Rural noir is a thing at the moment, which means some stellar entries in the category, and some not so good ones. Makes opening each new novel and settling in for the experience a bit of rollercoaster ride. So did 55 live up to the hype? Well yes, yes it did. It’s an intriguing premise…
Horror isn’t a sub-genre I spend a lot of time reading, so Painted, being a mystery with a horror overlay, wasn’t a book that came with much in the way of preconceptions or expectations. The premise is that when an extremely reclusive artist instructs a law firm on the manner in which is vast art…
A psychological suspense novel with touches of paranormal, Tess is a beautifully balanced, chilling, claustrophobic and clever novel. Set in small town New Zealand, at the turn of the millennium, Tess is, as the blurb puts it “a gothic love story about the ties that bind and tear a family apart.” It’s also a story…
“She doesn’t answer. Death is never banal. If someone can live for more than fifty years without realising that, then it is beneath her dignity to teach them any better. ‘The water’s boiling. I’m making tea,’ she says. ‘Let’s talk later.’” Outside of Norway, Kjell Ola Dahl is perhaps best known for the Oslo Detective…
The word gritty doesn’t do justice to Galveston. This hard-boiled, downbeat crime drama features a host of questionable characters and some bravura acting. Ben Foster never fails to impress and is perfectly cast as a 40-year-old debt collector with a major health issue. Elle Fanning adds to an already impressive resume as prostitute Rocky, who’s…
Nicole Kidman is virtually unrecognisable for much of Destroyer. Her hair is dishevelled, and her face is blemished and hollow. Her eyes have no life in them and it’s difficult to make out what she’s saying. Talk about bleeding for your art. As a young detective, Erin Bell (Kidman) and her partner Chris (Sebastian Stan)…
As a teenager I scoffed at elders who insisted that the generation gap was alive and well. They claimed we spoke a different sort of English to them, that the things we were obsessed with were unfathomable, the complications of our lives irrelevant, and the music sucked. Then I recently found myself saying the problem…
The subject matter of Pimped is tawdry; nasty in fact. This is a film that starts out without much promise, but gradually draws you into its deviant web. It’s a psycho-sexual thriller in which the protagonist is emblematic of the #MeToo era. Sarah Montrose (Ella Scott Lynch) is a conflicted, mysterious woman. I say that…
Eccentric Danish auteur Lars Von Trier makes controversial and deliberately confronting films. His latest is likely to be divisive as well. Despite the title, The House That Jack Built is not a family-friendly fairy tale. Rather this is Von Trier’s portrait of a sadistic serial killer. But the film isn’t as illuminating nor as insightful…
The events depicted in Hotel Mumbai are ghastly … made all the more so because the story is based on fact. I, like so many, recall the day it started and how horrific the reports and images were. For three days in 2008 — from 26 to 29 November — Mumbai was under siege. Arriving…
