Opening this year’s British Film Festival was the moving if uneven World War Two home front drama, Blitz from 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen. Blitz is at times surprising and quite radical in a way that’s guaranteed to provoke conservatives but in other ways it’s very old fashioned and reminiscent of much-loved childhood adventure stories like The Railway
Read moreBased on Ian Reid’s 2018 novel, the dystopian sci fi drama, Foe offers an intriguing premise but too often delivers it in a dull fashion. Set in the year 2065, the film depicts a world in which our worst fears about the impacts of climate change have been realised. Global drought has almost annihilated agriculture so governments have begun a
Read moreSome might have deduced from the movie poster – which features individual shots of the large, sharply dressed ensemble cast – that quirky murder mystery comedy, See How They Run is a homage to Agatha Christie’s whodunnits. This very likeable, if slightly tepid film is actually based around Christie’s phenomenally long-running play The Mousetrap. Set in London in 1953, the
Read moreLittle Women, directed by Greta Gerwig, is the seventh cinema adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s bestselling semi-autobiographical 1868 novel; the first film version having appeared in 1917. Gerwig’s adaptation, like Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version, intelligently combines historical fiction, romance, comedy, tragedy and feminism for a very pleasing, if at times slow-moving film. Little Women tells the story of the March
Read moreAs an actress Great Gerwig has defined screwball quirkiness in a series of wryly amusing, at times poignant roles in films from directors such as partner Noah Baumbach. Now she takes the reins as both writer and director in the yes, very quirky but charming and often touching teen dramedy Ladybird. Like a younger incarnation of the director, Saoirse Ronin
Read moreA good actor can’t save a film with a bad script and neither, it seems can a good director. Andrew Niccol may have helmed the very fine Truman Show and one of the best films of the 90’s, Gattaca but not even he can breathe life into the torpid sci fi romance The Host. Maybe he could blame author Stephanie
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