Film reviews and more
★★★☆☆ Is there ever honour in betrayal? If the system to which you swore a blood allegiance no longer upholds its traditional values, should you not speak out against it? The moral ambiguities and questions of legacy, friendship, family and integrity in Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor are the strongest points of an ambitious, […]
★★★☆☆ Adapting her semi-autobiographical novel How to Build a Girl for the screen, Caitlin Moran has created with co-writer John Niven and director Coky Giedroyc a funny and touching coming-of-age story that occasionally loses its way, just like its protagonist. Growing up with haphazard parents and too many siblings on a Wolverhampton estate, Johanna […]
★★★★☆ The opening moments of Alice, the debut feature from writer-director Josephine Mackerras, are pure domestic bliss. A twentysomething married couple, Alice (Emilie Piponnier) and François (Martin Swabey), playfully fight in their pristine kitchen, attend a high-brow dinner party and rush through breakfast with their young son in a sequence that wouldn’t feel […]