BlackBerry
Glenn Howerton almost rescues this uneven, chaotic film but this is the BlackBerry of techy biopics. It’s nothing new anymore.
Category Archives: Reviews
Infinity Pool
INFINITY POOL is a compelling film that effectively garners visceral and spontaneous reactions to thoughtfully constructed grotesqueries. However, the scant implementation of the ideas driving the characters’ behaviour leaves it like that hotel leisure showpiece; the lack of boundaries is an intricately and considerately engineered illusion. A look beneath its glistening surface and the safe confinement becomes all too apparent.
Eo
EO works by using the language of cinema to pull us into the subjectivity of Eo and the other animals he encounters. The film feels like a milestone for recognition of the consciousness of the beings with whom we share a planet, writes Simon Bowie.
Saint Omer
It takes a deft hand to communicate empathy in the story of a mother who has killed her 15-month-old baby, but director Alice Diop handles this courtroom drama with grace, even if the genre tag feels reductive here.
Blue Jean and media-reinforced heteronormativity
There is a central idea between the dramatic unfoldings of BLUE JEAN: internalised homophobia triggers a fight or flight response. Walter Bradford Cannon’s famous ‘fight or flight’ theory, otherwise known as Acute Stress Response, is referenced early in Georgia Oakley’s outstanding feature debut. In BLUE JEAN, the stress Oakley’s Geordie protagonist Jean responds to is that of Margaret Thatcher’s homophobic amendment to British Law: Section 28.
Aftersun
Charlotte Wells’ feature debut showcases the assured hand she had already demonstrated in her short film work and enhances it further to balance tone and pace throughout a touching story of a daughter and her troubled father on holiday. Calum (Paul Mescal) takes his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) on a package holiday to Turkey, … Continue reading Aftersun
My Small Land
MY SMALL LAND should launch two stellar careers with its astute portrait – told in three languages – of a specific situation that feels transferable in this age of global anxiety and xenophobia.
Off the Rails
OFF THE RAILS is a breathless narrative that may have benefited from reflection and structure, but the spark and spirit are captivating throughout.
After Yang
AFTER YANG is a film steeped in humanity despite its gently dystopian subject: an android sibling of an adopted child. Koganada’s feature includes many thought-provoking strands focused on family privacy, technological dependence, and what makes someone – or something – belong to a family unit. Still, its imagination and sincerity when dealing with memory and … Continue reading After Yang
Wildhood
April McIntyre reviews WILDHOOD: even in the heavily explored road movie trope, Bretten Hannam is able to breathe fresh life into it, offering it up as a story of queerness, nature and homecoming.