Our expectations for studio comedies these days are sadly that they’re going to be awful, and those expectations are based on a huge and consistent heap of evidence. Game Night, by contrast, hugely bucks the trend, delivering a comedy that not only contains a lot of laughs (a comedy making you laugh more than twice…
Greta Gerwig has previously proved herself as an actor and writer, and now she adds director (Academy-award nominated, I might add) to her skillset. With Lady Bird, she infuses a beautifully observed tale of teenagehood with such heart and humour; it’s hard not to find yourself falling for it. We encounter the titular Lady Bird…
I, Tonya begins by stating it is ‘based on irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly’, and the multiple perspectives this provides, combined with a snappy script and darkly comic sensibility, makes I, Tonya a blast of a film that entertains, whilst also humanising the figure at its heart. Whilst…
The first, and bigger, of two Donald Crowhurst films set to be released by Studiocanal in the coming weeks has arrived. It is an assured and affecting stab at the tragic tale, if one that plays it a little safe. Based on the true story of the amateur sailor’s attempt at the Golden Globe race…
Arriving with an impressive 13 Oscar nominations, Guillermo del Toro brings us another fantastical tale, one featuring an amphibian man, that, despite its other-worldly qualities, is a deeply human tale of love. It is pure cinematic magic. Set in the 1960s, during the Cold War, the film follows Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute woman who…
The latest from Paul Thomas Anderson is hard to categorise. Yes, it is a period piece, it is a romance, but it is also, in some sense, a comedy of psychological games that eventually pushes its characters to the verge of absurdity. It is an entrancing and intriguing piece, prepared to challenge its audience. Set…
Playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonaugh’s work is characterised by its pairing of darkly comic sensibilities with crime led drama, and he continues that thread here. Three Billboards is an astonishing film whose story is derived from a tragic event, yet the film manages to be equally laugh-out-loud hilarious, and utterly heartbreaking. Seven months on from the rape…
The film that gained a lot of complicated publicity due to the controversy prompting a last minute recasting has arrived on our screens a mere couple of months since the Spacey sexual assault allegations surfaced. The result is not the mess that could have resulted from a huge, quick reshoot, but a solid thriller-drama where…
Spielberg. Hanks. Streep. A story about freedom of the press and women in the workplace. This is a film with high expectations, and high expectations that needed to be met. Thankfully (and predictably), The Post delivers in spades. The film details The Washington Post’s involvement in the leaking of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ in 1971. The…
In the latest film involving the events at Dunkirk, Joe Wright’s drama chronicling Winston Churchill’s first few weeks as Prime Minister uses an elevated pace to craft a film that frequently grips, but sometimes falters. The film begins with the decision to select Churchill (Gary Oldman) as the new prime minister, following a vote of…
