It’s brilliantly acted but poorly filmed. The overuse of shadows and light by director Joe Wright in pretty much every scene becomes wearing, and quickly feels clichéd, as does the naff music. In fact it’s quite “flat” all round.
Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James are strong in supporting roles as Churchill's wife and secretary respectively. Oldman is superb and the film is worth seeing (once) if only for him.
Frances McDormand portrays Mildred Hayes, a grieving woman drawn to increasingly extreme behaviour by her sense of loss and frustration because she feels the police gave up trying to solve the case of her daughter’s rape and murder.
Given the subject matter, it’s remarkable how funny this film is – a dark, deadpan wit that’s full of empathy for a cast of strange and desperate individuals. Gritty and unsentimental, it refuses to offer a single ray of hope.
Three siblings (Pio Marmaï, Ana Girardot and François Civil) inherit a French vineyard after their father dies. They have to decide whether to sell the land or continue to work on it, making a go of the business despite their other commitments.
It’s a fairly straightforward story, focusing on the characters and their feelings. I found it highly engrossing as the characters had real depth. And unlike other “idyllic vineyard” films such as A Good Year, it doesn’t sentimentalise a region or a way of life.
Saoirse Ronan plays Christine, a.k.a. Lady Bird, who has a complicated relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf) and indeed with herself. It’s beautifully observed, with moments of comedy and pathos. I was reminded of Woody Allen at his best.
Beanie Feldstein is especially likeable as Lady Bird’s best friend Julie.
The mother/daughter topic somehow recalls the Susan Sarandon/Natalie Portman pair-up in Anywhere but Here (1999), although this is a more nuanced and subtle treatment of that subject matter.
The small cast's remarkable performances highlight the horrors of a broken family and the damage it can inflict on the kids.
It tells that political story as well as the tale of a young couple separated along social and religious lines.
Hugh Bonneville stars as the final Viceroy of India, Lord Dickie Mountbatten, and Gillian Anderson is excellent as his wife.
Overall, the film disappoints. Somehow it fails to bring all of this to life. The script never sparkles and the overuse of archive footage (or at least mocked-up archive footage) has the effect of distancing you from the action. Also, it’s never clear whether the British actors are being formal and stuffy on purpose or whether they simply don’t have particularly well-written parts.
A surgeon (Idris Elba) and Guardian journalist (Kate Winslet) survive a plane crash in the High Uintas Wilderness and attempt to walk to safety. The pair are very different to each other but the intensity of the experience brings them together.
It’s engaging and heartwarming, if a bit idealised.
I liked the simplicity: just two people and a dog trying to stay alive in a vast, desolate space.
It’s tightly plotted and excellently acted. Weisz judges her role perfectly, seeming to be simultaneously sinister and completely proper in everything she says and does.
Disaster film.
The world has been saved from environmental disaster by a hi-tech space station (the actual science isn’t explained), but when it malfunctions extreme weather takes a deadly hit on Earth. It turns out that the tech has been sabotaged – with suspicion going all the way up to the US President – and it takes the station’s creator Jake (Gerard Butler) to save the world from total climate meltdown.
The film is utterly ludicrous but quite entertaining if you don’t ask any questions. Jim Sturgess is laughable as Jake’s sweaty, anxious brother Max, who has family “issues” (and looks a bit like Chris de Burgh). Abbie Cornish plays his tough, secret-service girlfriend. Alexandra Maria Lara is the sensitive and appealing space station commander who becomes Jake’s love interest. Ed Harris is the U.S. Secretary of State serving the president, who is played by Andy Garcia.
The script is wooden and the plotting is entirely predictable. But the CGI scenes of extreme weather are exciting and the action rattles along so quickly that you don’t have time to assess whether any of it makes sense.
It’s a powerful and moving story – especially given that it’s based on real events. Chastain is superb, as is Daniel Brühl as Lutz Heck, Hitler's chief zoologist, who develops an uneasy connection with Antonina.
It’s unbearably tense in places and harrowing in others.
The leads are all superb and the world of 1973 is convincingly evoked. With the focus on personal matters and the politics of the game, there’s surprisingly little actual tennis until the last quarter of the film. But when you do get to see the pivotal game, it’s dramatic and excitingly shot.
I was slightly disappointed to learn afterwards that the role of Marilyn was changed from secretary (real life) to hairdresser (the film). Surely the truth is interesting enough that a biopic should reflect it rather than mess with the facts.
The songs are strong and it’s visually remarkable. Plus, Hugh Jackman is likeable in the central role – even if his character is given an almost Jesus-like level of idealisation. Michelle Williams is less impressive as his wife, mainly because she isn’t fleshed out as a character. You could argue that it’s emotionally shallow, but penetrating psychological drama is not what this film is about. Instead, it’s a big, loud, fast-moving in-your-face spectacle.
Their romance is shown in flashback during Gloria’s final days after she comes to stay with her young lover’s mother (Julie Walters) and his family while dying of stomach cancer.
It’s a poignant love story that examines youth, age, celebrity, sexuality and other themes with a lightness of touch.
It’s shot in a deliberately dream-like way, with the Hollywood sunshine deliberately contrasting with the “grim oop north” English light.
A crew of six aboard the International Space Station intercept samples from Mars that turn out to contain a deadly organism. This life form quickly grows in size and power, endangering the crew, the mission and possibly humanity itself.
Life was criticised for being reminiscent of Alien and Gravity and it’s true that there are similarities with both of those classics. However, what it does it does extremely well: it’s suspenseful and even has a hint of the blackest humour – especially in the bitter twist of the ending.
The six characters are well drawn and Rebecca Ferguson is especially convincing as Dr. Miranda North. The only thing that pulled me out of the film was that Jake Gyllenhaal plays a character who is too “weird” and “troubled” to fit the easygoing well-balanced profile of an astronaut. He would never have passed the psychometric tests for selection.
The music, by Jon Ekstrand, is terrific and does a lot to build the mood.
It tells the story of how the Washington Post acquired and published the Pentagon Papers, which incriminated the US government in their handling of the Vietnam War. Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, who owns the newspaper. Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee, its editor.
Hanks is terrific, giving one of his most convincing performances. I really believed in his character, rather than merely thinking “there goes Tom Hanks again” (as is usually the case). Streep was less impressive, perhaps because there’s too much of Graham being weakly indecisive in the first half before she suddenly finds her mojo and seems to become a different character in the second. In reality, it surely can’t have been that straightforward or simplistic. Likewise, the connection to Watergate at the very end seems abruptly and conveniently bolted on, while other threads are left dangling. What happened to Daniel Ellsberg (played by Matthew Rhys), who first leaked the papers? And what happened to Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), the Secretary of Defense, who was friends with Graham at the time of the leak?
The Post is interesting because of the historical moments it alludes to, but it’s difficult to accept it as an accurate account of events. And there’s something mannered and stilted about the way it’s filmed that prevents it ever becoming truly engrossing.
