Archive for the ‘GOLDEN GLOBES’ Category

Babygirl (2024)

Dir: Halina Rejin | Cast: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas | Drama 2024

A torrid affair between a boss and her younger employee is at this heart of this solid physiological drama starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson.

Dutch director Halina Reijn pictures a startling scenario when sexual politics spill over from the workplace and into the private life of a high-flying robotics CEO. Kidman is once again flexing her muscles in a meaty role where power-play is reversed. We’ve seen this happen many times on the big screen, most recently in Last Summer with Lea Drucker and before that with Trine Dyrholm in May el-Toukhy’s Queen of Hearts.

It all starts with a crack in the facade of her marriage to theatre director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). The two of them appear to happy together and enjoying a robust time in bed (in the film’s opening scene), but Romy (Kidman) is clearly tired of vanilla sex and sparks fly when she catches the eye of young temp Samuel (Dickinson). It does seem odd that such an assertive female such as Romy is unable to explain her desires to her affable husband Jacob. But apparently not. But maybe she is driven to seek out a challenge, or take a risk, all motives that explain her behaviour. She finds herself drawn to a cocky young intern whose confidence and sense of entitlement sees him rocking his professional relationship with his boss. Alarm bells ring and soon enough the two of them are tussling in psychological warfare, and the stakes are high. But Romy has far more to lose than the young whippersnapper.

The twists and turns are awkward and well-observed exposing Romy’s complex inner yearnings. A control freak she finds herself suddenly out of control as the sexual temperature soars. This is a highly intelligent film which explores the professional woman’s backstory: a rocky road that started in a dysfunctional upbringing. You might find yourself squirming as these doomed lovers lurch from being confident to downright confounded, with Romy rushing around desperately trying to keep up her grooming routine while holding down high level meetings. Rejin certainly understands the subtleties of the female mind and Kidman is alarming in her lack of vanity and ego in this latest role. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS 10 JANUARY 2025

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Dir: James Mangold | US Musical Drama 2024

“Well, I wake up every morning/Fold my hands and pray for rain/I’ve got a headful of ideas/That are driving me insane” – ‘Maggie’s Farm’, 1965

Bob Dylan has often said that in the early phase of his career, he didn’t so much write songs as pull them out of the air; it seemed to him that they were already somewhere out there, fully formed, waiting to be found, and all he had to do was write them down.

It sounds a bit fantastical, but maybe that’s how an artist with an indisputable vocation feels when they’re in the grip of the first fine careless rapture. James Mangold’s excellent and engrossing film focuses on this period of Dylan’s life, giving us a compelling portrait of the artist when his creativity was at its most volcanic.

Some might object that the movie doesn’t explain how, exactly, you get to hitch this kind of ride in the first place, but you’d probably have to position your camera right inside the artist’s psyche to have any hope of doing that, and Dylan’s own ‘out of the air’ theory suggests that, even if it you could, maybe not all that much of significance would be revealed.

Timothée Chalamet convincingly embodies the restless turnover of personas which accompanied this early outpouring – every bit as headlong and chameleonic as that of Bowie, but less obviously theatrical. Impassive and vigilant, Chalamet’s Dylan seems to be soaking up everything while giving out very little: except, of course, in the form of the songs.

Cryptic as he appears, the film succeeds in giving us the sense that a lot of contradictory ideas are churning in Dylan’s mind at any given time, with no strong urge to resolve them. Just as he wants to maintain his relationship with Sylvie Russo, the bright spark of a girlfriend who helped awaken his political awareness, he craves a connection with Joan Baez, the glamorous princess of the folk movement.

Then, almost as soon as he’s forged an alliance with her, he wants to blast his way out by steering his music in directions which – again, paradoxically – are simultaneously more populist and far more esoteric than anyone else, especially in the folk scene, imagined possible. At the same time, he genuinely doesn’t see any real difference between blues, folk, R ‘n’ B, rock ‘n’ roll, country, symbolist poetry, and anything else that grabs him. It’s all self-expression, right?

The film thrives on these tensions as it builds towards the notorious 1965 Newport festival when Dylan’s unveiling of his electric music supposedly sent many die-hard folkies into terminal conniptions. While relishing the disruptive effect of his new style on some audience members, though, some part of him seems genuinely and hurt and baffled by the vengeful uproar they aroused to this day.

Dylan has said that when he arrived in New York, he wasn’t planning to become a folk singer. The scene he dropped into, while impeccably high-minded and historically important in a host of ways, also had its smothering and didactic side. White people weren’t supposed to sing the blues. People who drew their repertoire from life on the land shouldn’t sing whaling songs. Etc.

The folk movement was always on the look-out for ‘authentic voices’ to convey its social and political ideas to a wider public. As the movement’s de facto torch-bearer, Pete Seeger provided much of its drive and energy. Often unfairly dismissed as a gormless old fuddy-duddy, Edward Norton’s performance restores Seeger’s dignity, intelligence and benign energy. This was an admirably ethical man. But he felt that the primary function of art was to serve social and political goals. He could see the potential of the charismatic, hugely talented Dylan. And he wanted to mould him.

The young minstrel chafed against expectations he saw as staid and ossified. Which makes sense. When you’ve written “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” once, you may not feel like writing it over and over again, no matter how much Pete Seeger wants you to. Particularly if your muse is drawing you in ever wilder and more demanding directions.

The film ends as it begins, with the artist travelling alone to meet some as-yet unmapped future. Time has revealed Dylan’s political affiliations as inchoate and non-denominational, with songs like “Joey” and “Hurricane” suggesting that he was always more interested in weaving outsider myths than probing too deeply into the realities behind them.
This movie is obviously a labour of love in which everyone concerned is performing at peak levels. Along with committed performances, it renders set-pieces like street scenes in early 60s Greenwich Village and concerts at Carnegie Hall and in open countryside in thrillingly believable and visceral ways. It’s not easy to play recognisable people with high public profiles, but Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash more than justify their places alongside Chalamet, with Elle Fanning as a touching and feisty Sylvie Russo.

After a brief, brilliant, early blaze, a lot of poets quickly wink out of existence. Chatterton died at 17, Keats at 25. Rimbaud, one of Dylan’s key influences in his transition to more abstract and personal material, stopped writing at 19. Dylan Thomas, also clearly important to the young Robert Zimmerman in a variety of ways, managed to stumble on into his late 30s.

Many have said that even if Dylan had been killed in the famous motorbike crash of 1966, when he was 25 (which the timeline of A Complete Unknown doesn’t quite reach), he’d already created a body of work of towering cultural significance. But, at 83, Dylan continues to perform and record, his career now edging towards an astonishing 65 years.

Possibly the mixture of hard-bitten, cynical opportunist and sensitive, idealistic romantic – along with a good few other things – goes some way towards explaining this longevity. And, quite possibly, Dylan is just as surprised about it as everyone else. Ian Long

IN UK CINEMAS FROM 17 January 2025

September 5th (2024)

Dir: Tim Fehlbaum | Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Leonie Benesch, Zinedine Soualem, Georgina Rich, Corey Johnson | US Thriller 94’

September 5 takes us back to a time when news events were broadcast exclusively on official news channels in the pre-digital age. It recalls how a dedicated team at ABC Sports covered live footage of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attacks when eleven Israelis were killed due to lax security.

In his impressive third feature German director Tim Fehlbaum captures all tension and nail-biting dread of that fated day on 5th September when accuracy and professionalism were paramount in getting the facts first, but crucially correct. Involving a plethora of technical equipment and a great deal of nouse these news-gatherers overcame considerable hurdles to deliver up to the minute on air coverage as it unfolded.

Peter Sarsgaard is at his best as the terrier-like head of the news team Roone Arledge. The film also stars a fractious Ben Chaplin (Marvin Bader); and Leonie Benesch as Marianne Gebhardt, a local German translator. John Magaro plays team newbie Geoff Mason who turned up for an ordinary day’s work that turned into something quite extraordinary.

All this plunged Germany back into humiliation at the time when the country was still coming to terms with the public shame of the Second World War when many thousands of Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. And Marvin was himself the son of a victim. A really riveting watch that feels timely despite it happening more than fifty years ago. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS FROM JANUARY 2025

 

Maria (2024)

Dir: Pablo Larrain | Cast: Angelina Jolie, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Golino, Haluk Bilginer, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Vincent Macaigne, Lydia Koniordou, Angelina Papadopoulou | 2 hours 3 minutes

Pablo Larrrain has captured the essence of female icons Princess Diana and Jacky Onassis. Now her rival Maria Callas comes under the spotlight in this wistful portrait of lost love and longing. Maria is about a diva not at the height of her powers but at her swansong, four years after her final performance, she misses music and fills the aching gap with medication while planning to sing again, against the advice of herr doctor (Vincent Macaigne). Like a swan gliding through water Maria is a graceful elegant drama full of swooning arias and tearful reflections on what was, and could have been  played with supreme finesse by Angelina Jolie with just a hint of a Greek accent. 

With his vintage lens Ed Lachmann evokes the soft mauve tinged lustre of this twilight era for the Greek goddess of opera who inhabits a palatial Paris apartment in 1977. The mournful tragedy tells of failed marriage, miscarriage and doomed romance. But there’s an autumnal warmth emanating from Maria’s glacial persona that makes her appealing. One gets the impression she would be amusing company with her acerbic grasp of reality and witty one-liners. She garners respect with her high standards, professionality and fear of losing dignity. We feel for her as a woman who has risen to the top of her and now only sees an emotional abyss with only her pet poodles, her housekeeper and butler for company. Alba Ruhrwacher and Pierfrranceso Favino are perfectly cast as the adoring dedicated domestic duo, tirelessly moving Maria’s piano around to suit her whims, and confiscating her carefully hidden tablets squirrelled away in pockets and handbags. 

The days pass languorously with Maria giving interviews to a French journalist Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and practicing her ‘return to form’ with a respectful pianist (Stephen Ashfield). There are magnificent musical forays with Maria in her full splendour. Black and white flashbacks reflect on her unhappy childhood with a grasping mother (Lydia Koniordou) and her brief love affair with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who arrogantly ousted her husband. Onassis seems to have been her soulmate, although they never married, that role went to Jackie. 

This is a production enhanced by its costumes and set designs from Massimo Cantini Parrini and Guy Hendrix Dyas respectively. With her mannequin figure Jolie showcases a selection of exquisite gowns and Seventies fashions as she saunters slowly through the French capital . In a soigne corner cafe she sips espresso on the terrace in full view of le tout Paris: “I come to restaurants to be adored” she informs the waiter. @MeredithTaylor

ON RELEASE FROM 10 January 2025

American Star (2024)

Dir: Gonzalo Lopez Gallego | Spain 107’ 2024

A stylishly slick but formulaic film sees Ian Mcshane (now 81) booted and suited in Fuerteventura as a soulful professional hitman called Wilson.

The canary island provides a suitably inhospitable widescreen backcloth for this curio that feels less and less like a thriller the more it plays out as a drama with some dark humour and a gently lilting score from Remate.

Wilson, a gravelly voiced tattooed war veteran, is there to do away with ‘the target’ who is not at home when he turns up at his swanky modernist villa to kill him. Instead a young French woman is swimming in the pool. So Wilson roams aimlessly about the moon-scaped island and ends up playing pool in a nearby bar and quaffing vintage whiskey served to him by said French girl (Nora Arnezeder) Gloria, who apparently works there and offers him lunch with her mother a wonderfully drole Fanny Ardant, who is no fool when she meets the suave silver fox. 

Softening elements arrive in the shape of Wilson’s gauche and shaggy-haired sidekick Ryan (Adam Nagaitis) who turns up from Lancashire offering to help, instantly lowering the tone along with an irritating little boy called Max (Oscar Coleman) who hangs around the hotel. The American Star of the title turns out to be a vast and rusting shipwreck that provides a scary interlude when it starts creaking ominously in the waves.

The film showcases McShane’s talents as an affable and intuitive killer who knows how to charm the birds and the boys but can still be brutal when necessary. For once he gets a leading role and carries it off with style in director Gonzalo López-Gallego’s visually appealing offbeat thriller. @MeredithTaylor

 

A Different Man (2024)

Dir: Aaron Schimberg | Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson | US Drama 112′

Looks aren’t everything. A man who blames his lack of success on his appearance soon finds out that his problems are more than skin deep in this persuasive portrait of identity and self-loathing.

This incisive and intelligent third feature for US writer director Aaron Schimberg won him a Silver Bear at Berlinale 2024. Fresh from his role as Donald Trump Sebastian Stan gives a nuanced turn as budding actor Edward who suffers from neurofibromatosis (on screen and in real life). Alongside him is The Worst Person In the World’s Renate Reinsve

In New York Edward (Stan in prosthetics) is absolutely miserable and we really feel for him, struggling alone to carve a career as an actor in lowkey instructional videos about physical deformity. Neighbour Ingrid (Reinsve), a writer, is his saving grace. But their relationship is only platonic prompting Edward to go for experimental surgery to cure his condition

There would be no point in this film if everything was fine and dandy. but it’s safe to say Edward soon becomes the man of his dreams in the shape of Guy, although his emotional reality is quite different. ‘Be careful what you wish for’ as the saying goes. But Guy seems chipper at first enjoying his transformation and informing all and sundry that his former self committed suicide.

Discovering later that Ingrid has written a play about her friend Edward, he decides to audition for the part only to find out that he has a competitor in the shape of Oswald (Pearson, who really has neurofibromatosis), and he becomes fascinated.

Schimberg covered similar territory with his 2019 comedy Chained For Life which also also starred Pearson. He explores his subject with integrity and humour never looking for easy answers or preconceived ideas. But like many physical conditions, how can anyone really know how it feels unless they are directly affected.

Reinsve is once again effervescent as a woman who is so wrapped up in her own work she fails to really engage with Edward on anything but a superficial level, appearing not even to acknowledge his deformity, until a surprising turn of events in the third act.

Oswald is an ebullient self-possessed character who gives us much food for thought as Guy reflects on his own personality and how it held him back despite his deformity. Stan on again shines as he takes on two roles with consummate ease and aplomb. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN UK CINEMAS

 

The Girl with the Needle (2024)

Dir: Magnus Von Horn | Cast: Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri, Ava Knox Martin | Sweden, Drama

After training at the world famous film school in Lodz (Poland), Swedish director Magnus von Horn soon won international recognition in 2020 with his confident first feature Sweat a slick and scathing satire on social media celebrity.

The Girl with the Needle couldn’t be more different in tone or style but the theme is the same – sort of. A relentlessly grim atmosphere pervades this Golden Globe hopeful, another tale of female empowerment turn of the century-style. The setting is 1919 Copenhagen where the macabre shadow and privations of the First World War still hang over Europe, affecting Denmark even, though the country was neutral.

Here a young girl called Karoline (Carmen Sonne) becomes reliant on all the help she can get after her husband Peter (Zeciri) disappears, suspected of being caught up in the hostilities. Karoline tries to apply for a widow’s pension but because Peter has not been technically declared dead she falls foul of the rules, according to Jorgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), the owner of the garment factory where she fetches up and whose needle give the film its gruesome title. She is soon pregnant by Jorgen who has no intention of marrying her.

Enter Dagmar (Dyrholm) a benevolent shopkeeper who purportedly helps poor mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted babies. The two bond and Karoline agrees, somewhat reluctantly, to become a wet-nurse, until it soon emerges that there is a terrible secret behind this work.

Unfolding in pristine black and white – and DoP Michal Dymek does a great job visually along with set designer Jagna Dobesz  – this is a full blown horror story with all the hallmarks of Robert Lynn’s Dr Crippen (1963) and Fritz Lang’s M (1931) not to mention Dickens or The Brothers Grimm (but this is no fairy tale). The echoing, plangent soundscape and special effects – a series of leering faces that morph from a smirk to a gurning glower –  are really sinister but feel totally in keeping with an era fraught with human death and destruction in the trenches. Carmen Sonne and Dyrholm really plummet the depths of Hell to dredge up these two ghastly women: one force, through  circumstances, to be dreadful; the other evil incarnate.

Needles become a metaphor for the female pain and suffering they deliver throughout the film: whether it be morphine, ether or an abortion attempt. Peter soon reappears maimed and disfigured and wearing a mask and unable to eat without making disgusting noises. Another ghastly character is Dagmar’s seven-year-old ‘daughter’ Erena (Knox Martin) another evil concoction – a blond female answer to Damien from Omen II. This fantasy horror is not for the feint of heart and certainly not for those frightened of needles. @MeredithTaylor

IN CINEMAS UK and Irish cinemas from 10 January 2025

The Brutalist (2024)

Dir/Wri: Brady Corbet | Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pierce, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Joe Alwyn | US Biopic Drama 235′

Brady Corbet’s exhilerating epic imagines the life of a penniless Hungarian architect who arrives in America having the fled Nazi concentration comps where he was forcibly separated from his wife due to red tape.

Recalling and reinforcing his tour de force in The Pianist Adrian Brody is once again magnificent, in the lead role of László Tóth, a enigmatic character whose creative energy and initiative shapes the foundations of post-war America as he revives his once illustrious career in this engrossing piece of filmmaking. The film is so exciting because it confirms that Cinema as a form of artistic expression is still alive and kicking thanks to Brady Corbet who won Best Director at Venice.

The title could refer to Brutalism as a style of architecture that showcases the bare beauty of the building materials, such as marble, over the decorative design, as seen during the Belle Epoque. Or it could refer to the rich client that Toth meets when he arrives in New York emerging from the depths of the immigrant ship that brought him from worn torn Europe. Guy Pierce is Harrison Lee Van Buren, a wealthy but quixotic industrialist who recognises and envies Toth’s brilliance and vision that shows up his own innate lack of style and sensitivity. This unleashes dark forces within the American that project as contempt. he continually undermines Toth’s efforts to deliver the project while, at the time applauding and encouraging his artistic talents and exquisite attention to detail. A metaphor for America’s gradual decline into mediocrity.

Tóth is at first welcomed and given board and lodging by his cousin Attila (Nivola) who has converted to Catholicism, and offers him a job in his Philadelphia furniture store. But Toth allure and magnetism stirs up unsettling feelings in Attila’s American Catholic wife who suggests sexual impropriety with her inlaw and this forces the architect back onto the streets where he meets Gordon (de Bankolé) who becomes his only male friend. Toth emerges as an imperfect hero with temper and his reliance on opioid drugs as a result injury during him time in Dachau makes him all the more human

Van Buren and his family are deeply antisemitic and embody the same fear and deep-seated envy that had given rise to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and was now seeping into Wasp America and whipping up an unsettling xenophobic in its cosy community whose cultural mediocracy resented anything new or different such as European culture and finesse.

Despite his vast wealth Van Buren exerts his authority over Toth by employing a project manager to cost-cut and knit-pick on the massive project to design a vast community centre in the town in memory of his late mother. This undermines Toth’s artistic control of the scheme and causes angry confrontations between the parties with tragic results.

The Brutalist is a thrilling and confident adventure that lives up to its three and a half hours running time filling the screen with its dynamic storyline and artistic flair, yet there is also a mysterious quality at play that makes it all the more enthralling, along with a daring and discordant score.

Brody’s Toth embodies the creative personality that is by turns vulnerable and confident, and his indomitable wife Erzsébet (Jones), a gifted writer, is equally endowed on the creative front as the two soul mates drive each other forward with their deep and enduring love anchored by mutual suffering. Their orphaned niece Zsófia (Cassidy) is denigrated in a plot involving a sexual encounter with Harry (Alwyn), Van Buren’s conniving son.

Corbet and his co-writer Mona Fastvold seem to be basing their narrative on a real story but the fact that it is all entirely fictional adds another dimension capturing the imagination as we cast our minds back through the possible sources for his extraordinary creative inspiration. @MeredithTaylorr

THE BRUTALIST is in UK Cinemas from 24 January 2025 |

Conclave (2024)

Dir: Edward Berger | Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rosellini, Bruno Novelli, Carlos Diehz, Sergio Castelitto, Lucian Msamati  | Drama 120′

The pope is dead. But his death is surrounded in controversy in this tense thriller and lugubrious papal conspiracy thriller from German director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front).

When Ralph Fiennes is in the cast we are always in good hands and he doesn’t disappointment as the suave yet sombre Cardinal Lawrence, dean of the cardinals’ college, who is ostensibly the manager of a power struggle to elect a new pope in the Vatican. Intricate twists and turns keep even the most demanding viewers on the edge of their seats with themes of treachery and sexual impropriety at heart of the narrative.

After the sudden death of a fictional, unnamed pope (Novelli), Lawrence must take control of the voting process. Three candidates quickly emerge as leading contenders. They are the liberal minded Cardinal Bellini (Tucci); a radical Cardinal Adeyemi (Msamati) and the wildly traditional Cardinal Tedesco (Castellito). A forth hopeful is the Canadian, Cardinal Tremblay (Lithgow).  A mysterious latecomer then rocks the boat in the shape of Cardinal Benitez (Diehz) who claims the late pontiff intended to nominate him in the running  before his untimely death.

But a final outcome is going to be prickly and full of pitfalls as rumours fly in the clandestine corridors of power and mud soon flying at each each candidate. But whether it will stick is the ultimate question.

An intelligent scrip,t written by Peter Straughan and based on the 2016 page-turner by Robert Harris, plays fast and loose with cannon law. Lawrence soon confesses doubt at his being a suitable future pope due to issues connected to prayer.

But there are some far more outré reasons why his fellow candidates may fall at the last hurdle, and these include one candidate’s sexual impropriety and another’s anatomy. These setbacks add a refreshing modern-day spin to the matter at hand.

Lawrence posits that the ultimate sin is certainty, and this elevates the narrative and provides the film with a visionary concept on which to ponder. An elegantly crafted and chewy piece of filmmaking.@MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN THE UK | CONCLAVE PREMIERED AT VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 |

Flow (2024)

Dir: Gints Zilbalodis | Animation 75′ 2024

There a several apocalyptic animated films on at the moment. Dreamlike, dazzling and enchanting they capture tragedy from the perspective of two species forced to adapt and collaborate with the animal kingdom in order to survive.

In some ways this is a metaphor for upheaval in our human world but seen through the eyes of cute furry creatures the impact of the parable is somehow softened and made accessible to both young and old.

The Wild Robot pictures an appealing robot forced into a motherly role of guiding a vulnerable fledgling gosling through the first days of its life on a desert island.

In Flow a solitary black cat is forced out of his bosky base in a forest and embarks on an intrepid odyssey when his home is devastated by a flood. Rather like in the bible story of Noah’s Arc, Flow must team up with the others and make the best of the situation. The emphasis one again is kindness and empathy.

Seen entirely from the point of view of nature and animals this is a simple but engrossing story that requires nothing of the audience but to watch and listen to the ambient sounds as the images glide by.

The previous outing by director Gints Zilbalodis, Away (2019), was an almost entirely solo effort, with the Latvian animator crafting the entire film from storyboarding to score and sound editing. This new feature – that also made its debut at Annecy Animation film festival – is more ambitious but has the same delicate look.

Zilbalodis builds a strange 3D world where giant statues of cats tower over the trees; there are relics from a world that humans once built. After a torrential flood of biblical proportions all the cities are drowned under water, and the cat finds himself with a dog, a capybara. Soon they are joined by a bird and a lemur and gradually begin working together.

Flow is entirely free of dialogue but Zilbalodis avoids sentimentality or anthropomorphism in this gentle depiction of the animal kingdom face to face with so-called ‘climate change’. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN CINEMAS

 

Gladiator II (2024)

Dir: Ridley Scott | Writer: David Scarpa | Cast: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, Denzel Washington | Action drama 148’

Ridley Scott delivers another ambitious and robust epic that combines moments of contemplation and intrigue with monumental set pieces in the Colosseum. The bloody battle scenes complete the swashbuckling spectacle with some unsubtle use of CGI.

Paul Mescal’s Gladiator is more soulful than his swaggering counterpart Russell Crowe who was cocky and convincing in the Oscar-winning original. That said, this sensitivity adds a modern twist to a tale set in Numidia and Ancient Rome. The Caesar brothers are a weird gay couple who simper and saunter around their sumptuous palace, one of them rocking a monkey permanently clasped to his shoulders like a living stole. And these contemporary touches ensure a refreshingly novel feature that remains a reassuringly true follow-up to the 2000 action drama. 

Gladiator II opens with a sensational sea-based sequence as a fleet of Roman warships powered by oars and sails storms its way to attack a port city in North Africa defended by Lucius (Mescal). General Marcus Acacius (a muscular Pedro Pascal) is at the helm and in the ensuing battle conquers the city capturing Lucius who loses his wife to a single arrow, motivating him to seek revenge.

Taken prisoner with other soldiers and transported back to Rome (where he was born) he falls into the hands of Macrinus (Washington) and his gladiatorial trainer, the brutish Vigo (Lior Raz). But Lucius is a dab hand at fighting off his assailants in the arena (including some savage CGI baboons) and soon wins over the crowd. Macrinus has backed a real winner. 

Meanwhile Lucilla and Acacius are planning a goodwill mission to free the gladiators from cruel slaughter under sibling emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) whose reign of terror knows no bounds, with further campaigns planned in India and Persia. And this is where Derek Jacobi comes in as Gracchus. He joins Lucilla and Acacius in the plot to restore Rome to its former glory when Lucilla’s fondly remembered father, Emperor Marcus Aurelius held sway. But someone is eavesdropping in the wings.

Meanwhile Lucilla realises that Lucius is the child she sent away from Rome for protection. Now she is torn between loyalty to her husband, a war hero of supreme dignity, and love for her child who vows to kill Acasius to avenge his beloved wife in a tragic chain of events that provides the story with its heart-punching denouement.

David Scarpa (who also scripted Napoleon and All the Money in the World) picks up from where David Franzoni started in Gladiator, twenty four years ago, with characters from back in the day and welcome roles for veterans Derek Jacobi and Tim McInnerny (as Thraex) and a camped-up Matt Lucas as master of gladiator ceremonies Cassius.

Denzel Washington is the star turn and brings a welcome dash of sly humour as the exotic-looking Macrinus, a scheming former slave who earned his freedom and is now pimping out a stable of young gladiators while plotting to improve his status even further by aligning himself to the Caesars.

Paul Mescal certainly looks the part with his beefy muscles bulging through the leather straps of his butch rigout. Emerging as the true exiled son of Russel Crowe’s Maximus and Lucilla (the regal Connie Nielsen, once again desperately trying to regain the trust of a man). But his lack of conviction diminishes the peerless performance he throws around in the arena. An actor well known for his intensity Mescal certainly simmers with rage and revenge but emotionally the Irish heartthrob is as vulnerable as a baby. His Lucius certainly delivers the words but seems unconvinced by them in a role that Crowe played with gutsy masculinity. But then again the dialogue offered him is minimal and mostly restricted to clipped statements.

Where he does shine is in contemplative exchanges with Ravi (Alexander Karim), another former slave and gladiator who cashed in his chips but now serves as a doctor and spiritual healer. Mescal is clearly better suited playing soulful metrosexuals of All of Us Strangers and Aftersun. Rakish heroes are not for him. @MeredithTaylor

GLADIATOR II is in UK CINEMAS FROM 15 NOVEMBER 2025  

Hard Truths (2024)

Dir: Mike Leigh | Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Webber, Jonathan Livingstone, Tuwaine Barrett, Michele Austin | UK Drama 97’

Not an easy film to watch but certainly true to its title. Mike Leigh’s latest brings together all the negative elements of urban life today for a black family. Lacking the gentle humour and endearing characters of Life is Sweet or Secret and Lies, Hard Truths pictures the coal face of middle-age misery for hard working mum Pansy (an obdurate Marianne Jean Baptiste) whose only joy is her spotless North London home and comfy settee. An oafish out-of-work son Moses (Barrett) lounges around upstairs, and a loveless marriage to decent manual worker Curtley (Webber) offers little respite from her days of endless depression where everything gets on her nerves and communication only leads to ugly confrontation, even with her easygoing sister Chantal (Austin). Pansy needs to find some joy or salvation in her life, but somehow she can’t. Brilliant characterisation and performances all round but not many laughs in this plangent portrait of despair. @MeredithTaylor

HARD TRUTHS IS NOMINATED FOR THE GOLDEN GLOBES and BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS 2024

 

Cairo International Film Festival 2024 | 13-22 November 2024

Cairo International Film Festival is internationally accredited as the oldest and only continuously running film festival in the Arab world, Africa, and the Middle East. Taking place from 13th November to 22nd November the 45th edition is led by its President Hussein Fahmy and his director Essam Zakaria.

This year’s celebration will include 194 films from 72 countries around the world and will open with the World Premiere of Passing Dreams (in competition) directed by Palestine’s Rashid Masharawi and starring Ashraf Barhom, Emilia Masson and Adel Abu Ayyash who plays a young boy pursuing an elusive carrier pigeon across Palestine believing it will return home.

Passing Dreams (2024) courtesy of Cairo International Film Festival

 

The Golden Pyramid Award – International Competition 2024

An international jury headed by Danis Tanović will decide on the winning film in this competition strand. Helping him are Ahmed Hafez (Editor, Egypt), Andrea Pallaoro (Director, Italy), Ángela Molina (Actress, Spain); Aisha Ben Ahmed (Actress, Tunisia); Anocha Suwichakornpong (Director, Thailand); Sylvie Pialat (Producer, France).

Moondove (2024)

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Competition hopefuls include this year’s top titles: Julie Delpy’s Meet the Barbarians (2024); Golden Globe nominated Memoir of a Snail, an enchanting anime with intergenerational appeal. There’s also another chance to see Constance Tsang’s Cannes 2024 awarded drama Blue Sun Palace.

Premieres include Necmi Sancak’s Ayse (2024), a family drama set against the changing face of Istanbul; 4 O’Clock Flowers, the feature debut from Egyptian fimmaker Khedija Lemkecher; and Moondove written, directed and produced in 2024 by award-winning filmmaker Karim Kassem.

4 O’Clock Flowers (2024) courtesy of Cairo International Film Festival

 

Arze (2024)

HORIZONS OF ARAB CINEMA

The latest Palestinian feature documentaries will compete in this section that includes the Best Palestinian film award.

Amongst the titles Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi’s A State Of Passion: Ghassan Abu Sittah, raises the profile of British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Ghassan Abu Sittah, who worked tirelessly around the clock for over a month in the casualty department of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals.

Mahmoud Nabil Ahmed’s Gazan Tales, centres on the lives of four men in the Gaza Strip and Maxime Lindon’s Holidays In Palestine follows 30 year old Shadi, an activist who leaves France to return to his village in Palestine.

Other films in this selection include Diaries from Lebanon (2024) a Berlinale-winning documentary looking at the tragedy unfolding in and around present day Beirut; and Mira Shaib’s feature debut Arze (2024) a family drama that sees a single mother and son struggling to survive in the city after they lose their source of revenue: a scooter.

The Second Wife (1967)

 

CAIRO CLASSICS

Celebrates a selection of international cult classics included renowned  director Salah Abouseif’s timeless masterpiece of Egyptian cinema The Second Wife, (1967) – a microcosm of Egyptian country life is reflected through the story of a corrupt mayor who controls the village. Stars Suad Hosny, Salah Mansour and Shukri Sarhan.

 

CAIRO FILM FESTIVAL | TRIBUTES 2024

THE GOLDEN PYRAMID – HONORARY TRIBUTE

Yousri Nasrallah – Director and Writer, Egypt

In a film career spanning over four decades, Nasrallah began as a film critic for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir. In 1982 he was an assistant to filmmaker Youssef Chahine in the film An Egyptian Story, followed by Goodbye Bonaparte, for which he co-wrote the screenplay. He soon became one of the leading protagonists of the auteur cinema movement with dramas such as the epic love story Bab el Shams (2004/5). Nasrallah is the first Egyptian filmmaker to chair the short film jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Other collaborations include working with German director Volker Schlöndorff and Syrian director Omar Amiralay.

FATEN HAMAMA – EXCELLENCE AWARD

Danis Tanović – Film director, producer, screenwriter – Bosnia & Herzegovina

The Bosnian film director, producer and screenwriter studied piano at the Sarajevo Music Academy before enrolling at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo. However, in 1992, the siege of the city forced him to stop studying and instead to turn his talents to documentary films, which he continued in Belgium after a spell at the Institut Supérieur des Arts in the Belgian capital.

Tanovic went on to write and direct the 2001 Bosnian feature No Man’s Land, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the European Film Academy Award for Best Screenplay, the César for the Best First Feature film, and a the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film amongst others. His filmography also includes Iron Picker (2013), Tigers (2014), Death in Sarajevo (2016), which was awarded the Silver Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. He is the only director from Bosnia and Herzegovina to win an Oscar.

FATEN HAMAMA – EXCELLENCE AWARD

Ahmed Ezz – Actor – Egypt

After studying English at Ain Shams University. Ezz embarked on a film career gaining international recognition with his breakthrough in A Teenager’s Diary directed by Inas El-Degheidy in 2001. Roles in blockbuster films include Private Alexandria (2005), The Hostage in 2006, and Transit Prisoner in 2008, all directed by Sandra Nashaat. Other performances include the big budget war film The Passage about the Arab-Israeli War of Attrition, his first collaboration with the great director Sherif Arafa. The two worked together for a second time in The crime (2022), and in the same year, he presented the film Kira And Jinn with director Marwan Hamed in their first collaboration.

Cairo Film Connection (CFC) also takes place during the festival (17-20 Nov). The 10th Edition comprises a series of eighteen projects in their development stage. The selected works include six from Egypt, two each from Tunisia, Iraq, and Lebanon, and one each from Kuwait, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria.

CAIRO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | 13 – 22 NOVEMBER 2024

 

 

Lake George (2024)

Dir/Wri: Jeffrey Reiner |  Shea Whigham, Carrie Coon, Glenn Fleshler, Max Casella | US Thriller 98′

With a gun to his head an ordinary man called Don is forced into a hitman gig in Jerry Reiner’s neat little Neo noir B-movie. 

The plot is simple and well-executed from the get-go and hooks you in with its appealing central duo. Ex-con softie Don (Whigham) has done time and is now ready to collect his share of the money from L.A. gangster Armen (Glenn Fleshler). But Armen has other plans in store for Don and they involve him killing Armen’s ex Phyllis (Coon).

So Don, looking for an easy way out, agrees to kill Phyllis. But after taking her to the Adirondack foothills near Lake George there’s an unexpected twist. Unable to pull the trigger, put-upon Don combines forces with middled-aged Phyllis and the unlikely pair of grifters hatch a plan to get the money back, and more. 

There’s always an audience for a decent thriller and Lake George is certainly watchable with its plausible plot, snappy dialogue and pristine production values from a veteran director and producer of TV fare such as Fargo and High Fidelity. Here he re-works a classic noir format with a feisty female and a world-weary petty criminal who just wants to retire gracefully.

A caustic dark vein of humour tempers some of the more violent episodes particularly the one where Don and Phyllis stage a robbery and find themselves witnessing a rather bizarre sex scene interrupted by a dog. The ludicrous sums involved are so minimal this only adds to the comedy as the two amusing desperados try to swing things to their advantage against the odds in some shady circumstances. @MeredithTaylor

TRIBECA PREMIERE 2024 | COMING TO NETFLIX

 

The Outrun (2024)

Dir: Nora Fingschiedt | cast: Saoirse Ronan, Saskia Reeves, Stephen Dilane,

Saoirse Ronan is the star of this dour character drama set in the Orkney Islands where she plays a struggling alcoholic in a dysfunctional family.

Some people have terrible lives and really suffer to keep on the right path but why do we lionise those who resort to drugs and drink to keep going when there are so many who manage to triumph through sheer grit and determination in the face of tragedy and strife.

Saved by some the ethereal landscapes and some watchable performances from Ronan, Saskia Reeves, and Stephen Diane (as her parents) you nevertheless come away wondering why this overhyped, plotless and un-involving film with its  jump cuts to dismal London and gorgeous nature shots needed to go on for two whole hours. The seals are the highpoint of a sad but otherwise rather average portrait of addiction based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot. @MeredithTaylor

NOW IN CINEMAS THROUGHOUT EUROPE

 

 

 

Nightbitch (2024) Viennale Film Festival 2024

Wri/Dir: Marielle Heller | Cast: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Jessica Harper | US 98′

Amy Adams’ character in Nightbitch is a stay-at-home mum, looking after a planned child in a well-appointed suburban house. But she hasn’t reckoned with the effect on her psyche of 24/7 life with a toddler while dealing with an inattentive, mostly absent husband. She feels her IQ shrinking by the day, and her identity – bound up with her now-stalled, but previously burgeoning, career as an artist – dissipating.

Facile musical afternoons at a local library and encounters with uninspiring women with whom she has little in common other than the brute fact of motherhood only increase her frustration. Not even comfort food, in the form of chunky fritters fried in great dollops of butter (Adams has bulked up considerably for the role), seems to help.

And as her anger builds, she notices that it is accompanied by some strange physical changes: thick hair sprouting on her back, rows of teats on her torso, even the beginnings of a tail…

Dogs and wolves have frequently been used in stories to illustrate the wild or unbound side of human nature – which is perhaps strange, given the rigidly hierarchical, pack-based nature of canine social organisation. The figure of the werewolf looms large here. In films like The Company of Wolves and Ginger Snaps it serves as a metaphor for the rawness of female adolescence; in Wolf, as a tonic for the diminishing powers of an ageing literary editor, played by Jack Nicholson.

But Nightbitch isn’t by any means a werewolf film, or really a horror film at all. There’s no sense that Adams’ character has been infected with a supernatural curse, or otherwise inducted into a lineage of monsters. She’s never shown to be a danger to anyone else, least of all her son, with whom she’s unfailingly sweet – no matter how many provocations the narrative hurls at her – and writer/director Marielle Heller mostly downplays the tale’s few weird or gory moments.

The story feels more like a slice of magical realism – the kind of thing which, in their wilder moments, a John Updike, John Cheever or Donald Barthelme might have come up with as a metaphor for suburban angst.

The three major characters are nameless, suggesting that Heller is aiming for an exemplary or prototypical picture of the nuclear family, as seen from “Mother’s” perspective: a point-of-view signalled by the preternaturally careworn Scoot McNairy’s designation as “Husband”, rather than the more standard pairing of “Father”.

The narrative is carefully slanted in Mother’s favour, and doesn’t delve into the privilege at work in her choice to take time out of her career for her child’s formative years – and still to feel radically discontented. And, typically of US cinema, her relatively opulent house is almost assertively antiseptic: a show-home rather than a place where people actually live, with little human grain, much less the scruffy or bohemian touches one might associate with an artist.

To call the scope of the film limited would be to undermine its strongly expressed core message: that the battles, victories, defeats and sacrifices played out by women at the domestic level are not just visceral and atavistic, but the very foundation of human life. However, the story doesn’t find a way to escalate its concerns into something truly compelling, and its third act is mostly concerned with the successful balancing-out of Mother’s relationship with Husband rather than anything more dark or gripping.

Having said this, the relationship between Mother and the hugely charming Son (actually played by twin brothers Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) is one of the joys of a film which also provides a generous amount of laugh-out-loud comedy. The playful bond between them is so palpable that I wasn’t the only person at my screening who wondered whether Son was in fact Adams’ own child. Adams’ performance is superbly nuanced, and to be relished. Where others might have chewed the scenery, she signals oceans of exasperation with the subtlest tilt of her head and lift off an eyebrow. @_i_a_n_l_o_n_g

SCREENING AT VIENNALE 2024 | IN UK CINEMAS 6 

Ian Long is a screenwriter and story consultant, and runs workshops on the ‘Deep Narrative Design’ of storytelling.

EMILIA PÉREZ (2024)

Dir: Jacques Audiard | Wris: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius | Cast: Edgar Ramirez, Selena Gomez, Zoë Saldana, Adriana Paz | France, Musical thriller 129′

It’s hard to imagine someone as dapper and debonair as auteur Jacques Audiard creating rip-roaring films that travel to the badlands of France, India and now Mexico. But beauty and sensitivity is always there a core of his work and this is particularly so in his latest, a vibrant musical thriller, EMILIA PÉREZ. 

Zoe Saldaña is Rita, a hard-working Mexico City lawyer held back by her gender and Latino background not to mention a demanding mother and a long-held desire to have a family herself. Despite all this she keeps singing and smiling (in dazzling dance routines) until an offer she can’t refuse comes along that will ultimately lead to salvation of sorts in the shape of frightening cartel boss Manitas del Monte (Gascon).

The mission is well -paid but perilous: to organise the crime lord’s disappearance, relocate his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and family safely to Switzerland and make him the woman of his desiring. Enter Israeli plastic surgeon Dr Wasserman (Mark Ivanir), the man for the job.

Karla Sofia Gascón is a knockout in a brilliant transgender role that sees her morph from macho Manitas (with gold teeth) to steely but vulnerable EMILIA PÉREZ in a range of bold and boosterish Saint Laurent outfits and a set of pearly white nashers.

This timely tale is often a bit fuzzy around the edges in a script co-written with Lea Mysius and Thomas Bidegain. But Audiard brings all the strands together in a tense adrenaline fuelled denouement that certainly packs a punch despite setbacks along the way. Emilia Perez makes it clear that blood is still thicker than water, even though the water element is all about our need to be loved and find meaning in life even if that means pushing the boundaries out. Emotions run high for all the characters and the heat is palpable with a lush spectrum of dazzling colours in the desert setting.

Exuberant musical interludes somehow add zest to this raunchy ride through Mexico (entirely filmed in a studio) driving the story forward in a similar vein to Annette although here the score is from French vocalist Camille and composer Clement Ducol. @MeredithTaylor

Now in cinemas in France, and the UK from October 25. Streaming on Netflix Nov 13, 2024.

 

 

The Order (2024)

Dir: Justin Kurzel | Cast: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Marc Maron , Alison Oliver | Aust, Thriller 116′

Austrailan auteur Justin Kurzel’s (Snowtown) is back with true-crime action thriller that dabbles briefly in white nationalism before kicking back into a standard eighties-set shoot-out affair.

In Denver, a zeitgeisty opening sequence provides contrast to the rugged machismo of the fighting scenes and revolves Alan Berg (Marron), the local Jewish broadcaster who captured Oliver Stone’s imagination for his 1988 outing Talk Radio, and offers another string to the film’s main narrative.

Jude Law is spot on as Terry Husk, a raddled, pill-popping FBI agent weary from fighting the KKK, and now relegated north west, for health reasons, to small-town Idaho where a Neo-Nazi cult – The Order – is slowly gaining force, under the beady eye of Tye Sheridan’s local cop Jamie Bowen, who has an old friend in its midst. Nicholas Hoult is The Order’s big boss Mathews who is plotting to overthrow the US government. He’s a classic racist and petty criminal with a solid family background and a bit on the side (in the shape of Odessa Young) who is also pregnant with his child. His wife (Saltburn’s Alison Oliver) is unaware or in denial of his extramarital set-up, but not stupid as to where the money is coming from.

Inspired by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s book ‘The Silent Brotherhood’ scriptwriter Zach Baylin doesn’t delve into the ideology of the group, the focus here is their violence and resurgence that feels timely in the light of current Neo-nazi activity in the US and further afield. Meanwhile Mathews is breaking away from the establishment’s extreme right group Aryan Nation headed by Richard Butler (Slezak).

Once again Justin Kurzel drives the narrative forward with a pounding score from his brother Jed, and some ferocious action and robbery sequences. Sadly, the female characters are kept quietly in the background in this macho, male-only terrain with its rugged Pacific landscapes that contrast with Adam Arkapaw’s pallid vision of 80s America. @MeredithTaylor

PREMIERED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2024

The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)

Dirs/Wri: Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre De La Patellière | Cast: Pierre Niney, Anaïs Demoustier, Bastien Bouillon, Laurent Lafitte, Patrick Mille, Anamaria Vartolomei, Vassili Schneider, Julien De Saint-Jean, Pierfrancesco Favino | France. 2024. 178mins

The Napoleonic era is seen in a different light from Ridley Scott’s recent epic in this swashbuckling sortie into French history from 19th literary darling Alexandre Dumas based on his storied hero The Count of Monte Cristo.

In 1812 Napoleon’s fleet is embattled in churning seas when a dashing young sailor gets his kit off to save a young woman from drowning. It’s an act that will bring him promotion to captain of the fleet and to ask the hand of his sweetheart. He is Edmund Dantes (Pierre Niney), she is Mercedes (Demoustier). And what a lovely couple they make. Edmund shyly sexy and Mercedes quivering with nubile bliss. But there’s a niggle in the woodpile in the shape of a jealous rival – in fact several – determined to thwart him at every turn. And no sooner than the lovers’ lips are dry from their post nuptial kiss than Edmund is seized on a charge of treason and imprisoned on the forbidding Chateau d’If in an island off the Marseille coast.

This epic adventure written by Delaporte and De La Patelliere is a tale rife with revenge and intrigue in a complex plot bursting with romance, sword play and fabulous settings. And it’s Niney’s most ambitious role to date. There are several baddies to contend with, Fernand de Morcef (Bouillon) who fancies Mercedes, scheming prosecutor Gerard de Villefort (Lafitte) who imprisons him without trial, and the curiously named Danglars (Mille) whom Edmonde replaced as captain. But of course Dantes is the focus as we soon find out why in his intriguing character evolvement from earnest young salt to hard-bitten hero.

After fourteen years of incarceration in his dank dungeon Edmund miraculously tools through a gap in the stone walls and comes face to face with a distant relative of the Monte Cristo in the shape of fellow prisoner (Abbe) Pier Francesco Favino. A close bond of trust forms in these challenging circumstances and Abbe divulges the location of his family treasure before tragedy strikes on the eve of a tension-fuelled escapade to uncover the secret of the hidden booty. But on returning home Edmund discovers that his love is now married to his ‘best friend’ and that his father has died of a broken heart.

Zipping through its three hour running time this tale of derring-do then transports us to a lavish palace where our hero has slipped into a more mysterious guise as the soi disant Comte de Monte Cristo, a raffish, tee totaller seeking justice but killing only in his defence, and supported by sidekicks, Andréa (Julien De Saint-Jean) and the enigmatic Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei), who both have axes to grind with Edmund’s enemies. Residing in an opulent palace showcasing his newly acquired fortune Edmund sets out to exact retribution, and we root for him until the end, in this classically styled adventure drama with solid gold production values and  sweepingly romantic score. @MeredithTaylor

NOW ON RELEASE IN UK from 30 August 2024

Memoir of a Snail (2024)

Dir/Wri| Adam Elliot | With the voices of Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Jackie Weaver | Australia 90’

This delightful Australian anime is an endearing sob story seen from a woman’s perspective and suffused with all the anguish of modern life. A tender tale of loss and alienation it soon branches out into a relatable stop motion meditation with appeal for all ages, cleverly debunking modern trends and sharing human truths with a particularly uplifting message on mental health.

Written and directed by Academy award winning animator Adam Elliot Memoir of a Snail is crafted with a grungy aesthetic that sets the scene for the birth of Grace Prudence Pudel, a sickly twin whose mother dies in childbirth leaving her a snail collection and giving the film its enigmatic title.

Grace (Snook), a bit of an oddball to say the least, grows up with her pyromaniac brother Gilbert (Smit McPhee), paraplegic French film maker father Percy (Pinon) surrounded by the snails, her beloved guinea pigs and a collection of weirdos such as James, a magistrate defrocked for masturbating in court (who makes a crucial contribution later on in the film). Grace pours out her heart to a female snail called Sylvia (Williams).

Percy’s charisma inspires little Grace to become an animator but his sudden death from alcoholism forces the twins into foster homes: Grace with a childless couple in Canberra far away from her brother Gilbert who gets a family of God-fearing fruit farmers in Perth. But her real foster mother and confidente soon becomes Pinkie (Weaver) who delivers that well-known chestnut: ‘Life has to be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards’.

In his richly crafted narrative Elliot doesn’t look for easy solutions or short cuts. Ultimately Grace must realise her true vocation and embrace inner peace. There are no magic bullets. A wry dark humour sets Memoir apart front the average anime. With chuckles aplenty and believable characters (rather than the usual cyphers) this absorbing crowd-pleaser also benefits from a strong cast and its modest running time. @MeredithTaylor

World Premiere in Competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 10th  BEST FILM London film festival 2024.

Kinds of Kindness (2024) Cannes Film Festival 2024 | Best Actor Jesse Plemons

Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos | Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, Hunter Schafer | Thriller, 162′

Yorgos Lanthimos selects a quality cast and has them star as different characters in three quirky interlocking stories. The first, a bizarre film that sets of this bemusing trio on the theme of control freakery, is the most watchable.

Here Willem Dafoe gets the upper hand as Raymond, a bossman who bankrolls and therefore holds sway over Jesse Plemons’ modest guy called Robert Fletcher. He gets to live in a modernist villa with his obliging wife (Hong Chau) courtesy of Raymond’s money, and is therefore totally in thrall to this control freak. He will do anything to make Raymond happy, and that gives the first segment its scary twist in the tale.

For those who prefer the Greek ‘weird wave’ director’s early fare such as Dogtooth and The Lobster, Kinds of Kindness will appeal, and reunites him with his co-writer on those projects, Efthimis Filippou. But the triptych of weird stories becomes increasingly so, often giving the impression that Lanthimos is just trying a little bit too hard to be perverse, just for the sake of it. 

The first part certainly has you glued to the screen – not least for its visual incongruousness. Plemons sports a polyester Windolene-coloured roll-neck that contrasts with his greasy carrot-coloured hair. It’s an enigmatic tale whose pieces gradually fall into place, and this was the segment I found most engrossing. 

From then on proceedings grow more dark, violent and unsavoury, but watching Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley and Emma Stone do their stuff in varying roles is always intriguing – even though countenancing this ghastliness for nearly three hours is stretching it a little bit, and you may feel yourself coming over all queer (in the old-fashioned sense of the word).

The titles of each story are built around the initials R.M.F. (played by Yorgos Stefanakos) who doesn’t really have much a role to speak of – in fact he doesn’t get to say anything – but is merely there to serve the narrative as the car crash victim Fletcher is supposed to kill in order to please Raymond, in a final act of submission.

Margot Qualley entertains us on the electric organ with “How Deep is Your Love” the twin theme to the trilogy. She is variously Raymond’s wife Vivian (Qualley) and then a vet with life-giving powers in the final story. Meanwhile Emma Stone is Rita, a glam optician who falls for Robert in the second part of the control-themed scenario. But the standout in Kinds of Kindness is Jesse Plemons who really comes into his own in the new Hollywood firmament pulling off an impressive range of performances; his final turn as Daniel, a flesh-eating policeman is the least appealing, but in a good way. @MeredithTaylor

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | Best Actor Award

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Dir: Cameron Cairnes/Colin Cairnes | Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss | US Comedy Horror

Johnny Carson rival Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) hosts a syndicated talk show ‘Night Owls’ that has long been a trusted companion to insomniacs around the country. However, ratings for the show have plummeted since the tragic death of Jack’s beloved wife. Desperate to turn his fortunes around, on October 31st, 1977, Jack plans a Halloween special like no other. Unaware he is about to unleash evil into living rooms across America.

The Cairnes write and direct this entertaining and witty possession horror comedy with Dastmalchian holding it all together in a dynamite tour-de-force as Johnny Carson.

NOW in UK Cinemas

Immaculate (2024)

Dir: Michael Mohan | Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Alvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco, Benedetta Porcaroli | US Horro 89’

Cecilia, a young American woman, travels to an Italian convent to pledge her life to Jesus (“what a waste!” an official sighs ruefully as he processes her through customs), joining a cadre of young nuns dedicated to helping their sick and demented elder sisters through the last phases of their journey to ‘the Lord’. Cecilia completes her vows and is welcomed into the community as its latest bride of Christ. All seems well.

Well, almost all. Sexuality is surprisingly prominent in daily life: elegantly-cut robes flatter lithe figures; one nun suggests that another’s sour demeanour is the result of “her vibrator’s batteries running down”; and, oddest of all, the building has its own well-equipped gynaecological clinic, complete with a dedicated doctor. As more warning signs accumulate, our misgivings about the convent are more than confirmed (a violent prelude has already clued us up on the extreme risks of trying to leave it).

Immaculate is the passion project of its star, Sydney Sweeney, emphasised by the prominence of her name above the film’s title. Noted for her eye-catching appearance in the video for the Rolling Stones single ‘Angry’, the actress first found fame with TV series ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘Euphoria’.

Sweeney isn’t the first actress to use the clout that comes with success to back a dark and challenging project. For instance, Olivia de Havilland was the motive force behind The Heiress (1949): selecting and securing the property, talking William Wyler into directing it, and playing a lead part at odds with her usual serene glamour.

Similarly, the narrative of Immaculate calls for Sweeney to portray a gamut of strong emotions. Cecilia begins the film cowed by the convent’s gravitas and opulence, albeit armed with a quiet, steely faith which will eventually put the institution to the test. She ends it in shrieking, blood-drenched agony, facing a poignantly fateful decision.

Immaculate is a stylish, well-made and intelligently written horror with high production values. Its vision of a malign and conspiratorial Catholicism is not new, but it manages to cast a spell (undermined at times by frequent jump-scares, heavy-handedly underlined by non-diegetic soundtrack explosions) as it builds towards a visceral climax.

The latter part of the film feels a little rushed and truncated, and some elements are under-developed: neither Cecilia’s formative near-death experience nor the existence of a sub-order of sinister, red-masked nuns are fully explored, and I’d have liked more character development for the two nuns (one supportive of Cecilia, the other stonily opposed) who gravitate to her.

But this is Sweeney’s show. The third act sees Cecilia facing her fate almost alone in the once-teeming building as she hurtles towards a starkly memorable denouement. Unlike the cold revenge enjoyed by de Havilland in The Heiress, retribution in Immaculate is served piping hot, and Sweeney throws herself into the finale with such crazed gusto that most will feel sated by her maniacal power. @IanLong @_i_a_n_l_o_n_g_

Ian Long is a writer and story consultant who teaches various aspects of screenwriting in his Deep Narrative Design workshops. ‘Stargazer’, a psychological drama feature co-written with director Christian Neuman will be released later this year, and Ian is currently developing ‘Malediction’, a supernatural feature set in southern Italy.

IMMACULATE is in UK cinemas from Friday 22 March 2024

Firebrand (2023)

Dir: Karim Ainouz | Cast: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan, Sam Riley, Ruby Bentall, Erin Doherty | Drama

Jude Law is grotesque as Henry VIII on last his last legs – quite literally – in this imagined drama chronicling his marriage to Catherine Parr, the only wife who survived him, played with elegant conviction by Alicia Vikander.

Brazilian/Algerian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz last came to Cannes with a ravishingly beautiful 1950s outing The Invisible Life of Eurydice Gusmao. His latest, adapted for the screen by ‘Killing Eve’ writers Jessica and Henrietta Ashworth from a novel by Elizabeth Freemantle, is another story about the plight of women living constricted lives, this time in turbulent Tudor times.

Catherine Parr was the first woman to publish in the English language but the focus here is not so much her literary skill as her feminine guile seen through her struggle to survive this putrid, coercive and quixotic tyrant who forces himself on her at every opportunity in the desperate need to provide a male child. His gruesome grunts and larded buttocks bear testament to Catherine’s gruelling ordeal. She is far the most interesting character here but is rather left on the sidelines with the flatulent bully Henry taking centre stage.

Firebrand is a dark disturbing drama that unfolds within the claustrophobic confines of the royal quarters only occasionally making it into the fresh air of its glorious Spring settings. Intrigue, conspiracy and sculduggery are par (!) for the course: and familiar touchstones to those terrible times of misogyny and paranoia, the threat of beheading hanging over every woman, and man in the court.

Catherine Parr was the most fortunate of Henry’s alliances, and was even appointed regent while the king was in France. But she was also suspected of harbouring radical religious views in her objection to the church’s use of Latin: and this plot line sees her befriending the outspoken Protestant heretic Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) causing a rift with Simon Russell Beale’s Stephen Gardiner, a Catholic bishop and Catherine’s implacable opponent. So nothing really new to write home about here but certainly a film worth considering. MEREDITH TAYLOR

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED | NOW IN UK AND IRISH CINEMAS

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