drama
The Goldfinch review - a pale reproductionFriday, 27 September 2019
Midway through John Crowley’s The Goldfinch, a character compares a reproduction antique with the real deal. “The new one is flat dead,” he says. He might as well be talking about the movie.On paper, John Crowley’s adaption of Donna Tartt’s... Read more... |
The Kitchen review – more gangsters' molls taking over the reinsWednesday, 18 September 2019
Three women decide to take over their husbands’ criminal activities, proving more than a match for the men who dominate the underworld. If this outline of The Kitchen sounds familiar, it’s because it was just last year that Steve McQueen’s... Read more... |
Torch Song, Turbine Theatre review - impressive return for Harvey Fierstein's seminal gay dramaMonday, 09 September 2019
London’s latest theatre opening brings a stirring revival of Harvey Fierstein’s vital gay drama, which premiered as Torch Song Trilogy in New York at the beginning of the 1980s, the playwright himself unforgettable in the lead, before it opened in... Read more... |
The Souvenir review – Joanna Hogg's most emotionally wrenching film yetThursday, 29 August 2019
Joanna Hogg’s melancholy autobiographical drama The Souvenir cuts too close to the bone. That’s a compliment: like Sally Rooney’s equally unsettling first novel Conversations With Friends, Hogg’s movie almost forces the viewer to relive that... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, Episode 4 Series 2, BBC One review - murders aplentyWednesday, 14 August 2019
Life on the Welsh coast isn’t getting any easier: defendant Madlen was found guilty of murder, husband Evan was coming home from prison, and Faith had just given Steve Baldini a rather uncomfortable snog on the beach. She’s probably pining for that... Read more... |
Photograph review - a fresh take on old love storiesFriday, 02 August 2019
“Movies are all the same,” says one character in Photograph, the latest film from India independent director, Ritesh Batra. It’s true, the plot feels familiar, but if stories are all the same, it’s how you play with the form that makes a film a... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - the beautiful and the damnedTuesday, 30 July 2019
Our greatest Berlioz scholar, David Cairns, has called Le Damnation de Faust “an opera of the mind’s eye, not of the stage,” and I’ve certainly never seen a production that successfully staged its curious, episodic, actionless mixture of set piece,... Read more... |
Stranger Things 3, Netflix review - bigger, dumber, betterTuesday, 09 July 2019
It sometimes feels like an age between Stranger Things seasons. Blame Netflix. The binge-watching trend that it helped solidify means that most people consume all eight hours of content in a single weekend. It comes and goes in a flash. But don’t... Read more... |
Support the Girls review - working class dramedy misses edgeSaturday, 29 June 2019
A rambling portrait of 24 hours in the life of Double Whammies, an American sports bar where the waitresses entertain their TV-watching patrons by dressing in skimpy tops and tiny shorts. Apparently this is categorised as a ‘breastaurant’ (my... Read more... |
Mari review - bittersweet drama with flairTuesday, 25 June 2019
Mari is one part kitchen sink drama, one part dance performance, bringing a refreshing take on bereavement and family. Dancer Charlotte joins her mother and sister at her dying grandmother’s bedside, and tensions rise as cabin fever sets in.Director... Read more... |
Dirty God review - an important piece of filmmakingSaturday, 08 June 2019
With the continued prevalence of acid attacks in the UK, it was only a matter of time before they became the subject of a film. Thank goodness, then, it's handled with such unflinching care as it is in Dirty God. Director and writer Sacha Polak... Read more... |
Cannes 2019: Matthias & Maxime review - a gently charming new dramaSaturday, 25 May 2019
It has been ten years since Canadian auteur Xavier Dolan first debuted I Killed My Mother at the Cannes Film Festival. A decade on he returns in competition with a title that shows an evolution of his filmmaking that leaves behind many of the... Read more... |
