TENZING****

Director Jennifer Peedom (SHERPA) brings all of her love and knowledge of the Himalaya to her first fiction feature, a biopic of the legendary mountain climber Tenzing Norgay.  He was the first man, alongside New Zealander Edmund Hillary, to both successfully summit Everest AND descend safely*.  

Norgay lived an extraordinary and contested life. Screenwriter Luke Davies (LION) chooses to frame it as an outsider story in a beautifully constructed if sometimes rather exposition-heavy script. The film is made up of three timelines.  The successful summit is the framing story, but we flash back to Tenzing as a young Tibetan boy and also as a young Nepalese man. 

Why the change in geographic descriptor?  Because Tenzing's family were poor Tibetan farmers whose herd was laid to waste by disease. They were thus forced to become refugees in Nepal seeking work, and left a young sick Tenzing (Samdrup Dorje Lama) in the care of some Buddhist monks, never to be seen again.  And so, Tenzing grows up as an outsider in Nepal. He is manifestly NOT a Sherpa, but of a different caste, and he has no prospects or family. All he has is his desire, growing up in the shadow of the sacred mountain, to climb it in awe and reverence.  

At this point we switch to the middle Tenzing (Tenzin Dalha), a charming but rather hapless young man whose main assets are his self-belief and the love of his childhood sweetheart.  She has run away with him to Darjeeling, India, where the European summit attempts are staged from.  He has to cut his hair and learn English and even then struggles to get a spot as a "sherpa" because, well, he is not a sherpa.  But how can you not hire Mr Amazing?!

And so we move back to the framing story, where Genden Phuntsok is now the mature Tenzing, the man who has come as close as any (bar maybe Mallory) to ascent and is trying again with a new British-led expedition.  Once again he is an outsider, because he is neither accepted by the Sherpa that he commands nor is he accepted by the rest of the full members of the climbing team that he has lobbied to join.  Despite showing incredible mountaineering skill, it becomes increasingly clear that the British, led by Willem Defoe's Colonel John Hunt, would rather have two of their own make the summit attempt, rather than a Tibetan man and a Kiwi.

Still, in the end, the mountain demands meritocracy. And so it is Tenzing and Edmund Hillary (a wonderfully restrained and generous screen partner in Tom Hiddleston) who make the ascent. Although we mountain fanatics know every step of that journey, I must confess that I was absolutely enthralled by its re-enactment. It got a little dusty in the theatre when Col Hunt wished Tenzing well on the final push, and when Ed Hillary fixed his mask just before the peak.  It was a thing of true beauty, made all the better by both men giving such restrained performances.  We are meant to be in awe of the mountain, and they really do portray that all-consuming fascination and reverence beautifully.

And what of the mountain?  Director Jennifer Peedom and cinematographer Stefan Duscio must be praised for their awe-inspiring photography of the real Himalaya and the New Zealand high mountain stand-in.  It is beautiful and awe-inspiring and immersive.  So while this will be an Apple TV release I would really encourage you to see it on as big a screen as possible. The added bonus is that you will then truly enjoy Rebekka Karijord's score.

TENZING has a running time of 2hrs 8 mins. It played Telluride and Toronto and opens in the USA on October 9th and will stream on Apple TV from October 16th.

*To this day it is debated whether Mallory ascended three decades earlier - I believe he did, but if you don't make it back it is not deemed a successful summit for obvious reasons.

THE UPRISING (2026)**

What a frustrating film THE UPRISING is! It's rather handsomely made, and there's nothing wrong with any of the performances per se. It's just so interminably dour and dull and earnest and ploddingly predictable.  For this is an England immiserated by the plague and weighed down by taxation, where the peasants are marching on London to demand relief and justice from a weak young King.  Everything is mud and dun-coloured woollens and unwashed hair.  There is no subtlety here. It's the world of Wat Tyler and savage pre-democratic injustice.  All of which is fine and may indeed be worth a feature film.  But then the writer-director Paul Greengrass, of BOURNE fame, shoehorns in a weirdly anachronistic Robin Hood prequel.  It's just so odd and clearly no-one knew what to do with it, not least the marketing team.  Is this a Robin Hood film? Not really. It is it a straightforward historical drama? I guess? I found the whole thing desperately uninvolving.  Which is a shame because a lot of time and care has gone into recreating atmospheric night-time riot scenes with extras punching each other galore. But at a moment of high climax to hear our Robin avatar shout out "We need Bedfordshire!" and "Keep the script even!" is enough to signal that this film really has just jumped the shark.

THE UPRISING is rated 15 and has an interminable running time of 2hrs 8m. It was released in the USA last month and will be released in the UK on Friday.

REBELLION - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Preview

Documentarians Ken Fero (ULTRAVIOLENCE) and Tariq Mehmood have created an important, compelling, but problematic film retelling the story of the Bradford 12 - a group of British-Asians tried for creating Molotov cocktails to defend their community from violent racist thugs. 

The film does a superb job in situating us back in late 70s and early 80s Britain, complete with the rise of the violent far-right and a police force that could be just as racist.  1981 was a particularly bad summer of riots, with the memory of Southall fresh in everyone's memory.  So, when the violence came to Bradford, a group of activists realised that they would have to defend themselves.  They were arrested for being in possession of petrol bombs, but got off largely because a) the weapons hadn't been used and b) because the police manifestly lied about the threat level to the local community.  Nonetheless, it was a radical judgment because it basically confirmed that immigrant communities could not rely on police protection.

This film benefits enormously from having so many surviving members of the 12, as well as the wider activist community, able to recall the events in their own voices, whether in archive news footage or in present day interviews.  This makes the film an incredibly important historical document.  The conviction, passion but also nuance with which they make their case is impressive. 

Where the film falls down is in how it chooses to give or withhold context, and when it chooses or fails to interrogate the larger narrative of goodies versus baddies.  The first jarring example of this is showing the PLFP terrorist Leila Khaled as just another talking head in support of anti-racist activists everywhere. Not only is this disingenuous, it's also dangerous, because it undermines a key part of the argument of the 12 about how they were not actually radical terrorists at all.  

The second jarring example is of how the film-makers choose to handle the 12 admiring the IRA terrorist and hunger-striker Bobby Sands, even debating whether they should follow his example.  You have to get to the end credits to see that some of the original funders of the 12's legal defence were Sinn Fein too.  Again, I find it really bizarre not to more critically examine the links between criminal funding of terrorism flowing into the 12's defence.  And I also find it weird that we never interrogate where the line is between defending yourself from street thugs and waging an actual war of terrorism on innocent civilians. Maybe the film-makers don't see one, but I suspect the 12 might have done. 

The third example of taking a rather crude political stance and then not really interrogating it, is the way in which Margaret Thatcher is depicted: cursory footage and a voiceover from actress Taj Atwal, saying that Thatcher is "cold, monstrous" and inciting racial violence.  That's not actually what this footage shows. It actually shows Thatcher saying that immigration may well provoke resentment, which is manifestly what did happen then, and is happening now. That doesn't mean SHE is resentful or racist or inciting racism.  The documentarians would have been on more solid ground to find footage or speak to the introduction of extra powers of Stop and Search, which did indeed inflame tensions between the immigrant community and the police.

Finally, I found the prologue of the film, which attempts to draw a straight line between the early 80s riots and the current pro-Gaza activist movement cursory and ill-developed.   

All of which is to say that I found the construction and choices made by the directors questionable and alienating, and I say that as a second-gen Asian immigrant whose parents lived through exactly the racial abuse that this documentary depicts.  That said, the core content of the film - the all-important archive footage and contemporary interviews - remain powerful and important.  

REBELLION has a running time of 80 minutes. It does not yet have a commercial release date. Both BFI London Film Festival screenings are sold out.

MICHAEL***

Like many, I was reluctant to watch a Michael Jackson biopic sanctioned by his family. I was a huge MJ fan as a kid - his Bad tour was my first live concert - and I was crestfallen when the abuse scandal broke. Like many, my relationship with his art has become tainted.  And yet I know from my childhood obsession that he was a victim of physical and verbal abuse, with extreme body dysmorphia, and an exposure to sexuality way beyond what was appropriate at an early age. I don't think any of us truly have a hand on what his sexuality was - maybe he didn't either. And for me the jury is still out on his crimes.  

So we come to the film - which I watched VOD rather than in the cinema. It's a handsomely made straightforward emancipation story featuring some breathtakingly good performances from Juliano Valdi as young Michael, and Jackson's own nephew Jaafar as the older MJ.  They are both absolutely stunning as Michael and one can only imagine the innate talent and artistry and rehearsal time to pull of his singing style and dance moves. Jaafar in particular is absolutely joyous and breath-taking to watch.  The movie is worth it for the iconic concert recreations alone - whether the first Billie Jean moonwalk, or the final recreation of Bad live.  Kudos to director Antoine Fuqua (THE EQUALISER) and cinematographer Dion Beebe (CHICAGO) for getting us as close to that feeling of seeing MJ live as we could hope for.

The problem was always going to be what was unsaid and unexplored.  How did MJ's mum really feel seeing the family abuse?  Nia Long is warmly supportive as MJ's mother in this version, but wasn't she collusive, and what impact did her strict religion have on MJ's sexuality.  That sexuality is of course not explored at all. We fast forward through puberty. We never see any interiority from Michael about that. Only his need to escape his father.  His sisters get short shrift and his brothers barely feature.  How did they feel when he moved away from them? This movie does not care.  Yes there is the rising eccentricity and the menagerie of animals. A passing mention of vitiligo.  The awful Pepsi commercial fire.  But no interrogation of Michael's deeply messed up mental health. It's such a damn shame. But given the family estate constraints, I guess this is a good as writer John Logan (GLADIATOR) could have done.  Moreover, even without the constraints, going inside of Michael's head would involve making judgment calls, which would be highly contentious. This movie is for the fans, and most fans (unlike me) have long-since acquitted Michael of any wrongdoing.

MICHAEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 127 minutes. It was released in cinemas in April and is now available on demand.

POWER BALLAD****

Writer-director John Carney specialises in funny, heart-warming, music-centred films about ordinary people whose lives are transformed by song.  If that sounds schmaltzy and earnest, it is, and the world is better for it.  His latest movie is a genuinely delightful genuinely laugh-out-loud funny film called POWER BALLAD.  

It stars as Paul Rudd as an ageing wedding band musician whose music is ripped off by Nick Jonas' former boy bander who needs a hit to turn his career around.  So Rudd's character and his best mate and band mate Sandy (co-writer Peter McDonald) go to LA to confront the musician and get paid.  The moral of the story is that real love, real family, real friends matter more than success but that most people haven't got the emotional depth to realise it.  I laughed a lot - McDonald's Sandy is iconic - but it also got a little dusty in the cinema at the end. A good time was had by all!

POWER BALLAD has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated R. It is on limited release in the UK and USA.

SAVAGE HOUSE***

BARRY LYNDON meets BIG NIGHT in screenwriter Peter Glanz's directorial debut. It starts off as a dark, nasty, witty social satire on social climbers, takes a turn into a genuinely moving love story, but just loses steam in its second half. After such a sharp take-off in its first thirty minutes, I then wanted something, anything to happen, and it never did.  That's the point, but it made for a rather dull watch. This is all rather a shame as the two lead performances are absolutely superb.

The Crown's Claire Foy gives a wonderfully layered performance as Lady Savage - a properly aristocratic woman who defied convention to marry the dastardly rake and parvenu, Chauncey.  She gives a powerful defence of female agency and genuinely moved me.  But despite this, she pawns the last of her family jewels to scrape her way back into high society, when the chance to host the Marlboroughs comes her way.  And what of her husband?  Grant plays Chauncey as a kind of ageing Withnail, fuelled by port and gambling, all charm, wit, petulance and aching vulnerability. He wants to be accepted and also to avoid the bailiffs.  

The movie hits cruising speed fast.  And then stalls.  We get a nice side plot involving Jack Farthing and Bel Powley's valet and woman of all work respectively.  But ultimately this is a morality play about two people hellbent on social climbing and the agents of their own ruin.  It would have worked better as a sixty minute short.

SAVAGE HOUSE is rated R and has a running time of 113 minutes. It is on limited release in the USA and UK.