Critical Week: Eavesdropping

During our second short work week in a row, there were once again fewer press screenings than usual. But I still kept busy, and caught several things. Most notable perhaps is last year's acclaimed Belgian drama Julie Keeps Quiet, a powerfully well-observed film about a teen girl (Tessa Van den Broeck, above) navigating a very tricky situation. On a much larger scale, Ben Affleck is back with the action sequel The Accountant 2, which features more sparky sibling banter between the autistic finance/battle savant and his live-wire brother (Jon Bernthal). It's a lot of fun, even more engaging this time around, and still preposterous.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Treading Water • Julie Keeps Quiet
Wind, Tide & Oar
ALL REVIEWS >

Lily Collias is excellent in Good One, a relaxed drama about a teen girl on a hiking trip with her dad (James Le Gros). It's a stunner of a film from first-time feature writer-director India Donaldson. David Mamet is back with the talky but intriguing drama, Henry Johnson, starring Evan Jonigkeit as a young lawyer who has a series of very pointed conversations with various men as his life goes off the rails. Christopher Abbott has lots of internal angst in the moody, mopey drama Swimming Home, beautifully filmed in Greek locations. Sandra Huller has fun in the engaging but overlong German caper comedy-drama Two to One, based on a true story set in newly post-communist East Berlin. I also attended a big-screen preview of Apple's new adventure/conservationist series The Wild Ones, and am now looking forward to further episodes in the summer. And I saw the stage shows Snow White: The Sacrifice at Sadler's Wells and Neil LaBute's How to Fight Loneliness at the Park.

This coming week, I'll be watching Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan in Thunderbolts, Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in Another Simple Favour, Nicolas Cage in The Surfer, Jack Lowden in Tornado, Charlie Tahan in Things Like This, Karim Ainouz's Motel Destino and Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope.

Critical Week: Take a load off

Returning home to London from Venice, I arrived in a nation in mourning, with a new monarch and prime minister. Meanwhile, I'm grappling with a backlog of festival reviews. Most are written in rough form, so I'm working to get them online bit by bit. And there are also new releases to keep up with.Confess, Fletch is the first film featuring the quick-thinking reporter since those two Chevy Chase movies in the '80s. This one is closer in tone to Gregory McDonald's Fletch novels (I've read a few of them), with Jon Hamm creating a more enjoyably deadpan and less silly take on the character. But the film is perhaps a bit underpowered to launch a new franchise.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Athena • In From the Side
Blonde • Strawberry Mansion
Funny Pages • Casablanca Beats
ALL REVIEWS >

I also caught up with Oliver Hermanus' superb Living, an inventive remake of Kurosawa's Ikiru with a terrific lead role for Bill Nighy as a 1950s London businessman who begins to see things from a new perspective.  There was another offbeat offering from Peter Strickland with the pointedly amusing Flux Gourmet, about musicians who mix sound with food. Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie lead a terrific ensemble cast. Finally, there was the gonzo horror of The Retaliators, an increasingly violent revenge thriller that gleefully preaches a seriously unhelpful message.

Lined up to watch this next week are Viola Davis in The Woman King, George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Ticket to Paradise, Lesley Manville in Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, the British drama It Is In Us All, New Zealand drama The Justice of Bunny King, Korean drama In Front of Your Face, Japanese animation Inu-Oh and the movie club doc A Bunch of Amateurs.