If you think you can’t have too much Ian McEwan, then you are wrong
The Children Act is the third Ian McEwan film adaptation in 18 months (after The Child in Time and On…
Fascinating, powerful and brilliantly done: Apostasy reviewed
For many years I would chat genially with our local Jehovah, Stephen, who came door-to-door every few months or so,…
Dreary, familiar, empty watch – until Streep appears: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again reviewed
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again aims to do what it says on the can. That is, be Mamma Mia,…
Shamelessly derivative and, worse, asks us to root for asshats: Swimming with Men reviewed
Swimming with Men is a British drama-comedy starring Rob Brydon as a disaffected middle-aged accountant who joins his local male…
Leave No Trace is inaction-packed – yet it pulls you in and keeps you pulled in
Debra Granik, the writer-director who made quite a splash with Winter’s Bone (which launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence in…
No fear
Hereditary is the horror film that has been described as a ‘ride of pure terror’ and likened to The Exorcist…
Women can now make dull formulaic franchise films too! Hurrah! Ocean’s 8 reviewed
Ocean’s 8 is the all-female spin-off of the all-male Ocean’s trilogy and it’s a sop, with a third act that…
Ninety years old and still feels as fresh as a daisy: G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box reviewed
Two films this week, one that has stood the test of time, dazzlingly — it still feels as fresh as…
I desperately wanted to love Edie but I couldn’t
Edie tells the story of an 84-year-old woman who wants to fulfil a girlhood ambition by climbing a Scottish mountain.…
Whoever signed off on the ending deserves a good thrashing: On Chesil Beach reviewed
On Chesil Beach is an adaptation of the Ian McEwen novella set in 1962 when ‘conversation about sexual difficulties was…
Convoluted, woeful mishmash with no central story: How to Talk to Girls at Parties reviewed
How to Talk to Girls at Parties is set in the 1970s and has punk as the backdrop and an…
Not like any serial-killer thriller you’ve seen before: Beast reviewed
When I first read that Beast is a serial-killer thriller my heart sank like a stone — yet more women…
Maxine Peake is blistering in Funny Cow
Two films about women this week. One, Funny Cow, is about a woman who daringly takes on men at their…
My knuckles went pure white and have yet to return to full colour: Custody reviewed
Custody is both social realism and a thriller and it’s terrific. It is smart, beautifully acted, never crass about the…
Plenty to wonder at – like who thought it was a good idea to make it: Wonderstruck reviewed
Wonderstruck is a film by Todd Haynes and you will certainly be struck by wonder, often. You will wonder at…
It was good but I preferred slurping my genitals: Deborah’s dog reviews Isle of Dogs
The latest film from Wes Anderson is a doggy animation set in a fantasy Japan and as there was a…
Unsensitive, Unhumane and Uncredible: Unsane reviewed
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Unsane, is a psychological thriller about a woman who is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital even…
Original sin
This biopic of Mary Magdalene is a feminist retelling that may well be deserved but it’s so dreary and unremarkable…
Hammer horror
You Were Never Really Here is a fourth feature from Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About…
Heavy-going and heavy-handed: Dark River reviewed
Dark River is the much-anticipated third feature from British writer/director Clio Barnard and it is one of those bleak, rural-…
I liked Shape of Water well enough but Lady Bird is where it’s at
Lady Bird is a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Greta Gerwig with a plot synopsis that need not detain…
Devastating but also more involving than you’d ever think possible: Loveless reviewed
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless is, indeed, devastatingly loveless, as well as devastatingly pitiless, which does not sound hopeful. Yet it is…
Wonderfully fixating and wholly non-formulaic: Phantom Thread reviewed
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is a lush psychosexual drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a pampered, tyrannical, pernickety 1950s couturier…
Downsizing throws away its brilliant premise
Downsizing is a film with the most brilliant premise. What if, to save the planet, we were all made tiny?…
You just can’t argue against Hanks and Streep: The Post reviewed
Steven Spielberg’s The Post, which dramatizes the Washington Post’s publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, doesn’t exactly push at…
