Drama

BEGINNINGS, ENDINGS

Cert 15 Stars 2

Shailene Woodley stars in this painfully introspective, indulgent and lethargic romantic drama as Daphne, a thirty-something woman in a love triangle with two she meets at a party.

An accomplished, intelligent actress with a strong screen presence, back in 2014 Woodley seemed set for Hollywood superstardom after starring in the smash romantic drama The Fault in Our Stars, but following the big budget sci-fi disappointment of the Divergent films her career has mostly been TV based.

Co-star Jamie Dornan is best known for the Fifty Shades franchise and so is more than comfortable getting his kit off, while Sebastian Stan – best known as Marvel superhero The Winter Soldier – isn’t a slouch in the pecs and abs department either.

Director Drake Doremus seems hugely influenced by arthouse maestro Terrence Malick, who’s far from my favourite filmmaker, plus he allowed his cast to employ a semi-improvisational method which actors love but it has mixed results for the audience, as is often the case. And just like in Daphne’s life we have to endure an awful lot of being stuck in the middle.

FANNY LYE DELIVER’D

Cert 18 Stars 3

Maxine Peake has punctuated her acting career with socially aware films such as 2018’s Peterloo, so it’s easy to see why she was drawn to the role of a farmer’s wife experiencing a political awakening in this ideas-driven period drama.

Set during Oliver Cromwell’s controversial puritanical republican rule in 1657, Peake plays Fanny Lye, the abused wife of Charles Dance’s Shropshire farmer, who offers refuge to Freddie Fox and Tanya Reynolds, a naked, muddy and bloody pair of strangers who claim to have lost all their money and possessions to highwaymen.

It’s an act of conspicuous and self-serving piety which backfires disastrously as the freethinking attitudes and rapacious appetites of their guests reveal themselves in a candle-lit exhibition of sex, betrayal and violence.

Though the drama suffers from being stagey and speechy, the mist covered location provides the earthy power of a folk horror fairytale, and the performances full of conviction.

Plus anyone with a keen interest in the history of the Quaker moment will find their cup runneth over.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Cert PG Stars 4

Harrison Ford takes the lead from a canine co-star in this epic, expensive and determinedly old fashioned family outdoors adventure based on the 1903 novel by Jack London.

Every bit as monumentally craggy as the gorgeously photographed scenery, Ford plays a frontiersman who forms a bond with a dog named Buck, who was stolen from his home in California.

Buck may be a CGI creation but is as full of character, loyalty and bravery as any other big screen dog. Which is more than you say for the characters played by Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan.

DOGS DON’T WEAR PANTS

Cert 18 Stars 3

Love hurts in this provocative, explicit and eye-watering Finnish drama which goes so far beyond a bit of slap and tickle even ardent admirers of the Fifty Shades films may find themselves crossing their legs in sympathy.

Pekka Strang bares his soul – as well as the rest of himself – as a heart surgeon struggling to cope after the accidental drowning of his beloved wife.

He begins secretly spending his time in a sex dungeon with a dominatrix who calls him a dog and demands him to strip, hence the title, and as he finds solace in his own humiliation, the two lost souls begin to connect.

The appropriately named Mona also works as an osteopath, clearly a bit of a busman’s holiday for the broad minded professional.

This blackly comic chamber piece is definitely not for the timid or squeamish, it’s sensitive to its characters needs and everyone comes out with their dignity intact, though you can’t say the same for all their other bits.

NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS

Cert 15 Stars 4

Unlike any other cinematic teenage road trip I’ve ever seen, this raw, honest and unflinching coming-of-age US drama is all the more devastating for skilfully combining a reflective and sombre tone with a steely-eyed look at its subject matter.

Sidney Flanigan gives a remarkably nuanced and sensitive performance as Autumn, a pale and ordinary working class 17 year old high schooler and part time supermarket worker, who’s response to the tests and scans confirming her pregnancy is to self-pierce her own nose, which is more an act of self harm than fashion statement.

As we’re we’re left to guess the identity of the father, Autumn travels from rural Pennsylvania to New York to secure an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy, and is accompanied only by her supportive and similarly aged cousin Skylar, played by the impressively impassive Talia Ryder.

They struggle to negotiate a series of bureaucratic hurdles, medical tests, legal obstacles, social pressures and financial difficulties.

And among the many scenes of desperate heartbreak, the most agonising is an interview where Autumn endures a series of sexually intrusive questions, the possible answers to which form the film’s title.

The script by director Eliza Hittman maintains compassion and respect for Autumn but doesn’t bother trying to justify her behaviour with grand speeches, though it does condemn those who try to stall, abuse and manipulate her, and generally treats its male characters with deserved disdain.

Having established the divide between idealised romantic love and the realities of sex with consummate economy in a deft opening sequence, Hittman fully immerses us in Autumn’s world by using a hand held camera which frequently captures the actress in emotionally revealing close up.

A refusal to shy away from the procedures involved and bleak ordinariness of Autumn’s world brings harrowing authenticity and huge emotional power, and while this a deeply unsettling watch, the girls’ courage and solidarity demand our sympathy.

FOUR KIDS AND IT

Cert PG Stars 4

Sadly denied cinema distribution by the lockdown, Jacqueline Wilson’s 2012 novel is brought entertainingly to life in this handsome, fresh family fantasy about a group of holidaying kids facing the perils of being granted wishes by a magical creature, voiced by Michael Caine.

Wilson based her book on E. Nesbit’s 1902 classic, Five Children and It, and updated it with a modern setting and contemporary concerns.

Ireland’s gorgeous countryside and beaches stand in for Cornwall and a lively young cast are supported by Russell Brand as a local eccentric and singer Cheryl Tweedy as a pop impresario.

 

SEA FEVER

Cert 15 Stars 3

This tense, atmospheric and claustrophobic sea-going Irish thriller ploughs ahead on strong currents of horror, sci-fi, and fairytales, skippered with a firm and sure hand by Neasa Hardiman on her feature film directorial debut.

When a fishing trawler becomes stranded in a military exclusion zone, a mysterious parasite infects the crew’s precious water supply.

Causing emotional outbursts, psychosis and violence among the increasingly desperate and dwindling crew, they resort to extreme measures to save themselves.

Veterans Dougray Scott and Connie Nielsen play the grizzled captain and his wife who due to being in financial straits, have taken on a fare-paying passenger.

Hermione Corfield is a thoughtful and reserved presence as marine biology student struggling to get her sea legs, but her auburn hair is a red flag to the superstitious sailors.

Taking its name from John Masefield’s evocative poem about the attraction to and obsessive nature of seafaring, the film’s intelligent photography captures the cold beauty and changing moods of the sea, while the scenes of isolation and deadly contagion make for a terrifyingly timely and uncomfortable watch.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Cert PG Stars 4

Tom Hanks is at his most disarming and subtle as a real life US TV icon in this soulful, therapeutic and irresistible family drama.

We’re not familiar with the saintly Fred Rogers over here, but for over four decades he hosted a PlayAway style kids show, and the film suggests he was so popular and beloved he was capable of inspiring an impromptu singalong on the subway simply by sitting there.

However Matthew Rhys’s cynical investigative journalist is hoping to uncover some dirt underneath Roger’s spotless halo.

This seems a reasonable proposition as the cardigan wearing Rodgers seems remarkably old fashioned even in 1998 when the film is set, particularly as TV stars of my 1970s childhood have been revealed to be far from wholesome.

Rhys is full of barely suppressed anger, even more so when he finds himself on the end of a gentle inquisition from Rogers regarding his own estranged relationship with his father and the difficulties of bonding with his new born son.

And you have to feel sorry for the actor as the superb Hanks quietly steals the film from him, earning himself a Best supporting actor nod with his 6th Oscar nomination.

An avuncular, polite, generous and humble dispenser of wisdom, Rodgers often feels a distant relative of Hanks’ 1995 Oscar winning role as Forrest Gump.

And intent on bringing out the best in everyone he meets, he’s essentially an American Paddington Bear, but without the marmalade sandwiches.

Directed by with a firm, sensitive and accomplished hand by Marielle Heller, she drives the film from the backseat and allows the actors to hold our attention.

Though far less needy and attention grabbing her staging and camerawork are in their own way as impressive as that in First World War film, 1917, and she deploys the power of silence with a nuclear emotional efficiency.

Plus the TV theme tune is impossibly catchy, and you’ll be humming it on the way out through your tears.

QUEEN & SLIM

Cert 15 Stars 4

Fear and harassment on an online date leads to violence and a desperate bid for freedom in this confident, muscular, accomplished and heartbreaking US crime drama which always feels authentic and never exploitative.

When a white policeman is shot after he’s pulled them over, black citizens Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya try to escape to communist Cuba, a destination full of implicit criticism of US capitalism and its historical relationship with slave labour.

By turns thrilling, funny and moving, their journey progresses from being a road trip expose of US racial divisions to a lyrical love story, with a script which digs into ideas of social mobility, role models and solidarity.

However TV reports and social media bestows an unwelcome air of celebrity on the outlaw pair, feeding negative stereotypes and helping perpetuate a cycle of oppression.

As a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, Turner-Smith and Kaluuya make a combative and sexy pair, and shockingly overlooked by the major awards the British acting duo could at least have expected some recognition from the BAFTAs.

RICHARD JEWELL

Cert 15 Stars 4

Approaching his fiftieth year as a film director, Clint Eastwood’s latest real life drama uses a tale of heroism to train his sights on two of his favourite targets, the US government and the media.

As represented here by Jon Hamm’s FBI agent and Olivia Wilde’s ambitious journalist, they’re considered as being so much in bed together, they actually go to bed together, and are portrayed as the real enemy of gun-loving white folk.

Paul Walter Hauser brings quiet dignity and sympathy to the title role, an under-educated, over-weight former cop turned security guard who saves lives during the bomb attack at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

However he finds himself accused of terrorism in the court of public opinion, with only Best Supporting actress Oscar nominee Kathy Bates as his mother, Sam Rockwell’s down-at-heel lawyer, and the US Constitution, at his side.

The latter part of Eastwood’s career has focused exclusively on celebrating ordinary blue collar people in extraordinary circumstances, and Richard Jewell is typically accessible, crowd pleasing and polished.