Ryan Gilbey
Ryan Gilbey's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Guardian,
Independent (UK),
Sight and Sound,
Observer (UK),
Heat Magazine,
New Statesman
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 83% | Funny Cow (2017) |
And while it's admirable that the film honours its un-PC period setting by having Funny Cow deliver a joke in a comic Pakistani accent, it is unfortunate that nothing the character says, either on or off stage, is remotely amusing. ‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Apr 13, 2018
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| 98% | BPM (Beats Per Minute) (120 battements par minute) (2017) |
There are elements to admire - committed performances and noble intentions - but as cinema it's a non-starter.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 67% | Wonderstruck (2017) |
Even this visionary director can't make shots of people looking at things (books, museum exhibits) feel compelling, or pass off coincidence as drama.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 40% | A Wrinkle in Time (2018) |
What DuVernay has delivered is essentially a feature-length screensaver which operates on the assumption that cinema for children is a matter of bright colours and dippy sentiment.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2018
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| 84% | The Square (2017) |
The Square is undeniably entertaining, though its lasting use may be to demonstrate that movies can have the same effect as popping a coin in the collecting tin. Having seen the film, you can rest easy knowing you've already given.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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| 94% | A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (2018) |
From the moment the camera catches sight of the singer Marina Vidal in a Santiago hotspot, where she brings panache to a salsa-infused torch song, it is fully captivated and so are we.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
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| 90% | I, Tonya (2018) |
Craig Gillespie directs with all the subtlety of a baton-wielding thug but has made at least one brilliant decision in casting Margot Robbie, who is practically a machine for generating empathy.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Mar 1, 2018
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| 99% | Lady Bird (2017) |
The densely packed detail which makes this such a luminous work shows Gerwig to be an uncommonly alert filmmaker.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Feb 22, 2018
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| 92% | The Shape of Water (2017) |
Refreshingly, the film doesn't shy away from its characters' desires... The Shape of Water spells out in letters taller than the Empire State Building exactly what Fay Wray and King Kong wanted to do all along.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2018
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| 96% | Black Panther (2018) |
[The] script adheres to the usual genre formula of tomfoolery, in-jokes, mythology and outright poppycock, but their knack for teasing emotional resonance out of standard scenarios gives them the edge over predecessors and competitors alike.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2018
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| 91% | Phantom Thread (2018) |
If Phantom Thread has a problem, it is that it's so full of fraught confrontations, even those that are outwardly genteel, that it sometimes feels more like a compilation of outstanding scenes than a great movie.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2018
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| 87% | The Post (2018) |
The film wrings a fair amount of tension and nostalgia from what is essentially a string of meetings in smoky rooms, though it stints on analysis and ends with a limp punchline.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2018
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| 97% | Coco (2017) |
The film has a galloping rhythm, and the animation is scrupulous and ravishing, from its smallest details to its limitless landscapes.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 25, 2018
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| 85% | Darkest Hour (2017) |
The script has been written with the caps lock on and Joe Wright directs accordingly.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 92% | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) |
The result suggests a greeting card spattered with gore. Beneath the little flecks of brain and bone, the Hallmark logo is unmistakable.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 84% | The Final Year (2018) |
This is not what the director Greg Barker and his colleagues set out to make, so all they can do is contemplate the wreckage and wonder what went wrong, rather than take control of the narrative themselves and mould it into any kind of coherent lesson.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 78% | All the Money in the World (2017) |
Save for a pair of performances of absorbing resolve from Plummer and Michelle Williams, it will take its place in history as a pub-quiz question, a footnote to a scandal.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jan 4, 2018
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| 17% | Terminal Velocity (1994) |
As a wise-cracking sky-diving instructor, Charlie Sheen wears his usual look of someone who has just been asked a really difficult question (like: how come your career has lasted this long?).‐ Independent on Sunday
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 67% | Dumb and Dumber (1994) |
What makes this fantasy of anti-social behaviour so painfully funny, is the gulf between etiquette and vulgarity, the desire to be a child whooping it up in the adult world.‐ Independent on Sunday
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 77% | Blue Sky (1994) |
Watching Lange and Jones together is like being caught in sheet lightning.‐ Independent on Sunday
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 38% | An Awfully Big Adventure (1995) |
The most startling thing here is Hugh Grant as a De Sade in luvvy's clothing. Grant embroiders him with impeccable details, while writer Charles Wood, adapting Beryl Bainbridge's novel, conveys the basics with admirable economy.‐ Independent on Sunday
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 82% | Molly's Game (2018) |
Few screenwriters are quite so in love with their own prose as Sorkin; on and on it goes, faster than the speed of screwball but with none of the wit. Molly's Game is his directing debut but he's a dead loss.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 91% | The Disaster Artist (2017) |
It's entertaining, if framed and cut a touch manically.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 91% | Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) |
No one could mistake The Last Jedi for an outstanding contribution to cinema, or even to escapism, but it has its attractions.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2017
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| 68% | Happy End (2017) |
What he (Haneke) does very well is expose the areas where class, race, economics and morality intersect revealingly.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2017
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| 19% | Daddy's Home 2 (2017) |
Gibson could scarcely hope to play a character more like himself if he landed the lead in The Mel Gibson Story.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 29, 2017
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| 85% | Ingrid Goes West (2017) |
The picture's greatest asset is its star and producer, Aubrey Plaza, who has a name like a suburban shopping mall and a face like sarcasm personified.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
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| 80% | The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) |
Eerie gliding camerawork, warmly tasteful lighting and a uniformly affectless acting style conspire to prevent us noticing how steeply the stakes have escalated.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 89% | 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene (2017) |
The calibre of interviewees and the level of their insights in Alexandre O. Philippe's film is on the distinctly variable side, closer to one of those I Love... nostalgia-fests that are used to pad out the television schedules than to something valuable.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 96% | The Florida Project (2017) |
Baker's work with his largely inexperienced cast is relaxed and playful, and the film's tone is fairly assured.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 100% | Paddington 2 (2018) |
But it works. The inclusive, plainly pro-immigration stance of the original 2014 film is carried over here and multiplied, with a welcome anti-Brexit message.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 10, 2017
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| 95% | Call Me by Your Name (2018) |
The achievement of the director Luca Guadagnino is to create in the absence of any obvious opposition a picture that is still taut with inner tensions.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 96% | The Death of Stalin (2018) |
Playing it straight is the secret. Turn down the volume and the picture would resemble any costume drama. Crank it back up again and the air becomes saltier than the Seregovo mine.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2017
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| 92% | The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017) |
You need a big screen to savour these effects as well as these performances, particularly Sandler, who discovers deep pockets of vulnerability in his familiar comic rage, and the aptly-named Marvel, who is one.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 87% | Blade Runner 2049 (2017) |
The film is no less sombre than its predecessor, and the glacial pace at which the characters walk and talk indicates that they know this full well. But the ideas aren't complex enough to justify the time spent unpicking them.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2017
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| 87% | Robot & Frank (2012) |
Robot & Frank, on the other hand, is a tonic of a film: it's all understatement. The whimsical but whip-smart tone suggests a liveaction version of a Pixar movie‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2017
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| 62% | Broken (2013) |
At least a soap opera has the luxury of spreading its quota of sensationalism over many years. Concertinaed into a time span of mere days and distributed among only three households, the litany of suffering in Broken can appear hysterical.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2017
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| 77% | A Late Quartet (2012) |
A Late Quartet is a terrible film-it's like an idiots' Amour. ‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2017
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| 76% | The Spirit of '45 (2013) |
That The Spirit of '45 survives its simplifications is due to the sincerity and urgency of Loach's argument. And, regrettably, to its pertinence.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2017
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| 68% | Trance (2013) |
In the end, it's the unnecessary tricksiness of the film that halts its flow. A crucial human component is missing. ‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2017
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| 83% | Borg Vs. McEnroe (2018) |
The temptation in biographical drama to reduce the subjects to simple psychological flashpoints should be resisted by anyone hoping to operate on an artistic plane higher than the average TV movie.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
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| 69% | mother! (2017) |
The film is a one-size-fits-all allegory, gloriously visceral in the moment but too easily decoded to endure.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| 87% | Wind River (2017) |
Most of the dialogue would look good on a series of commemorative tea towels. It certainly doesn't belong on the lips of an actor as gifted as Renner.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2017
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| 99% | God's Own Country (2017) |
In the crepuscular light of Brexit, the film resembles a symbolic appeal for tenderness at a time of instability, even if it is really something altogether more conventional: a love story against the odds.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Sep 7, 2017
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| 84% | Detroit (2017) |
It is a harrowing, relentless and intensely angry movie. As it should be.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Aug 31, 2017
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| 73% | Final Portrait (2018) |
The film's faint drama percolates pleasingly during the face-offs between artist and sitter.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Aug 24, 2017
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| 77% | Atomic Blonde (2017) |
Even an actor as good as Theron can't turn a set of cynical commercial considerations into a character.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2017
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| 51% | England Is Mine (2017) |
I don't think the makers of England Is Mine deserve our generosity. Their film is drably literal-minded in the obvious connections it draws between the artist and his life.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2017
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| 92% | Dunkirk (2017) |
The picture is distinguished by a knack for undercutting genre conventions without diminishing them emotionally.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jul 20, 2017
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| 59% | Despicable Me 3 (2017) |
I have no wish to see any more movies featuring the Minions but I'd make an exception for a crossover project in which they were pitted against the Brood for a fight to the death.‐ New Statesman
Read More | Posted Jul 14, 2017
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