family relationships
The Reason I Jump review - compelling and controversialFriday, 18 June 2021
Back in 2017, a non-speaking autistic teen, Naoki Higashida wrote and published The Reason I Jump. He hoped it would offer some insight into the minds of people with autism. The book was subsequently translated by Keiko Yoshida and her husband,... Read more... |
Surge review - jittery and joylessSaturday, 29 May 2021
Seventeen years after Ben Whishaw shot to attention playing Hamlet, this terrific actor is again playing someone "mad-north-northwest". Marking TV director Aneil Karia's feature film debut, Surge casts Whishaw as a jittery wreck called Joseph, whose... Read more... |
Trying, Apple TV+ review - the road to parenthood takes a fresh pathFriday, 21 May 2021
An attractive and likeable cast remains the principal drawing card of Trying, the Apple TV+ romcom centred around the efforts of a 30something couple to adopt a child. Following on from the first season aired last spring, Andy Wolton's creation... Read more... |
Rare Beasts review - Billie Piper as triple threatThursday, 20 May 2021
Emotions don't come in half-measures in Rare Beasts, with which Billie Piper makes a commendably edgy debut as writer-director onscreen while affording herself a stonking star part. Dedicated., we're informed, to "all my friends and all their woes... Read more... |
End of Sentence review - an American father and his estranged son reconcile in IrelandSaturday, 15 May 2021
It’s not until the final moments of End of Sentence that Frank (John Hawkes) lets himself laugh – he’s swimming in the icy waters of an Irish lake - and what a relief it is to hear. Icelandic director Elfar Adalsteins’s debut feature (Sailcloth, a... Read more... |
The Pursuit of Love, BBC One review - extravagantly entertainingMonday, 10 May 2021
Nancy Mitford's 1945 literary sensation looks poised to be the TV talking point of the season, assuming the first episode of The Pursuit of Love sustains its utterly infectious energy through two hours still to come. Adapted and directed by the... Read more... |
Sunjeev Sahota: China Room review - separate, related livesMonday, 10 May 2021
China Room, Sunjeev Sahota’s third novel, is a familiar, ancestral tale: the story of Mehar, living in late 1929 in rural Punjab, is narrated alongside that of her unnamed descendant in 1999, who has grown up in England. Despite the hardships... Read more... |
Album: Sufjan Stevens - ConvocationsSaturday, 01 May 2021
Sufjan Stevens is not only prolific, multi-talented and wide-ranging in his experimentation, but he never fails to make interesting work. He’s undoubtedly one of the giants of American contemporary music. His originality and creative risk-taking... Read more... |
The Artist's Wife review - uninspired portrait of dementia in the HamptonsWednesday, 28 April 2021
“The only child I’ve ever had is you,” the artist’s wife (Lena Olin), spits at the artist, her considerably older husband (Bruce Dern), who retorts, “That was your goddamn choice so don’t blame it on me.”Although the setting – a wintery East Hampton... Read more... |
True Mothers review - how many people does it take to raise a child?Thursday, 15 April 2021
On the 30th floor of a Tokyo apartment building, a charming little boy brushes his teeth, watched over by his smiling mother who sings to him gently. He’s full of joy - today his dad’s coming with them on the walk to nursery school. The little... Read more... |
Blu-ray: I Was at Home, But...Thursday, 15 April 2021
The term most often used about Berlin director Angela Schanelec’s filmmaking seems to be “elliptical”, and her latest film, I Was at Home, But..., which won the Best Director award at Berlinale 2019, is no exception. Approaching it is like an... Read more... |
Sequin in a Blue Room review - soullessness and sex in SydneySaturday, 10 April 2021
Sequin is the screen name for the questing 16-year-old at the slowly awakening heart of Sequin in a Blue Room, a 2019 Australian film only now reaching the UK. The graduation project of its New Zealand-born director and co-writer Samuel Van Grinsven... Read more... |
