If Shelley’s novel can be considered the dense and sprawling sheet music for an orchestral symphony of ideas, then Del Toro’s arrangement here is sparser. However, even if the result lacks some of the richness laid out on the page, the tune of FRANKENSTEIN extracts tension, horror and beauty that harmonises with the full version.
BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER rarely fails to be entertaining, with the visuals and performances taking the film a long way. However, they are fleeting thrills in the service of an unmemorable story. Edward Berger’s film looks like a high roller, but it’s playing with buttons and matchsticks.
Overall, the ARE YOU KIDDING? strand of short films at London Film Festival 2025 has (for the most part) a commanding understanding of tone, pitching the collection into a tradition of morbid, dark and absurd humour.
THE SMASHING MACHINE is an accomplished enough film, but the narrative seems to be all exploratory jabs and no haymaker. Safdie’s film skips deftly around several cliches, but fails to use that fancy footwork to advance something memorable of its own.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s proven filmmaking ability makes ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER a technically accomplished picture that is gripping and entertaining, taking sides in the battle for history without losing its capacity for doubt.
If any short contains the thesis of presenting the Gazan anthology FROM GROUND ZERO together, it is arguably a line from Mustafa Al-Nabih’s OFFERINGS: “We know they had a past, dreams, a life, and a future”.
Ryan Coogler continues to grow as a filmmaker: the choice not to water down the more challenging ideas underneath the blockbuster sensibilities of SINNERS proves to be the lifeblood of the film.
The specific events in LATE SHIFT don’t especially matter, but the resilience Leonie Benesch conveys in the face of whatever they may be matters hugely.
JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH is the seventh entry in a series that resolutely and ironically refuses to die in the way the implied resurrection would require. Instead, Gareth Edwards takes the reins on a new entry that makes a clean break from the characters of the original JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC WORLD, but not from the increasingly convoluted world that the series inhabits.
Emma Mackey is an engaging screen presence that keeps HOT MILK more or less on track in her lead role, but the lack of narrative direction leaves her character and the film to languish in the hot Spanish sun.
