Film Reviews
Chemical Hearts review - turn off the soundSaturday, 22 August 2020
Musings on the agonies of adolescent love fall like dead weight in this wearying if well-acted adaptation by writer-director Richard Tanne of the 2016 Young Adult novel Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland. 17-year-old Henry Page (Austin Abrams) falls hard for Grace Torn (Lili Reinhart, from TV's Riverdale), the indrawn new transfer student at his New Jersey high school who walks with a cane and speaks of needing her sins erased.... Read more... |
Ava review - Sadaf Foroughi powerhouse drama about teenage rebellionSaturday, 22 August 2020
Canadian-Iranian director Sadaf Foroughi offers up a gut-wrenching tale of adolescent rebellion set against the strictures of an oppressive Middle Eastern society. Read more... |
Random Acts of Violence review - study in horror lacks scaresThursday, 20 August 2020
The debate about whether violent films cause violent acts has been around for decades. Read more... |
Yes, God, Yes review - coming of age, emphasis on comingMonday, 17 August 2020
It’s somewhat dispiriting to watch a coming-of-age rom-com that rarely rises above clichés and limps along as slowly as Yes, God, Yes. Read more... |
My Rembrandt review - hard cash and hubrisSaturday, 15 August 2020
In the gloomy splendour of Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch gazes up at Rembrandt’s Old Woman Reading, 1655. The painting has belonged to the Scott family for more than 250 years, and like generations before him, the duke has known it all his life. Read more... |
Babyteeth review - teenage love and terminal illness in the Sydney suburbsFriday, 14 August 2020
Babyteeth gets off to a terrific start. A semi-naked, manic Moses (Toby Wallace, full of scabby charisma) almost pushes 15-year-old Milla (Eliza Scanlen; Sharp Objects, Little Women) on to the Sydney train tracks as she waits on the platform in her school uniform, carrying her violin. It’s a thunderclap: she’s smitten. Read more... |
Project Power - so-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genreFriday, 14 August 2020
What if there was a pill you could pop that gave you superpowers? The only catch is that, while it might make you invisible or bullet-proof, it might also boil your brain or make you explode with just one hit. Read more... |
Spree review - a wild ride through social media madnessFriday, 14 August 2020
Allergic to that word “influencer”? Afraid that social media is the death of civilisation as we’ve known it? Then this movie may be for you. Read more... |
Pinocchio review - wooden heartThursday, 13 August 2020
This seems a perfect project for Matteo Garrone, a director who has found new ways to conjure old Italian dreams, and invests even his most grimly realistic films with fairy tale logic and wonder. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 story is here returned to its local time and place, as Pinocchio’s picaresque journey of experience unfolds in a deliberately traditional, lovingly crafted children’s film. Read more... |
Perfect 10 review - a small movie with a big heartSaturday, 08 August 2020
We first see Leigh (Frankie Box), the cheeky heroine of Scottish writer-director Eva Riley’s debut feature Perfect 10, hanging upside down during a gymnastics workout. Read more... |
An American Pickle review - sweet and sour screwball comedyThursday, 06 August 2020
Seth Rogen offers up double the laughs by taking on both lead roles in a time-hopping, Rip-Van-Winkle screwball comedy, but with an oddly mixed conservative message about the merits of family and... Read more... |
Young Ahmed review - jihadist drama misses the markThursday, 06 August 2020
Belgian filmmaking duo the Dardenne Brothers have long been darlings of Cannes Film Festival, winning awards for hardhitting dramas like La Promesse, Le Silence de Lorna and The Kid with the Bike. Read more... |
Proxima review - family frays before lift-offSaturday, 01 August 2020
This sober French space movie is concerned with what a female astronaut leaves behind on Earth, not what she finds in the cosmic dark. Sarah (Eva Green) has been selected for a European Space Agency mission towards Mars, realising a childhood dream. Read more... |
Make Up review – coming of age in creepy CornwallFriday, 31 July 2020
Minutes into Make Up, Claire Oakley’s auspicious first feature as writer-director, unearthly sounds welcome unwitting Ruth (Molly Windsor) to her intimidating baptismal adventure as an 18-year-old who's not so much bi-curious as bi-phobic. A nail-biter to begin with, she’s soon hearing and seeing portents of horror everywhere, not least on the tips of her fingers. Read more... |
Unhinged review - road-rage Russ goes gonzoFriday, 31 July 2020
It may be one of the first movies to be shown in cinemas post-lockdown, but Unhinged is a pale ghost of some much better movies. Read more... |
Infamous review - Bonnie and Clyde for the digital age fails to deliverThursday, 30 July 2020
Like a sub-par Natural Born Killers for Gen Z, director-screenwriter Joshua Caldwell’s latest film, featuring Disney-child-star-turned-porn-director Bella Thorne, tackles the perils of social media like a parent trying to navigate TikTok. Read more... |
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latest in today
Picnic at the Castle review - entertaining mixed bill
Of all the outdoor spaces being utilised to keep live performance going in this maddest of years, Warwick Castle is surely among the most striking...
Nocturnal review - an impossible love
The most painterly and ominous sequence in Nocturnal naturally occurs at night. Until recently strangers, 33-year-old Pete (Cosmo Jarvis...
Album: Alicia Keys - Alicia
Alicia Keys is a puzzling mixture. On the one hand she’s the hyper-achieving, multi-platinum, 752-Grammy-winning...
Rocks review - impressively well-crafted neo-realist drama
Rocks is a beautifully made slice of neo-realist filmmaking which deserves to get a wide audience but may well slip off the radar in the...
GogolFest:Dream review - the best music festival of the summ...
GogolFest:Dream in Kherson, somewhere near the Crimea in...
Igor Levit, Wigmore Hall/Hill Quartet, Bandstand Chamber Fes...
An early hero of lockdown, livestreaming from his Berlin home in terrible sound at first, Igor Levit is a supreme example of how adaptable...
The Devil All The Time review – a test of faith in a Souther...
There’s no denying the Faulknerian ambition to the construction of Anthony Campos’ latest feature Devil All the Time...
Eavesdropping on Rattle, the LSO and Bartók’s Bluebeard
One source of advance information told us to expect a reduced version of...
Album: Fish - Weltschmerz
"This party's over" snarls Fish on Weltschmerz, and, this time, it seems the big man really means...
Alban Gerhardt, Markus Becker, Wigmore Hall review - long sh...
It wouldn’t be true to say I’d forgotten what a solo cello in a...