Critical Week: Backstage glamour

The 68th London Film Festival continues into this weekend with a range of terrific movies. I'm taking it easy this year, just seeing some of the top titles during these days, often including Q&As and receptions where we can chat with the filmmakers and actors. So it's been a lot of fun (see my Insta for pics!), and there's a bit more to come this weekend. One of the bigger titles was Jason Reitman's Saturday Night, a rollercoaster ride of a film recounting a tense 90 minutes before the first SNL show went live in October 1975. The cast is excellent, and it's skilfully written, shot and edited to be both funny and moving, although perhaps only for fans. It was also the surprise film at LFF this week.

Also this week, I finally caught up with the animated adventure The Wild Robot, which I saw preview footage from in June when I hung out with the creative team at Annecy Animation Film Fest. So expectations were very high, and the film more than lived up to them. It's one of the most gorgeously animated movies I've ever seen, and the story has unusual depth and textures.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Anora • The Wild Robot
The Crime Is Mine
The Summer With Carmen
 In Restless Dreams
ALL REVIEWS >

There were lots of good festival movies this week. Amy Adams goes for broke in Nightbitch, a seriously clever film that's deliberately uncomfortable. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong are astonishing as Donald Trump and Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, a biopic that never takes a cheap shot but leaves us chilled. Thomasin McKenzie shines in Joy, a rather typical lively true British drama, this time about the development of IVF. Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin spark amazing chemistry as cousins in A Real Pain, a smart road movie set in Poland. The Indian comedy Superboys of Malegaon provides a lot of fun as a group of guys create a mini-film industry in their town. 

Outside LFF, there was the always watchable Alex Wolff in rather over-familiar fraternity drama The Line. And there were two docs: Mark Cousins' fascinating collage-style doc A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, about artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, and the lively Studio One Forever, exploring the iconic Los Angeles nightclub.

Things are clearly getting back to normal for me, as I have a final flurry of LFF films this weekend: Elizabeth Banks' Skincare, the animated Memoir of a Snail, Walter Salles' I'm Still Here, Mati Diop's Dahomey, Indian drama All We Imagine as Light and more. Then next week it's Tom Hardy in Venom: The Last Dance, Eddie Redmayne in The Day of the Jackal and Jordana Brewster in Cellar Door.

LFF 5: Ready for labour

Kate Winslet and her rather large baby bump braved the chilly red carpet tonight in Leicester Square for the UK premiere of her film Labor Day at the 57th London Film Festival. She was joined by costar Josh Brolin and writer-director Jason Reitman. And yes, the city is crawling with cinema celebrities at the moment. In addition to the Labor Day junket, I also attended a small press conference today for The Family (not showing at LFF) with Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dianna Agron. But then, everyone seems to be in London at the moment. More festival highlights...

Labor Day 
dir Jason Reitman; with Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin 13/US ***
While this drama starts off well, with another remarkably layered performance from Winslet and a growing sense of uneasy tension, it slowly transforms itself into a Nicholas Sparks-style sappy romance along the way. To say this is frustrating is an understatement, and by the time we make it to a series of deeply schmalzy epilogues, we wonder what happened to the Reitman of Up in the Air or Young Adult... [review coming soon]

Like Father, Like Son 
dir Hirokazu Kore-eda; with Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono 13/Jpn ****. 
Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda is an expert at telling sentimental stories in a way that's genuinely involving but never remotely sappy. By catching tiny details in characters who are cleverly underplayed by the cast, he draws us into the events in an uncanny way that's utterly disarming. And wonderful... FULL REVIEW >

Ida
dir Pawel Pawlikowski; with Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza 13/Pol **** 
With pristine black and white photography and beautifully textured performances, this simple story overflows with big ideas about history and faith. And since the two central characters are so beautifully written and played, they are able to engage us on layers that go much deeper than we expect... [review coming soon]

The Double
dir Richard Ayoade; with Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska 13/UK *** 
Dostoevsky's novella is adapted into a Gilliamesque black comedy that's packed with visual invention but never quite grabs hold narratively. Still, the cast is so good that we willingly go along with them on a surreal odyssey about a young man struggling to make sense of his own identity. And the surprise-packed cast is a lot of fun... [review coming soon]

The Selfish Giant
dir-scr Clio Barnard; with Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas 13/UK **** 
After the brilliantly inventive drama-doc The Arbor, it's unsurprising to find that Barnard takes an original approach to a kids' story. This film was inspired by the Oscar Wilde tale, and the connections are askance at best. But there's such an intense blast of realism that it's utterly gripping, right to the shattering conclusion... FULL REVIEW >