Deborah Ross is the chief film critic of The Spectator
Judy is in cinemas this week and so is Joker and if you have to choose between the two, then it’s Judy every time. I would even add: step away from Joker. Step away, and step away now, if you know what’s good for you. It may be a masterpiece or it may be irresponsible
The Goldfinch is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that centres on a great work of art, unlike this film, which isn’t. A great work of art, that is. This is more a flat, forgettable, colour-by-numbers job, plus it is long (150 minutes, for the love of God) and drags so
The Farewell is a quiet film that builds and builds and builds into a wonderful exploration of belonging, loss, family love, crab vs lobster, and hiding feelings, even though it may be tough to hide yours and you’ll shed a tear or two. I know I did. It is written and directed by Lulu Wang,
The much-anticipated film version of Downton Abbey has arrived and I suppose you could describe it as the Avengers Assemble of period drama, where everyone turns up and just does it all over again, but minus the throat kicks in this particular instance. Also, it’s critic-proof and the fans will race to see it even
Scarborough is a small British film but it will give you a very big headache. Its subject is teachers who have relationships with pupils and it’s well directed and well performed — Jodhi May is always worth the price of a ticket whatever — but I’m still trying to work out what it has to
Joanna Hogg’s films are the antithesis of popcorn entertainment so if it’s not the antithesis of popcorn entertainment that you seek, you may be better off going elsewhere. Her latest, The Souvenir, is about a young woman finding herself and her own voice, and is semi-improvised and I know someone who hates her films —
Pedro Almodovar can sometimes be overly flamboyant if not out-and-out nuts — let us never talk about I’m So Excited! ever again — but his latest film, Pain and Glory, is wonderfully restrained and all the better for it. Partly autobiographical, it’s about ageing, and the reckoning that always comes with that — when you
Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a sprawling tale set in Hollywood in 1969, against the backdrop of the Manson murders, so it’s not a meditative, rural parable, just to be clear. No changing seasons, autumnal leaves, frosty mornings or any of that. Instead, he’s trying his hand at combining
Ritesh Batra had a smash hit with his gentle romance The Lunchbox (2013) and then made a couple of less impactful English language films, The Sense of an Ending and Our Souls At Night. But now he has returned to India with Photograph, which is another romance and it is slow, slow, so very slooooooow.
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is Nick Broomfield’s documentary chronicling the muse-artist relationship between Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen. Her name comes first because Broomfield wished to tell her story but, even so, this could be titled Marianne & Leonard: And A Lot More On Him. Hard to fathom what the point is, really.
The Lion King is Disney’s photorealistic CGI remake of the beloved, hand-drawn 1994 original that, for many children, offered a first introduction to the idea of patriarchal monarchy. (Relax. I’m not going down that road today. Just not in the mood.) And already it’s been trampled underfoot by many critics. It ‘monetises nostalgia’. It is
The Brink is Alison Klayman’s documentary portrait of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist (he shaped the ‘America First’ campaign, proposed the Muslim travel ban, etc.) and former boss of Breitbart News, the place where unsuccessful white men go to whine. The film follows him for 15 months from the autumn of 2017 as
Midsommar is the latest horror film from Ari Aster, who made Hereditary, which starred Toni Collette and was a sensation. That was a domestic, claustrophobic scenario packed with jump scares — well, jump-ish scares; I wasn’t that scared, actually — whereas this is pastoral and relies more on building a quiet dread. It’s set in
Yesterday is the latest comedy (with sad bits) from Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle, about an unsuccessful singer-songwriter, Jack, who wakes up to discover that he’s the only one who remembers the Beatles so can now steal all their tunes, if he’s of that mind. Unusually for Curtis, the lead is an Asian and
Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s take on the poor boy from the slums of Buenos Aires who became a footballing god, is gripping if heartbreaking. It’s one of those scenarios where a stunning natural talent is exploited rather than protected. He even put me in mind of Judy Garland (minus the large and devoted gay following).
Late Night is a comedy starring Emma Thompson as a chat-show host in America whose ratings are in decline and who hires her first female writer. This is Molly, who is welcomed by the bank of male writers, not. They initially mistake her for someone who has come to take their food orders and greet
Sunset is French-Hungarian writer-director Laszlo Nemes’s follow-up to his astonishing Oscar-winning debut, Son of Saul. This time round the film is set as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is on the brink of collapse, and it is confounding, but not in a good way, as it’s as turgid as it is baffling. I’ve seen it twice now,
There have been claims that Rocketman, the biopic of Elton John, is ‘cheesy’ and ‘clichéd’, but, in truth, you do want these films to be a bit cheesy and clichéd. (In Bohemian Rhapsody if a record executive had never cried: ‘Nobody wants to listen to a six-minute opera song with words like “Galileo” in it!’
Tolkien is a biopic covering the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) and it is not especially memorable. I’m even forgetting it as I’m trying to remember it. Yes, it’s one of those. Come back, come back, I need to remember you at least until the end of this review. But, no, it’s fading,
Bel Canto is an adaptation of the Ann Patchett novel first published in 2001, which I remembered as being brilliant and unputdownable, even if I recalled only a few of the details — hostages, an opera singer; that was about it. So I found it on the bookshelf and read it again, which was daft.
