Critical Week: Happy holidays

It's been a nice week, hanging out with friends, celebrating the new year and watching very few films. I had a couple more to watch before finalising my lists of the best and worst of 2024, but I didn't go crazy trying to see everything. I'll be catching up on more over the coming weeks, and they'll enter the fray for 2025. The starriest one I watched this week was Joshua Oppenheimer's epic musical The End, with Tilda Swinton, George MacKay and Michael Shannon. It's about a family living underground two decades after society collapsed, and it has a lot to say about several massive topics. Although over two and a half hours it becomes a little numbing. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Nickel Boys • Nosferatu
We Live in Time
2073 • What I Am Not
ALL REVIEWS >

Meanwhile, Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge was a very nice surprise. Despite the blunt title, the film is a nuanced, thoughtful dramatic thriller about a guy whose specialty is de-escalating violence. Aaron Pierre is terrific in the lead role, as is Don Johnson as the backwoods Louisiana police chief running a very dodgy operation. Well worth a look even if the plot is a bit swampy. There were also two acclaimed documentaries: the shattering Sugarcane uses personal stories to skilfully recount stories of child abuse in Catholic schools for indigenous children in Canada. And Grand Theft Hamlet is an inventive, enjoyable film tracing the attempt to stage Shakespeare's play within the murderous virtual world of Grand Theft Auto.

This coming week press screenings will start up again with Claes Bang in William Tell, Nick Frost in Get Away, Laura Calamy in It's Raining Men and the Lithuanian drama The Writer.

Critical Week: Walking in a winter wonderland

The holidays are descending upon us, as seen by those out-of-the-office email "gone for Christmas" bouncebacks. But year-end work for film critics is in full swing these days, with a steady stream of awards announcements in the news and best/worst of year pieces beginning to pop up everywhere. In a final flurry of screenings for the year, we had two of this week's big releases: Mufasa: The Lion King is a prequel animated in the photoreal style of the 2019 remake and directed, somewhat surprisingly, by Barry Jenkins. It looks great, but the story and tone feel rather awkward, while the songs are oddly unmemorable. But fans will enjoy it. Fans will properly love the sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which rights several wrongs about part 2 with a funnier script and more clowning goofiness centred around Jim Carrey's nutty Robotnik and, this time, his mad-scientist grandpa (also Carrey). Yes it's very silly.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Count of Monte-Cristo
Vengeance Most Fowl
Babygirl • The Brutalist
ALL REVIEWS >

Because I'm between voting deadlines, I've taken it a bit easier with the awards contenders this week, only seeing three. I've also needed to spend rather a lot of time readying the London Critics' Circle nominations to be announced. My catch-up movies this week: Andrea Arnold's Bird, a strikingly powerful fable that mixes gritty realism with magical realism, with terrific performances by Barry Keoghan and Nykiya Adams as father and daughter. The Count of Monte-Cristo is a lavish new French adaptation of the classic Dumas novel that, at nearly three hours, feels both epic and snappily paced. It's a real treat. From Denmark, The Girl With the Needle is more demanding, but it's a proper stunner, an involving, intensely moving story about a young woman battling the system. It's shot gorgeously in early 1900s period style (silent movie-style black and white, but with sound).

This coming week I have several films to catch up on, and it will depend on the time available to watch them. Movies on this rather eclectic list include The Day the Earth Blew Up, The End, Love Lies, Ghostlight, The Six Triple Eight, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, 2073, Sugarcane and Robert Zemeckis' Here. Happy Christmas!

LFF: Smile for the camera

Into the second week of the 67th London Film Festival, the star-free red carpets continue to play out every night in front of the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank. The paparazzi look rather bored, so I've been chatting to them as I go by, finding out which of the film's crew members are in town, and perhaps some B-list celebs as well. Then I spot an Oscar-nominated A-lister incognito in the crowd and say hi; she's been enjoying movies as an audience member, adeptly honouring the actors strike by avoiding the cameras. Word has it that most stars have a bag packed so that once the strike is over they can rush off to support their movie projects. But in the meantime, we still have the movies. Here are a few more highlights...

Priscilla
dir-scr Sofia Coppola; with Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi 23/US ***.
Maintaining a sharp perspective from start to finish, Sofia Coppola explores the relationship between Priscilla and Elvis Presley with strikingly intimacy. The film digs under the surface to explore much more than the familiar story of a teenager who married the world's most famous singer. The anecdotal structure sometimes feels a bit jarring, and the ending is abrupt, but the narrative offers a remarkably involving exploration of gender politics... FULL REVIEW >

Nyad
dir Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin; with Annette Bening, Jodie Foster 23/US ****
Powerfully involving, this true drama is shot in a riveting documentary style with the addition of real-life footage. It also features fabulous roles that Annette Bening and Jodie Foster can properly sink their talented teeth into. Without over-egging the story's inherent adventure elements too much, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin let the events play out authentically, and the engaging characters make it both gripping and unmissable.

Foe
dir Garth Davis; with Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal 23/Aus ***
Beautifully shot, this lightly futuristic romantic thriller centres tightly on three characters who are skilfully played with intense emotionality. But filmmaker Garth Davis tries to be tricky with a plot that simply doesn't hold water. Explanations come far too late to put anything that happens into context, so watching the film is an exercise in frustration. Even so, it has some important things to say about curiosity and compassion... FULL REVIEW >

The Lost Boys [Le Paradis]
dir Zeno Graton; with Khalil Gharbia, Julien De Saint Jean 23/Bel ****
Set in a juvenile detention facility, this sensitive Belgian drama traces a romance between two teen boys with hushed sensitivity. It's a beautifully observed story that unfolds in earthy and sometimes tender interaction, skilfully directed by Zeno Graton to put us into the mindset of a powerfully engaging central character. And it manages to be authentic, hopeful and even occasionally grim without ever resorting to prison movie cliches.

Totem
dir-scr Lila Aviles; with Naima Senties, Montserrat Maranon 23/Mex ****
Loose and authentically chaotic, this Mexican drama features refreshing rhythms of family life over a pivotal day. Filmmaker Lila Aviles is an expert observer of human behaviour, filling the house with fully formed characters who have their own preoccupations and little sense of allowing others their personal space. The wonderfully open-handed filmmaking constantly reveals things about people who are both connected and disconnected at the same time.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
dir Elene Naveriani; with Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chichinadze 23/Geo ****
With deadpan charm, this Georgian film opens with a woman picking blackberries on the edge of a riverbank when a blackbird distracts her and she falls, imagining her death below. Filmmaker Elene Naveriani maintains a quiet, slow-burning vibe that ripples with underlying humour and tensions. The characters are wonderfully real, while the film has a colourful, sardonic Kaurismaki-like quality that's thoroughly winning. And the underlying message is hugely empowering.

All full festival reviews will be linked to Shadows' LFF PAGE >

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

In addition to lots of festival films, this week I also saw Laura Linney, Maggie Smith and Kathy Bates in the engaging and pointed Irish comedy-drama The Miracle Club, the quirky and dark British comedy Mind-Set, and enjoyably cheesy voyeurism nastiness in 15 Cameras. Films this coming week include several more LFF films, the animated musical sequel Trolls Band Together. the girls' comedy Bottoms, and Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie in Eileen. Then I'll be on a plane to visit family in California for a couple of weeks.

Critical Week: Camera ready

It's been a ridiculously busy week, with too many film releases and too many screenings as well, perhaps because Venice Film Festival ended last weekend. Eclectic screenings this week have included the terrific Gael Garcia Bernal in the biopic Cassandro, a colourfully well-made biopic about the exotico wrestler. Ken Loach's latest, and perhaps final, film The Old Oak is a triumph, a staggeringly clear-eyed depiction of ugly British attitudes with an emotive glimmer of hope. And Pablo Larrain's El Conde is a viciously inventive satire that depicts Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire with a jaw-dropping mentor.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Golden Delicious • Love Life
Cassandro • Fremont
A Haunting in Venice
ALL REVIEWS >

Kenneth Branagh is back this week with another all-star Agatha Christie adaptation, and A Haunting in Venice is the best one yet, a superbly gothic mystery thriller packed with shifty characters. Michael Jai White directs and stars in Outlaw Johnny Black, an enjoyable 1970s style action-comedy Western. Aaron Pierre lights up the screen in the small Canadian drama Brother, a dark drama celebrating tenacious immigrant mothers. And Pablo Berger's animated Robot Dreams is a pure delight, tracing the complex friendship between a lonely dog and his robot friend.

And there were even more: Bolan's Shoes is a melodramatic British drama that's beautifully acted but deliberately enigmatic. The Latent Image is an inventively freaky meta-thriller about storytelling; 20,000 Species of Bees is a moving Spanish drama about an 8-year-old wondering why he feels so uneasy about his gender; Gurkha Warrior is a skilfully made rah-rah celebration of the military prowess of the Gurkhas; and Samsara is an offbeat experimental drama that takes the audience on an inventive trip between lives. There were two docs: Carlos is a chatty visit with legendary musician Carlos Santana, while Summer Qamp profiles an extraordinary retreat centre for queer kids in rural Canada. There were also live shows Deeper and Deeper and Myra Dubois: Be Well.

Films this coming week include the all-star action sequel Expend4bles, Almodovar's Western A Strange Way of Life, Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson in The Great Escaper, Accused, Relax I'm From the Future, Ballywater, Rebel and the live show The White Factory.