★★★★
Pond Life is the near perfect feature debut from director Bill Buckhurst. A delightful time capsule of epochal folk transience, the film benefits from an unusually assured young cast, smart aesthetics and a remarkable script by Richard Cameron, adapting his own play. It’s all wonderfully naturalistic – poetically so, not without irony – and boasts a tremendous feeling for locality. Esme Creed-Miles, meanwhile, will blow you away as gentle, tragic Pogo.
★★★★
Get past the been there done that feeling that pervades Guy Ritchie’s touched up but essentially familiar remake of Disney’s animated Aladdin and you may well see the diamond for the rough. Whilst fault lines are striking, smart updates do well to justify the extended runtime. With a budget more dazzling than the cave of wonders itself, Ritchie’s production is shining, shimmering, splendid and sure to put a smile on willing faces.
★★★
Thunder Road is one for the more patient among us. It is an uncomfortable feature-length account of grief, rage, sorrow, and just about every other adverse emotion conceivable. Based on an award-winning short of the same name, this comedy-drama follows well-intentioned but volatile police officer Jim Arnaud (Jim Cummings) as he struggles to cope in the wake of his beloved mother’s passing. Hostile relations with estranged wife Rosalind (Jocelyn DeBoer) don’t help matters for this moustachioed, ticking timebomb, especially as she’s divorcing him and claiming full custody of his resentful daughter Crystal (Kendal Farr).
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