Director Richard Eyre crafts a moving and beautifully realised story of love and loss in The Children Act. The film concerns a highly intelligent couple at a fork in the road … and a 17 year old Jehovah’s Witness with leukemia. Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson) is an eminent High Court judge in London. She presides with…
Michael Pearce’s feature film debut Beast explores the line between evil and misunderstanding. Moll Huntford (Jessie Buckley) was home-schooled by her domineering mother, Hilary (Geraldine James) after an incident at school more than a decade earlier. Now a tour guide on the Channel Island of Jersey, she can’t stand the constraints placed on her at…
On Chesil Beach introduces elements of theatre into a period drama about the relationship between two sensitive high-achievers. It’s summer 1962, and England is still a year away from the huge social changes of the Swinging Sixties. Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle), are a couple in their early twenties. Florence is…
Many comics seem to be insecure, unhappy, lonely. They turn to comedy as a way of dealing with their emotional pain, and they often use humour as a defence mechanism. And this the plight of the heroine in Funny Cow. This unapologetically bleak tale follows a damaged woman trying to make it in the male-dominated…
What a delightful turn of phrase Oscar Wilde had. His wit and playfulness are there for all to see in the verbiage-dense An Ideal Husband. In case you’re not familiar, the play deals with blackmail and corruption in high society. And doesn’t this sterling 11-string cast do it justice! They have loads of fun with…
I’m a sucker for a good spy drama – and Killing Eve is an exceptional spy drama. This BBC production (available here on the ABC) is a taut psychological thriller as you might expect. But its insight and its determination not to treat the viewer as an idiot are remarkable. If any TV series is…
Edith “Edie” Moon (Sheila Hancock) is an 85-year old widow. She’s spent the better part of her life caring for her domineering but wheelchair-bound husband. Now she’s preparing to move into an aged care facility. But when she visits the place to check it out, she decides she isn’t quite ready for the move. While…
The Ritual is a British horror that takes place in a Swedish forest where four friends go on a hike in honor of a deceased friend. After seeing so many films where a dark forest provides terrifying and life-threatening situations, I made a decision. I’ll never spend a weekend somewhere in a forest far from…
During The Smiths’ short brilliant career they released 4 albums in as many years in the mid-80’s, guitarist Johnny Marr became the most influential guitarists of the British indie-rock, post-punk scene. At a time when Brit-pop had embraced synthesizers and were leaning into disco more and more, Marr’s jangle-pop approach echoed early rockers like Roger…
Featuring a series of powerful performances, Disobedience packs a punch. At stake is the future of three people – a London-based husband and wife; and their childhood friend, a photographer living in New York. At an Orthodox synagogue in London, the chief rabbi collapses and dies. As funeral rites commence, the rabbi’s photographer daughter Ronit Khruska (Rachel…
