The secret history
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk…
A fine romance
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
Pandemic panto
This pantomime was filmed by ‘legendary Blue Peter presenter’ Peter Duncan in his back garden over the summer. It was…
This will hurt
County Lines is the kind of social realism that the British do so well, if not too well. In other…
It’ll blow you away
When I recommend this documentary to people, telling them it follows the journalistic investigation into a fire that broke out…
Whiplash
Hillbilly Elegy is an adaptation of the best-selling memoir, published in 2016, by J.D. Vance and it’s quite a story.…
Blue notes
This documentary about Billie Holiday is transfixing. Not just because it’s about Billie Holiday — I am not into jazz…
A star is reborn
The Life Ahead stars Sophia Loren, and if there is one reason to see The Life Ahead it is this:…
Riveting twosome
This week, two electrifying performances in two excellent films rather than two mediocre performances in the one mediocre film —…
Bros your mind
The Climb is, essentially, a bickering bromance as two longtime pals bicker bromantically down the years, and it doesn’t sound…
Haunted by Hitchcock
Rebecca is a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic, twisted, never-out-of-print tale of sexual jealousy. It’s directed by Ben…
Saints and sinners
Saint Maud is a first feature from writer-director Rose Glass and it’s being billed as a horror film. But it’s…
Zinger ping pong
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — don’t worry, you haven’t missed six earlier films — is a…
Savage beauty
The Painted Bird opens with a young boy (Jewish) running through a forest and clutching his pet ferret. He is…
Hundrum
Mulan is Disney’s latest live-action remake, coming in at 120 minutes, compared with the 1998 animation, which ran to 80.…
To cut a long story short
Tenet is the latest high-concept, time-bending blockbuster from Christopher Nolan and it’s the film that (unofficially) reopens cinemas in the…
His dark materials
Matteo Garrone’s live-action version of Pinocchio is visually sumptuous and there are some enchanting characters (my favourite: Snail). And unlike…
Double trouble
American Pickle is a comedy based on a short story by Simon Rich, originally published in the New Yorker, and…
Holiday park hell
Make Up is the first full-length film from writer–director Claire Oakley, set in an out-of-season holiday park on the Cornish…
There will be blood
Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…
Licensed to kill
Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden on death row whose job is beginning to take its toll, and…
Half baked
Some cinemas have reopened, with the rest to follow by the end of the month, thankfully. But the big, hotly…
The great pretender
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
Nearly nul points
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…
Going through the motions
Resistance stars Jesse Eisenberg and tells the true story of how mime artist Marcel Marceau helped orphaned Jewish children to…
