Film Reviews

It has always taken something special for Japanese animations to register with a global audience. Over the years, films like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Spirited Away have captured viewer’s hearts across the world. But even though a large number of animes get produced each year, only a couple ever manage this feat. The challenge then for Lu Over the Wall is to see whether it can transcend the tropes of its genre, and reach out beyond the usual...

It’ll come as no surprise to many of you that this endearingly gentle if excessively whimsical oddity from ‘The Lonely Island’ crew first debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. With its geeky sensibility towards the creative process, and its cloyingly sentimental exploration of a subject matter that arguably demands a far more emotionally incisive consideration, Brigsby Bear very much feels like a film that has been geared towards the crowds who descend upon Park City every January. Written by...

Director David Gordon Green doesn’t shy away from the stark realities that come with being a victim of a terrorist attack in this gritty true-life dramatisation of one man’s journey to recovery following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Rather than opt for a traditionally uplifting portrayal of a resilient man overcoming such a tragedy, Green’s drama, Stronger, is more reflective and sincere. It works, because rehabilitation, in any form, is tough. And Jeff Bauman’s story, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is...

By Anna Power Happy End is certainly far from happy - a heavy hint of the irony to be found in this darkest of satirical tales of familial dysfunction amid the bourgeoisie. Twisted from the outset, this misanthropic tale will make you squirm and laugh and often simultaneously. Haneke’s trade mark style is stamped all over this film from the guilty over-privilege of the wealthy, to the theme of assisted dying, following on from his 2014 Palme D’Or winning Amour,...

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...