Film
The new Mad Max film is a betrayal of everything that made Fury Road so good
Action films are boring. This isn’t really an opinion, it’s just demonstrably true. Try it for yourself: put on any…
Headed for the canon: Withnail and I, at the Birmingham Rep, reviewed
After nearly 40 years, Withnail has arrived on stage. Sean Foley directs Bruce Robinson’s adaptation, which starts with a live…
Wonderfully special: La chimera reviewed
La chimera, which, as in English, means something like ‘the unrealisable dream’, is the latest film from Italian writer/director Alice…
Tennis romance that doesn’t contain much tennis: Challengers reviewed
It sounds straightforward enough: a tennis romance starring Zendaya, idol of the mid-teen demographic and last seen riding a sandworm…
Should beautiful actors be allowed to play those with plain faces?
Sometimes I Think About Dying is one of those titles you want to shout back at – what? Only sometimes?…
You’ll want to claw your face off: Scoop reviewed
Scoop is a dramatised account of the events leading up to the BBC’s 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew. The…
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’: Sophie Calle interviewed
‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’ Thus Sophie Calle objected to the first line of…
Outstanding and eye-opening doc about North Korea: Beyond Utopia review
The documentary Beyond Utopia follows various families as they attempt to flee North Korea. It is eye-opening and outstanding. In…
Basic, plodding and lacking any actual horror: Doctor Jekyll reviewed
Tis the season of horror, as it’s Halloween, which we celebrate in this house by turning off all the lights…
Epic, immersive and tiresomely long: Killers of the Flower Moon reviewed
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is a Western crime drama that runs to three-and-a-half hours. (Sit on that,…
The miracle of The Miracle Club is that it does, I promise, end
The Miracle Club, which is about a group of Irish women who travel to Lourdes, has a magnificent cast –…
Soapy and sentimental: Ken Loach’s The Old Oak reviewed
Ken Loach has said The Old Oak will be his last film – he’s 87; the golf course probably beckons.…
The best drama without any drama that you’ll see: Past Lives reviewed
Past Lives is an exquisite film made with great precision and care about what could have been, even if what…
Depardieu’s Maigret is the best yet: Maigret reviewed
Georges Simenon’s lugubrious detective Maigret has appeared in umpteen screen adaptations and dozens of actors have played him. Now it’s…
Colourful, tender and sweet, grounded in magical rather than social realism: Scrapper reviewed
Scrapper is a film about a working-class kid who, after her mother dies, has to look after herself. I know…
A brilliantly cruel Cosi and punkish Petrushka but the Brits disappoint: Festival d’Aix-en-Provence reviewed
Aix is an odd place. It should be charming, with its dishevelled squares, Busby Berkeley-esque fountains, pretty ochres and pinks.…
Dense and spectacular – and not pink: Oppenheimer reviewed
Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant quantum physicist and ‘father of the atomic bomb’ who…
Will we even notice if AI replaces screenwriters?
Will we even notice if AI replaces screenwriters?
Should be called Ken: Barbie reviewed
Finally, the Barbie film is here, for which we must be thankful, as the tsunami of pre-publicity meant you probably…
