A rather lovely vocal performance from Lupita Nyong’o anchors The Wild Robot, which is itself a wholly lovely film. Adapted from the 2014 book by Peter Brown, the film arrives as yet one more hit from Lilo and Stitch director Chris Sanders, who also gifted DreamWorks their How to Train Your Dragon franchise. In keeping with the studio’s recent move to a more painterly house style, boasted here is a panopticon of sumptuous animation, giving rise to a rusticity in its artistic world building. Recalled are those classic Disney tales of zany forest critters and Walt’s own interest in the brutal beauty of the natural world. Added is contemporary interest in the rise of artificial intelligence, albeit with more nuance than most.
London, 1934. The Daily Chronicle’s acid tongued theatre critic torments a popular but cripplingly insecure actress via a sequence of cheerfully vitriolic reviews. He is Ian McKellen, she is Gemma Arterton. Together, they elevate an otherwise middling effort from Leap Year director Anand Tucker. They, and a clutch of tremendously catty barbs in a script from Patrick Marber, making his long overdue return to cinema. Where The Critic boasts strength in the line, however, the wider whole hasn’t half the zest and flavour.
A knot loops itself into formation early on in Speak No Evil, James Watkins’ Devon set remake of the 2022 Danish original by Christian Tafdrup. It’s a simple tie, a mere clove hitch, and hidden beneath a veil of geniality. Sure enough, the film’s first thirty minutes or so are genuinely very funny. Knowing, witty and surprisingly scatological. And yet, as things progress, as the peril rises and hints of shade give way to a staggering pit of darkness, the knot tightens. All too late, it’s got you. The loop opens up and in you fall. It’s no longer a clove hitch. It’s a hangman’s knot.
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