Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

James Cameron’s follow-up to his 1984 classic pulls off the unlikely feat of matching that film. It’s a much higher budget, but the spirit of it is very similar.

John Connor (Edward Furlong), who the original Terminator failed to prevent being born, is now a 10-year-old child. His mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), is confined to a mental institution because no one believed her tales of tech-monsters from the future and impending global meltdown. In the present day of the film, two further Terminators are sent to kill John Connor. In a neat twist, there is a “bad” Terminator (T-1000) played by Robert Patrick and a good one played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (the villain of the first film). In another twist, the T-1000 is way more advanced. He has shape-shifting abilities – a liquid-metal chameleon able to take the form of anyone he wants to impersonate. As if all this wasn’t enough, Sarah and John have to prevent the technological advances that will lead to the future nuclear conflict that Skynet will use to dominate the planet.

It sounds complicated, but the storytelling is lucid and easy to follow. Tonally, it’s all over the place – there’s extreme gun violence but there are also attempts at humour, such as a young boy (who wears a Public Enemy T-shirt throughout) trying to teach a machine to smile. I rather liked that oddness.

Still not sure whether Linda Hamilton can act, but she gets the job done. Arnie is more impressive as a cold machine than he is when he goes for warmth or comedy.

Further films would follow. The third, fourth and fifth episodes were rendered invalid by the sixth, which claimed to be a direct sequel to Terminator 2 and which essentially erased the timelines of the interim sequels. But given the subject matter, you can just about accept all of them as alternative timelines set in motion by different yet related events.

Papillon (1973)

An epic adaptation of Henri Charrière’s autobiographical novel, with Steve McQueen starring as the author and Dustin Hoffman playing his friend and companion.

It’s compelling and fairly downbeat, although it possibly suffers from trying to squeeze a huge book into 150 minutes of screen time. So much happens. Papillon's time in a prison in French Guiana includes two brutal spells in solitary confinement. The first is of two years, and we are shown in detail how devastating that experience is for him. The second spell lasts for five years, and this is not shown at all – a brilliant decision that serves to underscore the unimaginable horror of battling starvation and madness for so long a time. We also see his various incredible escape experiences, which involve lepers, nuns, island tribespeople and a raft made of coconuts.

Given his rivalry with Paul Newman, it’s tempting to see this as McQueen’s attempt to “do a Cool Hand Luke” – a Cooler Hand Luke, perhaps? – and it’s certainly a role with depth to it. The extremes of suffering he is expected to depict make for more of a soul-searching performance than usual. As usual, though, he hardly has any dialogue. It’s rare that you ever see a McQueen character deep in conversation.

Distinctive and memorable, it’s an odd film that stays with you.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The third and final film in the reboot series significantly escalates the drama of the first two (Rise of... and Dawn of...), ramping it up to apocalyptic levels while retaining sharp focus and intelligence.

Apes and humans are now at war, with “Caesar” (Andy Serkis) and his companions being hunted down by army forces to determine the dominant species on Earth. These soldiers are led by Colonel J. Wesley McCullough (Woody Harrelson), a crazed messiah-like figure clearly modelled along the lines of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. (Oddly enough, the film makes that connection explicit with graffiti in a tunnel that reads “Ape-pocalyse now”.) The showdown intensifies when the apes are enslaved and a rival human faction comes to the military facility to attack the Colonel and his men.

It’s an emotional story with a surprisingly satisfying ending. I had no idea how it could be resolved, but director Matt Reeves pulled it off as he did with the previous instalment.

As with the rest of the trilogy, this film asks profound questions about human behaviour. It repeatedly shows the apes as being more compassionate than the destructive humans intent on their self-defeating struggle for power. There’s a disturbing brutality for a “12”-certificate film, made all the more affecting because the CGI apes seem so uncannily real.

At a key moment close to the resolution, Caesar finds himself in a position to obliterate the Colonel but acts more “humanely” than any of the humans. It’s a sobering message for all of us that animals might actually be more sophisticated than we like to believe we are.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Excellent crime drama with a refreshing visual flair.

Steve McQueen is a wealthy Boston playboy who masterminds elaborate bank robberies for his own amusement, rather than because he needs the money. I like the manic laughter he emits on a few occasions. Faye Dunaway plays the independent insurance investigator who knows that he did it but – while attempting to find proof – begins to fall for his charms. It’s a deliberately ambiguous romance. Can they trust each other? Is she just doing her job or is she in love with him? And does he love her in return? We don’t know and it’s unclear whether they do either.

There’s a brilliant scene in which the couple play chess. It works on both a literal and metaphorical level, with each trying to outwit the other. It’s also a sort of seduction, with hands and eyes sublimating sensual presence as the game unfolds.

There’s an unusual, stylish use of split-screen techniques. Sometimes these are used to convey multiple action scenes occurring simultaneously. At other times they are purely a visual effect, used for artistic reasons only.

The music was composed by Michel Legrand and the hit song “The Windmills of Your Mind” – somehow perfect for the film – was recorded by Noel Harrison.

In typical Steve McQueen style, he’s cast in such a way that he’s once again the elegant and effortlessly cool loner. You do wonder how he might have fared in a less flattering role.

A superb remake came out in 1999.

Rebecca (1940)

Stunningly dramatic Alfred Hitchcock drama adapted from the Daphne du Maurier novel.

A young woman (Joan Fontaine) meets a widower (Laurence Olivier) and they marry after a whirlwind romance. But when they return to his mansion in Cornwall, they find that the shadow of his dead wife Rebecca still haunts everyone who came into contact with her. Then there’s the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who has a dangerous obsession, and Rebecca’s lover Favell (George Sanders), intent on seeing her death investigated as a murder.

In typical Hitchcock style, the tension builds to almost unbearable levels. The film is noirish and verges on horror in places. Unusual framing and camera angles help to unnerve and unsettle.

Fontaine is wonderful as the woman trying to come to grips with a new life as a married woman who can never live up to her predecessor. Olivier is intense but could be more so. He doesn’t quite have the presence his reputation would suggest.

It’s perfectly paced and dynamic to the moment of the shocking conclusion.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

A sequel that doesn’t disappoint. Following the events shown in the first film, the Ghostbusters have been sued for property damage, put out of business and forced to work as party entertainers for uninterested children. But then their old friend Dana Barrett sees her baby’s pram being wheeled into traffic by mysterious forces, and at the art gallery where she works a painting comes alive with the spirit of a 16th-century tyrant named Vigo the Carpathian. Meanwhile, a river of pink goo now runs beneath the city. After five years in obscurity, the gang reunite to face this new menace.

It’s slightly less packed with laughs than the 1984 film, but only slightly. The main cast are all superb and the writing by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis is excellent. The snivelling head of the art gallery (Peter MacNicol as Janosz Poha) is too annoying to be pleasurable to watch, but when Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are on screen together everything clicks and comes to life. Rick Moranis and Annie Potts reprise their roles as accountant Louis Tully and secretary Janine Melnitz respectively, but this time they become an item.

There’s a nice theme about the soul of New York City, which has become corrupted but which recovers enough to defeat evil. As with the original film, it’s a feel-good story that’s also intelligent and funny.

Letter to Brezhnev (1985)

Extremely charming comedy-drama about two young women from Kirkby. Elaine (Alexandra Pigg) and Teresa (Margi Clarke) go for a night out in Liverpool in search of love and adventure, and for once actually encounter it in the form of two Russian sailors.

There’s plenty of sharp wit, and tough, fast-talking Clarke is especially funny. There’s also some subtle social commentary: times are hard in Liverpool. Unemployment is high as Thatcher’s influence is increasingly being felt. It’s an unvarnished, unsentimental portrait of a city struggling with poverty.

Like classic kitchen-sink narratives such as Billy Liar and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, it draws on the juxtaposition between humdrum working lives in the town where you grew up and the dreams of moving on to bigger and better things in the world beyond. It’s extremely moving and the closing scenes are unexpectedly satisfying.

Only one complaint: the shot-on-videotape film quality was poor and fuzzy.

Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Directed by Stephen Frears, this is an adaptation of the 1985 play of the 1782 novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos set in pre-Revolution France. Glenn Close and John Malkovich play a pair of scheming socialites who use and abuse human relationships for their own sadistic ends, ultimately destroying the lives of everyone they meddle with.

The all-star cast includes Peter Capaldi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves and Uma Thurman, but for various reasons, the film simply doesn’t work. The entire plot hinges on John Malkovich’a character being so charming and irresistible that Close, Pfeiffer and Thurman all want to throw themselves at him. But instead of charming, he’s quite incredibly creepy – in fact, downright repulsive. He’s supposedly full of passion, but his seductions seem clinical – almost a technical matter he has to apply himself to.

Another problem is that Close and Malkovich are almost cartoonish in their pantomime-villain love of cruelty. Maybe that works in a French novel written hundreds of years ago, but it seems overwrought and silly when brought to the screen in this way.

Malkovich’s character blackmails and manipulates people into sleeping with him in a way that is aggressively predatory. Could it have been made in the “Me Too” era? Certainly, it’s particularly uncomfortable to watch in a post-Weinstein context.

On the plus side, Glenn Close acts well. She’s given little depth (we could have done with some wider context of who she is and how she got there), but she does “evil villain” as well as anyone. Indeed, some of her facial expressions and mannerisms are spot-on for a nasty piece of work barely able to contain her delight at ruining others. But ultimately Dangerous Liaisons feels one-dimensional and oddly uninvolving. Even the victims of the arch-manipulators (such as the wronged lover played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who I generally always like) are difficult to care about.

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Excellent drama starring James Cagney as Eddie Bartlett, a World War I veteran who turns to crime during Prohibition. He’s in love with a young singer who wrote to him during the war (Priscilla Lane) and ends up in business with another ruthless veteran (Humphrey Bogart) he cannot trust. As gang culture escalates, so do Eddie’s problems. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a happy ending.

Cagney is excellent as the gangster who can’t make the girl he loves love him back. Lane is endearing and seems incredibly young as his would-be sweetheart. Gladys George is particularly convincing as Panama Smith, a cabaret club hostess and Eddie’s one true friend. Like her, you end up rooting for Eddie – despite everything – rather than moralising about his life choices.

The film covers a lot of ground, moving from the end of WWI to the early 1930s. Newsreel footage shows the changes in America that directly affect the characters. And while there’s an epic sweep, and plenty happens, it never feels slow or laboured because the pacing is so well judged.

The Go-Between (1971)

Brilliantly evocative and resonant adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Dominic Guard is Leo, the 12-year-old spending the summer of 1990 with the Maudsley family in their large Norfolk country house. He finds himself becoming a go-between for Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie) and Ted Burgess (Alan Bates), the local farmer she’s secretly having an affair with.

Like the book, it focuses on issues of social inequality. Marian’s affair transgresses class boundaries and is therefore taboo. It also probes into sexuality and how naive young Leo’s own consciousness of adult relationships is crippled by the way he is used to facilitate a union he cannot understand.

Julie Christie is excellent as the charming-but-manipulative Marian. Edward Fox is also strong as the posh-but-dull Hugh, unable to compete with the “savagery” of Ted.

The hot summer is expertly conveyed and you can feel the heat building to the inevitable storm that marks the climax. As child actors go, Guard is right up there (he was also in Picnic at Hanging Rock). The music, by Michel Legrand, is perfectly judged – sometimes lovely, often foreboding.

With the vivid way it’s shot and soundtracked, at times it has the feel of a horror film. But the horror turns out to be an emotional one. Rather than manifesting itself in sudden scares, it’s a terror that echoes down through the decades.

Ghostbusters (1984)

This supernatural comedy is close to perfect. There’s so much that’s great about it. The three main characters – Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler – are terrifically well drawn, and Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis play them perfectly. The theme tune by Ray Parker Jr. is memorable and distinctive. The visuals are superb for the time, rendering neon ectoplasmic ghosts that gobble down plates of sausages and “slime” their victims. The run-down “Ecto-1” car (a converted hearse) is iconic. Sigourney Weaver seems effortlessly seductive and sophisticated as Dana Barrett, the woman possessed by an evil spirit and who Venkman falls for. Rick Moranis provides endearing slapstick as a nerdy accountant taken over by a demon. There’s an evident love of New York that permeates almost every frame. It’s a quirky film that’s unlike anything else. And, giving hope to all of us, its heroes are not glamorous or good-looking. They are flawed humans you can laugh with and relate to. A masterpiece.

The Sure Thing (1985)

Sweet teen romance directed by Rob Reiner.

Classmates Walter “Gib” Gibson (John Cusack) and Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) take a road trip from their New England college to Los Angeles. Gib (spontaneous but sloppy) is being fixed up with a “sure thing” – a girl who will definitely sleep with him – while Alison (a super-organised but stuffy academic) is meeting her extremely dull boyfriend. But the trip doesn’t go to plan and inevitably the bickering pair end up falling for each other, despite or because of all their differences.

It’s a fairly dialogue-heavy story, which is to be applauded, with lots of funny moments. Both of the leads are easy to like. It’s much smarter than teen films such as Pretty in Pink or St. Elmo’s Fire, and there’s something genuinely endearing about their stumbling relationship. It works as a road movie, too, although we don’t see enough of America as they cross it.

It’s a nice touch that you see a film poster for Reiner’s own This Is Spinal Tap in someone’s bedroom.

Headhunters (2011)

The highest-grossing Norwegian film ever is a brilliantly tense thriller about a corporate headhunter (Aksel Hennie as Roger Brown) who leads a secret life as an art thief. When Roger meets Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the owner of a Rubens painting worth tens of millions, he decides to steal it – even though Greve is an ex-military specialist in tracking people. The plot quickly escalates via a series of remarkable twists and turns, and Roger’s life spirals out of control.

Sometimes it seems far-fetched, but the storytelling is handled so well done that the narrative totally works. At other times it seems to toy with a strange sense of humour – the blackest imaginable – such as when Roger takes off in a farm vehicle with a dead dog impaled on the front of it, or when he has to bury himself in human sewage to avoid being detected.

The drama is remarkable, but it also manages to be a love story of sorts. And the film cleverly plays with the hero/anti-hero conundrum. You find yourself rooting for Roger, despite everything he’s done.

Visually, it’s a little underwhelming. You wonder what a director such as Denis Villeneuve might have done with the same scenarios, but the thrills are such that it doesn’t matter at all.

I first saw this in the cinema, and a woman next to me was literally squirming in her seat with horror and delight at the unrelenting escape/pursuit scenario. At the end, I asked if she was OK and we laughed about how it was so ridiculously exciting.

Sicario (2015)

Tense drug thriller starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who gets mixed up in a Mexican gang war beyond her comprehension. Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin play the assassin and CIA agent she finds herself working with. In fact, she soon learns that she’s simply being used to grant legal authority to their actions.

It’s brutally violent and makes for uncomfortable watching. The two male leads are convincingly ruthless, but Blunt seems an odd choice and is slightly awkward as tough-but-sensitive Kate Macer – although that awkwardness may well be the point.

Director Denis Villeneuve gives even the grittiest scenes a panoramic lavishness, as he did in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.

You are left despairing at the drug wars – a problem that only seems to escalate over time – and this grim, super-realist film is easier to admire than to enjoy.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Extremely enjoyable and ultimately very moving prison drama starring Paul Newman as the ridiculously charismatic lead. Rarely will you see an actor with such presence on screen.

Locked up for a petty offence, war veteran Lucas “Luke” Jackson joins a road chain gang. He refuses to behave like the other men (including Harry Dean Stanton as Tramp), but slowly earns their respect with his liberated, nonconformist outlook. There’s a painful and emblematic scene in which he boxes against the leader of the men (George Kennedy as “Dragline”) and is repeatedly knocked down. But such is his strength of mind that he gets up again and again. Another remarkable interlude features the prisoners betting on whether Luke can eat 50 eggs in an hour and Luke then carrying out the challenge. It’s surreal and hilarious.

The second half of the film introduces a more serious tone. Luke tries to escape and the prison guards try to break his spirit. The narrative becomes richer and sadder as the essence of his personality – and even his humanity – is steadily eroded.

A remarkable soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin adds further depth to an extremely affecting story.

Grease 2 (1982)

“Grease is still the word,” claims the extremely lame slogan. Couldn’t they have come up with a new one?

Grease 2 is ridiculed as being a turkey, but if you approach it with low expectations and forget about the original masterpiece it’s actually a fairly enjoyable teen musical. It’s now 1961 and Rydell High School is opening for a new term. The T-Birds and the Pink Ladies are still the top gangs of boys and girls within the school caste system, albeit with entirely different members. English newcomer Michael (Maxwell Caulfield) falls for Samantha (Michelle Pfeiffer), but she tells him she’s only interested in cool biker types. To woo her, he then becomes one – keeping his true identity secret – and she doesn’t realise that the greaser hunk she’s attracted to is the same sensitive academic who helped her with her Hamlet essay...

There are lots of things wrong with this film. The chronology feels odd (the term flashes past within 90 minutes) and the script doesn’t sparkle. Musically and lyrically, the songs simply aren’t in the same league as those in the 1978 original and there’s a harshness and lack of warmth about them. One kicks off during a biology lesson, with the whole class singing about reproduction. Another takes place in a nuclear bunker, with the guy urging the girl he’s trying to seduce that they “do it for America”. In fact, there’s a lot about nuclear fears and John F. Kennedy – a political context that was absent but not missed last time around.

A handful of the actors from the first film reprise their roles. Didi Conn returns as Frenchy (but isn’t given a role), Eve Arden is once again Principal McGee, while Sid Caesar is still the sports coach, and so on. But it badly lacks the charisma of a John Travolta or a Stockard Channing. There simply isn’t anyone with real star quality.

For all its faults, there are plenty of plus points. Patricia Birch’s choreography is dynamic, as it was in the first film. The story is possibly more credible because it doesn’t end with a fairground ride taking off into space. There are some laughs. Michelle Pfeiffer is easy to like in the main role, even though she’s clearly no Olivia Newton-John. And trashy teen dramas full of youthful exuberance are always fun if you are in the mood. 

Hideous Kinky (1998)

It’s 1972 and Julia (Kate Winslet) has gone to live in Morocco with her two young children. She leaves behind her old relationship and hopes to “discover herself”. She becomes involved with a kindly drifter named Bilal (Saïd Taghmaoui), who turns out to be more complicated than he seems.

Winslet is strong as the endearingly naive and earnestly questing young mother. Bella Riza and Carrie Mullan are excellent as the precocious children able to cut through their mother’s hippy-dippy aspirations and speak the truth. They are among the most impressive child actors I’ve seen.

It’s a plot that seems to unfold sideways in almost unrelated episodes, so you can never guess what will happen next. Adapted from Esther Freud’s novel, itself autobiographical, it benefits from seeming “real” because the events it depicts actually took place.

There’s an excellent soundtrack – Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Nick Drake, Incredible String Band – that brings 1972 alive. The colours are rich and vital, making it even more pleasurable to watch.

The Reader (2008)

Intriguing and moving drama. In Berlin in 1958, 15-year-old Michael (David Kross) begins a brief, passionate love affair with 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna (Kate Winslet) that will come to haunt his entire life. Fast-forwarding to 1966, Michael is now a law student who gets to observe a trial of female SS guards who allowed 300 Jewish women to burn to death while locked in a church. He is horrified to see that Hanna is one of the accused women.

The film asks questions about morality and identity. One of the law students suggests that everyone in Germany is complicit in these crimes, and not just those in the court, but The Reader doesn’t try to offer any simplistic answers.

With his usual skill and elegance, Ralph Fiennes plays the older Michael. Bruno Ganz (who was Hitler in Downfall) plays a Holocaust survivor who teaches law), while Alexandra Maria Lara (Hitler's secretary in Downfall) gives evidence in court.

Directed by Stephen Daldry and written by David Hare, it’s a hugely powerful story that gains gravitas as it speeds through the decades towards the present.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Trashy, unrewarding hybrid of two sci-fi/horror franchises. The Wiki one-liner reads: ”scientists are caught in the crossfire of an ancient battle between Aliens and Predators as they attempt to escape a bygone pyramid”, and that’s pretty much all there is to it. There’s a lot of monster action, but very little suspense.

It’s let down by a terribly lazy script. Characters waste valuable moments stopping what they are doing in order to tell the aliens things like “Die, you ugly son of a bitch!” before firing at them.

It also suffers from an often nonsensical plot:
1. Why do the predators need to turn invisible when they are already deadly assassins? And if they are such high-tech beings, why is their invisibility only partial?
2. The motive of Weyland (Lance Henriksen) is never really explained. Did he just want to discover something “important” before he died? I was expecting a far more sinister motive involving world domination, but he turns out to be a disappointingly ordinary billionaire.
3. The Italian archaeologist (Raoul Bova) is able to glance at alien artefacts once and suddenly know all there is to know about them – leading to some unintentionally funny, laugh-out-loud moments.
4. The Scottish chemical engineer (Ewen Bremner) never stops going on about his kids, leading you to think he has to survive to be reunited with them – but he doesn’t and isn’t.
5. The heroine (Sanaa Lathan) is somehow able to make friends with a dreadlocked predator, even though they use humans for sacrificial purposes.
6. They are meant to be in Antarctica, but the humans can wander around without coats.

On the plus side, I did like the sliding, interlocking jigsaw pieces of the pyramid, which rearrange themselves every 10 minutes. This idea – a neat one – may have been “borrowed” for The Maze Runner (2014).

The aliens – gooey and nasty – are probably the best thing about the film, but the colour scheme, in which aliens, predators and the pyramid itself are all the same grey-black, makes everything less interesting to look at.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A sequel to the 1982 masterpiece, set 30 years later. Ryan Gosling plays K, the replicant seeking answers about his origins. It transpires that in one unprecedented instance, a replicant gave birth. That replicant was Rachael from the first film. K’s discovery of this knowledge begins a quest that ultimately leads him to Deckard (Harrison Ford), who he believes to be his father. But the sinister Wallace Corporation also wants to understand replicant breeding for its own ends.

It's visually stunning – possibly even more so than the original – and asks similarly deep philosophical questions about life, identity and memory. For a few reasons, though, Denis Villeneuve's film does not satisfy in the way that Ridley Scott’s does. Firstly, it’s simply too long (163 minutes). Some of the scenes are ponderous and slow. You can sit back to admire the expansive, luxurious quality or you can become infuriated with the glacial pace. The villains (Sylvia Hoeks and Jared Leto) didn’t quite convince. And too much of the film was given over to Gosling’s time with his synthetic “hologram” girlfriend (Ana de Armas). I liked her as a character, but – other than filling in details of how relationships and technology work in 2049 – this plot didn’t really lead anywhere. 

Harrison Ford’s appearance was surprisingly successful. I had feared it would be a tokenistic attempt to drag the star of the original back on screen for the sake of “sequel credibility”, but they wisely built the plot around him – even though he’s barely in it. And unlike in Star Wars Episode VII, where he’s depicted as the same Han Solo except older, with no character development at all, here he seems wiser and not in any way ridiculous.

I’d like to see it again, and on a big screen. With the plot twists now fully understood, I think I could get more out of it on second viewing.

Jaws (1975)

I’ve seen this gem several times now and never tire of it. Steven Spielberg lost his way in later years, but with this film and Duel (1971) he could do no wrong.

There is no way that Jaws deserves its “12” certificate. In the first scene alone you see drug-taking and nudity. Then there’s a fair bit of “threat”, dismemberment, gore and all-out horror.

It’s full of great little details: Roy Scheider’s son copying his gestures at the meal table; that ultra-dramatic on-the-beach shot that zooms in and pans out at the same time; the iconic “shark approaching” music by John Williams; Quint’s war story; “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”; and the grisly fingers-down-the-blackboard moment at the town meeting.

It really kicks off when the three men go to sea to hunt the killer great white. There’s a macho issue going on between the guys, as well as a theme of class: tough-talking fisherman Robert Shaw is less than impressed with college-educated oceanographer Richard Dreyfuss. As the police chief, Roy Scheider somehow strikes a balance between them. Each man’s character is extremely well drawn. Also excellent is Murray Hamilton as the town mayor who prioritses Amity’s lucrative 4th July celebrations over beach safety.

The shark looks incredibly realistic. So convincingly did the film make these creatures look evil that a great disservice was done to the way they are perceived and their subsequent ecological protection.

My only other real criticism is the intrusively jaunty music used in some of the action sequences. In typical Spielberg style, on a couple of occasions he over-eggs the “adventure” aspect and makes the drama seem silly. But the damage is minimal here compared to in his later films.

Those points aside, it’s a masterful study in suspense.

Billy Liar (1963)

The hilarious yet heartbreaking story of a young man who lives in his imagination to escape the pressures and tedium of his daily existence. Billy Fisher simply isn’t ready for the sensible, grown-up world that surrounds him. Caught up in a web of his own fabricated stories, he has promised to marry three different girls and has managed to “lose” the calendars he was meant to post out for his undertaker employer.

It’s an unbeatable character study and Tom Courtenay is spellbinding in the main role. Julie Christie is wonderful as Liz, the most free-spirited and modern of his three sweethearts. Leonard Rossiter and Rodney Bewes are excellent as his bods (Mr. Shadrack) and friend/colleague (Arthur Crabtree) respectively. I usually dislike fantasy scenes in films (they ruined 9 to 5, for example), but here they are integral and work especially well. Billy machine-gunning the people who enrage him is an extremely vivid depiction of his inner world. There’s so much humour and intelligence in the script (adapted by Keith Waterhouse from his own novel), and real poignancy builds as the single-day plot unravels. A masterpiece, pretty much. Watching this again after seeing Cemetery Junction, I realise just how much that film borrows from this one.

Firewall (2006)

Reasonably entertaining but unexceptional thriller starring Harrison Ford as bank IT security expert Jack Stanfield, who is kidnapped by a criminal gang led by Paul Bettany. The family are taken hostage and Stanfield is asked to hack into his own IT system to transfer $100 million.

The two leads are fairly strong and clichés are mostly avoided, but the film doesn’t quite come alive until the action finally kicks off. The wife (Virginia Madsen) and children are underdeveloped as characters, making their predicament less troubling than it should be. You struggle to believe they are real people in real peril. Likewise, the techie henchmen seem one-dimensional. You know they won’t last long, and they don’t. Far more enthralling is the loyal secretary, played by Mary Lynn Rajskub, whose facial expressions communicate so much. Harrison Ford is reliably watchable and does everything he can with the material, but even he can’t make wandering around an office or a server room seem interesting.

The title seems to have been chosen because, circa 2006, it still had a faint whiff of futuristic glamour about it. In 2020, it’s as quaint as calling the film Download or Software Update.

Non-Stop (2014)

Highly enjoyable thriller about a Federal Air Marshal (played by Liam Neeson) who finds himself on a flight with a hidden killer who threatens to murder a passenger every 20 minutes. But in an exciting twist, the killer manages to frame the Air Marshal so that it is he who is suspected of being the terrorist.

Neeson is easy to like as the heavy-drinking, down-on-his-luck Bill Marks. Julianne Moore, always worthwhile, is also appealing as the woman he sits next to and finds an unexpected connection with.

The action scenes are superbly handled by director Jaume Collet-Serra – fluid and real-looking, but with a bright, clean hyper-reality about them. I also like the way the phone texts are displayed on screen as words floating in the air. It’s imaginative and a lot more interesting and convenient than repeatedly showing close-ups of a mobile phone screen.

It’s not perfect. The criminal rationale, when explained, seems far-fetched. The title is generic and could apply to any thriller. And Neeson being chummy with the little girl veers on sentimental tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché. But there’s still easily enough excitement and drama to keep you hooked to the end.

Swallows & Amazons (1974)

Enchanting adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic novel about four young siblings from the Walker family on holiday in the Lake District. They sail a small boat to an island to camp out and seek adventure. They encounter two girls (the Blackett sisters) doing much the same and – after some initial friction – they team up. Remarkably, their mother doesn’t seem the slightest bit worried about them disappearing for days at a time, entirely out of contact and in various dangerous situations (deep water, cliff edges, talking to strange adults, and so on), but then it is presented from the childrens’ point of view (allowing safety concerns to be ignored). Plus, kids were tougher in those days. They never argue among themselves and they never come to any harm, but they do have a lot of fun.

It’s an innocent story from a more innocent time – jolly japes for posh people with fathers in the navy and an early induction into sailing techniques. The story does develop to an exciting climax involving petty theft, but mostly it’s just about the children playing – and that’s enough. It’s so sweet and endearing that it doesn’t require any further drama. The 2016 remake, while also entertaining, felt the need to introduce an unnecessary plot about a secret agent.

All four child actors are excellent. Not sure what happened to the other three, but in a fairly extreme shift of roles Suzanna Hamilton went on to play Julia in 1984.

Batman: The Movie (1966)

Wonderfully absurd film-length version of the popular TV series, featuring all of the main characters from that timeless show. You get to see the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and the Joker (Cesar Romero) all working together on an evil plan involving dehydrating members of the United World Organization’s Security Council to a test tube’s worth of dust. Catwoman is also involved, this time played by Lee Meriwether (rather than Julie Newmar or Eartha Kitt from the television version). It’s a pleasure to see her pretending to be Soviet journalist Kitayna Ireyna Tatanya Kerenska Alisoff in order to woo the unsuspecting Bruce Wayne.

As with the TV programme, it’s visually colourful to an extraordinary level, with bright greens and purples bringing out a psychedelic feel. It’s playful and inventive, too, with camera angles as crooked as the crooks themselves used whenever the villains are on screen.

The humour emerges from how seriously Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) take themselves and their crime-fighting. They are stiff, moralistic “straights” in direct contrast to the loose, thrill-seeking baddies.

Stand-out moments include Batman trying to dispose of a bomb as the fuse burns down (wherever he turns, there’s a nun or a baby or a young couple or a family of ducks in his way) and Batman trying to fend off a shark that bites his legs as he dangles in the sea from the Batcopter. (He only survives because Robin climbs down the ladder and passes him a can of shark-repellent spray.)

The frivolous wit is refreshing. When Batman was reinvented in 1989 as a “moody”, troubled character in line with the “darker” comic origins, it all seemed tiresomely po-faced.

Memento (2000)

Director Christopher Nolan likes to do tricky things with time and narrative, but often risks losing narrative cohesion in the process (see also Inception and Dunkirk). Memento is probably his best film and it’s even more tricksy than usual.

Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is an insurance investigator who suffers from anterograde amnesia – that is, he has no short-term memory. It was lost in an attack that, he believes, also saw his wife raped and murdered. Despite his memory disorder, Shelby seeks to investigate the incident and take vengeance. In order to remember what he learns each day, he writes things down on polaroids and scraps of paper – and even tattoos messages onto his own body – before he can forget it all again. (As someone with a bad memory who obsessively documents things to compensate, I could relate to this a little too well.)

To make this plot even more unusual, the film’s scenes are shown in reverse. Following each episode, we see the episode that preceded it, and so on. Meanwhile, intercut black and white scenes run in standard chronology.

This could have been a horrible confusing mess from the outset, but Nolan handles it skilfully enough that it works as a detective thriller. It is a mind-bender, though, and you may feel yourself getting lost as the plots progress and eventually converge. I think that’s partly intentional, in order that we feel some of the confusion that plagues the protagonist.

Guy Pearce is superb in the main role. You never doubt his condition, even you do wonder how he remembers – every time he awakes – that he’s supposed to be seeking a killer.

Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano are suitably ambiguous in the supporting roles. The film encourages us to distrust them, but then it suggests we should distrust everything and everyone we think we know. The storytelling itself is deliberately unreliable, and urges us to question what we believe to be the “objective” and “subjective” truths that supposedly make up the reality of our lives.

Father (Apa) (1966)

A poignant Hungarian drama directed by István Szabó. Takó (Daniel Erdely) lost his father (Miklos Gabor) in World War II and – with only three memories of him – invents a fantasy figure of who his father might have been. We see these heroic childhood fantasies played out in suitably childish, boys’-own action sequences that are contrasted with the reality of the child’s actual life. His idealised dream sequences – a source of comfort and a way of coping with bereavement – play out against the real-world political changes occurring in Hungary after the war.

The second half of the film shows an older version of Takó (now played by András Bálint) as a student in 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Uprising, still trying to come to terms with who his father was and trying to figure out why this question has been so central to his life.

It’s a terribly sad film that’s not without moments of gentle comedy. The childhood part of the story is more effective and engaging than the grown-up section of the narrative, but both parts work well. The film would be better appreciated with a deeper understanding of Hungarian history than I was able to bring to it.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

A big Hollywood blockbuster disaster film about a fire breaking out in a state-of-the-art skyscraper. Paul Newman (the architect) and Steve McQueen (the chief fireman) lead an all-star cast that includes Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner.

At 165 minutes it’s long indeed, but surprisingly it doesn’t feel slow or laboured. I last saw it as a child and I enjoyed it then, which wouldn’t have been the case if it was a stodgy, ponderous epic.

In places it’s trashy, and there were a few unintentionally funny moments. But there was also real drama and tension. At times it was truly horrifying – such as when Jennifer Jones falls out of the exterior lift and then bounces off the sides on the building on her way down.

The cast is strong. Paul Newman makes for a very likeable hero and manages to rise above the material he’s given. Faye Dunaway does the same, with a cool, restrained intelligence. Richard Chamberlain is just right as the edgy, selfish electrical engineer and son-in-law of the builder. You know it’s not going to end well for him and sure enough he comes to a sticky end.

Only Fred Astaire – playing a doddery old conman who unexpectedly falls in love – seems wrong for his role.  He loses the woman but inherits her cat, which O.J. Simpson has kindly rescued.

I’m not sure this film could have been made now, post-9/11 and post-Grenfell Tower. Intriguingly, it’s adapted from two novels (with both plots and climaxes woven together), but although it’s a work of fiction there’s a dedication at the beginning to all the real-life firemen who died in the course of their duties.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Highly entertaining adaptation of the comic-book hero’s exploits, wisely playing up the outlandish, cartoonish aspects of the story. The colours are super-bright, the costumes are wonderfully extravagant and everything is over-egged to the nth degree. It’s pure pantomime and it’s enormous fun. 

Sam J. Jones plays the hero as an almost blandly all-American beefcake football star. Melody Anderson is tremendous as Dale Arden, the travel agent who accompanies Flash to Mongo and falls in love with him. Topol is Dr. Hans Zarkov, the batty scientist who kidnaps the pair to investigate the extreme-weather peril Earth is enduring. Max von Sydow is perfect as evil Emperor Ming the Merciless, as is Ornella Muti as his sultry and traitorous daughter Princess Aura. Timothy Dalton (as Prince Barin) and Brian Blessed (as Prince Vultan) are the resistance leaders who join up to help Flash and his friends fight Ming’s empire. Blessed is a joy to watch – a constantly guffawing warrior “hawkman” kitted out in big wings. 

It’s made all the more thrilling and exciting by the soundtrack by Queen. The band contributed not only the famous theme tune, but also all of the incidental music as well. 

Peter Wyngarde plays the Darth Vader-like General Klytus. And Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan has a cameo as a man who has to put his hand in a hole in a tree without being stung by a tree monster. 

Although it’s deliberately daft and cheesy, there’s an uplifting message in there about the power of humanity to display kindness and overcome the forces of evil.

A glorious celebration of silliness.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

Kitchen-sink drama, written as a novel and then adapted for film by Alan Sillitoe, starring Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton. A smooth-talking factory worker who is dating two women, including the wife of a work colleague, Arthur lives life to the full until events begin to catch up with him.

It’s superbly scripted, with sharp, rapid-fire dialogue bringing the characters to life. There’s plenty of wit and pathos throughout. The fairground sequence – in which Seaton fails to evade two soldiers intent on beating him up – is especially dynamic.

It’s also an amazingly vivid portrait of industrial England in the post-war years – a grey and grim world that would soon undergo modernisation.

Edge of Love (2008)

Fairly compelling drama set during World War II. When young Welsh singer Vera (Keira Knightley) meets her old friend Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), their youthful attraction is rekindled. But Thomas is now married to Caitlin (Sienna Miller), and Vera is courted by a soldier (Cillian Murphy) soon to be sent back into battle.

The film wisely keeps its focus on the relationship between the two women, the real subject of the story, with the famous poet creating both a bond and a tension between them. Unlike Sylvia and Iris, it’s certainly not a writer biopic.

Knightley’s Welsh accent is surprisingly convincing, although people from Wales might not agree. Her singing is credible, too. She’s charismatic, as is Murphy as her troubled lover, psychologically damaged by the war. Sienna Miller is also impressive, communicating a huge range of emotions with subtle grace. Rhys, meanwhile, struggles somewhat to convey the magnetism that the plot needs to hinge upon. Poetry aside, exactly what was it that these two women loved so much about him?

The film is occasionally a little over-stylised and there are some unrealistic moments (a view of St. Paul’s Cathedral amid bomb wreckage just looked like a painting), but it’s never predictable and it makes you fully engage with all four of the main characters. In terms of mood and tone it flits oddly all over the place, but I rather like that.

There are cameos by Suggs of Madness and Lisa Stansfield.

Keira Knightley’s mother wrote the screenplay.

An incredible number of cigarettes are smoked.

It’s not clear why it’s called Edge of Love – a title that would work for almost any film with a romantic storyline.

Gattaca (1997)

Quietly profound thriller set in a near-future world where genetics are everything. People are graded as “valids” or “in-valids”, depending on their genetic profile. Ethan Hawke plays Vincent Freeman – a man whose “defects” (a weak heart) prevent him realising his dream to go to space. He impersonates Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), a valid who was paralysed in a self-inflicted accident. Uma Thurman plays a work colleague who falls in love with “Jerome”, not realising he is really an imposter. Gore Vidal plays their boss – the mission director with a dangerous agenda of his own.

The film asks complicated questions about the ethics of genetic engineering. It also looks at ambition, human identity, nature vs. nurture and brotherly love.

The “sci-fi” premise is nicely offset by the visuals, which are 1950s-themed. The retro-futuristic look is stylish and believable.

It builds to a surprisingly emotional ending.

The Terminator (1984)

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who will give birth to a resistance leader of the future. Sarah is helped by Kyle Reese, another soldier from the future (Michael Biehn), in an attempt to stop the seemingly unstoppable.

James Cameron’s film is both trashy and, given the expert storytelling, strangely sophisticated. The special effects look basic by modern standards, but they are still highly effective.

Schwarzenegger is entirely convincing as the android with astonishing strength. The film is unashamedly violent and seems to fetishise guns.

It’s fascinating to see what we didn’t know about the future in 1984. When the Terminator arrives in 1984, he looks up Sarah Connor in the phone directory. So in 2029, there seems to be no equivalent of the internet or GPS tracking software. Surely they could have sent back something more advanced than a tough-guy robot dependent on a printed phone book?

That small point aside, it’s a highly entertaining romp.

“I’ll be back,” says Arnie, famously, at one point – and he was, in numerous Terminator sequels.

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

The concluding part of the saga is so much stronger than the second instalment. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back to the Old West of 1885 to prevent his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from being shot by the local cowboy Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), who just so happens to be the great-grandfather of Marty’s old enemy Biff.

The DeLorean is damaged and they have to devise a new way of getting back to the future. But all this is complicated when Doc falls in love with a schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen), and instead of Doc being shot it’s suddenly Marty who’s at risk.

This has all the laughs, thrills and romance of the first part, but none of the misjudged bleakness or over-the-top pantomime of the second. It’s once again extremely clever without being confusing, so well planned and executed are the intricate plot twists. And the piling up of reference points and jokes from the first two films makes it a real pleasure to watch.

It’s lovely that Doc has his own story and it’s nice that they found room for his character to be developed further. The high-speed climax is genuinely nail-biting and the coda is both absurd and satisfying. A truly joyous end to the trilogy.

Don't Look Now (1973)

Based on the story by Daphne du Maurier, Nicolas Roeg’s psychological thriller verges on horror and is genuinely terrifying. 

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are in Venice, trying to come to terms with the death (by drowning) of their young daughter. But when they meet a woman who appears to have the gift of second sight, their lives are changed all over again. 

Roeg is brilliant at building tension. Visually, it’s striking too: recurring motifs come to carry great significance as the inevitability of the conclusion draws closer. 

Sutherland and Christie are all-too-believably “real” as the grieving parents. In some ways this is a film about bereavement and what it does to the mind and soul. 

The closing moments are unbearably tense and chilling, leaving you with an enduring feeling of being deeply unsettled and disturbed.

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Disaster film depicting the true-life events of the 2010 BP oil-rig explosion leading to 11 deaths and one of the world’s worst environmental disasters. As the closing text puts it: “The blowout lasted for 87 days, spilling an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.”

It’s to the film’s credit that it doesn’t sensationalise these events. Mark Wahlberg plays the Chief Electronics Technician, with admirable restraint. Likewise, Kurt Russell as “Mr. Jimmy”, the Offshore Installation Manager. John Malkovich plays Donald Vidrine, one of the BP managers keen to cut corners despite the risk of compromising the rig’s safety. Gina Rodriguez is the likeable Dynamic Position Operator, who has to dive with Wahlberg over the burning ocean oil to safety. And Kate Hudson plays Wahlberg’s worried wife back home.

It’s a tense drama that also makes some good points about technical expertise coming into conflict with corporate might, but without getting bogged down in engineering detail or industry politics. An efficient, intelligent script builds character, offers flashes of wit and keeps the emphasis on the human side of the tragedy.

The Invention of Lying (2009)

Ricky Gervais stars as Mark Bellison in an offbeat but flawed comedy in which people are incapable of speaking nothing but the truth. When Bellison finds out that he can lie, he discovers that he has the means to change the world.

The concept is brilliant (imagine a world in which there’s no fiction of any kind), but somehow the film never develops its full potential. It’s especially intriguing as a critique of religion: when Bellison is overheard fibbing to his dying, frightened mother that she’ll have a wonderful afterlife, he accidentally creates a whole new belief system. But the anticipated satire on religion – a topic Gervais has strong opinions on – never really arrives.

There’s also a confusion between honesty and unkindness. Just because people speak the truth doesn’t mean they have to be rude and unpleasant. Wouldn’t kind people speak kind truths? We never find out because most of the characters are so obnoxious. This issue is complicated by the “love interest”, played by Jennifer Garner, who grows fond of Bellison but won’t marry him because he’s “fat” with “a snub nose”. She’d rather be with the callous, shallow egotist played by Rob Lowe because he apparently has better genes. It’s difficult to see why Bellison likes her.

Cameos by Christopher Guest and Philip Seymour Hoffman seem thrown away.

There are some funny moments, and the central premise is a fascinating one, but it just feels like a missed opportunity.

Cemetery Junction (2010)

Written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, this film has all the pathos, humour and drama that made The Office so special. The romance story at its heart is also very similar to that of Tim and Dawn in that show – even down to the idea of a girl wanting to pursue a creative urge (painting/photography) despite a heartless boyfriend standing in her way.

The film tells the story of three working-class friends (Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes and Jack Doolan) coming of age in Cemetery Junction, Reading, in 1973. Each of them struggles with the limits imposed by a backward-looking English community. When one of them starts to think outside of the small-town confines, he finds his family and colleagues are less than open-minded about his ambitions.

Felicity Jones plays Julie, a glamorous photographer who wants to travel and live a more fulfilling life than the one her nasty, selfish father (Ralph Fiennes) and boyfriend (Matthew Goode) have planned for her. Ricky Gervais plays a racist, unpleasant father bickering with his family, while Steve Merchant has only a brief walk-on cameo.

The period detail is well-observed, although sometimes things look a little too clean and bright.

There’s an unbeatable soundtrack (David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, T.Rex – even Elton John sounds good in this context) and a powerful sense of yearning.  Plenty of laughs, too, amid some serious points about class and social aspirations.

Trivia: Emily Watson plays Felicity Jones’ mother, just as she did in the Stephen Hawkins biopic The Theory of Everything (2014).

Arrival (2016)

Denis Villeneuve's philosophical sci-fi mind-bender has an emotional core that you might not expect from this genre.

Aliens arrive and park their huge egg-like ships at 12 strategic points hovering over the Earth. No one knows what they want nor why they are here. An army colonel (Forest Whitaker) recruits a world-class linguist (Amy Adams) and scientist (Jeremy Renner) to help the US military team understand the visitors’ motives and, ideally, communicate with them. That communication begins and a remarkable interchange is set in motion.

As if this wasn’t exciting enough, world tensions escalate as various nations panic about what’s generally considered to be a hostile invasion. But it transpires that the aliens are bringing something altogether different to humanity...

The film is extremely moving, with an interwoven plot about bereavement. It looks stunning, too. The aliens resemble tree-like creatures, but – unusually for a sci-fi film – the attempt to visualise the unimaginable doesn’t disappoint.

Adams and Renner had already worked together in American Hustle. They make for a good team.

The ending is sad but surprisingly satisfying.

Back to the Future Part II (1989)

This sequel is sillier than the first film and not as enjoyable, for various reasons:
• There are fewer laughs.
• Without the romance, some of the warmth is missing.
• The plot is more complicated, with events building up in parallel in different chronologies and talk of time paradoxes. It would make little sense if you hadn’t seen the 1985 original.
• Thomas F. Wilson as Biff Tannen isn’t really charismatic enough to be fleshed-out from local bully to major villain.
• The “darker” moments feel misjudged, such as when we see Marty’s mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) reduced to a hopeless, broken alcoholic.
• The make-up used to age characters looks horrible.
• The future they visit (2015) is sketchy at best and we learn little beyond the facts that Jaws 19 is now showing in cinemas and that cars and skateboards can fly.
• Musically, there’s nothing in the soundtrack as punchy as “The Power of Love”.

All that said, there are many good things about Part II. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reprise their roles effectively and the film is at its best when the pair are in scenes together and able to play off each other. There are some nice jokes based on our knowledge of the previous film. And once again, there are some extremely clever twists.

Weirdly, Marty’s girlfriend is replaced by a different actor: Elisabeth Shue plays Jennifer instead of Claudia Wells. Weirder still, Crispin Glover is barely present as George McFly owing to a dispute over what he was paid. Given that this film recreates entire scenes from the first film – many of the key events are seen again, from different angles – building in his absence must have been even more challenging. For example, you see the Enchantment Under the Sea Ball from a different perspective, painstakingly re-enacted amid the new scenes, with George played by a not-quite-in-focus stand-in.

It ends with previews of Part III, which looks as if it will be even more ridiculous. Looking forward to seeing that.

Iris (2001)

A biopic of Iris Murdoch, a love story and a study of the great writer’s decline into Alzheimer’s, this is a gripping and sad drama.

Adapted from John Bayley’s book about his dying wife, Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch (1998), it cleverly flits between young Iris (Kate Winslet) and old Iris (Judi Dench) in order to show you the strength of talent and personality being eroded by the disease. The two eras dovetail perfectly, often connected by visual signifiers (such as the couple swimming “then” and “now”) that make them flow together seamlessly.

Jim Broadbent plays Bayley as a bumbling figure who remains deeply in love with the brilliant, unconventional woman he met in Oxford. My only criticism of the film is that this almost comically awkward characterisation gives little sense that he also had a remarkable intellect of his own.

Winslet and Dench are both highly convincing as the celebrated writer – painfully so in the case of the latter. It’s almost unbearable to watch her “sailing into darkness”, as she puts it, as she slowly but steadily forgets everything she ever knew and even who she is.

I also found it deeply uncomfortable to see the appalling mess in the couple’s home. They were truly living in squalor with no outside support.

Penelope Wilton (of Ever Decreasing Circles fame) is excellent as Iris’s friend Janet Stone.

Intermezzo (1939)

Tepid and mostly uninvolving drama about a celebrated violinist (Leslie Howard) who falls for his young daughter’s piano teacher (Ingrid Bergman). It’s only an hour and nine minutes long, racing through scenes and events in a way that seems unsubtle and even childish.

Bergman is believable enough as a young woman getting out of her depth. She had already appeared in a Swedish version of the same film in 1936, and she appears entirely comfortable reprising the role. Leslie Howard, however, completely fails to convey the passion or confusion he is supposed to be experiencing. There’s a lack of nuance throughout and this prevents you engaging with the characters. Indeed, the family dog is given more personality than the violinist’s wife Margit (Edna Best).

Everything is resolved far too easily, suggesting that the emotional stakes were never very high. Even the one moment of true drama – a car accident – is quickly dealt with and made as unremarkable as all the other events.

Room (2015)

Extremely moving drama about a mother, Joy (Brie Larson), and her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who are held captive in a tiny outhouse by an abductor. Joy was kidnapped seven years previously and later impregnated by her captor. This room is Jack’s entire world as a result of his being born and confined there. It is his only reality, but – thanks to Joy’s ingenious efforts to protect him from the true horror of their situation – it has become a sealed universe of play and learning. Every object in the room (or “Room”, as he calls it) takes on huge significance because space is so limited but time is so abundant. This is the opposite of the world beyond, of which Jack later observes: “I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there’s only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.”

Room was adapted from the brilliant novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the screenplay. The transition to screen is skilfully handled. The book is narrated by Jack, so we learn via his youthful perceptions how abusively they are being treated, and the child’s view of a miniature world is enthralling. The film doesn’t have this option, generally opting to show rather than tell, although you do hear occasional sections of Jack’s narration. Surprisingly, however, it does manage to recreate the oppressive feel of the novel.

Room is unbearably sad, especially since Jack demands so little from life beyond the love of his mother. You find yourself desperately rooting for the pair.

Ultimately, their story is both life-affirming and profound.