Critical Week: Say cheese

Covid restrictions are lifting in Britain, but I haven't had many press screenings this week, mainly because many of the films opening this month are ones I saw at a festival last year. Thankfully, this gives me some extra time to work on the forthcoming London Critics' Circle Film Awards - there are less than three weeks to pull everything together for that, even as a virtual event. Bigger films this week included A Journal for Jordan, a sentimentalised true drama starring Michael B Jordan and Chante Adams, directed by Denzel Washington. It's a good story, but feels too gentle and worthy. And then there's the silly fantasy fairy tale The King's Daughter, in which Pierce Brosnan plays Louis XIV, whose daughter (Kaya Scodelario) befriends a mermaid (Bingbing Fan) and refuses to fall for the suitable man. It's ridiculous but fun.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Belfast • Cicada • Torn
Nightmare Alley
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And then there's the jaunty Spain-set comedy Rifkin's Festival, which has some terrific touches but is another uneven film from the troublesome Woody Allen. From Brazil, The Pink Cloud is eerily prescient, shot in 2019 but expertly capturing the feeling of lockdown in its story about a toxic cloud that traps a new couple in a flat for years. Buzzy Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi skilfully tells three separate stories in Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and their thematic angles dovetail beautifully. And in the documentary Torn, filmmaker Max Lowe recounts the involving, twisty story of his mountain-climbing superstar father and his legacy.

This coming week I have mainly documentaries to watch, including The Real Charlie Chaplin, Taming the Garden, Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster and awards contenders Procession and The Rescue.