COVER-UP***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 8

I have been reading Seymour “Sy” Hersch’s investigative journalism for just over 30 years. His reporting on the My Lai massacre was assigned to me at 17 as an A-level history student. Whenever I fell into a conspiracy rabbit hole, it felt like there was a Sy Hersch book that would confirm my worst suspicions about the inherent violence of the world’s superpower, a continuous flaunting of the Constitution by those in power, and a pattern of cover-up. I followed Hersch’s missives in the New Yorker and the London Review of Books (he had long since resigned from the New York Times when I came to my reading adulthood). And I have since followed him to Substack. This is the man who uncovered the US military’s massacre of children in Vietnam - who helped shepherd the Watergate and Pentagon Papers to public consciousness - who exposed the abuses at Abu Ghraib and continues to expose the war crimes in Gaza. He continues to fight for liberal democracy and accountability and the US Constitution. His method and message have never been more urgent.  

This new documentary by Laura Poitras (ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED) and Mark Oberhausen (a producer on the investigative show Frontline) was many years in the making because Hersch resisted it. He is prickly and angry and brutally funny about resisting the process even while agreeing to it. He is scrupulous about not revealing his sources, which in a Q&A he described as table stakes for a good journalist. But he is even resistant about describing why people trust him. Evidently, after the My Lai reporting, he was a famous name, and maybe not just a trustworthy name but also a glamorous name for people to confide in. But his key skills seem to be a talent for the written word, but more importantly a dogged tenacity, curiosity, and not giving a fuck about what people think or say about him. He might also add, as he does in this documentary, his talent for picking the right life partner, a wife who allowed him to grow up, and supported him through the dark emotional places that his reporting took him to. 

The documentary does a phenomenal job of surveying Hersch’s monumental career and giving a fair assessment of its importance and flaws. The first 45 minutes of the 2 hour documentary is a play by play of how he put together the My Lai reporting. This is where you see the skill and character required to put together a ground-breaking piece like that. Then we get a 15 minute biographical essay that shows you Hersch’s childhood in a working-class black neighbourhood where his Latvian Jewish immigrant father withheld any kind of information about the extended family’s fate in the Holocaust. By a stroke of luck and his own talent, Hersch was plucked from a mediocre Junior College and given a chance to study at the University of Chicago by a teacher who spotted his talent. He was ready for that moment because he had devoured books as a child. He says of his childhood “I lived through books: they taught me to think.” God bless those assiduous and wonderful teachers everywhere who spot talent and give it a chance. In a film where Hersch alternates between irritation and anger for much of the running time, he only ever gets sentimental on two subjects: his wife and that teacher. 

Act Three brings us through the 80s and 90s. Hersch finally quits the New York Times when they start blocking his reporting on corporate malfeasance at Gulf + Western. It’s kind of amazing to me that you can take on the CIA or the US President or the military, but somehow a company finally balks at you investigating another company. It’s also funny to think how contemporary readers think The Gray Lady has lost her courage and kowtowed to Trump but even back in the 70s, the NYT didn’t want to publish first on anything controversial. This section also covers Hersch’s mistakes, and they are grave indeed. First, a potentially career-ending error of judgment about some fraudulent letters between JFK and Marilyn Monroe. Second, giving a hideously nasty Syrian dictator the benefit of the doubt. 

The final act brings the story home to more recent investigative successes: exposing Abu Ghraib and the more recent work on Gaza. And then we are back to how the people who perpetrated My Lai got away with it. The message is very clear. There is a pattern of extrajudicial violence, cover-up and getting away with it at the heart of the American Republic. This may be depressing, but it’s no excuse not to continue to fight for accountability. If it’s not clear already, I absolutely loved this film. I am delighted that it has distribution with Netflix. To be honest, there’s nothing in here that I didn’t already know - although it was good to see Hersch’s career summarised and organised in such an effective and impactful way. I just really hope lots of younger viewers watch it and realise just how important supporting investigative journalism is.

COVER-UP played Venice, Telluride, Toronto and London. It does not yet have a commercial release date. It has a running time of 117 minutes.

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.

ANEMONE** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 7

ANEMONE is a decent three and half star 95 minute drama trapped inside  a dour, dull two hour plus two-star film. It's all style over substance, as if a blue colour palette, smash-cuts to super-loud music and super-slow push-ins on Daniel Day-Lewis' face can make up for a lack of plot progression.

Here's what we learn at painstakingly slow pace over the first hour and a quarter:  Jem (Sean Bean) and Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis) are ex-British soldiers raised by a harsh father. Ray was sexually abused by a priest as a child and having knocked-up his girlfriend Nessa (Samantha Morton), ran off to live off-grid in Yorkshire and has never seen his son Brian (Samuel Bottomley).  Nessa then raised Brian with Jem, and they are profoundly religious, whereas Roy remains angry at the Church.  The events of the film are kicked into gear when Brian goes absent without leave from the Army, having kicked the shit out of another boy. He has suffered taunts about Roy his whole life and now appears deeply depressed and withdrawn. Nessa asks Roy to finally connect with Brian and prevent any further harm. 

The two lead actors are good although Sean Bean only really gets any lines after an hour, and DDL is mostly emoting in big fat sweary monologues. Poor Sam Morton is definitely in a "kind empathetic girl" role. The most perplexing bit of casting or perhaps directing is that of Samuel Bottomley as Brian.  Sean Bean's Jem describes him as a natural and charismatic leader with heft to spare. I know the character is deeply depressed when we first meet him but there is no sense that this is something he is capable of.

Overall this is a pretty turgid film that wants to seem important but is just way too long and too formal and too self-important for its content. Such a shame and such a waste of a DDL performance.

ANEMONE is rated R and has a running time of 121 minutes. It was released in the USA on October 3rd.

THE MASTERMIND*** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 7

Kelly Reichardt’s THE MASTERMIND is an odd film. As one would expect, it is formally beautifully constructed and has her typically restrained, measured tone with the subtlest hints of humour. But its central character is so selfish, smug and feckless, it’s hard to know what to do with the film’s requirement for us to engage with his story. 

The movie takes place in the early 70s in smalltown America, with society divided between the successful, conventional middle class family to which our protagonist belongs, and the young hippies protesting Vietnam. Josh O’Connor plays an art school drop out turned failing cabinet maker essentially bankrolled by his wealthy mother (Hope Davis). He is married with two young sons and as the film opens we are in media res: he is casing a local art museum for a heist. We quickly realise that he is a man of little moral worth: he uses his sons as cover and smuggles out a stolen figurine in his wife’s purse while letting them go through security on his their own. Later in the film he will claim he did it for them: the LFF audience guffawed at that. 

Josh O’Connor (CHALLENGERS) is brilliant as the “mastermind”, JB Mooney, in a thankless role. This is basically his film - he is in every scene - and if he were any less personally charismatic the film would be unbearable. Alana Haim’s role as his wife is even more thankless as her character is emotionally withdrawn. It’s a real relief when we get a great cameo from John Magaro (PAST LIVES) who at least brings some warmth and humanity to the film. 

Reichardt’s lensing and colour palette are beautiful. There’s a particularly elegant bravura shot that goes 360 degrees in a motel room. I was genuinely curious how the third act would play out. But the real star behind the lens is composer Rob Mazurek who gives us a kinetic jazz score that propels act one - the heist - and act two - the concealment. It is notable that as that score, and the action, falls away in act three, the movie really loses its energy. 

THE MASTERMIND is rated R and has a running time of 117 minutes. It played Cannes, Telluride and London. It will be released in the USA on October 17th and in the UK on October 24th.

Complex thoughts on AFTER THE HUNT***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 6

Director Luca Guadagnino redeems himself after a run of mid films, not least QUEER and CHALLENGERS, with the adult, nuanced, tricksy and provocatively brilliant AFTER THE HUNT.  It’s based on a script by Nora Garrett and deals in shades of grey and ambiguity. It reminded me of the best of those ethical dilemma dramas that Woody Allen made in the mid to late 80s, not least because Guadagnino pays homage to Woody with the style of his credits.  It also reminded me of the iconic ALL ABOUT EVE in its depiction of a rather spiky marriage and the disruptive interloping of a young rival.

It is far from a perfect film. I felt that Andrew Garfield's performance went from depicting an obnoxious character to just being obnoxious. Whenever he's faced with a choice he always tends to go too big.  I also didn't feel the epilogue was necessary or additive. So why have I given the film five stars?  Because I have spent much of the hours following the screening discussing its choices and themes and debating what was actually happening. I love it when films provoke debate and withhold easy answers.  I also think that Nora Garrett has pulled off a rare feat in so evenly balancing the accusations that Gen Z and Gen X have of each other. 

The movie is essentially a four-hander battle of the wits between two generations.  In the older cohort we have Julia Roberts’ Alma, a Yale University Philosophy Professor who specialises in teaching virtue ethics.  Alma is cool and calm, perhaps too well-put together and unflappable. Her sense of style is assured and unique and easily aped.  Early on we discover that she has some kind of secret from her youth, and that she withholds a lot from her husband.  We feel that it must be traumatic and yet she seems to regard its artefacts with fondness. The deepest level of the film is concerned with uncovering her attitude to this event. 

In contemporary life, Alma seems to attract acolytes, and has a dangerously unboundaried relationship with her star students and her younger colleague Hank.  She somehow holds this all in a fragile equilibrium that the movie will shake. The fascinating and unresolved side-issue that we get no clear answers on is whether Alma has a problem with drug addiction or if she really is just treating excruciating pain. Did the drugs cause the ulcers or the other way around?  What we do know is that Alma is a career woman and deeply ambitious. She wants tenure. She has battled her way through the misogynistic world of academia and wants her just desserts.  

This may well be the role of Julia Roberts’ life, and certainly it’s her greatest role and performance of her later career.  She is on screen for almost every scene and she carries the film. Alma is enigmatic, infuriating, arrogant, makes terrible choices, and yet I found her to be real and sympathetic. 

Alma is married to a psychiatrist called Frederick, played by the always wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg.  It's a small role, even a cameo, but as in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, in some ways it's Stuhlbarg's character that carries the emotional heart of the film. Frederick can be theatrical and immature and petulant. But he truly loves his wife and understands something profound about her childhood trauma that she cannot see. He also understands something profound about her relationships with Hank and Maggie.  He is flawed but wise.

In the younger cohort we have adjunct professor Hank who is also battling for tenure.  His students love him, he flirts with everyone, and he is an obnoxiously large character, played to the limits of largeness by Andrew Garfield. I suspect some of this is a necessary choice. His career will be ruined by a graduate student, Maggie, who accuses him of sexual assault right after he accuses her of plagiarism. We will not know if he did it, but we have to see his largeness, his physical presence, his lack of self-control, to feel that he might have done.  It's a slippery role. His first reaction is hurt and entitled and arrogant. That does not mean he did it, of course. 

And finally, in real opposition to Alma, we have The Bear's Ayo Edibiri as Maggie, her young PHD student, acolyte, and mentee.  She is a young black female philosopher at Yale, so one might imagine she is already on the back foot. But screenwriter Nora Garrett complicates Maggie by making her incredibly wealthy: the daughter of major donors.  Does Alma suspect she is a plagiarist? Is she? Yes she does dress like Alma.  Did she steal her mother's Bulgari ring to wear as a pendant, copying Alma? Is her accusation of trauma replicative of Alma's?  Is the accusation an attempt to discredit Hank? Is she dating a trans man for the optics?  It's a good performance from Edibiri, every now and then hinting at satisfaction at getting a certain reaction from Alma, but I felt that of the four actors she was the weakest. Perhaps because this is by far the largest and more complex dramatic role she has been given.

The wonder of this script and film is that both Maggie and Alma are right. Maggie is right to say that Alma has let her down, both in her reaction to the assault but more broadly.  Maggie is right that first-wave feminists did not adequately support the struggle of women of colour, and too often tried to get what they could within the existing patriarchal structure rather than challenging it. Alma's life has been one of not compromising her ambition by upsetting the apple-cart. Maggie wants to destroy it.  But Alma is also right in how she skewers Maggie's generation for its virtue-signalling progressive illiberalism: its need for the safety of a lukewarm bath when university in general, and a philosophy class in particular, should be all about debating uncomfortable subjects. 

Like I said, this is far from a perfect film. But it is an ambitious and provocative film. I love that it centres a middle-aged complex woman and is willing to confront and interrogate shifting inter-generational attitudes to difficult issues. The running time is long but I was not bored for a minute.  This is grown-up cinema at its best.

AFTER THE HUNT has a running time of 139 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice and London. It opens in the USA on October 10th.