Film Reviews

★★☆☆☆ With its offbeat drama and David Lynch-style weirdness, Under the Silver Lake captures a hyperreal version of Los Angeles, taking viewers into baffling world of mystery. It pays homage to a history of iconic movies, but it dances with so many styles, themes and subplots that the film collapses from the weight of it all. This is David Robert Mitchell’s third movie after It Follows, one of the best horror films of the decade. Under the Silver Lake is...

★☆☆☆☆ Serenity is arguably one of the most bonkers films in modern cinema. Written and directed by Stephen Knight (Locke; the screenwriter for Eastern Promises), it has such an insane premise that there’s something curiously admirable about the film’s commitment to complete and utter madness. However, it’s not enough to compensate for a story that is too self-conscious and over the top. Matthew McConaughey plays Baker Dill, a chain-smoking Iraq war veteran who lives on an idyllic, remote island. He spends...

Rarely has a foreign language film created as much debate and controversy as director Lukas Dhont’s Girl. The film follows Lara (Victor Polster) a 15-year-old transgender girl who dreams of being a professional ballerina. She attends a prestigious Dutch dance school where her classmates are hostile towards her and who are at times openly transphobic. Her father Mathias (Arieh Worthalter) and her doctors are supportive of her and her desire to have gender reassignment surgery, even if Lara is left frustrated by...

“I have nothing to prove to you,” says Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers towards the end of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s highly enjoyable introduction to Marvel’s mightiest female Avenger. It may be directed at Danvers’ enemy, but this is a statement that transcends the narrative boundaries of the MCU. To the misogynistic male trolls who have been driven by their own blithe entitlement to undermine Captain Marvel’s release at every turn, the message could not be clearer. The gendered discrepancy...

Secrets and lies are brought to the surface in director Asghar Farhadi’s film of a family wedding struck by tragedy. Taking place in a small Spanish town, rather than the director’s native Iran, Everybody Knows begins with Laura (Penélope Cruz) returning home following years spent in Argentina. Her teenage daughter Irene (Carla Campra) and young son accompany her but her husband Alejandro (Richard Darín) could not travel due to an important business engagement. Laura reminisces with her family and old friends...

Happy Death Day 2 UDir: Christopher LandonIt would take only two words to sum up the concept of the first Happy Death Day: “Groundhog Slay”. Taking the time looping concept of the classic Bill Murray comedy and applying it to a homage to post Scream comedy inflected 90s slashers, the initial entry in this now newly minted franchise was warmly received and a sleeper hit. For me, while it had going for it a versatile and highly entertaining final girl...

Liam Neeson may have blighted his career with the admittance of his “rape revenge” anecdote and in truth, it does sour the viewing of Cold Pursuit, a film with a plot built near solely on revenge… The Norwegian Hans Peter Moland directs ‘Cold Pursuit’, remaking his own 2014 film In Order of Disappearance. Cold Pursuit follows Neeson’s, Nels Coxman, a snowplow driver and upstanding member of the remote community living in Kehoe, Colorado. Tragedy strikes the Coxman family when Nels’...

Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix movie High Flying Bird is a sharp and layered drama set in Manhattan during a six-month lockout between the NBA and the players. The season’s come to a standstill and no one’s getting paid. Hotshot sports agent Ray Burke (Andre Holland) and his number one client, Erick (Melvin Gregg) are stuck in limbo as the lockout has completely neutralised their income. These are people who are used to seeing huge money rolling in, so now their daily...

The best thing that can be said about Happy Death Day 2U is that it does what it says on the tin: a few jump scares, some unconvincing romantic subplots and enough cliches to make it palatable for a 'what not to' class at any film school. Still, no-one in the audience around me seemed to expect anything different, except for the one or two walk-outs. A sequel to 2017's Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U follows a number...