LFF: Having an adventure on Day 3

The movie marathon continues, with three or four films per day during the 61st BFI London Film Festival. I know there are star-filled red carpets and lavish parties taking place somewhere, but the vast majority of working journalists never get invited to those. We shuffle from cinema to cinema all day catching what we can in a crowded schedule (usually having to select one of six or seven films screening simultaneously, and missing the rest of them completely). So far I've only missed a few things I wanted to see. Here are highlights tonight and tomorrow...

Wonderstruck
dir Todd Haynes; with Oakes Fegley, Millicent Simmonds (above) 17/US ****.
There's an intricate web of connections at the heart of this ambitious film, gradually building a expanding mystery that quietly sucks the audience in until a goosebump-inducing finale. It takes awhile to get there, but it's well worth the wait, augmented by director Todd Haynes' astonishing attention to detail in two iconic periods. And all of the central performances are powerfully moving.

A Fantastic Woman [Una Mujer Fantástica]
dir Sebastian Lelio; with Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes 17/Chl ****.
With remarkable sensitivity, this drama by Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio (Gloria) tells a vital story that carries a fiercely moving kick. Indeed, it's one of the most important films of the year, exploring a timely issue with dignity and grace: a cry for compassion in a callous world. It's also quite simply beautiful, written and directed with artistry and skilfully well-acted, most notably by Daniela Vega in the title role.

Manifesto
dir-scr Julian Rosefeldt; with Cate Blanchett 16/Ger 1h35 **.
Enormous ideas swirl around this experimental essay in which Cate Blanchett plays 12 distinctly different characters who launch into iconic philosophical rants about art and humanity. There are so many highfalutin words that the movie becomes a bit of a mumbly blur, but it's strikingly shot with sharply created settings that add witty touches all the way through. And filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt's point seems to be that of this arguing is pointless.

Beach Rats 
dir-scr Eliza Hittman; with Harris Dickinson, Madeline Weinstein 17/US ****
Despite a couple of slightly clanking plot points, there's the lovely aura of Gus Van Sant hovering around this loose, introspective teen drama. It's so finely observed that it can't help but draw the viewer deep into the story of a young man struggling to make sense of his identity while surrounded by his lifelong friends. The point of view is so strong that the other characters barely exist... FULL REVIEW >

The Double Lover [L'Amant Double]
dir-scr Francois Ozon; with Marine Vacth, Jeremie Renier 17/Fr ***.
Chameleon-like filmmaker Francois Ozon sets out this movie in the style of Almodovar doing a Hitchcock homage. And the double-layered approach is perfect for a sly, twisty plot adapted from a Joyce Carol Oates novel. Sexy and playful, the film spins around dualities, warping reality to present a story that keeps us both gripped and entertained.

A Moment in the Reeds
dir-scr Mikko Makela; with Janne Puustinen, Boodi Kabbani 17/Fin ****
Earthy and gentle, this drama runs to the quiet rhythms of rural Finland. Writer-director Mikko Makela relishes the natural elements of life in a natural setting, as two young men from very different backgrounds get to know each other without many distractions. Their conversations are profound and revealing, underscored with humour and a lovely sense of mutual understanding that's grounded and complex.

Critical Week: The boys of summer

It's been another eclectic week for London-based film critics. One of the more intriguing films we watched was the Sundance award winner Beach Rats, a remarkably thoughtful, personal exploration of identity featuring a star-making performance from Harris Dickinson. At the other end of the cinematic spectrum is The Emoji Movie, an uneven animated comedy adventure that has its moments but isn't good enough to be memorable. Mothers cut loose in Fun Mom Dinner, which has a strong cast (Kate Aselton, Toni Collette, Molly Shannon, Bridget Everett) and a nicely believable approach to outrageous antics, but is perhaps too similar to recent movies like Girls Trip.

Further afield, the effectively creepy Irish thriller Pilgrimage is given some oomph with the casting of Tom Holland, Jon Bernthal and Richard Armitage in its grisly 13th century tale of religious fervour. From Hungary, On Body and Soul is the involving, offbeat Berlin-winning romantic drama about a one-armed businessman and an obsessive-compulsive quality-control scientist. InSyriated explores a claustrophobic situation in Damascus in the style of a real-life horror movie we can't help but resonate with. Kept Boy is a rather awkward black comedy about a strained gay relationship. And I watched two documentaries to discuss on a TV chat show: Get Me Roger Stone is a chilling profile of the man who essentially created every Republican president from Nixon onwards (it's reviewed on the site), and then there's this one...

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Warriors From the North
dir Nasib Farah, Soeren Steen Jespersen; with The Shadow, Abukar Nuur, Nasib Farah, Abdi Aziz, Mohamed Ali Omar, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed 
15/Den ****
This haunting, rather grim hour-long documentary skilfully avoids sensationalism as it explores the incendiary issue of young immigrants in Europe who are caught up in radicalisation. It's framed as the story of a young man who travelled to Somalia from Copenhagen, leaving his friend and father (Nuur) looking for him, which makes the film startlingly personal. The friend calls himself "The Shadow", and vividly describes how it feels to be an aimless youth drawn into the brotherhood of al-Shabab. His narration provides an angle we rarely hear behind the shouty, fear-based headlines. The filmmakers include horrific footage of bombings, as well as training films and suicide videos, plus another telling account from a British man (Omar) who went to Somalia but left al-Shabab when he saw that they were more interested in killing civilians than soldiers. The film is beautifully shot and edited, and taps vividly into the vulnerabilities of young migrants who are marginalised in society and singled out by police, making them easily manipulated into believing that their religion condones murder, which it doesn't.

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Coming up this week, we have Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, Jamie Bell in 6 Days, the hockey-antics sequel Goon: Last of the Enforcers, the Tel Aviv drama In Between and the musical odyssey London Symphony.