Lucy Mangan
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Christmas Carole (2022) |
A glorious, modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s tale by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto that will set you up brilliantly for the whole yuletide shebang. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 26, 2022
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Girl in the Picture (2022) |
I have never seen a film less in thrall to a perpetrator, never seen a production succumb less to the lure of the evildoer. - Guardian
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| Posted Jul 06, 2022
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Our Father (2022) |
Simple, unbelievable and simply unbelievable. - Guardian
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| Posted May 11, 2022
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Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (2022) |
It is a slick and calculated production, designed to give Potterheads exactly what they want, how they want it. But it contains enough untold stories and honesty from the participants and unfakeable camaraderie to give it more genuine heart. - Guardian
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| Posted Jan 03, 2022
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Banksy: Most Wanted (2020) |
Rouvier and Richard's film covered a lot of ground enthusiastically, intelligently and as unpretentiously as I've ever seen it done. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 02, 2021
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'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (2021) |
It is an extraordinary portrait of a man who is convinced he cannot be wrong, who will always position himself - at least in his own mind - as the persecuted victim struggling to do right. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 26, 2021
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Four Hours at the Capitol (2021) |
The underlying collective testimony furnished by Four Hours at the Capitol is that the age of Trump has not yet ended - and the true day of reckoning in the United States is still to come. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 27, 2021
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Sex: Unzipped (2021) |
Zip it back up. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 27, 2021
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Help (2021) |
Comer and Graham remain faultless to the end, and the first hour is a fine addition to the wealth of pandemic testimonies that can and must be entered into the record in any way they can be. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 20, 2021
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The Return: Life After ISIS (2021) |
Beyond the questions it poses about governmental responsibilities towards its people... this is a film that makes you interrogate yourself more than any other I can remember. - Guardian
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| Posted Jun 16, 2021
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Tina (2021) |
Even if you don't know the backstory, it is all astonishing to watch. If you have ever seen Turner, you will know -- and if you haven't, I cannot capture her talent and charisma with only the paltry resource of the written word at my disposal. - Guardian
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| Posted Apr 01, 2021
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Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death (2021) |
It is an hour that makes you long to plead with anyone and everyone - if you are ever thinking of going, please don't. Please, please stay. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 18, 2021
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76 Days (2020) |
There are no hugely dramatic moments in 76 Days. It is wholly unsentimental and, allowing for the fact the stream of events must be put into some kind of narrative form, unmanipulative. - Guardian
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| Posted Feb 19, 2021
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Belushi (2020) |
This felt more like a simple refocusing of our attention, as the parade of greatest-hits clips played on, and the admiring voices commented and sorrowed in turn. Not quite a waste, but a missed opportunity for sure. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 30, 2020
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Flint: Who Can You Trust? (2020) |
It is a good job someone was there to record it, because it is a tale that would challenge even the most credulous. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 08, 2020
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The Night Notre Dame Burned (2020) |
It is an admirably structured film, spreading and carrying the weight of abundant material. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 18, 2020
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(undefined) |
You could not help but feel the loss of a time when the production of great, funny, politically engaged drama for the masses was thought a priority, when controversy was generated for a reason, not for its own sake. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 22, 2020
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(undefined) |
Like so many of Engle's previous film, it succeeded in laying bare the human frailties we try to guard against individually, but which, when they infest an collective endeavor or an institution, bring about disproportionate destruction and harm. - Guardian
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| Posted Aug 26, 2020
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(undefined) |
There are so many rabbit holes to go down, you have to stop yourself before you go mad. - Guardian
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| Posted Aug 18, 2020
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(undefined) |
The sight of competence and informed best efforts is a dreadfully striking one these days. - Guardian
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| Posted Aug 11, 2020
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Anthony (2020) |
Every scene of happiness hollows out your heart a little more - it is an incredibly evocative replication of the grief bereavement brings. - Guardian
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| Posted Aug 03, 2020
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Athlete A (2020) |
Above all, though, it makes you wonder about men and power - does it corrupt, or do the corrupt seek it for further gratification of their desires? And why are they so willing to protect each other, however high the toll of misery paid by their victims. - Guardian
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| Posted Jun 26, 2020
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The Case of Sally Challen (2019) |
The film delved deeper than most into the intricacies of the case, and the main players' psyches, tracing the filaments of each without becoming either tangled up or intrusive. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 11, 2019
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Elizabeth is Missing (2019) |
The real drama exists elsewhere, in bravely impressionistic form held together by superb writing, a complex but immaculate structure and Jackson's mesmerising, heartbreaking performance at its heart. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 11, 2019
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(undefined) |
It is a story we are now depressingly familiar with, and it induces the same incredulous rage. - Guardian
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| Posted Nov 19, 2019
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(undefined) |
All in all, Million Dollar Wedding Planner was, itself, marvellously restrained. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 17, 2019
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Untouchable (2019) |
Almost every woman watching will understand. Some men will, too. If these films add to their number, maybe we can begin to change the world. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 04, 2019
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Bruce Lee and the Outlaw (2018) |
Vandebrug's film should be allowed to stand alone, as a portrait of one child who stands for too many. - Guardian
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| Posted Jul 22, 2019
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(undefined) |
A Cut Too Far? raised a plethora of fascinating questions and if it didn't - couldn't - come up with any answers, it still stood out as an open-minded, generous-hearted look at an underexamined subject. And touched, occasionally, with grace. - Guardian
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| Posted Jul 22, 2019
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Psychopath with Piers Morgan (2019) |
A wholly unedifying hour that can have helped no one except, perhaps, Morgan and a psychopath. What larks. What cojones. What are we doing? - Guardian
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| Posted Jul 01, 2019
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(undefined) |
The programme wisely decided to keep out of the way and gave us an hour that was all the more moving for its spareness. - Guardian
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| Posted Apr 08, 2019
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(undefined) |
Apart from the most purely Berry bits, the writing (by Toast co-creator Arthur Mathews) fell flat. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 27, 2019
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Care (2016) |
It is a spare, tight, moving piece of drama that should force us all to care - about who will look after us in our old age, who will look after them and who will fund it all. We're none of us getting any younger, you know. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 08, 2019
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Brexit (2019) |
I'd especially like to know how Matthew Elliott feels about being portrayed as a borderline simpleton whenever Cummings heaves into view. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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A Year of British Murder (2019) |
I don't think it's enough, but perhaps - especially if taken in the round with other shows on the subject that opt for other approaches and do drill down - I'm wrong. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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(undefined) |
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the film was to find two women at a weapons training camp run by a National Rifle Association (NRA)-funded charity, Faster, and let them be the sympathetic faces of those who do want teachers armed. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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100 Vaginas (2019) |
I rarely use the word, because it makes my teeth itch, but it was genuinely empowering. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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Sleeping With the Far Right (2019) |
In not giving in to the fear that giving airtime to such attitudes is to condone them, Levine and the makers produced a good and valuable programme, in terrible, terrible times. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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(undefined) |
As it layered tales of abuse in all its forms, from minutely subtle to murderous, we were offered valuable insight into the power evil men wield, the fear they instil and the dearth of psychological and physical options for their victims. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 07, 2019
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Gun No. 6 (2017) |
[A] quietly daring, profound and moving film. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 05, 2018
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My Dinner With Hervé (2018) |
Villechaize as written is a glorious part - poignant as he wrestles with the limitations placed on him by others and infuriating as he spurns the help of those trying to save him from himself - even if it was far less fun in real life. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 29, 2018
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Child of Mine (2018) |
Worth talking about. Worth funding. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 19, 2018
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The Bank That Almost Broke Britain (2018) |
It was an unflinching look at a bleak subject. - Guardian
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| Posted Oct 02, 2018
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Ricky Gervais: Humanity (2018) |
It is a much better, less fragmented, more controlled show than Science, and it is such a pleasure to watch Gervais work. - Guardian
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| Posted Mar 13, 2018
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Shamed (2017) |
What could have been a shatteringly timely piece resonating with the zeitgeist was instead a bit of a damp squib. - Guardian
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| Posted Dec 21, 2017
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017) |
If the film pushes Henrietta to the edges, it is at least to make room for a performance from Winfrey that tells us all there is to know about the damage that loss, lies and injustice can do to a child, to an adult, to a family and to a society. - Guardian
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| Posted Jun 13, 2017
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The Witness for the Prosecution (2016) |
Perfectly crafted, expertly cast and beautifully scripted by Sarah Phelps, who gave us her brilliant adaptation of And Then There Were None last year, it was simply all you could want from your Boxing Day treat. - Guardian
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| Posted Feb 01, 2017
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