|
|
Ammonite
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Lee cracks open taboos with the blunt determination of Mary Anning hammering a fossil out of a rock. Yet for all the film's daring, it never fully sparks into life and remains for much of its running time as glum and dour as Winslet's Mary.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
Clemency
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Chukwu shows the cruelty of the death penalty in harrowing detail, but her film never resolves its ambivalence about the warden's own complicity with the brutal US penal system.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
Proxima
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Proxima doesn't deliver the exhilaration of some other space movies - indeed we barely get beyond lift-off here - but the film's earthbound drama is just as absorbing in its own way.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
The Father
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Hopkins...has never been better. And, given his much garlanded career, that really is saying something.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
The World to Come
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Mona Fastvold makes her film's period details and subtle emotional registers equally convincing, vividly capturing the drudgery of the women's lives - and the fleeting, illicit joy they find in each other's company.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
Supernova
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Firth and Tucci's chemistry is wonderful and the autumnal landscapes add to the story's melancholy mood, but in the end the slightly underpowered script means the film doesn't quite tug at our heartstrings as deeply as we might hope.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
French Exit
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Best to see director Azazel Jacobs' film as a throwback to 1930s screwball comedies, which were similarly indulgent towards the madcap antics of the rich and privileged.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
The Whole Truth
(2016)
|
Jason Best
|
This courtroom mystery is more of a procedural puzzle than a realistic legal drama - indeed, one can imagine Agatha Christie coming up with the basic plot. It isn't exactly a nailbiter, but the story's twists are enjoyably engaging.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
Wildfire
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Most of its power comes from its stars' electrifying chemistry - at its most potent when the sisters dance with wild abandon to Van Morrison's song 'Gloria' in a bar frequented by an unrepentant IRA bomber.
Posted Sep 02, 2021
|
|
|
Blithe Spirit
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Noel Coward's ghost might not return to haunt the makers of this new adaptation of his classic play but it's not hard to imagine the Master turning in his grave at some of the liberties director Edward Hall and his three screenwriters have taken.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
The New Mutants
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Save for the novel lesbian romance between two of the characters, the characters' angst-ridden interactions seem secondhand, while the story's thrills and scares lean heavily on earlier films, too.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
[Sciamma] frames Marianne and Héloïse's developing relationship with such exquisite skill that almost every detail throbs with meaning and emotion.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Greed
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom take aim at tax-dodging, asset-stripping retail tycoons with this spiky satirical comedy, which doesn't so much aim tongue-in-cheek mockery at its targets as blow a great big raspberry.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Pieces of a Woman
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Vanessa Kirby delivers a deeply moving, fully lived-in performance.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Relic
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
A powerful allegory for the anguish of dementia and the fears that surround it.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
One Night in Miami
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
King's film, adapted by Kemp Powers from his 2013 play, is undeniably stagey, but it still brings the men's rough-and-tumble debate and joshing friendship vividly alive.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Collide
(2016)
|
Jason Best
|
With tricky flashbacks and dodgy accents throwing sand in the engine, this car-chase thriller stutters and sputters a fair bit before it gets going. Yet when Hoult's fugitive hero hits the autobahn, the movie delivers an exhilarating turn of speed.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Booksmart
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Refreshingly, the film's generous spirit extends to all its characters, whether geek or jock or cool kid. Unlike almost every other high-school movie, no one here is a mean girl in need of a comeuppance.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Tesla
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The end result is a film that is interesting but not electrifying. Tesla remains an enigma, of course, but as played by a pained, humourless Hawke he is also just a little dull.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
She's in Portland
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
An air of male wish-fulfilment hovers over this comedy drama - the pair do run into more than their fair share of beautiful women en route - but stay with the movie and you'll find a perceptive and engaging portrait of friendship emerge.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
The King of Staten Island
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The movie is definitely sprawling and overlong, but Davidson's aching vulnerability gives it wonky charm and heart, while his goofy comic sensibility proves well matched to Apatow's relaxed, improvisational style.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Baby Done
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Stars Rose Matafeo (a Kiwi stand-up comedian) and Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films) have lovely chemistry as the chalk-and-cheese couple.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Wonder Woman 1984
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Gal Gadot's lithe and feisty, whip-cracking Amazonian princess has leaped ahead to the 1980s for her next quest to save the world - with many hoping she's coming to the rescue of a pandemic-beleaguered Hollywood, too.
Posted Jan 11, 2021
|
|
|
Coco
(2017)
|
Jason Best
|
What makes the film so heartfelt and resonant is its rich exploration of family, love and memory.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Soul
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The pair's quest features race-against-time-adventure, bustling body-swap comedy and metaphysical flights of imagination.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Phantom Thread
(2017)
|
Jason Best
|
An exquisite weave of gothic romance and haute couture comedy.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Last Christmas
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Part Curtis-style rom-com, part George Michael jukebox movie (note the title), part personal redemption tale and part mystery story... Put all this together and it's no surprise that the movie is something of a mess.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Sylvie's Love
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Eugene Ashe's film recalls the melodramas Douglas Sirk was making at the time the story is set (but with black leading characters) and has the look of the era's Technicolor films and a swooning jazz soundtrack.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Wolfwalkers
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Moore and his co-director, Ross Stewart, push the story along with exciting sequences of peril and escape, while gently nudging ideas of sisterhood and empowerment into the frame.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Ma Rainey is a diva, for sure, but Davis's scorching performance convinces us that the source of her whims is an unquenchable rage at oppression.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
On the Rocks
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Sofia Coppola reunites with her Lost in Translation star Bill Murray for another bittersweet comedy that partners him with a younger female co-star. And she again manages to make her leads' rapport both wistfully tender and terrifically funny.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Little Women
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Gerwig draws out the progressive strands in Alcott's original, emphasising its latent feminism.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Cats
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
[The] stars must be coughing up hairballs after joining the film's giant litter of singing and dancing felines, whose weird digital fur and creepy features make them all look as though they've been dragged in from the Island of Dr Moreau.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
I'm Your Woman
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
You will need patience to find out how everything fits together, but Brosnahan's captivating performance, plus bursts of action and suspense, make staying the distance well worth the effort.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
The Prom
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The movie as a whole is playfully silly and sweet, with an uplifting message and bags of heart.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Mank
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
[The] film's lustrous black-and-white photography supplies an instant hit of nostalgia, while the snappy repartee of Mank and his fellow screenwriters echoes the screwball comedies they had a hand in writing at the time.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
Happiest Season
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
There are corny bits, for sure, but they only seem to make the movie more charming.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
|
|
|
The Hunt
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
America's culture wars get very gory in this darkly comic action thriller that reworks that old chestnut The Most Dangerous Game to pit conservatives versus liberals in a fight to the death.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Harriet
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Cynthia Erivo delivers a stirring performance as iconic American abolitionist Harriet Tubman... But the movie falls apart in its final third, departing from history in an implausible bid to turn Tubman into a gun-toting superhero.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Underwater
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Underwater is certainly derivative and falls back on clichés at regular turns - from the slow-motion pauses at moments of heightened action to the familiar swipes at corporate greed and hubris.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Jojo Rabbit
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Is Waititi's film provocative? Yes. Silly? Undeniably. But it is also surprisingly tender and moving.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Saint Maud
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Set in a bleak and tacky British seaside resort, Saint Maud gives us an altogether unnerving depiction of spirituality and sexuality.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Shirley
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
With Moss and Young on superb form, it's a film that doesn't just provide a warts-and-all portrait of its eponymous subject - it's also full of revealing insights into the sorry lot of women in sexist 1950s America.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
The Trial of the Chicago 7
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Aaron Sorkin puts his trademark traits - razor-sharp wit, rhetorical flair and political insight - to very good use in this enthralling dramatisation of a notorious US trail.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Parasite
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
Boon Joon Ho keeps us thoroughly enthralled as the story unfolds, deftly calibrating shifts in tone between satire, screwball farce, black comedy and horror, and also nimbly balancing our sympathies between the two families.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
The Secret Garden
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The film belongs to... Egerickx, who makes her character's transition from spoilt and petulant girl to good-hearted saviour every bit as magical as the garden's transformation.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
The Invisible Man
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
Anchored by another awesome performance by Moss, this urgently topical reworking of the HG Wells tale is a terrifically gripping thriller - and a brilliant metaphor for hidden coercive control.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Rebecca
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
As the narrative's haunted romance unfolds, Wheatley ratchets up the tension and, towards the end, pulls off a thrilling piece of plotting that would make the Master of Suspense himself sit up in admiration.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Pixie
(2020)
|
Jason Best
|
The wild expanses of the west coast of Ireland provide a beautiful backdrop to some decidedly murky goings on in this rollicking black comedy thriller.
Posted Dec 21, 2020
|
|
|
Hurt by Paradise
(2019)
|
Jason Best
|
A defiantly quirky, gently funny ode to female friendship and artistic aspiration... with a streak of self-effacing humour dispelling any whiff of self-indulgence.
Posted Oct 13, 2020
|
>
