Thursday 22 September 2022

Critical Week: Who runs the world

I've only had one actual press screening this week, which seems a bit odd with so many huge movies floating around that need to be seen (to be fair, I saw several of them in Venice). Instead, I managed to catch a special preview at my local Picturehouse of The Woman King, the heavily fictionalised historical epic starring Viola Davis as leader of a 19th century West African all-female army. Even if the film sidesteps some facts, it's a rousing movie that audiences should enjoy, especially with terrific performances from Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega and Thuso Mbedu. And then there were George Clooney and Julia Roberts hamming it up in Ticket to Paradise, a comedy without many actual laughs. But when they're not goofing around, the stars find both chemistry and some surprising dramatic textures.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Blonde • Athena • After Yang
Juniper • In Front of Your Face
ALL REVIEWS >
Smaller films this week included the quietly riveting Irish drama It Is In Us All, starring the superb Cosmo Jarvis; the pointed and perhaps a bit contrived New Zealand drama The Justice of Bunny King, anchored by another terrific performance from Essie Davis; Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo's involving, sensitive and unusually perceptive drama In Front of Your Face; and the warmly engaging doc A Bunch of Amateurs, about a 90-year-old movie-making club in the North of England.

Coming up this next week are Francois Ozon's new film Peter von Kant, the horror thriller Smile, the sci-fi thriller Control, the mystery thriller The Razing, the French drama Rodeo, the Icelandic drama Godland.

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