A man haunted by his past is forced to face his demons in the slow-moving horror film, The Vigil. Yakov Ronen (Dave Davis) is a shadow of a man in the aftermath of a tragedy that befell his younger brother. He was present; but he didn’t intervene and before he knew it, it was too…
A ripping yarn and a grand adventure, The Personal History of David Copperfield delighted me. It highlights just how magnificent a writer Charles Dickens was. The movie (penned by Armando Iannucci and Simon Blackwell, with direction from the former) re-imagines Dickens’ classic ode to perseverance through a largely comedic lens. Copperfield (Dev Patel) narrates his…
The Current War concerns the development of the electric light. But that prosaic premise belies a voyage of discovery, filled with intrigue and subterfuge. The race against time begins in 1880. On the one side is Thomas Alva Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch); and on the other is George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon). Both are men of principle…
What a clever idea. Take a huge musical figure and add an element of intrigue to captivate an audience in a period thriller. In writer-director John Stephenson’s Interlude in Prague, that figure is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aneurin Barnard). The year is 1787. Mozart – usually based in Vienna – is still recovering from the death…
The despicable nature of workplace harassment comes into sharp focus in The Assistant, a thinly-veiled take on the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Jane (Julia Garner) is the savvy personal assistant to the chairman of a film studio. In the job only five weeks, she completes largely dreary tasks and works long hours. First in the office…
Navigating a romantic entanglement can be difficult enough. But when it comes to two – at the same time – it is in a league of its own, especially when the blokes attracted to the “catch” are best mates. Daphne (Shailene Woodley) opts out of a long-term relationship, quits her job and moves in with…
Pain informed the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954), who’s best known for her self-portraits. For her, life was always precarious, but it was only after a tragic accident that the idea of becoming an artist crystalised. The art-house documentary Frida: Viva La Vida gives us rare insight into Kahlo’s tumultuous life,…
The starting point for the truly horrible Butt Boy is a guy in a bad marriage who enjoys inserting objects into his rear end. We’re in Florida. Chip Gutchel (Tyler Cornack) – a bored IT engineer in a dead-end job – has an awakening after a routine prostate exam. He really enjoys it. What begins…
A photographer who suffers from PTSD befriends a hardworking Sudanese man with a secret traumatic past. Hearts and Bones is a heavy-hitting drama with a feel-good ending, but more of that later. Daniel Fisher (Hugo Weaving) is an acclaimed war photographer. His work means he leaves his long-term partner, Josie Avril (Haley McElhinney), a ballet…
In Midnight Family, the audience become front seat passengers riding along with the Ochoa family in Mexico City after dark. Underground private ambulances compete for patients, beg for money and pay police bribes. The government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances in Mexico City for a population of nine million. The documentary explores urgent questions…
