Critical Week: Take a leap

I travelled back from rainy California to icy London this week, having submitted my final ballot for the Golden Globes last weekend. So I look forward to seeing what our international group of critics chose to take home prizes on Sunday night in Los Angeles. I also caught up with two films opening this week: Kristen Stewart's writing-directing debut The Chronology of Water is a challenging arthouse collage, based on a dark memoir. Imogen Poots is superb in the lead role, although the film is a bit too fragmented to pull us in. By contrast, People We Meet on Vacation is a charming and silly romantic comedy (now on Netflix) that's a bit too slick and long, but has some underlying themes that resonate. Plus ridiculously likeable leads in Emily Bader and Tom Blyth. Still, Chloe Zhao's Hamnet is hands down the best film out this week.

I also caught up with the acclaimed German drama Sound of Falling, an ambitious and luxuriant multi-generational epic that continually sends shivers down the spine with its darkly astute observations. Another awards contender, the doc Orwell: 2+2=5 is expertly assembled by Raoul Peck to explore how George Orwell's prescient novels have been echoed in global politics over the past century. It's essential viewing, partly because of the rather terrifying things it says about humanity. And then there were two movies I finally caught up with on the plane flight home: Megan 2.0 is an enjoyably bonkers sequel that is unafraid to get both silly and sharply pointed. I loved it. And gifted filmmaker Kogonada takes a huge swing with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, a surreal romance starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. It's skilfully crafted, but almost nothing about the story works at all.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo in Crime 101, survival horror Primate, Palestinian drama All That's Left of You and catching up on films and TV I haven't had time to watch over the past few weeks. There are also more voting deadlines to contend with.