Ryan Gilbey

Tomatometer-approved critic

Publications: Guardian, Independent (UK), Sight and Sound, Observer (UK), Heat Magazine, New Statesman, London Review of Books

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
93%	Ray & Liz (2018)	The lives we see are eked out on the breadline with an air of desperation and feverishness. Yet Daniel Landin's cinematography captures them affectionately. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2019
51%	Under the Silver Lake (2019)	Pop culture can furnish us with potent hits of meaning, and the film rejoices in that. But it also asks what happens when they eclipse or outstrip lived experience. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 14, 2019
79%	Captain Marvel (2019)	Vital to the success of Captain Marvel is Larson, whose amused intelligence warms the movie through like Carol's hands heating a kettle. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 6, 2019
92%	Fighting with My Family (2019)	Fighting with My Family is a rare and delightful beast: a movie that seems to understand the world of professional wrestling. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 5, 2019
No Score Yet	Women of Mafia 2 (Kobiety mafii 2) (2019)	The absence of a moral component, or some indication that what we're seeing isn't meant to be titillating, renders the film about as enjoyable as surgery without anaesthetic. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 28, 2019
86%	Hannah (2018)	It's a bit rum to make a sophisticated performer go through the motions in this way. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 27, 2019
89%	Capernaum (Capharnaüm) (2018)	Labaki directs the inexperienced cast sensitively, and mixes appalled commentary on the bureaucracy conspiring against the disenfranchised with the occasional indelible image. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 21, 2019
55%	Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno (2017)	Like the characters, Mektoub, My Love is itself apparently aimless, often irritating, prone to treading water -- indeed, it could be accused of being one long longueur. But I found plenty to admire in it. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2019
90%	A Private War (2018)	The director Matthew Heineman has a background in documentary, and Pike serves as a one-woman answer to the question of why he didn't make a factual piece: her tenacity, swagger and depth are astonishing. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 13, 2019
95%	If Beale Street Could Talk (2019)	Jenkins's greatest achievement is to recreate Baldwin's depiction of the psychological horror of racism, the dread and claustrophobia it generates, along with the surging passion the couple use to try to defeat it. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 6, 2019
98%	Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)	For what could have been a sordid and interior little yarn, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" positively glows. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 30, 2019
79%	Dogman (2019)	A character study rather than the conventional thriller hinted at by its gangster trappings... In little more than 90 minutes, [Marcello Fonte] completes the unlikely metamorphosis from a Mr Bean to an El Greco. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 29, 2019
97%	Tehran Taboo (2018)	The lyrical animation, and especially an expressive use of shadows which illuminates emotion in the actors' faces, makes it all appear to be unfolding in a woozy dream. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
87%	First Man (2018)	In those sequences when Armstrong is heading for the stars, the approach is so immersive on a sensory level -- cacophonous sound design, juddering cinematography verging on the abstract -- that it almost compensates for the void at the film's core. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
87%	Possum (2018)	In taking his inspiration from Jimmy Savile, Holness has placed at the centre of his film the sort of bogeyman who could give even Michael Myers nightmares. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
79%	Halloween (2018)	[Forgets] that a decent Halloween movie should take its cue from Michael Myers: low on chat, high on surprise. Even so, this one can still boast a higher-than-average proportion of treats among its tricks. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
63%	Peterloo (2019)	It seems perverse that a film of such length should find no home for so many of its director's assets. Detailed character-work, complex domestic relationships, humour: these are elements that would have made the picture engaging. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
91%	Widows (2018)	It would be wrong to place all the credit on the script when every element of Widows expresses character and theme with intelligence and concision. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
91%	The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)	The Ballad of Buster Scruggs feels like the Coen brothers' B-sides compilation... . That smugness to which the Coens are susceptible is in plentiful supply here. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
66%	Suspiria (2018)	Guadagnino claims that his Suspiria is not a remake at all but a cover version. If that's the case, it can only be the equivalent of turning a three-minute glam stomp into a bloated rock opera. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
84%	Disobedience (2018)	Chilean director Sebastián Lelio lends this adaptation of Naomi Alderman's 2006 novel of the same name an outsider's curiosity... only a foreigner could bring this much lyricism to locations within spitting distance of the North Circular. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
96%	Three Identical Strangers (2018)	Dramatises the nature vs nurture argument in a murky and intriguing way. If only its stylistic mannerisms didn't threaten to obscure the storytelling. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
96%	Roma (2018)	Cuarón fills every corner of the frame, just as Fellini did, so that the eye has to roam the screen as though scouring a fresco. But for all the bustle and brio, it's a visually lucid movie. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
93%	The Favourite (2018)	Pushes the idea of the capricious monarch through the far reaches of comedy and almost into tragedy. Colman embodies sublimely the punch-drunk confusion of a woman unsure whether she's child or adult, plaything or puppet-master. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
93%	Stan & Ollie (2019)	There isn't a surprising shot or musical cue in the whole movie, but with performances this good you'd scarcely notice. Coogan and Reilly's physical and vocal resemblance to their subjects is stunning without being slavish or clinical. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
88%	Colette (2018)	[Keira Knightley] gets far more to do and is infinitely better at it than usual in the brisk new period piece Colette - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
97%	Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)	Hale County This Morning, This Evening has an impressive pedigree but that wouldn't count for much if it didn't achieve its aim to find a new language for the overlooked parts of neglected lives. But it does -- lovingly. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
68%	Beautiful Boy (2018)	Beautiful Boy has a remorseless emotional integrity... It is frustrating, repetitive and inconclusive, and all the more admirable for it. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
66%	Vice (2018)	These days, everyone is yelling, and that includes the makers of Vice. The title has a double-meaning but I'd suggest a third: watching the film feels like having your head stuck in a... - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2019
100%	A New Leaf (1971)	A New Leaf that represents the more miraculous achievement in wresting from domestic torment a plausibly happy ending. Or rather, an ending that is realistic about the compromises required to be happy. - Sight and Sound EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 8, 2019
No Score Yet	Jump the Gun (1997)	This leisurely film isn't to everyone's tastes, but surely no one can resist the inarticulate charms of Clint, with his droopy eyes and droopy moustache. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 17, 2018
100%	Purple Noon (Plein soleil) (1961)	The tension is tantalisingly controlled, while the sight of the young Alain Delon languishing shirtless on a yacht provides a textbook definition of cool, and might be said to alone warrant the price of admission. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 14, 2018
10%	Keys to Tulsa (1996)	This nonsensical picture appears to have been directed by a coma victim and edited by an axe maniac. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 14, 2018
72%	Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)	Call it Bill and Ted with attitude, or a toothless Clueless: either way, the film uses up its best lines in the first 40 minutes, and only comes to life whenever the splendidly grouchy Janeane Garofalo is on screen. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 14, 2018
50%	Albino Alligator (1996)	One of Spacey's most notable achievements is that he's managed to tease out that rare treasure: a great Matt Dillon performance. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 14, 2018
27%	Event Horizon (1997)	A loud and nasty hunk of science-fiction horror. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 14, 2018
53%	The Cable Guy (1996)	It barely matters that The Cable Guy fails [to satirize TV], because it is crammed with other pleasures, not least Carrey, who lets us glimpse the human being behind the sociopath. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 12, 2018
88%	Bound (1996)	Bound is modern noir, with the obligatory iconography and a plot you need a flashlight to find your way out of. But it's hard to put your faith in film-makers whose Year Zero is Blood Simple. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 6, 2018
53%	Mars Attacks! (1996)	The science-fiction comedy Mars Attacks! is a contrived B-movie pastiche with some spicy ingredients alien to other Tim Burton films: attitude, cynicism, misanthropy. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 6, 2018
68%	The Crucible (1996)	Perhaps understanding the distance that these fictional interpretations have created, The Crucible seems to invite a moral and emotional, rather then political reading. - Independent (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 6, 2018
85%	The Wife (2018)	At least The Wife has Close in its favour, not to mention timeliness. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2018
89%	A Star Is Born (2018)	Were the actor Bradley Cooper not so tender and hard-working in his performance as the jaded rocker Jackson Maine, it would be possible to regard the whole thing as a vanity project, since he co-wrote and directed it also. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2018
65%	The Little Stranger (2018)	[Domhnall Gleeson] keeps Faraday's wounds painfully close to the surface... Faraday's bitterness works like a depressant, consuming him but also the movie, and robbing it of some of the electrical charge vital for fully effective horror. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 25, 2018
97%	The Rider (2018)	The Rider could easily have been pitying or patronising but it is suffused instead with warmth, understanding and insightful detail - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 12, 2018
34%	King of Thieves (2019)	We can have the joshing banter, the gags about this over-the-hill Lavender Hill Mob, but they come mixed up with the sniping and snarling, the carnivorous nastiness... Bless. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 12, 2018
88%	American Animals (2018)	American Animals manages to be simultaneously fast-paced and contemplative. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 5, 2018
92%	Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018)	The whole nature of Cold War is one of abbreviation: snappy editing, temporal jumps, deliberately unresolved emotions... This is a film of glancing, heart-crushing pleasures. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 29, 2018
72%	The Children Act (2018)	This isn't cinema so much as Sunday evening television, with a moral dilemma laid out in straight-arrow scenes stripped of much cinematic sensibility. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 23, 2018
80%	The Festival (2018)	After the initial sticky patch, audiences are likely to find themselves amenable and even enthusiastic - much like the festival experience, in fact. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 17, 2018
96%	BlacKkKlansman (2018)	Lee's motivating anger produces a unique, electrifying charge. - New Statesman EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 17, 2018