Film Reviews
Simple Passion review – a case of female amour fouSaturday, 06 February 2021
Pushing 40, Simple Passion’s Hélène (Laetitia Dosch) lectures Paris college students on poetry and is single mother to pre-adolescent Paul (Lou Teymour-Thion). Read more...
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Rams review – softhearted bush-loving dramaSaturday, 06 February 2021
Kiwi and Aussie screen legends Sam Neill and Michael Caton have teamed up in this heartfelt and humorous remake of Grímur Hákonarson’s 2015 Icelandic original. The template of Hákonarson’s story has been transplanted but all the details and fillings have changed. Read more... |
Bliss review - simulation or real life?Friday, 05 February 2021
Bliss gets off to a powerful start. Read more... |
Malcolm & Marie review - actorly grandstanding in beautiful black and whiteFriday, 05 February 2021
Do you want to spend 105 minutes trapped in a house with two people arguing, or do you already feel that your life under lockdown is quite quarrelsome and claustrophobic enough? If your answer is the former, then Malcolm & Marie is the perfect movie for you. Read more... |
Assassins review - unravelling the bizarre death of Kim Jong-namSaturday, 30 January 2021
The 2017 killing of Kim Jong-nam, older half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, was a chilling expression of merciless Pyongyang realpolitik. Read more... |
The Capote Tapes review - lush portrait of the louche writerSaturday, 30 January 2021
"A candied tarantula" is one of the many great descriptions of Truman Capote that light up this conventionally made but enjoyable profile of the American author most famous for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and&nbs Read more... |
Penguin Bloom, Netflix review - stirringly acted if sentimentalFriday, 29 January 2021
Two genuinely lovely performances elevate an often-simplistic tale in Penguin Bloom, based on a 2016 memoir of the same name. Read more... |
The Dig, Netflix review - a haunting exploration of time and timelessnessThursday, 28 January 2021
The Sutton Hoo burial site in Suffolk has proved to be one of the most valuable archaeological finds ever made in Britain, shedding priceless light on the Anglo-Saxon period of the 6th and 7th Centuries. Read more... |
Persian Lessons review - confusing Holocaust dramaSaturday, 23 January 2021
This is an odd film, made even odder by a caption near the beginning, which claims it is "inspired by true events" but doesn’t elaborate. Produced in Belarus, it’s a Holocaust drama based on a novella by the veteran East German screenwriter/director Wolfgang Kohlhaase but made by the Ukrainian director Vadim Perelman. Read more... |
Quo Vadis, Aida review - a Bosnian woman confronts genocideFriday, 22 January 2021
Jasmila Žbanić’s latest film, once again about the people of her native Bosnia and Herzegovina, is hardly an easy watch. Focusing on Aida, a passionate and highly capable interpreter for the UN forces in former Yugoslavia, she unflinchingly tells the story of the 1995 massacre of well over 6000 Muslim Bosnian men and Read more... |
Baby Done review - romcom done rightThursday, 21 January 2021
Romcoms. We all know the tried and tested formula: immature guy, uptight girl, they meet, they like each other, hate each other, and end up in love. It’s as reliable as it is unrealistic, and sometimes it takes a film like Baby Done to remind you there is a better way. Read more... |
76 Days review - disturbing record of the initial outbreak of Covid-19Wednesday, 20 January 2021
It is probable that no other document gets closer to the direct experience of frontline workers and victims of Covid-19 than the documentary 76 Days. It is also true that the film is not very enjoyable. Nor, sadly, does it feel especially unique. Read more... |
Blithe Spirit review - cloth-eared CowardFriday, 15 January 2021
Noel Coward's 1941 comedy was one of the theatrical casualties of the first lockdown last March in a Richard Eyre-directed West End revival that aimed to mine the pain beneath this play's abundance of bons mots. Read more... |
Dear Comrades! review - Andrei Konchalovsky exposes the Soviet pastThursday, 14 January 2021
Veteran Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky has gone back to his beginnings for his latest film. Read more... |
One Night in Miami review - black history come aliveWednesday, 13 January 2021
In 1964, Cassius Clay, NFL superstar Jim Nathaniel Brown, soul legend Sam Cooke and political firebrand Malcolm X gathered for one night in a dingy room at the Hampton Motel. It was a meeting that became a symbol of hope for black Americans. Read more... |
Pieces of a Woman review - a home birth ends in tragedyFriday, 08 January 2021
This is not a film to watch if you’re pregnant. One of the first scenes, a 24-minute continuous take of a home birth that ends in tragedy, is extraordinarily powerful and painful to watch – almost unbearable sometimes – and Vanessa Kirby as Martha, groaning and growling her way through a very realistic labour, is brilliant and unforgettable. Read more... |
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