A loving but dysfunctional family is put through the wringer in Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know To Be True. Bob Price (Ben Grant) has worked from the age of 16. Now 63, he spent 30 years at a car manufacturing plant before he accepted a redundancy package four years ago. A keen gardener, he is generally empathetic…
The father of psychoanalysis meets a feted author to discuss whether God exists in Freud’s Last Session. Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) is in failing health. With death approaching, he remains heavily opinionated. He has taken issue with British author CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), who has come out as “a believer” and written about it. Even…
On the dark web, thousands of people connect. One such encounter involves a deeply troubled 14-year-old girl, played by Matilda Gibbs. She reaches out to see whether anyone can teach her about witchcraft, so she can cast a spell over those that choose to ignore her. She loves dancing, is depressed, invisible, friendless and keen to lose weight….
I am not sure I fully understood, absorbed or appreciated all that The King’s Player was about, even though other patrons seemed to be having a wow of a time. Suffice to say, it is a lone hander and the writer and performer is clearly talented – adept at crafting and playing physical and improvisational comedy….
At age eight, Anna (Max McKenna) was writing brilliant, highly creative, if dark stories. She was a very bright little girl. Upon reflection, a decade on, she regards that as indicative of being a child prodigy. Her mother Renee (Nadine Garner) though had real concerns. When Anna was on a high, her energy and enthusiasm lit up a…
A sweeping period drama, Jeanne du Barry covers the rise and fall of the eponymous mistress to a former French king. The real Jeanne du Barry was born Jeanne Bécu in 1743; the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook, brought up by her mother. In the film, Jeanne’s (Maïwenn) road to the king’s…
Physical and improvisation comedy at its absolute, chaotic best. That is what you get when you venture in to Chapel Off Chapel to see the hilarious, contemporary adaption of The Trojan War. All the key characters are in play, the likes of Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector and Paris and, of course, Helen of Troy. The legendary conflict between the…
Keith (Kevin Hofbauer) is a single, black, gay mortgage broker and caretaker of a young foster daughter. Ryan (Darcy Kent) is an undereducated, recently divorced, white, factory worker with a daughter the same age as Keith’s. The two young’uns attend the same day care centre in Twin Falls in Idaho. Ryan is desperate to buy a parcel…
Original homespun (literally) physical comedy, The Beaks: Stickybeak is a clever and creative look at everyday life in suburbia. It is the domain of four excellent exponents that turn the mundane into something special. I speak of Kimberley Twiner, Laura Trenerry, Patrick Dwyer and Jessie Ngaoi. They play a series of quick-change character roles that are repeated…
The First Omen is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise that began with Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. That film introduced audiences to Damien, the Antichrist. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel opens in 1971, five years before the events of The Omen. A young American woman, Margaret Daino…
