Critical Week: Humbug

It's been another busy week of screenings, as I get ready to travel for a few weeks. The weather turned colder, Christmas lights were switched on across London, and we also had our first holiday movie of the season: Ebenezer is a new take on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starring Johnny Depp as Scrooge. Of course horror director Ti West leans into the ghostly spookiness, but it's a perhaps too-faithful adaptation. Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller are back for more embarrassing antics in Focker-in-Law, which adeptly shifts the nuttiness to a new generation thanks to the up-for-it Ariana Grande. And Nicholas Hoult leads the charge in How to Rob a Bank, an undercooked action romp that isn't as cool or meaningful as it thinks it is. But it's just about watchable.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Bitter Christmas
Being Heumann • 1 in 2
Fjord • The Good Lawyer
PERHAPS AVOID:
Confession
ALL REVIEWS >

Off the beaten path, I finally caught up with Wicker at my local cinema, and it was worth the trip: Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgard are superb in this hilariously deranged, surprisingly sweet fairy tale romance. Andrew Garfield plays OpenAI founder Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, assembled with skill, some nutty edge and terrifying implications. And Yura Borisov is terrific in the central role. 

From Spain, The Beloved is a complex, provocative father-daughter drama starring Javier Bardem and Victoria Luengo, eye-catchingly set on a film set in the Canary Islands. Rob Lowe and James Franco lead the starry cast of Confession, a murky Soviet prison drama written unsubtly by Ben Shapiro. Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care is a thoughtful slice-of-life exploring how we need support from family and friends. And the documentary 1 in 2 offers a fascinating and urgently important look at cancer treatment, complete with a dash of hope.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching the much talked about documentary You Can See Everything, Lucas Dhont's Coward, Israeli drama A Man Walks Down the Street, Argentine drama Before We Forget, Iranian doc An Eye for an Eye and two live performances: Act of God and My Fierce Ignorant Step. Then I'm off to California for a couple of weeks visiting family.