Hannah McGill
Tomatometer-approved critic
UK
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020) |
Rather than positing better ways of processing death, this film celebrates our inability to do so: inventive as we are, we are no match for it. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Feb 07, 2021
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Tehran: City of Love (2018) |
There's a sense of energy bubbling under but being quashed by restrictive tone and format. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Oct 15, 2019
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Girl (2018) |
This film makes a gentle point of the fact that transitioning isn't trouble-free even if most of the people around you are broadly sympathetic to the undertaking. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Apr 03, 2019
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Distant Constellation (2017) |
it's characteristic of the restless verve and spirit of Mizrahi's filmmaking that she doesn't let his piece settle into fatalism or sentimentality. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Dec 28, 2018
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Shoplifters (2018) |
Not only is it warmly accessible thanks to the pulsing humanity of its performances, but its story goes far beyond tender-hearted social realism into darker and more morally challenging territory. - The List
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| Posted Nov 19, 2018
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What Richard Did (2012) |
As smoothly shot as a classy ad, slow-moving and short on spark, What Richard Did compels with its sensitivity and technical diligence, but crawls along in terms of onscreen energy and narrative tension. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 31, 2018
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Le Havre (2011) |
Le Havre is brought to life by its raw, hopeful humanity; it feels close and real despite its deliberate distance. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jul 09, 2018
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Jeune femme (2017) |
Is the woman whose adult capabilities are a thin veneer over hysteria a rebellious threat to patriarchal expectations, or a perfect product thereof? - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jun 18, 2018
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Gook (2017) |
The spirit of early Spike Lee infuses this patchy but energetic sophomore feature by writer-actor-director Justin Chon. - The List
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| Posted Mar 12, 2018
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The Prince of Nothingwood (2017) |
The film is a fun and sporadically revealing fly-on-the-wall piece about a movie eccentric, but it could have done with some more solid background, both about its subject and the film world in which he operates. - The List
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| Posted Dec 11, 2017
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Menashe (2017) |
The effort to raise a child, Menashe reminds us, is as likely to confront us with our own childishness as it is to bring out our maturity and responsibility. - The List
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| Posted Dec 04, 2017
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Beach Rats (2017) |
The film's mix of murky, up-close realism and dreamy vagueness is reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's and Larry Clark's detailed, faintly voyeuristic depictions of teen life, as well Matt Porterfield's unvarnished but elegant portraits of urban disaffection. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Nov 28, 2017
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Bitch (2017) |
If Bitch has some rough edges, Palka's wit and daring never cease to sparkle from the screen; and one leaves the film, if not entirely satisfied, certainly curious as to where this wild intelligence will wander next. - The List
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| Posted Oct 09, 2017
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Quest (2017) |
This is loving, humane, substantial stuff, with the richness of a fat novel rather than the sensationalism and cruelty of reality TV. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Sep 19, 2017
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Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017) |
The film doesn't over-rely on aimless improvisation for laughs - and even allows its female characters to be funny. - The List
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| Posted Sep 04, 2017
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Insyriated (2017) |
A film which uses the time-honoured devices of the most manipulative of genres - the melodrama and the home-invasion horror - to lend cinematic shape to the shapeless misery ongoing in Syria. - The List
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| Posted Sep 04, 2017
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Edith Walks (2017) |
This whole project is in large part a lark; and it's Ktting's mixing of fairly serious intellectual conjecture with guesswork, whimsy, jokes and gossip that gives it its approachability and life. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jun 23, 2017
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My Life as a Zucchini (2016) |
The upfront acknowledgement in My Life as a Courgette that many childhoods play out with nary a hint of magic, sparkle or sugar to help the medicine go down feels unorthodox and bracing. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jun 05, 2017
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The Shepherd (2016) |
This Spanish drama / thriller gathers a gradual head of steam until its atmosphere is more reminiscent of the bloodier breed of western. - The List
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| Posted May 30, 2017
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I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016) |
As plots go, it's on the Byzantine side - and director Feng Xiaogang renders things still more elaborate with an unusual visual style that sees the picture largely confined to small circular frames. - The List
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| Posted May 22, 2017
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Inversion (2016) |
If its literal context is specific to Iran, the film also speaks to all of us about what happens when what we want clashes with what is expected of us. - The List
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| Posted May 15, 2017
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Harmonium (2016) |
Showing tremendous assurance, writer-director Kji Fukada deploys an attention-grabbing narrative structure that involves a daring leap part-way through. - The List
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| Posted May 01, 2017
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The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (2016) |
...Olli Mki bucks the cinematic convention of sporting self-sacrifice with one bracingly simple suggestion: that finding, being with and caring for the person you love might be more important than running yourself ragged in pursuit of passing glory. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Apr 20, 2017
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The Transfiguration (2016) |
The Transfiguration may prove too tender for horror fans and too grim for indie purists; but it slides between genres with a good deal of imagination, sensitivity and grace. - The List
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| Posted Apr 20, 2017
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Cameraperson (2016) |
Cameraperson is haunted - as one senses Johnson may be - by the question of whether and how much documentary filmmakers should intervene in the lives of their subjects. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jan 27, 2017
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Endless Poetry (2016) |
It's grandiose, for sure, and sometimes a touch repetitive in its visual preoccupations, but charged with ceaseless curiosity and infectious energy. - The List
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| Posted Dec 20, 2016
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Life, Animated (2016) |
Particularly vivid and endearing. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Dec 09, 2016
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The Unknown Girl (2016) |
Part of the Dardennes' rarity as storytellers is their capacity to recognise not only basic moral character and social circumstances but also mood as pivotal in how things pan out for people. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Dec 01, 2016
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Francofonia (2015) |
A true conversation with the past, which reminds us that all of what we consider fixed in the canon or forged by history is in place because of specific human personalities and decisions. - The List
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| Posted Nov 07, 2016
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16 Years Till Summer (2015) |
The viewer is liable to form his or her own views on aspects of the story; this hugely promising filmmaker, admirably, invests her craft in character, and resists forcing an agenda. - The List
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| Posted Nov 07, 2016
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Sonita (2015) |
A punchy, crowd-pleasing documentary about a young Afghan woman who becomes a rapper. - The List
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| Posted Oct 17, 2016
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Kate Plays Christine (2016) |
We watch as Sheil struggles to close in on a real person to whom she bears little resemblance and about whom close to nothing is known. Sound frustrating? It is, but deliberately and cleverly so. - The List
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| Posted Oct 10, 2016
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Valley of Love (2015) |
It feels under-realised, and its quasi-supernatural moments have a somewhat forced air about them, but is insightful and moving about family dysfunction, long-held guilt and the instinctive intimacy that can linger between long-split lovers. - The List
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| Posted Aug 08, 2016
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Author: The JT LeRoy Story (2016) |
Intriguing as it is, the film could have done with more voices and facets and less of what one woman's learned about herself in therapy. - The List
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| Posted Jul 25, 2016
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Pale Star (2016) |
Even if some more sub-plotting might have rounded it out, Pale Star succeeds extremely impressively in holding the attention and keeping the audience guessing. - The List
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| Posted Jun 23, 2016
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Kids in Love (2016) |
There's escapism, and then there's promoting vanity, self-interest and idleness like they're enviable lifestyle choices. - The List
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| Posted Jun 23, 2016
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The Fundamentals of Caring (2016) |
Both Roberts and Rudd do persuasive work. - The List
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| Posted Jun 16, 2016
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In the Fog (2012) |
The intellectual range is vast, and the images and performances stirring beyond the customary standard. In its thorough meditation on man's moral place, and its beautiful depiction of one version of life's trial, lies this film's joy. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Jun 08, 2016
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Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach (2016) |
A clear-eyed tribute to a unique career, and to the particular decades in British film and politics that it has spanned. - The List
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| Posted Jun 01, 2016
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The Last Man on the Moon (2014) |
Cernan is a wise, warm presence, and the specifics of his story are extraordinary enough to withstand the somewhat hackneyed treatment. - The List
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| Posted Apr 04, 2016
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King Jack (2015) |
At once harsh and wistful in its depiction of off-the-rails youth in a depressed New York town. - The List
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| Posted Feb 22, 2016
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Swung (2015) |
It's sleek, funny, and honest about life's discomforts. - The List
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| Posted Dec 07, 2015
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Closer to the Moon (2013) |
It has some moments that effectively convey the weirdness with which it deals; but for the most part it's a missed opportunity, marred by a lack of narrative conviction and tonal cohesion. - The List
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| Posted Nov 09, 2015
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Brand: A Second Coming (2015) |
Whether you like or loathe the man, this chaotic foray into his chaotic world has interesting things to say, not just about Brand and his fame, but about a personality type in which many will recognise aspects of themselves, or of people they know. - The List
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| Posted Oct 19, 2015
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Howl (2015) |
The black humour hits home without breaking the tension, while the gore - as one might expect given Hyett's background in makeup effects - is grimly convincing. - The List
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| Posted Oct 13, 2015
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Just Jim (2015) |
Roberts shows more than enough skill in the film's better sequences to make his future efforts well worth keeping an eye out for. - The List
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| Posted Sep 21, 2015
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52 Tuesdays (2013) |
Sophie Hyde's debut narrative feature is an unusual take on the 'issue film', which impresses by favouring intimacy, whimsical humour and spiky, inconsistent emotions over preaching. - The List
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| Posted Aug 03, 2015
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Welcome to Me (2014) |
Wiig's wearying brand of deadpan zaniness seems to work for a lot of people, but here it's stretched to its thinnest. - The List
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| Posted Jun 23, 2015
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Last Days in the Desert (2015) |
McGregor's dual role allows him to play to his strengths - open-faced amiability as Yeshua, and glinty mischief as the rather sympathetic Devil figure - and Hinds is marvellous. - The List
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| Posted Jun 22, 2015
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The Hallow (2015) |
Should be sought out by genre fans who like to cast their nets beyond Hollywood. - The List
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| Posted Jun 19, 2015
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