Film Reviews

Documentary director and photojournalist Lauren Greenfield returns after her 2012 feature debut, The Queen of Versailles, with Generation Wealth, an ambitious if underwhelming examination of modern-day affluence. Dusting off her Rolodex, Greenfield returns to those she has captured throughout her career and cobbles together a series of interviews with porn-stars, rappers, career driven mothers and hedge fund managers who speak candidly about the impact the pursuit of wealth has had on their lives professionally, emotionally and at home.  Moments are...

In a world that so often looks hopeless, can we still have faith and what does it mean to have faith? In First Reformed, Paul Schrader, seemingly reinvigorated as a filmmaker, wrestles with these questions through Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke), the priest at a historical church with only a few congregants. When he’s asked by a new attendee, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), to speak to her environmentalist husband Michael, Toller is troubled by his hopelessness and, when Michael kills himself, haunted...

It has taken Pixar nearly 15 years to deliver a sequel to the much-loved Incredibles, which is an eternity in cinema. When Bob “Mr Incredible” Parr (Craig T Nelson), Helen “Elastigirl” (Holly Hunter), Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Huckleberry Milner) and baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) appear on screen, literally seconds since the original film ended, it feels as if they have been frozen in time, waiting for us to join them once more and to offer the audience the notion that...

16 year old Iona (Lily Newmark) and her mother Lyn (Joanna Scanlan) have just moved to a new town. Iona, wanting to be part of the crowd, says that she has become friends with the popular girls in her class. Eventually she gets invited into the group but they, particularly Keeley (Sacha Cordy-Nice) treat her more as a frenemy. Meanwhile, the reclusive Lyn is also being treated badly by the neighbours. The bullying on both sides threatens to undermine Iona...

Six year old Frida (Laia Artigas), recently orphaned after the death of her mother, is taken in by her uncle Esteve (David Verdaguer) and aunt Marga (Bruna Cusi), moving from her grandparents home to live with them and her three year old cousin Anna (Paula Robles). Given free rein by her relatives, Anna has fun over the summer, but, clearly traumatised by her mother’s death and by questions hanging over her own health, she also acts out. Films about childhood...

Jonathan Hacker’s documentary, Path of Blood, goes behind the curtain to reveal the inner machinations of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qaeda factions circa the mid-2000s. An opening title sets the stage, re-illuminating anyone who may have forgotten to the fact that in the wake of 9/11 the world has seen the emergence and proliferation of Islamist extremist groups intent on destroying the West and establishing a global caliphate. We are then whipped into a sparse white room where a group of young...

Let’s face it, nobody has ever gone into a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson action movie expecting a coherent plot or even a believable storyline, and to be frank this hasn’t stopped the actor from becoming one of the most bankable actions stars of the last decade. In the case of Skyscraper, Johnson’s latest vehicle, the stakes are stacked even higher than usual in this hugely enjoyable, if entirely preposterous heist movie which pits the former wrestling superstar against a group...

Marketed, rather predictably, as the next Full Monty (yes another one), Oliver Parker’s Swimming With Men is a charming, if utterly forgettable comedy that follows the adventures of an all-male synchronised swimming team of varying ages and backgrounds as they navigate their respective difficulties in life, albeit via the medium of swimming in formation. Loosely based on Dylan Williams’s 2010 documentary Men Who Swim, which told the real life story of middle-aged Swedish synchronised team, Swimming With Men stars Rob Brydon...

The First Purge’s marketing campaign caused a stir when it released a teaser trailer in the style of a political advertisement. It riffed on classic Republican adverts and baited Donald Trump’s base, with a narrator asking the question, “What makes America great? The answer's simple, really, Americans make America great. You are the lifeblood of the nation, and your rights as Americans must be safeguarded." As stock footage of a baseball team, farmland and a blonde haired, prepubescent boy waving...