fbpx

May December – movie review

May December is a richly layered, melodramatic but deliberately ambiguous character study from director Todd Haynes (Carol). The film was inspired by the real-life case of Mary Kay Letourneau, a 34-year-old schoolteacher who was convicted of abusing her 13-year-old student. After completing her jail sentence for statutory rape, she married her teenage victim and started…

Read More

Spirit Untamed – movie review

Directors Elaine Bogan and Ennio Torresan deliver a charming and colourful animation in DreamWorks’ Spirit Untamed. The story concerns a feisty 13-year-old girl and a wild horse. The youngster is Lucky Prescott (the voice of Isabela Merced), who is being brought up by her aunt Cora (Julianne Moore), in a prim and proper household, governed…

Read More

After the Wedding – movie review

American remakes of European movies perhaps don’t have the best track record. But Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding – a re-working of Susanne Bier’s 2006 Danish film of the same title* – mostly succeeds thanks to some clever writing, sharp direction and fine acting. The action is transplanted from Copenhagen to New York; but the…

Read More

Gloria Bell – movie review

Gloria Bell is a deliberately awkward film about the difficulties of making your way in the world. Especially if you’re a divorced middle-aged woman yearning for something more. Julianne Moore embraces the title role in yet another stellar performance. She finds Gloria’s vulnerability and, conversely, her strength and resilience. Gloria is a free-spirited divorcée who…

Read More

Suburbicon – movie review

Ambition and success sometimes don’t go hand-in-hand. With a heavyweight pedigree and intellectual heft, George Clooney’s latest, Suburbicon, should (by rights) be up there with his best. Yet this undoubtedly ambitious but deeply flawed film dallies with greatness without ever fully achieving it. With the backing of the Coen brothers and Clooney’s go-to collaborator George…

Read More