Critical Week: Watch the hands

Actual in-person screenings were back with a vengeance this week, after a recent slow stretch. And yes, it was great to settle into proper cinemas and screening rooms to watch movies on a big screen where they belong. Especially a film as visually astounding as Everything Everywhere All at Once, which stars Michelle Yeoh as a middle-aged woman thrown into parallel-reality craziness. Thankfully, the filmmakers remember that this is about real human emotions rather than wacky science. The big screen also helped with the lavishly designed Downton Abbey: A New Era, a return to the upstairs-downstairs drama with an enormous ensemble of likeable characters, each of whom somehow gets some good screen time. It's just what's expected, which is both comforting and a bit boring.

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Elsewhere, Mark Wahlberg tells the inspiring true tale of boxer-turned-priest Father Stu. There's only a slight rough edge to what should be a more complex story. Sophie Marceau is terrific in I Love America, a gentle comedy about a French filmmaker who moves to California. And the Moroccan drama Casablanca Beats bristles with life as a rapper teaches a group of lively, politically engaged students to create music.

A little further afield, Nick Cave lets the cameras watch as he and Warren Ellis create music in the gorgeously shot documentary This Much I Know to Be True. Robert Bresson's masterful 1959 morality tale Pickpocket gets a pristine big-screen restoration. And the documentary White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch just about makes sense of the clothing brand's horrible history of employment prejudice, while completely missing the point of why the clothes were so popular (and perhaps aren't so much now).

This coming week features another long weekend, and I'll also be watching a range of films including Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Irish coming-of-age drama The Quiet Girl, the Danish black comedy Wild Men, the chilean romance The Sea, the Iranian drama Atabai, and the Palestinian bombing doc Eleven Days in May.

Critical Week: Turn the tables

The women ruled at this week's press screenings. Jennifer Lopez (with Constance Wu, above) chomps merrily on the scenery all the way through Hustlers, a far-too-energetic retelling of a true story about strippers who con Wall Street clients out of their cash. Renee Zellweger is nothing short of astonishing in the terrific biopic Judy, following a few months near the end of the icon's life with passion and emotional power. And Downton Abbey brings those fabulous grand dames to the big screen. The men are there too, but who cares when Maggie Smith is shooting daggers at Penelope Wilton?

Brad Pitt travels into space, and into his own repressed daddy issues, in the muted and rather odd Ad Astra, a gorgeous sci-fi epic that simply fails to resonate. Peter Sarsgaard leads the charge as a quirky-nerdy house tuner in The Sound of Silence, a nutty little drama that's more intriguing than involving. From Colombia, Monos is a ripping dramatic thriller about a group of teens working for some sort of paramilitary organisation, isolated in the mountains and then jungle. It looks amazing, and packs a punch. And there were two documentaries: the harrowing Sea of Shadows skilfully traces the horrors inflicted by humans on the diverse sea life in the Gulf of California, while Mother is a sensitive, powerfully moving look at a carer who works with European Alzheimer's patients in Thailand.

This coming week, there are no press screenings for Sylvester Stallone's franchise closer Rambo: Last Blood, so we'll be at the cinemas with everyone else to see this swan song. But we do have screenings lined up for the comedy-horror Ready or Not, Awkwafina in the comedy-drama The Farewell, Dev Patel in the true drama Hotel Mumbai, the claymation sequel A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Celine Sciamma's acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire and the British drama Real. Advance press screenings also start next week for the BFI London Film Festival (which runs 2-13 Oct).

Critical Week: Fun for the family?

It's been frustrating that the biggest releases of the week are simply not being screened to the press (favourite critics see them, but no one else), so I never got to review the top two films on both the US and UK box office charts, namely The Predator and The Nun. With these titles I'm not that bothered, but others are coming up very soon that I can't really skip, like the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga remake of A Star Is Born or Tom Hardy in Venom, neither of which have announced London screenings yet. It seems to be becoming a strategy for bigger studios to withhold films from the majority of reviewers, which is putting our jobs in jeopardy.

So this week I didn't see any big movies, just smaller ones. Support the Girls (above), starring Regina Hall, is being oddly billed as a comedy when it's actually a wry drama. It's not a bad one at that, as it gently takes on America's sports-bar culture. Sam Rockwell stars in Blue Iguana, a scruffy British heist comedy that has its moments but never quite becomes notable.

Smaller than those, The Song of Sway Lake stars Rory Culkin and Robert Sheehan as young men caught in a swirl of nostalgia in old-money America. It's dreamy and intriguing, but not very satisfying. Summer '03 is an oddly abrasive coming-of-age story that boldly takes on some big issues without really saying much. Never Here is a noir mystery that's moody and evocative, even if it never goes anywhere. And Padre is an offbeat Italian film starring writer-director Giada Colagrande and her husband Willem Dafoe. The acting is great even if the central exploration of grief feels underwhelming.

More satisfying were the three documentaries: Won't You Be My Neighbour is a gorgeous trip through the life of American TV Icon Fred Rogers, beautifully capturing just why he was so magical for several generations of children (including me!). Tea With the Dames (original UK title: Nothing Like a Dame) is an extended conversation between old friends Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins, with wonderful observations on life and work over the past 60 years. And Science Fair is the hugely entertaining look into the world's biggest teen science competition through the eyes of these lively aspiring scientists.

This coming week's films include Ryan Gosling in First Man, Keira Knightley in Colette, Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish in Night School, Rachel Weisz in Disobedience, the Joan Jett doc Bad Reputation, and a pair of Supreme Court docs: RBG about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Reversing Roe. Press screenings also start for the London Film Festival, so I'll be banking reviews to run when the festival is on 10-21 October.

Critical Week: Mr Cool

Don Cheadle's passion project Miles Ahead was screened to UK critics just as it was released in the US. It's a strikingly impressionistic biopic, avoiding the usual structure for a more kaleidoscopic approach that's visually impressive and emotionally tricky. Natalie Portman is terrifically steely in the Western Jane Got a Gun, which kind of loses track of its characters as it becomes more focussed on the action violence. Oddly, both films costar Ewan McGregor.

Also this week, Kevin Costner stars in Criminal, a fiendishly entertaining bit of high-concept action set in London. Rebecca Ferguson is solid in two roles in the rather moody Cold War romance Despite the Falling Snow. And Nicolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares are back for another cold case in the astutely well-made if oddly un-resonant The Absent One.

Even more interesting was the lunch I attended on Thursday at which the Critics' Circle presented Maggie Smith with our annual award for Services to the Arts, voted on by all six sections of the circle (film, theatre, music, dance, art, books). It was a lively event, and a very rare chance to hang out with the national treasure that is Dame Maggie, who was on great form. Alas, I didn't get up the nerve to tell her that I first saw her in person on-stage at a taping of The Carol Burnett Show when I was only 13!

Coming up this week: Disney's live-action remake of The Jungle Book, the British thriller Hard Tide, the British comedy Adult Life Skills, Peter Greenaway's Eisenstein at Guanjuato, the Bollywood blockbuster Fan and the American politician documentary Weiner.

LFF 7: Run for your life

The London Film Festival is now fully in its stride, dazzling audiences with the best films from the year's festivals while keeping the journalists hopping with an intense schedule of press screenings (I am seeing three or four films a day, others are seeing five or six). Somewhere I'm sure there's something festive happening, but I haven't really spotted it, aside from a press drinks hour the other night at Picturehouse Central's gorgeous new members' bar. And most of the films have been great, including these four...

The Lobster
dir Yorgos Lanthimos; with Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz 15/Ire ****
Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) makes his English-language debut with this blackly comical satire about how society pressures us into relationships. It's telling and complex, and it feels like two movies mashed together, plus a very dark coda. But an up-for-it-cast brings out layers of meaning while keeping us laughing brittlely... MORE >;

The Lady in the Van

dir Nicholas Hytner; with Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings 15/UK ****

Alan Bennett adapts his own memoir for the big screen, cleverly playing with the idea that he is writing his own story. Yes, a homeless woman really did live in a van in his driveway for 15 years. And since the great Maggie Smith plays her on-screen, the film is not only entertaining, but its message has a spiky bite. 

The Wave [Bølgen]
dir Roar Uthaug; with Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp 15/Nor ****
Structured exactly like a classic disaster movie, this Norwegian dramatic thriller is particularly well-made, with vivid characters and a believable sense of the science behind it. The premise is a picturesque fjord that has long been at risk of a mountainside collapse, which would trigger a devastating tsunami. And in this solidly crafted, only slightly corny movie, an entire village's day has come.

The Endless River
dir Oliver Hermanus; with Nicolas Duvauchelle, Crystal-Donna Roberts 15/SA ****
A harrowing drama about the cycle of violence in South Africa, this film certainly isn't easy to watch as it continually challenges the viewer's preconceptions. Dark and tough, it's evocative and simply gorgeous to watch, even though the story is relentlessly painful. Filmmaker Hermanus finds real resonance using period-style touches in a present-day story. Although it somewhat heavy and over-serious for some viewers.

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

I only had a few of non-LFF screenings this week, including a very late press screening for Guillermo Del Toro's visually ravishing but otherwise disappointing Crimson Peak; the nutty British werewolf thriller Howl; the offbeat Argentine road movie Jess & James; and the acrobatic documentary Grazing the Sky, which is a must see for fans of physical movement. I have a glut of LFF films to come, and won't be back in non-festival mode until after this coming week.

Critical Week: It was all yellow

We had an early press screening this week of the Alan Bennett engaging comedy-drama The Lady in the Van, based on the true story of a homeless woman (Maggie Smith) who asked Bennett (Alex Jennings) if she could live in her van in his Camden driveway for a few months, and stayed for 15 years. Then there was Ed Skrein in The Transporter Refuelled, a reboot of the Jason Statham franchise that's oddly drier and cornier, and still a guilty pleasure. And the Sundance-winning Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a strikingly honest teen comedy-drama with a terrific cast and a snappy, slightly overwritten script.

A little further afield, we had the low-budget British thriller Containment, which is fiendishly clever in the way it traps a group of neighbours in a council block sealed by people in hazmat suits. Leading Lady is an awkward blend of comedy and drama from South Africa about a British actress (Katie McGrath) researching a role in the Transvaal, where she of course has a life-changing experience. And the fascinating doc How to Change the World uses extensive home movies and present-day interviews to trace the early years of Greenpeace, from a gang of Canadian hippies to a global movement.

There was also the launch event for the upcoming 58th BFI London Film Festival, with its flurry of big-name premieres and lots of smaller festival-winning movies. Press screenings for that kick off on September 21st, with the festival itself starting on October 9th. My most anticipated films include opening night's Suffragette, closing night's Steve Jobs, Todd Haynes' Carol, Jay Roach's Trumbo, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, Ben Wheatley's High-rise, Terence Davies' Sunset Song, and Cannes prize winners Son of Saul and Dheepan. I've already seen eight or nine of the 250 films.

I'm taking three days off around this coming weekend, so I have fewer screenings in the diary. Annoyingly, I'm missing the first two screenings of Everest, but I'll catch up with it in a week or so. What I am seeing are Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette in Miss You Already, Woody Allen's Irrational Man, the youth-dystopia sequel Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the true Romanian drama Closer to the Moon and the British comedy Superbob.

Critical Week: Sleepless in Seattle

In the absence of UK press screenings, critics had to actually buy tickets (shock horror!) to see Fifty Shades of Grey on Friday morning with the superfans. Surprisingly, the film isn't that bad, and works as a rather well-made guilty pleasure. It's made a box office fortune, but earlier reviews might have broadened the audience even further.

Big movies screened this past week include the all-star British sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, reuniting the likes of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy plus Richard Gere and Tamsin Grieg (comments are embargoed). Will Smith and Margot Robbie star in the conman romp Focus, which uneasily mixes a heist thriller with a rom-com. Chris Hemsworth plays a hacker in the cyberthriller Blackhat, another awkward mix of mystery drama and romance.

A little further afield, the fan doc Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of is engaging without scratching the surface; Francois Ozon's The New Girlfriend is utterly magical filmmaking with amazing performances and some complex, important things to say; the low-budget The Last Straight Man is an astute two-hander exploring male friendships and relationships and the blurred line of sexuality; Dreamcatcher is an award-winning doc that can't help but inspire us to reach out to our community; Kissing Darkness is a corny gay comedy-horror about vampires in the woods; and Global Warming is a collection of four provocative comedy-drama shorts by Reid Waterer - two are very good, two are just ok.

This coming week's screenings include Celine Sciamma's award-winning Girlhood, Jeremy Renner in Kill the Messenger, the animated hit The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water, Kodi Smit-McPhee in All the Wilderness, Julia Stiles in Out of the Dark, Sion Sono's Tokyo Tribe and the Brazilian drama Futuro Beach.

And I'll be watching the Oscars live all night Sunday night - best picture is usually announced just as the sun is coming up on Monday morning in London.

By the way, the blog passed 100,000 hits this week.

LFF 5: Let's hear it for the girls

Reese Witherspoon took London by storm today - and it was a properly stormy day - with the London Film Festival gala screening of her new movie Wild. She braved the rainy red carpet tonight with Cheryl Strayed, the intrepid author she plays in the film, and screenwriter Nick Hornby. Also on the red carpet today were Sally Hawkins, Rafe Spall and Asa Butterfield (for X + Y); and Sophie Okonedo, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Shaun Evans and Antony Sher (for War Book).

After gorgeously sunny, crisp weather over the weekend, today was a thorough wash-out, with spray from the heavens all day. It wasn't much fun walking around; it's the kind of day you really want to be sitting in a cinema. Here are some more festival highlights (full reviews are coming!)...

Wild
dir Jean-Marc Vallee; with Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern 14/US ***.
Based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, this film depicts her journey as launching with a badly overstuffed backpack, which is just the first metaphor in this overstuffed thematic odyssey. Fortunately, it's directed with skill and artful insight by Vallee and acted with rare transparency by Witherspoon. The trick is to not let the onslaught of aphorisms weigh you down.

My Old Lady
dir-scr Israel Horovitz; with Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith 14/UK ***.
An oddball sensibility keeps this gentle drama from ever turning maudlin or sentimental, even as the story explores some potentially melodramatic issues. Relaxed performances and a script packed with revelations (based on writer-director Horovitz's play) keep the audience entertained while being poked by some surprisingly sharp edges.

The Falling
dir Carol Morley; with Maisie Williams, Maxine Peake 14/UK ****
There's a fiercely original sensibility to this film, which boldly explores female puberty through a series of rather outrageous events. By combining life and death with sexuality, writer-director Morley is definitely courting controversy, and some of the plot points feel like a step too far. But it's so strikingly intimate and fiercely artistic that it can't be ignored.

Appropriate Behavior
dir Desiree Akhavan; with Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson 14/UK ****
Actor-filmmaker Desiree Akhavan is clearly exorcising some very personal ghosts with this lively comedy, which echoes the style of Girls by presenting the central character as a likably flawed real person doing her best to get through a messy life. (Intriguingly, Akhavan appears in the next series of Girls.) It's a very funny movie, with a remarkably astute script and some surprising textures along the way.

A Girl at My Door
dir July Jung; with Doona Bae, Kim Sae-ron 14/Korea ****
A chilling tale of social evils in small-town Korea, this drama centres on an offbeat friendship between two damaged women who draw the suspicions of everyone around them. Filmmaker Jung is playing with perceptions, letting the audience see things only slightly more clearly than the bigoted locals. It's a riveting film that never offers easy answers.

LFF 4: Take a bow

Quartet director Dustin Hoffman and his cast members Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Sheridan Smith are all in London today for their film's gala screening at the 56th BFI London Film Festival as the glamorous festivities continue around the city. Also doing the rounds today are Chris O'Dowd and his four songstress costars (Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman, Shari
Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell) in The Sapphires. Not that critics get to enjoy the glitz - most of us are stuck in early morning press screenings and overcrowded press conferences.

Quartet
dir Dustin Hoffman; with Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon 12/UK ***.
The subtle intelligence of Ronald Harwood's script undergirds what's otherwise a rather breezy-glowy drama. And the veteran cast members make the most of this subtext, while director Hoffman adds a spark of humour and a whiff of romantic comedy. It centres on an English retirement home for musicians, which is shaken by the arrival of an iconic soprano (Smith) who had a brief, messy marriage to another resident (Tom Courtenay). As the annual gala performance approaches, someone gets the idea to reunite the quartet from a famed performance of Verdi's Rigoletto, which Jean really isn't up for. The cast is, of course, having a ball - and it's warmly infectious to watch, with just enough spark that it avoids sentimentality and a continual stream of little moments that catch us off guard with earthy humour and raw emotion. In other words, it's a nicely made film that lets us just sit back and enjoy ourselves.

Midnight's Children
dir Deepa Mehta; with Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami 12/Can ***.
It's usually a risky proposition to let a novelists adapt their own work for the big screen, and this film is a case in point. It's packed with moments that are hugely involving, but Salman Rushdie's (right, on the LFF red carpet) script is badly over-written, filling in way too much detail while indulging in constant literary touches that are fascinating but distracting. In some ways, this is like an Indian Forrest Gump, as Bhaba's central character is born at the stroke of midnight as India gets its independence, then marks key moments of his life along with his country. Along the way we get a running history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh along with a very dramatic life story that relies on a heavy dose of magical realism. It's fascinating and beautifully shot and acted, but far too wordy for its own good.

The Sapphires
dir Wayne Blair; with Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman 12/Aus ****
Based on a true story, this crowd-pleasing comedy is packed with sparky characters and situations, plus powerfully dramatic moments that catch us by surprise. It also uses great music to keep our toes tapping all the way through... REVIEW >

What Richard Did
dir Lenny Abrahamson; with Jack Reynor, Roisin Murphy 12/Ire ****
Even before things take a turn in this beautifully shot and acted Irish drama, we know something is coming (the title's a hint too). Filmmaker Abrahamson is a master at subtle suggestion, taking scenes that feel happy and freewheeling and adding a gentle undercurrent of menace. So when the story gets much more darkly emotional, it's deeply unnerving. Reynor gives a superbly natural, understated performance as Richard, a golden-boy 18 year old with a group of rugby pals, a new girlfriend (Murphy) and very cool parents. But his actions at a drunken house party cut a swathe through his optimism, and as he struggles to deal with the situation, he feels like his whole life is unravelling. Loosely based on a real event, the film never turns into a melodrama despite the potential in the premise: it remains raw and edgy with a lively vein of humour that turns bleaker and bleaker as the story develops. A haunting gem.

Room 237
dir Rodney Ascher; with Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks 12/US ***.
Subtitled "Being an Inquiry Into The Shining in 9 Parts", movie geeks will love this documentary, which lets five of them expound their sometimes outlandish theories about a seriously confounding film. Not many of their theories hold water, but it's a terrific exploration of filmmaking as art. Stanley Kubrick was a genius filmmaker who never did something by accident, so the quirks and jarring background detail in The Shining must mean something, right? Some of these theories are observant and thought-provoking, while others are just bonkers. In the end, there aren't many ideas here that are terribly insightful (would you be shocked to know that Kubrick wove mythology and fairy tales into his work?), and frankly you could pretty much prove anything by deconstructing a movie frame by frame. But it's a thoroughly entertaining exploration of the extremes of fan culture. And a marvellous look at the repeated images and themes in Kubrick's work.