Noni Hazlehurst delivers an inspired performance in the slice of life piece Mother. Homeless and shoeless, she plays the character Christie. Christie married Lenny (who we don’t meet) because both were lonely. They had a baby, but Lenny is critical of Christie because she drinks – a lot and frequently. Christie channels their conversations. There…
We seem to have been getting more European – specifically French – films in Australian cinemas recently. That might be a hangover from Hollywood’s troubles over the past year or two, but it provides an opportunity for more diverse offerings. And few films could be further from a Hollywood blockbuster than Catherine Breillat’s enigmatic Last…
Thomas Bidegain’s tension-filled thriller Suddenly involves a couple marooned on a remote Antarctic island. Their hopes of survival diminish as days turn to weeks and months. Ben (Gilles Lellouche) and Laura (Melanie Thiery) have been together for five years as they embark on a global sailing voyage. Their next populated port of call is a…
Revenge is at the heart of the dark fantasy romance, The Crow. This is a remake of Australian Alex Proyas’ 1994 film of the same name. Both movies are based on the comic book series by James O’Barr. This time, Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) is in the director’s chair. Eric (Bill Skarsgård)…
Of all movie sub-genres, the music biopic seems particularly resistant to change. With perhaps a couple of exceptions, they all follow the same basic structure – humble beginnings, meteoric rise, success and inevitable decline (often with a dose of 12-step redemption). Midas Man – Joe Stephenson’s portrait of The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein – is…
Sensitive and affecting, Touch is a love story that spans the ages. The central characters meet at a Japanese restaurant in the UK. On principle, young Icelander Kristofer (Palmi Kormakur) gives up his place at the prestigious London School of Economics to work as a dishwasher at the busy eatery. He meets the restaurant owner’s…
Inspired by real life events, Take My Hand is a heart-wrenching love story that spans decades. Laura (Meg Fraser) is still a schoolgirl – whose father teaches history – when she meets and falls for Michael (Xavier Molyneux), the football-playing son of a Greek greengrocer. She loves riding horses on the family’s country property, but…
There is one way to compromise a dramatic tale of obsession gone horribly askew that features impressive staging. Get the sound mix wrong. Unfortunately, that was the case at the premiere of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The music totally overwhelmed the opening number and did so again during parts of Act II. So much so that…
Writer and director JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels) crafts a tightly wound, stylish, horror-thriller with Strange Darling. Shot entirely on 35 mm, it’s one of the most compelling movies I’ve seen in a long time. It concerns a serial killer with a kink who operated in the US between 2018 and 2020. More specifically, it…
An esoteric work for selective tastes, as far as I could make out An Organised Odyssey is about finding one’s true voice. According to Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary, man-eating monster. She lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, sea-swallowing monster Charybdis. Ancient Greek poet Homer described Scylla…
