Tara Brady
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Return to Seoul (2022) |
An ambivalent, accusatory depiction of intercountry adoption, Return to Seoul mines South Korea’s controversial adoption history to craft a smart if maddening character study. - Irish Times
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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The Blue Caftan (2022) |
The warmth of Maryam Touzani and Nabil Ayouch’s screenplay offset the clumsier tropes. Virginie Surdej’s cinematography bathes daylit scenes in golden light to match the thread Halim uses on his petroleum-blue creation. - Irish Times
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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The Eight Mountains (2022) |
Narratively conventional, overlong and occasionally tangential, but it builds slowly and meaningfully towards a sense of catharsis that’s as big as the elevations of the title. - Irish Times
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023) |
There’s too much life, unpredictability and jubilation for Little Richard: I Am Everything to dwell on lost years and opportunities. - Irish Times
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) |
The film belts along with an assault of candy colours and a commendable command of canonical detail. - Irish Times
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| Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Please Baby Please (2022) |
Demi is a marvel, Riseborough has never been better or scarier, and we wouldn’t have missed Cole Escola sobbing Since I Don’t Have You, through mascara, on the phone to an unseen rotter, for all the fetishwear in Cruising. - Irish Times
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| Posted Mar 30, 2023
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Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) |
We get a heartfelt account of Karen O’s upbringing but little context on the other subjects or, indeed, the scene’s implosion as the effects grew of Rudy Giuliani’s cabaret laws, extreme gentrification, corporate demands and substance abuse. - Irish Times
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| Posted Mar 13, 2023
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Joyland (2022) |
A film of huge heart and empathy. Mirroring the hapless hero’s journey, it’s an unexpected romance. - Irish Times
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| Posted Feb 25, 2023
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Atomic Hope (2022) |
[The] film swims against the tide. He knows exactly what Atomic Hope has to say and he has assembled a splendid ensemble to do the talking. - Irish Times
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| Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Blue Jean (2022) |
Every aspect of Georgia Oakley’s debut feature – from Izabella Curry’s editing to Kirsty Halliday’s period costuming – is as restrained as Rosy McEwen’s excellent performance. - Irish Times
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) |
There is a lot to like here, not least Ray Winstone’s Papa Bear. The forests are Skittle-coloured. The set pieces are wild and kinetic. But it is Banderas’s star power that saves the day. - Irish Times
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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EO (2022) |
Despite the claustrophobic setting, Diop crafts an evocative modern retelling of Medea, with detailed notes on femininity, immigration and race. - Irish Times
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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Enys Men (2022) |
The writer-director’s use of colour 16mm, his (now-famous) 1970s Bolex clockwork camera, and post-production sound anoint Enys Men as the Kernowek equivalent of such classic English folk horrors as The Wicker Man. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Empire of Light (2022) |
The central romance between Hilary and the devastatingly handsome new usher, Stephen, played by Top Boy’s promising star Michael Ward, never rings true. Nor does Hilary’s sudden shock at discovering racism in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel (2022) |
The Belgian co-directors are more interested in preserving a sense of space than in rehearsing arguments about capitalist greed, the commodification of art and gentrification. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Till (2022) |
Against the distress, Chukwu and Deadwyler find purpose in Mamie’s transformation into a hugely influential civil rights activist. This is a woman’s account of striving for racial justice. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 08, 2023
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Peter von Kant (2022) |
Ozon’s translation is a playful addition to the canon. It may lack the bitterness that Fassbinder skilfully worked into his film and its title, but it compensates with unmissable glass-throwing, door-slamming romantic agony. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 03, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022) |
The Pale Blue Eye marks the film-maker’s third collaboration with Bale. Many other actors mill about to no real avail. It’s not a career high for any party, but it’ll serve well enough as silly Christmas entertainment. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 03, 2023
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France (2021) |
We’re accustomed to Dumont leapfrogging from one genre to another, but he has seldom attempted so many swerves and shifts as he manages here. France, like the director, makes for a pleasing guessing game. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 03, 2023
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Corsage (2022) |
Corsage shares some obvious DNA with Pablo Larraín’s Spencer and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but where those films swoon for their put-upon heroines, Krieps brings an unapologetic flintiness. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jan 03, 2023
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) |
Unlike Matteo Garrone’s sublime 2019 fantasy, a version that managed to be faithful, wildly imaginative and all-ages in appeal, this brooding musical veers wildly between primary school scatology, repeated journeys to the underworld and darkest history. - Irish Times
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| Posted Dec 10, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) |
Named for a Buddhist concept referencing the transition between birth and death, Bardo may transport the viewer to a dream space but not perhaps the one Iñárritu intended. Zzzzz. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Aisha (2022) |
Tom Comerford’s framing makes a coastal bus stop look like the loneliest place in the world. And Berry’s script – as with his star – is quietly seething. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022) |
The children, one of Minchin’s catchiest tunes suggests, are revolting. They’re not nearly revolting enough, but they’re plenty of fun. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Bones and All (2022) |
As unsettling as it is heart-racing. The denouement, too, is worth waiting for. Cannibalism has never looked prettier. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Living (2022) |
The cast is wonderful. And every detail – from Sandy Powell’s exquisite period costumes to Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s music – is just perfect. A final exchange with a passing policeman would make a stone cry. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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No Bears (2022) |
Panahi’s ninth feature, which premiered at Venice in the weeks after its maker’s incarceration, is a thrilling testament to the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention. - Irish Times
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Rosaline (2022) |
The anachronistic, snarky dialogue misses as often as it hits. Romeo (Allen) emerges as a cad; Juliet is reduced to a twit. - Irish Times
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| Posted Oct 15, 2022
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Emily (2022) |
Mackey, in particular, is a powerhouse. The young star is matched well with O’Connor’s carefully calibrated, appealingly earnest script, which approximates a modern sensibility without striking a false note or straying from Emily’s contemporaneous moors. - Irish Times
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| Posted Oct 15, 2022
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Amsterdam (2022) |
Gorgeous cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki, Judy Becker’s excellent production design, and Albert Wolsky’s fabulous costumes add to the frustration. A good-looking waste, but a waste nonetheless. - Irish Times
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| Posted Oct 07, 2022
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Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) |
The insistent life lessons about sisterly bonding will drive the most saintly among us to satanic practices. When shall we three meet again? With all due respect to Midler and company, how about never? - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 30, 2022
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Clerks III (2022) |
For ageing Gen-Xers, however, there’s an irresistible sensibility underpinning the enterprise; they can’t call it a midlife crisis if you’ve always been disgruntled and surly. - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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Funny Pages (2022) |
What an auspicious debut for Kline and what a fine showcase for all other parties. - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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After Yang (2021) |
Colin Farrell’s central turn, a lovely, soulful study of melancholy, is one of his best performances to date. Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb’s pillow shots are appropriately contemplative. - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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Athena (2022) |
Grander in scope and scale than the urban frisson of genre classic La Haine and its immersive, “real-time” design leaves the viewer reeling and scrambling in time - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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The Cry of Granuaile (2022) |
Experimental film is seldom so playful. - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
The despair is palpable; the dramatic purpose is not. Blonde frames Monroe, stylishly and icily, as a hysterical woman. She deserves better. - Irish Times
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| Posted Sep 09, 2022
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My Old School (2022) |
Animated segments cleverly and visually ape MTV’s contemporaneous Daria, and add another lively dimension to this pleasingly calibrated ruse. - Irish Times
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| Posted Aug 19, 2022
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Where Is Anne Frank (2021) |
Working with Waltz with Bashir animation director Yoni Goodman, Folman places eye-catching 2D characters against exquisite stop-motion backgrounds. As if in answer to the title, the spectacular designs confirm that she’s right here. - Irish Times
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| Posted Aug 13, 2022
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Prey (2022) |
Director Dan Trachtenberg ... delivers the year’s best action film. Midthunder’s compelling main character slogs and slings through her character arc, instead of parachuting in, already fashionably armed with a complete complement of kick-ass skills. - Irish Times
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Vortex (2021) |
A meaningful engagement with elder care, dementia and mortality, born of the director’s own experiences with his mother and his near-fatal brain haemorrhage. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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The Innocents (2021) |
Vogt, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of The Worst Person in the World and longtime writing partner of director Joachim Trier, revisits some of the paranormal themes explored in Thelma, Trier’s spooky 2017 drama. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Bergman Island (2021) |
Nothing much else happens in the film, which never really justifies its setting, save as a postcard-pretty destination. Whither the rending of garments? Did anyone actually see a Bergman film?
- Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Swan Song (2021) |
Inspired by a real-life Sandusky, Ohio legend, writer-director Todd Stephens crafts an impeccable odyssey that ponders love, loss, and attitudinal changes. “I wouldn’t even know how to be gay any more,” Pat tells Eunice, almost despairingly. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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All My Friends Hate Me (2021) |
Shares DNA with both the social dread of Ruben Östlund’s get-togethers and the leylines of Ben Wheatley. Hints of English folk horror — a pitbull tied up near a car, accusing looks at the driven grouse shoot — add to the delicious disquiet. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Lightyear (2022) |
There are some striking designs and a few hat-tips to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it all feels a bit perfunctory, like a successful launch that has no destination among the stars or anywhere else. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Pleasure (2021) |
Working with cinematographer Sophie Winqvist Loggins, writer-director Thyberg finds ingenious angles and original choreography to shoot pornographic shoots. For all the nudity and thrusting on screen no one could describe Pleasure as voyeuristic. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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The Black Phone (2021) |
Derrickson is restrained with his jump scares and succinct with world-building. The Black Phone subverts any number of Spielbergian tropes — not to mention voguish nostalgia — with a grimy, bad-old-days version of the past. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) |
The inclusion of a disco torture machine that plays Andrea True’s More More More on a loop is not dissimilar to experiencing the incessant soundtrack, which is often deployed as a lazy means of running down the clock. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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Futura (2021) |
There are delightful characters, including the adopted duck who won’t swim without his young human companion watching over him. - Irish Times
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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