Ruth negga

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Exquisite to look at, strangely tense and wholly riveting: Netflix’s Passing reviewed

Passing is Rebecca Hall’s adaptation of the Nella Larsen novella (1929) about two biracial women, one of whom chooses to pass for white, and one who does not, and the effect they have on each other, and it’s superbly done. It’s tightly made, exquisite to look at, strangely tense, wholly riveting and it’s also, let’s be honest, just the right length for a film (90 minutes). Hall — who wrote the screenplay and directs, and is otherwise an actress — is the daughter of theatre director Peter Hall and opera singer Maria Ewing and you could say she has skin in the game. When she was growing up, she has

Thursday

Graeme Thomson

A redemption song, conventionally sung: Sky’s Tina reviewed

It has never been easy for women in the music industry. Once upon a time the evidence was largely anecdotal. Now it’s being recorded for posterity, frame by frame. Recent documentaries about Britney Spears and Demi Lovato exposed the trauma inflicted on post-millennial pop stars. Two new portraits of Anna Mae Bullock and Marianne Elliott-Said, better known as Tina Turner and Poly Styrene from punk group X-Ray Spex, ponder the price paid by their forebears. Turner’s story feels archetypal, a tale extracted from deep within the DNA of showbusiness. An abandoned child — ‘my mother didn’t like me’ — from a poor Tennessee background, the opportunity to fulfil her gifts