Deborah Ross

I beg Sam Mendes to stop writing his own scripts: Empire of Light reviewed

Can Olivia Colman save any film she’s in? Sam Mendes's latest suggests she sadly can't

Can she save any film she’s in? Olivia Colman as Hilary in Empire of Light. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios 
issue 07 January 2023
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  • Empire of Light

    PG, Nationwide

Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light, which he wrote as well as directed, is billed as a ‘love letter to cinema’ although, alas, in this instance cinema does not appear to love him back. The magic of film-going is the theme but there is almost no film-going in it and what there is isn’t magic.

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