Christopher Machell
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Film Review: Mary Shelley
★★☆☆☆ Mary Shelley was among the most important writers of the Romantic period, a time of intense political and social upheaval. But you wouldn’t know it based on this tepid biopic, which reduces the author of one of the most important gothic novels ever written to a simpering teen. It’s 1814, London, and a 16-year-old…
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Film Review: Youth review
★★★★☆ Feng Xiaogang’s epic Youth is a sumptuous telling of a familiar tale. Our story begins in 1970 with He Xiaoping (Miao Miao) joining the elite Arts Troupe, who perform elaborate dances and idealised revolutionary displays to keep up Chinese morale. Coming from a poor family and bullied by her sisters, Xiaoping hopes that the…
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Toronto 2017: You Disappear review
★★★☆☆ Based on a novel by Christian Jungersen, Danish director Peter Schønau Fog’s second feature You Disappear is an intriguing, if not wholly satisfying, family melodrama, buoyed up by decent central performances and an unsentimental directness.Following an epileptic fit, Frederik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Though the prognosis is not terminal,…
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Film Review: Stronger
★★★☆☆ On 15 April 2013, two terrorists detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds. Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal), waiting at the finish line for his girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany), lost both his legs yet also identified the culprits. David Gordon Green’s Stronger is one half of a nuanced, intimate depiction of…
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Toronto 2017: Occidental review
★★★☆☆ Screening in the Wavelengths strand at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Neïl Beloufa’s bonkers Occidental may not offer much in the way of coherence or thematic depth, but its surreal and charming qualities are more than enough to recommend this bizarre farce.Two very shifty looking guys posing as Italians rent a room at the…
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Toronto 2017: Euthanizer review
★★★★☆ As a sideline to his day job, motorbike mechanic Veijo (Matti Onnismaa) puts sick animals down on the cheap, chastising the owners for their indifference to their pain. Teemu Nikki’s Euthanizer reveals itself to be an affecting examination of cruelty.In the film’s opening scene, a young woman brings her old, anaemic cat to be…
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Toronto 2017: 1% review
★★☆☆☆ There are things to like about 1%, Stephen McCallum’s debut feature about the head honchos of biker gang The Copperheads MC, scheming and duking it out in a power struggle. It’s just that sadly, there’s not a great deal to love, with the film never transcending its rote premise. The Copperheads’ President, Knuck (Matt…
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Toronto 2017: Our Festival Highlights
The world premiere of tennis drama Borg vs McEnroe will kick off the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (7-17 September), beginning a ten-day celebration of the upcoming award season’s main contenders, as well as an array of innovative and experimental offerings.Premiering later today, Dominic Cook’s feature debut On Chesil Beach stars Saoirse Ronan and Billy…
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Film Review: Una
★★★★☆ 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 Ray down to confront him.Una’s screenwriter, David Harrower (who also wrote the play), said of…
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Criterion Review: Lord of the Flies
★★★★☆ William Golding’s tale of public schoolboys stranded on a desert island is an iconic depiction of fundamental savagery. More than fifty years on, Peter Brook’s 1963 Lord of the Flies remains the definitive film, its hallucinogenic brutality as terrifying as ever. The film opens with schoolboy Ralph (James Aubrey), moving through the forest of…