Sofia Coppola’s films are rarely plot driven, instead they focus on relationships, manners, gestures and as in The Bling Ring and The Virgin Suicides, female sub-cultures. Coppola’s remake of the 1970 Clint Eastwood film The Beguiled exemplifies these themes. Set in the deep south during the American Civil War as the confederate campaign began to collapse, the film sees wounded
Read moreAs a story of an Indian child victim of poverty desperately trying to recover a life taken from him, Lion will elicit immediate comparisons with Slumdog Millionaire. Lion, which is a true story, however, packs an even bigger emotional punch. The film reveals how, in 1986, five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) and his teenage brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) became separated at
Read moreQueen of the Desert has nothing to do with Priscilla, this is in fact Werner Hertzog’s latest film and recounts the life of a woman who might be termed the female Lawrence of Arabia, Gertrude Bell. Nicole Kidman stars as Bell, a spirited intellectual who recoils at the strictures placed on women in early 20th century England. A scholarly historian
Read morePsychological thriller Before I Go to Sleep will inevitably draw comparisons with Chris Nolan’s Memento. Like Memento this film features a character with anterograde amnesia whose lost memories hides a disturbing past. Unfortunately, this film is not the wonderfully clever and fascinating puzzle that Memento proved to be. Nicole Kidman plays Christine Lucas a woman who wakes each morning to
Read moreSet mostly in 1980 and based on a true story, British-Australian co-production The Railway Man begins as a typically quirky, charming romance set in a world of steam trains and verdant English countryside. The film recalls Brief Encounter as the calm, sensible and sensitive Patti (Nicole Kidman) meets and eventually marries the awkward, dishevelled trainspotting nerd Eric Lomax (Colin Firth).
Read moreStoker is a bizarre, hypnotic American gothic thriller which, as might be expected given its title’s reference to Dracula author Bram Stoker, revels in an atmosphere of menace. The prolific Mia Wasikowska stars as the sullen and taciturn teenager India Stoker who lives a Carrie-like existence with her comically flaky mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) in a large dilapidated southern mansion.
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