★★★★☆ Colombian filmmaker Franco Lolli directs his second feature with astonishing confidence, crafting a tender family drama that captures the exhausting bitter-sweetness and competing priorities of family life in middle-age. Centred on a naturalistic, deeply empathetic turn from Carolina Sanin, Litigante transforms the banal into the elegiac. The first scene finds Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Enormous structures built of steel and glass, protecting their occupants from the infinite vacuum outside. Housed within are the flora and fauna of planet Earth, improbably situated on some alien surface. A testament to human ingenuity, the final conquering of the cosmos’ final frontier: such are the images conjured Continue Reading
★★★★☆ In thick fog, a car drifts through the winding roads of the Icelandic countryside before inexplicably veering off the verge, through the crash barrier and down into oblivion. Almost lyrical in its luminous bleakness, it’s a precise and devastating opener for director Hlynur Pálmason’s aptly-titled second feature A White, Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ To many people, Essex is home to the famous – or infamous – players of the reality TV show The Only Way Is Essex. After ten years on the air, it has created a lasting impression of the English county as a place of glitz and scandalous drama. Taking Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ German auteur Werner Herzog’s latest has been described by some critics as his strangest film in years. His first fiction(ish) film since 2016’s Salt and Fire, it’s not hard to see why. Based on the phenomenon in Japan of hired family members, Family Romance, LLC is billed as a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ French director Olivier Assayas makes his Netflix debut with Wasp Network, a tale of spies, politics and refugees in a mid-1990s Cuba and Florida which is as undecided on its tone as it is on its politics. Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez) seems to have a perfect life. His wife Continue Reading
★★★★☆ As the public allegations against Harvey Weinstein mounted in 2017, #MeToo became a viral campaign exposing the culture of sexual assault not just in Hollywood, but throughout the entertainment industry. In December of that year, former music mogul Drew Dixon came forward with her own allegations against music producer Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Despite its bland paperback title, French writer-director Stéphane Demoustier proves hasty assumptions wrong with his gripping, thoughtful third feature, courtroom drama The Girl With a Bracelet. On the night before her trial, 18-year-old Lise Bataille (Melissa Guers) stands accused of murdering her best friend, Flora. In her first role, Continue Reading
★★★★★ Most filmmakers who venture into the heritage industry of an English period drama make sure the detail shines on the screen: beautiful linen collars, worsted cloaks, authentic lacework. Chuck in a restored 18th century cottage or country estate and you’re transporting audiences back in time with ease. Director Thomas Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ To many artists, from Morrissey to Victor Fleming, Joan of Arc has proved a rich canvas to reflect upon female suffrage. The aim, whether a song or film, is to interpolate the viewer into her story against the oppressive forces of the French and English monarchy during medieval times. Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A charming, if an insistently odd musical representation of Joan of Arc’s early years, Bruno Dumont’s latest offering Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc is a compelling blend of juvenile dissatisfaction and Catholic anxiety – minus the humdrum historical accuracy. Jeannette is instead a psychological portrait of the Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Magical realism is the order of the day in Christophe Honoré’s surreal, high concept sex dramedy On a Magical Night. After her husband, Richard (Benjamin Biolay), catches her cheating, Maria’s (Chiara Mastroianni) past physically manifests in the form of her old lovers, leading both Richard and Maria to reflect Continue Reading
★★★★★ Four surviving members of a squad calling themselves the ‘5 Bloods’ return to Vietnam to recover their fallen brother’s remains and retrieve a sizeable bounty of lost gold bullion into the bargain. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is not only his best recent film, but also one of the Continue Reading
★★★★☆ In the febrile context of the #BlackLivesMatter protests arrives The Australian Dream, Daniel Gordon’s study of the appalling treatment of Aboriginal AFL star Adam Goodes by racist fans. The ensuing controversy exposed the structural racism at the heart of Australian society and is a timely exemplar of the endemic racism Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s Guest of Honour is an intriguing, but misshapen and sometimes bizarre family melodrama. After her father Jim’s (David Thewlis) death, Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) reflects on the key traumatic moments of their fraught relationship. Messy, convoluted, tiring: adjectives that describe Veronica’s near 30-year relationship with Continue Reading
