PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN
Carrey Mulligan delivers the performance of her career in this fantastic film and deserves her Oscar nomination as the eponymous heroine. But the real revelation is Emerald Fennell whose highly original screenplay and inventive direction are also nominated for Academy Awards. It is an amazing achievement for a British character actress to make such a remarkable directorial debut. She tells the story of Cassie, a promising young woman with a bright future until certain events in her life force her to change direction….
The joy of watching this unpredictable film is best not to know too many details about the plot. Cassie works as a barista at a coffee shop and still living with her parents. She is out every night frequenting bars and clubs but with a purpose…
Mulligan is utterly mesmerising as the smart protagonist determined to exorcise her demons from her past at any cost. The hand-picked cast also includes Bo Durnham as Ryan, the sensitive man she meets where she works. He is the only man that Cassie begins to date in years, and she even brings him home to meet her parents. An incredible joy from beginning till end and unmissable!
TRUE MOTHERS
Acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase brings to the screen a beautifully sensitive film about motherhood and adoption in modern day Japan.
Satoko and her husband try hard to have a baby but in vain and eventually decide to adopt a baby from Baby Baton, an organisation based on a small island near Hiroshima. Their loving boy begins kindergarten when a young woman claiming to be the child’s biological mother enters the scene…
The intelligent screenplay plays with time while the action is seen from different perspectives and the result is an utterly compelling drama superbly directed and acted.
THE RECKONING
Neil Marshall sets the action of his latest chiller during the Great Plague in 1665 in a script co-written by him and his leading lady Charlotte Kirk amongst others. Kirk plays Grace Haverstock, a young widow who struggles to make ends meet following her husband Joseph’s (Joe Anderson) suicide. He is the latest victim of the plague and soon after Grace is imprisoned falsely accused of being a witch…
The intriguing story which recalls Vincent Price’s WITCHFINDER GENERAL boasts strong production values even though Grace’s wardrobe and make up, especially during the prison scenes, bear no reality to the situation.
I’M NOT IN LOVE
I remember enjoying Col Proctor’s debut feature SOMEONE ELSE at the Edinburgh Film Festival back in 2006. Another likeable rom com which tells the story of Rob (Al Weaver) a man in his late thirties who begins to reconsider his relationship with Marta (Cristina Catalina) when she expresses her deep desire to have a baby…
Weaver is persuasive as the man on the verge of a mid-life crisis and his scenes with his mother (Tessa Peake Jones) in restaurants are particularly entertaining.
LAST CALL
The action of Paolo Pilladi’s uneven debut feature takes place in Philadelphia and follows the story of Mick (Jeremy Piven), a real estate developer who returns to his old neighbourhood for a business proposal but is in a dilemma whether to demolish or resurrect his family’s beloved bar…
It may be a bit rough around the edges but quite watchable thanks to Cathy Moriarty’s striking presence as a Melina Mercouri kind of Greek matriarch.
EFFIE GRAY
A welcome re-issue of Emma Thomson’s penned period drama which was made in 2014 and directed by acclaimed television director Richard Laxton.
The true story of Effie Gray, the 19-year-old girl from the North of England, who begins a life with the elite London Victorian society after she marries art critic John Ruskin (Greg Wise). But their marriage is loveless, and the unfortunate Mrs Ruskin finds some kind of escape when she befriends Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (Tom Sturridge) …
The film boasts careful production values and a stellar cast relishing Thomson’s smart dialogue. Fanning’s sensitive portrayal of the young protagonist is also quite notable. Worth re-discovering!
I BLAME SOCIETY: A personal project for writer/director Gillian Wallace Horvat who also plays an aspiring filmmaker determined to shock with her new documentary where she wants to kill on camera her best friend’s hideous girlfriend…It is a fun idea for a dark comedy but unfortunately it is devoid of laughs and Horvat’s character is even more annoying than the people she wants to exterminate for her precious film project. The first half is quite dull but thankfully the pace picks up once the body count escalates!
HENRY GLASSIE – FIELDWORK: Pat Collins’s fascinating documentary celebrates the work of Henry Glassie, the American folklorist and ethnologist, whose passion for his work takes him across the globe. Now Collins tries to retrace some of Glassie’s steps and lets his camera witness the work of potters, sculptors, and painters amongst others in Brazil, Turkey, and Southern States of America. A hypnotic experience!
GROUNDSWELL: Johnny Cogan’s urgent documentary follows a group of activists as they fight against fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in Ireland. It was filmed over ten years and the activists’ struggle continues for many years before they begin to get support from global anti-fracking protestors like Mark Ruffalo, who speaks passionately and eloquently about the movement, while the big corporations try to justify their actions. Essential!
