★★★☆☆ In Lebanese-born director Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult, an apparently minor argument on a Beirut street escalates into a full-blown legal battle, which itself threatens to erupt into civil violence as it rips open the festering wounds of historic religious […]
★★★★☆ Legendary screenwriter (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and director (Mishima, Cat People) Paul Schrader returns to form with a startling, sombre and quite extraordinary Bergman-esque portrait of a priest tortured by his own personal demons. “I’m God’s lonely man,” Travis […]
★★★☆☆ Opening the Horizons sidebar, Susanna Nicchiarelli’s Nico, 1988 is a biopic of the German songstress who found fame with The Velvet Underground. Danish singer and actress Trine Dyrholm plays the diva with verve and energy, in a portrait which […]
★★★★☆ Alexander Payne returns to cinemas this week with Downsizing, a surreal sci-fi comedy starring Matt Damon, Hong Chau and Kristen Wiig, which posits a revolutionary new technology that can shrink people as a way of reducing environmental damage. Following […]
★★★★☆ Patti Cake$ is an inspiring film full of heart and with a banging soundtrack. Chronicling an underdog’s quest for fame, this isn’t so much about one person’s success as it is about overcoming adversity in the pursuit of happiness.Patricia […]
★★☆☆☆ As with most road trip movies, the journey undertaken by quarreling step-brothers Michael (Jack Parry Jones) and Thor (Christy O’Donnell) and lost soul Caitlin (Tara Lee) in Phillip John’s coming-of-ager Moon Dogs is of greater significance than their destination.A […]
★★★★☆ Independent filmmaker Alex Barrett has documented the mundanity and the beauty of city life in his silent film London Symphony, a conscious callback to those films of the 1920s which sought to capture the rhythms and experiences of a […]
A moving story of self-discovery on the Yorkshire Dales, Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country isn’t your average LGBT+ romance, something the director is keen to reiterate when we sat with him earlier this year at – of all places – […]
★★★★☆ Set on a sheep farm amid the Yorkshire dales, Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country is a simple romance that explores the damaging isolation of life in the country and – in particular – the toll that can take on […]
In many ways, the beauty of Francis Lee’s feature-length debut God’s Own Country lies in its simplicity. The plot centres around the inheritance of a farm and a connected romance that might scandalise some of the locals in the remote […]
★★★★☆ Adapted from the stage play Blackbird, Benedict Andrews’ debut feature tells the story of Una (Rooney Mara), a 28-year-old woman who was sexually abused by her neighbour, Ray (Ben Mendelsohn), when she was 13. Now an adult, she tracks […]
★★★☆☆ There’s little riper for a heartstring-plucking documentary than the life of a beloved star cut tragically short. In British filmmaker Nick Broomfield’s Whitney ‘Can I Be Me’, he paints a poignant picture but struggles to get to the heart […]
