Ten years after village doc Le Quattro Volte, Michelangelo Frammartino returns with an observational piece centring on a deep-cave system in CalabriaIn 2011 Italian artist Michelangelo Frammartino scored a small indie hit with a film called Le Quattro …
The Lost Daughter review – Olivia Colman lights up Elena Ferrante psychodrama
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s accomplished directing debut makes humid, sensual cinema of Ferrante’s novelOlivia Colman gives a powerhouse turn in The Lost Daughter, prickly and combustible as Leda Caruso, a middle-aged languages professor on a working holiday i…
Worth review – a moral maze for 9/11 victims’ lawyer
Michael Keaton plays an attorney, Stanley Tucci a widower fighting the system in a procedural drama based on a case brought by the bereaved of 9/11Michael Keaton’s attorney Ken Feinberg reminds his Georgetown college students that they’re studying law,…
Streaming: The Father and other films about dementia
Florian Zeller’s heart-rending film The Father is the latest in a spate of recent works tackling the condition and its effects on the familyFirst shown way back at Sundance in January last year, and repeatedly delayed by the pandemic, The Father waited…
The Last Bus review – a cliche-packed vehicle for Timothy Spall
A widower takes a nostalgic journey from John o’Groats to Land’s End using his free bus pass in a well-acted but overly sentimental filmTry as I might, I couldn’t make friends with this weirdly unreal and sentimental Britmovie in the last-journey-with-…
Boiling Point review – Stephen Graham bubbles in one-shot restaurant drama
This year’s Karlovy Vary saw the premiere of a dizzying single-take drama featuring a potent lead performance from Graham as a chef enduring a nightmarish eveningPhilip Barantini serves up a single-take headlong nightmare in this drama set in a restaur…
Pig review – a low-key Nicolas Cage on the trail of a missing porker
Director Michael Sarnoski promises a revenge thriller but delivers something much quieter and more profoundA truffle-hunting pig has been kidnapped. Her grizzled owner, Rob (Nicolas Cage), abandons a quiet, off-grid life in the woods and sets out on a …
Sexting, lies and unveiled selfies: the Egyptian film exploring the hidden lives of teenage girls
Ayten Amin’s Souad is a razor-sharp portrayal of sisterhood and sexual awakening that is rarely represented on screenWhen the Egyptian director Ayten Amin was 10 years old, a classmate’s sister killed herself. The news gripped the school. But, in a soc…
Lina from Lima review – funny, sultry film about a plucky economic migrant
Upending arthouse tropes with musical numbers and lashings of sex, this witty debut about a Peruvian domestic worker refuses to see its heroine as a victimWriter-director María Paz González’s first feature takes a well-worn miserabilist trope out of th…
Coda review – the trials of a musical teenager in a non-hearing household
This year’s Sundance hit, about the daughter of deaf parents who dreams of becoming a singer, is undeniably feelgood, if a little formulaicWhen Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) sings, she gets a good feeling. Sorting through the daily catch aboard her family’…