Film Reviews

Those who aren’t particularly au fait with the work of Cecil Beaton, the Oscar-winning set and costume designer behind My Fair Lady and Gigi, are likely to find plenty of little nuggets to mine from this attentive if airy documentary from Lisa Immordino Vreeland. It opens with an exert from a TV interview that Beaton recorded in later life – born in 1904, he died in 1980. During the interview he’s asked how he would describe himself, to which he...

As malignant intolerance and nationalism spreads through Europe and America, there is a powerful urgency in Annalisa Piras’ concise 60 minute documentary, Europe at Sea, that should make it mandatory viewing. Although it is a political document addressing the European Union’s approach to global and European issues, its message is uniquely human; “No country in the world of today is a big one.” The documentary centres on Federica Mogherini, who at 43 is the youngest person to head the Foreign...

Most Beautiful Island wants you to understand how hard life is for Luciana (played by writer/director Ana Asensio), an immigrant living in New York. The film piles on scene after scene of Luciana not being good enough; she is late for her baby sitting job, has to suffer through the indignity of wearing a chicken costume when working as a mascot for a fried chicken shop, and she never has any money. These day-to-day headaches for Luciana help contextualize her...

By Anna Power Based on the novel of the same name by RJ Palacio, Wonder follows the life of August Pullman, affectionately known as Auggie (Jacob Tremblay) as he embarks on his first year of school, having been home schooled due to extensive reconstructive surgery for several years of his infancy. Now a pre-teen and with lifelong facial deformity, August must face his fears and go out into the world. Like a young Rocky Dennis from Bogdanovich’s Mask, these tentative...

Serving as the kindling to start this year’s Christmas fire comes, from director Bharat Nalluri by way of Les Standiford’s non-fiction book of the same name, the charming, if somewhat slight, Man Who Invented Christmas; a chronicle of the story behind Charles Dickens’ beloved novel, 'A Christmas Carol'. Finding fresh life in a tale that has been done to death on the screen, Nalluri avoids a straight retelling, and opts instead to pivot the narrative around the story’s conception. Charles...

“Male chauvinist pig versus hairy-legged feminist”, that’s how former world champion tennis player Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) pitches the titular exhibition bout between himself and twelve-time Grand Slam champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) in this disappointingly conceited biographical dramatisation from Little Miss Sunshine directors Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris. As with Janus Metz’s plodding Wimbledon drama Borg vs. McEnroe, the action is pivoted around what happened off of the court. From Riggs’ point of view that involves playing up...

By Jim Mackney Jane, directed by Brett Morgen, is a documentary focusing on the life and groundbreaking work of Dr. Jane Goodall, touching upon her marital life, the raising of her son Hugo, and her latter years. Dr. Goodall’s work with chimpanzees has been widely documented in film and literature, but here her work seems more immediate and engaging than in previous offerings. Jane is an interesting documentary, one that was made slightly fortuitously with the discovery of a treasure...

By Michael McNulty You would find more enjoyment standing in a queue at the post office, ritualistically checking your watch and shuffling a quarter of an inch forward every 15 minutes than watching Mercedes Grower’s film, Brakes.  At 80 minutes, it instils a frustrating impatience that has you begging for the credits to roll.   Late in the film, one of the characters says, “I’ve just been pinned by the most boring person I know,” and you want to reach through...

Set in provincial Brooklyn during the last days of summer, Beach Rats follows Frankie (Harris Dickinson), a 19-year-old who spends most of his time fooling around with his posse of friends and his girlfriend Simone (Madeline Weinstein). He lives at home with his mother (Kate Hodge), younger sister, and bed ridden father who has cancer. Unbeknownst to everyone around him he also messages men on an online chatroom and meets them on the side of the highway for casual sex....