THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Searchlight Pictures). On a remote, bleak and lonely island in 1923, where people lead boring mundane lives, a lifelong friendship abruptly ends. Colm (Brendan Gleeson) threatens to cut off his fingers if Padraic (Colin Farrell) makes any attempt to talk to him. This excellent Irish (very Irish) comic-tragedy, written and directed by Martin McDonagh, will be high on the list for best film, best script and best acting awards. Strongly recommended.
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Netflix). Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel was made into a memorable movie in 1930 by Hollywood. This excellent 2022 German version, directed by Edward Berger and photographed by James Friend, is no less memorable and deserves to pick up awards, too. The horrors in trench and no man’s land in World War I are vividly portrayed and not easy to watch.
EMILY (Warner Brother Home Entertainment) is Emily Brontë who wrote Wuthering Heights in 1847 and died young. She was 30. Frances O’Connor directs her own screenplay. Rebellious Emily (Emma Mackey) has a fling with her father’s handsome young curate (Oliver Watson-Cohen) who tutors her in French. The romance never happened. Connor imagined it. Does it alter your attitude to the film? It will, surely, wither some. Fionn Whitehead is cast as Branwell, her wastrel brother into drugs and alcohol.
BONES AND ALL (MGM).18-year-old girl (Taylor Russell), during a sleepover, bites a girl friend’s finger off and eats it. Deserted by her father, she goes on a road journey to find her mother and discovers there are other people just like her and even more dangerous. Timothée Chalamet is a young cannibal. Mark Rylance is an old cannibal and very creepy too. I didn’t enjoy Luca Gaudragnino’s gruesome, revolting horror film one bite.
EMPIRE OF LIGHT (Searchlight Pictures). Sam Mendes writes and directs this love letter to an art deco cinema and its staff in Margate in the 1980’s, a time of race riots. The duty manager (Olivia Colman), who has mental issues, has a fling with a kind and handsome black usher (Micheal Ward). She is old enough to be his mother.
MY POLICEMAN (Amazon Prime). Michael Grandage directs this adaptation of Bethan Roberts’s novel which was inspired by E M Forster. Schoolteacher (Emma Corin) falls in love with and marries a policeman (Harry Styles) only to find he loves a museum curator (David Davison). The story is set in the late 1950’s when homosexuality was a crime and gays could go to prison.
MENU (Searchlight Pictures). Food, glorious food. A cult celebrity chef (an intimidating Ralph Fiennes) invites some rich foodies to his island for some ludicrously expensive haute cuisine, which is cooked by his bootcamp military staff. Mark Mylod’s sophisticated horror movie is aimed at gourmands who would not normally go to horror movies.
PALE BLUE EYE (Netflix). Scott Cooper writes and directs this dark and grisly murder mystery at West Point military academy in 1830. A famous detective (Christian Bale) is helped in his investigation by one of the cadets, Edgar Allan Poe (Henry Melling). The film, interesting, underrated but flawed, is fiction; though Poe in real life was a cadet at West Point.
AISHA (Sky Cinema). Letitia Wright is very convincing as a Nigerian refugee who seeks asylum in Ireland. Her family has been murdered and her life will be in danger if she returns home. Will asylum be granted? She has a long fight with bureaucracy. She is befriended by a security guard (Josh O’Connor). Frank Berry directs. There are long static silences.
BROS (Amazon Prime) Nicolas Stoller wrote and directed this gay rom com in which simply everybody, producer, director, scriptwriter, cast, crew and staff are all openly LGBTQ+. Aimed at gay audiences, the film follows two gays (played by Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane) who do not want to commit themselves to a relationship.
THE WONDER (Lionsgate). 1862 Ireland. 11-year-old girl refuses to eat but does not die. She says she receives manna from heaven. Is it a miracle or a hoax? An English nurse (Florence Pugh) is employed to observe her and report back to the local bigoted council. Can she save the girl from certain death? Sebastian Lelio directs. The actors whisper too much, making it difficult to understand what they are saying.
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