London Film Festival
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LFF 2013: ‘Stranger by the Lake’ review
★★★★☆ A hidden beach at the lapping edges of a glorious lake provides the sole setting for Alain Guiraudie’s exceptional, erotically-charged French thriller Stranger by the Lake (2013) (released through Peccadillo Pictures next year). Having scooped a couple of awards earlier in the year at Cannes, it now arrives as the gala screening in the…
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LFF 2013: ‘Don Jon’ review
★★★★☆ Having worked under the tutelage of some of Hollywood’s finest directors in his twentysomething years in the industry, it would be safe to say that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has had a masterclass in the art of filmmaking en route to making his first feature. Rather than play it safe, Gordon-Levitt has admirably chosen to tackle…
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LFF 2013: ‘Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia’ review
★★★☆☆ If you want to read about how former US president John F. Kennedy liked to have sex in the bath, then Palimpsest, the first volume of Gore Vidal’s memoirs, is the book for you. It manages to be a splendidly outrageous document of literary mythmaking and lurid gossip-mongering whilst also being a confessional book…
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LFF 2013: ‘Philomena’ review
★★★☆☆ The Queen director Stephen Frears’ latest offering Philomena (2013), one of a plethora of Oscar hopefuls at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, is a heartfelt and nicely poised dramatisation following the true story of Philomena Lee. Its further bolstered by two classy performances from the ever-reliable, but utterly brilliant Judi Dench as the…
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LFF 2013: ‘Night Moves’ review
★★★★☆ Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard star in Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves (2013), an eco-terrorism thriller that, whilst more accessible than her past works, loses none of that distinctive minimalist flare and vigilant style. Josh (Eisenberg) and Dena (Fanning) are a pair of protesters intent of making a difference. Dena works in a…
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LFF 2013: ‘L’intrepido’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Italian director Gianni Amelio returns to the fray with the hugely disappointing L’intrepido (A Lonely Hero, 2013), a hopelessly drab character study and alleged social satire. Celebrated comic actor Antonio Albanese plays Antonio, a Milanese Jack of all trades who subs for other workers when they need a few hours (or, indeed, a day…
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LFF 2013: ‘The Double’ review
★★★☆☆ British comic actor Richard Ayoade grabbed the attention of the UK industry back in 2010 with feature debut Submarine, a sharp, cineliterate adaptation of the Joe Dunthorne novel of the same name. His follow-up, The Double (2013), is once again based upon a literary source, this time taking its inspiration from Russian author Fyodor…
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LFF 2013: ‘Short Term 12’ review
★★★★☆ Debut director Destin Daniel Cretton shows a level of assurance far beyond his years with Short Term 12 (2013), circumnavigating the tantalisingly obvious to create a work that is both warm and heartrending, all while jumping through some well-worn hoops. The film takes events right to the edge of cliché, but the director makes…
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LFF 2013: ‘The Rooftops’ review
★★★☆☆ One of several African efforts to screen at this year’s London Film Festival, Merzak Allouache’s The Rooftops (2013) presents a day in the life of Algiers as seen through the lives of a wide cast of characters and from a distinctly privileged perspective. Playing like an Algerian Short Cuts, the drama recounts the various…
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LFF 2013: ‘The Police Officer’s Wife’ review
★★★☆☆ A follow-up to his own fascinating 2005 documentary Into the Silence, Philip Gröning’s LFF offering The Police Officer’s Wife (2013) is a demanding, stylistically eccentric and often gruelling exploration of the insidious cost of domestic violence, told in a series of 59 short chapters. A jigsaw puzzle is spotted in the kitchen early on,…