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#LFF 2017: The Final Year review
★★★★☆ Chronicling the last twelve months of Barack Obama’s tenure, Greg Barker’s The Final Year is an intimate, earnest and insightful expose of the key players of his departing administration and the legacy left in his wake as the world enters the Trump era.From charting the day-to-day workings of Obama’s close-knit team of advisers as…
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Film Review: The Breadwinner
★★★★☆ Delighting in the ancient tradition of storytelling as a means of education and understanding as well as entertainment, Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner is a richly animated jewel set in the desolate, Taliban-ruled Kabul of 2001 in the run-up to war. Parvana, voiced with maturity and conviction by Canadian newcomer Saara Chaudry, is caught between…
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Film Review: Mudbound
★★★★☆ Based on a novel by Hilary Jordan, Dee Rees’ Mudbound is a moving Second World War fable set in the Mississippi Delta that does not shy away from the ugliness of racism. Netflix’s cinematic outing is more than deserving of theatrical exhibition, however limited. Mudbound opens with white farmer Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) and…
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#LFF 2017: Journey’s End review
★★★★☆ Opening in 1928, R.C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End depicted the tragic futility of the Great War through the metaphor of lost youth. British director Saul Dibb’s adaptation, in cinemas this week, is a timely reminder of the true cost of the conflict. Asserting his status as a serious young talent, Asa Butterfield ably leads the…
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Film Review: Ghost Stories
★★★★☆ The League of Gentlemen’s Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman rework their Olivier-nominated Ghost Stories for the screen, delivering an insidiously spooky homage to Hammer horror, Tigon terror and the portmanteaus of Amicus. Professor Phillip Goodman (Nyman) is a ghostbuster working for a television show called Psychic Cheats. He’s a bit like the UK’s answer to…
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Film Review: Battle of the Sexes
★★★☆☆ Tennis drama Battle of the Sexes is a retelling of Billie Jean King’s famous titular match against Bobby Riggs in 1973. It’s also an exploration of the off-court issues of chauvinism, inequality and prejudice which enveloped the high profile encounter. Ably handled with humour, tenderness and sincerity by the directorial doubles pairing of Jonathan…
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Film Review: The Reagan Show
★★★★☆ The Reagan Show is timely on a number of levels. Using archive footage, news reports and White House TV, they manage to piece together the second term of the Reagan presidency and give a sobering portrait of a man whose prime concern was always his own image.It’s difficult to remember how disturbing it was…
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Film Review: The Mountain Between Us
★★☆☆☆ Idris Elba and Kate Winslet star in The Mountain Between Us, an entertaining but predictable survival drama from Dutch-Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad. With only each other and a dog for company, it’s a race against time before they succumb to nature.All the components of a great survival thriller are present here: attractive, big name…
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Film Review: The Ornithologist
★★★★☆ Beginning as a routine meander into the woods in search of birds, The Ornithologist becomes an unsettling and subversive pilgrimage taking in the Camino de Santiago, a variety of bizarre individuals and a mystifying destination of self-discovery and rebirth.Combining the death of St. Anthony of Padua with the structure of Homer’s The Odyssey, it’s…
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Film Review: The Glass Castle
★★★☆☆ Based on journalist Jeannette Walls’ bestselling memoir, director Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 follow-up The Glass Castle is a sensitive story of a troubled, dysfunctional family, but this real-life portrayal feels more appropriate for the small screen.The film’s title comes from a promise made by Jeannette’s father Rex Walls (played intimidatingly by Woody…
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