Film Reviews

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again review - sweet, silly, and, best of all, Cher

Matt Wolf Friday, 20 July 2018

Mamma Mia! has a habit of bursting upon us at crucially restorative moments. The Broadway production opened just after 9/11 and provided necessary balm to a city in shock.

The Receptionist – London’s underground sex industry laid bare

Owen Richards Thursday, 19 July 2018

When director Jenny Lu graduated from university, the promise of a big city career quickly turned into a series of rejections. Around this time, a close friend of hers committed suicide by jumping off a bridge – unbeknownst to their circle of friends, this girl was working in the sex industry.

First Reformed - faith fights the eco-apocalypse

Nick Hasted Sunday, 15 July 2018

Father Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) calls himself one of God’s lonely men. The term given to Paul Schrader’s anti-heroes since Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle is usefully explained by the priest: his loneliness is a divine attribute letting him sympathise with fellow sufferers. Take one look at Hawke’s face, though, which seems sucked into hollow-cheeked, unnatural nobility, and it’s clear few need help more than him.

Summer 1993 review - the tenderest fabric of childhood

Tom Birchenough Friday, 13 July 2018

Carla Simón’s debut feature Summer 1993 is a gem of a film by any standards, but when you learn that its story is based closely on the thirtysomething Catalan director’s own early life, its intimacy becomes almost overwhelming.

Incredibles 2 review - worship these superheroes

Saskia Baron Wednesday, 11 July 2018

Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite stretchiness… Time has been kind to Elastigirl, the superhero mom voiced by Holly Hunter and dreamed up by Brad Bird. Fourteen years have passed since The Incredibles seduced adult critics and children alike, but it might as well be yesterday for Elastigirl.

Pin Cushion review - a twisted fable of daydreams and bullies

Owen Richards Tuesday, 10 July 2018

On the surface, Pin Cushion is a whimsical British indie, packed with imagination and charm.

Postcards from the 48% review - wistful memorial to forgotten values

David Kettle Saturday, 07 July 2018

Writer and director David Nicholas Wilkinson felt moved to make his reflective, rather melancholy documentary on the 48% who voted to remain in the EU, he says, because nobody else was making one. When it came to funding the project, not a single Brit would invest (though he...

Swimming with Men review - Rob Brydon and co sink

Jasper Rees Friday, 06 July 2018

Swimming with Men is a British comedy which must have looked like a dead cert when it was pitched. “A bunch of middle-aged male losers do synchronised swimming. They have a bossy female coach who persuades them to go to the world championships. How funny (and moving) is that? The tears will flow.

DVD: The Nile Hilton Incident

Owen Richards Friday, 06 July 2018

The world was captivated by the Arab Spring – thousands of citizens rising up in unity against longstanding dictatorships, filling squares and refusing to bow. But for many of us, it was a world away; the crowds were a single organism, thinking and acting as one.

Whitney review - superstar's dismal demise revisited

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 04 July 2018

It was only a year ago that Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Why Can’t I Be Me was released. Kevin Macdonald’s new documentary about the rise and hideous demise of one of pop’s greatest stars was made with the blessing of her family, but doesn’t shed significantly more light than the Broomfield version.

Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars, BBC Two review - blues, booze and dues

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 01 July 2018

There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has to say. Nor is it obvious why it has been made now.

The Bookshop review - lost in translation

Matt Wolf Saturday, 30 June 2018

"All this fuss over a bookstore?!" That's likely to be a common reaction to Spanish director Isabel Coixet's The Bookshop, which adapts a slender if much-admired 1978 novel by the quintessentially English Penelope Fitzgerald in order to cock a Continental snook at her English compatriots'

Adrift review - lost at sea

Adam Sweeting Friday, 29 June 2018

There is something irresistibly haunting about tales of epic sea voyages and the perils they entail. Recently we’ve had two versions of the tragic saga of lone yachtsman Donald Crowhurst (not to mention the excellent documentary Deep Water from 2006), and you could lob into the mix the Robert Redford vehicle All Is Lost, Kon-Tiki, White Squall and… er… many more.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado review - violent, explosive and nihilistic thriller

Adam Sweeting Thursday, 28 June 2018

The issue of immigrants being smuggled across the Mexican border into the USA is currently live and inflammatory, and this second instalment of the feds-versus-drugs cartels saga hurls us right into the centre of it.

Leave No Trace review - intense off-grid drama

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 27 June 2018

The dad who lives off-grid with his offspring is becoming a regular visitor to cinema screens. He was last seen in the guise of Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic, the story of the father whose seven-strong brood must learn to come out of the forest and live in society.

In The Fade review - twisty German courtroom drama

Saskia Baron Thursday, 21 June 2018

The Cannes jury in 2017 gave best actress to Diane Kruger for her performance in In the Fade. She plays Katja, who turns avenging angel when her son and Turkish husband are murdered. It’s Kruger’s first acting role in her native German and she’s on screen for almost the entire film. Whether you are absorbed by the narrative of In the Fade (German title: Aus der Nichts) or find...