Film Reviews
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review - persuading us that the French can do you-know-whoFriday, 13 June 2025
Do the French do irony? Well, was Astérix a Gaul? Obviously they do, and do it pretty well to judge by many of their movies down the decades. As we brave the salutes on this side of the Channel to arch irony-spinner Jane Austen’s 250th birth-year – from gushing BBC documentaries to actually quite witty Hallmark cable movies – France offers up Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, a cordial, low-energy rom com that sets out to Austenify the lovelorn of Paris. |
Big Star: The Nick Skelton Story review - the ways of a man with his mountSunday, 08 June 2025
If you’re horse mad or merely an every-four-years Olympic fan, you already know Nick Skelton’s story. Equestrianism can favour mature competitors, but Skelton was twice the age of his rivals. He'd survived numerous injuries – including a broken neck – by the time he propelled Britain to showjumping gold in 2012. Fifty-four at the London games, he wasn’t done. Both he and his horse Big Star returned to the Olympics four years later to win the individual gold medal. Read more... |
Ballerina review - hollow pointFriday, 06 June 2025
John Wick’s simple story of a man and his dog became a bonkers, baroque franchise in record time, converting Keanu Reeves’ limited acting into Zen killer cool. Now Ana de Armas extends her delightful No Time to Die cameo as a high-kicking, cocktail-dressed MI6 agent into her own heroic assassin. Read more... |
Goebbels and the Führer review - behind the scenes from the Nazi perpetrators' perspectiveThursday, 05 June 2025
“Do you know the name of the propaganda minister of England, or America, or even Stalin? No. But Joseph Goebbels? Everyone knows him.” The cynical, grinning Dr Goebbels (Robert Stadlober), perhaps the first master of fake news, is not short on confidence. Read more... |
The Ballad of Wallis Island review - the healing power of the old songsSunday, 01 June 2025
I think The Ballad of Wallis Island is the best British romcom since I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), which it closely resembles. Read more... |
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of natureSaturday, 31 May 2025
“I can’t move my arms or legs, but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by his wife Ray (Gillian Anderson). And this is only the second day of their 630-mile walk, split into two summers, along the south-west coastal path from Minehead to South Haven Point. Read more... |
Bogancloch review - every frame a work of artSaturday, 31 May 2025
Director Ben Rivers is primarily an artist, and it shows. Every frame of Bogancloch is treated as a work of art and the viewer is given ample time to relish the beauty of the framing, lighting and composition. Many of the shots fall into traditional categories such as still life, landscape and portraiture and would work equally well as photographs. Read more... |
When the Light Breaks review - only lovers left aliveTuesday, 27 May 2025
Grief takes unexpected turns over the course of a long Icelandic day in Rúnar Rúnarsson’s romantic tragedy, a Prix Un Certain Regard contender at last year’s Cannes. Read more... |
Mongrel review - deeply empathetic filmmaking from TaiwanSaturday, 24 May 2025
There is a dark, spectral quality to this compassionate film about Southeast Asian migrant workers in rural Taiwan. At the centre of this story is Oom, played with quiet stoicism by Wanlop Rungkumjad, who is one of many Thai, Cambodian and Myanmar nationals who have entered Taiwan illegally to find care work in its remote mountainous regions. Read more... |
The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idiosyncratic world of Wes AndersonFriday, 23 May 2025
It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than Wes Anderson, whose arresting visual style, oblique wit and skill in picking actors who can mould themselves to the unique demands of Wes-world is surely unequalled. Read more... |
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this really be the end for Ethan Hunt?Thursday, 22 May 2025
Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not only because of its title. An early scene brings a nostalgic recap of highlights from the series’ history (which stretches back to 1996), with a voice-over from Angela Bassett’s President Sloane (pictured below) pleading with Ethan Hunt to return to save the world one more time. Read more... |
Magic Farm review - numpties from the NinetiesSaturday, 17 May 2025
There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater” when she was growing up in the 1990s. The phrase brings the half-forgotten world of Generation X back to us from the mists of time, with its slackers and Douglas Coupland books and mumbling evasions. Read more... |
Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and his palFriday, 16 May 2025
Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills Forest Preserve in upstate New York. Read more... |
E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull docu-fiction take on the designer-architectFriday, 16 May 2025
It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-architect will be frustrated by how little of her other work is actually visible on screen while fans of feminist biopics might well be underwhelmed by the film’s languid pace and arty flourishes. Read more... |
The Marching Band review - what's the French for 'Brassed Off'?Thursday, 15 May 2025
In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a struggling community band in a mining town in northern French has fallen on hard times. Elements of déjà vu, perhaps? Read more... |
The Last Musician of Auschwitz review - a haunting testamentTuesday, 13 May 2025
“It is so disgraceful, what happened there,” says Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, in a comment that is the understatement of the century. She is referring to the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis in concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was held prisoner. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review - persuading us that the...
Do the French do irony? Well, was Astérix a Gaul? Obviously they do, and do it pretty well to judge by many of their movies down the...
The King of Pangea, King's Head Theatre review - grief...
There’s an old theatre joke. “The electric chair is too good for a monster like that. They should send him out of town with a new...
Album: Sam Binga - Sam Binga Presents Club Orthodontics
When I was writing the introduction to my book, Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Soundsystem Culture, I came up with a phrase, which...
Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery review - sickeningly cute ki...
It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the...
Hespèrion XXI, Savall, QEH review - an evening filled with l...
For the first encore of the evening, it was not just the audience but the whole ensemble of Hespèrion XXI that was mesmerised as its leader,...
Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to...
When Neil Young releases a new album, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get either a disc of melancholy singer-songwriter fare or a set of...
Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages
The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a...
Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick...
It’s a sign of the inroads that the term “immersive” has made in theatreland that it now gets jokily namedropped at the...