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.

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES*****

It's decades since I watched the original rock-mockumentary SPINAL TAP, so I can't remember the specifics of any of the jokes bar 'turning it up to eleven", Stonehenge and ill-fated drummers. And since then we've had the tragic murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. I just didn't know how I was going to react to this sequel.  I am happy to report that it's just delightful:  silly, sweet, sometimes melancholy, with some insane cameos and so many moments where I was guffawing out loud. 

The movie opens with our ageing three rockers retired and variously running a cheese shop, a glue shop, and writing muzak for crime podcasts.  The daughter of their old bandmate wants to bring them back for a shameless cash-in reunion concert in New Orleans, masterminded by a thinly veiled evil Simon Cowell-Simon Fowler-style impresario played with relish by Chris Addison (The Thick Of It).  Along the way we get old beefs rehashed, and the introduction of a new drummer played by Valerie Franco.  We get to see Tap interact with evident real-life fan Elton John in an extended and tremendous cameo.  It's just a bloody good time - just so well-meaning, so funny and so full of people pretending but actually writing good rock songs and enjoying playing them. In fact, the final 25 minutes is basically just a filmed real Tap concert.  Loved every second of it.

God bless Rob Reiner and all who sailed in him. 

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES has a running time of 83 minutes and is rated R. It was released last October.

PILLION****

I thoroughly enjoyed writer-director Harry Lighton's brave, bold and strangely heart-warming coming-of-age drama PILLION. Harry Melling, last seen as Call-Me Risley in Wolf Hall, stars as geeky, shy Colin, who lives in a bleak British town and sings in a barbershop quartet with his dad. As the movie begins, Colin meets the desperately handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgard) and begins a relationship that is all about being subsmissive and not at all about genuine intimacy or romance. At first, Colin seems genuinely happy, adopted by Ray's biker friends and experiencing his first true physical fulfilment. But as the movie and Colin develop, we and he realise that he needs and deserves more. He asks Ray for a normal day-off where they can on a date, and as much as Ray is willing to give it a go, it's just not him.

What I love about PILLION, aside from its moments of genuine hilarity, is that it deals with a lot of serious stuff in what feels like a real and authentic way. I loved a scene where Ray goes for dinner with Colin's parents (Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge) and we see their concern for their son played back to them as bigotry. And I also loved the denouement. Without spoiling it, it's fascinating to see which of the characters is truly brave.  

PILLION has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Cannes, Telluride and London 2025. It was released in the USA last October and in the UK last November.

THE BALTIMORONS****

THE BALTIMORONS is an utterly delightful, low-key melancholy romantic comedy that absolutely won a place in my heart.  It stars Michael Strassner as a thirty-something stand-up comic recovering from depression, cancellation and alcoholism. He's engaged to his ever-vigilant fiancee Brittany (Olivia Luccardi) but still seems to be drifting and struggling.  The movie opens on Christmas Eve morning. Cliff needs an emergency dental repair and the only dentist open is the the world-weary but admirably strong middle-aged dentist Didi (Liz Larsen).  Her daughter bails on her for Christmas to spend it with her dad and his new younger wife.  The balance of the film sees Cliff and Didi just hang out, derping around the wintry quiet streets and shoreline of Baltimore. They seem to really connect, to be kind, earnest, hurt but open to each other. It's a genuinely beautiful romance in the making.

What I love about this film is how real and complex and nuanced the characters are. Even Cliff's fiancee Brittany is given the grace of genuinely caring for him and understanding how hard it is to move forward with a relationship intercut but recent trauma. I also love how natural Strassner and Larsen are together on screen. Despite the age gap and the financial gap they really seem like they could make it.  I also really like Jay Duplass' directorial style here. The film has a beautiful, gentle, earnest quality and could become a stealth Christmas favourite. There's something about the Peanuts adjacent soft-jazz score that makes everything feel cosy and heart-warming even as the film handles some pretty gnarly subject matter.

THE BALTIMORONS is rated R and has a running time of 101 minutes. It played SXSW 2025 where it won the Audience Award, and was released in the USA last September.

EEPHUS***

Writer-director-cineatographer-editor Carson Lund's EEPHUS is a low-key funny, low-key melancholy film about male friendship and baseball. The entire film takes place over the course of a day and in a single location - a local baseball ground where two local rival teams are playing their last match before their ground is lost to redevelopment.  We see them banter with each other as a desultory group of spectators watches. There's low-key shit-talking and some home truths about how far any of them are actually friends and will keep in touch beyond the singular bond of playing sports together.  In the film's final act we see the last holdouts attempt to keep playing, even though night has fallen and they're relying on car headlights to light the pitch. It's a none too subtle metaphor for trying to cling onto something that's lost.  It's a charming enough film but too meandering and ultimately weightess for its running time. But hey, at least I learned what an eephus is, and maybe the gentle, unhurried pace of this film is the point.

EEPHUS has a running time of 99 minutes. It played Cannes and London 2024 and was released in the USA last spring.

ONE OF THEM DAYS****

There aren't enough genuinely funny, genuinely heartwarming buddy comedies out there, let alone buddy comedies starring black women. So it's a pleasure to report that ONE OF THEM DAYS, directed by Lawrence Lamont and penned by Insecure's Syreeta Singleton, is a really good time. It came out almost a year ago and I am utterly unsurprised that it was such a commercial hit and that it's getting a sequel. I am equally unsurprised that it has been nominated for Independent Spirit awards. 

The film stars Keke Palmer (HUSTLERS) as Dreux, a hard-working fast-food worker applying to become a franchise manager. She lives with her best friend Alyssa, a talented but uncompromising artist played by the musician SZA in her screen debut.  The plot is set in motion when the two girls need to make their rent by 6pm to avoid being evicted, because Alyssa's feckless boyfriend squandered the money.  Added to this, they need to get Dreux to her interview and avoid a local gangster who thinks they nicked his rare kicks. So the movie is set up as a zany caper full of madcap adventures and setbacks and quirky characters. My favourite of these are the loan-shark played by Larry David's Curb nemesis Keyla Monterroso Mejia and the madman standing outside her loan-shop called Lucky. Everything resolves beautifully, as we would expect, thanks partly to a white girl ex machina played with disarming earnestness by Euphoria's Maude Apatow. 

This film has a lot to say about how this economy is screwing over Gen Z - about housing unaffordability, gentrification, unequal opportunities, and the prison system of credit scores.  But it does so with gusto and fun and I really found myself rooting for, and believing in, the female characters. I will definitely be watching the sequel.

ONE OF THEM DAYS has a running time of 97 minutes and is rated R. It was released last winter.

TWINLESS****

TWINLESS is a slippery, dark, brilliantly constructed dramedy about co-dependence and the lies we choose to believe. It stars Dylan O'Brien (MAZE RUNNER) in a superb performance as a twin grieving the death of his brother in a car accident.  He finds comfort in the friendship of Dennis (writer-director-actor James Sweeney) who he meets at a support group for newly winless grieving siblings.  Dennis also sets Roman up with his co-worker Marcia (Aisling Franciosi).  The problem is that Dennis is a deeply lonely, sad, and unstable young man, who becomes unnaturally obsessed with Roman, and is seeking far more than mere friendship.

The resulting film is genuinely funny but also really dark, and its construction really keeps you guessing as to where Sweeney is going to take us.  It would pair well with Alex Russell's LURKER as it covers some of the same subject matter. I won't say more for fear of spoiling it. Suffice to say that this is a film of astonishing assuredness and dexterity for a new director. I also feel that the central double-performance of O'Brien deserves a lot of praise.

TWINLESS is rated R and has a running time of 100 minutes. It played Sundance 2025 where TWINLESS won the Audience Award - Dramatic. It  also played London 2025.  It was released in the USA last September. It will be released in the UK on February 6th.

SPLITSVILLE****

Writer-director-actor Michael Angelo Corvino has created an absolute banger of a romantic-comedy with SPLITSVILLE.  It's an absurd set-up and yet within that gets to some real deep truths about thirty-something marriages and contains one of the funniest punch-ups on screen. You can really tell that Corvinho and his co-writer and co-lead actor Kyle Marvin are best friends in real life.

The movie is about the relationships between and within two couples. The first couple comprises Carey (Marvin) and Ashley (Adria Arjona).  Carey thinks they are happily married but Ashley actually wants a divorce because she doesn't feel physically fulfilled.  She drops this bomb on Carey when they're on their way to see good friends Paul (Corvino) and Julia (Dakota Johnson). We think Paul and Julia are happily married, and they even have a young son, but we discover that they are in an open marriage.  Thus inspired, Carey and Ashley decide to start seeing other people, leading to a tour de force scene in which we see the camera move between the various partners that Ashley is hooking up with.  Apparently this was shot in one take which is truly impressive.

What we learn from this scenario pushed to an extreme is that there are real feelings involved when you cheat or even just hook up after a break-up.  These people are all flawed but they're fundamentally good and all care for each other. There's a lot here about insecurity and ageing and feeling that you have to be more for your partner. More hopefully, there's also something rather lovely in the community that comes together of the people Ashley is seeing.

It struck me watching SPLITSVILLE that despite the craziness, it all feels way more credible and relatable than THE MATERIALISTS, in which Dakota Johnson also stars. It's also far far funnier.  Adria Arjona proves that her hilarious performance in HIT MAN was no accident. Johnson is allowed to be real. And the two male leads are just absolutely superb. This truly is one of the funniest films I've seen in a while.

SPLITSVILLE is rated R and has a running time of 104 minutes. It played Cannes 2025 and opened in the USA last summer. It will open in the UK on February 20th.

THE ROSES****

I was pleasantly surprised by Jay Roach's remake of the iconic late 80s black comedy about a divorcing couple sabotaging each other's lives. The Crown's Olivia Colman plays a talented chef who puts her career on hold to raise the kids while Benedict Cumberbatch (THE THING WITH FEATHERS) goes on to become a successful architect.  The tables are turned when a massive storm both destroys his latest commission and his career but drives a famous food critic into her humble crab shack.  He becomes a stay-at-home dad and she becomes a radically successful restauranteur.  The divorce only moves into view in the final 45 minutes or so, and allows for a deliciously brilliant cameo from Allison Janney as a fierce divorce lawyer. It's then that we get the gonzo sabotage that made up most of the original film.  

I loved everything about this film. The brilliantly nasty verbal sparring from the two British leads, much of which comes at the expense of their shocked, prudish American friends.  No surprise that the script was written by Tony McNamara who so beautifully mined marital bickering in his under-rated and hilarious TV series The Great. But what gives this movie so much more depth and relatability compared to the original was its willingness to explore contemporary marriage dynamics around gender norms. I loved seeing the husband and wife struggle to cope with his feelings of emasculation as she becomes the breadwinner, and the wife struggle with becoming a side-show in her own children's lives.  We may not all build multi-million dollar houses in the Bay Area, but I think a lot of these financial and cultural pressures on marriage resonate. It was wonderful to see them explored honestly on film.

THE ROSES has a running time of 105 minutes and is rated R. It was released in August.

DIE MY LOVE**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 11

Lynne Ramsay (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE) creates a claustrophobic, deeply unsettling, occasionally mordantly funny drama about a mentally fragile woman suffering severely from post-partum depression. It stars Jennifer Lawrence in a raw, vulnerable role as the dangerously unboundaried mother in question. She cannot write, her sex life has gone to shit, she has lost her tolerance for the banal bullshit people say to mothers. Some of her rude interjections are funny.  But as the film goes on it becomes more and more frightening. We realise that while post-partum is definitely a factor, Grace was not well from the start.  And we ratchet up to a finale that’s both poetic and devastating.  It’s a bravura performance from Lawrence, and shows us just what she is capable of when she makes the right choice of material - something that has been sadly lacking for pretty much the last decade.  Robert Pattinson is also good in the smaller role of Grace’s husband Jackson. It’s a tricky role because he could so easily be played as unfeeling or feckless but he’s just a young man out of his depth.

This is a film that is slippery and refuses easy answers.  We are never really sure if things are happening for real or in Grace’s fevered imagination.  Does she really sleep with a mysterious neighbour (LaKeith Stanfield) or is he just a man she meets in a supermarket and then projects her sexual frustration upon.  Most importantly, when Grace finally says “enough” is she leaving the baby that she clearly loves, in spite of everything, or is she going to take her own life?  Even the attitude of the people around her is tricky to parse.  How far was Grace’s mother-in-law (Sissy Spacek) aware of her mental instability from the start? Her attitude at the wedding appears to be one of suppressed shock. And at a social gathering later on in the film, one of covering up and enablement.

My only criticism of the film is that when you make something that claustrophobic and intense then the running time of probably needs to be shorter.  I think 100 minutes would have been ideal. But I loved the way Ramsay traps us in a world that threatens to suffocate us, most notably by using a 4:3 aspect ratio and essentially one location.

DIE MY LOVE has a running time of 118 minutes.  It played Cannes and London. It will be released in the USA on November 7th and in the UK on November 24th.

NO OTHER CHOICE***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 9

Pantheon director Park Chan Wook returns to our screens with the darkest of black comedies and social satires. It’s hilarious and occasionally deeply moving and sends a dire warning to all of us wage-slaves. And all with his trademark audacious and assured visual and aural style. The film is the third that I have seen in as many days where a family patriarch is so ashamed at being unable to financially provide for his wife and kids that he turns to a life of crime. After the feckless and self-involved JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor) in THE MASTERMIND and the charming but rogueish Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) in ROOFMAN we now get Man Soo (Lee Byung-Hun) in NO OTHER CHOICE. After decades working in a paper factory, itself an obsolete industry, he is laid off by the new American owners who use the platitude that they had “no other choice”. A year later and his house is about to be foreclosed, his wife is supporting the family, and his daughter can’t have cello lessons. They’ve even had to give up the dogs! Every job opening has a bevy of over-qualified men applying. So Man-Soo grabs his father’s old service revolver and takes a KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS approach to his problems. 

There is nothing that I didn’t love about this film. Its 2hr20 min running time went by in a flash. I loved its clear-eyed, heartbreaking depiction of middle-aged men discarded by society and its dire warning of what a fully automated AI-powered factory would look like. I loved its clear depiction of the social pressures on men in a misogynistic patriarchal society, whether young or old. I loved all of the acting performances. Both Lee Byung-Hun (JOINT SECURITY AREA) and Son Ye-Jin as his wife are superb. But most of all this film works because of how Director Park handles comedy - especially absurdist physical comedy - and uses music. The first truly violent scene goes on forever and is set to overloud schmaltzy Korean pop music. It’s funny but it also tells us so much about the emotional psychodrama in the marriage it is depicting. This is cinema at its finest, its most complex, and its most entertaining.  

NO OTHER CHOICE has a running time of 139 minutes. It played Venice, Busan, Toronto and London. It does not yet have a commercial release date in the USA or UK but was released in South Korea in September.

ROOFMAN**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 8

Derek Cianfrance (BLUE VALENTINE) returns to our screens with ROOFMAN - a rather melancholy, occasionally funny, but ultimately rather whimsical and moving true crime story.  The weird thing is that the dayglow poster and goofy plot set-up make you think you are walking into a gonzo crime caper.  And yes, the film may have elements of that, but it has far more depth and emotional heft. 

Channing Tatum (MAGIC MIKE) stars as the titular Roofman - a demobbed soldier with a talent for observation and charm to spare.  Without the cash to spoil his wife and kids, he turns to armed robbery, knocking off 45 fast food restaurants.  His kind heart and general goofiness get him caught, but his aforementioned observational smarts also allow him to plot an audacious prison escape. And all this is in the first forty-five minutes of the two-hour-plus film!  The balance of the film sees Jeffrey in a kind of purgatory: out of prison but on the lam and unable to spend time with his actual family. So, he ends up hiding out in a Toys’R’Us for literally months, hacking the security systems. Even more audaciously, he ends up making friends at a local church, and romancing local single mother and employee Leigh (Kirsten Dunst).  Jeffrey now has a new identity where he is the good guy, John, and everybody loves him - even Leigh’s emo teenage daughter. The problem is, he makes the same mistakes again and again: trying to buy people’s affections.

This is a film that floats along with mild good humour and a lot of warmth, thanks mostly to Channing Tatum’s innate charm and the fact that while he may be feckless he at least he owns his mistakes. It makes for an interesting contrast with JB Mooney, the lead character in Kelly Reichardt’s THE MASTERMIND.  Where Jeffrey is a loveable rogue who takes accountability but just can’t help himself, Mooney is an entitled prick.  They are both simultaneously brilliant and stupid.  But the former actually cares for his kids, and indeed seems to be a rather warm-hearted individual more generally.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, not least for its heavy 1990s nostalgia and a lovely pair of cameos from Peter Dinklage as the dickish store manager and Ben Mendelssohn as the parish priest.  Kirsten Dunst brings so much heart and warmth and intelligence to everything she does, and Tatum is so charming, that it’s just a fun two hours.  Not a rollicking comedy as the marketing campaign would have you believe, but perhaps more worth your time for all that. 

ROOFMAN has a running time of 126 minutes. It played Toronto 2025. It was released in the USA last Friday.

IS THIS THING ON?**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 8

IS THIS THING ON? is an absolutely delightful romantic dramedy based, rather improbably, on the life of Liverpudlian stand-up comedian John Bishop. Safely transposed to contemporary America, the movie stars Lego Batman Will Arnett and JAY KELLY’s Laura Dern as an unhappily married couple and parents of two sparky ten-year old boys.  As the movie opens they call time on their marriage: she stays in the suburban marital home with the dogs and the kids and he moves to an apartment in the city. Both are good people. In fact everyone in the movie is good people.  Yes they were unhappy and they split but there was no infidelity and there’s very little meanness.

What separation gives them is the chance to discover their identities as middle-aged people separate from each other and their identities as parents.  Who are they when considered on their own terms and in isolation?  She filled the void after retiring from sport with having a family but now goes back to coaching. He walks into a bar and is too cheap to pay the cover charge so ends up doing an open mic stand up slot. He discovers a whole new side of himself as well as a wonderfully welcoming and inclusive community of comedians.  And suddenly, both happy, the couple can be happy with each other.

This is a movie that could be sentimental and twee and obvious but it’s actually rather finely balanced and beautifully observed. Given that it was written by three men and based on an autobiography of a man, I was surprised by how well it captured the emotions of a middle-aged woman who sacrificed her career to raise a family. Bradley Cooper’s direction is assured and unshowy except for one bravura scene that takes us from an argument in an attic into a stand-up show.  The acting is universally good although perhaps the two leads were a little too old for their parts. Bradley Cooper has an hilarious and scene-stealing supporting role as a struggling actor. I also really loved how Cooper captured the energy and excitement and friendship of the stand-up scene.  He seems to have an authentic and love and appreciation of stand-up comedy and it shines through.

In a sense, this film is the lighter comedy counterpart to AFTER THE HUNT. It’s  a grown-up nuanced film about grown-ups with real marital issues but that shows how real marriages endure and even thrive on honesty and forbearance.  More of this please!

IS THIS THING ON? is rated R and has a running time of 124 minutes. It will be released in the USA on December 19th.

STRAIGHT CIRCLE**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025

British film-maker Oscar Hudson's debut feature film is a darkly surreal black comedy about the futility of war and the pointlessness of divisive populist politics.  It's visually audacious and features stunning central performances from real-life twins Elliott and Luke Tittensor. Each plays a soldier stationed in a lone building guarding the border between their two countries. There's barren desert on either side and seemingly nothing of any value to guard.  But guard it they do!, releasing ceremonial pigeons each day to symbolise peace but each day loathing each other. Tensions ratchet up when one day, one of the guards lets off a pigeon without the other! So follows a journey of discovering that maybe they aren't that physically or emotionally different. Maybe they both just miss having a loving mum.  So what will happen when a General shows up telling them they actually are at war now, and to defend their territory?

The story is spare and violent and surreal.  I absolutely loved it! It reminded me of the best of Beckett and Ustinov.  I loved the use of vertical split screen to show each nation and brother mirroring the other, but was also relieved in those scenes that let the audience relax and just watch the characters mentally unravel.  I found the middle sections maybe a tad overlong but the final act is a bravura piece of storytelling that I absolutely adored. I cannot wait to see what Hudson does next.

STRAIGHT CIRCLE has a running time of 108 minutes. It played Venice where it won the Critics Week award.

TUNER**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Surprise Film

Documentarian Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for NAVALNY, returns to our screens with his first fiction feature.  Co-written with Robert Ramsay (INTOLERABLE CRUELTY), the movie is about a young piano tuner called Niki who suffers from an acute sensitivity to sound that ended his career as a virtuoso concert pianist. He has to wear headphones to muffle sound, but his pitch-perfect musical sense makes him an amazing piano tuner, and by a twist of fate, also an amazing safe-cracker. 

The plot mechanics are thrown into gear when Niki's beloved and aged mentor Harry suffers a heart attack and accumulates massive medical bills. Niki slips into helping a security company pilfer from their clients. This also ends up implicating his new girlfriend, a talented pianist and composer called Ruthie, through a coincidental plot device that really brought me out of this otherwise excellent film.

There's a lot to love here.  Daniel Roher knows how to cut a brisk and exciting montage.  The new music by Marius de Vries is beautiful and the way in which it is used reminded me of another excellent LFF film, WHIPLASH.  The music is complemented by the the sound design, which both depicts the movie's tension and Niki's crippling condition.  It was no surprise to discover that the sound design was by Johnnie Burns, whose work in THE ZONE OF INTEREST was some of the most stunning sound work I have ever heard.  

Kudos to the co-writers for creating a film that is often very funny but also emotional and thrilling. And kudos to the entire cast. The White Lotus' Leo Woodall has starred in feature films before, but it feels as though his performance as Niki will be his breakout role.  He has to essay everything from nonchalance to deep hurt to peril and does so beautifully.  Dustin Hoffman is absolutely hilarious and charismatic in an extended cameo as Niki's mentor Harry.  And the two leading ladies, Havana Rose Liu (LURKER) and Tovah Feldshuh do their best with smaller but still important roles.  

This film is not without its flaws, but it shows real flair, confidence and foregrounds some phenomenal performances. I am surprised that it does not yet have a commercial release date.

TUNER has a running time of 109 minutes. It played Telluride, Toronto and London.

OLMO**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 2

OLMO is a funny, heart-felt, glorious film about a good kid trying to get the girl of his dreams while real life gets in the way. The kid is a teenage boy called Olmo who lives with his Mexican immigrant parents and big sister in a shitty New Mexican town in the late 70s. The girl of his dreams, Nina, lives across the street and is having a party on Saturday night. Olmo is too young and uncool to really stand a chance, but maybe, just maybe, if he turns up with his dad's killer stereo and his Saturday Night Fever dance moves he can get the girl. The problem is that his dad has MS and needs constant care, his sister is going to the local roller disco, and his mum has to work a double shift. 

Writer-director Fernando Eimbcke (DUCK SEASON) captures moments of pure joy often set to wonderful music. Apart from the aforementioned disco scene, there's a lovely scene where Olmo and his best mate manage to fix the record player under Olmo's father's painfully detailed tutelage, and suddenly the whole family is dancing around the living room. Even getting a cranky old car to start can be a scene of spontaneous happiness.

But the film also has its quiet moments of desperate sadness. In an early scene the kids are having an argument about who is going to babysit the dad, while he sits mute in his wheelchair - a once proud man conscious of the burden he has become. And later, without giving away too many spoilers, there's a plot pivot that confronts Olmo with the responsibilities of being an adult.

And then there are just so many moments that will ring true to those of us who grew up in immigrant families. The parents still speak their native language - Spanish - in the house, but the kids, born in the USA, reply in English. Both sides understand each other perfectly but don't have the confidence to actually speak the others' native tongue. The parents who are always worn out and tired. The kids who so desperately want to fit in. It all rings true.

Kudos to Plan B who are financing these low budget films. I really hope this gets distribution. It's so valuable - not to mention entertaining - to see well told, beautifully made migrant stories in these divided and violent times.

OLMO has a running time of 84 minutes. It played Berlin and Toronto and will play the BFI London Film Festival. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Opening Night Gala

Rian Johnson has done it again with another fantastically fun and wickedly tricksy murder mystery - the third in his Knives Out franchise. WAKE UP DEAD MAN follows his satire on narcissistic billionaire tech bros (GLASS ONION) with an on-the-nose dissection of contemporary MAGA Christianity’s nasty judgmental power-hungry malevolent brand of religion. 

An absolutely superb Josh O’Connor (also starring in MASTERMIND in this year’s LFF stars as a young kind and earnest priest called Father Judd. He’s sent to a cultish rural church in upstate New York, presided over by Josh Brolin’s wicked fire-and-brimstone preacher Monsignor Wick. Wick is aided and abetted by a Mrs Danvers-like spooky woman-of-all-work Martha (Glenn Close) and her faithful lapdog Samson (Thomas Haden-Church). The parishioners are all seemingly within Wick’s grasp when he’s stabbed in the back in an apparent locked room mystery. We are thirty minutes into the film - so enter Daniel Craig’s deliciously camp Southern detective Benoit Blanc to save our young compassionate priest and reveal who the real murderer is! 

The first thing to say is that this film works brilliantly as a murder mystery, and I say this as someone who just reread and podcasted about every single one of Agatha Christie’s crime novels. The mystery is satisfyingly tricky and intricate and solvable - though I doubt many will. It works in the best tradition of debunking apparently supernatural crimes and a good knowledge of Wilkie Collins and Sherlock Holmes will certainly help you. 

The second thing to say is that the film works equally well as a satire on MAGA and unfeeling religion and ruthless politicians. What’s even better is that it balances cynicism with earnest respect for genuine faith, by balancing the viewpoints of self-confessed heretic Benoit Blanc and the young priest Father Judd. There’s a deeply moving scene between Judd and a receptionist called Louise that shows what faith and ministry can do when administered with compassion. 

Finally, the film is just a damn good time. It’s funny. It has jump scares. It drops in hilarious one-liners about contemporary culture - whether substack or Netflix. And we even get a self-referential Star Wars joke. There is quite literally nothing not to like in this wonderful film. Bring on Knives Out 4!

WAKE UP DEAD MAN has a running time of 140 minutes. It played Toronto and opened London and will be on Netflix on December 12th.

FWENDS** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Preview

FWENDS is the debut feature from writer-director Sophie Somerville, and stars Emmanuelle Mattana and Melissa Gan as Em and Jessie, two friends reuniting in Melbourne and just wondering around the city discussing everything about their lives. It's a lovely naturalistic concept and wonderful to see female friendship highlighted on screen.  But the film feels like a 60 minute short expanded to a length that it's writing can't justify.  As day turns to night the girlfriends take drugs, get locked out of their apartment, and once again derp around the streets of Melbourne. It feels really repetitive and I didn't feel like I was getting character or narrative development to keep me interested. I also feel like your capacity to enjoy this film will be radically impacted by the generational cohort you belong to.  I have a lot of empathy with Millenials and Gan Z moaning about high rent and misogyny in the workplace.  But their general fecklessness is also deeply irritating. This is no BEFORE SUNRISE.

FWENDS has a running time of 92 minutes. It played Berlin where Sophie Somerville won the Calgari Film Award. It also played Sydney and Melbourne. It will play the BFI London Film Festival but all three screenings are sold out. 

LOVE, BROOKLYN** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Preview

LOVE, BROOKLYN is a gentle earnest romantic dramedy with a side order of social commentary about gentrification. The positives: the film contains three great central performances, and some lovely lensing of a pandemic-emptied Brooklyn from DP Martim Vian. The negatives: the film moves way too slowly, and its insights are way too trite, for it to be either memorable or engaging.  

LOVE, BROOKLYN is the debut feature from director Rachael Holder and screenwriter Paul Zimmerman, and maybe that shows in its pacing. Or maybe it was a choice. But my word, for a 97 minute film I really was looking at my watch and wondering why we had not progressed. 

The film stars Andre Holland (MOONLIGHT) as Roger - a likeable thirtysomethibng journo who spends his time cycling around his beloved Brooklyn lamenting its evolution and wrestling with whether he is still in love with his ex- or ready to take on a deeper commitment with the single mum he had a one night stand with.  The ex is played by Nicole Beharie, currently on screen in Apple TV's The Morning Show.  She is fantastic as art gallerist Casey - all wit and vitality and zip.  Holland and Beharie have such on-screen chemistry we wonder why they broke up in the first place. And then we have DeWanda Wise as the more mature, centred and calm single mother Nicole, and I loved the scenes with her precocious young daughter Ally.  Nicole gently coaxes Roger into having more interaction with Ally and gives him the confidence to see a future together.  All three are good earnest people trying to live a good life. There's no actual dramatic tension.  There is, however,  some lovely gentle comedy provided by The Daily Show's Roy Wood Jr., as Alan, Roger's best friend.

There's some trite stuff at the end tying in the need to move forward, both in relationships to people and our urban homes.  The film washed over me like a warm breeze. Inconsequential and forgettable but not entirely unpleasant. 

LOVE, BROOKLYN has a running time of 97 minutes. It was released in the USA in September.

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND****

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is a delightful film.  By turns funny, charming, moving and wise. It's so low-key it might slip from notice but that would be a terrible shame.  

Tim Key (Alan Partridge) is a widowed lottery-winning millionaire who decides to pay his wife's favourite folk band to play a concert on his beautiful but largely unpeopled British island. Much like Simon and Garfunkel, the band was once successful but has long-since split and both of its members are on their uppers.  Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) still bitterly resents his writing partner for leaving him and the now married Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) needs the money from the gig, but resents Herb for living in the past. 

Over the next ninety minutes we watch these three people deal with their past with good humour and grace.  The initial set-up is comedic. Tim Key's islander talks constantly with an off-kilter sense of humour and an intrusive starry-eyed fandom that borders on, but never crosses the line into, creepiness.  Meanwhile Tom Basden is the awkward out-of-towner stuck in the middle of nowhere with the dawning realisation that he is playing a concert for one.  There's a running joke that he can never buy anything he needs in the village shob, which always seems to sell an adjacent but not helpful object. 

But as the movie progresses and Nell turns up we get further into the emotional backstory of our characters. The movie gains depth but never gives us easy, sentimental answers. The protagonist actually experiences a credible and compelling emotional arc. And I was truly charmed by its denouement.

Director James Griffiths (CUBAN FURY) and his writer-stars (Key and Basden) have created a truly lovely, uplifting but never twee film that deserves a wide audience. What an unexpected pleasure it is!

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 99 minutes. It played Sundance and SXSW 2025 and was released in the UK in May.