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Film Review: Honey Boy
★★★☆☆ Alma Har’el’s narrative debut is a suitably personal autobiography. Written by Shia LaBeouf, the film explores his past as a child star through this fictionalised account of his relationship with his abusive father (whom he also plays). Honey Boy is imperfect and messy, but few can doubt LaBeouf’s commitment to self-exposé, or Har’el’s hazy evocation of…
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Toronto 2019: Jallikattu review
★★★★★ Can violence be contained through ritual? Does sanctioning violence in specific contexts purge the need for its spontaneous outburst? In his seventh feature, Indian director Lijo Jose Pellissery explores the nature of savagery in this singular, heaving howl of a film. Not dissimilar from the Spanish running of the bulls, Jallikattu is the Indian…
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Toronto 2019: To the Ends of the Earth review
★★★★☆ Marking the 25th anniversary of diplomacy between Japan and Uzbekistan, Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest is a freewheeling comedy of cultural errors. With J-popstar Atsuko Maeda in the lead as bored TV reporter Yoko, To the Ends of the Earth is a light, airy and fun journey with flashes of poetry. Shooting on location in…
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Film Review: For Sama
★★★★★ Waad al-Kateab was a student at the University of Aleppo as the first anti-Assad demonstrations broke out in her city. As the protests grow and the uprising is met with increasing violence from Government forces, al-Kateab documents her involvement in the city under siege, filming her marriage to medical student Hamza and the birth…
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Film Review: Knives Out
★★★★☆ For his fifth feature, Knives Out, American director Rian Johnson returns to the smaller-scale crime fiction that made his name. The result is an impeccably-staged, gripping murder mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie. Harlan Thrombey (Christophe Plummer) is dead, by his own hand it seems. But as we know, things are rarely that simple. Enter Benoit…
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Venice 2019: Joker has last laugh with Golden Lion win
In what has to be one of the crazier award ceremonies to grace the Venice Lido on its 76th edition, Todd Phillips’ Joker took home this year’s Golden Lion in a move guaranteed to provoke a flood of hot takes, an avalanche of think pieces and further lubrication for Oscars season.
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Venice 2019: Saturday Fiction review
★★★★☆ Suzhou River director Lou Ye’s wartime espionage thriller Saturday Fiction starts as a mysterious murky mess and resolves itself into a bullet-riddled noir. We first meet Jean Yu (Gong Li) in Shanghai circa 1937 as she is rehearsing a play with director/lead actor Tan Na (Mark Chao).
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Toronto 2019: Blow the Man Down review
★★★★★ Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s debut feature is a haunting tale of buried secrets, sea shanties and fracturing communities. Set among the bleak shacks and sketchy bed and breakfasts of a Maine fishing village, Blow the Man Down signals the arrival of Cole and Krudy as two of the most exciting new voices…
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Toronto 2019: 143 Sahara Street review
★★★★☆ With 143 Sahara Street, documentarian Hassen Ferhani takes us to one of the most unlikely places one might expect to find a cafe: the middle of the Algerian desert. On the edge of the dusty road that cuts through the endless yellow sand, Malika waits for weary travellers in search of omelettes and cold tea…
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Toronto 2019: Love Me Tender review
★★★☆☆ Tackling issues of mental health and trauma, Swiss-Peruvian director Klaudia Reynicke’s second feature is a strange, charming and occasionally confusing journey into isolation. Love Me Tender is buoyed by an eccentric lead performance from Barbara Giordano and a tight, claustrophobic visual style that nicely juxtaposes with Seconda (Giordano)’s agoraphobia. Living at home with her…
VENICE 2026