SNOW WHITE (2025)****

Disney's live action remake of one of its most iconic and oldest properties, SNOW WHITE, came to our screens freighted in politics, as evidenced by it being ratings-bombed on IMDB.  So I came to the film with low expectations. However, I am delighted to report that I had a wonderful time watching this film! I found its production design and costumes beautiful and full of wondrous detail. I loved the look and characterisation CGI non-dwarves who take Snow White in.  I loved all three lead performances from Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot and Jeff Morrow.  And most of all I loved the reworking of the messaging - not as woke - but in a way that does not stretch the credulity of the modern viewer.

Let's start with the look and feel of this film. It's set in a lovely fairytale medieval middle Europe with endless beautiful detail in its architecture and costumes.  Gal Gadot's wicked stepmother has a ridiculously beautiful and stunning set of costumes - peaking in an epic sequinned dress and long cape in jewel bruise tones.  She leans into the camp. There is no back story justifying her evil. And I loved it. Snow White's iconic blue and yellow dress has been similarly beautifully rendered by designer Sandy Powell. Layers and layers of chiffon in the skirt. And yet somehow, despite all of this, a very young-looking Rachel Zegler, with a fresh face, makes Snow White seem like just a young girl rather than a princess. And we put it all together in scenes that again and again made me gasp with how gorgeous they looked - whether vistas in the forest or a particularly lovely rendering of Snow White's bier in the forest.

And on to the messaging. In this version of the story - nearly ninety years after the original - to be "fairest of them all" is to literally be fair, and kind, and beautiful from within. Snow White does indeed whistle while she works, but rather than becoming a servant to the dwarves she shows them how to clean up after themselves. We realise that poor Dopey doesn't like being so-called (who would!) and Snow White gives him the confidence to move into the spotlight. Most importantly, rather than a total stranger of a prince kissing Snow White awake, we now have a young man with whom she has already fallen in love doing the job - far easier for a modern audience to rationalise.  And yes, he is not a prince but a person living in the woods Robin Hood style.  As a result, the movie doesn't end with the kiss but with Snow White reclaiming her throne, inspiring her people to be better, to be kinder, to remember what it was to share and to hope.  Yes it's hokey. But it isn't woke. To quote the new SUPERMAN, maybe thinking the best of people is what's actually "punk rock" now.

Kudos to director Marc Webb (500 DAYS OF SUMMER) who has done a beautiful job with this film. And to screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN) who threaded the needle of keeping what we love in the fairytale but also making it more palatable for a modern audience.  I really hope the film finds its audience in due course away from all the controversy and hatefulness around its release. It's a lovely film full of heart and earnest good intentions.

SNOW WHITE is rated PG, has a running time of 109 minutes and is on global release.

THE AMATEUR***

THE AMATEUR is a handsomely made but ultimately mis-cast spy thriller based on a novel by Robert Littrell in which a behind-the-scenes intelligence officer (Rami Malek) goes out into the real world to avenge the death of his wife (SUPERMAN's Rachel Brosnahan).  In this version of the film, director James Hawes (ONE LIFE) creates a visually arresting stye and takes us from Washington to London, Madrid and Istanbul in a genuinely pacy and twisty thriller.  The cast is first-rate, and I particularly liked Mindhunter's Holt Macallany as a senior intelligence officer.  The problem is that while the screenplay by Gary Spinelli (AMERICAN MADE) and Ken Nolan (BLACK HAWK DOWN) is compelling, two of the key performances are genuinely off-putting.  Outlander's Caitriona Balfe simply cannot do a Russian accent. And Rami Malek simply cannot convince as a grieving husband and ordinary schmo.  He has a very arresting and unique look and way of delivering lines that just comes off as vaguely psychopathic and robotic and is not suited to a) conveying emotion and b) looking like he could blend into a crowd. This film could've been genuinely brilliant with a different male and female lead.

THE AMATEUR is rated PG-13, has a running time of 122 minutes, and is on global release.

THE SALT PATH*

Theatre director Marianne Elliott has adapted Raynor Winn's best-selling but now controversial book about her and her husband's epic walk around the south-coast of England. Sadly I watched this after the controversy broke so I am not sure how far I was influenced by accusations that key elements of the biographical book were faked.  I hope I just watched the film on its own terms.  But boy this is a tedious film.

It opens with middle-aged husband and wife Raynor (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs) destitute, homeless and hiking around the pretty southern coast of England.  They both have regional accents, with Isaacs pulling his off better than Anderson.  They look rough, sun-burned and stressed. They have no money - are reduced to busking - and Moth has a degenerative illness. So the film starts in bleak dull tones and a reduced aspect ratio.  However, the apparently literally regenerative power of being one with nature and walking in beauty allows the film's colour scheme to become sunnier and the aspect ratio to widen. I cannot imagine a more on-the-nose directorial choice.  But I saw no real signs of enlightenment and I was not moved by the couple's plight. The pace was slow and nothing really happens beyond the odd stranger donating a pot of hot water or momentary stress at whether their kids are okay. Apparently there is some malarkey about being "salted" but I was unconvinced and unmoved. I also thought the landscape and seascape photography would be more impressive.

THE SALT PATH is rated 12, has a running time of 115 minutes and is on release in the UK. It played Toronto 2024.

THUNDERBOLTS* - ****

I bugged out of the Marvel Universe after GUARDIANS 1. Too many movies. Too many big bads blowing up cities. Too many sardonic quips from Iron Man. It just all became so same.  But for whatever reason I decided to watch THUNDERBOLTS* and thoroughly enjoyed it!  

The first phase of the MCU is over. The po-faced Captain America type characters are gone.  This is a post-Avengers world. And we are dealing with its detritus and emotional baggage.  I like the beaten up, jaded look of the characters. Florence Pugh's little sister to Scar-Jo's deceased Black Widow looks she's coming off a bender.  The millennial, I-hate-my job-angst is both hilarious and relatable. I like the idea that rather than saving the world she's just a mercenary. I really like the idea that despite all the tedious fight scenes what really matters is having mates with whom one can be vulnerable and tackle all the demons that haunt us. That's a nice message.  

And it's wrapped in a genuinely very funny script Eric Pearson and Joanna Cala and SUPERB line delivery from Florence Pugh and David Harbour as the most ridiculously messed-up and adorable father-daughter superheroes seen on screen. We haven't seen the name Bob deployed for this much comic effect since Blackadder 2.  I also LOVE Julia Louis-Dreyfus in basically anything. Here, she's a billionaire arms-dealer - kind of like the successful version of her character in Veep - who wants to control the mercenaries.  She manages to pivot so quickly it takes your breath away.

Kudos to director Jake Schreier for pulling off a genuinely enjoyable, funny and moving Marvel film. It's certainly a handbrake-turn away from his wonderful ROBOT & FRANK but I am here for it.

THUNDERBOLTS is rated PG-13, has a running time of 127 minutes and is on global release.

SECRET MALL APARTMENT*****

SECRET MALL APARTMENT is a documentary about a bunch of artists in Rhode Island who were pissed off at the creation of a giant ugly mall in their home town but discovered a small cavity in its architecture and decided to create a cool hang-out space there.  It's a story you just couldn't make up. Over days and weeks and months they scoped out the security guards' routine and where the security cameras were and through no small effort managed to scramble up into this space and make it their own. They literally carried in a SOFA! It wasn't that habitable really - cold and damp. But the sheer audacity of the plan turned from a bit of a stunt into something more provocative and meaningful. A way to take back real estate that was poorly designed and alienating to its local community and turn it into something beloved and community-minded. 

Director Jeremy Workman's film is tightly edited and neatly constructed and utterly compelling. I discovered a whole new world of artists using their art for good. Michael Townsend - the man at the centre of it all - had used his "tape art" to commemorate victims of 9/11 and to cheer up severely ill kids. He seems to be a really earnest human and probably impossible to live with. I love that people like this somehow exist, defying The Man, and I love that they recorded their endeavours. This a truly unique film about a truly unique set of people doing something crazy. It deserves the widest possible audience.

SECRET MALL APARTMENT has a 91 minute runtime. It was released in the US last month.

NIGHT STAGE aka ATO NOTURNO*** - BFI Flare Closing Night Gala

NIGHT STAGE is a visually stylish and heavily Brian de Palma influenced queer erotic thriller about two men who sabotage their professional achievements with increasingly exhibitionist sex.  Gabriel Faryas plays Matias, a twenty something actor who is flamboyantly out but so ambitious that he's willing to shaft his own friend, colleague and room-mate to land the role in a major TV series. Casting directors and colleagues give him coded warnings about his public persona and he seems to buy into that but for his affair with Rafael (Cirillo Luna).  Rafael is a closeted politician on the cusp of becoming city mayor.  He has a bland "change" message but is in fact bankrolled by old school real estate developers and has a goon who serves as bodyguard and fixer.

The film is written and directed by Felipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon (SEASHORE) and they clearly have an assured visual eye. The actors all do a good job and the final message of the joy and relief of being out is a nuanced and tragic one.  But the film is about 20 minutes too long and it's never sinister enough in its thrills. The BFI Flare audience laughed uproariously at the appearance of a masked man.  To be fair, a lot of 80s and 90s thrillers of this type flirt with camp absurdity but I felt this went a bit too far. Also, I think it was pretty easy to guess the plot.  

NIGHT STAGE has a running time of 117 minutes. It played Berlin and closed BFI Flare 2025.