Film
Didn't deserve an Oscar: Coda reviewed
This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda– ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony…
Staggeringly confident and powerful: After Love reviewed
As there are no stand-out films this week aside from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile — is…
Benedict Cumberbatch is spectacular: The Power of the Dog reviewed
Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog could also be called The Power of Benedict Cumberbatch, as he’s so spectacular.…
Exquisite to look at, strangely tense and wholly riveting: Netflix's Passing reviewed
Passing is Rebecca Hall’s adaptation of the Nella Larsen novella (1929) about two biracial women, one of whom chooses to…
Grimy, echt and gripping: Netflix's The Forgotten Battle reviewed
The Forgotten Battle is a Dutch feature film commemorating the desperate and relatively little-known Allied assault on the Scheldt estuary…
If it were any better, it would actually be a terrible pity: Diana – The Musical reviewed
This week, an excellent film (Moving On) and a film that isn’t at all, but is entirely worth it as…
A window on a fascinatingly weird place: Some Kind of Heaven reviewed
Some Kind of Heaven is a documentary set in The Villages, Florida, which is often described as a ‘Disneyland for…
This film deserves all the awards and praise: Nomadland reviewed
Nomadland won multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and if there’d been an award for Best…
It will do your head in: Black Bear review
Black Bear is one of those indie dramas that is meta on so many levels you can either sit with…
Clever, funny and stomach-knotting: Promising Young Woman reviewed
Promising Young Woman is a rape-revenge-thriller that has already proved divisive but is a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting —…
A work of extraordinary delicacy, poignancy and tenderness: Minari reviewed
In the summer of 2018, when film-maker Lee Isaac Chung was on the brink of giving up filmmaking and had…
The fossil-hunting is more interesting than the sex: Ammonite reviewed
Ammonite is writer-director Francis Lee’s second film after God’s Own Country, one of the best films of 2017, and possibly…
Spellbinding: Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time reviewed
The premise for the unsnappily titled Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is this: a Hungarian…
The best film of the year: Judas and the Black Messiah reviewed
Judas and the Black Messiah is a biopic about Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, but it’s not your regular biopic…
It'll please small kids, but they're never to be trusted: Raya and the Last Dragon reviewed
Raya and the Last Dragon has everything you might want nowadays from a major Disney film — feisty kick-ass heroine,…
Contains nothing you couldn't get from Wikipedia or YouTube: Netflix's Pelé reviewed
Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who…
Horrible – but in a very fun way: I Care a Lot reviewed
I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s…
Predictable, repetitive and exploitative: Run Hide Fight reviewed
In this line of business you receive many emails from PRs ‘reaching out’ about their particular film, which I really…
This is cinema as car ad, says Geoff Dyer: News of the World reviewed
It’s a premise with plenty of previous. Children whose parents were murdered by Indians on the frontier of the American…
The Icelandic version was better – and had better knits: Rams reviewed
Rams is an average film with a better film trying to get out, and you may already have seen that…
Remarkably moving: The Dig reviewed
Just before the outbreak of the second world war a discovery was made in a riverside field at Sutton Hoo…
So good I watched it twice: Netflix's The White Tiger reviewed
The White Tiger is adapted from the Booker-prize winning novel (2008) by Aravind Adiga. It is directed by Ramin Bahrani…
The acting is very Scooby-Doo: Blithe Spirit reviewed
The comedy Blithe Spiritwas written by Noël Coward in 1941. It is, essentially, about a séance going wrong and a…
Riveting: Dear Comrades! reviewed
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk…
Even I, a bitter and cynical middle-aged woman, felt stirred: Sylvie’s Love reviewed
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
