Critical Week: On top of the world

Christmas was a quiet one for me, as I tested positive for covid right before the holidays. I had no symptoms beyond a mild sniffly cold (which I probably would have had anyway), but I have had to isolate for a week and wait for a negative test. So I used the time to catch up on a few awards-season movies that I'd missed, including the French animated adventure The Summit of the Gods, a thrilling story about mountaineering with seriously spectacular imagery (find it on Netflix). The drama Mass centres around a conversation about a tragedy between four people, played by the superb Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton and Reed Birney. It's riveting and powerfully provocative.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Licorice Pizza • Titane
The Tragedy of Macbeth
ALL REVIEWS >

From Germany, the disarming comedy I'm Your Man stars Maren Eggert as a woman living with a robot (Dan Stevens) who has been designed as her perfect man. It's funny and hugely charming. From India, the documentary Writing With Fire follows a group of fierce female journalists who are making a huge impact on their nation. The Last Days of Innocence is a collection of four expertly made short films about that moment when childhood is interrupted by real life. And among the TV series and favourite old films I've been watching, I saw Last Train to Christmas, a fiendishly clever fantasy satire starring Michael Sheen that starts as a goofy comedy and becomes something surprisingly thoughtful.

Coming up this next week, my first in-person screening of the new year will be the action thriller The 355 with Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong'o, and I have more awards contenders to catch up with, including the Kosovo drama Hive and Mexico's Prayers for the Stolen.