My Afternoons with Margueritte

These days Gérard Depardieu looks as though he wouldn't need much padding to play Obélix again. Though he continues to work with some of the biggest names in French cinema, it has been a while since he really surprised us, maybe because he's now such a familiar presence; in 2010 alone, he took on no less than five leading roles and a couple of walk-ons.

Due Date

Todd Phillips’s interest in road trips as a hook for 90 minutes of male bad behaviour continues with this virtual remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. For mismatched couple Steve Martin and John Candy, read Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis.

The Kids Are All Right

Americans are chastised, often wrongly, for possessing a scant sense of irony, so I mean it as no criticism whatsoever of The Kids Are All Right to point out that the title of Lisa Cholodenko's wonderful film is altogether un-ironic. In less caring or careful hands, or a not so fully empathic context, this might be a portrait of irretrievably damaged youth with the parents deemed responsible, of the sort that proliferates on the London stage.

Involuntary

This first feature from Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund arrives heavy with awards, the seasoned and decorated product of film festivals across Europe. Brutal, quirky and elegantly self-conscious, it does little to challenge the trends that have recently made Swedish cinema (Let The Right One In, The Millennium Trilogy) such hot property.

The Arbor

Verbatim drama, long established in theatre, has rarely been used in film. But director Clio Barnard uses the device to magnificent, and sometimes deliberately disjointing, effect in The Arbor, to tell the story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar, who wrote The Arbor and Rita, Sue and Bob Too (made into a film in 1986) before she died at the age of 29 in 1990.

Film: Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow