Christopher Machell
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#LFF 2017: Journey’s End review
★★★★☆ Opening in 1928, R.C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End depicted the tragic futility of the Great War through the metaphor of lost youth. British director Saul Dibb’s adaptation, in cinemas this week, is a timely reminder of the true cost of the conflict. Asserting his status as a serious young talent, Asa Butterfield ably leads the…
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Film Review: The Mountain Between Us
★★☆☆☆ Idris Elba and Kate Winslet star in The Mountain Between Us, an entertaining but predictable survival drama from Dutch-Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad. With only each other and a dog for company, it’s a race against time before they succumb to nature.All the components of a great survival thriller are present here: attractive, big name…
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DVD Review: Belle de Jour
★★★★★ Among Spanish-born Mexican director Luis Buñuel’s most successful works, Belle de Jour’s re-release comes just in time for the film’s fiftieth anniversary. A satire on repressed bourgeois sexuality, the 1967 film is both darkly erotic and rich in social commentary.Séverine (Catherine Deneuve), is rich, beautiful and bored. A devoted wife to Pierre (Jean Sorel),…
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Criterion Review: Certain Women
★★★★★ Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women tells three stories of female malcontent in Montana, one of the least populous states in the United States. Connected by only the thinnest of narrative threads, each story offers delicate, quietly moving insight into the lives of its subjects.Lawyer Laura Wells (Laura Dern) has a client who has been stiffed…
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Film Review: Borg vs McEnroe
★★★★☆ Wimbledon, 1980. John McEnroe (Shia LeBeouf) has reached the final of the men’s singles, despite his short temper with umpires and growing public unpopularity. Facing off against McEnroe is the seemingly unstoppable Björn Borg (an uncanny Sverrir Gudnason). Director Janus Metz’s Borg vs McEnroe may well be inspired by the real tennis rivalry, but…
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DVD Review: Suntan
★★★★☆ Billed as a “coming of middle-age story”, the first 20 minutes of Suntan is easily mistaken for a charming melodrama about rediscovering one’s youth. But this tale of obsession, emotional immaturity and entitlement is much more interesting, and darker, than that.Kostis (Efthymis Papadimitriou) arrives as the new doctor an small, unnamed Greek island. Arriving…
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Criterion Review: It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
★★★☆☆ A critical success on release, the enormous budget of Stanley Kramer’s 1963 epic comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World meant that it only just scraped a profit. The premise: a group of strangers race across America to try to get to a rumoured buried treasure.It’s worth noting that the extended version included…
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Toronto 2017: Three Billboards wins People’s Choice Award
As the 2017 Toronto Film Festival closes, we take a look at our top picks from the festival. Despite already premiering in Venice, Darren Aronofsky’s unhinged Mother! created the most buzz on the ground, garnering rave reviews from festival-goers and critics alike.Sadly, that hasn’t translated to box office success, with the film flopping at the…
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Toronto 2017: Valley of Shadows review
★★★★★ Using the folkloric tropes of a deep, dark wood and tales of a beast terrorising the countryside, with his feature debut Valley of Shadows Norwegian director Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen has crafted one of the year’s finest, most deeply affecting psychological dramas.As with all the best ghost stories, this one starts with a family in…
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Toronto 2017: Lady Bird review
★★★★★ Following her co-director credit on 2008’s Nights and Weekends, Greta Gerwig goes it alone directing Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. A lovingly observed, pitch perfect coming-of-age comedy, Gerwig’s warm, astute account of the end of adolescence is a stunning solo debut. High school senior Christine (Ronan) – now insisting that she is called ‘Lady…