12 Years a Slave (2013)

Harrowing biographical drama directed by Steve McQueen and based on the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Northup, delivering a remarkably potent and sensitive performance as a man trying to retain his dignity and composure as he is systematically put through hell.

Kidnapped in Washington DC and sold into slavery, Northup is transferred between cruel owners. We see him treated in an especially barbaric manner by sadistic plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

It’s difficult to endure in places – especially when Northup is forced into acts of cruelty against his fellow slaves – but Ejiofor is so compelling that you keep watching anyway.

Looper (2012)

Sci-fi mind-scrambler that involves time travel and telekinesis. Retired assassin Joe (Bruce Willis) is sent back from 2074 to 2044 to be killed by his younger self (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). But of course things don’t go to plan. 

It’s an intriguing premise but the first half of the film gets a little bogged down in explaining the complicated "rules". It improves in the second half, when farm woman Sara (Emily Blunt) appears as the love interest for the younger of the two Joes. She is also the mother of a boy who will grown up to be an evil future ganglord if the course of events is not disrupted. 

It’s best if you don’t ask too many questions about the time travel aspects of the story. There are some exciting moments, but the film didn’t make me care about any of the characters. It was difficult to believe that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would ever become Bruce Willis, so different were the two actors in terms of charisma. Gordon-Levitt seems to have barely any character at all. I'm no fan of Willis, but he does at least bring a basic presence to his scenes.

On the plus side, it’s not every day that you hear Richard and Linda Thompson’s "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" on a soundtrack.

Youth (2015)

Paolo Sorrentino drama set at a luxury spa hotel in Wiesen in the Swiss Alps, where wealthy and famous people rest, relax and pass the time doing as little as possible. 

What “plot” there is focuses on the interconnected stories of several characters, but primarily on a retired composer (Michael Caine) and his film director friend of 60 years (Harvey Keitel), who is attempting to write a final masterpiece. Rachel Weisz is the composer’s daughter and assistant, while Jane Fonda plays an elderly actress and Paul Dano is an actor only known for a novelty role as a robot. 

The film is a sort of meditation on growing old and what that process does to relationships of various sorts. Fittingly, the pace is glacially slow and that aspect means it certainly isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. Likewise, the fairly bleak outlook has little good news to offer about reaching the age of 80. The ugly aesthetic doesn’t help much, either.

There are surreal, whimsical moments and flashes of humour. When Rachel Weisz’s husband leaves her for singer Paloma Faith (played by herself), we see the latter in a pop video sequence that turns out to be a dream. Another scene depicts a vision in which Harvey Keitel sees all the actresses he’s ever worked with, standing in a field.

As the film progresses, at its own particular rate, the threads begin to knit together and greater depths are revealed. “Emotions are all we’ve got,” says Keitel at one point.

Impressive, but difficult to love.