Currently in limited release, Of an Age is a sensitive coming-of-age drama told in two time frames. The film opens in 1999 and Kol (Elias Anton) is three weeks off turning 19. He is friends with hyperactive Ebony (Hattie Hook), who wakes by the water’s edge at a beach in Altona dazed and confused. Using…
The movie Living contemplates the rhetorical question “You call that living?”. We’re in London in the 1950s and the respect Mr Williams (Bill Nighy) heads up Public Works at County Hall. He and his staff travel to work each day by train – although not in the same carriage – dressed to the nines (bowler…
In Ti West’s prequel to X (2022), Pearl (Mia Goth) is a star in the making – at least in her own head. It’s 1918, and the combination of WWI and the Spanish flu has many on tenterhooks. Pearl’s husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) – a good man – is off fighting. She lives on a…
Succinctly put, intriguing. “What if I said I am not what you think you see? I am the wolf.” These are among the first words spoken in this remarkable drama by South Korean playwright Hansol Jung. She was inspired to write Wolf Play after reading a news article about Facebook and Yahoo groups used by some parents…
Based on a true story, Till is a film full of pain, grief, anger. It’s a powerful howl of outrage against a blatant miscarriage of justice that has never been rectified. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall) was holidaying with his cousins in Mississippi. A native of Chicago, Emmett was an outgoing, high spirited,…
We are in Paris in 1899. Take the best actor in the world, in this case a middle-aged woman with a particularly healthy ego that is constantly being stoked. Her last stage role was a critical success but failed to sell tickets. This is a woman who doesn’t hold back – who always speaks her mind. She spends what…
What a phenomenal piece of writing by Andrew Bovell (who wrote the powerful Australian film Lantana, which debuted in 2001). When the Rain Stops Falling is a magnificently rendered, complex work that continually shocks and surprises. Its drip feed narrative comes together to form a most disturbing picture. It is only when the full truth outs that you…
I am faced with a predicament that I can’t say I have confronted too many times after a few decades of reviewing. I have just seen a compelling piece of theatre, which I am about to highly recommend, but I will resist going into detail about the plot. I choose not to do so because of political…
Set in the English coastal town of Margate during the turbulent early 1980s, Empire of Light is a sensitive romantic drama. Hilary (Olivia Colman) is manager of the local cinema, the Empire, situated across from the beach. She gets along well with her fellow workers, who include projectionist Norman (Toby Jones) and the diplomatic Neil…
After retiring from the ring three years ago, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) lives to fight another day in Creed III. The film starts back in the day when 15-year-old Creed (Thaddeus James Mixson Jr) was running around with his best friend, 18-year-old Damian Anderson (Spence Moore II), a boxing prodigy. Then a violent incident…
