Reviews
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Film Review: Under the Shadow
★★★★★ Director Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow uses the haunted house setup and classical filmmaking techniques expressly for political purposes. Former radical leftist Shedih (Narges Rashidi) is re-educated by the theocratic state in post-revolution Iran. The evil spirits plaguing the flat of this young mum not only represent a mental and physical torture, but the…
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Film Review: Swiss Army Man
★★★☆☆ How far can a fart joke get you? That’s the question posed by Sundance offering Swiss Army Man. The answer is surprisingly far, but ultimately it’s going to start to go stale at some point. Viral video artists Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s debut feature is a loopy comedy of visual inventiveness which has…
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Film Review: Southside with You
★★★☆☆ Southside with You is the film equivalent of a comfortable pair of familiar shoes, the feeling of sitting down into a cosy chair, or the first sip of a cup of tea – it’s ‘nice’. That is to damn with rather faint praise. This may not be one for the ages, but there is…
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Film Review: Free State of Jones
★★★☆☆ Much has been made of the prominence of a ‘white saviour’ in biographical historical epic Free State of Jones. Is this a film about slavery? Yes. Is it led by a white character? Yes. But to limit the field of vision and intent of director Gary Ross’ latest feature negates other aspects of a…
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Film Review: The Fencer
★☆☆☆☆ At first glance The Fencer has a lot going for it. Set in Soviet occupied Estonia, it is the oddball tale – partly based on true events – of a renowned fencer (Märt Avandi, known as Endel in the film) on the run from the authorities who sets up a school fencing club in…
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Film Review: Amanda Knox
★★★☆☆ “Either I’m a psychopath in sheep’s clothing, or I am you.” Delivered by the principal subject of Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn’s Netflix Original documentary, the chilling ambiguity of this opening gambit is the knife-edge course taken to ascertain the truth of Meredith Kercher’s 2007 murder and a shambolic eight-year legal process. Amanda Knox,…
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Film Review: The Magnificent Seven
★★☆☆☆ There are a few moments at the beginning of Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven when it seems to make a case for its own existence. The trailers may have done their darnedest to make it look like a frontier Suicide Squad (did nobody tell them how that worked out?) but at first glance it…
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Film Review: The Lovers and the Despot
★★★☆☆ Two subjects one would never expect to encounter in the same film; North Korea and cinephilia. They come together – bizarrely and fascinatingly – in Robert Cannan and Ross Adam’s documentary The Lovers and the Despot. In 1978, celebrated South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee visited Hong-Kong to discuss what she believed to be the…
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Film Review: Little Men
★★★★☆ The final film in a trilogy focusing on New York City, Ira Sachs’ latest feature Little Men, starring Jennifer Ehle and Greg Kinnear, follows the rites of passage of two thirteen-year-old boys, Jake (Theo Taplitz) and Tony (Michael Barbieri). Jake is a sensitive loner whose artistic talents are derided by his school teacher and…
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Film Review: The Girl with All the Gifts
★★★☆☆ Colm McCarthy’s second feature film, The Girl with All the Gifts is a gory and unsettling examination of the nature versus nurture dichotomy, and proves an excellent opening gambit from young newcomer Sennia Nanua in the title role. Melanie is a bright-eyed, oddly enthusiastic child trapped within the confines of a gloomy military compound.…