Mubi Monday: The President's Cake (2025)

Although you may be aware of this already, there are times when the leader of a country will insist that people go out of their way to show their forced (and often fake) adoration and respect for them. They might have lots of statues and tributes placed around the country. They might want lots of buildings named after them. They may even try to reshape historic buildings into something gaudier and more in line with what they view as a permanent legacy. In 1990s Iraq, Saddam Hussein was celebrated on his birthday by people who could barely afford to feed themselves. This film follows young Lamia, a schoolgirl tasked with baking a cake as her part of the celebrations.

There have been many films showing children on adventures, every obstacle amplified by the fact that they're so young and innocent, and often ill-equipped to deal with the world around them. The President's Cake mainly keeps viewers alongside Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) and her friend, Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem). The other main character is Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), Lamia's frail grandmother. And, of course, Saddam Hussein, who casts a large shadow over the proceedings, considering the fact that he is the reason for the upcoming celebrations, and also the reason for the heavy sanctions that make it so difficult to buy things like cake ingredients at a decent price. 

This feature debut from writer-director Hasan Hadi is a moving and clever look at the impact dictatorial misrule can have on every struggling citizen. It causes economic hardships, which makes it much easier for the poor to be hurt and exploited, but it also causes mistrust and division among those seeking to maintain their simple right to exist as a citizen of the country they were born in. This feels like something worth reminding people of right now, and if I have to explain why then you're just not paying attention (or you're being willfully ignorant).

The performances from Nayyef and Qasem are natural and winning, helped immensely by the fact that they're wide-eyed and nervous children navigating their way around adults who aren't necessarily averse to taking advantage of their ignorance. Khreibat is very good, maintaining a sense of weariness as she portrays someone trying to ensure that her granddaughter will be safe as she feels less able to be there with the energy levels and strength required. Everyone else appearing onscreen, whether for a minute or an entire scene, also maintains a high standard, and every interaction feels so organic and unaffected that I would be curious to find out how many non-actors Hadi made use of throughout the whole film.

While it may lag behind some other countries when it comes to cinema from the Middle East, Iraq seems to be another area that deserves more exploration (certainly by myself, but also perhaps by others exploring different regions through the medium of film). The President's Cake is a film I would highly recommend as a starting point, and I hope to see more from Hasan Hadi in the future. Meanwhile, I'll try to remind myself to look back and find some other notable titles to help me expand my knowledge of Iraqi cinema. 

9/10

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Netflix And Chill: Enola Holmes (2020)

AKA The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Sister. Okay, maybe not quite. But that's what they're going for sometimes.

Millie Bobby Brown plays the titular character, younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft, in this adventure mystery based on a book by Nancy Springer. There's the obvious source material from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be acknowledged, but writer Jack Thorne delivers a screenplay that keeps the focus on the spirit of sleuthing and being curious, instead of staying far too beholden to the many exploits of Sherlock himself.

Things really get going when Enola's mother (Eudoria Holmes, played by Helena Bonham Carter) goes missing. Once her brothers have returned home and made little effort to solve what appears to be a great mystery, Enola decides to set off and find her AWOL parent. That's how she ends up encountering a young man named Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), which brings her to the attention of some dastardly villains, particularly the murderous Linthorn (Burn Gorman).

Director Harry Bradbeer works well enough with easygoing escapism that relies on the star power of Brown, as well as the familiar faces in supporting roles (Henry Cavill is a considerate Sherlock, while Sam Claflin plays the more abrupt Mycroft). The runtime is predictably nudging right against the two hour mark, but it has just the right levels of energy and fun to make everything pass by briskly enough. 

And a large part of that energy and fun comes from Brown herself. I am not always a big fan of her work, and think she got lucky to land her Stranger Things role that fast-tracked her to stardom, but she’s very good here as a young woman with the brains and strength to make things very complicated for the many men who would rather she just stayed quiet and stayed out of their way. Partridge is a good pairing for Brown, the two work well enough in the scenes that they share, and Gorman makes a reasonably fun baddie. While Cavill is a bit too caring and considerate for a typical portrayal of Sherlock, he does well enough to make his casting work, and Claflin is enjoyably aloof as Mycroft. Carter is enjoyable in her relatively short amount of screentime, and you have support from the likes of Frances de la Tour, Susan Wokoma, Claire Rushbrook, and Adeel Akhtar (playing the familiar character of Lestrade).

I had fun with this while it was on, but it doesn’t quite do everything it sets out to do. The puzzles are a bit too easy to figure out, the action is never as thrilling as it could be, and viewers have to accept the fact that the main character often breaks the fourth wall to deliver extra details and exposition. I doubt I will rewatch it any time, but I am definitely happy enough to watch the sequels.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: What Happened To Dorothy Bell? (2024)

While not strictly adhering to the form throughout, as far as I could tell, What Happened To Dorothy Bell? is essentially another in a long line of found footage horrors. It's a surprisingly good one though, helped by the technical side of things being as good as you could hope for, especially when it comes to the quiet soundscape and low lighting throughout most of the runtime.

Ozzie Gray (Asya Meadows) decides to embark on a project to find out what happened to their grandmother, Dorothy Bell (Arlene Arnone Bibbs). There are a number of fond childhood memories, but there's also a very dark and dangerous episode that seemed to mark the beginning of the end for Dorothy. Ozzie doesn't find many people willing to help them, but they also try to spend some time discussing their feelings on the subject in online appointments with Dr. Robin Connelly (Lisa Wilcox).

The second full feature from writer-director Danny Villanueva Jr., this contains enough solid scares and impressive atmosphere to make him well worth keeping an eye on. It's so good that I am keen to look back at his past works (an anthology titled I Dream Of A Psychopomp and a number of shorts), and I definitely want to see what he does with access to a bigger budget and better resources. There's nothing here that feels cheap though, but it's obvious that Villanueva Jr. is working within certain limitations.

Meadows is a decent lead, and delivers a very convincing performance even as things start to get weirder and spookier. Bibbs is haunting, and does so well that her presence looms large throughout every scene, as it should be. Villanueva Jr. may have done well with his writing and shot choices to keep viewers on their toes, but Bibbs is an important part of why we can believe that Ozzie wants to keep hoping for the best even as things don't look destined to have a happy ending. Wilcox is a very welcome addition, and she must be pleased to have been involved in the most memorably scary sequence in the whole film.

Ultimately a good choice for anyone after some thrills and chills, the only real downside is the way that Villanueva Jr. seems to have one or two extra ideas that he can't satisfyingly wrangle into the plot. I think, though others may disagree, that keeping this one more focused on scares and atmosphere, instead of developing a background lore that ultimately falters, could have left this a much better film. But it may have been even shorter than the 80-minute runtime, which may have been a factor in Villanueva Jr. trying to add in something wholly unnecessary.

This is one of those occasions, however, when the mistakes just add to a sense of positivity. If he learns some valuable lessons from this then Villanueva Jr. could easily deliver something even more impressive and scary with his next outing. I wouldn't even mind if he reassembled the same cast and decided to rework some of the better moments from this.

7/10

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Confessions Of A Window Cleaner (1974)

While I have done my bit to fight back against the erasure of the British sex comedies that helped to boost the box office numbers for a few years in the 1970s, I am far from an expert on the topic. I will persevere, however, even if it means continuing to see far more of Robin Askwith than I ever wanted. I'm not going to claim that these movies have enduring appeal, nor am I going to say that many of them have an artistry and sophistication unjustly ignored by snobs, but they have earned a place in the history of cinema that remains worthy of note.

Based on a book by Christopher Wood (as Timothy lea), this is the tale of a young man (Askwith) who finds out that being a window cleaner is about more than just cleaning windows. He has to go out of his way to ensure that every client is happy. That's easier said than done though, especially when our young lead ends up taking a proper shine to a female police officer named Elizabeth Radlett (Linda Hayden).

Adapted into screenplay form by Wood and director Val Guest, this is silly and horribly dated stuff. It's based around the idea that all attractive women are really desperate for horny men to help take care of their needs, and also tries to convince viewers that Robin Askwith can often become the main object of their desire. Askwith works in his role because he's very much an everyman, but that also works against him, considering how he is supposed to be able to stir up such a passion in a number of the featured female characters.

The most fun here comes from the supporting cast. Aside from Askwith, who simply has to look cheeky and chirpy, and always ready to jump into bed with someone, there are turns from Anthony Booth (the man who shares the lore of the mystical window cleaner lothario), the aforementioned Hayden, John Le Mesurier and Joan Hickson (sorely underused as the parents of Hayden's character), Bill Maynard and Dandy Nichols (the parents of our randy lead), and a number of other faces familiar to fans of British TV and cinema.

Guest may be very aware that he's not making any kind of absolute classic, especially in contrast to some of his much better work throughout the '50s and '60s, but he knows exactly what he's helming. There's a lot of titillation (despite the extra raunch factor of both this and the "Adventures" series, things are still presented with the emphasis on sauciness ahead of anything truly pornographic. It may be a bit more full-on than the seaside postcard humour of the Carry On movies, a series that fell by the wayside when it tried to balance the milder sensibilities and comforting companionship of the main stars with the more liberal attitudes of cinema-goers, but it's still trying to offer a bit of something for everyone (no pun intended).

People will continue to roll their eyes at me, and they'll pull my leg about my reasons for watching films like this, but I'll continue to bang the drum for the inherent value of these relics. They're a fascinating snapshot of one facet of British cinema, and I'm absolutely delighted to now own many of them in home media releases that also contain a wealth of supplementary features and information providing important context for them. 

Oh, this isn't one of my favourites though, but it's better than any of the instalments in the "Adventures" movie series. 

5/10

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Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2025)

Based on a web series, and a subsequent TV series, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie should appeal to fans of those involved. I would say, however, that I ended up liking it a lot, despite my ignorance of the property. And hearing about how the show used to play out, I might not have wanted to give this my time if I thought it might end up feeling too focused on various improvised encounters with members of the public (as was common in the show).

The plot starts off simply enough. Musicians Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol (played by . . . Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol) are trying in vain to get their band booked into a venue named the Rivoli. They just want one chance, but it hasn't happened in the many years that they've been trying. No worries. The answer is clearly time travel. What starts as an unlikely joke soon turns into something quite serious when Matt spills juice over his own home-made flux capacitor, which makes it work just as it does in Back To The Future. Things can now be changed for the better, but only if our two leads can stay friends and stay focused. Which seems unlikely.

With Johnson also directing, and both he and McCarrol crafting a screenplay featuring input from pretty much everyone in their core creative group, this is very much a small-scale indie flick in all but the actual budget (which seems to have been about $2M). For better or worse, and despite the very obvious shadow cast over it by BTTF, it's quite unlike anything else I've seen in recent years, and it's all the better for being so unique.

While there is a lot of improv on display here, kudos to the film-makers for making use of most of it in a way that works in service of a surprisingly complex main narrative strand. It's one thing to go out and about, filming hours and hours of footage to get the snippets of actual material required, but it's another thing entirely to assemble everything into a feature that feels both anarchic and finely-tuned.

Johnson and McCarrol also do very well in their main roles. They may not be the best actors, but their special skillset lies in working in a way that allows them to keep many options available to them as they dance and whirl around a variety of key sequences. Nobody else onscreen may have as much work to do, but they're all very good, whether getting directly involved in the action or simply showing how they have to hang back and blend in with the surroundings.

I don't think I'll rush to watch this again, and I'm certainly not won over to the idea of checking out episodes of the show, but this was a fun time while it was on, and there were a couple of moments that felt genuinely impressive (the main one being a wild set-piece within the first 10-20 minutes). I laughed enough, I appreciated the sweetness that became more apparent as things started to move to the inevitable conclusion, and I actually started to hope that maybe one day, just maybe, these guys would get to play their dream gig at the Rivoli. 

7/10

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Prime Time: Return To Silent Hill (2026)

A friend of mine recently watched Return To Silent Hill and commented that it was somewhat akin to a number of the cut scenes from Silent Hill 2 being stitched together without any real care or consideration for other standard movie elements. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but that seems to have summed up her opinion. I can't really disagree, but I somehow enjoyed this much more than I expected to.

Jeremy Irvine plays James Sunderland, a man who enters the town of Silent Hill as he spends time looking for his lost love, Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson). Once there, he starts to see some very strange and disturbing sights, and also meets a few other lost souls, one of them looking VERY similar to Mary.

A return to the movie series for director Christophe Gans, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sandra Vo-Anh and William Josef Schneider, this is a ambient mood piece that probably works best as background noise for fans of Silent Hill 2. I've just started exploring that videogame world, although I have some recollection of my time playing the very first game back on the PSOne, and even I felt a comforting familiarity as soon as the early scenes of the movie made it clear that the plot here was sticking very close to the popular game.

The environment is well-rendered and feels very much how it should be. It's mist-filled, many buildings look spoiled in some way, and the more creepy creations move and threaten as they should. It's just a real shame that I cared less about the main character here than I did when he was under my control on my videogame console.

Irvine has his work cut out from him, with most of his performance relying on him to look either bewildered or sad, but he doesn't help himself. Maybe it's the direction, but Irvine feels even more lifeless and noncorporeal than anything else onscreen. Okay, that feeds into some of the main themes of the story, but it doesn't make for an engaging and watchable main character. Anderson does much better, perfectly embodying a welcome bit of light in the encroaching darkness of the town. As for the other cast members who appear, the best ones are the physical performers who end up credited with descriptions like "armless", "spider lady", "nurse", and, of course, "Pyramid Head".

It's a shame that this does nothing interesting with the property, and I can understand people being annoyed by how relatively hollow and dull it is, but I must say that it worked for me. Maybe that's because it just felt like playing through the game without the risk of frustration or unexpected death, two things which happen to me often when I am attempting to overcome my serious videogaming limitations. I can still see that it doesn't work well as a movie, but it works well enough as a collage of Silent Hill 2 highlights.

6/10

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Mutiny (2026)

Some days you spend over three and a half hours rewatching, and re-evaluating, something like Heaven's Gate. Other days you end up enjoying the latest slice of action nonsense built around the heroic Jason Statham. Variety is the spice of life.

Variety is also something you tend not to get with Jason Statham movies. Not that I am saying that in any majorly critical way. I watch most Jason Statham movies to watch Statham punch and kick people in the face, powered by his athleticism and a righteous fury, and most Jason Statham movies deliver exactly that. Some are a slight side-step (and I wish he would try more comedy, he's genuinely very good at it), but most give you exactly what you're after.

Mutiny, if you have seen any of the advertising, has been marketed as Statham's Die Hard on a freighter ship, and that's all you really need to know. After the murder of his boss, Cole Reed (Statham) ends up nosing around on a big boat that happens to be involved in some horrible human trafficking. Assisted by a member of the crew, Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis), Cole starts getting rid of the bad guys while trying to protect the vulnerable victims on board the ship. He's got a number of decent foes to battle, but it soon becomes clear that Captain Marko Madsen (Roland Møller) may be the final boss.

Originally envisioned as a sequel to Plane, and it may have been named "Ship" at that point, this was reworked and Statham-ised by writers Lindsay Michel and J. P. Davis, who have delivered a screenplay that feels self-aware and knowing without ever deigning to fully wink at the audience. Our hero has a background in various forces, of course, and doesn't always get along with people who want to make compromises for the sake of politics. And while it's hard to avoid comparisons to the mighty Die Hard, one or two shots seem constructed to specifically reference that action movie classic.

Director Jean-François Richet knows that he's now helming something very different from Plane, and he does good work in setting up an interesting environment and ensuring the action is crunchy and entertaining enough to make up for the fairly weak dialogue and paper-thin characterisations.

While Statham may not win any awards for his acting, he consistently looks like someone that could easily punch my head clean off without breaking a sweat, and that's what's needed here. It might be easy to mock his particular brand of cinematic violence, but I would argue that he's currently one of the best in his field when it comes to this enjoyable nonsense. Wallis isn't too bad alongside him, although I don't think I've ever seen a performance from her that has convinced me of her being worthy of any star billing. Adrian Lester and Steven Blades do well in much smaller roles, but Møller is the only other real standout, especially when he has to begrudgingly get his hands dirty as he realises that the rest of his crew aren't up to the task of taking down one pesky interloper.

It might not feel like a film you should rush to the cinema to see, Statham would have been an amazing straight-to-video stalwart a few decades ago, but Mutiny is a bloody good time. And sometimes showing your support for something that's a bloody good time helps people to raise finances for other movies that turn out to be a bloody good time. I'm not going to rate it too highly though, considering the predictability and weaker elements, but fans of solid action will definitely want to check this out. 

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Heaven's Gate (1980)

I've seen Heaven's Gate before, but it somehow made no impression on me. I remember thinking that it wasn't as bad as others might have you believe, but that's been a general opinion for many years now, considering the softening effects of the passing of time and the reappraisal this has received since the longer cut became more widely available.

This second viewing has me creeping closer to the view that this is close to being a real great. It doesn't get there, not quite, but it's a fascinating mess.

Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Walken, Sam Waterston, and Brad Dourif have main roles here, all of them playing a part in telling a tale of unrest and deadly fighting among the various citizens of Wyoming. Some of them feel themselves more deserving than others when it comes to the land and their positions, and there's a plan to write up a list of names of people who have to go. 

Written and directed by Michael Cimino, I could write thousands and thousands of words about the making of Heaven's Gate, but many others have already done that. It's well-documented as one of the most bloated and damaging directorial features of all time. There's such a stink all over it that I am always surprised to see that Cimino was allowed to make other movies after it. I'm less surprised to find that none of his later efforts come close to the strange magnificence of this.

Every cast member mentioned, whether playing a stereotype or a more well-rounded character, does excellent work here, and the hefty runtime of the movie also allows time for appearances from Joseph Cotten, Jeff Bridges, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur, and a number of other familiar faces (keep your eyes peeled for Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke, and Terry O'Quinn, among others) in both credited and uncredited roles.

I'm not sure it really matters about the people in front of the camera though. As good a job as they do, this is Cimino's vision, and he seizes the opportunity to put the United States of America under a lens that shows how those once-glorified "Wild West" years were full of violence, mistrust, bigotry, and huge divisions between the rich and the poor that make the current climate of the country much easier to understand, especially when so many people living there still think that life was better in what they like to view as a simpler time, despite the evidence to the contrary.

The 219-minute runtime is a hell of a commitment, but I encourage people to make time for it. There are moments that could have been trimmed down, but it's a large beast full of life, with teeth and claws that can occasionally hurt, compared to the sad and neutered pet that the more heavily-edited version resembles. I'm unlikely to now put aside another entire afternoon for it, but I am definitely glad that I took the time to give it one more chance to impress me, and impress me it did. At times.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Deep Impact (1998)

Despite becoming known at the time as "the comet film that isn't Armageddon", I have long been curious about whether or not my opinion of Deep Impact would be the same as it was when I first saw it. I thought it was a bit dull, suffered from some mis-casting in a couple of main roles, and basically proved to be a much harder sell due to it being, in technical terms, "a bit of a bummer" in comparison to the woohah jingoism and blockbuster silliness of Armageddon.

It turns out that my opinion remains almost exactly the same as it was. 

A huge comet is heading to Earth. Young Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) is happy to have spotted it in the sky and had his name attached to it. Unfortunately, it's on a collision course with our planet. This becomes known to the President Of The United States (Morgan Freeman) before most of the population are informed, but a hungry reporter (Jenny Lerner, played by Téa Leoni) also stumbles across the story. She uses her knowledge to advance her career, which gives her a front row seat as plans are established to either destroy the comet or, failing that, ensure the survival of humanity.

Having now made a comfortable living in the world of television shows for the past few decades, there was a time when director Mimi Leder was arguably primed to be one of the few female directors entrusted with delivering big-budget blockbuster entertainment. She helmed the first film to be distributed by DreamWorks Pictures (The Peacemaker, which I don't recall being lauded as a great success), and was then in charge of this, a film simply overshadowed by something with a similar premise and less concern for filling the runtime with too much personal drama and weighty considerations about the endurance of the human race. Leder handles everything well enough, but she's hampered by the screenplay (from Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin) and lack of proper star power.

Rubin and Tolkin really want to balance the big stakes with smaller personal moments here, and the film starts to drag every time we have to return to watching Leoni's character deal with her divorced mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and father (Maximillian Schell). None of it feels that important, considering the looming threat, but it has to be viewed that way because that's what we're told, right up until a horribly dissatisfying final scene for two of those characters.

As much as I like Leoni, she's not a good fit for a main role in this kind of fare. Especially when her character has to be emotionally and physically buffeted by converging events happening around her. Freeman is a much better fit for his role, a trustworthy and good-hearted POTUS, and young Wood brings a good bit of energy to his scenes, often sharing them with a young Leelee Sobieski, but often interacting with Richard Schiff, Betsy Brantley, Gary Werntz, and Denise Crosby. There's some excitement when we're spending time with the space shuttle crew (headed up by Robert Duvall) hoping to destroy the comet, but even that is weakened by the presence of Ron Eldard being one of the worst cast members inevitably given more focus than some of the others (Blair Underwood, Mary McCormack, and Jon Favreau among them). Others to look out for are Kurtwood Smith (working down on the ground for NASA), Laura Innes (a White House correspondent displeased when her colleague usurps her), Dougray Scott (a cameraman), Charles Martin Smith, Mike O'Malley, and James Cromwell.

What's here is generally well done, even if it cannot overcome the weaknesses in the material and some of the casting, but it never feels like a fun time to spend two hours. There's some spectacle, and it may make you think about how you would want to spend your last moments if you knew the world was going to end, but most people, myself included, would much rather stick on a film that has some Aerosmith on the soundtrack and Steve Buscemi going a bit stir crazy in space.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Hellcat (2025)

I can see why writer-director Brock Bodell thought Hellcat would work well for his first feature. It's a twist on a familiar scenario, it mainly features two characters together in one location, and the focus stays on dialogue ahead of any gore or set-pieces. Unfortunately, it's not very good.

Dakota Gorman plays Lena, the young woman who wakes up in the back of a spacious vehicle being driven by Clive (Todd Terry). Lena is understandably upset and afraid, but Clive keeps trying to reassure her that he's only trying to help her. She's been bitten by something, and Clive aims to get her to a medical professional. There's no reason to trust Clive, but his actions generally seem to back up his claim of not wanting to hurt Lena. 

There are a number of ways to take Hellcat, considering the material. On one level, it's a straightforward thriller with a dangerous man having kidnapped someone who has to fear for their life. On another level, it's exploring some well-known horror lore, and seeks to play around with a couple of tropes on the way to a risibly awful ending. And in some ways, it's another one of those recent movies that shows a figure being proven right in some belief he has that would be derided by the vast majority of the population. Maybe I'm giving it too much credit with that interpretation, but I can certainly say that no one version of this tale is presented in a satisfying way.

Gorman and Terry both do well enough in the lead roles, but they're at the mercy of a screenplay that forces them to go round and round in circles for the majority of the runtime, only verbalising a number of truths when it's time for the plot to creep forward as slowly as if it's being pushed through thick molasses. Jordan Mullins plays a cop who seems immediately untrustworthy, and Liz Atwater is Clive's daughter, Ollie. Both are fine, but neither get to do enough to make their inclusion truly worthwhile. It's almost as if Bodell came up with a lean, and fairly simple, premise and then didn't have faith in his ability to hold the attention of viewers with just two main cast members and his one main idea at the heart of the story.

I had my concerns about this as soon as I started it, but I was still hoping for the best. Sadly, this isn't one to recommend to most people. It's just not strong enough, nor is it helmed by someone capable of making up for the weaker elements. And I cannot stress just how bad the final scenes are. It's enough to undo any good feeling created by the rest of the film, and I'm surprised at just how much Bodell seems to pile one bad creative decision onto another, like some unstable Jenga tower of incompetence.

I hope he does better with whatever he may have lined up next. He can't do much worse, but if enough lessons were learned then I'll still make time for any upcoming features. 

3/10

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Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)

If I didn't have this little comedy drama recommended to me by someone then I doubt I would have ever though to seek it out. After all, the fact that it was both written and directed by the young man who then cast himself in the lead role makes it seem like so many other vanity projects I have either endured or avoided over the past few decades. I'm very thankful to the person who recommended this though, because it's a proper little gem of a film.

Cooper Raiff is Andrew, a young man without any real plan for his life, other than saving up enough money to travel and reconnect with a girlfriend he suspects may already be doing quite well without him. Struggling to retain the will to live in his day job, things take an upturn when he discovers that he has a marketable knack for being a party host. He ensures that things go well, and he tries to get everyone taking their turn on the dancefloor. It's at one of these parties that he meets Domino (Dakota Johnson), mother to an autistic young girl named Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). And that's when things soon start to get a bit messy.

Although I was unfamiliar with Raiff before seeing this, I'm now keen to see whatever he's attached to. Both the writing and direction here show an admirable amount of talent, and he's also genuinely good enough to handle a lead role that allows him to be intermittently likeable and loathsome, depending on how he is reacting to a complex world that he would much rather keep carefree and simple.

It helps that Raiff assembles a fantastic supporting cast around him, and everyone feels as if they responded well to the material. Johnson shows once again how much better she does in movies that aren't part of any franchise meat-grinder, Burghardt is very good in her role, although you could argue that there are a few too many affectations in her performance (but I think they work well), and Evan Assante is very sweet as our lead's younger brother, just at the right age to continue idolising his sibling even as he starts to see the obvious flaws and mistakes. Leslie Mann is a wonderful and caring mother, Brad Garrett is her partner, and his character is the butt of many jokes until Andrew starts to realise how good the man is for his mother, and Raúl Castillo is the other main man in Domino's life, much to the chagrin of Andrew.

The 107-minute runtime may feel a little long for what could be such a slight work, but I would have happily spent more time in this world with these characters if possible. Raiff judges everything perfectly, especially during a few scenes that look set to become very uncomfortable, only for Raiff to defuse the situation with a perfect punchline or some interaction that proves to be surprisingly satisfying.

A film about a young man unable to plan the next phase of his journey through life would be okay, I guess, but Cha Cha Real Smooth works as well as it does because it's about a young man who finds a very strong connection with someone that knows he has the opportunity to make so many more connections with people he could have much more in common with. It's also a glimpse at someone who, like so many of us, finds a way to relight the spark of his personality by focusing on doing something he genuinely enjoys, instead of staying stuck in a job that offers him no fulfilment whatsoever. 

Give this one a watch when you can. Not every moment works, but the highlights are so well-crafted and beautiful that you may well become as big a fan of Raiff as I now am.

8/10

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Chum (2026)

Remember last year when Dangerous Animals came out and it was quite brilliant? I definitely do. In fact, it was almost impossible to forget while watching Chum, a shark-centred thriller that is best described as Sadly Not Dangerous Animals. Or maybe some meme with someone saying "but we have Dangerous Animals at home" alongside an image of Chum being shown as that disappointing version owned by someone unaware of the big difference in quality between the two titles.

Alice Eve is Tina, a woman who has just married Tom (Eric Michael Cole). It wasn't exactly a happy wedding day though, considering an ongoing conversation that has led to them realising how different their values seem to be. There's not too much time to sulk and argue though, thanks to friends who have spent money on a private boat trip. It's all fun in the sun, or it should be, until a great white shark attacks the boat. That leads to Tina, Tom, and the rest of their party being picked up by a fisherman named Roy (Jim Klock). Roy still has some fishing to do though, and now he has much better bait to use.

While this isn't the first film from director Jonathan Zuck, who also co-wrote the weak screenplay with Joe Leone, it certainly feels like it. While there are some moments that work surprisingly well, some of the shots of the shark are far better than many other moments in many other low-budget shark movies, it's really just a very thin premise anchored (no pun intended) by one main star performer, who also bags a producer credit. That one star is Alice Eve, although her performance here makes it seem as if she has spent most of the past two decades trying to forget everything she ever knew about acting convincingly onscreen.

The fact that Eve isn't on top form wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the cast made up for things. They don't. Cole is completely unmemorable, characters played by Elle Haymond, Sarah Siadat, Lisa Yaro, and Johnny Gaffney are all people you hope might be placed in dangerous proximity to the big shark, and Klock is terrible, not helped by the moments that have him delivering the kind of pretentious voiceover that would work better in an indie drama from the early 2000s.

As I have said many times before, it's a burden to be a fan of shark and/or zombie movies. There are so many of them out there, and a large proportion of them are quite rubbish. You have to wade through the rubbish to find the hidden gems though. Chum is not a hidden gem. It does well enough in the middle section to save it from being one of the absolute worst I have seen, and Eve, although not great, still has just enough presence to help things along slightly, but it's definitely not that good. And it's definitely not Dangerous Animals. 

4/10

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Prime Time: The Good Boy (2025)

AKA Heel.

Starting off with a montage of a main character (Tommy, played by Anson Boon) acting like one of the very worst people that you'd never want to meet on a night out, The Good Boy is going to be an uncomfortable watch for many. There's some dark humour running through it, but the more disturbing moments make it harder to appreciate some of the lighter touches.

The plot stays focused on Tommy, to a degree, but he's kidnapped and held prisoner by a family determined to help him change his ways. You have Chris (Stephen Graham), Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), and the very young Jonathan (Kit Rakusen). These people want to show Tommy how it feels to be respectful and part of a family unit, but Tommy wants nothing to do with their mad plan. Initially. 

I wish I could say that this works as intended, but it doesn't. It's no surprise to find that it's the first screenplay from Bartek Bartosik, working with Naqqash Khalid (who wrote and directed the excellent In Camera), although I was disappointed to see director Jan Komasa taking a step backward after he already gave us the slightly similar, but far superior, Corpus Christi. That film was a great blend of darkness and sly humour. It nails the tone that this film just misses.

Saying that Stephen Graham is great in his role is like saying water is wet. The same can often be said of Andrea Riseborough, but she has the harder role here, quieter and more delicate, yet somehow controlling the household in a subtle and cruel way. Boon is very good, although he's very much playing a version of his yob that keeps everything suitable enough for a 15-certificate movie, and young Rakusen is entertainingly carefree for most of the runtime. The other main character is a housemaid named Rina, played perfectly by Monika Frajczyk.

I suspect there are plenty of things buried within this film that could have made for some interesting cinema. It wants to explore the concept of rehabilitation, wants to look at the culture that helps to create someone like Tommy, and takes the idea of "being cruel to be kind" to ridiculous extremes. It needed to have more edge though, and the courage of its own convictions. What's here is watchable, the main cast members ensure that's the case, but it's not a film that will stay on your mind after the end credits have rolled. And a film like this should really linger for some time.  

5/10

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The End Of Oak Street (2026)

I think it's fair to say that a large amount of pop culture over the past half century has been shaped and dominated by two Steves. There's Steven Spielberg and Stephen King. I mention both here because The End Of Oak Street, the latest film from writer-director David Robert Mitchell, takes samples from both of those icons. Maybe that would have happened anyway, I don't know Mitchell well enough to know all of his preferences, but it's hard to think that it's not a sign of J. J. Abrams doing a lot of work in his producer role.

It’s 1982. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor are Denise and Greg Platt, a couple who seem to be struggling to remain in a pretty unsatisfying marriage. They have two teenage children, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), and a loyal family dog named Starbuck. Life may not be great, but it's fairly normal. Until they wake up one morning to find that the neighbourhood has been transformed into a prehistoric area, complete with ancient vegetation and a number of dinosaurs. So begins an adventure to find their way home again, or . . . to get their home back home again. 

Other titles I considered as viable options for this movie were Jurassic Shrug and Jurassic World: Inconsequence. It's not a bad film while it's on, there are a number of very enjoyable little set-pieces throughout, but it's in line with pretty much every other David Robert Mitchell movie in how there's ultimately no proper feeling of resolution.

The cast all do well, Hathaway is having herself a hell of a year, but they're only present to be surprised and terrorised by the dinosaurs. Any other character development feels clumsy and trite, whether they're plucked from the fields planted by Spielberg or the fields planted by King. Both Stella and Convery have to be more reckless than the adults, and they're eventually joined by Jordan Alexa Davis, who does good work alongside them. P. J. Byrne is an annoying neighbour, Anne Gee Byrd and Emily Kuroda are nicer neighbours, and Hudson Meek plays the kind of bully who seems capable of killing one of his victims (which is VERY much in line with every bully written by Stephen King).

A basic screenplay isn't a huge problem when it comes to something aiming to sell itself as mainstream blockbuster fare. While it's not great, Mitchell does enough here to give us identifiable relationships and moments of dino tension. He just doesn't do much more, and most of the better moments will have you wondering what movie is being homaged (hint, it's usually a Spielberg one, hence the unnecessary early-1980s setting).

The special effects are as good as they need to be, although I think that the best creature designs feature in a fun moment that hints at other directions the film could have gone in before something threatens our leads once again, the score from Michael Giacchino doesn't make much of an impression, and the 99-minute runtime at least shows an attempt to stop the film from overstaying its welcome. It's a failed attempt, but an attempt nonetheless.

Take 10 minutes off this, figure out whether you want to write a better explanation for the strange events or just leave things completely mysterious, and throw in a few more species of predators and this could have been a winner. As it stands, it's just a pale cross-pollination of those two big Steves. And we have lots of them to choose from already. 

5/10

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Mubi Monday: Lars And The Real Girl (2007)

Wow. Just . . . wow.

It's a good job that I already like most of the people involved in Lars And The Real Girl, on both sides of the camera, because seeing this first would have been enough to put me off everyone involved for a long time. I know some people like this, apparently, but it was a bewildering and painful viewing experience for me.

Ryan Gosling plays Lars, a painfully shy and lonely man who lives in the garage of the family home now co-owned by himself and his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider). Gus is living in the house with his pregnant partner, Karin (Emily Mortimer). They keep trying to welcome Lars into the home, but he resists their attempts to offer him their company. Things take a strange turn when Lars orders a sex doll off the internet, introduces her to Gus and Karin, and starts to spend his time with the doll as if the two are a couple in a serious relationship. A local doctor (played by Patricia Clarkson) doesn't see any harm in the situation, and everyone in the local area decides to go along with the delusion. Because Lars is a very nice man, apparently, and pretending his sex doll girlfriend is a real person isn't a major hardship.

Written by Nancy Oliver, who has some great TV work to her credit, this is a big swing that simply doesn't work. It's a car crash in slow motion, although every cast member does well with what's asked of them. I know how we're supposed to view the whole thing as it plays out (quirky and sad becomes heartwarming and incisive), but it doesn't work for two main reasons. One, Lars is now the kind of repressed and lonely male that we now all too often view as a ticking timebomb. Two, everyone goes along with the situation far too easily. In fact, Gus is the only one who seems fully appalled by the whole thing, initially anyway. And as everyone became more comfortable with treating the doll as an independent human being I became more exhausted with the preposterousness of the whole thing.

Director Craig Gillespie can do offbeat films, as we've seen so often throughout his career, but this early effort from him feels like a potentially good idea ruined by everyone having far too much faith in the screenplay. Having just one or two people supporting Lars could have made things interesting enough as he battled against others and was forced to work harder to create his own level of normalcy that would help him work through whatever was affecting his mental health.

Gosling is very good in the lead role, unsurprisingly. In fact, his presence is the only thing that stops you from assuming that Lars is also creating a long list of targets while stockpiling guns and ammo in the garage area that he calls home. Schneider is a lot better here than he has been in many other roles, perhaps helped to raise his game by the ever-wonderful Mortimer. Despite having to keep a straight face in some of the most ridiculous scenes, Clarkson also delivers the kind of greatness that she always delivers, and there's a sweet and fun supporting turn from Kelli Garner as an actual real human woman who seems to like Lars, despite the many layers keeping him at a distance from reality.

You can find a lot of praise for this elsewhere. And you might end up agreeing with all of that praise. I wasn't won over though. The cast do their best, but, and apologies for not coming up with a less crude analogy, a turd with shiny gems scattered over it is still a turd.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Last House (2026)

Best known for the many action movies that he's helmed (some great, many not so great), director Louis Leterrier here turns his hand to something a bit more mysterious and dramatic. But he then has to throw some hard-to-follow action into the third act. 

The story is quite simple. A family find themselves locked inside their own home. It seems to have been sealed by the rain. And it also seems to have happened to everyone else. The first few days are easy enough to tolerate, but things become very difficult as days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. The family are all alone . . . but they're not really alone. Not whenever the rain starts again.

Having Wagner Moura and Greta Lee in the two main roles here is a big help. Both are very good, and they make it a lot easier to believe in the implausible premise for a decent amount of the runtime. The actors playing their children also do well, with the younger performers (Riley Chung and Alexander Sosnowski) being slightly superior to those who take over the roles (Emma Ho and Gabriel Barbosa) after a time jump.

Leterrier does a decent job of keeping things well-paced throughout the first hour, and the screenplay from Matthew Robinson mixes some tension in with a lot of fun. It's just a shame that, like so many features today, this has to go on for just under two hours. It's actually 112 minutes, but feels a bit longer as the whole thing loses momentum once it starts to deliver the more predictable moments (someone always ends up needing medicine in a post-apocalyptic scenario, and there's a very standard creature feature ending that leads up to a frankly preposterous final revelation). There's also some voiceover narration that really doesn't work.

I doubt many will enjoy this. If you're intrigued by the idea of the family trying to survive while locked in their own home then you won't enjoy when the plot moves sideways. If you're after something more exciting then you won't enjoy all the time spent watching the family trying to survive while locked in their own home. As easily pleased as I am, I even spent some time wondering "when did the toothpaste run out?" and "how have the kids got clothes that still fit them as they have grown older?", questions which wouldn't have popped into my head if I had been more immersed in the film.

And, despite the fact that I usually forget to note such things, animal lovers would be advised to stay away from this. There's quite a lot of animal death here, enough to create what amounts to a montage of hunting/killing as Moura's character creates what he calls "chimney fishing" in an attempt to help keep the family from starving to death. 

Maybe worth a single viewing for those with nothing else to watch. I enjoyed more than half of it, but my criticisms and questions were certainly not answered satisfactorily by the time it ended. 

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Ghost Killer (2025)

Revenge from beyond the grave has been happening for a very long time now, and it's the basis for many feature films. Ghost Killer tries to offer a slight twist on the formula, pairing up the spirit of a killer with a young college student, but it feels surprisingly straightforward and by the numbers for most of the runtime.

Akari Takaishi is Fumika, the young woman who finds out that a spirit has latched on to her when she handles a spent bullet. That bullet was fired into Kudo (Masanori Mimoto), a hitman we saw being murdered at the start of the movie. Once Fumika accepts the presence of Kudo then she soon finds out that he can temporarily possess her if they clasp hands. That allows him to use his considerable fighting skills, which turns Fumika into a deadly weapon. She can deal with her friend's bad boyfriend, and she can deal with sleazebags in a bar who want to drug her, but will she be able to deal with the people that Kudo used to work for?

Written by Yugo Sakamoto (who also wrote the popular Baby Assassins movies, also starring Takaishi . . . and I really need to make time for those), Ghost Killer is pretty good, but could have been even better. What it really needed was a better backstory for Kudo, and maybe some more entertaining juxtaposition between the fighting skills of our killer and the astonishment of the young woman suddenly able to make use of those skills. There are a few good fight scenes, but more of them would have been greatly appreciated.

Director Kensuke Sonomura does a good job of presenting the rules of the supernatural interaction and showing the development of both main characters, but it feels as if the job was mostly done by the time the screenplay was written and the casting was decided. The movie then either needed some more big moments placed throughout the 105-minute runtime or it needed trimming to be much more lean and mean in an entertaining way.

Takaishi is great in her main role, easily able to flit between sweetness and danger on the turn of a dime. Mimoto is onscreen a bit less, understandably, but gets plenty of time to show how he connects with the young lady who inadvertently caused him to become linked to her. Aside from a mean crime boss casting a shadow over proceedings, the other main characters are played by Mario Kuroba (a cleaner who could be helpful, but could also be very dangerous indeed) and Ayaka Higashino (a friend named Maho).

With plenty of energy and attempts to keep things fun and creative, Ghost Killer ultimately succeeds in doing exactly what it sets out to do. I may have wanted some adjustments, but that doesn't mean I was particularly unhappy with the final result. I'd watch it again, I'd happily watch a sequel, and I really really need to get around to those Baby Assassins movies. 

7/10

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Normal (2026)

Seemingly happy enough to continue in his new role as unlikely action hero, Bob Odenkirk this time reteams with Derek Kolstad for a screenplay that is then entrusted to director Ben Wheatley. The end result is just about amusing enough for fans of the star, but it won't necessarily satisfy those hoping for something else in the vein of Nobody.

Odenkirk plays Ulysses Richardson, a man acting as temporary sheriff in the small town of Normal, Minnesota. It should be the kind of place where nothing much happens, but Ulysses is about to find himself in the middle of a very messy situation when a couple of bank robbers accidentally reveal a huge secret that connects everyone living in the area.

Aiming to be quirky and darkly comedic, Normal is, in some ways, exactly what you think it's going to be. When the violence finally erupts, it is as amusing as it is wince-inducing, thanks to the juxtaposition alongside the calm and quiet everyday town life. Odenkirk does well at being a calm presence, and is reluctant to fight so many enemies as he tries to figure out a way to end the carnage.

Wheatley has fun in the director's chair, adding another fun entry to a filmography that is now much more eclectic and unpredictable than it used to be. Wheatley was the guy who could deliver impressive low-budget thrills and drama, but he's spent the past decade or so moving smoothly and confidently between smaller-scale dramas and films like Meg 2: The Trench. I would say that his bigger films are far from his best work, but he's had enough success with them to keep being entrusted with decent budgets and a number of major stars, which means he doesn't have to care one bit about what I think.

Aside from the enjoyable lead performance from Odenkirk here, the cast also includes both Henry Winkler and Lena Headey, although both are sadly underused. It's a shame that there couldn't have been a few more big names scattered throughout, although people should recognise the likes of Brendan Fletcher and Jess McLeod in supporting roles, but I enjoyed the involvement of people like Reena Jolly, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, and Peter Shinkoda.

Considering everyone involved, I don't think it's wrong to expect more from this. Everything could have been helped by a bit more tension running throughout every scene. There are very few moments that keep up the kind of momentum you expect to experience once guns start being fired, and the entire third act is a bit of an anti-climax. I still had some fun with it, but that was more to do with my love of Odenkirk than everything onscreen.

5/10

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Deep Water (2026)

A plane crash AND a shark or two? Deep Water seemed like it had two main ingredients to easily keep me happy and entertained. It's also directed by Renny Harlin, which is something I would have viewed as a plus about 20 years ago.

Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley play the two main men in the cockpit, and their passenger list includes the very annoying and entitled Dan (Angus Sampson), young Cora (Molly Belle Wright) and her stepbrother, Finn (Elijah Tamati), and a number of people who will become more and more disposable as the danger level increases. What should be a standard international flight is turned into a disaster by a fire in the cargo hold, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing in the ocean, fortunately close to a coral reef that helps to keep sections of the plane from immediately sinking down into the depths. And then some sharks start to realise that they've basically had a takeaway dropped off for them.

Starting off well enough, everyone is given obvious little moments to allow viewers to identify them once the sharks start circling, Deep Water quickly takes a bit of a nosedive, no pun intended. The cheesy and formulaic nature of the whole thing is only fun while it doesn't feel cheap and lazy, but it's not long until it starts feeling cheap and lazy. Six writers worked on this, SIX, and none of them do enough to make this as fun as it could be. Not only does it suffer in comparison to Harlin's own work (Deep Blue Sea remains one of the best shark movies from the past few decades), but it's also not quite as good as the very similar No Way Up. Maybe a better Harlin from the past could have saved this with his direction, but the Harlin of today doesn't seem capable.

Eckhart tries his best in the lead role, playing his reluctant hero as expected. He's matched by the young Wright, doing even better than many of the older cast members around her. Sampson is enjoyably loathsome, making you root for the sharks each time one seems close enough to eat him up, and everyone else seems to have come straight from their "How To Play Generic Characters In A Weak Ensemble 101" class. Nobody is helped by the screenplay, but some seem to be trying notably harder than others.

Without the benefit of a bigger budget, Deep Water should have at least piled on the ridiculousness. A dangerous criminal/psycho on the plane would have livened things up. An important cargo of refrigerated organs could have also added to the fun. Sadly, you just get Harlin and co. working their way through what feels very much like a box-ticking exercise, with the more ridiculously entertaining moments hampered by the fact that they've already been done better in past movies. Sometimes by Harlin himself.

And yet . . . if you don't mind the varying levels of quality when it comes to the CGI, and you're happy enough to add yet another shark movie to your watchlist, then this will help pass 106 minutes without causing you too much pain. I doubt anyone will ever give it a second viewing though.

4/10

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Prime Time: Armour Of God (1986)

Although not mentioned too often when people list off their favourite Jackie Chan movies, Armour Of God has some phenomenal action sequences that make it well worth your time. I'm not implying that people are unaware, or unappreciative, of it. I just think that it's easy to see it bumped down any ranked list by a number of titles that have remained a bit more celebrated throughout the past few decades.

Jackie plays Asian Hawk, an adventurer and purloiner of rare artefacts not entirely unlike Indiana Jones, with one big difference being his past life as a member of a popular pop band. Some people want him to get the famed Armour Of God for them, and they try to guarantee his co-operation by ensuring that an old flame is held hostage. So it's up to our hero, accompanied by an old friend, Alan (Alan Tam), and a woman named May (Lola Forner), to infiltrate various locations and crowds to get hold of the titular treasure.

Although Armour Of God may be admittedly weak and silly when it comes to the dialogue and plotting, that shouldn't detract those used to overlooking such flaws when watching something that they hope delivers on the action front, and this absolutely delivers on the action front. You get an exciting and fun opening sequence, and there's a finale that deserves to be as praised as anything else Chan has done throughout his career. The rest of the runtime may not contain as much fun, but there are enough enjoyable set-pieces to help the 88-minute runtime pass by briskly enough.

As usual, a number of people worked together on the screenplay, and Chan is also in the director's chair for this (although some work was overseen by Eric Tsang after a fall from a tree that resulted in a bad injury for our hero). The comedy isn't great (is it ever in Chan movies from this period?), but I've endured more painful material in many other Hong Kong action flicks.

While our lead is his typical talented self, although arguably even more acrobatic and slippery than usual, credit needs to go to the many other performers taking the hits and helping him to look good. Tam and Forner do fine with what they're given, Rosamund Kwan has to be the "damsel in distress", and Ken Boyle, John Ladalski, and Robert O'Brien play a selection of key figures in the unfolding adventure. The most memorable people onscreen are the Amazonian fighters involved in the end sequence though, and they are played by Marcia Chisholm, Linda Denley, Stephanie Evans, Alicia Shonte, and Vivian Wickliffe.

If you like Jackie Chan movies then you'll have a blast with this one. If you don't then you won't take any notice of this anyway. Me . . . I'm already planning to revisit the sequel.

8/10

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Mother Mary (2026)

I often think that I'm a big fan of director David Lowery. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I have just been so completely won over by one of his features (The Green Knight) that it has affected my view of his entire filmography. Regardless, I was very much looking forward to Mother Mary, especially knowing that it would be a film keeping both Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel front and centre throughout.

Hathaway plays a pop star, Mother Mary, in the midst of a crisis. She needs a new dress for an upcoming show, and there are only a few days left to get things just right. So she visits Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), a woman she used to be very close to. Their relationship soured though, so much so that Sam hasn't even listened to any of her ex-friend's music since they parted ways. Can things be sorted out, or are there too many dark spirits clinging to them like wet fabric to make a new start impossible.

Let's start with the positives. Both Hathaway and Coel are on superb form here. The former is particularly brilliant, absolutely convincing as a performer in the mould of Madonna/Lady Gaga, while also equally convincing as someone completely drained and more vulnerable when not bathed by the glow of the stage lighting. Coel does a line in delivering absolutely unvarnished truth to others that puts most other performers in the shade, and she's brilliantly prickly and scabrous here. While Hunter Schafer, Sian Clifford, and FKA Twigs do well in supporting roles, the film works best when playing out as a two-hander between the leads.

There's also an impressively realistic vibe when it comes to the music and performance. This is another movie featuring work from Charli XCX, and she's proving to be quite the asset to film-makers after a soundscape that feels very much blended from the chart hits of recent years.

There's also very little to complain about when it comes to the visuals. The cinematography, set decoration, and costume design are all absolutely on point, helped along by some editing that allows for interesting transitions between past and present, and reality and anything that feels at least just a step away from it. 

That's all of the good stuff though. But I understand if you're thinking that what I've just praised is more than enough to make this seem like an excellent film. If you're after something stylish and visual then this may work for you. Sadly, Lowery really lets everyone down with his writing. What could have been an interesting and intriguing exploration of two characters viewing their shared history in different ways instead becomes weighed down by far too many metaphorical moments. It's too much, the dramatic equivalent of the "hat on a hat" problem that's usually complained about in comedy material. 

I'm glad that I watched this, because Hathaway is THAT good in her role, and Coel does well enough to match her, despite the two very different energies, but it's not one I'll ever revisit. Lowery the director should have given Lowery the writer more time to figure out better ways to approach the material. 

5/10

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Mubi Monday: I Am Love (2009)

Luca Guadagnino and Tilda Swinton are two people I have admired for years now. That isn't to say that I always like what they do. Far from it. But I appreciate the ways in which they look to keep themselves very much immersed in the art of film, as opposed to easier audience-pleasing fare. That makes it more likely that some of their work won't land with people though, of course, and this collaboration between the writer-director and a performer who seems so well-suited to his approach falls disappointingly short of what should have been something magnificent.

It's basically the story of a rich and powerful family going through a time of change. Someone dying creates a shuffle in the power hierarchy, and Emma (Tilda Swinton) seems to start feeling a bit smothered and deadened by constantly playing the role of good wife and mother. That changes when she begins an affair with Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini).

There's a real mixed bag here when it comes to the writing, with Guadagnino joined by Barbara Alberti, Ivan Cotroneo, and Walter Fasano (the latter being involved with a number of the director's films). You would think that this blend of talent would bring some interesting ideas to the table, but all you end up with is standard "slightly sad woman finds out more about her family, and finds herself becoming happier during an affair". It's a poor cliché at this point, and was a poor cliché back in 2009 when this was released, but it's really all the film has to offer, aside from an excellent lead performance from Swinton.

Guadagnino also gives us some nice visuals, I suppose, but this isn't on a par with what he would become capable of only slightly later on in his career. It's just a shame that it's all so unremarkable and dull, making the 120-minute runtime a bit of a slog in places.

Aside from Swinton, who is making a grand effort to keep the whole film supported on her narrow shoulders, there's a decent performance from Gabbriellini also helping things along. Alba Rohrwacher is the other person doing her best to hold your attention, but that's about it. Flavio Parenti, Diane Fleri, and Pippo Delbono play other important characters, but you'll be struggling to remember their impact on events once the end credits roll.

There are moments here to reward viewers, and most of those come courtesy of Swinton and/or Gabbriellini. They are too few and far between though, especially when you consider what must be going on in every other part of the family unit that we don't get to observe. Very disappointing stuff, although others who are interested in those involved may wish to consider that I seemed to want a very different story from the one that Guadagnino wanted to tell.

4/10

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