Critical Week: You little devil

It's been a busy week in London, as temperatures have become warmer by the day, culminating Friday in what might be the hottest June day on record. Meanwhile, I've seen a few films, including Scott Derrickson's horror thriller The Black Phone, which is hugely violent and unsettling but perhaps not that scary, and the Toy Story spinoff Lightyear, which is a rollicking and very entertaining space adventure.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Everything Went Fine
Brian and Charles • Lightyear
ALL REVIEWS >

Outside the mainstream, I saw the fiendishly clever Spanish satire Official Competition, starring Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas as obsessive filmmakers trying to create a lasting cinematic masterpiece. Also from Spain, Timothy Spall and Sarita Choudhury play offbeat, continually surprising characters in the gentle drama It Snows in Benidorm. Two young women get trapped atop a dizzyingly tall antenna tower in the nerve-jangling thriller Fall. Jemaine Clement is the host of a body-positive retreat in Nude Tuesday, a witty film from New Zealand with dialog in gibberish and even crazier subtitles. Teens try to stage a New Year's heist in Turbo Cola, a comedy that turns into a darker drama along the way. And Satyajit Ray's 1963 female empowerment masterpiece The Big City has been restored and put on the big screen.

There were also a few more unusual things this past week. David Austin gave an interview at a special press screening of the documentary George Michael: Freedom Uncut, which he directed with the iconic musician before his death in 2016. It's finally gets a cinema release next week. On the stage, I got a chance to see Starcrossed, a witty spin on Romeo & Juliet at Wilton's Music Hall. It's smart, playful, moving and wonderfully queer. And I also attended the Critics' Circle's National Dance Awards at the Barbican, and it was great to chat with winners and nominees at the party.

Things are mercifully quieter this coming week, with no press screenings in the diary largely due to the rail strikes that will cripple of the UK transport system all week. I do have some online screenings, including Chris Hemsworth in Spiderhead, Ben Foster in The Survivor, the Sundance winner Cha Cha Real Smooth, the gymnast drama Olga and the Brazilian odyssey Uyra.