Although the story develops inconsistently, a captivating trauma-laced performance from Rebecca Hall and a confidently creepy supporting one from Tim Roth combines with an intense atmosphere in Andrew Semans’ feature to create a gripping horror story.
Although DON’T LOOK UP is undoubtedly sharper than Adam McKay’s previous political feature, VICE, the same smugness and cocksure piety blunt the more incisive moments, just as many performances are pitched more for caricature than satire.
As part of celebrating ten years since the launch of TAKE ONE, which coincides with one of the first films we covered, Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy getting a new 4K home release, we have reached back into the archives for an interview with the film’s team conducted at the 2011 Cambridge Film Festival.
THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN conducts a lot of charm, and the affecting performance of Cumberbatch reduces resistance to the film’s more twee elements in the opening stretch.
Someone is told at one point in ATABAI that “sadness is good for poets” – Niki Karimi’s film is full of sadness but has many skilled poets both in front of and behind the camera.
Jane Campion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG is set in the vast open plains of the American West in the 1920s, but its psychological atmosphere is claustrophobic in many ways. The suffocating presence of a hostile relative, the stifling effect of suppressed desire, and overbearing masculinity are all brought to bear on the characters.
SPENCER works on a surface level as a characterisation of a woman yearning to tarnish her gilded cage. However, its more lasting impact comes from its use as a microcosm to show the damaging broader character of a society that encourages – and enforces – being proper and not making a fuss above all else.
ETERNALS is an odd blend, featuring segments of unusual natural beauty and humanity for a comic book blockbuster. Still, this tonal change is stymied by the need to stick mostly by the formula of its franchise brethren, and the film feels very inhibited as a result of its lack of boldness.
CANNON ARM AND THE ARCADE QUEST manages to beautifully demonstrate the value of friends and community in helping someone overcome grief and achieve their ambitions in the face of long odds.
Not every story in THE FRENCH DISPATCH is a hypothetical page-turner, but the value of each one is clear, and Anderson remains one of the best cinematic authors.
