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Custody
Read more: CustodyThere is no horror quite like the murderous rage of someone you once loved. If you experienced anything similar, consider Legrand’s explosive separation drama as homeopathic remedy. With enough guts to shatter the audience with the actual intensity of a violence done by the closest of people, the inner distance to reality it creates. ★★★★★
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Unsane
Read more: UnsaneShot entirely on an iPhone, this is Soderbergh’s new twist on his road to revolutionising craft, if not necessarily art. A stalkerish quality to it, a crispness and fake intimacy of a social media profile — an immediacy that makes it tenfold more horrifying than if it was digested through the geometrical complexity of a…
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Loveless
Read more: LovelessAn eulogy to humanity lost, the severing of connections in the fetishisation of the material — an absence, rather than a presence. A dark jewel, which, when observed against the light, shows no reflection. This lack of illumination envelops the viewer slowly, through stark images, an emotional catastrophe that goes unnoticed. ★★★★★
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The Shape Of Water
Read more: The Shape Of WaterGuillermo del Toro’s intoxicating burst of goodness celebrates connection, the space in-between, a quiet reading of heartbeats, the way we dance inside when we are touched by another, the need to merge regardless of all obstacles, the twinship we seek and rarely find, sacrifices we are willing to make when we are recognised. ★★★★★
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Phantom Thread
Read more: Phantom ThreadSo many layers of refinement, so many clever traps to fall through, so much good filmmaking on the table to be relished, savoured, devoured. Could not put a finger on what bothered me after watching it. It’s a love story for narcissists, deceptively tender to the touch, an exquisite cashmere cardigan concealing its cold heart.…
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Molly’s Game
Read more: Molly’s GameChastain manages to portray what it is like to have integrity and drive in equal measure in a world designed by men, none of whom in Molly’s life did anything to make it easier. If there were offers for help, they came with a price tag. A high standard courtroom drama, conveying something preciously true,…
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Personal Shopper
Read more: Personal ShopperA slick, informed take on the demon within, twinship, and ghosts, in general. What they are, where they hide, and when they appear. Stewart fidgets her way through her onscreen twin’s death, thirsting for final contact, in lieu of their pact. Glossy millennial ghost story that wants to take itself seriously and not seriously at…
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Darkest Hour
Read more: Darkest HourOldman playing Churchill was a genius stroke of casting, both men fireballs of passion, eloquence and wit. Nothing should have stood in the way of this performance. But it did, so it ended with a thud, not an elation. Saying NO to the devil after walking through the valley of the shadow of death for…
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Read more: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriFrances McDormand is an Old Testament act of God, all wrath and unrelenting righteousness, avenger of womanhood desecrated, mother archangel of lost causes. But what touched me most in this film was Sam Rockwell’s performance, a potty-mouthed small town cop, with a racist streak, who privately likes to dance to ABBA. ★★★★☆
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All The Money In The World
Read more: All The Money In The WorldThe story touches the core of an issue that is difficult to summarise under the hackneyed sin of greed. Because greed is about trust. This should have been a masterpiece. But it’s not. Because it was rushed. If you are Ridley Scott, you can speed up craft, and get away with it, and that’s a…
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I, Tonya
Read more: I, TonyaThere’s great heart in Robbie taking on a national joke, a second-hand villain, turning her into a quiet hero, in all her vulnerable garishness, her terrier posture, her awkward dignity. There was no inherent violence in Tonya, it was her inner grace that shaped her incredible talent. To get this point through was a thespian…
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