Cinema
I liked Shape of Water well enough but Lady Bird is where it’s at
Lady Bird is a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Greta Gerwig with a plot synopsis that need not detain…
Devastating but also more involving than you’d ever think possible: Loveless reviewed
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless is, indeed, devastatingly loveless, as well as devastatingly pitiless, which does not sound hopeful. Yet it is…
Wonderfully fixating and wholly non-formulaic: Phantom Thread reviewed
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is a lush psychosexual drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a pampered, tyrannical, pernickety 1950s couturier…
Downsizing throws away its brilliant premise
Downsizing is a film with the most brilliant premise. What if, to save the planet, we were all made tiny?…
You just can’t argue against Hanks and Streep: The Post reviewed
Steven Spielberg’s The Post, which dramatizes the Washington Post’s publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, doesn’t exactly push at…
Three Billboards is a hoot and a blast, which I never thought I’d say about a rape movie
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri does, indeed, feature three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. They have been placed at the roadside…
Indulgent rather than stinging satire: Brad’s Status reviewed
Brad’s Status is a midlife crisis film starring Ben Stiller as a nearly 50-year-old man whose status anxiety is through…
If this is Aaron Sorkin’s riposte to those who criticise his portrayal of women, God help us
Molly’s Game marks the directorial debut of Hollywood’s most celebrated screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, and is based on his adaptation of…
My favourite frum film of the year – thus far: Menashe reviewed
Menashe is a drama set amid Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Hasidic community. It is performed entirely in the Yiddish language. It is…
The heart is unstirred in Haneke’s morose critique of a fractured society: Happy End reviewed
The films of Michael Haneke wear a long face. Psychological terror, domestic horror, sick sex, genital self-harm — these are…
It will amply satisfy all your comeuppance needs: Battle of the Sexes reviewed
Battle of the Sexes recreates the famed, culture-changing 1973 tennis match between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, a self-proclaimed chauvinist, and 29-year-old…
If Annette Bening isn’t Oscar-nominated, I’ll eat my hat and also yours
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame,…
The Florida Project never sanctifies or demonises and is absorbing throughout
The Florida Project is a drama set in one of those cheap American motels occupied by poor people who would…
Hideously watchable: Killing of a Sacred Deer reviewed
You know where you aren’t with director Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek allegorist creates parallel worlds which superficially resemble our own.…
Amazing Grace
In the first scene of this distinctly odd documentary, Grace Jones meets a group of fans, who squeal with delight…
Comedy of terrors
Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin is nearly two hours of men in bad suits bickering, but if you have…
Gathering storm
Sally Potter’s The Party, which unfolds in real time during a politician’s soirée to celebrate her promotion, is just 71…
Back to the future
Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner first came out in cinemas 35 years ago, which I was going to say probably…
Unhappy days
Scriptwriters love to feast on the lives of children’s authors. The themes tend not to vary: they may have brought…
No balls
Borg vs McEnroe is a dramatised account of one of the greatest tennis rivalries of all time — between Bjorn…
Nut job
The film-maker Darren Aronofsky says he wrote Mother! in five days as if in a ‘fever dream’ and, as a…
Male order
The starting point for Taylor Sheridan’s crime-thriller Wind River is explicitly stated at the end when the following words come…
Moral maze
Una is a psychological drama about a woman who was abused by a man when she was 12, and who…
Losing the plot
Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky is a heist caper that, to be fair, does what it says on the can. There…
An inconvenient truth
Maudie is a biopic of the folk artist Maud Lewis (1903–70) who is, apparently, beloved in Canada, and while Sally…
