In JJ Winlove’s debut feature, June Again, a go-getting woman is gone. In her place is an empty shell. June Wilton (Noni Hazlehurst) has vascular dementia. She’s being well looked after in an appropriate facility, where the staff is kind and understanding. Her condition means she has visions of the past as if they were…
In Harry Macqueen’s Supernova, Sam (Colin Firth) is a classical pianist, and his partner Tusker (Stanley Tucci) is a writer. Now middle-aged, the couple have been together for decades. They know how to press each other’s buttons, but are still very much in love. One day they decide to dust off the old camper van…
The Father showcases the horrors of dementia with standout performances by its lead actors. First-time director Florian Zeller adapts his own stage play with limited settings and cast, but powerfully wrenches at the heart with the psychological turmoil felt by the eponymous character Anthony. Anthony, played by his namesake Anthony Hopkins, has lived in his…
In 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars, two teenage cancer patients fell in love. Five Feet Apart focuses on the challenges faced by two besotted teens with cystic fibrosis. They’re forbidden from touching one another … and definitely can’t kiss. Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen) and Cole Sprouse (Riverdale) bring to life Stella…
Andrew Garfield’s representation of a severely disabled polio victim in Breathe reminded me of Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Stephen Hawking in 2014’s The Theory of Everything. Andy Serkis’s directorial debut tells the true story of Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) and his wife Diana (Claire Foy), starting in 1957. This is a couple that refuses to give…
Director Paul Cox (My First Wife, Human Touch, Innocence) had a second chance at life when he received a liver transplant on Christmas Day 2009. The experience profoundly affected him and Force of Destiny, the first film in the new phase of his life, is in many ways an outpouring of his renewed love for…
