The European co-production Corage is an unconventional biopic looking at the (largely fictional) last year in the life of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps). Elizabeth is married to Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), but she feels like she is merely an appendage. Given no real power, her duties are considered merely ceremonial. It is…
Even though this is a work of fiction (termed “an act of female imagination”), the starting point for Women Talking was a recent real-life event in Bolivia. Between 2005 and 2009, more than 100 girls and women in a remote Mennonite colony discovered they had been raped in their sleep. A group of men from…
The cringeworthy and unfunny comedy The Honeymoon is an Italian/British co-production and it’s received some of the worst reviews of the year. Adam (Pico Alexander) has been best friends with Bav (Asim Chaudhry) since they were children and they called themselves “the inseparables.” But as a teenager Adam moved to America with his family for…
As the title suggests, the outcome of Spoiler Alert is obvious at the start of the film. The film charts a 13-year love story between two guys. Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) is a sensitive journalist who writes about TV shows. As a child, he dreamed about a sitcom with him at the centre and his…
The story made world news. On 15 May 2010, 16-year-old Jessica Watson became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop and unassisted. It was just her, a 10-metre-long boat named Ella’s Pink Lady and the elements. In the Netflix movie True Spirit, Teagan Croft plays Watson. Her mentor is a Ben Bryant (Cliff…
In M. Night Shyamalan’s intriguing psychological thriller, Knock at the Cabin, Kristen Cui plays eight-year-old Wen – a bright young girl who collects grasshoppers so she can study them. She’s special because she was adopted by her two dads – Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) – when she was only a baby. Now…
The Whale is the film that has excited me more than any other since lockdown. While the story itself is remarkable, the acting has me champing at the bit to recommend it. It’s all set in a rundown apartment in Idaho. Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is morbidly obese. His blood pressure is off the charts and…
Trailblazing indigenous artist and outspoken provocateur Richard Bell is arguably one of our most important artists whose work has been exhibited internationally. But he is also confrontational and unapologetic in his opinions about Australia’s treatment of its First Nations people, and he also bemoans the fact that traditional Aboriginal art work and paintings have now…
After 16 years, Todd Field makes a long-awaited return to the director’s chair with Tár. Having made two under-appreciated gems of the early 2000s with In the Bedroom (2001) and Little Children (2006), he hurtles back into the cultural conversation with this challenging but dazzling film. Tár is set in the rarefied world of Western…
What’s Love Got To Do With It? is an unfortunate title considering the other film of the same name documents Tina Turner’s relationship with her horribly abusive husband. Nevertheless, it’s apt for this rom-com with its focus on the pros and cons of arranged marriages – or in this case assisted marriage. Zoe (Lily James)…
