - certainly no laughing matter!  And the soundtrack will have you jumping ...It's hard to say more without getting into spoiler realm, but if you feel like a break from our lovely Spring weather, get into the darkness at Vue, Westfield, where Ghost Stories will still be showing next week.

Alastair Banton ● 3113d

The thing I don't understand is the phrase "scary and enjoyable" cos in my view, if it's one, it ain't the other....

Sara Nathan ● 3113d

Gosh, that rules out for you a huge wodge of artistic endeavour - Psycho, Grimm's Fairy Tales, much of Shakespeare's best work etc etc

Alastair Banton ● 3113d

This forum, I mean.  I just popped over from W4 where there is a fairly constant stream of ding dongs.But this thread is brilliant and useful.  If only more people had more to say.

Alastair Banton ● 3111d

Agree, I do like the film reviews which I think Sara started.

Janice Evans ● 3111d

Yes, and I’m going to see A Quiet Place, the movie, next week and will report back here.

Alastair Banton ● 3111d

I'm not sure about non believers myself, when they pray who are they praying to, they must believe but just afraid of being ridiculed probably.

Janice Evans ● 3111d

I don’t think non-believers do actually pray.  We might say OMG! occasionally, but it’s just an expression.Do you know any praying atheists, Janice?

Alastair Banton ● 3111d

Ha, don't know any, my other half believes in God but don't believe in spirits? Which seems odd to me.

Janice Evans ● 3111d

Well please allow me to introduce myself :-)I agree that your other half's worldview is 'odd' to say the least!My other half believes in religious ritual and carries these out on the appointed days, er, religiously.  But she is completely atheistic.  I find this quite admirable and appealing.  (Though I do none of this ritual sort of stuff myself.)

Alastair Banton ● 3111d

I dont find Shakespeare or Grimm scary and can therefore enjoy it - always a subjective judgment of course as non two people might find the same things scary.But scary and enjoyable? Not possible for me.

Sara Nathan ● 3110d

This moral fable is set in Japan 20 years hence, in a city run by a corrupt and evil mayor. When he exiles all the dogs to Trash Island, claiming that they are infected with dog flu, a battle between good an evil develops.Great voice work from some of the cream of Hollywood, great visuals. Funny and different.

Susan Kelly ● 3110d

Agreed.  I found it great fun.  A very witty script which seemed to touch on a number of contemporary issues - migration, popularism, racism etc.  I’m quite a Bryan Cranston fan so his character ‘Chief’ stood out for me.‘I bite!’  ‘I don’t fetch.’And the style of animation and overall look of the film was very original.  And it’s amusing that Isle of Dogs and I love dogs are virtually homophonic.

Alastair Banton ● 3110d

I hadn't thought of that, Al! Of course.

Susan Kelly ● 3110d

This one is a real nerve-shredder. A post-apocalyptic world is in the grip of extra terrestrials, straight out of Ridley Scott's Alien playbook, that will swoop and devour anything that makes a sound. The entire film focusses on the lives of a single wood-dwelling family as they struggle to stay silent and thereby safe while awaiting a new birth.Production values, acting, photography etc are all of a high standard.  But I have a few gripes. We see too much of the aliens for my taste.  Best to keep such things mostly imagined.  And I would like to have had a little background.  How come the lights are still working?  But the whole film resolutely stays in the here and now which certainly has the intended effect of scaring the bejeesus out of the audience and keeping us in wrapt, terrified  silence.  I became very aware that my seat creaked if I moved even an inch.  If you do go and see this film, DO NOT consume popcorn or sweets.Safe to say, Sara would not like this film at all :-)

Alastair Banton ● 3103d

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey through the horrors of the 1970s as 'Funny Cow' attempts to make it as a female standup while being told repeatedly that women aren't funny. She's an outsider even as a child, disliked by other children and beaten by her brutal father ('Are you angry, Dad? You seem angry'), then by her husband.She finds brief solace with a gentle librarian, played by Paddy Considine looking uncannily like a young Harold Pinter, but she lacks the capacity for happiness.The jokes are of their time -- racist, sexist and homophobic -- and many people will insist on taking offence at them.A typically brilliant performance by Maxine Peake made this great viewing for me but some of my friends were more lukewarm.

Susan Kelly ● 3101d

It sounds good, Susan, and the trailer looks promising.  Also I’ve lived up north for a few stretches including roughly the time the film is set, so I anticipate some interesting dejavus.  I see it’s on rather limited release - ie Watermans for this neighbourhood.  I’ll try and get to see it.Al

Alastair Banton ● 3101d

Moll lives with her parents on Jersey and is a troubled soul; at 13, she stabbed a girl who was bullying her at school. Her overbearing mother treats her as a child, while still using her as an unpaid carer for her father, who has dementia.Moll runs out of her own birthday party after her sister steals the show by announcing that she's expecting twins. She goes to a night club where she dances with a young man. As they walk on the beach at dawn, he won't take no for an answer and she's rescued by another man -- Pascal, poacher and all-round Bad Boy. They swiftly become lovers.Meanwhile, a man is abducting, raping and murdering young girls in the island. Policeman Clifford, who carries a torch for Moll, has Pascal on his list of suspects but Moll gives him a false alibi for the latest killing.Is Pascal guilty? How far will Moll go to protect him?This kept me on the edge of my seat as life unfolds in a claustrophobic and old-fashioned community.

Susan Kelly ● 3098d

This French film is about a bad break-up by Antoine and Miriam. Although he is an obvious thug and his young son is terrified of him, the Family Court inexplicably gives him access every other weekend. He wants to use the child to get revenge on Miriam for leaving him. Things escalate in rather too predictable a way.

Susan Kelly ● 3095d

In spite of this starring Juliette Binoche and featuring Gerard Depardieu AND having the second French film title in a row from a song in the musical HAIR (one of my favourites), this was one of the worst films I have ever seen.In fact at least 8 people walked out (and from an expensive Curzon cinema yet)The characters are uniformly repellent, the dialogue is beyond banal and it is completely implausible - well, to our English eyes at least. Maybe this is how French women in their mid-fifties behave - but it seems unlikely. God, it was tedious.

Sara Nathan ● 3095d

I had thought this might be too nostalgic and cute for words - but actually we rather enjoyed it. The book its based on was quite a light read - and read to me as if designed to be a movie - and the flick served it well. An eminent director helps of course.Several Downton-ites in the cast led by Lily James and Penelope Wilton. Plus Tom Courtenay which is usually a bonus.the most implausible acting was by Dartmouth in Devon which just doesnt look like St Peter Port in Guernsey.Overall, very enjoyable.

Sara Nathan ● 3095d

This film felt really fresh and original, telling a story that I don't seem to have heard before.Marlo is a severely stressed suburban Mom with a daughter, who's okay, but an autistic son who's just been asked to leave his school as he is too disruptive. She is also 9 months pregnant with an unplanned third child.When her rich and successful brother offers to pay for a night nanny, she is initially annoyed, but is soon so overwhelmed by the new baby that she makes the call. Enter 20-something Tully, bit of a Dippy-Hippie but great with the baby. She also cleans the house, makes cupcakes overnight and offers wise advice.Soon Marlo is feeling human again, even rekindling her sex life with her husband. What can possibly go wrong? Are hints that she had a same-sex relationship in her past important?I really didn't know where this was going and it kept me guessing until the end.

Susan Kelly ● 3088d

16-year-old Charlie lives with his father in a trailer park in Portland Oregon. The old man's a feckless drunk but there's a lot of affection between him and Charlie. The boy gets a job helping out at the local racing stables (don't envisage a British racing stables) where he quickly becomes attached to a 5-year-old called Lean on Pete. But Pete's racing days are coming to an end and that means sale for dog meat. When an accident puts his father out of the picture and threatens Care, Charlie steals Pete and goes on the run with him, heading for his long-lost aunt in Wyoming.It's an interesting story but, for my money, way too slow in the telling. The ending is also lame, as if they couldn't think of a good ending, so it just stops.

Susan Kelly ● 3087d

I can only dimly remember 1962 but this film conjures the era rather well, I think. It was both a simpler and a more complicated time. Edward and Florence are in love but are they right for each other? Both virgins, their wedding night at a hotel in Dorset (complete with sniggering staff) is a disaster from which they cannot recover.It's too long since I read the book so can't speak to how faithful it is, though McEwan himself has done the screenplay.

Susan Kelly ● 3079d

Yes enjoyed it but very disappointed that it was not actually filmed on Guernsey

Chris Hurley ● 3079d

Curiously, this French film is on release under two different titles, depending which cinema you go to. Not confusing at all!Paula has lived with rich famous boyfriend Joachim for ten years, never working or taking care of herself. Now she's been dumped. She's quite manic and finds it hard to find a job or anywhere to live because, frankly, she has no idea how to behave. She also has Joachim's grumpy cat in tow.She has no scruples and no filter on what she says or does. When a woman on the tube mistakes her for an old school friend (both women have different coloured eyes) she doesn't hesitate to stay with her or borrow money from her. She finds a room with a single mother too desperate for childcare to check on her and takes a job in a lingerie shop.There's some good stuff in here but Paula is pretty irritating and the film seems to run out of steam 3/4 of the way through.

Susan Kelly ● 3076d

Well this is certainly 180 degrees from the recent "Phantom Thread" and its depiction of 1950s haute couture! Mixing mostly archive footage and interviews plus recent interviews with close family, fashion colleagues and business associates over his fashion career from the early 1990s to his suicide in 2010,  I readily admit that while I have little interest in fashion I found the story told was riveting. In part this is because many of those interviewed are brutally honest in trying to set the record straight given all the media stories over the years, plus the lifting of the lid on how the high end fashion industry operates.A very well done documentary one is left feeling that any attempt to try and tell McQueen's story with actors after this will be pretty superfluous.

Joe Conneely ● 3063d

This charming animation is a real winner. It's set in Kabul in 2001 and concerns an 11-year-old girl who has to disguise herself as a boy to work and feed the family after her father is arrested by the Taliban.It's beautifully drawn and, while this is a sad time in the history of Afghanistan, it's told with great lightness of touch.On at the Waterman's till Thursday.

Susan Kelly ● 3060d

Okay, this latest offering from Francois Ozon is as mad as a box of frogs but I found it very entertaining. A lot of the audience were giggling by the end, and not because it's supposed to be a comedy, but it's never boring.It's an 18 certificate and the sex is pretty explicit, if that floats your boat.

Susan Kelly ● 3053d

Unfortunately I can remember 1962 all too clearly, and yes, the film captured very well the mood and mores of the period.I thought the film was very enjoyable, thought-provoking and well acted.  Another case of an Ian McEwan novel translating well to screen, but I do think the book had certain things to do with the inner world of the main protagonists which weren't able to come through.Anyway, recommended.

Alastair Banton ● 3051d

When I saw the trailers, I wondered if there was room for another film about Oscar Wilde but this covers the last three years of his life rather than his trial and imprisonment.1897, and Oscar Wilde is released from prison. He travels to Dieppe where his friends are helping him to start a new life as Sebastian Melmoth. His wife is allowing him £4 a week so long as he doesn't see Bosie, which he has no intention of doing. In fact, he hopes that Constance might take him back. Except that then Bosie turns up and Oscar is as helpless as ever. The two head for Naples but, when word gets out, Constance stops Oscar's allowance and Lady Queensbury stops Bosie's.They part and Oscar moves to Paris where he lives a hand-to-mouth existence and finds himself an amiable rent boy with a kid brother who is avid for his stories. Constance dies, leaving Oscar permanently cut off from funds and his sons. His health permanently damaged by his two years hard labour, he begins to fail and dies.There are flashbacks, including some good ones of Oscar at the height of his fame when fashionable west-end audiences worshipped him. One really clunky one when he is being moved from Wandsworth to Reading by train, handcuffed to a warden and barracked by a group of working class men 'We don't want none of your love that don't speak its moniker'. Ouch! Rupert Everett stars, directs and wrote the screenplay and maybe someone should have advised a rewrite of that scene.Very much worth seeing, though. Lovely cinematography.Everett (who is excellent) has been talking a lot in interviews about Wilde's massive talent. I can't be the only person who thinks he was only a very minor talent, can I?

Susan Kelly ● 3051d

One of the most over-hyped films I have seen in a long time.  It started well with an atmospheric picture of a more or less regular American middle-class family, the mother being played by the ever wonderful Toni Collette.  Then stuff started happening involving death, hauntings, devilry, and all that Dennis Wheatley type blood, gore and apparitions that I thought we had left behind in the 70s.      The film aspires to be a sort of Poltergeist meets Omen meets Rosemary's Baby but is a lesser achievement than any of those.  Having said that it does have some good qualities - impressive music, clever cinematography, excellent acting.  After a smart start and first half hour, for me it just went downhill and became increasingly ludicrous.  One moment that a couple of critics had praised just elicited chuckles from a group of youngsters near us.  When my wife went to the Ladies afterwards she overheard a couple of young women who were as unimpressed as I was so it's not just me being old and jaded.    I thought Ghost Stories (see above) to be far superior.  And The Babadook is another treat for horror fans, but this is not in that league.    Unless you are someone who is open-minded about the existence of an actual Devil, poltergeists, and the functionality of Ouija boards, you should probably steer clear!

Alastair Banton ● 3051d

Woops, sorry, I omitted to change the heading.One of the most over-hyped films I have seen in a long time.  It started well with an atmospheric picture of a more or less regular American middle-class family, the mother being played by the ever wonderful Toni Collette.  Then stuff started happening involving death, hauntings, devilry, and all that Dennis Wheatley type blood, gore and apparitions that I thought we had left behind in the 70s.      The film aspires to be a sort of Poltergeist meets Omen meets Rosemary's Baby but is a lesser achievement than any of those.  Having said that it does have some good qualities - impressive music, clever cinematography, excellent acting.  After a smart start and first half hour, for me it just went downhill and became increasingly ludicrous.  One moment that a couple of critics had praised just elicited chuckles from a group of youngsters near us.  When my wife went to the Ladies afterwards she overheard a couple of young women who were as unimpressed as I was so it's not just me being old and jaded.    I thought Ghost Stories (see above) to be far superior.  And The Babadook is another treat for horror fans, but this is not in that league.    Unless you are someone who is open-minded about the existence of an actual Devil, poltergeists, and the functionality of Ouija boards, you should probably steer clear!

Alastair Banton ● 3051d

I was thoroughly gripped by this German film staring Diane Kruger, who usually plays posh birds but is a bit of a badass here, smoking heavily and with lots of tattoos.She is Katya, married to a Turkish immigrant; they have a young son. Her life is devastated when husband and son are killed in a nail bomb attack by a neo-Nazi couple.Part two is the trial, which I found the best part. I knew that Germany didn't have trial by jury but was fascinated to see the differences from our own system. Witnesses give evidence on a sort of freestyle basis with the judge asking questions and the prosecution and defence counsels putting their hands up, like school kids, if they want to ask a question.Part three goes a bit off piste and the ending was too abrupt for my taste but I recommend this film whole-heartedly.

Susan Kelly ● 3044d

This is a British film set in 1959, starring Bill Nighy, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson, who seems to be cornering the market in 60-something bitches (cf Sharp Objects on Sky Atlantic).Based on a novel by the splendid Penelope Fitzgerald, this is an oddity. It's not very cinematic and the excessive use of voice-over suggests an unfilmable book. There are also bizarrely awful performances, not from the principals, but from some of the supporting cast. It could do with a good 20 minutes of cuts, IMO.I can tell I'm not selling it, and yet it doesn't go where you think it's going to go and I was glad to have seen it. Suffolk looks nice too -- assuming it actually is Suffolk.

Susan Kelly ● 3028d

If you liked Captain Fantastic - and I did - you may well like this too although there is none of the whimsy or laughs or light and shade in this movie. There is only shade and shade - mostly dappled. This troubled veteran has taken to the Oregon wilds with his young daughter but he cant wholly escape civilisation - more's the pity. It's very sympathetic (and very slow) but you rather expect him to go postal any moment....

Sara Nathan ● 3026d

Well - I don't think I could easily recommend this since it is pretty much 90 minutes of angst with a hanging ending that had most of the other ten people who were in the cinema with me at Westfield walking out shaking their heads!Director./Writer Paul Schrader has always specialised in tortured souls and lead characters heading to self destruction (from Taxi Driver onwards through American Gigolo and Mishima) and this film probably represents the current high point of that trajectory.Ethan Hawke in the lead role from the start conveys a man at his personal limits with a tragic prior history revealed as the file progresses. He is a pastor at a Protestant Church with a rich cultural history but poor congregation attendances and he shows limited experience of the religious vocational life. After encountering a pregnant parishioner with an unbalanced environmental activist boyfriend, the stage is set for the moral torment including a few gory scenes that takes up the rest of the film as different sides and emotions vie for his loyalties.As a religious person I found it interesting but ultimately not a film I could readily recommend many to watch and I suspect it will have limited appeal to wider audiences! The fact that the next film Schrader is currently involved with in pre production is called "The Jesuit" probably shows this is not quite the end of this personal journey yet?

Joe Conneely ● 3025d

16-year-old Mary Godwin is fed up with life with her father and her conventional stepmother. On a trip to Scotland she meets Percy Shelley and is instantly smitten, having no idea that he is already married. He and his wife are separated and he wants her to go away with him, so she does.A trip to visit Lord Byron in a villa near Geneva results in the novel Frankenstein.I found this quite plodding. The dialogue is clunky and expository and often pedestrian. This is Jane Austen's era but nobody bows or curtseys and everyone uses Christian names so it all rings very false.It looks nice and the actor playing Shelley is very beautiful but I was looking at my watch. Also both Shelley and Byron are obnoxious narcissists so that you want to slap them.

Susan Kelly ● 3024d

Within 5 minutes into this film and you know why with its depiction of  boxing and drug use it deserves its 18 Certificate! That brutal depiction of violence carries on for the rest of the film making it a pretty gruelling but ultimately invigorating experience to watch, if you can stomach it.Yet the film avoids all the cliches and traps it might have fallen into. Based on a true story and apparently popular paperback I have not read of a Liverpool boxer Billy Moore who was caught dealing drugs in Bangkok and sent to prison there, one immediately thinks of prior films like "Midnight Express". While this film was also made in a different country (Philippines) given its politically sensitive content, it uses Thai actors and real Thai ex-cons extensively to recreate the reality that Moore encountered More  importantly it avoids being a standard prison drama of a Westerner banged away in a foreign jail and the type of macho performances that Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham or many others would have depicted. This is because the lead role played by Joe Cole always feels as though he is struggling to survive and the authenticity of the scenes especially the Muay Thai ring fights are very realistic. Add to this that subtitles are not used at all in the film, means you are forced to share Moore's lack of understanding and fear at what is happening given everyone else speaks Thai. A very kaleidoscopic style of storytelling with lots of loose ends left involving corrupt prison officers, ladyboy relationships, prison cell gangs and beatings alongside  Moore's personal battle with drugs and redemption through being trained in Muay Thai boxing (using feet and fists) leaves you reeling as much as the camera during the fight scenes.

Joe Conneely ● 3021d

Frida is ?6/7 when she's orphaned by the death of her mother, her father already being dead. The official story is that she died of pneumonia but it's clear that it was something AIDS-related. She is sent to live in the depths of the countryside with her uncle, his wife and her younger cousin Anna. No one seems to think that Frida needs any help to cope with her bereavement: she's just expected to fit in with her new life.She is blamed, unreasonably, when Anna breaks her arm, and she out of her depth in the river. Her aunt describes her as 'wild' and sometimes struggles to care for her.It's a slow burn, feeling longer than its 98 minutes, but I found it ultimately satisfying. The child playing Frida is excellent -- an understated performance, interspersed with flashes of rage, until she finds a way to deal with her grief.

Susan Kelly ● 3020d

Films solely about Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) are few and far between. I can only recall seeing one called "A Life for Ruth" from the early 60s, with Michael Craig and the great Patrick McGoohan, which showed on TV across the 60s and 70s and a story around the issue of refusing blood transfusions . Based on this film which was funded by BFI, BBC Films and Creative England the truth seems to be they are not the easiest subject to make interesting films about given their beliefs and approach to life. This low key budget with no star names and a constantly drab Manchester setting whether inside or outside was a lesson for me in the beliefs JW worshippers have to strictly adhere to in being kept within the JW community, which seems to be very male dominant as depicted here. The film focusses around a devoted JW mother and her two daughters (the father it seems left some time ago) who have been brought up in the JW faith. Without giving the storyline away, the film probes the different ways in which their beliefs and devotion in the face of challenges and conflicts are tested.While all done at a very pedestrian pace and using the trick of characters openly voicing in  scenes their innermost thoughts, the film's real strength is the very even handed treatment of all sides as they handle their torment and avoids the emotional platforms that might be expected of bigger budget productions. In large part this may be down to first time director/scriptwriter Daniel Kokotajlo himself having been a JW previously. Definitely not an easy (or enjoyable) 90 minutes viewing though a bit more rewarding than "First Reformed" which I reviewed a few weeks ago in this Forum.

Joe Conneely ● 3014d

I very much agree with Joe's analysis of this magnificent film.  Unsurprisingly it is extremely critical of how cults can divide families and yet it manages to convey this message with great subtlety.  The Witnesses were never depicted as monsters but as believable, if deluded, human beings.  There is a courtship in the early part of the film which, though awkward, comes across as quite sweet.  A lesser writer might have adopted a more sledgehammer approach, but this softer portrayal is much more effective.The last few seconds are quite devastating and made me long for a sequel!

Alastair Banton ● 3012d

I too enjoyed this film very much.  There are actually some parallels with 'Apostasy' which I review below.  Father and daughter clearly love each other and are 'contented' in their outlaw lives.  But the Authorities who compel them to move back into Society are also portrayed sympathetically.And, as with Apostasy there is quite a dramatic turn of events right at the end which made me yearn to know what would happen next!

Alastair Banton ● 3012d

Yes, Leave No Trace is a very good film. You're right, the authority figures are so well depicted, completely sympathetic and non-judgmental yet the father can't conform to the world they want him to live in. The performances are superb and the photography is beautiful. The cinema where I saw it was more-or-less full so hopefully the film is getting the audience it deserves.

Norman Redfern ● 3011d

Loved it. As much, if not more than the first one. A real feel good film. Escapist nonsense of course, but we all need that from time to time. Great fun.

Chris Hurley ● 3011d

I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected from the respectful reviews. It's a great idea but I found it slow and, for my taste, it could have done with some plot.I agree that the fact that the authority figures and kind and helpful made a welcome change.Anyone else wonder what happened to 'Mom'? Or had I dozed off when that was explained?

Susan Kelly ● 3009d

One has to assume that the mother was dead otherwise social services would at least discussed the possibility of placing the daughter in her care.  But that would have led to a wholly different narrative.I am now looking forward to seeing The Escape and, er, Mamma Mia.I’ll be back!

Alastair Banton ● 3009d

I found this thoroughly absorbing. Yes, it's slow and low-key but never boring. Did anyone else know that JWs don't believe in a soul? It seems that, for them, blood fulfils the role that the soul does in other religions, hence the horror of having it 'polluted'.It would be easy to hate the 'Elders' with their 100% intransigence and their belief in the Armageddon which will bring paradise back to earth, though only for true believers, but the film is more subtle than that.

Susan Kelly ● 3002d

Oh dear, I didn't like it at all! I quite enjoyed the original Mamma Mia and the knowing way the script and plot were twisted to fit in with Abba lyrics.  I also appreciate the cleverness and catchiness of a lot of Abba's output, but the plot, such as it was, left few traces in my memory and that is perhaps why I found this sequel quite confusing. I couldn't work out why all these unfeasibly attractive people were doing what they were doing and meeting who they were meeting so I quickly got bored.  Also, the original had a much better set of songs, and here we had a lot of what could best be called 'fillers'.Also the dialogue was grossly unnatural.  One male critic who DID like this film mentioned tears streaming down his face.  As a sucker for sentimentality, I was quite prepared for this sort of reaction in myself, but it wasn't to be.I was hoping for something a bit different, a new angle, or some sort of depth or subtlety but it was just 'here we go again' and not in a good way.  I didn't sleep too well last night, just the echo of Fernando and Dancing Bloody Queen thrumming through my brain!

Alastair Banton ● 3001d

I am really enjoying this new documentary series on BBC4.  Mark Kermode really knows his stuff and his enthusiasm is very infectious.  If you haven't yet seen it, this is a ***** recommendation.  Do check it out while it is still available on BBC I-player.

Alastair Banton ● 3001d

I enjoyed it enough to go twice in a week with my daughter - and like Alistair - have had serious ever-worm problems ever since.I enjoyed the combination or=f prequel and sequel and thought it worked well. And the Richard Curtis touch was pervasive.Of course its tosh but fun tosh

Sara Nathan ● 3001d

Suspect a first in being a Paraguayan feature film! The country's sad history has resulted in little international film output making this film a brave attempt, though heavily reliant on other Latin American and European countries film funding.The film is fascinating for several reasons. Despite the writer/director in this his first feature being male, it is almost wholly female character driven with any male actors being marginal at best. The tale, which gives the film its title, is of two once wealthy women living together who only avoid penury in their late 50s/early 60s, by selling off valuable family possessions.  The film is not so much a plotted script more a series of observations on social etiquette amongst the struggling rich classes of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. One of the two women gets put in jail for fraud (because of failure to pay her debts), leaving the other - a great performance by Ana Brun - to slowly awaken from her isolated existence in their mansion and become more worldly and independent. With a need for money she becomes a chauffeur to wealthy women friends despite not having a driving licence and through that process and visiting her partner in prison, more emotionally aware late in life (given the ages of the actors I hesitate to describe as "coming of age"!).Like many observational style films the pace is slow and episodic with greater emphasis on sounds and noises than action. I must admit towards the end I was  looking at my watch and there were only two other people in the cinema so suspect not going to be a popular draw despite its film festival awards to date.

Joe Conneely ● 3000d

I found this film about a bored suburban housewife who seeks adventure by running away to Paris (£180 for last-minute single ticket from Ebbsfleet; are they having a laugh?) ridiculously old-fashioned. Are we living in the 1960s?Gemma Arterton is good as Tara (who doesn't even have a name until she gets to Ebbsfleet, apart from Babe and Mum'. I don't know if Dominic Cooper meant to make her husband as irritating as he is. They both needed a good shaking.

Susan Kelly ● 2991d

Well the good news is that it is much better than his prior dire remake of the classic “Oldboy” but overall this film for me is not top flight Spike Lee, despite all the rave reviews it seems to be currently getting. Based on a true story of a black undercover cop who in the 1970s gets accepted into the Klu Klux Klan based on phone calls made as an undercover cop, the lead role is played impassively by John David Washington, son of Denzel Washington, who has long been one of Lee’s favourite actors. With a Jewish colleague (played deadpan by Adam Driver) impersonating him when he has to physically attend meetings with the KKK, the story itself might have made for an interesting police buddy drama given the KKK’s hatred of Jews and Blacks.

 However this film is primarily a vehicle for Lee seeking to make statements about the history of racism and the KKK in the USA plus the growth of Black Power in the 1970s up to the current US president and recent tragic events in Charlottesville. For about the first half you are not sure whether you are watching a black comedy (no pun intended) with a police procedural story underpinning it with lots of historical references (scenes intercut from “Intolerance”,  Gone with the Wind” plus numerous over flagged links to 1970s blaxploitation movies). Then for the second half, more parallel running of a terrorist type plot developing alongside spoofing of the KKK members and attitudes leads to the original story climax. That then morphs into an ending around more recent events as Lee tries to ensure you leave the cinema having got his point.

Sadly I left feeling I had seen a poor propaganda film patched onto a true police story that on its own, as written in this film script, was probably not that great. Spike Lee may have a lot of anger in him about US history and recent events but this film does not provide much understanding of how and why such hatred persists.

Joe Conneely ● 2983d

I have seen some interesting films (per earlier reviews) but this is easily the best new film I have seen to date this year and one can easily see why it got the top award at Cannes.If you saw the director's previous Oscar winning foreign language films "Ada", this film follows much of the same approach -  post WW2 Poland setting, shot in black and white in smaller Academy ratio (so not usual widescreen) plus stunning simple cinematography. The story covers 15 years (late 1940s to early 1960s) of a roller coaster relationship between a skilled musician and composer (Tomasz Kot) leading a Communist state sponsored troupe specialising in old Polish music and dance and a woman (Joanna Kulig) who is a born survivor with enough music talent and dance skills that earn a place in the group. I am not a great lover of musicals but the extensive music and dance included is here an integral part of the story and works very effectively.But what makes the film work so well is two great central performances and an economy of story telling and script done in jump style (time and locations) across a long period in time, so gaps in the story and facts are left for the audience to intuit in following what is happening. At just under 90 minutes, not a minute had been wasted was my feeling by the end.

Joe Conneely ● 2977d

I thoroughly enjoyed this as it was so different from the run-of-the-film films we usually get. It's very low key but a fascinating glimpse into this alien world. For example, despite having to sell their treasures, the two women still keep a live-in maid (who cannot read or write), but then by my calculations Chela only charges about 50p for her taxi service, suggesting a very low cost of living.I was a bit baffled by the 'debt' which the bank describes as a fraud. What I did wonder if whether it's illegal to overdraw in Paraguay as it is in some countries. A custodial sentence, however short, seems a bit harsh!

Susan Kelly ● 2976d

Susan, I know little about Paraguayan (or Latin American) commercial laws but assumed it was not dissimilar to the Victorian system where if you could not pay a debt you got hauled off to a debtor's prison (as the story in Charles Dickens "Little Dorrit" I think covers).I thought the irony of that woman then having it seems a much more pleasurable time socially at the state's expense than at home in penury, give how Paraguayan prisons seem to be run plus she had extra money and deliveries of cigarettes from her friend to differentiate her from other prisoners was a nice touch!

Joe Conneely ● 2975d

I agree, Joe. Chiquita seemed to be having a perfectly nice time in prison. Like a non-stop house party.... Actually, that would be my idea of hell!

Susan Kelly ● 2975d

I loved it.  Emma Thompson is wonderful in the lead role as a judge who has to decide the fate of a 17-year old who, on account of his religious beliefs, is refusing the blood transfusion that will save his life.  At the same time, her marriage is in a rocky phase.  I knew the ending, having read the book, but this in no way spoilt it for me.  There is also the ubiquitous Jason Watkins doing his stressed middle-aged shtick, but doing it well.Gripping and thought-provoking.

Alastair Banton ● 2974d

I should add that this could be seen as a ‘sister’ film to Apostasy as it also concerns Jehovah’s Witnesses.And the blind conviction of the boy reminded me a little of the fervour shown by Rhys Iffans in that other Ian McEwan adaptation, ‘Enduring Love’.

Alastair Banton ● 2974d

This is the sort of middle-class melodrama that British cinema does so well. Thompson is blisteringly good as 'My Lady', who has let her marriage die of neglect in her perfect flat. Fionn Whitehead also excels as the sickly boy.Well worth 100 minutes of your time and running at the Waterman's until the 20th.

Susan Kelly ● 2968d

I've never liked Chekhov but thought I'd give him another chance in a short film with a good cast. It didn't seem short. Now, at least, I have a better idea why I dislike him so much: it's impossible to care about his characters who are self-involved and make terrible decisions all the time.It looks nice, with a beautiful Russian estate in the summer. If you like Chekhov, then you'll probably enjoy it.

Susan Kelly ● 2966d

I agree with Joe that this is well worth 88 minutes of your time, though some of my friends at the screening declared themselves 'disappointed'. It's a very unusual love story about two people who cannot live with each other but cannot live without each other -- rather the same way they seem to feel about their native Poland. Kulig, in particular, is faultless as Zula, whom we first meet as a teenage girl looking little more than a child. The ending is, perhaps, a little abrupt.

Susan Kelly ● 2961d

Max is a high-end wedding planner and has an elaborate do at a château to organise. The groom is a pompous ass(hole), the band is falling out with everyone, the photographer is eating all the canapés, his girlfriend will dump him if he doesn't tell his wife he's leaving her, and almost all his staff are working cash-in-hand.If the man with the briefcase isn't from Social Security, and if he can manage not to give the guests food poisoning or accidentally kill the groom, then the business might survive for another day.This is a shade too long, as ever, but is, autrement, French farce at its best.

Susan Kelly ● 2961d

Yup, I've been to the cinema three days running.This is quite a run-of-the-mill romcom but made very enjoyable by the setting among the multi-billionaires of Singapore, where families expect their children to marry for the good of the said family and not for something fleeting like love.

Susan Kelly ● 2960d

I read the novel when it came out and formed my own theories as how to explain it -- theories that were poo-pooed by him indoors, I might say. This faithful adaptation only convinced me further that I am right.Dohmnall Gleeson is excellent as the main character, Dr Faraday (he doesn't seem to have a first name), seething with class resentment towards the posh folk at the manor house. There is an unsettling stillness about him and he sports a truly awful moustache. Ruth Wilson is superb, as ever, as the daughter of the house.The tension doesn't let up and the 110 minutes fly by.Recommended.

Susan Kelly ● 2958d

Can't agree with Joe: for me this was one of the best films of the year -- right up there with Three Billboards.It's themes are serious with, yes, parallels drawn to continuing race problems in the US today and the Trump regime: The KKK want to make American great -- white America, obviously.But it's also very funny. I felt the two elements blended beautifully.

Susan Kelly ● 2954d

Agree with Susan - this was a great film. Big themes but also funny and very emotional at the end. I loved it. Seeing Yardie next which my daughter says is even better.

Chris Hurley ● 2953d

1993, Bible Belt. Cameron is caught snogging another girl and dispatched to God's Promise, a school to 'cure' gay teenagers, run by Rick, formerly 'cured' himself, and his creepy therapist sister. What could be better for gay teenagers than to be locked up with other gay teenagers? What could possibly go wrong with that?Cameron becomes friends with a boy and girl who are growing weed up in the woods, but otherwise knuckles down to study though the film is dotted with her strange dreams.This felt very underpowered. The girl who plays Cameron is excellent but I never really engaged with the story and left disappointed.

Susan Kelly ● 2952d

Joe and Joan Castleman of Connecticut have been married a long time (though he was already married when they met). Though showing promise as a writer in her student days, Joan has spent her life supporting star Joe and now it bears fruit as he wins the Nobel Prize for Literature and they head for Stockholm, pursued by Nathaniel Bone, who is writing an unauthorised biography of Joe. He has some theories about Joe's career which Joe won't like.Though watchable enough there is something unsatisfactory about this film -- too many things that don't ring true psychologically. Glenn Close's performance as Joan is superbly nuanced, however, and her own daughter makes her screen début as her younger self.

Susan Kelly ● 2943d

And Jonathan Pryce was seriously good too.I thought too little was made of the Glenn Close character's knowing complicity and acceptance of  Elizabeth McGovern's character's advice.All those middle-aged, smug white men were quite annoying though....

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

I think we enjoyed this more than Susan did. While the plot was pretty thin, the character depiction was strong. I enjoyed the nuanced characters - none of whom were truly bad but several f which presented as perverse to our sensibilities.

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

But  all jolly annoying. I thought it a TV soap opera, no more, though with a lavish budget and an extras cast of thousands.And the leads - apart from the tiger mum played by Michelle Keoh - were underpowered.

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

Rather an extraordinary movie with a great sound track: Poland's culture being as corrupted as its agonised people by prolonged Soviet engagement. the degradation of the folk culture into a mouthpiece of Stalin - only escapable by becoming a louche jazz musician in Paris, is really interesting and unusual.The leads are beautifully acted but the female character in particular is so irritating, its hard to sympathise with the will they won't they find happiness dilemmas. It feels longer than it is.

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

Really enjoyed this clever period piece and thought the central performances very effective, thought the rest of the police force seemed (with only one exception) implausibly PC, Woke and right on for the time and place.A good watch - though NOT 3 billboards level in my view

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

Agree with the above....but they don't mention Stanley Tucci - one of my favourite actors - as the neglected husband.I thought the last third less good than the first two -thirds but think that may have been down to the book.And the portrayal of the British judiciary was spot on - from the investiture of the High Court Judge to the ghastly dinners in the judges' lodgings and in the Inns of Court . You could feel someone sensible like Joshua Rozenburg must have been the legal advisor and then got to the end, and blow me, he was!

Sara Nathan ● 2942d

I share Susan and Sara's reservations about this film.  Dare I say I found it rather dull and slow moving.  I thought it became more involving once the exact nature of the wife's complicity became clear.  But I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied.  I wanted to know what would happen with the son, with the biographer and with her own literary ambitions.  It was almost like a prequel!

Alastair Banton ● 2941d

I watched this on Netflix but it's on limited release at Curzon cinemas. It's the story of the bombing in central Oslo and the murder of 77 children at a political summer camp on an island nearby by Anders Breivik in 2011.The crime doesn't take up much of the 140-minute running time, with the concentration being mostly on the trial, focussing on Breivik himself, on one of the boys who survived the shooting albeit with brain injuries, and with Breivik's reluctant defence counsel who promptly gets death threats against his family.Oddly, Paul Greengrass has used a Norwegian cast, speaking English with Norwegian accents, which gives the whole thing a slight 'Allo, Allo' aspect and makes for some stilted exchanges. I found it slow and over-long despite the intrinsic interest of the case.Some people say that the film gives Breivik what he craves -- publicity for his crazy ideas -- but I'm not convinced. Despite his calm and reasonable demeanour he is clearly insane, with his imaginary friends ('I'm a commander in the Knight's Templar'). The young man who plays him is excellent throughout.I think I heard that the Norwegians are making their own film about this atrocity. Might be worth waiting for that.

Susan Kelly ● 2938d

The Moon landing was such an historic event and, of course, a great propaganda coup for the U.S.A. at the height of the cold war so my view of it has always been coloured by those facts.  I have never given much thought to what might have been going on in the lives and emotions of those directly involved.  And given the nature of most American cinematic blockbusters I was half expecting some sort of propaganda-fest.  I couldn't have been more wrong.First Man is a close-up examination of Neil Armstrong, his immediate family and his colleagues.  We learn about how he was selected to lead the lunar mission, the training that ensued and the actual voyage.  I hadn't realised how many astronauts were killed in the course of testing equipment.  Quite shocking.  Also shocking is how primitive the equipment looks compared to today's technology.  (I actually visited NASA a couple of years back and was told on the tour that the total computational power within the control room was much less than we each now have on our smart phones!)  How on earth did they get to the moon with that?Anyway, First Man is terrific.  The direction by Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, LaLa Land) is impressive.  The acting, particularly Ryan Gosling and Clare Foy (Mr and Mrs Armstrong) was very convincing.  And I think the music and sound should qualify for a gong nomination or two.  All in all a wonderful emotional roller coaster.  See it!

Alastair Banton ● 2931d

A classic story, that you probably already know, brought up to date, sort of.  Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are both hugely impressive expressing believable emotions as the career of Jackson (Cooper) plummets in a haze of alcohol and other drugs while that of his protégé Ally (Gaga) soars.  She clearly has an extraordinary voice as well as serious acting ability.The music is loud, emotional and it rocks! Most enjoyable.

Alastair Banton ● 2925d

I don't know if it's my XX chromosomes but I found this a bit of a yawn and might have dropped off had it not been so excruciatingly loud. The best scene, for me, when was they were drafting the statement that the President would read out if they all three men died on the Apollo 11 mission. Good to be prepared!Take ear plugs.

Susan Kelly ● 2918d

Alternatively....It is far too long and the middle sags...and unless you are a Lady gaga fan (I am neutral) there is a LOT of music.But the stars are great and,conidsering the lead directed - usually a disaster - it was fine apart from the length.

Sara Nathan ● 2915d

I loved this movie. It's about growing up in Black America between the cleft stick of the gangs on one side and the shoot-first-ask-questions-later police on the other.The young leads are really excellent - actually the parents are too and it is full of drama and serious thoughts about #BlackLivesMatter without ever losing the mainstream teen movie feel.Feels adapted from a book - and that turns out to be true - but really worked for me.

Sara Nathan ● 2915d

This is sort of a bio-pic crossed with a literary heist movie.Starring Richard E Grant (one of my favourite British actors) and Melissa McCarthy (of Bridesmaids fame apparently) as a failing and author and even more failing actor in New York, who need a new way to make money.The title is a quote from Dorothy Parker, whose words feature quite extensively.It's very New York and really almost a two - hander but with the smaller roles beautifully judged.I really enjoyed it: it's small scale and hasn't a huge variety of pace but it's also laugh out loud funny at points.

Sara Nathan ● 2914d

Talk about a triumph of style over substance.... this is the most irritating and annoying movie.It should be fab: directed by the chap who directed the Lobster - which was also weird but immensely engaging - and with Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone - which meant expectations and how hard it was to get in to a screening meant should be really ace.And the design and costume design are amazing. I loved the role-reversal of the woman being in sub fuss - all black and white and serious clothing with the men dressed and primped like popinjays. But the anachronisms! I do hope they were on purpose: language; dance; music.And it felt such a waste of talent - it was the first time the director, Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz had been directed by this chap since the Lobster.Also ( my pet piece of trivia I spotted) it was the first film with Rachel Weisz and Nicholas Hoult site About a Boy in 2002 - when he was about eight.  Malcolm loathed the music.The graphics epitomised the whole ethos: beautiful to look at but you couldn't read for understand them so the chapter headings and credits were incomprehensible.Unusually for a screening, nobody applauded and people left before the end of the credits.Bet Susan likes it though....

Sara Nathan ● 2914d

I don't mind an anachronism -- cf the recent Vanity Fair on ITV.I shall decide whether to go when it's released.

Susan Kelly ● 2913d

I thoroughly enjoyed this little Italian oddity though my companions were less enthusiastic.It's set on a run-down part of the southern Italian coast -- I would guess not far from Naples, though it occurred to me that it could be set with very few changes in a run-down English coastal resort full of the 'left behind'.Marcello is a runt of a man who runs a dog grooming parlour and, I suspect, likes dogs much more than people. The bane of his life is massive thug Simone who bullies him into doing things such as being a getaway driver for him while he robs people.Marcello isn't a nice man -- he deals drugs on the side -- and it's obvious that life isn't going to turn out well for him.So, it isn't a comedy but I liked it a lot and there are some amazing dogs.

Susan Kelly ● 2913d

Nancy lives in small-town America with her unloving mother. Mother has Parkinson's and Nancy is her carer, doing temp office work when she can get it. She lives her life largely on the Internet and tells a lot of lies about who she is and what she's done. She's a kind of vampire, feeding on the emotions of others.Shortly after her mother's sudden death, Nancy sees a TV story about a couple whose 5-year-old daughter disappeared from a shopping mall 30 years ago and was never heard of again. She contacts the mother, saying that she believes herself to be the missing child. She goes to see them. They are educated and middle-class. The mother longs to believe her while the father is more sceptical. In the three days while they wait for the DNA results to come through, she stays with them. What does she want from them? Has she convinced herself that her claims are true? Could they even be true?Andrea Riseborough stars and produces, with Steve Buscemi as the bereaved father. It's an unusual piece with a performance from Riseborough devoid of vanity as she looks a complete mess.

Susan Kelly ● 2909d

is a cartoon but a really unusual one - a tale of life in Kabul in the fairly recent past under the Taliban and their tyranny. The main story is in greys mostly and rather sad, the story within a story told by our heroine, is a Baroque fantasy full of colour and curlicues and the contrast is profound.Its all rather sad and unhappy and not a children's cartoon at all. But ever so good.

Sara Nathan ● 2908d

is another cartoon but could not contrast  more with the `breadwinner.It is a Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit) Aardman romp in stop motion animation through pre-history. It has an astonishing voice cast featuring Rob Brydon, Timothy Small and Miriam Margolys and quite a few laugh out loud moments.Very jolly.Up the Gunners. Down with Real Bronzio.

Sara Nathan ● 2908d

Not much to say other than I loved every minute of it. The young actor who plays Freddie Mercury was superb and I thought it found the right balance of the songs and the drama behind the scenes.

Susan Kelly ● 2905d

It's tempting to call this French film quiet, but there is a simmering anger under it. It's set in one of those run-down seaside towns that now seem to exists all over Europe, where the docks that provided work to the locals closed a long time ago and there is no work or future for the young.A woman novelist comes down from Paris to lead a summer workshop on writing for young people, many of whom have been sent to do the course by the Job Centre. Imagine that happening in England!We focus on Antoine, a loner, whose friends are flirting with the far right. He puts up the backs of other students, especially those of minority ethnic origin and becomes a little fixated on the teacher. There is nothing so unsubtle as the healing power of literature here.

Susan Kelly ● 2902d

This is a film version of a novel by Nick Hornby which I hadn't read. It's an amiable romcom about a nice, pretty, clever 30-something woman living in a picturesque seaside town who apparently cannot do any better, man wise, than a weird obsessive or an old man with a ton of baggage, which is par for the course in films written by men and one of my particular bugbears. No wonder her sister is a lesbian.That aside, it's gently amusing and sweet, not laugh-out-loud.

Susan Kelly ● 2898d

I'm old enough to remember the TV series from ?early 80s. This sticks to the same plot though in present day Chicago where our London gangsters would look a bit tame. It's a strong plot, linear, a shade too long and featuring the tallest woman I've ever seen. Well worth a visit.

Susan Kelly ● 2895d

I loved it too... two and a quarter hours and didn't seem long at all. The Freddie Mercury portrayal was great and it had Tom Hollander who is always a bonus.You could see Brian May had been involved - it was his viewpoint really

Sara Nathan ● 2894d

A bio-pic of Laurel & Hardy's tour of the UK at the end of their career. It was quite entertaining and amusing but frankly not that memorable.Steve Coogan stars as the thin one and was ace. And it was quite poignant

Sara Nathan ● 2894d

This is unsurprisingly on extremely limited release (OK, just the one screening at the Irish Film Festival.)Its a very worthy enterprise to train Irish film-makers and promote Northern Ireland but unfortunately has two much stuff paid for by the Belfast tourist board and a totally outrageous and idiotic plot device that wrecked the whole movie for me in the last 20 minutes.But there are a couple of strong performances and it does mean awfully well.

Sara Nathan ● 2894d

A truly terrible title, for a film about the woman who cracked open all the US law that discriminates against women by the cunning device of pleading a case that had discriminated against a man with regard to taxes, thus proving that discriminating 'on the basis of sex' is unconstitutional.You need an interest in the minutiae of law and taxes, which I have luckily, to be really absorbed by this and I fear it will struggle to find an audience in the UK, despite the presence of our own Felicity Jones as lawyer Ruth Ginsberg.Ginsberg is now on the Supreme Court at the age of 85. If she dies, then Trump will get to appoint another of his red-necked cronies to her seat. Pray for Ruth!

Susan Kelly ● 2886d

A young woman cast out by the Orthodox Jewish community of North London for sexual transgression (of the lesbian variety) comes home for her father's funeral, to find that his obituaries describe him as childless and he has left the family home to the synagogue. She is soon reunited with the woman she loved and old feelings resurface.It's slow, with many conversations going on much longer than necessary, but I found it absorbing. Great performances all round.

Susan Kelly ● 2885d

Small-town Montana 1960. Jerry and Jeanette are new in town, with their 14-year-old son Joe. They've moved around a lot as Gerry seems to have trouble keeping a job. Ginny is a teacher but he seems to have no qualifications. Joe is taking time to make friends at his new school. Life is not easy.When jerry loses yet another job, he elects to go and fight the wildfires in the hills for $1 an hour. Jeanette is furious. She married for love and, 15 years on, is living a hand-to-mouth existence. When an old, rich man takes an interest in her, the temptation is too strong.The story is mostly seen through Joe's eyes and the young Australian actor playing him almost stole the film from Carey Mulligan and Jake GyllenhaalI went with three friends, two of whom dismissed it as 'inconsequential'; I thought it was anything but -- a subtle intricate slice of life.

Susan Kelly ● 2884d

Its a good film, despite the title (and on the basis of gender is pretty -well, un-sexy) and thats what the law became.Felicity Jones is ace - flawlessly American too. And the whole story is interesting and well-told.

Sara Nathan ● 2881d

This is labelled a comedy - and there are laugh out loud moments - but its about discrimination against black people - even elite and famous black pianists - in the southern states right into the 60s.Viggo Mortenson s great as the Brooklyn-based, Italian bouncer who becomes a driver for Don Shirley on an 8 week tour. They have nothing in common but..,It's based on a true story and written and produced by the son of the real Tony Lipp - the driver. It is long though 130 minutes. Doesnt really feel it.

Sara Nathan ● 2881d

Too long and slow.And some of the Jewish stuff is quite irritating, though they obviously tried hard.Plus a little lesbian (or any other sort for that matter) goes a long way for me - and there is a fair bit.I found the husband - played well by Alessandro Nivola - the most sympathetic character.

Sara Nathan ● 2881d

I enjoyed this much more than I had expected.Its the male version of the miseducation of Cameron....Conversion therapy for a christian teenager.Stars Russell Crowe as the actually surprisingly sympathetic father and Nicole Kidman as the wholly sympathetic mum, Lucas Hedges as the boy and  Joel Edgerton both plays the bad guy and directed/wrote the script.Its very american which is surprising as almost everyone involve is antipodean.

Sara Nathan ● 2881d

Old men behaving badly.Based on the true story of Forest Tucker, a career criminal, who robbed banks but always very politely and with a smile on his face. He loved robbing banks, enjoyed the car chase when the police caught up with him, and escaped from 16 prisons, including San Quentin.1981, in his 70s, he robs a bank under the nose of weary detective John Hunt, Hunt is determined to track him down, despite its being technically a case for the Feds. Meanwhile, Forest has met a pleasant widow, who assumes he's joking when he tells her he's a bank robber.You can't help liking him, as he's such a nice guy, except that he abandoned his wife and kids because he loved robbing banks more than he loved them.The 82-year-old Robert Redford plays Tucker and does a good job. I liked the film, just not as much as I was hoping.

Susan Kelly ● 2881d

This small British film doesn't seem to be showing anywhere except the Waterman's, despite a stellar cast of Tom Wilkinson, Aneurin Barnard and Christopher Eccleston. It's about a man who, having failed to commit suicide several times, hires an elderly hitman to do the job for him only, inevitably, to change his mind.The script could have done with a couple more drafts but I laughed out loud several times.

Susan Kelly ● 2877d

Apparently this is Robert Redford's final film - but he still has a lot of charm. And Sissy Spacek is great a the widow - but I hadnt realised she is nearly 70. I feel old.A cameo too from Elizabeth Moss (Madmen, Handmaids Tale) I thought it a rather good family film.

Sara Nathan ● 2873d

I missed this when it was released earlier this year so went to a terribly early screening - and was glad I did.Oldish man dies and his partner is shunned by his family - really ists about coping with grief.Except the younger person - Marina - is a transitioning trans-sexual, which makes the family even crosser. Beautifully played by the two leads. Not a lot of dialogue but each word tells.

Sara Nathan ● 2873d

Saw this much earlier in the year but the DVD arrived and I realised I had forgotten it - sort of Captain Fantastic without the laugh or cheery family bits...Rather miserable.

Sara Nathan ● 2873d

Paul Giametti plays half a couple enduring infertility and going through IVF ad then surrogacy.Very only in America... I don't think it could ever happen like that here.Took me back to HFEA days and not in a good way.

Sara Nathan ● 2873d

This is far removed from the Japan we normally see in the media -- the relentlessly middle-class Japan, full of rule-keepers. The family at the centre of this cracking drama are rule-breakers, an underclass that I suspect the Japanese are loathe to acknowledge, one that lives beneath the gaze of the authorities.There is grandma (theoretically the only person living in their cramped hovel), her daughter, son-in-law, a grandson and a granddaughter. The younger generation do odd bits of work but mostly they steal the food and clothes that they need.When they pick up a five-year-old girl on the street and take her home for food and warmth, they soon realise that she is covered in bruises and scars. When they try to take her home the next day, they can hear her parents screaming abuse at each other and the mother saying that she never wanted the child. They quietly take her home again, change her hairstyle and name and she becomes part of the family.It's soon clear that most, if not all, of these people are not related by blood, but have chosen to be a family -- people who will look after each other in order to survive.As the drama unfolds, it raises important questions not only about what family is but what goodness is. The Japanese equivalent of the Daily Mail would hate and demonise these people, yet I felt in my heart that are good people.One of my films of the year.

Susan Kelly ● 2871d

I loved this film. Its the depressing underbelly of Beirut and life on the margins. The mostly try young cast is so believable and empathy-inducing.Not many laughs and lots of headstrong tugging....but completely absorbing.

Sara Nathan ● 2866d

except probably hardly any of it is....So the raging Shakespeare goes home as the bard of Abon and reconciles with the even more raging Anne Hathaway while he mourns the death of his twin son Hamnet.This film is part of the argument as to why actors shouldn't direct themselves.... Kenneth Branagh is both Shakespeare and the producer/director. Judi Dench stretches credulity as Mrs Shakespeare. I mean we know she was older than him but not 30-odd years.Its very beautiful though and the lighting is amazing.

Sara Nathan ● 2866d

I so wanted to love this... I mean who wouldn't? but it is really derivative and feels like a rip off of the original with none of the creativity of the original and lots of pastiche of it.It fells like the producers looked at Paddington 2 and thought "we can do this" Lets get a British treasure as a villain: Colin Firth not Hugh Grant. And Julie Walters as the batty old maid. But then it sort of faded.And where there really still lamplighters in London in the thirties?And some truly cringe-withy cameos.And the music isnt strong enough.So when the family say "oh can we watch the DVD on Xmas day?" my response will be to run away with a large box of Quality Street and leave them to it.A pity.

Sara Nathan ● 2866d

This is a somewhat languorous tribute - in black and white to the auteur's family maid in the 70s.Its very engaging and, while quite slow and long, isnt really marred by either.Its also beautifully shot in black and white.Interesting given the director is make, the core premise seems to be that all grown men are complete sh**s. Definitely worth seeing

Sara Nathan ● 2866d

Clever bio-pic of Dick Cheney - I still don't understand what made him do the things he did or why he was a)such a republican and b) so in the pocket of big business.But this was a stylish attempt to tell me and was clever (rather like the Big Short to which it is creatively related)The leads: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carrell and Sam Rockwell did a good job.Of the two big Washington insider movies, this was far the most interesting.

Sara Nathan ● 2859d

Remember Gary Hart? well you do have to be of a certain age and rather keen on American politics to even recall his name. But he was going to win the Democratic nomination for President - and then there was a sex-scandal and he didn't.That's it really. And it's told in a very straight way which I thought rather boring. Not a must-see for the average Brit I wouldn't think.

Sara Nathan ● 2859d

Two animal related movies to follow the political ones.The rider is sort of a true story with many of the characters playing themselves.It's about a man who lives for horses and specifically rodeos, from a dysfunctional family, who is injured and can't do the bucking bronco stuff any more. Plus he has a friend (also played by someone to whom this happened) who is injured even more.So what to do with life? Be a sort of horse-whisperer? find something else and if so what?This is a slow movie, but not dull, and the acting - much by amateurs - is really special.

Sara Nathan ● 2859d

Marcello is great with dogs but no great shakes with humans. And he is horribly bullied by the gross Simone. So what can he do?It's the grim bit of Italy but at least the Italian is easy to follow (lots of it is spoken to the dogs)Rather gripping though some excessively bloody bits.

Sara Nathan ● 2859d

Sara's right: this could well have been subtitled 'All Men are Bastards', although there may be a corollary that women and children can well manage without them, even in 1970.It is slow, especially at the start, but absorbing. I rather wished I'd seen it on the big screen. (It's on Netflix).

Susan Kelly ● 2858d

Is a documentary about Mister Rodgers who was a long-lasting children' TV performer/creator/producer/writer/puppeteer.I suspect it would have been more gripping if you had grown up in the states watching it. But it was still interesting and quite moving without that, mostly because he was an ordained minister and avowed republican but astonishingly inclusive and liberal for his era.

Sara Nathan ● 2858d

This is a film about the underside of Japan, the part you don't see covered. It has quite a few parallels with Capernaum (qv) but with more of a twist.It's about a rather complicated family-by-choice (mostly), how it cares for each other and what happens next.It starts off rather sweet, if a bit full of low-level crime, but is really rather moving by the end.There is a lot of chopsticks technique and slurping. Why is there so much food in Japanese movies?

Sara Nathan ● 2858d

Even for the Coen brothers, this was a weird movie: six separate short tales unlinked by anything except being about the traditional wild west. The shooting is fantastic, the landscapes too but its very, very odd.And quite bloody and macabre.But certainly original and not irritating a la the Favourite.

Sara Nathan ● 2857d

Oh my goodness drug addiction is tedious. It looks boring to do and both tedious ad terrifying to be related to.Steve Carrel (who seems to be in everything this year) is a very well-off freelance writer(didn't know it was possible) with a lovely son who is on crystal meth. This isnt good.There are no laughs. It seems to last  very long time.

Sara Nathan ● 2857d

An educated but broke taiwanese girl in London gets an unusual job: as a receptionist in a cheese brothel in the London suburbs.Another film which reflects pretty poorly on men who rape, abandon, extort and are generally vile.So its sort of about sisterhood and a bit about betrayal and aspiration.I thought it a great watch and very engaging.

Sara Nathan ● 2856d

Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.I knew that was based on a true story but not much more and had always thought it an English nursery rhyme. Actually, it was Massachusetts.Given the gender of the title character, the men come out of it rather badly (a bit of a theme) and does every movie this year have to have LGBT overtones?Not unreasonably there is quite a lot of blood - pigeons as well as people as it happens. but the longeurs in  between explore an astonishingly dysfunctional family.Chloe Sevigny stars and there is a small role for Fiona Shaw.No laughs but better than I thought it would be.

Sara Nathan ● 2856d

Thanks for saying its on Netflix - I'd been wanting to see it so watched it last night. Brilliant from a (slowish) start to finish. Recommended.

Chris Hurley ● 2854d

I found this a real curate's egg. The bits that were excellent mostly had nothing to do with the central plot. The rest needed, as my friend Rita put it, a fast-forward button. At over two hours, it'll tax small children.There was a tiny baby sitting in the second row, but I think he was mostly asleep anyway.

Susan Kelly ● 2850d

I hope people do not mind but I have kicked off a 2019 thread given my first review is of a film that went on general release in January 2019 plus very slow loading of this thread!!

Joe Conneely ● 2842d