Our latest movie reviews

An award-winning slice of life set on Paris’s margins set over 48 helter-skelter hours, Souleymane’s Story is the latest in a series of social realist dramas to tackle Europe’s migrant crisis from the perspective of African migrants. The Dardennes’ Tori and Lokita (2022), Alice Diop’s Saint Omer (2023), and Matteo Garrone’s fantastically-tinged Io Capitano (2024) have shared the stories behind the sensationalist headlines – and here’s another one to bring deep humanity and insight to this political football. Io Capitano followed two Senegalese kids on the Saharan people-trafficking route to Italy. Here, French director Boris Lojkine could almost be picking up where Garrone left off. His twenty-something protagonist, Souleymane Sangaré (Abou Sangaré), has travelled the same path – from Guinea this time – and we meet him as a cog in Paris’s exploitative gig economy, cycling frantically to deliver food orders to apartments across the city and thrusting bags of takeaway into the hands of Parisians who barely notice him. Lojkine, who co-wrote the naturalistic screenplay with Delphine Agut, has unearthed a real talent in newcomer Sangaré. A Guinean who travelled to France in similar circumstances, he obviously understands Souleymane and his fraying emotions intimately. But it takes more than first-hand experience to inhabit a character with this much subtlety and skill. Souleymane is introduced in a flash-forward to the interview with France’s asylum affairs people that will...

We have Rocketman and A Complete Unknown to blame for the idea that actors playing musicians can actually nail the gig. Gone are the days of dodgy impressions (apologies to Val Kilmer’s Jim Morrison and André 3000’s Jimi Hendrix) and in their place are films that replace the concept of rock stars as infallible Gods with messy human beings.  Whereas A Complete Unknown painted Bob Dylan as a grumpy fuckboy, Deliver Me from Nowhere digs into Bruce Springsteen’s bout with depression and the childhood trauma from which it stemmed, as well as his fastidious dedication to (arguably) his finest album, 1982’s moody Nebraska.   As a living, loving portrait of blue collar Americana, Deliver Me from Nowhere excels. The late-night diners, faded fairgrounds, and classic cars are gloriously, richly rendered while black-and-white flashbacks to Springsteen’s youth and original are shot with all the misery of Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era portraits.  Jeremy Allen White also slips into Springsteen’s Levi’s with ease. From his spot-on incidental grunts to the uncanny singing voice, it’s clear that White has put in the work, even if it’s sometimes hard to unsee Carmy from The Bear (not least because both characters are unrepentant fans of a James Dean-worthy white t-shirt and denim combo). Alas, Springsteen’s misery means that White never really stretches himself, his facial expression is either sad, brooding, or a glum combo of the two. If you want American gothic with a side of pancakes,...

Surely the first murder-mystery to pay active homage to Scooby-Doo, Rian Johnson’s latest addition to the franchise he created and presides over with irrepressible glee is the most out-there and fun so far. There’s no great Dane and no one leaps into anyone’s arms in terror, but a goofy spirit runs through its veins – along with all the usual poisons and industrial-strength tranquilisers you’d expect to find in a movie full of narrative trapdoors and Grand Guignol excesses. It’s on the long side – think bread knife, rather than something for chopping carrots – and the ending is hardly the last word in bow-tying neatness, but Johnson has assembled his strongest cast yet and provides them with entertainingly ‘extra’ characters to inhabit – and for us to tut at. Best of all, Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor form a sleuthing double act with shades of Holmes and Watson.  The Mystery Machine here, of course, is the stylish old banger belonging to Craig’s southern gent detective Benoit Blanc, a bourbon-sipping Columbo eight steps ahead of his smug suspects. He arrives in a rural New York community presided over by Josh Brolin’s bullying Catholic priest, Jefferson Wicks. Someone has been murdered but who did the deed? And does a priceless missing diamond have something to do with it? Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor are a double act with shades of Holmes and Watson The list of possibles includes Andrew Scott as a sci-fi novelist turned conspiracy theorist, Jeremy Renner’s...

When a horror movie hits, a sequel usually follows very closely. The Black Phone was a critical and commercial success in 2021, so it’s surprising it’s taken four years for a follow-up. That wait, though, turns out to be a very smart move. Four years have also passed in Black Phone 2’s reality. That time has not healed Finn and his sister Gwen (again played by Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw). In the original, 13-year-old Finn was kidnapped by serial child-killer ‘The Grabber’ (Ethan Hawke) and kept in a basement, awaiting execution. Finn bested the killer with the help of past victims, who contacted him by phone from beyond the grave, and his sister’s peculiar premonitions.  Finn’s trauma has curdled into aggression and a class-B drug habit, which he hopes will blur his constant terror. The once confident Gwen is rattled by her unwanted psychic powers. The Grabber is dead but his hold on their lives hasn’t weakened. When Gwen starts getting nighttime visits from murdered boys, she and Finn take jobs in a remote, snowy camp, to find out why dead children are guiding them there. Finn and Gwen’s damage is the most successful part of the film. Now on the edge of young adulthood, they seem to have lost the spirit that carried them through a hard childhood. They survived, but they’re deadened. Where most horror teens bounce back to happiness swiftly, these two are trying to claw their way to, at best, normalcy.  The Grabber lacks the snappy backstory or firm rules of a Jason...

The Greek prince of feel-bad satires, Yorgos Lanthimos, has grown a troupe of wildly talented craftspeople and performers, drawn by the chance to play in his imaginatively designed dollhouses. His female Frankenstein riff, Poor Things, marked an ascension in his appeal to popular audiences, while cementing his relationship with Emma Stone, as both muse and producer.  Bugonia, an English language remake of 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!, is his first film since the early Greek ones to be set in something approximating recognisable modern times. Here, in an armpit of smalltown America, Stone and Jesse Plemons go head to head, delivering bravura performances that put a shine on what, at its core, is a high-concept exploitation movie.  Teddy (Plemons) is a greasy-haired, beekeeping, tinfoil-hat wearing obsessive who recruits his sweet-natured cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) into a plan to kidnap the CEO of a big pharma biotech company. Because he believes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that sleek girlboss Michelle Fuller (Stone) is an alien from the planet Andromeda.  Lanthimos is at the peak of his powers when it comes to production-design led set pieces. Teddy and Don’s comically overlong and deeply flawed kidnapping plays out on the grounds of Michelle’s McMansion. The farce of it all is highlighted with shots from various vantage points, as Stone repeatedly demonstrates greater athleticism than her abductors.  Once Michelle has been caught and transferred from the sterile...

There aren’t many actors who command the attention as fiercely as Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean – and if you’d gladly spend two hours watching them have an act-off in a wood cabin, Anemone is for you. Playing estranged brothers, their performances are riveting in a film that’s also bold, challenging and puzzling. It’s the 1980s, and Jem Stoker (Bean) arrives in a remote English forest to confront his hermit brother, Ray (Day-Lewis). He’s bid goodbye to his partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) and their boy Brian (Samuel Bottomley) in their suburban home with prayer and a solemn face, almost as if he’s heading off to war. It’s been 20 years since he’s seen Ray, who’s become an angry recluse. Over the ensuing days, Jem attempts to get through to his brother. The details of their shared past in the British military emerge, along with the reason for a visit that no-one seems to really want.  It’s a quietly intriguing scenario powered by exceptional performances. Day-Lewis entirely inhabits his character, transforming into a man who’s both enigmatic and crass, breaking his silence for scatalogical monologues that, once again, no-one asked for. As the comparatively presentable Jem, Bean brings a gruff warmth amid internal conflict: this is a religious man who’s devoted to his family and is driven by a combination of duty, love, curiosity and resentment. Meanwhile, back home, Morton puts in a quietly heartbreaking turn as Nessa. She’s striving to deal with troubled young man Brian,...

The odd Twisters apart, Hollywood isn’t exactly filling our cinemas with cataclysmic visions of natural and man-made disasters these days – presumably because the TV news has got that covered. So Paul Greengrass’ (Captain Phillips, The Bourne Ultimatum) tale of humble heroism in the face of the apocalyptic 2018 Californian wildfires has a satisfyingly old-fashioned feel to go with its rousing storytelling. A callback to the days of ’70s ‘master of disaster’ Irwin Allen, it’s full of people putting themselves in harm’s way with minimum fuss, cool-headed professionals circling things on maps, and a visceral sense of rising panic. With the British action maestro behind the camera, there’s a dispassionate, procedural quality that eschews all the flag-waving that can blight the genre. The flags here are mostly on fire.  At its heart are two monumental forces: a hellish inferno that burns like the fires of Mordor across vast West Coast valleys towards the in-aptly named town of Paradise, and a sweaty Matthew McConaughey. The Interstellar man plays school-bus driver Kevin McKay, a luckless divorced dad failing to fix his painful relationship with his son, deal with his ex or figure out how to look after his ailing mum. There’s an almost sadistic level of overkill when Greengrass and Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby’s screenplay demands that he takes his dying dog to be put down, too. Then a rogue power line, bone-dry drought conditions and high winds conspire to set the...

Pity the casual moviegoer who just wanted to see a Marlon Wayans football flick, or a Jordan Peele-produced horror joint. Because Him is, instead, a mind-scrambling primal scream in the spirit of anti-capitalist provocations by the likes of Robert Downey Sr (Putney Swope), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance). It does start generically enough; in flashback, we find a football-mad family cheering their beloved San Antonio Saviors. Dad is particularly obsessed, and he sees future glory in his young son. Ten years later, he's been proved right: Cam (Atlanta’s Tyriq Withers) is a rising star quarterback tapped to replace the Saviors’ retiring hero, Isaiah White (Wayans). First, though, he has to prove himself at White’s private boot camp. Cam is still recovering from a mysterious attack that left him concussed, but his father – who’s since died – always insisted that a real man pushes through any pain. So he shows up at White's isolated bunker of a home, where it soon becomes clear this isn’t ordinary training: White plans to break him down to build him back up. Before long, Cam is put through a surreal gauntlet that involves body horror, hallucinations, and maybe, though he's in no shape to be certain, murder. Director Justin Tipping and his co-writers, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, have a lot on their minds. Him addresses the cult of football, but it's also about – among other things – fame, family, religion, race, and class. In its feverish...

A fast, cold open at the US-Mexico border where a gang of revolutionaries named the French 75 prepare to free hundreds of detained immigrants set the burning wheels in motion. It’s the early noughts and righteous firebrand Perfidia Beverly Hills (an indelible Teyana Taylor) doesn’t so much step into the fray as bulldoze her way through it, assisted by her vehement but bumbling lover Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio, having tremendous fun). Before they leave the detainment camp, Perfidia forces Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn, award-worthy) into noticeable arousal at gunpoint and all the elements of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth film are in play. From start to finish, One Battle After Another is a mighty 162 minutes of danger, comedy, excitement, love, sex and confusion. The first hour flies by as our rebel pairing shoot guns, rob banks and blow up power lines. Perfidia gives birth to daughter Willa but can’t commit to motherhood and the revolution, leaving Pat holding the baby in both senses. After a bank robbery goes awry and Perfidia gets caught, the gang scatter before Pat changes his name to Bob Ferguson and hides out in an insurrection-sympathetic town called Baktan Cross. Some 15 years later, Lockjaw is offered an opportunity to join a secret mason-ish racist order called The Christmas Adventurers if he can find Bob and his daughter (now played with great poise by Chase Infiniti in her debut film role). This is a mighty 162 minutes of danger, comedy,...

Early in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, we are told that ‘sometimes we have to perform to get to the truth’. It’s a line that director Kogonada (Columbus, After Yang) loads with such significance, he makes sure we hear it again a little later, just in case we missed it. Because that’s what this magic-realist road movie romance is all about, for its lead characters at least: accepting hard truths by reenacting the key moments in their lives that made them them.  It starts whimsically enough. Lonely traveller David (Colin Farrell) hires a car from a quirky rental company run by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (with a German accent) and Kevin Kline, who insist he take their apparently sentient GPS. After forcing him together with Sarah (Margot Robbie) – another lonely traveller David’s just met at a mutual friend’s wedding – this kooky route-finder directs them to a series of magic doorways, which the imperfect strangers unquestioningly walk through to experience significant memories, from a high-school musical to the death of a parent.  To some degree, the film operates like A Christmas Carol-style time-travel movie. So it’s less about changing history than reviving it for the sake of therapy, as if David and Sarah are in relationship counselling before they’ve even started a relationship. And that, of course, is their presumed final destination: love. Proper warts-and-all, for-better-or-for-worse love.  It brings a bit of silver-lining energy to our overcast world Kogonada’s previous...