family relationships
A Quiet Passion, review - 'Cynthia Nixon is an indrawn Emily Dickinson'Friday, 07 April 2017
Is there something about the recessive life of Emily Dickinson that defies dramatisation? I'm beginning to think so after A Quiet Passion. The Terence Davies film may attempt a more authentic take on the unrelievedly bleak, and also great, 19th-... Read more... |
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - 'Damian Lewis devastates'Thursday, 06 April 2017
Asked in an interview if there remained any taboos in the theatre, Edward Albee answered, “Yes. I don’t think you should be allowed to bore an intelligent, responsive, sober audience”. An experienced interviewee, he pokes mischievous fun at a... Read more... |
Consent, National Theatre, review - thrilling revenge dramaWednesday, 05 April 2017
Rape is such a serious social issue that it’s hardly surprising that several recent plays have tackled it. I’m thinking of Gary Owen’s Violence and Son, James Fritz’s Four Minutes Twelve Seconds and Evan Placey’s Consensual. All of these discuss,... Read more... |
Graduation review - 'Cannes winner is a bleak Romanian masterpiece'Thursday, 30 March 2017
A decade ago Romanian director Cristian Mungiu took the Palme d’Or at Cannes for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a gruelling abortion drama set in the dying days of the Ceauşescu dictatorship. The cold intensity of that film made it a key work in... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The LegacySunday, 19 March 2017
Anyone who's followed Yrsa's earlier novels, many of them featuring down-to-earth attorney Thora Gudmundsdóttir as heroine, will value her superb evocation of very distinct and haunting parts of Iceland - the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Heimaey island,... Read more... |
I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Finborough TheatreThursday, 09 March 2017
In I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Halley Feiffer has written a right curmudgeon of a central role. David is a successful playwright, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who has no difficulty slotting himself directly into the great American drama tradition. He... Read more... |
Trespass Against UsThursday, 02 March 2017
The Cutlers are Pa Larkin's Darling Buds of May clan gone feral, rampaging across the Cotswolds. With Brendan Gleeson as patriarch Colby and Michael Fassbender as the troubled heir to his travellers’ caravan throne, the tone is country miles from... Read more... |
It’s Only the End of the WorldSaturday, 25 February 2017
French-Canadian director Xavier Dolan leaves the time and place of It’s Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde) deliberately unclear: “Somewhere, a while ago already” is the only clue offered by its opening titles. An adaptation of the... Read more... |
The Girls, Phoenix TheatreThursday, 23 February 2017
Why? That's the abiding question that hangs over The Girls, the sluggish and entirely pro forma Tim Firth-Gary Barlow musical that goes where Firth's film and stage play of Calendar Girls have already led. Telling of a charitable impulse that... Read more... |
MoonlightFriday, 17 February 2017
As its title foretells, Moonlight is a luminous film. It shines light on experiences that may be completely different from our own, drawing us in with utter empathy. Director Barry Jenkins shows his lead character finding his way out of darkness,... Read more... |
DVD: Marc Isaacs - Two FilmsTuesday, 14 February 2017
There’s a nice pairing to these two character-led documentary films, as reflections on concepts of partnership presented from different ends of the spectrum of innocence and experience. Treating innocence, Someday My Prince Will Come (2005) is the... Read more... |
Toni ErdmannFriday, 03 February 2017
There aren't many films that at (nearly) three hours in length leave you wanting more. But such is the hypnotic grip cast by Maren Ade's Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann that its final image seems as much the prelude to something as a closing note on... Read more... |
