A woman in a red swimsuit sits at the end of a wooden dock, shrouded in mist. She (Aubrey Plaza) is still, but clearly shaken; devastated even. There is a sense that she is barely holding it together. It’s an image that Black Bear returns to repeatedly, that of some mysterious trauma; even as it delves into notions of art and artifice.…
Category: Reviews
REVIEW: Synchronic
With Lovecraftian time-trap horror The Endless, filmmakers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson proved their ability to craft ambitious sci-fi on a limited budget.
Synchronic tells in some ways a more of a conventional narrative, but one that plays into many of the same themes of regret and feeling trapped.…
REVIEW: Ammonite [LFF 2020]
Francis Lee’s Ammonite plays like a gender-swapped God’s Own Country cast back in time to the mid-19th Century.
Instead of the rolling hills of Yorkshire, the film gives us the raging sea around Lyme Regis. And rather than a nervy fictional farmworker, we have real-life palaeontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet).…
REVIEW: Nomadland [LFF 2020]
In a year that for most people has been largely defined by not leaving the house, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland is a paean to wide, open spaces.
Based on Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction novel, we follow Fern (Frances McDormand). Uprooted by the 2008 recession – the film opens in 2011 – and by the death of her husband, Fern has hit the road in her camper van; seeking out seasonal employment along along the West Coast.…
REVIEW: Honest Thief
Action thrillers starring Liam Neeson are a mixed bag at the best of times, but Honest Thief may be the first I’ve seen that doesn’t even have a decent elevator pitch.
There’s been “Liam Neeson rescues his daughter” (AKA Taken, the granddaddy of the whole “Liam Neeson does stuff” genre), “Liam Neeson protects his son” (Run All Night), “Liam Neeson on a plane” (Non-Stop), “Liam Neeson on a train” (The Commuter), even “Liam Neeson on a snowplow while avenging his son’s death (Cold Pursuit).…
REVIEW: After Love [LFF 2020]
What do you do when the person you love isn’t whom you thought?
Mary Hussain (Joanna Scanlan) is a devoted wife and practising Muslim. She and Ahmed (Nasser Memarzia) have been together since their teens. They live in Dover, where Ahmed works as a ferry captain.…
REVIEW: Another Round (Druk) [LFF 2020]
Writer-director Thomas Vinterberg reteams with The Hunt star Mads Mikkelsen for Another Round, a boozy reflection on middle-aged boredom and ennui.
Martin (Mikkelsen) is not a fulfilled man.
History teacher at an elite high-school, he is perhaps best described, in the cautious words of one student, as “diffident”.…
REVIEW: One Night in Miami [LFF 2020]
Miami. February 25th, 1964.
22-year-old Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston in the Boxing World Heavyweight Championship and is crowned champion. That night, he retires to the Hampton House to celebrate with a few friends – NFL player Jim Brown, soul singer Sam Cooke, and civil-rights activist Malcolm X.…
REVIEW: Wildfire [LFF 2020]
Wildfire is a film that warns about the impact of unresolved violence.
After years of living hand-to-mouth, under-the-radar, Kelly (the late Nika McGuigan) is going home. Home for Kelly means a small town on the Irish border. The Troubles may have ended, but the wounds have never fully healed – at all, it seems, for Kelly.…
REVIEW: Supernova [LFF 2020]
Supernova opens over black – or so it seems. The blackness, we come to realise, is not complete. This is the night sky. There are a pinpricks of light, stars, which seem to multiply.
One flares suddenly and vanishes.…