Queer is Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs semi-autobiographical 1985 novella. That book is known for conjuring a visceral, sweaty and seedy world fuelled by the lead character’s self-loathing. Guadagnino’s film while artful and inventive is too manicured to capture this primal world. Queer sees Daniel Craig playing William Lee, an
Read moreThe inventive, witty, energetic and occasionally gory Companion from writer/ director Drew Hancock is an early instalment in what will no doubt be a growing movie subgenre, the ‘personal robot thriller’. Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is a young woman who we see at the start of the film in a ‘meet cute’ at a supermarket with the goofy Josh (Jack Quaid,
Read moreIt’s alarming to think that it’s been nearly a quarter of a century since the ditzy but charming and unstoppable Bridget Jones first bumbled her way onto cinema screens. The film Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), which was based on the successful Helen Fielding novel was a sufficiently big hit to spawn multiple sequels. While Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason from
Read morePerhaps only Star Wars fans rival Bob Dylan fans in their adoration for their subject. Consequently, a film such as the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown was always going to be met with rabid expectation and scrutiny. One of the biggest questions was ‘what sort of music biopic would it be?’. So many, including the Ray Charles and Whitney Houston
Read moreWriter/director Brady Corbet’s (Vox Lux) The Brutalist is a monumental, expertly crafted and fascinating exploration of architecture, the immigrant experience, the American class system, art versus commerce and the quest to construct an identity. While it appears to have drawn inspiration from a variety of films such as The Pianist, There Will Be Blood, The Fountainhead, The Agony and Ecstasy
Read moreConclave, which is based on the 2016 Thomas Harris novel and comes from All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger, turns the potentially dull subject of a Pope election into a fascinating, if admittedly credulity stretching, hot house political drama. When the Pope dies of a heart attack, the reluctant Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is appointed to
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