The Help (cert.12A) is a superb rendition of a nasty era in American history, with southern states like Mississippi institutionalising a racial divide that was not uncommon. The black population of the USA was a poor population, the hewers and drawers, but only in the former slave states would white families want separate toilets for [...]
The Big Picture (French, English subtitles, cert. 15) is an adaptation of American writer Douglas Kennedy’s 1997 novel, at least of the French translation, published as “The man who wanted to live his life”. That’s the title of this French film, but the English version reverts to the original title, even though (unlike the book [...]
So here it ends, with the last film of the last of JK Rowling’s epic series of Harry Potter books – translated into 70 languages, including ancient Greek. A new mythology, in which good triumphs over evil, though you have to set aside your reservations about cheering for the good wizards against the bad, for [...]
Incendies (dir. Denis Villeneuve, cert. 15) is the last of this year’s foreign film Oscar® losing nominees to get a release in the UK; the Danish winner In a Better World arrives next month. In French and Arabic (with English subtitles) Incendies was Canada’s entry and the story begins there. Like the original 2005 play [...]
If it’s a choice between a modern Hollywood comedy and a retro French comedy, Potiche (cert. 15, French with English subtitles) wins easily over the laboured Bad Teacher (cert. 15, English with no subtlety). The latter has Cameron Diaz, who showed her comic talent in There’s Something About Mary (1998) — still the only film [...]
Nollywood – the Nigerian film industry – dominates African film output, even if most of the 1,500 films churned out each year are for local consumption. Odeon cinemas have now given one of them a mainstream release in 10 English screens – but if The Mirror Boy (cert. PG) has been retained for a second [...]
The last driver to die in a Formula One race was Ayrton Senna. Asif Kapadia’s documentary Senna (cert. 12A) uses only archive film to trace his career, from go-kart racer to World Champion. The first half hour is a bit home-movie, probably familiar to motor-racing fans and frankly rather dull. There’s an early signal about [...]
Jig (dir. Sue Bourne, cert. PG) tries to capture the obsession and the dedication of contestants in the World Irish Dancing Championships. Apart from various spoofs, the most obvious precedent is Spellbound (2003), which picked likely winners for America’s National Spelling Bee and followed them to the finals. Somehow that managed to tap into the [...]
Michelangelo Frammartino is an artist from Milan with roots in Calabria in southern Italy. His experience in “video installations” – rarely my favourite art form – has led to Le Quattro Volte (cert. U), a delightful feature-length film that defies categorisation. Perhaps the nearest recent equivalent for the amount of dialogue is Philip Gröning’s Into [...]
A Screaming Man (Un homme qui crie, French with English subtitles, cert. PG) is an understated but powerful story of the effects of war, in this case a rebel advance toward the capital of Chad, N’Djamena. To an accompaniment of government broadcasts reassuring the citizens, life in the capital’s hotels remains relatively calm, but it [...]
