theartsdesk Q&A: director François Ozon on 'When Autumn Falls'

DIRECTOR FRANCOIS OZON ON 'WHEN AUTUMN FALL' The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film

The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film

François Ozon is France’s master of sly secrets, burying hard truths in often dazzling surfaces, from Swimming Pool’s erotic mystery of writing and murder in 2003 to the teenage boy cuckooing his way into his middle-aged mentor’s life in In the House (2012).

The Monkey review - a grisly wind-up

★★★ THE MONKEY Oz Perkins’ Longlegs follow-up plays Stephen King's killer toy for bloody laughs

Oz Perkins’ Longlegs follow-up plays Stephen King's killer toy for bloody laughs

Longlegs’ trapdoor ending snapped tight on its clammy Lynchian mood, reconfiguring its Silence of the Lambs serial-killer yarn into a more slyly awful tale. Osgood Perkins’ hit fourth horror film seemed sure to elevate his career, but follow-up The Monkey is a resolutely minor, down and dirty B-movie, relishing cartoon gore and comic excess.

Elektra, Duke of York's Theatre review - Brie Larson's London stage debut is angry but inert

Brie Larson makes a brave West End debut that, alas, misfires

We live in tragic times given over to cataclysmic events that require outsized emotions in return. That may be one reason to account for the uptick, therefore, in Greek drama, which includes not one but two Oedipi, various adaptations of Antigone, and the arrival on the commercial West End of the obvious companion piece to Oedipus, namely Elektra – the K in the title perhaps nodding to a landscape in which people exist to kill. 

Bring Them Down review - ramming it home in the west of Ireland

★★★ BRING THEM DOWN Ramming it home in the west of Ireland

Directorial debut features strong performances and too much violence

“You know what they say: where there’s livestock, there’s dead stock,” says Jack (a brilliant Barry Keoghan). Never a truer word. There’s an awful lot of dead and maimed stock – sheep, to be precise – in Christopher Andrews’ gory, gloom-ridden directorial debut. Animal lovers will want to avert their eyes. The film is undeniably powerful, with fine performances, but the unremitting violence ends up feeling cartoonish and empty.

Mrs President, Charing Cross Theatre review - Mary Todd Lincoln on her life alone

★ MRS PRESIDENT, CHARING CROSS THEATRE A widow, a photographer but no soul

Curious play that fails to mobilise theatre's unique ability to tell a story

The phenomenal global success of Six began when two young writers decided to give voices to the wives of a powerful man, bringing them out of their silent tombs and energising them and, by extension, doing the same for the women of today.