Cannes
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Cannes 2014: ‘The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby’ review
★★☆☆☆ Appearing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes in a shortened version of the film previously screened at Toronto, Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2014) is now subtitled ‘Them’ rather than the initial two-parter, ‘Him’ and ‘Her’. The ‘Them’ in question are Conor and El (James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain), a…
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Cannes 2014: ‘Maps to the Stars’ review
★★★★☆ A brutal, crackling and savage Hollywood satire, Maps to the Stars (2014) is also David Cronenberg’s return to the monster movie almost thirty years on from the release of The Fly (1986). This time, however, the monsters are plural and most of them are related. First up is Benjie (Evan Bird), an obnoxious child…
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Cannes 2014: ‘The Wonders’ review
★★★★☆ Competing for the Palme d’Or at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, Italian director Alice Rohrwacher’s sophomore feature, The Wonders (2014), is a gripping coming-of-age drama set amidst the bees and beauty of the Tuscan countryside one hot summer. In an old ramshackle house, Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu) lives with her three sisters, Caterina, Luna…
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Cannes 2014: ‘Insecure’ review
★★☆☆☆ Adèle Exarchopoulos’ return to Cannes following Blue Is the Warmest Colour’s Palme d’Or win might be the headline from Marianne Tardieu’s French thriller Insecure (2014), but the film itself sadly doesn’t reach the promise of what its star might attract. Exarchopoulos is, in fact, only in a handful of scenes, as we follow the…
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Cannes 2014: ‘Saint Laurent’ review
★★★☆☆ “I’m the last,” an aging Yves Saint Laurent mutters towards the end of Bertrand Bonello’s stylish biopic (one of two in the last twelve months) of the legendary fashion designer, Saint Laurent (2014), showing in competition today at the Cannes Film Festival. Gaspard Ulliel plays the young version of Yves as an otherworldly genius…
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Cannes 2014: ‘The Blue Room’ review
★★★☆☆ Following on from his 2010 Best Director win for On Tour, Mathieu Amalric returns to the Cannes Film Festival with his latest directorial effort – a terse little nugget of a crime drama entitled The Blue Room (2014), competing in the Un Certain Regard strand. Based on the Georges Simenon novel, the film opens…
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Cannes 2014: ‘Mr. Turner’ review
★★★★☆ A past Palme d’Or winner and first of two British heavyweights in competition, Mike Leigh returns to Cannes with a beautifully realised portrait of one England’s greatest ever landscape artists, J.M.W. Turner – entitled simply Mr. Turner (2014). Similar to 1999’s Topsy-Turvy, Leigh is interested in the warts and all, spit and filth, rag-and-bone…
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Cannes 2014: ‘The Captive’ review
★★☆☆☆ From Canadian director Atom Egoyan (Next of Kin, The Sweet Hereafter), The Captive (2014) is a troubling abduction thriller set in the frozen Ontario wastes. Buried star Ryan Reynolds plays Matthew, a father who, on leaving his nine-year-old daughter Cass (Alexia Fast) in his pickup while he pops into a store to grab some…
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Cannes 2014: ‘Party Girl’ review
★★★☆☆ Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand opened this year with Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis’ Party Girl (2014), a well-made if unambitious social drama which asks whether an aging, leopard skin-clad nightclub hostess can really change her spots. Sixty-year-old Angélique (played by Sonia Theis-Litzemburger) is an old-fashioned good-time girl: a hostess who loves…
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Cannes 2014: Our picks of the Competition programme
The finishing touches are now underway on the world famous Croisette and the Palais du Cinema in preparation for the 67th Cannes Film Festival, which opens tomorrow (14 April) with Nicole Kidman’s geographically apposite Grace Kelly biopic, Grace of Monaco. Co-starring Frank Langella, Robert Lindsay and Tim Roth, and directed by French director Olivier Dahan…
