★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
★★☆☆☆ Bereavement, mental health, the threadbare US social welfare system and homelessness are the heavy topics that British-born director Deborah Richards tackles in her debut feature. Unfortunately, their worthy but superficial and somewhat incoherent presentation means that Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.
★★★☆☆ Sometimes, it’s tough being really skilled at one thing in particular. Having flown out the blocks with two supremely good, bonafide hit horror films (Hereditary, Midsommar), writer and director Ari Aster had to make a departure to avoid being pigeon-holed as a genre specialist.
★★★★★ Can violence be contained through ritual? Does sanctioning violence in specific contexts purge the need for its spontaneous outburst? In his seventh feature, Indian director Lijo Jose Pellissery explores the nature of savagery in this singular, heaving howl of...
★★★★☆ Marking the 25th anniversary of diplomacy between Japan and Uzbekistan, Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest is a freewheeling comedy of cultural errors. With J-popstar Atsuko Maeda in the lead as bored TV reporter Yoko, To the Ends of the Earth...
★★★★★ Waad al-Kateab was a student at the University of Aleppo as the first anti-Assad demonstrations broke out in her city. As the protests grow and the uprising is met with increasing violence from Government forces, al-Kateab documents her involvement...
★★★★☆ For his fifth feature, Knives Out, American director Rian Johnson returns to the smaller-scale crime fiction that made his name. The result is an impeccably-staged, gripping murder mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie. Harlan Thrombey (Christophe Plummer) is dead, by his...