Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Fascinating comedy-drama written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. 

It’s 1969 in Los Angeles. Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an actor famous for his role in a 1950s TV western. His best friend is his stunt double and personal assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Times are changing and the pair are struggling to stay relevant in the film industry. Their next-door neighbours are actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her director husband Roman Polanski. Also on the fringes of the scene is a young Charles Manson…

The film cleverly weaves together fact and fiction across multiple narratives, playing on what we know – or think we know – about the mythology of the Manson murders. It’s a kind of alternative history that finds humour and tragedy in the events, but not in the way that you might expect.

It’s visually rich and full of the iconography of the time, with Tarantino really relishing the period detail. Highly watchable stuff.

Dark Waters (2019)

Based on actual events, this is a brilliant environmental/legal thriller directed by Todd Haynes. It falls into the same loose sub-genre as Erin Brockovich. 

Mark Ruffalo plays Robert Bilott, who tried to sue the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont for their contamination of a small town in West Virginia. 

Anne Hathaway portrays his wife, Sarah, and Tim Robbins plays his boss Tom. Ruffalo is extremely convincing and hugely sympathetic in the main role. You really feel every emotion he expresses.

Knives Out (2019)

Directed by Rian Johnson, this is a brilliant parody of a classic Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. 

Daniel Craig stars as the detective Benoit Blanc, who is hired to investigate the suspicious death of a hugely successful crime novelist named Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). All of Harlan’s family stand to gain from his will, and all of them have a motive for killing him. So who actually committed the murder?

Craig’s “deep south” accent takes some getting used to, but he’s compelling in the role nevertheless. Ana de Armas is perfect as Marta Cabrera, Harlan’s kindhearted nurse who becomes inextricably mixed up in the events and who – in a surreal twist – cannot tell a lie without vomiting.

It works because alongside the mystery needing to be unravelled there’s also an intriguing portrait of a dysfunctional family. And in a surprisingly old-fashioned way, the film seems to offer a simple moral about kindness.

A sequel followed in 2022.

The Favourite (2019)

Costumer with a refreshing lack of that genre's conventions.

It's 1711 and England is at war with France, but Queen Anne of England (Olivia Colman) is unwell and depressed, comforted by 17 rabbits that act as a replacement for the children she lost. Her aide and secret lover Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) tries to influence her and – by extension – run the country. But this uneasy balance is upset when Sarah's younger cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, and begins her own intense relationship with the queen... 

Director Yorgos Lanthimos takes this volatile situation and mines it for maximum drama and the blackest comedy. It's both horrifying and very funny. Shots are framed from odd angles, so that even someone walking down a corridor carries a sense of menace. There's also a highly effective soundtrack that uses elements of drones and ambient noise to build atmosphere – sometimes disturbingly so.

The acting from all three leads is first-rate, with Colman, Weisz and Stone delivering performances of a lifetime. You can totally believe all of them.

It's a sharp, intelligent and innovative film that should be treasured.

Yesterday (2019)

Comedy drama written by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle.

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is a struggling singer who – owing to a mysterious electrical event it’s best not to ask too many questions about – suddenly finds himself in a world in which no one has heard of The Beatles. In fact, it appears that they never existed. He begins performing their songs, is recognised as a genius, and swiftly finds himself on the path to fame and fortune. But there are problems. He’s clearly not cut out for the life of a rock star – especially one whose success is built on a lie. And he also happens to be in love with his friend and former manager Ellie (Lily James).

It’s a sweet and touching story. The songs are wonderful, too, as you’d expect. The joy of the film is that through people’s stunned reactions it feels as if you get to hear The Beatles’ songs for the first time.

Patel and James are extremely endearing. You are rooting for them from the very beginning, able to identify with the pair in every scene.

Ed Sheeran appears as himself and is a feasible enough character in his own right rather than merely a walk-on famous-person role. Kate McKinnon is also fairly strong as Jack's ruthless new manager, who makes no secret of her desire to make a fortune out of the singer.

Fun and rewarding.

Ad Astra (2019)

Brad Pitt stars in an existential sci-fi mind-bender. He’s an astronaut who leaves Earth in search of his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who is fixated on seeking intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But that search has deadly repercussions for Earth and needs to be stopped.

The film asks intelligent questions about what’s important in life. It looks remarkably “realistic”, and there are moments of great beauty – especially around Jupiter. Pitt has never particularly impressed me with his acting, but he’s excellent here. He conveys the desperately lonely experience of being on your own in the vastness of space. 

Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland play supporting roles.

Greed (2019)

Anything directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan is worth watching – see also Twenty-Four Hour Party People, A Cock and Bull Story or The Trip.

Wiki politely calls this “A satire on wealth, centred around a billionaire high-street fashion mogul’s 60th birthday on the Greek island Mykonos.” Others have suggested it is based on the life and career of Philip Green. Arrogant, ruthless and teeth-whitened, Steve Coogan is utterly convincing as the brusque bully in the lead role – Sir Richard “Greedy” McCreadie – as is Isla Fisher as his ex-wife. David Mitchell is perhaps too shy and indecisive as the biographer, although it makes sense that someone more ruthless would be denied access to such a controlling figure. 

There are several interwoven strands:
• The life of the entrepreneur, from school days to the present.
• The build-up and aftermath of his outlandish, stupidly expensive themed party.
• A look at (mostly dysfunctional) personal relationships: father/son, husband/wife, husband/ex-wife, employer/employee.
• A vain daughter attempting to be the star of her own reality-TV show.
• A biographer attempting to research the life of McCreadie.
• A savage satire on wealth and success.
• A searing condemnation of the way the fashion industry is built on a brutally exploited slave underclass.

It does all this and manages to be funny. There’s high drama, too: I certainly didn’t predict the way the party would end...

At the closing credits, the film presents you with some sobering statistics about the pitiful wages people get paid working in sweatshops.

1917 (2019)

A stunning and emotional WWI film directed by Sam Mendes.

Plot: two young British lance corporals (played by George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) are sent on a mission to call off an attack that would see the Germans slaughtering 1,600 men.

The scene in which the pair start off by crossing no-man’s land is especially nail-biting.

The music by Thomas Newman is stirring and often terrifying, heightening the tension at all the right moments.

The way it’s shot is remarkable, too, with highly believable extended takes (such as a long walk through the trenches) and no intrusive stylisation.

It’s extremely gripping, and also very moving. The scene in which MacKay stumbles across a French woman and a baby (not her own) sheltering in an abandoned building will stay with me for a while, as will the image of the German plane being shot down and landing where you least expect it to.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The last of the sequel trilogy had a lot to deliver, resolving not only the new sequence of films but also the entire saga. Did it achieve that? Well, sort of. Mostly.

It offers such a rich visual feast and a fairly full-on narrative. So much happens so quickly and there's a lot to take in. Unlike with Episode VIII, there’s no filler. The characters are stronger – there’s a warm feeling of “the old gang back together” – and the weaker ones from the last film (such as Rose) had been minimised.

Although the overall story worked, the plot was flawed in many ways:
• It's ludicrous to think of Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) having a wife and children, not to mention how he cheated death and came back to life (an increasingly common trick in Star Wars).
• General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) being the spy was too convenient and unlikely. Couldn’t Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) sense who was betraying him? He had pretty much every other power imaginable.
• Fin (John Boyega) suddenly developing Force sensitivity somewhat cheapens that power. Can anyone have it now? Perhaps it was just to give him more of a reason to exist, but I still think his character could have been combined with that of Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac).
• There’s a conspicuous lesbian kiss (seen among the celebrating Resistance fighters) for no apparent reason. This seems like a right-on gesture with no grounding in the plot logic.
• Even given the ending, in which Rey decides to consider Luke and Leia her true parents, the title made little sense.

Those points aside, there was a vast amount to enjoy. Daisy Ridley was compelling as Rey and the complicated love story between her and Kylo Ren makes for a strong central theme.

I was surprised how much Carrie Fisher was in it, given that she died before filming – presumably a “deep fake” scenario rather than a repurposing of unused footage. Wasn’t expecting to see Harrison Ford, either.

It was lovely to see a couple of Ewoks and a relief that there were no Gungans.

There were a few laughs – mainly banter from Poe.

The big “surprise” (unless you’d seen the trailer) return of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian was superfluous, but presumably they felt they needed everyone they could get from the old films.

It goes without saying that the effects were incredible. I loved it when Palp sent force lightning up into space.

All in all, a hugely entertaining romp.