The Help (2011)

Historical drama set in Mississippi in 1963. 

Skeeter (Emma Stone), an aspiring author, decides to write a book on African-American maids and the struggles they face on a daily basis.

Directed by Tate Taylor, this film is adapted from the popular 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett. Despite good storytelling and some remarkable performances by Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Viola Davis, it’s sentimental and simplistic. There’s also an unfortunate “white saviour” aspect. Given the importance of the Civil Rights movement, you wish there had been a more nuanced and subtle treatment of the topic.

Hereafter (2010)

Drama directed by Clint Eastwood. 

Matt Damon stars as George Lonegan, a psychic who has chosen to no longer give readings. But then he’s brought into contact with a French journalist (Cécile de France) and a London schoolboy (played by the twins Frankie and George McLaren), both of whom have had close brushes with death. 

It’s an extremely unusual film that’s in no way typical of Clint Eastwood’s usual themes or narrative style. The three threads take a long time to join up. For most of the time we follow their stories in parallel, wondering how they can possibly come together. It’s oddly lit, too. Some of that is down to the poor English weather, but even the sections in San Francisco seem strangely washed out. It’s not clear if this was an aesthetic choice or some kind of technical failing.

Bryce Dallas Howard appears as a possible love interest for Matt Damon, while Derek Jacobi has a surprise cameo as himself doing a reading at the London Book Fair in Alexandra Palace. 

It’s strange and quirky, with neat details. Matt Damon is a Charles Dickens fan. Best of all, it doesn’t try to explain or glorify the supernatural gift. Instead, it’s a fact of life that Lonegan feels burdened by. And that makes it all so much more believable.

Pete’s Dragon (2016)

I loved this Disney film when I saw it at the cinema and I loved it just as much two years later on a £1 charity-shop DVD. Pete, aged four, is orphaned when his parents crash their car on a remote forest road. He meets a green (sometimes invisible) dragon, who he befriends and lives with for six years before they are discovered by the outside world and everything changes... Not very promising on paper, but this simple film is surprisingly powerful and emotional. Robert Redford is endearing as the wise old man who believes in magic. His park ranger daughter (Bryce Dallas Howard) is convincingly sensitive as Pete’s new “mother”. Pete himself is played by Oakes Fegley, who delivers one of the strongest child-actor performances I’ve ever seen. There’s an ecology message (deforestation is not good) and the CGI effects are so sophisticated that you never once doubt what you are seeing. The soundtrack is brilliantly unDisney, with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, St. Vincent and Leonard Cohen all suiting the tender tone of the film perfectly. It’s difficult to say why this simple story of love and friendship ends up being so moving, but both times I have watched it I have been left feeling profoundly touched.