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.
AILEY continually returns to the creative process even as it melds performance, archival footage, and interviews to celebrate and interrogate the life and work of revolutionary choreographer Alvin Ailey.
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.
Held together by Seydoux’s graceful and subtle performance, Bruno Dumont’s FRANCE slips between France’s confidence and doubt, often within the same scene, letting these conflicts linger.
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.
With captivating central performances from two talented young actors and a crisp autumnal palate, PETITE MAMAN develops a deep emotional resonance that stays with you much longer than its 72-minute runtime.
THE SOUVENIR: PART II continues Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical journey of a young woman at film school in England. This new entry develops on the first film’s themes to capture the essence of both artistic escape and being young in an England of repressed emotions.
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.
Dodgy haircuts and questionable accents aren’t enough to dilute the compelling plot of Ridley Scott’s historical epic, THE LAST DUEL, where one woman’s accusation of rape is detailed in a RASHOMON-style structure of passion and deceit.
